Purple Flowers June 10, 2013

There are moments in your life, defining moments that you remember where you were, what you were wearing, what you ate; odd details that have nothing really to do with the impact of the moment. 

You remember that on your way there, a car, a blue car, cut you off. You remember the flowers blooming outside the doctor’s office, unusual purple flowers that look a bit too much like onions. You think, “What an odd choice for an ornamental flower?” They aren’t very attractive. You keep thinking about those strange flowers as you sit in the doctor’s office, waiting. You have done your research. You only researched benign tumors. You have a few theories but you wait for the experts to explain it all. You listen to the too young doctor in the too large suit rambling. You can tell he is nervous. That makes you nervous, so you think about the odd purple flowers.

Stage IV Sarcoma. He’s only 20. Yes, the tumor on the CT Scan last week seemed very large but he only started having pain a month or so ago. Stage IV, how can this be? The too young doctor in the too large suit starts talking about treatment plans, U of M, and the dimensions of the tumor. You look at him, your boy. You can tell he has NO clue what a Stage IV diagnosis means. You look at your ex-husband; it hasn’t registered with him yet either. You keep swallowing, trying hard not to make a scene. You want to scream, cry, to vomit but you keep it together because you KNOW what Stage IV means. You see that the too young doctor in the too large suit realizes that you know. He starts looking directly at you, speaking directly to you. You don’t know what to ask? How long has it been there? Well, that is hard to say. What caused this? We really don’t know. You look at your boy again. You remember the first time you saw him. Your skin starts to crawl. You don’t know how much longer you can stay composed. The buzzing in your ears grows louder. The walls start moving. The too young doctor in the too large suit is watching you. He leaves the room to get you some information he’s printed off. You try to think about those damn purple flowers.

And there you are, making plans at the front desk for an appointment at U of M Sarcoma Clinic. He needs more blood work. He needs all his records. You agree to take him for his blood work but you say you have to do something first, that you will pick him up in a few minutes. Driving across town, you keep thinking of the purple flowers because if you think of Stage IV Sarcoma you are not going to be able to move. People are waiting for the news. You call your sister. You have to say the words out loud. You start to unravel. You manage to post the information and a prayer request before your hands start shaking uncontrollably. You are undone. You let it happen. It pours out of you. You try to breathe. You know you have to compose yourself. He needs you to be strong. Dear God, how can I be strong? My baby boy has Stage IV Sarcoma. He’s only 20. 

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy May 23, 2013

“Don’t freak mom.” Those words do more to send a mother’s blood pressure to the roof than any other. “I finally went to a doctor about that pain in my side.”

Nate had told me about his side just a few weeks earlier. It hurt enough to keep him up at night and compared to his left side, it did seem swollen. Having a nephew who had Lymphoma at 16, I had insisted he get that looked at.

“They did a Chest X-Ray and there is a mass of unknown origin and I have a CT Biopsy scheduled for Monday, can you take me?”

A mass of unknown origin, a MASS, how can he have a mass? Maybe it’s a pulled muscle? Maybe it’s an inflamed fatty tissue? A CT Biopsy? He’s only 20 years old.

Monday morning we arrive an evidently we are late. He said it was an 11:00 am appointment. They girl explains that he was supposed to be there at 9:00 am for prep. We assume we are going to have to reschedule, but they don’t. She says, ‘no problem.’ No problem, being late for a scheduled appointment at a doctor’s office? She calls to the back and says a number that must reference Nate. She looks up and says, “We will get you right in.” Right in? What is happening here? This is NOT how the medical world works. You are late, you have to wait. We barely sit down and they call us back. The waiting room is packed. I am somewhat confused at the star treatment. I note to myself, Nate is getting the red carpet treatment here, why?

They make him put on a hospital gown. He’s so tall his feet hang off the end of the bed. I don’t want to scare him but I remember how painful my lung biopsy was so I tell him to be sure to tell the technician that it hurts, not to suck it up like I did if he feels any pain. They come and take some blood work. There is some blood on the bed. His blood. I try not to think about my son in a hospital gown, with an IV, lying in a hospital bed, about to get a CT Needle Biopsy on a mass of unknown origin. I joke about his feet hanging off the bed. He isn’t even scared. At 20 years old he’s 10 foot tall and bullet proof. They take him back and direct me to another waiting room.

I have a book in my hand, one of my favorite authors. I realize that I have read the same paragraph three times and still have no idea what it says. Reading is not going to work. I stare at the huge fish tank that is directly across from where I am sitting. A small child comes up with her father and they look at the fish.

In the movies, when parents deal with terminal illnesses in their children, it’s all so very dramatic. They scream, “No, take me instead!” I start making my pact with God. I can’t scream. It’s a quiet breath that is barely a whisper that says, Oh God, please, just take me instead.”

My sister told me to write down Nate’s entire medical history to take to U of M. I frantically get out my blue notebook and just start randomly noting doctor’s visits, ER visits, asthma, tubes in his ears and my pregnancy for him.

Nate wasn’t planned. Elissa was only six months old when I got pregnant for Nate. I knew his dad wasn’t going to be happy about having another one so soon. I’m not really sure I am ready for another one either. Its Christmas time and I have morning sickness but I haven’t told anyone yet that I’m pregnant.  Good grief, I’m still nursing Elissa. At my parent’s house, I feel sick, crampy. I start to spot. I know what’s happening. I have been through this before. I fight the urge to push and keep saying, no, God no, please not again, please. I keep begging and finally say the words, I want him. I immediately calm down and I hear a still small voice say, “Even if he’s special?” I say yes, out loud and repeat, “Yes, I want him, even if he’s special.” The pains stop. I tell no one about this. It’s February before I even tell his dad that I am pregnant. I spend the entire pregnancy wondering what ‘even if he’s special’ means.

Nate was a planned C-section. I argued with the doctors that they had the date wrong; they were going to take him too early. I knew when he was conceived.  They told me they would only change the date if I had an amino. No way was I having one of those. So August 27^th, early in the morning, Nathan Thomas Bracher was born weighing 9lbs, 3oz and 23 inches. He was covered in vernix. He looked like he had been dipped in pancake batter! I kissed his face anyway. He had the blackest eyes I had ever seen. When he shifted them to look at you, he looked like a shark in a tank. We call him Shark Boy. He had a problem with his bilirubin levels so he was hooked up to a wallaby. He looked like a glowbug! I asked for him to be removed from my room at night because I couldn’t sleep next to this nuclear glowing baby! We call him Pumpkin Boy for his lovely orange/yellow glow.

When Nate was just over a year old, he got pneumonia, bad. He was on antibiotics for a double ear infection but I knew something was wrong. He was shaking and it appeared like he was talking in his sleep. His temperature was 106. I called the doctor’s office and told them I am coming over. When we got there I said his name and said, “Which room?” I wasn’t going to sit in a waiting room, not with a 106 temp. The doctor came right in. He started saying something to me about Nate’s temp, assuming that I was an exaggerating mom. Before he can finish the girl taking Nate’s temp says, “Doctor.” This was before ibuprofen was over the counter. The acetaminophen I had been giving him brought him no relief. One dose of ibuprofen and he wasn’t shaking anymore and peacefully sleeping, even snoring like a man. After the blood test it is confirmed pneumonia. I was given the option to put him in the hospital or treat him at home. We go home.

When he is three we spent a fourth of July in the ER. By spent I mean we are in there at 3:00pm and are not seen until 11:00pm. This was the summer Nate talked me into letting his grandpa shave his head. While we are outside and I am petting his head when I find a bump. I look, oh God there is a ladybug sized brown bug, biting him. I try to flick it off. It won't budge. I try to pull it. It won't budge. So off to ER. Nate was such a trouper that day. We only had a handful of toys but he was great. This is the time period he is called Nater Tornader. He’s usually a bit of an energetic kid. Finally when it’s nearing 11:00pm I go to the girl at the desk and say, “I know you have been busy. I know that drunks who fall off their boats and cut their feet on the boat propeller do take precedence over a child with a bug in his head but really? We have been here since three. It will probably take a minute for SOMEONE to take some tweezers and snatch out this bug.” It works, we are in a room! It does only take a minute to remove the STILL very much alive bug that has been sucking on my child’s head all 4^th of July night. They assure me it’s not a tick but a chigger so I'm told NOT to worry about Lyme disease but they give us some antibiotics just in case. We call him Chigger Boy for years.

There are many MANY doctors’ visits for ear infections that eventually lead to getting tubes in his ears. It took five nurses and myself to hold him still to get the IV in him before the surgery. I was holding his head, trying to keep him calm. I tell him it will only hurt for a little bit. He screams, “You lied. YOU LIED! It hurts, it STILL hurts.” One of the nurses starts to giggle. It took an abnormally long time for us to be able to see him after recovery. We finally question what is taking so long when out pops a gurney, Nate sitting up and five nurses around him laughing. One apologizes and says, “Oh, I'm sorry, we had to keep him a bit longer because he was TOO much fun.“

He is hospitalized at four with dehydration from a Roti Virus infection. This time he was way too weak to fight the insertion of the IV.

Shortly after he is diagnosed with asthma and has to start taking medications to treat his allergies. Try having a three year old on liquid albuterol!!! Bouncing off the walls does not BEGIN to describe the effects of that drug. He’s Nater Tornader again.

With each illness or medical event in his life, I wonder about the still small voice asking me, “even if he’s special?”

He breaks out in Chickenpox the night after our church Christmas program. I had to call everyone he possibly exposed to Chickenpox, including our pastor. The pastor had played the part of Jesus and was sitting among the children during the play. Unrehearsed, during the closing song, he picked up Nathan. Nathan curled up against his chest and made the whole congregation melt. Who wouldn't want to curl up in Jesus’ arms when you have a 104 temp?

Once we moved out into the country, the rest of his childhood was uneventful, health wise. He stopped taking his medications for allergies and asthma in junior high and frankly was rarely sick. Sitting there waiting for him to come back to his room after his biopsy, I really couldn't remember his last doctors visit.

The nurse comes out and says, “Can you follow me? The radiologist would like to speak with you a moment.”

The radiologist starts explaining that they were having difficulty taking a sample. He shows me a screen that displays the image of my son’s body and his mass of unknown origin. The radiologist points to these little broken white marks. “Those are his ribs. They are being destroyed from the pressure of the mass. That is what is causing him the pain.” He shows me that the mass of unknown origin is growing into the muscles on his right side; the other half of it is ‘infiltrating’ his rib cage. He repeats this same information several times. I look at him. I see in his eyes he wants to tell me more. I tell him about the nephew with lymphoma and ask him what he thinks this mass is. He quietly says, I don't think it’s lymphoma but let’s wait until the labs come back on the tissue samples before making any decisions.”

It’s echoing in the back of my head but I can still hear it.

 “Even if he’s special?”

Yes, I say again, EVEN if he’s special.

Before you cross the street,

Take my hand,

Life is just what happens to you,

While you're busy making other plans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO2v7qZClbw

Friday night…home, alone...beer & pizza. I have a few offers to go out with friends but I’m content to be in, sort of. I just broke up with a guy I had been seeing for several months. Yeah, of course he was a dick but I see where I was to blame in how it ended. Not that it ended, but how it ended. I’m disappointed and a little sad but not crushed.

I am still on my journey, not to find the perfect man but to find me. I didn’t think I was looking for me before but I am. I can tell because as each one of my dating experiences crashed and burned, I learned something, not til now but better late than never.

The Trucker – well, he was my awaking. He brought up feelings I didn’t know I had left in me. He made me feel sexy, desired, wonderful and alive. He didn’t have any follow through but I will always be grateful to him for waking ‘her’ up. We are still friends but I have no expectations of anything more with him. He flirts, we play but that’s all the further it will ever go.That’s ok. He sent me flowers a few weeks ago. Yunno, a girl really should get flowers, for no reason other than she oughta get some flowers.

The Farmer – in some ways he’s the one that got away. He was my first, on my own, dating. No one fixed me up with him. I found him ALL on my own, but it was MUCH too soon. I see that now. I had gone through 10 years of being ignored. I really didn’t know how to react to his attention. I was very awkward and stilted. He was adorable, a Peter Pan but adorable. I will forever be grateful to him for breaking my 10 year dry spell and getting me out there again. Kinda wish I could run into him again now. I think I’d be more like the kind of women he’d like to have. But again, why pine, he’s a Peter Pan. Married twice, no relationship past six years, he’s not the one, but he was a lot of fun.

The Machinist – Oh his eyes…he had a way of staring at me SO intently, I melted, JUST melted. I vowed that because I was kinda stilted with the Farmer, I’d be more expressive with this one. Yeah, it crashed and burned, well, he had some gals on the side so this one wasn’t entirely my fault. I don’t share my toys but again, OH it was FUN while it lasted.

The Milkman – this one appeared to have potential. While he was NOT my type at all, I decided to give it a go. I kept hearing, “He’s SUCH a nice guy.” I thought, ok, I’ll try this. Yeah, he wasn’t really a nice guy. He was bossy, controlling, WHINEY and selfish. What appeared to be kindness and giving was really a way to control. I didn’t have bells & whistles when I was with him but I was so comfortable around him in the beginning. This one lasted 10 months but ended in flames. The flames WERE my fault. I should have addressed my concerns instead of letting them all build up. I didn’t, and in a moment of stress, I exploded. He is rather unforgiving so he never accepted my apology so it’s over. I did just start a new job and my son is going through chemo so I didn’t ‘take’ things in my usual stride. That’s not the point. I SHOULD have spoken up sooner. I shouldn’t have let them build. Could this have been saved? We’ll never know but I can’t say that the whole 10 months was a waste of time.

So the teacher in me wants to recap. I am alive. I have been awaken from a long slumber. I have learned to be more expressive and not so reserved. I know how to respond like a real girlfriend. (that sounded dirty, oh, well, lol) I will be more careful, not so trusting right off the bat but I will speak up when I don’t like something. I would like to be with someone. I miss having someone waiting to hear about my day. I miss that. I miss phone calls & texts throughout the day. Just knowing someone was thinking of me felt wonderful.  I do want flowers, but mostly on days that there is no reason to have flowers other than he’s thinking about me. Oh, and I want bells & whistles. I think there’s something to that after all. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiBNjWrd1Nk

Blow me one last kiss.....

Today will be the only time I will ‘honor‘ this day by acknowledging. It’s not a day to celebrate, just to give a nod to, and that is all I am going to do. My divorce was final a year ago today. I was very stressed, not so much at the ending of a 25+ union, 22 of those years married, but because I acted as my own lawyer, filing all the court papers. I was more stressed I was doing that wrong, then the new direction I was heading in. I remember the day well; no one else was in the courtroom. The judge asked me to speak up. He asked me questions about the property division and asked me if I was sure. He asked me a few more questions. Then it was done. When I went to the clerk and filed the final papers, she said, “Congratulations, you’re a lawyer!” I don’t remember what I did with the rest of my day. I am pretty sure I took the day off from work. I truly don’t remember. 

The next few weeks were spent packing, hauling and moving in. The first week the house was quiet. I played the radio a lot to have noise in the house. Then as work stress became worse, I embraced the beautiful silence at the end of my work day. Took me a while to realize I didn't have to come right home after work. I didn't have to have dinner on the table by 6:00 and frankly, I could have a bowl of cereal for dinner if I wanted to. Some nights I did. 

2012 held such promise or so I thought. The year started with one low blow after another until finally the sucker punch of losing my dad. Still the bad kept coming with the abuse from management becoming so unbearable, I quit my job. I felt I had no other choice. Just when I found a job for the summer, my brother died. The loss was hard to process with how complicated his ending was, all the drama. 

Still I pressed on. What else is there to do? So many changes in my life in just one year, nothing turned out as I expected it to. Had my heart cracked a few times but hey, at least it wasn't completely broken, right? It’s hard to explain but even though I have suffered so much loss in the past year, I am living alone and trying to support myself on half the pay I had this time last year, it’s still all good. Not trying to show a stiff upper lip, I truly can say, I’m ok. I feel SO at peace with the changes that needed to happen and I’m coming to terms with the changes that were forced upon me. I am worried about some things but not losing sleep over them. I am hopeful, no cliche attached, just hopeful. I am at peace. I am taking one day at a time and rolling with the punches. I've adjusted my bucket list. Some things that were important last year, didn't make the list this year. Some things got crossed off as done. New things got penciled in. 

I heard a Pink song on the radio yesterday. (yeah, someone at work changed the channel, lol) IF I had heard this song, this time last year, it would have been my “divorce song.” The first divorce I used to blare Phil Collins, “I Don’t Care Anymore.”( Helped me through my cranky days, lol) She sings naughty words, lol. I apologize in advance BUT I have to add that when you break up with someone you want to shout and swear some days. Today I don’t need to shout or swear. I’m just gonna chill, in my very quiet little house. 

…I will do what I please, anything that I want 

I will breathe, I won't breathe, I won't worry at all 

You will pay for your sins, you'll be sorry my dear 

All the lies, all the wise, will be crystal clear …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KniXq_d-o4E

The Reinvention of Me

I just read a blog by a woman who lost her husband, suddenly, a year ago. She talks about the grief process and things other widows & widowers do that 'regular' folk might find strange, little survival rituals. Like keeping clippings from his razor or reciting your vows, aloud, with your wedding DVD, just to relive the moment. She says that those of us who haven't lost a spouse or life partner can't understand the depth of the pain. I'm sure she is right. 

I understand the survival rituals though. When my dad had his massive stroke, 13 years ago, I went right to my parents house. Without thinking I went to their medicine cabinet and took his shaving brush. I did all this on auto pilot. I HAD to have that. There was no thinking. I just did it. I carried it in my pocket for months. When things got upsetting or he had a set back, I would reach into my pocket and flick the bristles a little until I calmed down. I have no idea where that came from? I used to watch him shave when I was a child. I remember him getting mad at me because I took it once and used it to put Noxzema on my face. It must have been a bigger memory than I realized because my subconscious HAD to have that. I had it in my pocket again for the few days he was in hospice. I had it in my pocket at the funeral home and on the day of his funeral. I actually wore slacks instead of a dress so I could have it in my pocket. Again, there was no thinking, I just did it. So yeah, I get these 'odd' rituals. 

But to say that those of us who are divorced don't get 'it' is not entirely true. As my marriage fell apart I grieved the things I would not have. I grieve the thought of not having someone at my side if I became ill in the hospital. I grieve that I will never celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary, with a big party, surrounded by my children and grand children. Hell, I'll never celebrate a 25th either. There is no one to share the private joke that only he would understand after 25 years together. Even though the marriage was awful in the end, there is no one in my life who knows me as well as he does and maybe never will. I grieve that. I grieve the loss of friendships with couples that we used to know and now I have awkward relationships with. I grieve no goodnights. There's a line in an old Barbara Streisand song from her 'Superman' album that says, "in the tub a hand to scrub my back is all I haven't got.."

I was never one pining to get married when I was in school. I had friends who would talk about how many children then wanted when they grew up. I used to curl my nose and say, "I'll have kids when the sell them at Sears!" I never got upset about not getting asked to a dance, even the big ones like homecoming or prom. I honestly didn't care. I kinda wanted to be asked but I didn't pine for it like some girls. Even dating a boy for two years, I never hoped, waited for or dreamed of him asking me to marry him. Then, of course, I got pregnant at 19 and that single hood I dreamed of went to the crapper. Actually, right now is the longest time, since I was 17 and had my first boyfriend, that I have not had a man in my life. I never got to live on my own before. I got married a month after I turned 20. I was married to him for 3 years, moved back to my parents, then moved down the road into a house that used to be my grandma's. By then, I had met my second husband and he started living with me. I remember Mondays was his laundry night so he stayed at his mom & dad's on those nights. I remember hating that. See with him, my second husband, I was consumed with him. I loved being with him, night & day. He was my best friend. That's what I thought our marriage was going to be like. So I have grieved over my loss of youth, of love & innocence and all that the girl I was at 26 thought her ever after was going to be. I had fireworks. When the marriage ended badly, it destroyed those memories too. It tainted them, made them sooty and damaged, like finding a photograph after a fire. The image is there but it's water logged and smells of smoke. Not as precious as it once was. 

There is a raw hollow pain that only betrayal of trust can bring to your soul. It burns cold and intense. I can't compare it to the loss of a spouse to death but the pain is real and raw. It can be brought up in an instant. It can sting like a sharp slap across the face. It can also just hang there, a dull numbing ache that resonates with each breath. Divorce is a death all of it's own. 

I have this thing I do when you screw me over. When I am done with you, I am done. I bury those feelings down. I'm told that's not healthy. I'm told that ONE day those feelings come to the surface. I assure you, that is not true. You bury them deep enough, they just decompose. I have been hurt, so many times, by family, by husbands, by lovers that this is my coping mechanism. I don't just tuck them away and cry about them when no one is listening. I bury them, they are gone, I cannot retrieve them. The sad part of that is a piece of me gets buried with each emotional burial. That part of me that loved and laughed, hoped and dreamed with that person, the person I was with that person, gets buried to. I then have to reinvent myself. I'm of an age now that my rational brain knows that there are other ways to handle emotional damage. I can process these events, work through them and move on. I have had to except several losses, permanent losses, in the past few months. I am losing the desire to keep putting people in my emotional cemetery. You'd think that would mean I have gone to lengths to mend a few current broken relationships. No, it hasn't. They are buried you see, along with the me who cared about them so there will be no sweet resurrections. I am just not adding anymore to the bone-yard. Am I more open and forgiving or just not letting myself be effected negatively? I don't know. Well, I do know...

I don't have anyone 'in' that close anymore. I let a few get near the entrance but made them keep their distance. They obliged. I have questioned before, what if I simply don't have the capacity for those type of emotional entanglements anymore? I haven't had a best girlfriend in years. I have some girlfriends but not a best friend, not since high school. Truth is I never really have gotten along well with women. I am not close to my mother or my sister. I think that is how my second husband became my soul mate, he was the only one I needed for so long. I was VERY content with just him for years. I don't see myself having that in my life again. 

I won't compare the next 'big' thing in my life to this. There will be no comparison. It's just a fact. Oh, I don't doubt I will have love in my life again. It will be nice. It will be wonderful and I will be happy. It just won't be what I thought I had, which will be good, because what I thought I had wasn't real. It's like finding out the actors in your favorite love story didn't like each other in real life. Kills the on screen chemistry you thought you saw. 

I think the set backs I have had this year, my losses, have been to make sure I don't get too tough. Women who have been burned tend to do that. I've never wanted to appear as a woman in need of a man, desperate and clingy without one. I've also never wanted to appear like a woman who could do without one. I like men. I like them a lot. I don't like the ones who hurt me but I'm not ready to throw the man-baby out with the bath water. Maybe I just don't have any fight left in me to keep my guard up anymore. I don't think it's because I am emotionally well or ready for a new relationship as much as I am surrendering to the fact that I need people in my life. I need them close to me. I need some very close. I need one even closer. Yeah, I said need. 

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” 

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars 

Turn Me Loose

I've been looking at my ring finger on my left hand, for almost a year. It was last July that I cut it off  my finger in some sort of symbolic gesture of ending it all, well, the marriage.

I'd been telling a very small circle of friends for about a year, that it was gonna  happen. SOME I even told why. Mostly I just implied it to people who didn't matter, who didn't really care. I was talking myself into this. Not that I needed to, really, I had known for years the marriage was over and nothing was gonna change. Last summer a friend got in my face and said, "I don't think you want to leave. You only talk about it. Why haven't you left yet? I hear lots of excuses.'" Ok, that friend WAS a man and my reasons were not really excuses. I was very concerned about going broke, because of my job situation and here I am, broke. I wanted to wait til I had a different job and again, here I sit, thinking that is never gonna happen. So broke or not, I AM glad I am out.

But that ring finger??? I cut the ring off because I wanted it OFF! I didn't want to go to a jeweler and make up an excuse but it was stuck on my fat finger. It hasn't been off in 15 years. I was married for 21, had it off for a while when I was pissed early on but realizing I had two small children and no real means of survival for all of us, I put the ring back on and waited.

It bothers me. That finger, it bothers me. I still move my thumb on the back of the ring finger to adjust a ring that's not there. Like a phantom limb, I think I can feel it needing to be adjusted. Then there is the nasty dent. My ring finger looks like those seedy salesmen who when they are out of town, slipping their ring in their pocket to play games. It's no longer frog belly white like last summer but that damn dent is STILL there. I mean it's noticeably. If you were a hot guy, checking me out and scanned that finger for a ring, you say, "Damn, what is she up too?" So no hot guys are currently checking me out but yunno, it could happen. But mostly I don't like it because it reminds ME. I see it all the time. Reminds me of the day I cut my finger hacking that ring off my hand. Reminds me of the day when I was real low on cash and I tried to find out how much my $1,700 diamond investment was worth. Surely that emerald cut was still worth something. Yeah right, diamonds are an investment. The guy told me he'd give me $35 for the gold. Told me the diamonds weren't worth anything unless I wanted to try to sell them on Craigslist and maybe I could get $300. Seriously, I'd like to go back to 1990 and choke that skinny clerk who talked me into the wrap I didn't really want. Investment my ass. The wedding ring is supposed to be a symbol of your love. A symbol of the perpetual joining of a man and woman (sorry, I don't feel like correcting myself to be politically correct) til the end of time, blah, blah blah.

Myy ring, cut in half, twisted, metal all jagged, is still a symbol too. Pretty obvious, don't think I need to spell that one out. So when I see that finger, with that marital scar, that dent from a ring that dug into my flesh, I get a lil' pissed. I want it gone and it isn't showing signs of fading. So the obvious solution is, another ring. One that doesn't look like an engagement ring or a wedding ring. I was thinking it would be equally symbolic to purchase that ring, in the same month of the year before that I made my grand gesture. Yee-ah, no job, not gonna happen. So maybe on September 27th, the year anniversary the divorce was final, I will get a celebration of being single ring. Whoopee, ok that was a sarcastic whoopee but really, Whoopee. I AM single, by MY choice. With the shit year I have had, with the job struggles, with the money struggles and where I sit RIGHT now, with technically no future by some standards, I feel good. This stress is different. I am not consumed by it. I am not overwhelmed by it. Yes, I still panic but honestly, I am at peace with this. I made the right choice. I cut the dead weight and I truly have the whole world ahead of me. Like a high school graduate with the whole great wide world in front of them. I could go anywhere, do anything, be with whomever I want to be and live my life by my rules.

That does feel good. 'I' am my only responsibility. My choices only effect me. Thing is, I have NO clue where I want to be or what I want to do. I am like a horse turned out to pasture who still thinks they are tied to the gait. I'm grazing near the fence. I need to get running out in the pasture. I need to kick up my heels and be free. The marks on my face from wearing that halter too long, keep me near the fence. There is a trick cowboys taught their horses, that if the reins dropped, the horse stopped and stayed put. You couldn't be miles from home and lose your ride back. It's called ground tying. The horse isn't tied to anything but once the reins are dropped, straight down, the horse will stop and stay there. They won't pull away for greener grass or a drink of water. They can be spooked and run loose but once that run is over and those reins drop to the ground again, there they will be. Someone needs to yell, YeeHaw and get me moving...somewhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWIVi_Oa4as

Shadows and Images

It's grey today, over cast and sprinkling just a little. It's also much too cool for the first week in May. I did my laundry today, not that exciting but when I was done and heading home, for some reason I turned right instead of left. Left was home. Right was a trip through a ghost town. I was the only one who could see the ghost or hear the echos, but they were there.

I drove past the Harley dealership. It used to be Roy's Western Store. My FAVORITE place to stroll when I was a child. Even before I got my pony, I knew that store well and they knew me. There was this turquoise suede Western saddle that I would drool over every time I went in there. I bought my Breyer farm horses from there. I only had two or three. I wasn't into collecting plastic horses, not when there were real ones to ride. I saw all that with just a glance over there. I saw the parking lot with beige puddles of water that you had to dodge when walking into the store. I didn't see all the yellow lines that are painted on the now paved parking lot of the dealership. I saw my first duck, Peeper, in the bottom of a cardboard box with a big red light on him. I bought him for 50 cents. I had so much fun with that duck. I saw my friend, Tammy Schafer with her wiry strawberry blond hair, being my shadow, as usual, running her hand along the silver on the fancy bridles hanging on the wall. I saw all that with one glance.

Further down the road another left turn had me driving past Scott Picardy's house. Scott was a very special best friend of mine for years. I met him in 2nd or 3rd grade. I was in trouble and my punishment was to stay inside and miss recess. Cruel and unusual punishment for my crime, whatever it was. Scott was inside because he was sick. He had Cystic Fibrosis. It was years before I understood that it was a death sentence. Riding past his house I heard his laugh. OH he had a beautiful deep, raspy laugh. His smile was big like caricature drawings of Jerry Lewis smiling. Almost all my memories of Scott involve that laugh. He died at 22 years old. They said that was a long life for someone with CF. But it wasn't long enough.

I drove on past the very elementary school where Scott and I met. I heard the voices of my childhood classmates, smelled the hamburger and gravy cooking for our lunch and felt my feet running out through the battlefield, as we called the back field. I played SO much baseball there and kickball and tag, lotsa lotsa games of tag. My friend, Sandy, fell from the swings and broke her arm. The chain broke and she went sailing through the air. Learning about the accident my dad stated the obvious, "Why do they have pavement on playgrounds?" The cracks in the pavement were great for playing marbles. I wonder whatever happened to my collection?

A right turn at the corner had me passing Luana's childhood house, the one where we went for Brownie's and Girl Scouts. GOD I hated Girl Scouts. I could hear her mom and Patti's mom as they tried to teach us how to sew on buttons. Whatever. I hated doing that girly stuff to earn patches on a sash that I hated to wear. On meeting days we were supposed to wear our uniforms to school. It was a dress, no WONDER I hated it! Another left turn, then another and I was at the corner where my ex-husband, my high school boyfriend's house was. His parents moved away years ago. The lot next to their house was sold and a much too big house was built in the place of my ex-father-in-laws beautiful vegetable garden. He was a funny man, I liked him. My ex-mother-in-law, not so much. I could hear Rob's voice, his nervous chatter the night of our first date when he took me to show me the house. It was being built and didn't have the flooring. He talked SO much, which is really funny because he truly is a man of very few words. The pine tree his parents planted in the front yard the year they moved in, is gone, cut down. Rob's basketball hoop is still up. He played on the school's varsity team. Yup, I was the girl from the other side of the tracks' and he was the rich jock. His dad was my dad's boss at work. That romance/marriage was doomed. Our son will turn 30 this May. The marriage didn't even last 3 years. We were SO young. I still had my braces on when we got married. One quick look over and I saw the first date and smelled the fresh paint of that new house, back in 1979.

I followed the curve and crossed over Borton St. to pick up the drive where it continued on the other side. I drove past Luana's house that she lived in when we were in high school. OMG, the nights bringing her home when we were SO drunk. Her mother hated me. She thought I was a bad influence on Luana. The truth is Luana is the one that taught ME how to drink. She taught me how to sit outside of a party store and pay someone a buck or two, to buy for us. Our drink of choice, Slo Gin and Orange Juice. We would pour out part of the juice from a gallon jug of OJ and then dump a 5th of Slo Gin in. We would drink from the jug while driving around town. We would sometimes end up at parties where everyone knew what we drank because we had reddish/pink stains around our mouths. She was popular in school. Her dad was the Biology teacher and coached Forensics and Debate. Hanging with her I met the 'theater crowd.' I went to some weird parties with the drama group, lol. Luana died February 2nd, 2011 of Pulmonary Hypertension. She was only 48. Just by glancing at her house, I saw us parked outside 7-11 waiting for the right person to ask if he would buy for us.

I knew where I was heading, to the river. I just took a trip through my memories to get there. I hadn't been back at the river since the day we buried my dad. Everyone went to the graveside service but me. I couldn't; not give him up again. I said  my goodbyes at the church. I said my final goodbyes by the river where we used to launch our boat. If we weren't there launching the boat, we were there on his motorcycle, seeing how many boats were going out. His motorcycle rides always led to water. Sometimes they were a 10 minute ride to Smith Park Boat Launch in Essexville, sometimes they were 3 1/2 hour rides up the the Mackinaw Bridge and Lake Superior, then taking the long way home along the shoreline of Lake Huron. In the fall it would be riding along Lake Michigan to head over to deer camp to see how the site was and what would be needed for October 1st, opening day of bow season.

I turned off the van. The water was so brown and rather choppy. One small green motor boat was making a slow go of it heading back in to their boat launch. This boat launch didn't get used much anymore. A new one was built on the other side of the river with a large parking lot, three docks and security to watch your vehicle while you were out on the Bay. There were large chunks of ice here, the day we buried dad. I remember watching seagulls walking on several ice floes. I looked at the dock and I remembered the April dad couldn't wait to get the boat in the water. So here we were, maybe 51 degree weather, another cold dark day and dad wants to put the boat out. We were all bundled up. My brother David had his snowmobile boots on. I remember we all had big jackets on too. It's dangerous to go out on the river that time of year because there is SO much debris in the rushing early spring waters, but dad wanted to go out. The poor man had to launch the boat himself with three kids, 5, 6 and 9. NOT a lot of help for him. He was barking orders and giving directions but we managed to get it done. Went out on the water but only went out to the mouth of the Bay and back. It was just too rough and there was just too many logs floating in the water. Now came the process of putting the boat back on the trailer, again, with three kids. Dad was trying to tie the boat to the dock and explain to me how to direct it onto the trailer, once he gave me the signal. Mark and David just stood around staring, not knowing what to do. Dad was starting to lose patience because every time he backed up, he stepped on David. So he kept saying to David, "Back up, move, BACK UP...out of my way.." Suddenly, there was a sploosh sound. No one saw it happen, but we all heard it. We turned around and there was only a few ripples in the water where David went right to the bottom. His snowmobile boots might as well have been made of cement! Without missing a beat my dad said, "Damn it." He knelt down calmly and stuck his hand down in the water where the ripples were. He grabbed my brother by the hair and pulled him out of the water and onto the dock. David was screaming as soon as he cleared the surface. That water was cold and murky, brown like today. Dad was laughing. The whole thing didn't shake him up until he looked at me and said, "Don't tell your mother!"

I sat staring at the dock, thinking of all the fishing trips, all the sunburns, all the days of swimming that all started with that boat launch. It started raining a bit more but I got out of the van anyway. I walked over the the cement benches, the ones boys from my senior class made in shop for the park. They are sinking and you can't even sit on them. I looked around at the park and how it changed. It had a Merry-Go-Round, a swing set, a tire climber and one of those odd swinging gate contraptions that make you dizzy, when I was a kid. All the tires are gone and the wooden boat they built in the 80's is gone as well. No Merry-Go-Round and no swinging gait. I remembered all the bike rides to that park. I remembered walking my beloved Golden Retriever, Lacey, to that park. How she'd start to shake as we got close. She LOVED the water and couldn't wait to jump in. I started looking at the trees. There were still some huge willows but many of the biggest branches had been sawed off. The trees were odd looking, sorta like a cactus and a willow tree had a baby. I tried to remember where in the park was the tree I used to climb. Then I realized that theses gnarled, old willows were baby trees when I came to park as a child. With all the ghost I saw today, realizing HOW much time had passed from my first visit to that park until today, I started to weep. In an instant I could slip back there and watch my brothers and I as ghostly images, playing in the park. I felt no sadness all day, even though it was grey, even though I saw ghosts of people who are no longer in my life and some who are no longer on this earth, I wasn't sad until that very moment, looking at that old willow. I felt a rush of loss, a rush of panic, a rush of wondering if anyone else had any of these memories. Would they all disappear when I'm gone, taking all the ghosts with me. That made me terribly sad because they were such beautiful memories. I decided that my son Nathan is right, it's time to write them all down. I'm not sure where to start but I do know that I started today, right now, as the rain still falls and the laughter of my ghosts still echos in my mind.