In Memory of Mary A. (Stauber) O’Brien, Betsy's Mom.
Betsy was one of my earliest blog friends.
Before I started blogging I had been following a couple of Alzheimer's forums. I read a lot and posted a little. But the forums became too upsetting for me. It seemed there were always petty, or not so petty as the case might be, arguments. There were some members who seemed to go out of their way to incite controversy and inflict pain and hurt and foment discontent. There were others with one agenda or another - political or social or religious. I already had too much on my plate for all that drama. The forums became a hindrance more than a help.
So I turned to blogging because I had read about others blogging and I began following some of the blogs myself. And Betsy's blog was one of those. She started blogging way back in September, 2006. So her blog was one of he first I read.
It was strange I thought at the time that reading about another person's experience with Alzheimer's could make me feel better about mine. And it was stranger still that writing about my experiences could also make me feel better. But I surely needed something to help me feel better at the time because it was a hard patch I was going through at the time.
And so it was a year ago today that I read on Betsy's blog that her mother had died in her sleep the previous night. I knew Betsy's mom was declining because I had been reading the blog entries every day much as I do yet. But her mother's death just caught me by surprise. I really did not expect it for some reason.
Somehow a group of us bloggers and Alzheimer's forum members had formed a little community. So all of us tried to support the others as much as we could. Just as you get to know people in real life and then what happens to them kind of also happens to you, well that's what happened to us. You share in the pain and the relief and all the other emotions that accompany such things. Doesn't seem to matter at all that we've never met face to face.
So today on this first anniversary of Mary O'Brien's death I am remembering her and I am remembering my very special friend, Betsy.
I owe her much for posting her blog entries when I needed to read them.
6 years ago
5 comments:
What a beautiful tribute, Flinty.
Betsy is on all of our minds and in our hearts today as we remember her mother.
beautiful post to betsy and her mom terry. i never could have expressed myself as well as you did. thank you.
i too am holding betsy close to my heart today.
beautiful Terry. I think the death of Betsy's mom took most of us by surprise. It seemed to happen so quickly. My heart is with Betsy today. I pray she finds some peace in this day.
Thank you so much for this. When I first read it, I started thinking how pleased my dad would be that you wrote such a nice tribute to his girls. Funny how my head is today.
I was thrilled when I met all of you blog buddies. I had been writing because I simply didn't know how else to deal with it all. We really did become a special little family. I still believe God has something to do with this.
Thank you again, Terry.
What a lovely post Terry! You and Betsy were my first blogger friends.
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