Suicide of Robin William
–I read an article in today’s paper Laredo Moring Times by Christine M, Flowers
from the Philadelphia Daily News. She wrote about hearing the news of Robin Williams’s
death and her thoughts and personal grief of suicide. I read the article and
tears rolled down my cheeks of my personal grief our family suffer in 2004.
I remembered my brother Dennis
death in November 2004; he was only 47 years old.
We grew up close together we were
only 2 years apart and did everything together when we were young; I moved out
of my parents’ home first and only saw him when I visited my parents’ home. I
started visited him more than usual due to our father passing away in April
2004 he had more responsibility now in managing the grocery & liquor stores.
We the family knew about his drug habit and tried to get him to a rehab center
but nothing worked I offer him our home to live with me but he refused. My
older brothers Oscar, J.C. and I would take him dinner every night. My brother
J.C. would arrive at the store in the evening and would help stay at the store
so Dennis could go home and get some rest before closing.
Dennis managed to do this 6
months.
When J.C. called me at work around 930am to tell me he found Dennis
dead at the store apparently Dennis had been sleeping in the store and not
going home, he died of an overdose of heroin & cocaine.
When I heard that he was found dead I too felt a pulling pain. It was a
physical and mental hurt pain. What the writer writes is the sadness of survivors,
anger of not being able to help. I too feel that way.
In my mind my brother Dennis committed
suicide by using heroin and cocaine together and made the choice of ending his
life.
I know he felt the pain that our family had experienced of all the
deaths (Mom 1999, Norma 2001, Dad 2004) that had occurred and he could not handle
the stress, depression of our father’s death. Dennis adored our father he was
his hero.
I know about depression it runs
in the family and Dennis took drugs to handle his daily living.
Depression is an illness that needs attention as the writer writes
depression is coming out of the shadows of shame.
Robin Williams made everyone happy and laugh out loud, my brother
Dennis did the same as the writer writes but they were unable or unwilling to
manage their hidden pain.
I too am depress and taking medication, having all
the deaths in our family is unreal for any family it started in 1998 with Ashley
my niece ,1999 my mom, 2001 my sister, 2004 my dad , 2004 Dennis, 2007 my brother JC, 2008 my grandson Miguel. The
last death of Miguel I realized I needed something in my life to help me in my
daily living I was depressed and did not work for 3 months until the medicine
kicked in.
It’s hard for me at times but one gets thru the day
with prayer, meds and exercise.
As she writes at the end of the paragraph -in their
honor, we need to stretch our hands out to those who are falling off the cliff
and scream at the top of our lungs “stay”.
Friday, May 31, 2013
RESTART BUTTON !!!
We are deep into the season of heat and flies! That
means it begins to feel like a long slog to me. Vacation is far off in the
distance, the air-conditioner is working overtime. We keep planning a vacation
but it is seems that it always in the planning stages, we just have to do it. It’s not
necessarily a seasonally-related thing, it’s a heart-centered thing, but for
me, it always seems to hit in Summer and Christmas.
Without warning or reason, my life gets a heavy
feeling. And it can be especially crazy when everything seems justfine.
Life looks the same––to everyone else ----but not to me and somehow itfeelsdifferent.
There is not a big problem to deal with I
actually take a little comfort in knowing that something small might set me
right again, like a yoga class, guitar/ piano lesson, a weekend away with a
friend. If my life feels out of balance, I’m probably not getting enough of
what really keeps me going and brings real, meaningful pleasure to life. It
seems like a big blah/smog
But sometimes a person requires more than just a
little reminder of what you care about. You want to reboot, have a clean slate,
a restart button, an IV to get the
life put back into me ….. I’m ok with having the routine––the ritual of going
to work, eating lunch at my desk, drinking coffee in the morning, my art work
does help, BUT the desire for a fresh start in a way that surprises me.
The craving for neat, tidy house, office, and
vehicle must in some way be a reaction to my life’s messiness. I sometimes feel
overwhelmed with the reality of what is; the view of what could be is
appealing. A fresh start, for sure, would make things more manageable, more
organized, happier. That’s the thing about the unknown: we always think it
could be better or like my mother would say ---the grass is not always greener
on the other side.
I ‘m here today wanting to ask about a useful way
I can have a fresh start in the day-to-day routine. I wanted to ask how you
give yourself that clear sense of a new beginning when you’re having
difficulties in life. And I still want to know, for sure. But at times it
occurs to me that a having the need to reboot my life is a question of how to
make peace with one self and others in an everyday situation. I’m not saying I
want to change my life , and yes I have bad days and good days I’m rarely in a
bad mood and most of the time I go with the flow of the moment, I’m very spontaneous
and ready to go at the moment notice.
Either way, the pain never goes away completely. Christmas
without my parents or I can really say without my mom… she was the one who would
get the FAMILY together at the dinner table, and once we were there it was a
different story. I always feel some sort of sadness when a friend says
something about their parents, I’m happy for them but there is always a little
hurt. The only thing that I can do is to try and surround myself with other
family members and close friends, and do whatever I can to try and get through
the holidays. After all, that is what my mom would want for me --to keep moving
on in life and surround myself with love and my children.
The
first Christmas without your parent is the hardest. My mother was in the
hospital during the holidays she past away in January 28,1998. So my sister and
I made the Christmas dinner 1997, will we tried too, I remember that I had
bought a couple of bottles of wine and so while we were cooking we had one glass
then another and another then we decided to leave the cooking and go to the
hospital to visit our mom.. she was very ill at this time. So we stayed with
her all night.
No
matter how many months your parents have been gone for, Christmas is never the
same. It takes time to prepare myself for the Holidays. It takes me a couple of
weeks to get in the mood starting with Thanksgiving to even think about
Christmas. I get support from my husband he loves the Holidays especially
Christmas he is the one who starts to get the boxes out of the garage and
starts with the lights and then the Christmas TREE. I also tell him go ahead
start I help you in a minute, but that minute will last a couple of days and he
will more or less try his best so then I step in and finish the decorating.
I
wish there was an instruction manual on how to get through your day without your
parent.
The
first Christmas without your parent will be the hardest, but for me it was the
last Christmas I spent with her at the hospital. When you lose a parent you
loose a little bit of your self. A new chapter of your life begins--- it is now
just a past memory.
And for the ones
who still have both parents this day, you should feel very blessed and thankful
and appreciated. If one or both of your parents have passed on, you can still
be appreciate the one who is alive, don’t take them for granted.
My daughter
told her brother to answer his phone
whenever their dad calls, because some people do not have fathers like them
that call just to say hi…Those phone calls will be a gift when they are gone no
one can ever take those gifts away from you. They are priceless and they are
your gifts forever.
I
experience Christmas or any other Holiday
differently now. I found doing my art is a distraction to the holidays and the
losses that have occurred during the holidays.
COME BY TO SEE ALL THE DAY OF THE DEAD ITEMS ..@ FOUND OBJECT
& COLLAGE ART by DOLORES GONZALEZ-JARVIS UPSTAIRS LOFT AT Tres Rebecas-- is 117 W Mistletoe San
Antonio, TX 78212
Are you ready to start making gifts and decorations for the
holidays? There are so many possibilities for the fall - hollween masks and
costumes, Día de los muertos altars, Thanksgiving baskets and table
decorations, party invitations, holiday cards, warm scarves, Christmas ornaments, and jewelry for gifts. You'll find the classes and supplies at Tres Rebecas, you just have to find the time
Check out all the class that are going to be held at @www.3rebeccas.com Tres Rebecas San Antonio
Tres Rebecas store this weekend come see the Cultural Design Studio, Boutique, Librería ---
117 W Mistletoe Street, San Antonio, TX 78212 Tres Rebecas is a wonderful place for finding unique gifts and accessories. It's more of an arts & crafts boutique Tres Rebecas welcomes you to a shopping experience that is loaded with Latino culture. Every item in the store has a story ask and we will explain..
Come by and see me I'll be there on Friday and Sat. 9/21,22...
My mother would tell us about the La Llorona ("The Weeping Woman") that she would come get us if we would misbehave How we believed her and sure enough it would work to get us to sit down or stop what we were doing… So this is what I found online about this woman …and the song ….. La Llorona ("The Weeping Woman") is a Wide spread legend in Mexico, the US southwest, Puerto Rico, and Central and South America. Although several variations exist, the basic story tells of a beautiful woman by the name of Maria killing her children by drowning them, in order to be with the man that she loved. When the man rejects her, she kills herself. Challenged at the gates of heaven as to the whereabouts of her children, she is not permitted to enter the afterlife until she has found them. Maria is forced to wander the Earth for all eternity, searching in vain for her drowned offspring, with her constant weeping giving her the name "La Llorona".
In some versions of the tale, La Llorona kidnaps wandering children, or children who disobey their parents. People who claim to see her say she comes out at night or in the late evenings from rivers or oceans in Mexico. Some believe that those who hear the wails of La Llorona are marked for death, similar to the Gaelic banshee legend. She is said to cry "Ay, mis hijos!" which translates to "Oh, my children!"
Typically, the legend serves as a cautionary tale on several levels. Parents will warn their children that bad behavior will cause La Llorona to abduct them,[1] and that being outside after dark will result in her visitation. The tale also warns teenage girls not to be enticed by status, wealth, material goods, or by men who make declarations of love or lavish promises.
If you ask a hundred people in south Texas to tell you about La Llorona, the weeping woman, you'll get a hundred different stories. This is one of them.
The old road between San Antonio and Monterrey used to divide and cross the NuecesRiver in two places, and the people in Dos Puentes say this happened in San Lorenzo, and the people in San Lorenzo say it happened in dos Puentes, so you can see it is a story no one cares to claim.
Now, you know, that is desolate country down there! Nothing grows; all is dusty and dull. No one has the goal of acquiring wealth, building fine houses, nothing like that. The goal is survival.
But there was one girl who knew different. I'm going to call her Marielena. Her mother owned the inn at the crossing there, and she would see the men who traveled through from Monterrey or from San Antonio; men who wore fine clothes and rode magnificent horses. They brought gifts to their wives and their daughters, gifts of ribbons and lace and dresses and furniture.
Once a man called Marielena to him. She was about eight. He took out a dress he had bought for his daughter, about her size, he said. He held it up against her, its bright satiny softness and lace against her little camisole, dull and tattered. "It will look lovely on her!" he said, then took it away and folded it into a box.
And Marielena decided at a very young age that she would marry one of these men and move to San Antonio or Monterrey and be a fine lady and live in a fine house. She would not marry one of the village boys!
One day when Marielena was about sixteen and very beautiful, a man came through, a handsome man riding a magnificent stallion. His name was Don Ramon. He was planning to stay just two nights at the inn to rest, then ride on to San Antonio, but because of Marielena's great beauty, he stayed eight nights, and on the way back, he stayed two weeks.
And the next year when he came through, he held his small son in his arms. He told Marielena that he loved her, he wanted to marry her, but his parents-they had other ideas. They wanted him to marry the daughter of a family in Monterrey, a girl of his own class. He would need time to explain this to them.
And the next year when he came through, he patted his small son on the head; he held his baby daughter in his arms; and he told Marielena once again that he loved her, but she must wait.
Now the people in Dos Puentes say this went on for four years, and the people in San Lorenzo say it went on for seven years, but however long it was, Marielena had three of Don Ramon's children, and she was still living with her mother in the inn.
One day, she was upstairs cleaning, and her children were playing down beside the river. She would go to the window to check on them, and once, when she looked out, she saw a cloud of dust in the distance. As she watched, it became clearly a carriage. It pulled up beside her children at the river and stopped, and a man stepped out. And even at so great a distance, Marielena could tell it was Don Ramon.
"He has come to get me!" she thought. "He has brought a carriage to take us all back to Monterrey! I shall be a fine lady and live in a fine house!"
But then, he turned around and helped a woman out of the carriage, and even at so great a distance, Marielena could tell it was a beautiful woman, a young woman, dressed in the clothes of Don Ramon's class. Her heart sank within her.
But then she thought "It is his sister! He has brought his sister to help me pack, to help with the children!" and just then Don Ramon pointed to a boulder at the edge of the river, and the children turned and ran, and Marielena thought "He is showing his sister how strong our children are!"
But then, Don Ramon took the woman in his arms and kissed her, and Marielena could see that it was not his sister. Again, her heart sank. She stood at the window and watched as Don Ramon and the woman talked with her children, and then the woman picked up the baby-Marielena's baby-and tickled her and she laughed!
Then the woman put the baby down, and Don Ramon called the three children and placed something in each of their outstretched hands and folded their small fingers around it, and then he helped the woman back onto the carriage.
Well, Marielena was not about to let them come up to the inn and see her like she was, her face all red from crying. She went to the mirror and washed her face and combed her hair and took off her apron, and then she walked downstairs to the front door.
But when she opened it to greet them, the carriage had not come up to the inn at all! Instead it had turned around and was headed back the other way!
"Don Ramon," she shouted. "Don Ramon, come back!" She began running along the road. "Come back! It is me; it is me, Marielena, whom you love. The mother of your children! You are going to marry me!"
But if anybody heard, they did not turn back.
Marielena threw herself down on the road by the river there, and began crying, and when her children saw her, they ran over to her. The oldest, to cheer her, said "Mama! Look! Look at what our father has given us!"
Marielena looked, and in each of their small hands was a coin. A tiny coin! It would mean nothing to a man like Don Ramon. With the strength that comes only with rage, she grasped all of their small hands together and then flung them into the river, then she threw herself on the ground and started beating the ground! Beating that woman! Beating Don Ramon! Beating her own vanity that had thought he would come back and marry her!
And the people of Dos Puentes say she was there until sunset, and the people of San Lorenzo say it was midnight, but however long it was, when she stood up, her arms were bruised and bloody from beating the ground, and her hair was matted from sweat and blood. And when she realized what she had Done, she ran to the edge of the river and began calling "Mis hijitos! Mis hijitos! My little children!"
But, of course, it was too late.
"Mis hijitos! Mis hijitos!"
But there was no answer.
She began to walk along the river, calling for her lost children. Some people say she went into the river and drowned, and it is her ghost who walked, calling and calling for her lost children. She walked all the way to the coast, and, it being the nature of water to blend and to flow, she walked along the coast, and up the San Antonio, and down, and up the Guadalupe, and down, and up the Colorado, the Brazos, up and down all the rivers of Texas, calling and calling for her lost children. "Mis hijitos."
Sometimes, they say, she wails: "Aa-ii-eeee!" Some people say it is a mountain lion.
"Mis hijitos! Mis hijitos!" Some people say it is just the sound of the cypress branches, brushing against each other in the wind.
Others say it is la Llorona, the weeping woman, the wailing woman, the crying woman.
"Mis hijitos! Mis hijitos! Aa-ii-eeee!"
Probably it is just a mountain lion. Probably it is just the wind, brushing together the branches of the cypress trees.
But the mothers of Texas tell their children "Don't go down to the river at night. You may see la Llorona. She may see you. They say she is looking for her lost children. They say that, if she does not find her own children, she will take whatever children she finds, take them into her bruised and bloody arms and hold them against her matted hair, and they will never again be seen by their own parents.
This is a story told by mothers to their children, by friends to their amigos, and the last to tell it has just told it to you.
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