Sad Expressions

Today was a hard day.  I attended a funeral for a colleague.  She was young (44) and leaves behind two sons and a devoted husband.  Needless to say, I was keenly aware of her children's pain as I face that with my boys every day.

Rest in peace, Julia.  I'm honored to have known you.  And I will continue to keep Rad and the boys in my prayers.

What a difference a year makes

I just re-read the few blogs I've written in the past year.  Didn't write much.  need to get better about that.

Of course, one of the few I wrote was in June -- because June is a bad month for me.  And now it's much worse.

I can't believe I haven't written about what has happened the past few months.  Maybe writing makes it too real.  On April 15 of this year, I got a phone call from my ex-husband's mom.  My youngest son, J, was supposed to leave for Texas the next day for his annual spring break visit with his dad.  Bob's mom called to tell me that Bob was in the hospital and that I shouldn't send J.  They thought he had a stroke.  So, I cancelled J's trip.

My youngest stepdaughter, Linda, left that night for Texas (from Louisiana).  By Sunday, the hospital was saying that it was prescription drug withdrawal and sent him home.  At that point, we decided to send my oldest son, C.  He flew into Texas Thursday morning.  Linda left the next day.  C and I talked daily.  His dad was not doing very well -- hallucinating, not knowing where he was.

Still, I expected things to get better.  They didn't.  C was supposed to come home the following Monday.  That morning at 530am, he called me and said he was taking his dad to the hospital.  A half hour later, Linda called saying the hospital had called her and said that Bob had a heart attack and was in critical condition.  At 7am,  C called me.

His dad was gone.

What?

How can that be?

Two months later, I'm still numb.  And pissed off.  And sad.

I need to write more about the whole "trip to Texas" experience.  But not now.

I was talking about June.

The boys always went to visit their dad in June.  Because Fathers day is in June.  And Bob's birthday is June 23.

Needless to say, it has been a rough few weeks.  And, of course, today is the anniversary of my mom's death.  25 years.  Feels like yesterday.  That hole inside of me is still there.  And now my boys have holes too.

June sucks.

Thankful Expressions

Thank you.  To my husband.  To my children.  To God.  To my friends.  To my mom and grandma.  To my spirit guides.  To the angels.

I will never be able to show enough gratitude.

New Year Expressions

2010
 was a tough year for us.  As my oldest son approached the big 18th birthday, we struggled.  He struggled to become an adult.  I stuggled to let him become an adult.  How could I be his mom and let him grow when all I want to do is protect him.  He reached that milestone on the day after Christmas.  I look at him and see a 6 week old baby.

And my youngest son is approaching his 13th birthday.  He's gaining a lot of independence.  He seems to have conquered middle school with no problem.

Over the past few weeks, as I've been struggling to figure out what my role is supposed to be in their lives, I've realized that I haven't spent enough time praying...and trusting God to handle things.  I've gotten better.

The other day I was watching television (CSI Miami, believe it or not) and heard a prayer that is exactly what I need.

Angels of God
From Heaven so bright,
Watch over my children
And guide them a-right.
Fold your wings round them
And guard them with love.
Sing to them softly
From Heaven above.

I don't have it memorized yet...but I will...and it's going to become my mantra and my focus.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

It's been a long time since I wrote you a letter.  Not that it's been long since I talked to you -- seems like I do that every day.

Of all of the days/times of the year, Thanksgiving is the hardest.  It always has been.  You loved Thanksgiving so much and that love definitely rubbed off on me.  I want to take care of everybody.  Every year I go searching through your old rusted recipe box.  And every year I find your Thanksgiving menu.  I know it by heart.  But every year I sit and stare at it for an hour and hear your voice and hear the sounds of you feverishly cooking.  And every year I wish you were here so you could sit back, relax and watch me do all of the things you always did.  I miss you so much.

The boys are scattered all over the US.  Ric is too busy to visit.  Bobby can't.  Stephen can't afford to.  Then, of course, there's Dad.  I can't bring him here.  And the idea of going there terrifies me.  There's very little I wouldn't give to have any of them close to me.

And not to belittle our relationship with Doug's family.  They are awesome.  And we are very much part of that family.  We love them and they love us.  It's very much like Grandma and Grandpa Bell.  But that can't and shouldn't replace us -you and Dad and Bobby and Del and Stephen and me.

I look at my own little family and I know that we have the solid type of family relationship that I had growing up.  I know that my boys have that in their hearts and souls.  But we're at that really scary part -- the part where they're growing up and will have their own lives apart from us before too long.

Mom, I wish you were here.  I wish you could sit with me and we could talk about everything -- what it feels like to have a child on the brink of adulthood, how to juggle two full time jobs and do them both justice, the best way to make pumpkin pie....

Sometimes my need to have "my family" close by is almost palpable.  Sometimes it threatens to immobilize me.  I wake up not really sure how to proceed.  But then I hear Doug's voice or Chris' or Jesse's and I know where I am and what I'm doing.

Our Thanksgiving will be awesome this year.  I'm doing the whole "mom to the world" thing -- just like you liked to do.  I'm organizing a Thanksgiving potluck for my office that will make 100 or so people smile.  We're having pie night with some good friends of ours (I love making pies but always use Pillsbury ready made crusts!).  Then on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we're having two families that are dear friends of ours over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner -- turkey, dressing and all the fixings....almost the exact same menu as yours that's in the recipe box.  And then, on Thanksgiving day, we'll be with our Knaphus family.  (And that is a very, very good thing.  It is very much like our Thanksgivings).

It's been a really hard year in many different ways.  There have been so many days/nights that I've wished you were here.  But every time I start missing you too much, I hear Chris' five-year-old voice as we're driving through the Abilene countryside  "Mom, look!  There's your mom!  She's an angel!".  And I know you're always with us.

Happy Thanksgiving, mama.  I love you.

Your daughter always,

Rene'

Jumbled Expressions

I have sorely neglected this blog....probably out of fear of writing and admitting to an anonymous world what my family has been going through.  But we are strong.  And we love each other.  Perhaps later I will share.

Sleepless in Sandy Expressions

Expressions.  The name of my blog.  The reason I have a blog.  I need to be able to write things down.  To express.  And, yes, to vent.  The problem with "letting it all out" is that you don't know who is reading.  My husband?  My kids?  My employers?  Hmmn.  How can I be free to truly express myself?  

 Anyway, I feel the need to express.  Part of the problem is that I don't have any real friends here who I can call on the phone at any time and just let it all out.  And I don't want to constantly pester the one or two friends that I do have.  I also don't want to always vent to my brothers.

So, what's up in my little corner of the world?  Well, last night was a rough one.  My DH and I don't fight.  Seriously.  We never fight.  We get irritated and annoyed but we don't yell or scream.  But tension does invade our space at times.  Last night was one of those nights.  And why did it happen?  I'm not 100 percent sure.  I know why I was tense and I'll get into that in a minute.  I have no idea what is going on with DH.  I made a comment about the air conditioner being set so low and WHAM!  He went into full defensive mode.  I actually wasn't "accusing" him of anything.  Our air conditioner seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes (seriously, it has this programming capability that thinks for itself!).  But DH decided I was attacking him for turning the air down.  Uh.  No.  I honestly don't care what it's set on.  He said he'd turned it down the night before because we were having guests and wanted to cool the house down.  Uh.  (again).  OK.  Weird because we had a very cool evening and had the house open, but OK.  I honestly didn't really care.  

That set off a night of tension and no sleep....which, of course, didn't help anything.  I lay in bed and tried to sleep.  I tried to think of someone I could call and talk to and came up blank.  (That makes me kind of sad.)

Eventually, I feel into a restless sleep and woke up unsettled.

The truth of the matter is that I was unsettled before the ominous air conditioner episode.  For some reason, demons chose last night to rear their ugly heads.  This particular demon was addiction.  Not mine.  But fear of addiction claiming someone close to me -- again.

I was born into a family of addictive personalities.  Somehow, I managed to escape that curse.  Like so many other things, I am different than the rest of my family.  I'm the only girl.  I'm the only brunette.  Etc.  Etc.  And I'm the only one who doesn't have an addictive personality.  I'm not sure why, but there's no doubt that it's true.  I have tried all those bad habits that people get addicted to (well, no, not all of them...but the common ones) and I have always been able to walk away.  I smoked a pack a cigarettes a day for a while (not a huge habit, but a habit) and one day just set them down and never smoked again.   I've gone through period where I drank quite a bit.  One day I'd realize that I was drinking too much and I'd just stop -- even with full bottles of alcohol in the house, I'd not have a drink for months.

But, as I said, I'm the only member of my family that doesn't have the addictive personality.  every other member has, at one time or another, struggled with something.  And, for the most part, they have overcome their addictions.

Last night, I discovered one of the effects of growing up in that type of situation -- an almost overwhelming fear of addiction happening to someone that I love.  My kids.  My husband.  I don't voice this fear, however.

I have talked to my kids about the hereditary nature of addictions.  I've cautioned them without trying to scare them.  They will make their own way and hopefully my guidance will help.

But I can't share the fear with them.  Or with anyone else, really.  But I feel it.  I know that I'm ok.  That I can drink a glass of wine every night for a month and still be ok.  Because I've proven to myself that I can.  But I don't know that the people I love can do that.  And it haunts me.

My first memory of someone in the throes of addiction is from a period of time when I was seven-years-old.  My mom had left my dad.  Again.  It happened a number of times over the years.  I remember her coming home from somewhere and knowing something was wrong with her.  I had no idea what it was.  It was many years later when I found out that it was amphetamines.  That memory is burned into my brain.  And there are many more.

So, where is this rambling leading.  Nowhere.  I just needed to write it down.  Perhaps to put the fear and memories into words gives them less power.

And I know that, last night, when my DH got all wound up, he was probably feeding off of my unspoken, unexpressed fear.  I couldn't say anything.  He hadn't done anything wrong.  And my fear was/is totally unreasonable.

I spent the sleepless night telling myself that the fear was unreasonable.  Everything is fine.  And it really, really is fine. 

But that demon always seems so close at hand.