Monday, August 21, 2006


This is Martha as a young MOM...1966



Just sitting here this afternoon thinking and thinking!! I have stayed at home all day today because I have worked myself into "tired ville" once again. I guess I should get to know myself sooner or later. You would think that sooner but I just cannot get used to understanding that I am getting older and older. I feel like I always did and think that I can do things like I always did. After doing those things I am so completely worn out that I am usually in tears and so very, very tired that I could lay down and sleep for days on end. Well, this is what I have DONE to myself once again!! Silly ME!!

Yes, and I have DONE it willingly. That is the stupid part of this whole thing!!

For those of you that read this crazy blog of mine (sometimes I wonder just WHY? ) you will know that I lost a friend 2 weeks ago today by her own hand!!

I think that is still weighing heavily on me! Yesterday though I finally got to talk to her husband for about an hour on the phone. I had been trying to call him ever since he emailed me with the horrible news.

Martha took her life on Monday, August 7th, my Dad's 88th birthday. I guess I am not going to be able to forget that date!! Her husband told me almost detail for detail what happened. He did such a good job and only broke down once. I was sitting here with my cell phone in front of my computer dripping all over the place listening to him describing a woman that had really nothing in this world to live for. She was so much in pain from head to toe!! After he told me everything I really could see WHY she did what she did!

I know you don't want to know this so stop reading now!! Maybe if I write it down, just maybe it will help me to clear out my mind and just help me in some way.

I have had the worst time even taking her name off of my address book! I had a hard time buying a sympathy card, then even sending it was hard for me. She was only 58 years old!! I had known her for 41 years!! Just seemed so wrong to me....BUT

Bob explained that she had MS, Fibromyalgia, open sores appearing on her face, arms and every other place, medication to keep her awake, to put her to sleep, bleeding arms, itching arms, nothing could be done for her, tests all of the time, falling down, anger issues, doctors could not help her with the pain and finally after years of this she just gave up.

She took a gun and placed it in the correct place and finished what she could no longer bear!!

She left a grown son, daughter, a great husband and 3 grandchildren that are going to miss her terribly!!

Not to mention a lot of friends that are having the same problems with her sudden death like myself!!

I have finally scratched her name off of my address book. Took her name off of my address book in my email. It seems so final!...Because it is!! Death for some people is so final. I am not sure if she was a Christian and if she knew MY LORD and SAVIOR as I do.

I know what some people think about suicide. I always believed that it was the "chicken way out". But now I have a varied opinion once I heard Bob explain the horrible life that Martha experienced. It was not living. It was not living the way you and I live our lives!! The pain and suffering that was her life day in and day out!! That is not living!! I know it is wrong to kill. That is one of our 10 commandments!! I understand that with all my heart! I also know that suffering can be so horrible!! Pain is so awful!! I can understand the Pain part. I know about Pain but never to this extent!!

I pray that God will help me understand this whole event. It is very traumatic for me. About the time I think that I am over it then it all comes flooding back into my life. It just seems to overwhelm me.

Maybe writing it all out like this will help me. Just putting it down in black and white...maybe it will be the therapy that I need.

My friend, Tootsie came over this morning. She knows how upset I have been. She knows how tired I have been. She sat down with me and I told her the story that Bob told me through tears. She held my hands and prayed with me. Friends....what would "I" do without them? God sends them to us when we need them.

I need to go get a kleenex now!! I hope that I have not upset your day but I just had to get this all down and hopefully out of my head but it will never come off of my heart!! Friends are friends of mine forever!! I always make good ones and they stay my friends for a long time!! Having trouble seeing...Flip Flop needs to go now!!! Love your family and friends!!

9 comments:

Terry said...

Dear Flip Flop...

This is so sad! MS is such a bad disease.

My best friend got it a few years ago. She was a girl that I met when we were in CB..before computers were so popular..Anyways a year before she got the disease she came out to special gospel meetings and was saved.

Then she was hit with MS at the tender age of 30 something.
Her husband tried his hardest to keep her at home and I tried too during the day but it was just too much and she ended up in a nursing home and has been there about 18 years.

Such a horrible disease.

Linda can't really talk plainly anymore but the one thing she can say quite clearly is the whole verse of John 3:16 which she quotes all the time.

I don't really think suicide is the coward's way out. I think it must take some strength to pull the trigger or even swallow pills. Not one of us knows what we would do in the same circumstance and the devil is such a fierce enemy.

No one would even know what God might have told Martha in her last moments.

After all I am sure that you have spoken the gospel to her, so you will never knowe on this earth what the outcome was.

One of our preachers used to say that we will be surpised who is in heaven that we thought wouldn't be there and who isn't there that we thought WOULD be.

The Lord tells us to spread His word and the results are left up to Him Flip Flop.

I think that you were a faithful friend.......Love Terry

rena said...

I'm so sad that you're going through this. She was a good friend to you, and you were a good friend to her, and I can see how you miss her. I hope that God will strengthen your with a wonderful, actual, tangible feeling of His presence, as you go through this; I also ask that He gives you peace of mind and heart. You were no doubt a light to her, your spirit to hers, and in her last days, pray that God's mercy and grace broke through her desperation.
You are in my prayers.

Norma said...

I'm so sorry for your loss and the pain you've experienced for your friend.

Ladybug Crossing said...

It's always hardest for those left behind. Your faith will carry you through. Cry - Grieve - you need to do that. Take the time you need.
xo
LBC

Anonymous said...

I sometimes think the same Sandy...that suicide is the easy way out. But, it seems your friend was living a hell on earth. And for me, from what you typed, she had courage from the beginning to end. And maybe, just maybe her God was helping her into his hands! She's now eternally protected!

I remember a quote, well, not sure how it went -- but close to this: "If you are afraid of death, you'll never learn to live!" I know that's not the exact wording, but close.

Accepting her death will help you understand a part of your life. Your friendship is to be remembered with laughter and the good things. Try no dwelling on HOW she died, but how much laughter and friendship you both shared.

{{{Sandy}}}

Melli said...

((((((Hugs Sandy)))))))
This does sound SO much like my brother - almost exact - except that instead of MS he had that Peripheral Neuropathy. But pain is pain, and they both chose the same way to end it. I bet when you talked to her husband though that you found he could understand and even condone her taking "the easy way out" ... because when you watch someone suffer like that you realize that it IS just too much! That was how I felt when it was my brother. Even though suicide is something I had always believed was "wrong" ... when he did it, I believed it was "right". And though we don't KNOW... I just pray that God understands and forgives them for taking it into their own hands. As I told you - our ministers say that he does forgive. ... but really ... who knows? We just continue to pray! I do think that writing it out is therapy for you, and I hope it has helped you to deal with it. Suicide is never easy. Never ever.

Anonymous said...

I'm soo sorry for your saddness. It's so hard to move on after something like this occurs. All I have to offer you is prayer.

In the very day that Sandy cried out, You answered her and you have made her bold with strength in her soul. Psalm 138: 3 NKJV

When Sandy is faint, You give her power, When she has no might you increase her strength. Isaiah 40:29 KJV

And I thank you Lord, for everything you are doing in her life..and for strengthening her in her time of saddness, and lifting her up.

((hugs))

Maggie Ann said...

I am saddened to hear of this tragedy. May the Lord enfold you in his loving arms and bring comfort to your heart.

Anonymous said...

FlipFlop, I know what it is to lose a friend by their own hand. So I do know how you feel. It will be 3 years soon for my friend. My friend was my granddaughter's Dad. It is very hard. He was only 32 years old. Two weeks later I lost another very good friend, age 32, from an unexpected illness. So the month of September is especially hard for me. I won't say time takes it all away because it doesn't. You still think of your friends no matter what. But I always try to think of the "good" things and "good" times with my friends. Not the ending. I wish I could be here with you and help you thru this but you have with you more power from "Him" than you could ever get from me. Love you and praying for you and your friend's family. Love ya