5 minute freewrite 2173 prompt the last battle
This is my post for #freewriters 2173 prompt the last battle hosted by @mariannewest and @daily.prompt
When I saw this prompt the thought that came to me was the people in my family who fought the last battle the ultimate battle for life. My grandmother was the first person that I knew who passed away and it was the first time I saw my Dad cry. As a child who had never lost anyone, I can remember it like it was yesterday.
We kids were not allowed to go to the funeral, I forget who was watching us but we were at Grandma's house, and when the adults came back Dad sat on the swing on the front porch he was wearing a white shirt with black pants. He started crying, the hard type of crying, he got up and went outside to the royal poinsettia tree and leaned against the trunk. I remember staring at him and finally walking over and wrapping my arms around his leg, after a little bit he picked me up and held me tight. She died 9-23-1965.
The bigger of the 2 boys was my brother Victor, this is the only picture I have of him. My Dad's second wife put him up for adoption while Dad was away at sea, he was a shrimper and would be gone for weeks. When he came home Victor was adopted and Dad could not find him. My oldest sister found who adopted him several years ago and his adopted mother sent her a beautiful letter about his life, the last battle for him was Vietnam.
My brother Jimbo was 2 years older than me, and even though I loved him, he was mean to me. He would hold me under the water until I thought I was going to pass out. He thought it was funny. He is the reason I jumped off of the inlet bridge at 9 years old, I knew if I did not jump, he was going to throw me off of it. When he became a teenager he started sniffing gas and I do not know what else. In 1979 Mom took him to the hospital because he was out of his mind, a fight started between him and the orderlies and he was beaten to death. That is how he lost the last battle.
My brother Hoss is standing on a Sunfish that washed in the inlet. The last battle for him was because he was unloading 3/4 inch plywood from a train and a band around the plywood broke and it all came down on him. I this was 1987
I do not have a picture of my brother Butch, the last battle for him was in 1976, he lost his life in a car wreck, my brother Tommy was driving and he broke his back, it took 2 years before he could walk.
My Dad fought the last battle with prostate cancer, it was 1997.
My Mom had a stroke during COVID-19, and she was put in a bad nursing home which we took her out of and brought her home, my sisters and I cared for her, and the last battle for her was COVID. 2021 she lost the battle.
My brother Tommy passed December 13 2022 the last battle was caused by COPD, he would not give up smoking, even catching his face on fire because he lit a cigarette while using oxygen, this was just weeks before he passed.
This is not a pleasant post to write, if you think your loved ones will be always here, this is not the case. So spend time with them whenever you can or give them a call just to say I love you.
photos are mine
<3
Hugs and Love back at cha.
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"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" -- SOMEDAY, all of those who are in Christ will share fully in His everlasting victory!
AMEN
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I am so sorry you have suffered all these extraordinary losses and deaths! I do not know what to say. I don't think I caught your post about your mother's passing, if I did I don't remember. Maybe coming as the last death in this string of deaths, I don't want to remember.
Having lost one of my children, I do not know how your parents carried on. Do you have any siblings left? Are you the last?
This is an incredible post. The photographs! Sometimes the truth of your stories floor me. This one did. My god, here you are. I see you. I love you. Thank you for telling your stories,
I do not know how my parents got through it either, I do know they were in a lot of pain over losing them. And like you, I do not know how you got through losing a child, I just can not imagine it.
No child should pass before their parents.
I have 3 sisters Shirley is the oldest, then me, Christine, and Kathy. Christine and Kathy live 5 miles from me and Shirley lives in Connecticut.
My brother was the last to pass, it will be one year for him this coming December. Mom was 2 years ago in August.
I remember your brother's passing. So soon after your mother! I think, now, that I knew about her passing too. I'm so sorry. Those are two very tough losses for you.
I can't look at pictures, or art and school work. I break down and lose the ability to breathe, gasp for air. Awful. Your poor parents. All of you! How are your sisters handling life? You seem very stable, kind, thoughful and productive. I always love your freewrites, but those you write about your family tend to pull the floor out from under me. The trauma runs deep. xo
It makes me sad and loved when I look at pictures of those who passed, I have a picture of my Mom as my homepage on my laptop, every day when I get on it I take my finger and go over her face, then I cry but I can not take it down.
2 of my sisters are happy and well adjusted, the other one is a prune, she never smiles and always has something wrong with her, I think it is in her head or she likes the attention it gets her.
Some people are set to sad, victimized or what-not as a default setting. It's very sad. She went through an awful lot of trauma though, just as you did. I marvel that you and the two happy sisters are not sad by default, given all the losses over the years. It must be very hard to get out of that state of mind.
I have this touching-of-photos-that-make-me-cry thing too. I can see you doing it. When I feel grief, I feel the person in the room with me, so that's the reward. Another moment with them.
Ditto this, too, and ditto everything everyone else said here.
Wow!
This is stunning.
The sadness we carry with us til the Last Battle of our own!
Ohh, ditto that!
Oh the sadness!
A stepmother who gives a son up for adoption - and years pass before a sister finds him - really????
WHO DOES THAT
Who wouldn't divorce her on the spot....
It staggers the imagination.
Jumping off the bridge rather than being pushed off...
The brothers you've lost!!
It is STAGGERING.
I feel for you.
What a stoic you are!
Your ability to write these things, almost casually (almost!), calmly, is just extraordinary.
#MadRespect for you and your family!
And my heart goes out to you.
My dear friend, these stories are heartbreaking. I have read books (fiction) of one parent adopting a child out without the other's knowledge, but to have that happen to your family is unbelievable. I feel for that suffering when your father returned and I can't believe how your brothers felt who were separated. I wonder how his wife slept with herself.
These losses are deep and I can feel the love that you have for your family.
Thank you for sharing the photos and pieces of your life. You close this with a beautiful message that God has also taught me in my losses. We never know when the last time we will see our loved ones. Tell them you love them now.
!LUV
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She was their stepmother and tried to get rid of all three of them but my oldest sister Shirley took Tommy and they hid in a closet when the adoption agency came for them, I am not sure what happened after that but they were not taken. That was in the late 1940's. Dad divorced her.
Yes, we were a very close family, there is only me and my 3 sisters left and I do not think we are as close as we used to be. There were things that happened with Mom's care that I disagreed with, like putting her in that terrible nursing home where she was neglected and mistreated. I was against her going there and have not found it in my heart to forgive them, just typing that has me crying.
Oh how sad - outnumbered, out-voted, and watching Mom go to a bad place.
I just cannot even imagine.
I have one sister left. One. And she isn't speaking to me. (I'm not even sure why.)
Grief does weird things to people - some go crazy, in ways not all that obvious, or in ways that just make us wince and cringe.
I'm amazed at your resilience.
Niko and Bruni have a place in my daily litany (a nod to our departed loved ones), and I'll add your brothers and parents.
I do not know if I will ever get over her being sent there, I bury it but still, it hurts.
Prayers for Niko and Bruni, too. Thank you for the Prayers for my family.
I love your family! Just as I love Bruni (RIP) and Niko (RIP) and Stacey, and her Aunt Jane, and....
All these people I've not met in real life.
Today, for the second Monday in a row, I watched a live stream of a funeral. This time, age 63, a beloved gpa, brother of my high school classmate. Last week, age 70, another beloved family man.
#cancer
My mom's generation grew up with all-organic everything. Garden, home-grown chickens and eggs, their own cow or pig butchered on their own land. These people keep burying their children, today's 60-somethings who keep dying of cancer before they can collect their Social Security checks. All those years of work they paid in, then they die....
Just. Too. Many.
May all your children outlive you! May you all live long and prosper!
Thank you, my biggest fear is losing one of my children. I agree too many young people are dying, in my area it is drug overdoses.
Sorry for all of your losses @myjob, time with our loved ones are indeed precious, and thanks a lot for making the effort to write this post and sharing it with us, take care and stay awesome.
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Thank you @flaxz it is hard to write about people we have lost but I want to keep their memories and what better way to do it than putting them here on Hive.
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