Throwing ALL My Old Journals Away

 I've been writing since I learned how to hold a pencil and create words. Creating sentences from random words has always been a great love of mine, and so it is little wonder that I started journaling as a kid. Of course, back then it was called 'writing in a diary', and all young girls seemed to have one. But the task remained the same: Write down what you're feeling, seeing, thinking, and keep it safely tucked away for whatever reason. So? I did that and have done that for years upon years.

As I grew older I thought that by writing about my thoughts and my feelings it would later help my children and grandchildren learn who I was and what made me tick. I felt that was important, but not in a narcissistic way. Having lost my paternal grandmother when I was six, I've grieved her death for over fifty-five years simply because I never got to know her as anyone except my beloved 'Nanny'. And through those fifty-five years of missing her, I've only gotten small glimpses into who she was as a woman, a person who was not 'just' my grandmother. It was because of her that I felt my children and grandchildren should be left some kind of record of who I was, just in case they ever cared to know and I wasn't around for them to ask.

And then I started reading those journals and dammit! I became so depressed, so angry, so embarrassed!

I found that I tended to journal when I was angry, or hurt, or horribly depressed. I wrote about all the things that had hurt me, all the things that had angered me, and all the things I never seemed to get over. 

And I sat back and started asking myself, "Self? Is this the shit you want to be remembered by? Is this the shit you want to burden your children and grandchildren with?"

The answer is an absolute "NO!"

Truth is? I'd rather not be remembered at all than be remembered by some shit that hurt me sixty years ago!

SO, as painful as it is, and it is indeed painful, those journals are going into the trash!

If I can't journal something positive, kind, and sweet, then I damned sure don't need to pass that shit on down!

In Memory Of...

 Just a few days ago a family member notified me that she'd found a TikTok video inferring that the biological mother of my first grandchild had passed away. I found the video and initiated a search on the world-wide web for information that could prove, hopefully disprove, that this young woman was in fact deceased. After three days of searching and exhausting every avenue I could find, and sometimes having to pay for information that was lacking, I was no closer than when I'd started. This was even after I had a possible date of her death, per the video, and the fact that the woman's sister had made the video and the mother had commented that seeing the video had 'tore her up'. I was frustrated, and then remembered a dear young lady who is known for her ability to 'dig up shit on anybody anywhere'. Within five minutes this young lady had found that the young woman I was inquiring about had indeed passed two years prior, AND we had a cause of death: fetanyl. 

Sadly, I am not surprised. Heartbroken that nothing I ever did or said got through to her. I am heartbroken that she bore at least four children, one of which I adopted, two that were taken from her in their infancy, and the last is now probably in foster care as well. Heartbroken that such a funny, intelligent, outgoing, and attractive woman was so scarred and lost that addiction ruled her life and eventually took her life. 

But what hurts the most is that not a single person, not even her own mother or sister, found her life worth enough to write and post an obituary, nor correct her age! 

Don't bother telling me that her actions were so embarrassing that they couldn't bring themselves to pay her that last respect because that would be an absolute distortion of the truth! She was a product of her parent's neglect, and perhaps even abuse that was overlooked, ignored, or found unimportant by them. I believe this because they all 'use' in one form or another and when my grandchild was horribly abused by one of the mother's family members while in the maternal grandmother's care, after that man's conviction the maternal grandmother embraced the abuser, going so far as to move and live close to him for over twenty years and counting! 

What I do know is this: Georgia bore at least four children and though her love was skewered by the neglect and probably abuse she suffered through as a child, she loved those babies as best she could, even if it wasn't the right or normal way. I know that she was funny, had a great sense of humor, had a beautiful laugh and smile, was intelligent when sober, and always filled with an energy that I envied. Sadly, her ability to choose upright friends was nonexistent and sadder still, she never learned that those people really didn't give a damn about her. 

She was an addict; scarred by her childhood and poor decisions as an adult, and she leaned on drugs to cover the pain, the memories, and maybe give herself a few minutes of drug-induced joy. And in the end, that addiction took her life at the age of about 41.. (The Lost Faces of Fetanyl post says she was 34 and that is absolutely incorrect. She was 19 when she gave birth to her first child, my grandchild, and she died the day after his 22 birthday.) 

I loved her. I truly did. She gave me my first grandchild, one of the most beautiful gifts I've ever been given, and I'll always love her for that. 

You were a beautiful and tender woman, Georgia. You deserved better and I'm sorry your own family failed you. Your firstborn will remember you. That is my promise. He only wished that he'd been able to meet and know you when you got clean & sober. We'll always regret you never made it.

In Loving Memory 

of

Georgia Faye Lucille Stampley, abt. 1982 to August 3rd, 2023.

Lost Little Girl, Mother, and Friend.