Being His Voice

My Earl died as the result of being prescribed methadone. It has not been proven yet, but I have a lawyer and I will be like a dog with a bone. Intuitively, down in the deepest part of my soul, I know this to be truth. Earl was recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia which already affected his breathing.  He had hepatitis C which would have caused the methadone to build up in his system. He had, at some point in time, had a mild heart attack. He was on other prescribed painkillers including Xanax.  Earl can no longer stand up for himself. I am his voice.

 A report by the Government Accountability Office states, "The involvement of Xanax – a sedative used to treat anxiety, insomnia, and seizures – is particularly troubling as previous studies have shown that people who were prescribed both methadone and Xanax were at greater risk of overdose than those prescribed only one of these drugs."

According to cdc.gov the risks of methadone include:

• The difference between prescribed doses and dangerous doses of methadone is small.
• Methadone has special risks as a painkiller. For example, taking it more than 3 times a day can cause the drug to build up in a person’s body, leading to dangerously slowed breathing.
• Methadone can seriously disrupt the heart’s rhythm.
• Methadone can be particularly risky when used with tranquilizers or other prescription painkillers.
• In one study, four in ten overdose deaths involving single prescription painkillers involved methadone, twice as many as any other prescription painkiller.        

Grief, Love and Life Continued

There are no words loud enough to echo the pain of this kind of loss. It lasts forever. It shifts and changes as the years go by and it gets quieter over time, but there are still those times, even many years later, when you hit those pockets of grief - like turbulence on an airplane - and the pain is so loud you can hardly sit with it, and you can't open your mouth wide enough to let out the howl that lives inside your soul. That grief becomes a part of you, like a tree trunk growing around a foreign object, accepting it, until it lives deep inside the wood of the trunk and is an integral part of the strength of that tree. But there is always a deformity on the surface to remember that long-past invasion. That thing that shouldn't have happened that will never quite make sense, even when we know that the grief is part of what makes us who we are meant to become. It never changes missing someone who should have been here to dance through life with us.

The grief of the physical loss will remain forever, but the Spirit life remains. Unseen. Untouched. But here all the same. Grief stays.....but so does love and life.

 

EARL LOVED HATS :)

ANOTHER SIGN

I always talk to Earl at night before I go to bed.  (And no, I don't expect to hear him answer. ) I tell him about my day and let him know I love and miss him.  Last night I asked that he please give me a sign that he was with me when I went on the job interview I had scheduled for this morning. I was nervous and he always had a calming effect on me.

I got up this morning and started getting ready for the interview. No sign and I was starting to let my nerves get to me. But, I went out to the Jeep and continued on my way. I had gone just a few blocks and a guy on a motorcycle pulled in front of me.  He had on the above t-shirt.  The Dragon.  There was my sign from Earl!  Earl was crazy for dragons and it was the perfect sign from him letting me know things would work out. I felt better immediately. The interview went well and I probably start soon.

First Reading

I went to an FB page where you could get a free reading from a medium. I truly wasn't expecting anything.  I mean, it was a Facebook medium.  How good could they be?   I was surprised.  So spot on.

Sign, Sign Everywhere A Sign

I cry.....often.  I miss his physical presence.  I miss his noise. I miss looking into his eyes and I miss his teasing. But, Earl continues to show us that he's here.  I know he continues to love me as much as I will continue to love him.  Death, in our human understanding of it, does not mean the end of life or even the end of our relationship with loved ones who have passed.

Our loved ones can, and will, send us signs as long as we remain open to receiving them. Earl has let us know of his presence on more than one occasion.  My son, Andy, and I have both heard footsteps crossing the upstairs hall when no one was there. Andy says he felt a presence with him in the kitchen one night.

We have rabbits that have been down in the basement until their outside space is ready. Earl was always saying how they needed to get outside. For the first week after he passed three of the bunnies (housed together) were continually escaping from their cage.  A cage they had been in for a year and had never gotten out of. I knew this was Earl's way of reminding me that he wanted them outside. I found them out of their cage three times until I finally just asked Earl to stop letting them out. No escapees since.

Pennies have been found in unexpected places. I used the phrase "always& forever" when signing cards and letters to him and one day saw that  phrase repeated no less than 5 times. Purple flowers have bloomed in the yard (his favorite color). And my daughter saw and photographed a dragon shaped cloud. Earl loved all things dragon.

So, he is still here. Still sharing his love and letting me know he has not left me.  Always & forever, honey!