Rest

We’ve all seen the image.  Maybe a Facebook friend posts it along with an inspirational quote below the image of a woman standing on the beach, her arms wide-spread, maybe a scarf is billowing in the breeze.  Of course, she’s beautiful, young, and thin.  She’s healthy and strong. Of course, she is.  She is powerful, because she is embracing change.  The quote is always about change.  Maybe one of these:

“Change or die.” – Alan Deutschman

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Charles Darwin

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

Baseball Memories

 

When I was a little girl, my father gave me the most important gift, the gift of acceptance and unconditional love.

I was in the midst of those awkward middle school years.  I was trying so hard to be cool, to be like everyone else.  Above all, I wanted to fit in.  All my friends played softball, so of course, I signed up to be on a team, too.  I hated every single moment of it.  I was afraid of being hit by a ball.  I couldn’t catch, pitch, throw, or hit.  Yet I kept right on trying.  I went to each practice.  When I got home, my dad spent countless hours trying to teach me and trying to help me improve.  Nothing worked.  I didn’t improve no matter how hard I tried.  As hard as I was working to be better, my heart wasn’t in it.  I wanted to be reading a book, or playing the piano, or spending time with my pets.  The only things I liked about playing softball was sitting on the bench, visiting with my friends, and going to the concession stand after the game.

Runaway

 

My daughter, who recently turned 20, ran away from home when she was 14 years old.  I don’t remember if I have ever written about this horrible time from the past.  It was a horrible incident, and probably one of the worst experiences I ever had as a parent.  That is saying a lot, considering we have lost two children and our oldest son had a terrible accident (brain injury, multiple broken bones, and was in a coma for three weeks) when he was 12.  What made the runaway incident worse by far was the fact that she chose to leave.  She chose to hurt us.  My babies didn’t choose to die, choose to leave me.  My son didn’t choose to be injured.  She chose not to care.  She chose to hurt the ones who loved her.

My Amazing 10-Year-Old

She wasn’t planned.  She wasn’t even supposed to be here.

In 2001, I was pregnant for the fifth time.  I had three living children.  Needless to say, my pregnancy history wasn’t good.  Because of that fact, I had a standing order for a tubal ligation after this birth.  My plan was to stay an extra day after delivery and have my tubes tied.  In the event of a c-section, I had made it clear that I wanted my tubes tied during the procedure.  My wishes were noted on my medical charts.

Proboscis

We were all sitting on the patio this evening.  Cocktail Hour.  T and I sat watching a large moth gathering nectar.  It was huge and looked almost like a humming bird.  The moth moved from planter to planter, flower to flower.

Em watched it along with us, and she was fine until we told her that it was NOT a humming bird.  Then she freaked out as if the moth were suddenly going to attack her.  I explained to her that the moth didn’t have a stinger.  When it darted past her head as it moved to the other side of the patio.  Em was ready to go back inside.

I asked her to calm down and told her to look at his proboscis as he moved through the pot of petunias.  “His what?” she said.  I asked T if this was a Hornworm Moth, sometimes called a Hawk Moth.  Em looked shocked.  She thought she knew her parents, and we were suddenly talking like a couple of entomologists.

Reunited!

T quit his job.  Yep.  His last day was Friday.  By 6:00 p.m. he was home.  Home here with me.  After four months of living apart, we’re under the same roof once again.  Two empty houses sit back at home.  Neither one of them are sold.  Although we have an offer pending on my parents’ home, we’re not taking that for granted.  Four previous offers have fallen through at the 11th hour.  T had hoped to have a job offer prior to quitting his job and moving here.  Hopefully, he will by the end of this week, but that hasn’t happened yet.  Finally….finally…finally after months of living apart, T took a GIANT leap outside of his comfort zone.  He said a mental “F*&# it” and joined his family.  

Not A Hallmark Card

***Another “Blast From the Past.”  I’ve been reading through the blog posts in the Drafts folder.  I’m deleting some of them.  Others, like this one, I will post.

This entry was written on Sept. 5, 2011.  Weird that I would read this today….exactly two years after I wrote this entry.  All I can say is, “WOW!”  Our lives, all of our lives, have changed so much in these past two years!  

I called Andrew tonight, and read him this blog entry.  He was stunned, too, by how things have changed.  Thankfully, the changes have been for the better.  Yes, there have been many, many growing pains along the way, but I am so very proud to say that we’re all in a better place now.  🙂

As much as I wish that my life would be as neat and tidy as a Hallmark card, things usually end up being much more like the made-for-TV, full-blown, Sunday night Hallmark movie, a Kleenex box tear-jerker.

Let’s Go Home

T came to visit us early last weekend.  He had to be in Milwaukee for a second interview on Friday, so he came to my house to stay the evening before to cut down on travel time and the need to get up ridiculously early.  He had never been here for a visit on a “regular” work/school day, and he asked a lot of questions.  “Is this what you guys usually do?”  “Do you want me to do that for you?”  (As we all prepared our own dinners and did the evening household chores.)  He seemed like an observer in his own “home” as the girls and I went about our regular routines.  He observed it all with a smile.  The three women in his life may not be doing things the way he would do them, but we had somehow managed to come up with a routine that worked for us.  Four months apart, four months in separate homes, has changed all of us.  We have all grown, and we have all found the strength to face a multitude of changes.  With all of the growth and strength, we have also discovered something else.  Even with all of this new-found independence sprouting up all over the place, we have learned (the hard way!) how very much we all need each other – not to do things for each other or because we can’t live without each other.  We have found that our lives are BETTER when we are together.