Three weeks ago today I watched as life support was discontinued and my sweet step dad slipped into Heaven. By the time we let his body go his soul had already been our guardian angel for two days.
Mostly I'm okay, we are okay. I have a pretty amazing family!
But then, standing in the checkout at Walmart a man in another check out puts his fishing tackle on the belt to pay for it and I feel the sting of tears that I know will refuse to stay behind my eyes.
They are rubber worms with hooks for God sakes! Hardly worth tears. But my fish-lovin' dad won't be buying any more damn rubber worms and that hurts. A LOT!
I tried to focus on the screaming kid beside us or the lady with the tattoo above her butt crack that said "In God We Trust". Anything but those fishing lures. I somehow managed a couple of errant tears but for the most part I didn't crumble at Walmart. Success, I guess.
When will fishing lures just be fishing lures and Sundays just be Sundays?
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Heavy
My mood is heavy, my heart is heavy.
Like the clouds outside my window weighted with rain waiting to fall. No rumbles of thunder just gray, water filled fluff overhead. Bearing down, pushing so hard that it threatens to squeeze every breath from my chest.
I wish there was some place to go that took the heaviness away. Just for a while. Instead, I drag it with me filled with the weight of loss.
Even letting tears escape down my cheeks doesn't release the burden that my heart keeps firmly in it's grasp.
I'm ready for sunshine to peek through and remind me that this heaviness won't last forever. Or perhaps it will, but a gentle reminder that there will be moments that don't feel like I'm being swallowed by quicksand. Even tiny, fleeting moments. Just some chance to catch my breath.
Webster's definition of strong is "having or marked by great physical power".
My definition is "waking up everyday in grief and surviving".
Like the clouds outside my window weighted with rain waiting to fall. No rumbles of thunder just gray, water filled fluff overhead. Bearing down, pushing so hard that it threatens to squeeze every breath from my chest.
I wish there was some place to go that took the heaviness away. Just for a while. Instead, I drag it with me filled with the weight of loss.
Even letting tears escape down my cheeks doesn't release the burden that my heart keeps firmly in it's grasp.
I'm ready for sunshine to peek through and remind me that this heaviness won't last forever. Or perhaps it will, but a gentle reminder that there will be moments that don't feel like I'm being swallowed by quicksand. Even tiny, fleeting moments. Just some chance to catch my breath.
Webster's definition of strong is "having or marked by great physical power".
My definition is "waking up everyday in grief and surviving".
Thursday, July 7, 2011
I'll Be Missing Him
I woke up feeling the now too familiar heartache of loss just seconds after opening my eyes. What began as small cracks have opened into great, painful, open wounds on my heart. I stood in the shower letting my tears mingle with the hot water raining down on me. I begged God to let me understand why a man that was so gentle and loving could be taken so early in his life and with no warning. Aside from knowing that He made his death as easy on our family as He could I'm still searching for the why. There is no answer.
How can the man who made my mom so happy and who became a Dad to my sister and me be gone? He was here last week on this very day! And now I'm forced to accept that God called him home MUCH earlier than we were ready for.
I watched my mom use every ounce of strength to comfort others while enduring her own devastating heartbreak of losing her husband today. I watched her accept condolences from the many, many people who's lives were touched by the great man that was my Dad. He wasn't my father but he was my Dad in every sense of the word!
I heard the words "it gets easier" and "it won't always hurt this much" but blended with the tears and the heart ache, I'm just not convinced. Life will go on but there will always be a gaping hole left in my heart by the missing piece that he took to Heaven with him.
I do thank God that he took him peacefully and with little or no pain and that he let him be my Dad for 25 years or so but I could have used another 25 years.
That still wouldn't be enough.
How can the man who made my mom so happy and who became a Dad to my sister and me be gone? He was here last week on this very day! And now I'm forced to accept that God called him home MUCH earlier than we were ready for.
I watched my mom use every ounce of strength to comfort others while enduring her own devastating heartbreak of losing her husband today. I watched her accept condolences from the many, many people who's lives were touched by the great man that was my Dad. He wasn't my father but he was my Dad in every sense of the word!
I heard the words "it gets easier" and "it won't always hurt this much" but blended with the tears and the heart ache, I'm just not convinced. Life will go on but there will always be a gaping hole left in my heart by the missing piece that he took to Heaven with him.
I do thank God that he took him peacefully and with little or no pain and that he let him be my Dad for 25 years or so but I could have used another 25 years.
That still wouldn't be enough.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Mine
Seventeen hours in a car, covering 5 states is hard!
Traveling with a 14 year old who has a serious lack of attention span is equally as hard but just as he did as a baby, the car begins to move and he is asleep in seconds.
Several times I turned in my seat just to stare at his long and lanky body curled up on the seat. His eyelashes are so long (the kind of long that woman pay for extensions to get). His lips are full and pink. And a shadow of what will become facial hair much too soon is just starting to dance across his face.
Around his shoulders his baby blanket is wrapped loosely. A quilt with cars, buses, airplanes and trains on one side and primary colored dots on the other side. I started the quilt when my oldest son was 3, long before my second son was even a glimmer in my eye but I'm a little bit of a, okay a huge procrastinator. I carefully quilted each vehicle with tiny stitches over the next three years. What? I had a kid who demanded my undivided attention to watch him build legos. How was I supposed to quilt tiny stitches in between lego towers and " Hey mommy watch me. Watch ME. WATCH MEEEE."?
Anyway besides the tattered quilt he was also wrapped in a blanket with his future high schools name printed in huge letters in the center. It was a strange juxtaposition. The baby that he was and the young man that he is becoming. I may have shed a tear or two watching him sleep. Willing him not to hurry the years by but enjoy being somewhere between a child and an adult for as long as nature will allow.
It's frustrating to watch him struggle in school and elating to watch him bake a cake that turns out just as he imagined. It tickles me that he still loves his baby blanket and I secretly hope that he takes it on his honeymoon because it reminds him of me. I love that he likes to travel with us but I know that he won't always. I'm enjoying this summer trip with him.
It's fun watching him experience things that are just starting to stretch his wings. It reminds me that we are making memories that will always be remembered and that he is mine and that I am lucky to be his mama.
Traveling with a 14 year old who has a serious lack of attention span is equally as hard but just as he did as a baby, the car begins to move and he is asleep in seconds.
Several times I turned in my seat just to stare at his long and lanky body curled up on the seat. His eyelashes are so long (the kind of long that woman pay for extensions to get). His lips are full and pink. And a shadow of what will become facial hair much too soon is just starting to dance across his face.
Around his shoulders his baby blanket is wrapped loosely. A quilt with cars, buses, airplanes and trains on one side and primary colored dots on the other side. I started the quilt when my oldest son was 3, long before my second son was even a glimmer in my eye but I'm a little bit of a, okay a huge procrastinator. I carefully quilted each vehicle with tiny stitches over the next three years. What? I had a kid who demanded my undivided attention to watch him build legos. How was I supposed to quilt tiny stitches in between lego towers and " Hey mommy watch me. Watch ME. WATCH MEEEE."?
Anyway besides the tattered quilt he was also wrapped in a blanket with his future high schools name printed in huge letters in the center. It was a strange juxtaposition. The baby that he was and the young man that he is becoming. I may have shed a tear or two watching him sleep. Willing him not to hurry the years by but enjoy being somewhere between a child and an adult for as long as nature will allow.
It's frustrating to watch him struggle in school and elating to watch him bake a cake that turns out just as he imagined. It tickles me that he still loves his baby blanket and I secretly hope that he takes it on his honeymoon because it reminds him of me. I love that he likes to travel with us but I know that he won't always. I'm enjoying this summer trip with him.
It's fun watching him experience things that are just starting to stretch his wings. It reminds me that we are making memories that will always be remembered and that he is mine and that I am lucky to be his mama.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tsunami of TMI
This post has been bouncing around in my mind for a couple of months. Since I purchased this>> www.divacup.com. I've started and deleted, started and deleted.
Somewhere in my upbringing I misplaced the filter between my brain and my mouth (or fingers, in this case) and have been known to share TMI or let things slip out that shouldn't but this is my blog so here comes an avalanche of TMI.
***If girly stuff embarrasses you or icks you out, don't say I didn't warn you***
Like every woman knows, the story we get in the 5th grade about the joy of becoming a woman is CRAP! What it really boils down to is one week out of every month YOUR GUTS ARE GONNA FALL OUT of your delicate lady flower!! You're going to bloat up and you will kill and crawl over the body for a Hershey bar. And lest you think the other 3 weeks of the month are any better, prepare for mood swings that are capable of causing buildings to crumble and tears that choose random TV commercials and Hallmark cards to cause rivers of wetness to streak down your cheeks. Yeah, I didn't read anything about that in the cute, little, pink print covered booklet that was handed to me in the 5th grade while all of us blushed with embarrassment.
Somehow, I don't think the story that the boys got in 5th grade was quite as misleading!
If you didn't click on the link up there heralding my latest purchase go ahead and Google the images of "Diva Cup".....I'll wait.
Traumatized yet??
It's similar to a silicone Dixie Cup that is inserted into the vajayjay during a period to ummmm...collect what would be traditionally absorbed by a tampon. Quite the visual I know, I warned you. Anyway, it can be left in for 8-10 hours and makes the dreaded monthly visitor a little more tolerable as you don't have to know the location of EVERY.SINGLE. ladies room in EVERY.SINGLE store/restaurant/gas station that you visit. I was a little hesitant at first but I read, oh, about 54985498 reviews and only found about 4 that didn't recommend it. Good odds, I thought. So I bought it, did I couple of trial runs (don't think too hard about that, it's kinda gross) and waited for Aunt Flo to visit.
She did. It worked. Until....I tried to coax the cup out of my girly bits. I reached and reached and reached. I'm fairly sure I was somewhere close to my sinus cavity but it was NOT THERE! Now besides learning that teachers in health classes are liars, I was pretty sure that I learned that there is no where to go up there and that there is only one way out.
I pushed full term babies out of my nether regions certainly I could dislodge a small silicone cup. But, NO! It was GONE! Common sense, though sometimes elusive to me, gave me firm awareness that this was NOT a problem that I could ask just anyone to help me with. And by all that is holy, no way was I going to any medical professional and admit ANYTHING was lost up in my lady bits.
That only left my husband, the one who promised to love, honor and cherish me until death do us part. I'm pretty sure that he promised to help me avoid any potentially embarrassing medical procedure to extract errant items from any body part too. I may have dreamt that part but anyhow, I knew I had to wait until he got home from work.
I pictured him laying in the bathtub, wearing a miner's helmet with the headlamp at full beam and a pair of freshly sterilized salad tongs and me standing over him with a foot on each side of the tub. Kinda like when a car is up on the rack and the mechanic is standing under it to repair a broken part. Or one of those claw games where you snag a stuffed animal and it drops to the door to be retrieved.
As luck (and a little gravity) would have it, pacing like I was going to tell him I was pregnant instead of just admitting that I may have something stuck somewhere near my brain by way of my love cookie, I felt....well I'll just call it movement. I'll spare you the details, yeah I know why start now but you can thank me later. I'll just say no salad tongs or crane claws were necessary to save the day. I could have kept all this to myself and not looked quite so crazy but no, I shared it with my sweetie and all of you! Lucky you, huh?
I haven't lost it since and it really is one of the best things I've ever bought on the internet...except that one really cool sex toy...but that's a story for another day.
Somewhere in my upbringing I misplaced the filter between my brain and my mouth (or fingers, in this case) and have been known to share TMI or let things slip out that shouldn't but this is my blog so here comes an avalanche of TMI.
***If girly stuff embarrasses you or icks you out, don't say I didn't warn you***
Like every woman knows, the story we get in the 5th grade about the joy of becoming a woman is CRAP! What it really boils down to is one week out of every month YOUR GUTS ARE GONNA FALL OUT of your delicate lady flower!! You're going to bloat up and you will kill and crawl over the body for a Hershey bar. And lest you think the other 3 weeks of the month are any better, prepare for mood swings that are capable of causing buildings to crumble and tears that choose random TV commercials and Hallmark cards to cause rivers of wetness to streak down your cheeks. Yeah, I didn't read anything about that in the cute, little, pink print covered booklet that was handed to me in the 5th grade while all of us blushed with embarrassment.
Somehow, I don't think the story that the boys got in 5th grade was quite as misleading!
If you didn't click on the link up there heralding my latest purchase go ahead and Google the images of "Diva Cup".....I'll wait.
Traumatized yet??
It's similar to a silicone Dixie Cup that is inserted into the vajayjay during a period to ummmm...collect what would be traditionally absorbed by a tampon. Quite the visual I know, I warned you. Anyway, it can be left in for 8-10 hours and makes the dreaded monthly visitor a little more tolerable as you don't have to know the location of EVERY.SINGLE. ladies room in EVERY.SINGLE store/restaurant/gas station that you visit. I was a little hesitant at first but I read, oh, about 54985498 reviews and only found about 4 that didn't recommend it. Good odds, I thought. So I bought it, did I couple of trial runs (don't think too hard about that, it's kinda gross) and waited for Aunt Flo to visit.
She did. It worked. Until....I tried to coax the cup out of my girly bits. I reached and reached and reached. I'm fairly sure I was somewhere close to my sinus cavity but it was NOT THERE! Now besides learning that teachers in health classes are liars, I was pretty sure that I learned that there is no where to go up there and that there is only one way out.
I pushed full term babies out of my nether regions certainly I could dislodge a small silicone cup. But, NO! It was GONE! Common sense, though sometimes elusive to me, gave me firm awareness that this was NOT a problem that I could ask just anyone to help me with. And by all that is holy, no way was I going to any medical professional and admit ANYTHING was lost up in my lady bits.
That only left my husband, the one who promised to love, honor and cherish me until death do us part. I'm pretty sure that he promised to help me avoid any potentially embarrassing medical procedure to extract errant items from any body part too. I may have dreamt that part but anyhow, I knew I had to wait until he got home from work.
I pictured him laying in the bathtub, wearing a miner's helmet with the headlamp at full beam and a pair of freshly sterilized salad tongs and me standing over him with a foot on each side of the tub. Kinda like when a car is up on the rack and the mechanic is standing under it to repair a broken part. Or one of those claw games where you snag a stuffed animal and it drops to the door to be retrieved.
As luck (and a little gravity) would have it, pacing like I was going to tell him I was pregnant instead of just admitting that I may have something stuck somewhere near my brain by way of my love cookie, I felt....well I'll just call it movement. I'll spare you the details, yeah I know why start now but you can thank me later. I'll just say no salad tongs or crane claws were necessary to save the day. I could have kept all this to myself and not looked quite so crazy but no, I shared it with my sweetie and all of you! Lucky you, huh?
I haven't lost it since and it really is one of the best things I've ever bought on the internet...except that one really cool sex toy...but that's a story for another day.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Juggling
I'm beginning to see my life as a circus. No, not because my house is filled with side show freaks, although if I find another chin hair I may be classified as a bearded lady. But because I'm becoming a world class juggler.
Juggling is hard. Keeping all the balls in the air takes practice. But imagine juggling fiery balls or razor sharp knives. Juggling relationships is akin to that.
If I were to lose my grip on a ball and it bounced around on the floor or rolled under the furniture to live forever with the dust bunny families that have taken up residency there, no harm done. Not maintaining perfect juggling of personalities or family members that I'm required to keep far enough apart that we live in relative harmony has far greater consequences. Beside my need for an early refill of Xanax or an emergency visit to Dr. Awesome. Tears are shed and things are said that can be far more painful than mis-juggling razor sharp knives.
There are conflicts in my family that if left without buffers could open into Grand Canyon sized chasms. I've pretty much made it my life's work to be responsible for keeping that from happening.
It's a challenging task and every now and then I unintentionally drop whatever I'm juggling at the time and people get hurt. Things get said that can't be pulled back before they cause a heart to hurt. Words that damage things that band aids can't fix.
This is my Big Top and I will stumble though being responsible to keep all the balls in the air until I just can't do it anymore or until someone loses a limb, then it's somebody elses turn to juggle.
Juggling is hard. Keeping all the balls in the air takes practice. But imagine juggling fiery balls or razor sharp knives. Juggling relationships is akin to that.
If I were to lose my grip on a ball and it bounced around on the floor or rolled under the furniture to live forever with the dust bunny families that have taken up residency there, no harm done. Not maintaining perfect juggling of personalities or family members that I'm required to keep far enough apart that we live in relative harmony has far greater consequences. Beside my need for an early refill of Xanax or an emergency visit to Dr. Awesome. Tears are shed and things are said that can be far more painful than mis-juggling razor sharp knives.
There are conflicts in my family that if left without buffers could open into Grand Canyon sized chasms. I've pretty much made it my life's work to be responsible for keeping that from happening.
It's a challenging task and every now and then I unintentionally drop whatever I'm juggling at the time and people get hurt. Things get said that can't be pulled back before they cause a heart to hurt. Words that damage things that band aids can't fix.
This is my Big Top and I will stumble though being responsible to keep all the balls in the air until I just can't do it anymore or until someone loses a limb, then it's somebody elses turn to juggle.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Shopping
I *may* be addicted to shopping.
I'd like to say that I have the disposable income to support my love of buying but as I'm often reminded, I don't. As my mom pointed out while I was young, just because you have checks left in the box doesn't mean you can keep writing them. You know, back when people used to write checks instead of sliding a debit card. Credit cards on the other hand, well those stretch my love just a little farther. But shhhhh....that's a secret just between us.
I shop when I'm happy. I shop when I'm not so happy and I need a pick-me-up.
Shoes I'll never wear. Purses that I'll carry for a few short months before I'm again looking for a new one. Clothes I may never take the tags off of, gathering dust in my closet. Things I don't need but can't pass up.
But the tiniest clothes are by far my favorite purchases.The baby department has a magnetic pull that is as strong as if I were nothing but a giant paperclip.
I don't see my grandbabies nearly as often as I'd like to and I rarely buy things that I am drawn to for fear that they will be outgrown before they ever get to see them. Yet I still spend crazy amounts of time searching for the perfect little dress or the sweetest onesie. I even carry them around the store thinking how darling she'll look or questioning whether his tiny toes will have room to wiggle.
Before I put them down and wander out empty handed.
But yesterday something happened. A tiny heartbeat on an ultrasound monitor. A date in January with a new baby who will be shared with me.
A new mommy and daddy will be born.
Until then, let the shopping commence!
I'd like to say that I have the disposable income to support my love of buying but as I'm often reminded, I don't. As my mom pointed out while I was young, just because you have checks left in the box doesn't mean you can keep writing them. You know, back when people used to write checks instead of sliding a debit card. Credit cards on the other hand, well those stretch my love just a little farther. But shhhhh....that's a secret just between us.
I shop when I'm happy. I shop when I'm not so happy and I need a pick-me-up.
Shoes I'll never wear. Purses that I'll carry for a few short months before I'm again looking for a new one. Clothes I may never take the tags off of, gathering dust in my closet. Things I don't need but can't pass up.
But the tiniest clothes are by far my favorite purchases.The baby department has a magnetic pull that is as strong as if I were nothing but a giant paperclip.
I don't see my grandbabies nearly as often as I'd like to and I rarely buy things that I am drawn to for fear that they will be outgrown before they ever get to see them. Yet I still spend crazy amounts of time searching for the perfect little dress or the sweetest onesie. I even carry them around the store thinking how darling she'll look or questioning whether his tiny toes will have room to wiggle.
Before I put them down and wander out empty handed.
But yesterday something happened. A tiny heartbeat on an ultrasound monitor. A date in January with a new baby who will be shared with me.
A new mommy and daddy will be born.
Until then, let the shopping commence!
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