If You Could Bring Someone Back to Life, Would You?

I have lost folks I loved (father, daughter, 2 wives) but no I can't imagine bringing any of them back to life. They are, I believe, in a better place, and I will wait to see them again when my time comes.
 

No, I certainly wouldn't. "To everything there is a season."

I'm kinda there with that

However

One dude, well, it'd be a fun conversation, as it always was


A Friend

I had a friend, last name of Greasser (of all the names), weighed around 360 lbs in high school and college
….just did anything that would cause a stir……a perpetual grin on his ever so ugly mug.

Longish brown hair lying flat on his forehead, somewhat matted.
Always brushing it out of his eyes.

White, almost transparent skin.

Loose, ill fitting clothes.

Shoes, warn down in odd places from the inhibited stride of a fatso.

He was around 6’ 6” and had no ass, just blubber around his middle, tapering to essentially nothing,
and walked with a slump, the backs of his hands pointed forward, arms immobile….like a friggin’ sasquatch.

Quite intelligent, however.
I learned to never strike up a conversion with him on the subject of political science.

Nobody talked about his appearance.

We loved him.

We tried to get him to join in in a scrub game of half court.
His feet never left the ground, and although quick wristed, has hands were like anvils when it came to handling a basketball.
Still, he got a kick out of it, and I knew he loved being included for once in something other than cerebral confabs.

Football was funny.
He just stood there, turning, like he was on a giant electric football field, vibrating nowhere.

He made Western Civ class a riot….even inspired me to crack a book…..once.


Met up with him a few years after college (I’d dropped out long ago, he was degreed in several things).

But, selling LP albums out of the trunk of his ’68 Olds 98.
A real free spirit….looking back, reminds me now of Uncle Buck.



I was recently told of his fatal maladies…bunch of stuff, kidneys, liver, heart….all hooked up…hospice.

Damn he loved his gin, weed, fast garbage food, and all night parties.

I miss him right now…..really miss him.

To you, Greasser, you magnificent yeti son of a bitch.
 
Gary..

Your post always bring up memories of things I hadn't thought of in ages...

Your friend reminded me of a good ol' feller called TJ.

He was a big ol guy and couldn't talk real well,didn't have many friends, but I loved him.

When he picked up a guitar and sang it would melt your heart...

Thanks for the memory..he died young.
 

Gary..

..he died young.

Only the good ones.....



that's why I'm still here


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Keesha,

My parents beat me as well. Dad died a long time ago with one of his other families. He married several times, had over ten other children, and abused every single on of them, as did his wives. He married a certain type of woman. I've talked to all ten of them.

I don't want revenge either, but if she were dead I wouldn't have to take her phone calls. Yes, I have to take them. She is 94 and still my mother. For me, the Ten Commandments come into play. Sigh.

I grew up with the lemonade saying as well. The only problem with that saying is the lemons have to cut and crushed before they become lemonade. Children aren't lemons.

I am glad we (all victims of parental abuse) survived. But some of us survived better than others.
 
My dad beat the crap at of me ALL the time
Hes still alive
I wish no revenge. You learn to live with it
Some people should not have been parents but you can’t roll back time.
If you got lemons you make lemonade

Hey Trade,

Your "old man" wasn't physically abusive, but he was neglectful. Neglect is abuse. It has affected you deeply. Neglect can be just as harmful as physical abuse. I don't think I've misunderstood, but maybe I did. If so, I apologize.

I endured just about every form of abuse you can name. I had problems similar to yours. I was a shy child. A child who couldn't spell. (Or throw a ball, or tell time.). My parents made me practice, practice, and practice. Write, write, write the words again and again and again. Then my mother drilled me, and like you, at home, and I could finally spell.

But at school, (this was fourth grade), I would open the spelling book, turn to the test page, and as teacher called out the words the letters disappeared from my mind. She took the book, corrected the spelling, and another big fat red F appeared again. Home I went.

To the screaming, the rage, the beatings, and the practice, the writing, the drills. Rinse, repeat. A spelling book filled with big fat red F's. The stupid unwanted useless girl child who couldn't even spell, who wrote b's instead of d's. I got better as I got older, but I was never great at spelling.

Even now, if I become the least bit stressed, I can't spell. I mentioned this once to my daughter. How hard it was for me. How I couldn't look up words in the dictionary, because I could not spell. How she, her brother, my husband used to laugh at me when she was younger. How hurtful it was.

She bought me Alexa. Alexa can spell. But Alexa can't heal the hurt. I suppose that's the saddest thing of all.

IMO Physical abuse is a lot worse that what I had, which basically amounted to lack of interest. I feel bad about complaining now.
 
Our parents have a huge impact on our lives, no doubt, and if they were narcissistic, then there’s a good chance they were abusive.


I really appreciate Trades honesty.
Neglect is definitely a form of abuse, especially coming from a narcissist parent. You are either there for their benefit or you may as well not be there at all because ‘they’ always come first.


When I read up about narcissistic parenting it said there were basically two different types. The ones who live their lives by moulding you into exactly what they want , since you are a reflection of them and their good tastes etc., OR the ones who are so self absorbed they’d rather not even know you are there. I had the latter.


My parents were not only physically abusive but mentally also. My mom had and still has my dad’s balls in a vice and he will do anything she orders him to do. Sorry if this is offensive wording to some but I don’t know how else to explain it.
If she were ever upset with me she’d sent him in my room to whip my butt and it was horribly abusive. He was 5 ‘ 10 “ ,.... 225 pounds and completely muscle bound. He once broke his hand hitting me and then blamed me for his hand breaking, never mind the damage caused to me. Their narcissism is off the charts.


I’ve spent my life having an ‘on again’ ‘off again’ relationship with them and have had much counselling most of which have suggested to break ties if I want the toxicity to end. I finally did but now they are 85 & 89 and in their final stages of life and at times I still feel like walking away but I’ve got a fabulous relationship with a wonderful brother and I can’t abandon him since he’s the POA, and responsible for looking after them.


Consistent parental abuse is so sinister.
The very people who are supposed to love and teach us how wonderful life can be become your enemy. It creates mistrust of humanity in general which causes torment to the survivor.


Anyway I don’t believe in revenge. Revenge can never be part of a just system. It is driven by anger and violence which are negative emotions that have a direct impact on our well being and mental health. With helping my parents out I have had to seek counselling due to past trauma rearing it’s ugly head.


I’ve recently discovered that there are certain characteristics that people display who have experienced being raised by severe narcissists and I take comfort in knowing I’m not alone here.


I’ve got a thread about narcissistic abusive parents which I’m going to update soon.
https://www.seniorforums.com/showthread.php/35316-HELP-Dealing-with-TOXIC-aging-Parents
 
I do miss several persons that I think of every day, but I just as strongly believe they are in a better place. Passing is the only exit from this dimension of existence we know as life. Ones passing is the only way we can escape, I would need to know if they wanted to come back. (this is a heavy subject)
 
I would bring my grandparents back in a second. Both were more like real parents to me than my actual parents and I'd love to have more time with them, especially my Grandfather who died when I was 16.

Exactly the same with me. My grandfather also died when I was 16. I liked him more than either of my parents. When I misbehaved as a kid, I got sent to my grandfather's place. After that, I'd intentionally misbehave so I could go back there. My parents were not smart enough to figure it out.
 
Exactly the same with me. My grandfather also died when I was 16. I liked him more than either of my parents. When I misbehaved as a kid, I got sent to my grandfather's place. After that, I'd intentionally misbehave so I could go back there. My parents were not smart enough to figure it out.

My parents still haven't figured it out either. I gave up on that a long time ago.

I slept over my grandparents house almost every weekend when I was a kid, I looked forward to it all week long. My grandfather always had something planned for us to do together, even if we were doing yard work he made it fun and always taught me something. I ended up moving in with my grandmother at age 17 after my grandfather died. I never went back to my parent's house from that point on. I have my grandfather's burial flag and WW2 medals along with a pic of him in his Navy uniform with my grandmother in a case that I look at every day.
 
Mahogany-brown eyes gazed back at me from across the table. Aaron's eyes. Sipping rosé I absorbed his soul, drawing it unto my own, hoping somehow to keep it there forever. Shades of love wavered in from the past, shades I had known as experience transformed illusions into reality.

Fractured by violence and the indifference of others, including a condemning husband, I had grown from a young woman with hope to one of vulnerabilities. Mid all the heartache, time I spent with Aaron helped more than anything else. He cared enough to take time to listen, to be there as best he could.

We shared fishing trips to the mountains, intellectual conversations invoking mental gymnastics, concerns about personal and family issues and lovemaking in unusual places. During the years we had known each other, our love grew into an inner connection, an interweaving.


On that day in the pizza parlor over thirty years ago I came to know the tapestry would remain incomplete. I needed to end the illicit relationship and design a life with someone who could be there full-time. It fractured my heart, as well as his, to do so. Years later when I learned of his death I, again, experienced the loss. He was gone from this life, permanently.



But is permanence, permanent? What if it's not? So, I'm asking you, if you could resurrect a lost sweetheart so you could be with him or her again, if you could return life to someone who had lost theirs, would you? Yes, no, maybe, I don't know...these are plausible answers.

Honestly, there are circumstances under which I would consider it. Maybe you would too. There are people I miss, those taken from this reality prematurely, as well as those I could have loved better, those who could have taught me more just by being themselves and those I cherish. If I had to the power to fix that, I just might. This was especially true when I was younger.



When we are young we believe in fairytale solutions. We will grow up strong and proud. The tools we use to sculpt our lives will generate our most desired outcomes. All the choices we make will be the right ones. Even if bad things happen, we know we are smart enough to emerge on the other side of these catastrophes unscathed.

So it is in our dreams. We are certain this will continue to be true as our lives blossom before us. What we don't realize during our youth is that there are no abracadabra solutions. Oh, in our inexperience we don't call them that, but it is a correct label, nonetheless.

We are confident that those whose lives do not turn out as they hope, just don't plan correctly. They do not have the savvy, the inner fortitude, the looks or destiny that we possess. Our inexperience and naivete lead us to believe we will prevail against all comers. When insecurity and contradictions hit we push them aside.



Then life happens. It becomes more personal, more subjective, and we become the proverbial I. That which I planned didn't work. I try again. Again, it doesn't work, or it's only partially successful.

People I encounter do not adhere to my ways of thinking. These other people fail to be even slightly compliant. As it turns out, they have their own ideas which seem valid to them. Imagine that. They are wrong, of course. I am right, and I "know" it.

I become sure that if these misguided individuals could only see their mistakes in discernment, they could find their own true way. They don't, but neither do I, at least some of the time. I try other solutions. The results are similar even though the circumstances have been altered. The changes I make do not implement the expected outcomes.



Fretting about the way things can go so haywire, I nurse disillusionment and despair. To pull myself out of the rut I take a class, go to church or to bars and/or engage in one fling after another. I employ my favorite crutch, consider alternative solutions and try them.

The solutions seem to be working, when all at once someone I care about does something which harshly impacts my life. There is no way I can avoid it. I cry out to God, the universe or an empty room for relief.

Time passes. Nothing happens. I slosh on as life's ocean sucks me under, wave after wave. In an inkling, in a time and a way I did not anticipate, a stranger appears. He is kind, concerned and offers sympathy when others have abandoned me.



That's truly how it happened for me. I met Aaron four months after my brother committed his crimes. My husband at the time was ashamed of me for what my brother had done. He forbid me to tell his old-money family.

My entire support system, including my huge extended family, deflated like a soufflé during an earthquake. My brother was charged with murder. As I navigated the undercurrents of the legal system and functioned as my parents' life vests, I was tugged into the whirlpool.



Never during my youth could I have imagined my life would morph into this kind of horror. Going under in a turbulence not of my making, I took the hand Aaron offered. Over a period of two-and-a-half-years, he and I developed a friendship. He, too, was married. Friendship blossomed into more.

As I had anticipated at its inception, this relationship created its own separate issues. After six-and-a-half-years of friendship I decided I needed to end the affair, dismantling my haven of comfort. Still shattered by the murders, I divorced my husband and charted a new direction.



When I learned of Aaron's death, it had an unsettling impact on me. To work it through I decided to create a work of fiction whereby he and I could resurrect our relationship and be together. Thus, my novel, Resurrection Rose, became a reality, evolving into the second book in a series.

To lighten the tale I employed the crazy old women from the first in the series. They plopped themselves into the protagonist's life at unlikely times and in ways which were not necessarily welcome.



In this story Bethanie, a professional portrait artist, paints people back to life. She just doesn't know it until they start showing up. While attempting to make sense of her skills, she runs into her former lover, Gabe. A gutsy gal, Bethanie risks further heartache by resurrecting their once forbidden love...along with Gabe's deceased grandfather. When she and Gabe catch Gramps fooling around with one of Bethanie's deceased relatives, Bethanie is propelled into a world peopled by nosy, old dead women insistent on helping her abilities unfold and transforming her into something she had no idea she already was. The old women knew, like old women sometimes do.


By the time the book was complete, I had worked through Aaron's death.



We live in the core of creation. We are that creation, the initial products as well as the creator. So again, my question to you is, if you could paint someone back into your life, no matter the implements used to create this new reality, would you?



The answer is contingent on many variables. As in other aspects of our lives, anything could run amok at any time and turn our plateaus into sinkholes. One of the ways to resolve this conundrum is to realize that life is an experiment with multiple possibilities. Some we can control, but most we can't. When the waves hit and bowl us over, we can learn to swim parallel to the shoreline and allow those waves to carry us back to beach rather than fight them and drown.
When I read your post of 26 July, I decided that there was much to be learned from you and I wound up reading this very touching post, Indeed you have much to say that I can learn from, and your writing is beautiful.

It is enlightening to see how people deal with the aftermath of trauma and heartache, and how they grow as people. You show such growth and your posts show empathy and kindness toward other people. I will have to read your book. I am happy to know of you and to learn from you.

Have a good one my friend!
 
When I read your post of 26 July, I decided that there was much to be learned from you and I wound up reading this very touching post, Indeed you have much to say that I can learn from, and your writing is beautiful.

It is enlightening to see how people deal with the aftermath of trauma and heartache, and how they grow as people. You show such growth and your posts show empathy and kindness toward other people. I will have to read your book. I am happy to know of you and to learn from you.

Have a good one my friend!
Thank you, my friend, for your kind words and I see you made it to my website. I've learned so much, because I decided that I would not allow myself to drown. Some people drug up and escape. There are all kinds of adaptations to heartache and tragedy. Love is where we find it, and sometimes it throws us a lifeline as well as an anchor that can drag us under. Sometimes the solution presents more situations which create heartaches. So many times I was alone with my despair and no one came to help. I just want to help, kind of a pay it forward from the books I have read that helped me. I've worked on my writing since 1981.
 
My father was a self important little napoleon wannabe who thought he was entitled to humiliate me for 48 years just so he could derive some illusion of personal adequacy. Textbook narcissist. I was there in the ICU when he flatlined and said '..good riddance'. I closed the eyes on his corpse and said 'burn in hell a**hole'.
I'd bring him back just so I could enjoy the pleasure of putting him in the ground again with a .357 lobotomy.

Therapeutically, I realize that it's probably healthier to let the above sentiments go and consider the possibility of forgiveness.
I'm still working on getting to that.
 
Our parents have a huge impact on our lives, no doubt, and if they were narcissistic, then there’s a good chance they were abusive.


I really appreciate Trades honesty.
Neglect is definitely a form of abuse, especially coming from a narcissist parent. You are either there for their benefit or you may as well not be there at all because ‘they’ always come first.


When I read up about narcissistic parenting it said there were basically two different types. The ones who live their lives by moulding you into exactly what they want , since you are a reflection of them and their good tastes etc., OR the ones who are so self absorbed they’d rather not even know you are there. I had the latter.


My parents were not only physically abusive but mentally also. My mom had and still has my dad’s balls in a vice and he will do anything she orders him to do. Sorry if this is offensive wording to some but I don’t know how else to explain it.
If she were ever upset with me she’d sent him in my room to whip my butt and it was horribly abusive. He was 5 ‘ 10 “ ,.... 225 pounds and completely muscle bound. He once broke his hand hitting me and then blamed me for his hand breaking, never mind the damage caused to me. Their narcissism is off the charts.


I’ve spent my life having an ‘on again’ ‘off again’ relationship with them and have had much counselling most of which have suggested to break ties if I want the toxicity to end. I finally did but now they are 85 & 89 and in their final stages of life and at times I still feel like walking away but I’ve got a fabulous relationship with a wonderful brother and I can’t abandon him since he’s the POA, and responsible for looking after them.


Consistent parental abuse is so sinister.
The very people who are supposed to love and teach us how wonderful life can be become your enemy. It creates mistrust of humanity in general which causes torment to the survivor.


Anyway I don’t believe in revenge. Revenge can never be part of a just system. It is driven by anger and violence which are negative emotions that have a direct impact on our well being and mental health. With helping my parents out I have had to seek counselling due to past trauma rearing it’s ugly head.


I’ve recently discovered that there are certain characteristics that people display who have experienced being raised by severe narcissists and I take comfort in knowing I’m not alone here.


I’ve got a thread about narcissistic abusive parents which I’m going to update soon.
https://www.seniorforums.com/showthread.php/35316-HELP-Dealing-with-TOXIC-aging-Parents
When I clicked on the link it said 'you do not have permission to view this page'... I don't understand...?
 


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