Age:[ 50 ] Gender:[ f ]

I am glad I have found this web site, for I need closure that for some reason I
haven't been able to do yet.  I have been thru too many close deaths.  My best
girlfriend was first and died of cancer on hospice by my side.  Seven months later
my husband of 14 years dropped dead within and hour and a half of heart disease
unknown to anyone.  7 months after that my father had a severe stroke and died 4
years later at my home under hospice.

My 87 year old disabled mother lives with me and I am her caretaker and she is
still with me.  This last death was of my first love after my husbands death. He
was my college teacher, I was 10 years his senior, but became very close and I
went thru a lot of living hell with this fellow, he was of suberb intelligence,
two masters math and physics and played the bass in the symphony orchestra.

Taught me many things and tutored me thur math in college.  With intelligence we
sometimes associate mental illness well this was the case here, something I have
never experienced before and I am very patient and tolerant and maybe to
compasionate.  I do see compasion has been lost in our society today.  This man
lost everything and was drained due to difficulties in his life due to his mental
behavior and possibly some drug effects assissted in this. It was very difficult.
He was eventually evicted from his home and Istood by him in the dead heat of
summer and let him move into my home. with hopes for improvement and getting him
back on his feet.

A year and 3 months went by with no improvement. Things only got worse and my
household was turned upside down.  I still cared about him but I had a son and my
mother to think about, his constant screaming rages and the dislike between him
and my soon put me in the middle of everything on a daily basis leaving me a
miserable crying fool.  I had to ask him to move in a kind fashion.  He did and it
hurt me when I had to ask him to move, because I knew he had no where to go. He
did find someplace to stay but was not happy there and contacted me and the last
contact with him was one of the best for we hadnt seen each other in at least two
months. He was kind and grateful and thanked me and it was a wonderful feeling to
see the real him again although I knew he was still not perfectly well.  He
informed me he was going to move again and gave me a new phone number where to
contact him. He also gave me a movie of Amadeus to show my mother and a tape of
him playing his bass in a recital.

I am very grateful to have these in my possession now.  This was a Thursday I
beleive the weekene passed and he had called me Monday or Tuesday nite to update
me on what was going on , this was on my answering machine.  I dont always get to
my answering machine until late, due to the fact that I am my mother's caretaker
and I have a job, so my day is tied up.When I heard the message it was too late to
call him back.  The next day he died.  The lady whose home is was staying in (that
he did not like living there) called me a t ll pm and said "Char Rich is dead"
just like that, I couldnt comprehend or handle it at the moment.

When I asked him to move I went thru a guilty stage because I knew or thought he
was peniless, homeless, I had done all I could do.  I have spent over $10,000
trying to help him and support him and I really ca could not afford this.  I went
thru all his manic epsisodes and many personality changes, obsessive compulsive
behaviors.  It was all very hard.

Two things we had that was above and beyond anything so wonderful was the love of
his music and going to his symphonies and our passionate and most beautiful love
making sessions we had.  He often said if we would only do this all the time maybe
all the other bad things would never happen.  This is just something I need to get
off my chest because as many bad episodes there were between us and people could
not believe that I put up with it all and maybe thought I was a looney too.

I did seek professional help to try to understand why I liked this guy even with
all the oral abuse I would receive.  But now that he is gone, I see how deeply and
how much I really did LOVE him and I was unaware of this.  Even with all the awful
things he had done to me I knew he didnt mean too.

I just feel bad that maybe if he continued to live a my home and I never asked him
to leaave he would still be here with me and I would be living in a living hell,
because that is the way it was before he left.  I would literally leave my house
for work in tears because of him.  When I would get home he would make me cry.  
Times I didnt ever want to come home.

Now that he is gone I dant get over how much I miss him and wish I still had him
here.  I was in hope that he would help himself and get better and that we could
begin to see each other again.  Well that never happened.

Thank you for letting me breathe and get a lot off my chest.