Strange and Bizarre...

I know this is strange but....

I  believe in life after death.  Hopefully it will be better than this because I'm tired of "this"...

But why run to it?  Why wish it to hurry up?  I never was the one to rush things while I was younger.  John Cougar Mellencamp's song "Jack and Diane" hit home.  The lyrics "Hold on to 16 as long as you can" said it all to me back then.  I really took it to heart.  I held on to everyday and NEVER rushed things like I do now.  Now all I do is live life....Not LIVE life.  I don't want to just exist.  I want to experience it. Enjoy it and get excited like I used too back then.  So long ago....

I never thought I would live this long as it is.  My mother had her first heart attack at 42yrs.  So with my health and being a carbon copy of her, I really thought I would have had a heart attack before now.  I never want to get old.  Who does, but I really don't want to live much longer and have to have my family take care of me and watch me die.  If I ever got a life threatening disease I don't think I would fight to stay alive.  I would have to have very high odds to want to "fight the good fight" so to speak.  I've lived that and watching your loved one suffer just so that they could stay with you longer isn't fair!  I used to think it was worth it.  Watching a loved one fight through cancer, go through treatments, lose hair, lose so much weight they are just skin and bones, become so weak that all they could do is sit, sleep and take pain meds is not much of a life.  Sure there are success stories out there and people do win the battle.  But if they don't, and they fought so hard for nothing, then how selfish are you to make your loved one fight to stay with you just so YOU don't feel bad about losing them and being left behind.   Seriously, let's face it, whether or not they survive or lose...IT SUCKS!

Which brings be back to "I know this is strange but..."

Every since I lost my parents, I smell them at times.   Most of the times it's smoke.  Both of them chain smoked.  Which is another strange thing because once in the hospital, it was as if they never smoked before.  Cold turkey without the cravings or any mention of them at all!  It was one of the strangest and baffling things I've ever seen before.  Not to mention that my father was an alcoholic as well and he didn't even ask for that!  Not once since going into the hospital.  

I digress....It's not that I feel their presence.  But I do smell them.  No one else smells it.  My husband is very sensitive to smoke.  So when I smell it and it's so bad that my nose, eyes and throat hurt, it's a little disturbing that he cannot smell it.    Then yesterday morning I woke up to the smell of my Mom.  Not her perfume, smoke or anything remotely like that.  I smelled her hospice room.  The smell of her rotting away from a bed sore that she let get so bad it literally was eating her flesh away.  They even brought in something to help take the smell away but nothing at all could take that smell away.  

It's been a couple of years since I lost both parents within days of each other.  Then out of the blue, I'm smelling this rancid smell again.  A kind of smell no one should ever have to smell.  Why?  Why am I smelling this of all smells?  Why?

I miss my parents terribly.   I'm mostly mad at them though.  They are off enjoying themselves (I hope) and I am here.  Don't get me wrong...the later years were tough.  But they were still my parents and I loved them with all my heart.  And they f-in left me!  And today.....Today I get to be reminded of it all. All over again.

R.