What a Life!

I feel a need to talk about my life up to now. Maybe my kids or grandkids will read it one day and know how Mom's and Grandma's life evolved.

I was sixteen. So dumb...so discombobulated. I hadn't the faintest idea what I wanted to do..what I wanted to "be." But (and I relate these things with tongue in cheek) I tried everything! I loved to sing...with a voice that "copied" more than being original (and the voice wasn't that great either). However, "pursuing" I went...finding a band that would let me sing with them. This "desire" lasted through one show. Nope, I didn't want to sing. "I think I want to be a model" was my next "want to be." Evidently, I either had a great deal of confidence in myself or I was full of moxie. I began modeling - which didn't last. Well, why don't I be an airline stewardness...why not? I got as far as practically being hired until he asked if I had any partials...I did. "I'd send you to Atlanta for training if I thought you could get through," he said. Thank you, God, for his not sending me...I would have been scared out of my wits!

I was getting on in age toward 20...still discombobulated. I got a job as a typist even though my highest score was 25 wpm. (He said he didn't know why he was hiring me). I watched...I listened...and noticed the secretaries wearing pretty clothes. I taught myself to type a bit better and climbed the ladder to some very good secretarial jobs...secretary to a City Manager, a Director in a Cancer Hospital, a secretary to a Hospital Administrator, a secretary to a very rich attorney. In the meantime, I married, having four children...four wonderful children. But I continued my secretarial jobs...in a Presidential Campaign. At 69, after a while at home, I interviewed for another secretarial job for an attorney. Never thinking I'd get it, I got it. And here I am at 77, a secretary, a mom and a grandmother. Oh, I forgot my most fulfilling pursuit...writing a book. I sat down and wrote a book - it was even published. I'm writing another one, but hate the thought of marketing it if I did get it published.

I'm getting that itchy feeling to move on with my life and do something different. In this blog, I suppose I'm telling my grandchildren to get their heads screwed on right while they're young...well, maybe I'm telling them that, but maybe I'm also saying a little discombobulation makes life interesting...at least it was for me. Let's see...I haven't jumped out of a plane....yet.

Finding My Way

You can't pray your loved one back. You can't ask God to reverse your life to the "before," before it happened...to give you a chance to make it better...make it not happen. God doesn't do things that way. You have to climb that mountain..to regain your faith that there is, indeed, a God. Noone can climb it for you. My climb has been so steep, and my faith shallow. I questioned God...are You there? Is there REALLY a You?

My brother was home for a family reunion. We had lunch and talked. To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of the "New Earth." Had it been discussed in church or Sunday School? I don't remember. All I remember is he spoke of the New Earth...he described it to me... so vividly, his excitment showing through his words..and my head grabbed around it...I could feel my heart doing the same. I had visualized my husband and son in a big, white farm house and, somehow, this confirmed it. All of my family would be together again...we would be happy...there would be no tears, no heartache and thank God, no grief.

I'm not completely to the top of that mountain yet, but there is a hope taking the mountain's place. There's a fullness of heart There's a touch of spirit I have not had for a long time. My belief is returning...not my loved one as I'd prayed for...but a sense of relief...if I can only hold onto it.

I See You

My darling son, although you're gone, I see you everywhere. A blinking star reminds me you are there, perhaps winking at me, saying, "It's okay, Mom; I'm okay. A cloud comes into view and in my eye it is a vision of you, on somedays strumming your guitar; on others only floating in happiness. A young man passes by; he is wearing a stained, ragged ballcap, wearing a worn jacket like the one you got from the army store.

You are in my kitchen, sitting at the computer, so engrossed you don't hear me say "I love you, and I miss you so much." You're coming in the back door, a sheepish look on your face. You hand me a Three Muskateer, my favorite candy bar.

"You want milk, Mom?" you ask when I prepare our plates to take to the livingroom to eat and watch "Cash Cab," together.

You will never be far away. I see you everywhere.

If Heaven Had Email

Matt, if heaven had email, I would email you each morning. As I sit with my coffee, where you and I once sat, you are, as always, on my mind. I want to talk to you; to tell you what's happening; to listen to you. Mornings were ours. The last of our mornings were not too good. I fussed at you; berated you about using drugs. "Please stop," I would say. Now I know you couldn't; not on your own.

Oh, how I wish I could look into your eyes again; to hug you again (and more often), telling you how very much I loved you. It's too late...you're gone.

If heaven had email, I would tell you how very sorry I am -- sorry that I didn't understand addiction; sorry I didn't help you more.

Matt, your Dad is near death. I have told him when it's time, you will come after him. He's very tired; very sick. I will not try to hold him back. He longs to see you too.

If heaven had email, I would tell you..."it's okay; you can come get your "Dude," as you called him.

You are forever dear in my heart...I will always keep you there.

I love you,
mom

The Heartbreak of Grief

My son is dead - murdered like an ordinary thug or gang member. He didn't deserve it! Yes, he was on drugs...Oxycontin had wrapped itself around this wonderful, gentle soul and he was trying so hard to rid himself of this horrible disease. But, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. The young gang member who killed him might as well of killed me.

My son went to a home to buy a pill; I don't know what kind. He had asked me to give him 40.00 to buy Suboxone (a prescription drug to stop cravings). It always worked for him, but going to a certified physician to obtain Suboxone is very, very expensive. We didn't have the money to get him this care. Oh, had I known what would happen I would have sold the house...anything! "I'll be right back, Mom," are the last words I heard. He lay in the Critical Care, dying, his head wrapped up, his eyes closed. The boy has boasted..."I hit him over and over until he stopped moving." The thought makes my heart almost stop.

It's useless to go into the details...it won't bring the talented, creative, well-educated first son. If any of you have kids who are on drugs...don't stop until you get them to a doctor who can perscribe Suboxone!!

Grief overpowers me at times. People say things like, "How do you think God felt when he gave his son." There are times I don't care how God felt. I have begged God to let me see my son again. "Ask and you shall receive," is not working. I've always believed in God, but you go through so much grief, so many questions, you doubt your own belief. It will be a long journey to truth, to trust. I know he's in the best rehab there is, but the hurt and anguish is beyond repair.

Life, Love and Laughter

I am in Youth, Part II. In other words, I’ve been ‘round the bend a few times, have heard every expletive known to man, and an expert in the how’s and why’s of wifeology and motherhood. I can look at my four adult children and think, ”how in the world did I grow these people and why am I not in the nut house?” I can look at my husband of some 49 years and think, “and the reason I married you was?” But I look back and think of the life, love and laughter that has followed me into my golden years, and I am glad I stayed the course.

Life is a bowl of spilled milk on your freshly mopped floor. Life is “growing up” your children and struggling to grow with them. Life is wrapping your arms around your husband when he becomes unlikable. Life is hurting for your children when they’re disappointed. Life is holding back tears and smiling when you’re down. Life is not looking down at someone else when you’re up. Life is waking up to a brand new day and living that day to it’s fullest – hoping for a tomorrow – but living it in such a way as to not be quite sure it will appear. Life is good.
Love is cleaning up the spilled milk and holding your temper. Love is understanding and patience with your children’s growing pains. Love is often laughing and crying at the same time. Love heals little boys skinned knees and teenage daughters broken hearts. Love is a friend who knows all your faults and still loves you. Love is a gift to be received and an even better present to give others. Love is good.

On Sisters

When I was small, there were three older, bigger girls who lived with us. I wasn’t particularly interested in them until they did something I liked, like singing. The three of them gathered in the living room around the piano played by a man with red kinky hair and a bulbous nose. Liz sang tenor, Midge sang alto, while Frankie belted out lead in a strong, husky voice. Harmony was not something I understood; how three voices can make three different sounds that mesh into a beautiful melody. I tried all harmony parts – tenor, alto and lead – too high, too low, too off-key. Their singing could bring me inside from playing hopscotch, which was my forte.

Midge, tall, blonde and willowy, closed her eyes when she sang. Liz, petite with hennaed hair, leaned into Frankie when she sang, irritating her, causing her short, black hair to bounce back and forth in a “no” gesture, or maybe it was only her way of keeping time to the music.

“You’re listening to WNOX, Knoxville, Tennessee,” came out of the radio each Wednesday, and with it came the voices of my three sisters. Songs such as Tuxedo Junction, Sentimental Journey, and Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me,” were sung in perfect harmony. I listened, undoubtedly smiling, although it wasn’t something I remember as being impressive, simply those three girls who lived with us singing on the radio.

To say I idolized my three sisters, looking up to them, would be a misnomer. At that time in my life they were only older people who often told me to get lost. Being eight years younger than Liz, the youngest one, I looked at them with unseeing eyes.

When I was a teenager, they became an extension of my mother, often telling me what to do, when to do it, but mostly not to do it. They were bossy. After each of them acquired a husband and children, I became a babysitter for them, one they would or wouldn’t have to pay. I learned that people who came home happy from parties paid better.

Then I became twenty. Suddenly the three older but no longer bigger girls became my sisters. They looked at me differently, or was it I who looked at them differently? They still sang and, at last, I joined Frankie with my off-key lead voice. We laughed together at me.

Just when I began enjoying their company and the feeling became mutual, I married and followed my husband to another city. I missed them. We talked on the phone, wrote letters, and visited from time to time, but I longed to be nearer to them. I came to know and cherish the bond we had finally formed as sisters.
I became older; they became older, and all too quickly, one by one, they died. The older, bigger girls who lived at our house, who fused harmony into melodious music, who bossed me and underpaid me for babysitting, who were there for me with an understanding heart, are gone. Their voices continue to carry a sweet memory, but it has left my life off-key.

The Kitchen Table

There is such magic in a kitchen table. I have often thought if mine could talk how much it would reveal. It collects such things as tears, coffee, spilled milk, smeared jelly, goodbye kisses and school books. If the top of it became transparent, it would reveal grocery lists, notes to and from the children, poetry, and scores of secret daydreams and fantasies quickly written and thrown away.

If my kitchen table had feelings, it too would reveal a warmth in tousled-haired little boy smiles in the morning, hurt for the teenaged daughter problems, and would wrap its arms around my friend who feels she is growing old. Sometimes, I wonder if it cringes when harsh words are spoken over it and feels the pain of not being able to take them back.

The square of wood in my kitchen holds many memories, as well as reams of paper n which I reflect the woes of wife and motherhood; the love, life and laughter of a once six-placement family that, somehow, too quickly, dwindled to two.