Hi Barb, I just wanted to stop on this solemn day for you and let you know how I've been. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised; things are starting to look up for me.

Last time we spoke as you know things weren't going well at all, and they continued to go down for a while after that. The stress was just starting to overwhelm me, and I knew from the things I’d learned in the therapy I’d gone through that it was only a matter of time before it boiled over. I’ve learned the body handles stress like a pressure cooker with a broken release valve, it keeps building up and building up and you keep trying to hold it in but it never goes away; it just keeps waiting until finally the pressure just becomes too much and you can’t hold it in no matter what.

That’s what happened to me back in March. I just woke up one day and felt absolutely awful, I forced myself to go to work anyway but when I got there I just couldn’t deal with it any more, so I grabbed one of my supervisors and got him alone in a room and it just all came out. After that I couldn’t work any more and I haven’t since then. For a while I was hoping to go to school, I was so eager to get back into the workforce that I couldn’t think of anything but this goal, but then I met a woman through an agency I go to and she stopped me in my tracks and told me that I had to heal first. Psychological wounds can be the hardest to heal because you can’t see them and thus you can’t really judge their progress. But, she was right. I was trying to rush back in when I wasn’t ready.

Also, as you know, I was dealing with losing my sister to Cancer. The last time I was here was shortly before the 1 year anniversary of her passing. I spent that day with my family and lit a candle for her. I don’t know what it was about hitting that 1 year mark but it changed me. I went from not being able to accept it to being able to. Of course I’m still mourning even until this day, but that first year was the most difficult and that demarcation line that I crossed helped me move on and start to accept that it was done and I couldn’t change it. A few weeks ago my family got together and celebrated what would have been her 40th birthday. A therapist I had encountered earlier in the year had suggested an exercise that I ended up doing. Basically I wrote a letter to my sister, saying things I needed to say, apologizing for things I felt I needed to apologize for. Just saying all the things I wish I could say to her but can’t. Then I put it in an envelope and on her birthday I took it outside and lit it on fire to send it to her up in heaven. I’m not a religious person but I do know that this exercise helped me with some of the guilt I’d been feeling over choices I made in our lives together. Every time I start to think about the guilt now I remember that letter, and that I’ve sent it to her and that she wouldn’t want me to live with the guilt for the rest of my life. It hasn’t cured my pain, nothing can, but it’s helped make it manageable. Since her passing whenever I see my family now and we’re about to part I tell them I love them. It’s something our family never did before, we just weren’t that lovey dovey, but I want them to know now, and if something sudden were to happen to one of them I want that to be the last thing I’ve said to them.

This past July someone on the internet who I admired greatly, a man named Ryan Davis who was a co-founder of a gaming website I frequented passed away suddenly. He was the same age and more frighteningly for me the same build as I was. This, coupled with a video I watched on YouTube entitled 23 ½ hours got me started exercising and I’ve done it ever since. Being in excess of 400 lbs at the time it wasn’t easy to start, but now I’ve been going for almost 8 weeks and at last report have lost 8 inches around my waist and am down to 385lbs. I feel so much better than I ever have and am energetic and want to keep exercising, in fact I don’t ever want to have another day where I don’t exercise. I know that’s not really a realistic goal but it’s how I feel.

Things aren’t perfect of course, but I’ve got a good professional support staff and for the first time since I was young I feel like my life is on an upward trajectory. There are still lots of questions about my future, but I’ve hit rock bottom, and the thing I learned about myself when I did is I don’t have the capacity to give up, even when there are times when I wanted to. So I know I’ll make it. Fate can knock me down but it can’t keep me from getting back up.

I hope, as always, that this message finds you well, or as well as can be expected on this solemn day for you. I hope Jenny and Tara have met up there, wherever we end up when we’re finished down here, and that they’re waiting for both of us.

Love ya Barb,
Murray.

Murray, thanks so much for always remembering this terrible day. I can't believe it was 15 years ago. Just doesn't seem possible.

I am so glad to hear that you are working through all the terrible things you've been through lately. You sound like a really wonderful & caring man. I'm so sorry you lost your sister. It's hard for me to believe that you weren't a pretty decent brother to her. We all have our regrets and moments that didn't go well with important people in our lives. I'm sure she really loved you.

I just want to let you know that I found your post very touching. I really hope that things continue to work out for you. You seem to be very bright, so at some point I think it would be great if you went to school. I believe you have a ton of potential. Please come back and visit as often as you can, and post some updates of what is going on in your life.

Love you too Murray,

Barbara