Table of Contents
Dear bell,
Forgive me, but sometimes the letters on your page seem so trivial. Just like that of a mother, who quotes a second mother, in desperation about their drug addicted sons.
The day I read this, we prepared to leave our house in France for the second time in three weeks to travel to England for the funeral of my grandson. Our previous visit followed on his sudden death by Cardiomyopathy, 27 years old.
Unlike the sons of those other people, Jack was an absolutely beautiful young man who had never been in trouble and always worked. He lived with his partner and three -year -old daughter in the house that they bought together.
The daughter was not planned, but we are so grateful that she has her because she is Jack's inheritance.
Jack and family had their evening meal with my son and his wife on that fateful Monday. While Jack left for his partner and child to fall home before he went to his football match, his last words were for his parents “I will see you tomorrow.” But within two o'clock he was dead.
Another letter that you published was that a grandmother was worried that her granddaughter did not speak grammatically.
I am afraid that I felt that that issue was appealing in insignificance compared to having to say that a three -year -old has a collapse and cries 'I want my father', that he can never get home.
I am afraid that other problems have followed me as incredibly trivial and I admire your ability to give reasons for reasoned answers, because you sometimes have to feel like hitting the writers.
What I have learned from this terrible experience is that the relatives do not want to be told about the sudden death of any other young person.
Talking about the death of your parents or even brother or sister is not a comfort at all, and I would like people to realize that losing an apparently healthy child or grandchild at this age is absolutely no comparison with your 90-year-old mother who In a concern dies at home.
Jack's many friends who attended his funeral reminded me of how nice the majority of the young people are. They really get an undeserved bad press-the two above-mentioned drug-addicted sons are the minority.
I have tackled many deaths in my life, but nobody has struck me so badly. What helps is that people just say how sorry they are, give me a hug and accept that I will still cry if something trivial drops me when the song 'Everything I Out' hears. And I would really give absolutely everything I possess to have Jack back.
Jeanne
Call Moeney answers: You have awarded and recorded your e -mail by saying that you do not request advice, but I choose to publish something that I find very important because it is just as full of wisdom as of tears.
I couldn't remember the number you mention, so I was looking for it. Published by Bread in 1972, contains the loss, desire and love and listened to the lyrics after reading your heartbreaking e-mail brought me to tears.
Millions know what it's like to feel like this:
And I would give everything I own
I would give up my life, my heart, my house
I would give everything I possess
Just to have you back
… and yet every loss is of course unique. That is why you feel quietly indignant (I know you are doing it and I understand) because of the well -meaning comparisons that people sometimes make with the recently robbed.
Yes, you are right to say that there is no equality between the downfall of a very old parent in a nursing home and the sudden death of a young person with his or her entire life. Death can be the common factor, but that's all.
To say that someone is bent by sadness, “I know how you feel,” is perhaps well intended, but it is also overbearing, simply because (I repeat) every death is experienced unique. At the same time, I just whisper that there is no grief competition table.
Whatever the situation is, simply mumbling calmly and with completely sincerity, “I'm sorry for your problems” (in the traditional Irish way) is enough. To reach a hand in silence and touch someone's arm, a sympathy can be as eloquent as the formal elegy of every poet.
But let me assure me that I never want to 'hit' people metaphorically to write to me with problems that seem pathetically small to you, so full of inconsolable sadness in the sudden death of your fine young grandson.
As I said here more than once, the frustrations of people, fears, guilt, sadness and other seemingly trivial concerns that are so great in individual lives that they can ruin them in extreme cases. They can cause quarrels and real worries.
Getting a 'trivial' problem from your chest can be so positive, so you can find ways to deal with it. Only writing down can help people understand what problems are. Readers tell me that often, and it makes me happy.
Interestingly, the distraction of the word 'trivial' does not refer to small, but it implies 'just' in the sentence – without giving a Latin lesson here – that the street corner that you cross every day is a common. It's just. Nothing to see. So in one of those language shifts it becomes unobtrusive, therefore 'trivial'.
That is why I just want you to know that the daily worries of people (yes, about the training of a grandchild for example) are not nothing. They can be commonplace, but they still matter.
Of course you understand that deep inside, I am sure. But why should you give it for a moment if your family still falters such a trauma and a three -year -old miss the father that she will inevitably forget?
In your situation I would also rage over the meager preoccupations of some people and want to scream like King Lear who holds his dead daughter Cordelia:
“Why would a dog, a horse, live a rat / and you don't breathe at all? Oh, you don't come anymore / never, never, never, never, never, never. '
There is such a horror that goes beyond further words in that terrible five -fold repetition of 'never'.
Understanding the truth is the cruelest torture, the scars of which can never heal. I am so grateful that you have written and know that countless readers will forget their misery and bow their heads with real empathy, understanding the desire in the heart of all the sorrow.
I love my wife, but our sex life is over
Dear bell,
The problem with aging is that you wake up in the middle of the night – and think of. Your mind is exaggerating.
I love my wife and I am pretty sure that she loves me, but have we ever 'been in love'? Probably not, because to be 'in love', it must be a double -sided affair, an all -wasting passion that revolves around sex.
I shared a bed with my wife for all our married life and at no occasion she has driven sex.
I always had to take the first step and of course was recorded by the reaction: too tired. Headache. Work. Period.
When I came across the first obstacle, I was met by another: “Don't touch.” How can you do love if you can't touch your partner?
We are English, so you don't talk about your problems in case you hurt your partner's feelings. So it went on for 47 years until my sexual drifts tasked and I stopped trying.
I still love my wife and will always. Maybe I can turn around and sleep now.
Robert
Call Moeney answers: When I wake up in the middle of the night, I am worried about whether my children can keep their heads above water financially and what the future has in store for my grandchildren when so much feels threatened, not in the least our limits and the culture that I appreciate.
The last thing I think of is sex with my sleeping husband, and yet you see, we are very in love. I am not facetious but make a serious point.
I understand how many men feel rejected because their wives have lost every interest in sex – and not just the elderly. It is difficult if the respective sexedrives of a few are so different and a woman (or husband) has just become the obstacle of the obstacle.
What I have problems with is your implicit conviction that real love 'revolves around sex'. Yes, if you are young, passion is important. But when the passion dies – as the most passion will certainly do because it is pretty tiring – it can actually be the time when a much deeper love evolves.
This is the 'in illness and in health' dedication that has nothing to do with sex, but is the most sublime powerful love that is possible. We could of course discuss the difference between 'love' and be 'in love', but I hope you will understand what I am talking about.
I suspect that you and your wife were indeed 'in love' once, but now, after so many years, remain satisfied to hear breathing in the night of the person you love.
Sex can be very disappointing at any age: ask the people in their twenties who wonder why casual, lusty 'hook -ups' let them miserably and empty. But you have much more than that.
Here I remember the last line of my favorite film, Now Voyager (1942) starring Bette Davis: “Oh Jerry, let's not ask for the moon, we have the stars.”
