He didn't really want a baby. But my mother finally won him over to the idea after five years of marriage. When I was born, he called his sister in Texas, and was crying unintelligibly. She thought something had happened to Mama. Did something happen to Cindy? (No) Oh no...the baby. (No.) Well what's wrong? She's just..so..beautiful.
He lived for me after that. When he'd come home, I'd run into his arms, help him take off his work boots, and climb in - my little legs tiny in the big shoes. He worked a lot. His regular job, and carpentry work on the side, so my mother could stay home with me. When he was home, I wanted to be with him, and sat outside playing in the sawdust. I had my own little red toolbox. Hammer, nails, level. If he was working on a car, I was sitting on the ground next to him. Handing him the tools he needed. Holding the container of bolts and nuts. I did everything Daddy did. If anyone was Daddy's girl, it was me. He let me be with him, even though I probably made things take four times as long. He was patient with me. Always answering my thousands of questions.
He'd take me outside, in the woods, showing me the tracks in the ground and telling me which animals made them. Talked about the different types of birds and plants. About how male birds are brighter colored than females so that they can draw predators away from the babies. We'd squat down and look at the ants carrying things into their hills. He'd pick me up to look at eggs or baby birds in a nest. Once, a bird built a nest in the tree outside the laundry room window, and he took me in one afternoon in a storm. Showed me how the mother bird was clinging to the nest, sheltering the babies with her wings. The tree swayed violently, but she stayed still. Wet. Covering her little ones. He ingrained in me a sense of wonder for the natural world that I still hold dear.
When we weren't outside working, he was playing with me. Barbies. My Little Pony. Reading a book. Tea parties. Laid down in my bed with me at night when I was too scared to sleep alone.
When I was five, my parents split up for the second and final time. He was so sad. He loved my mama to distraction. And me. I remember the day we left. He took me on one of our nature walks. Crying. I remember picking up a feather on the ground. Gave it to him because things like that usually made him smile. Nearly 30 years later, he still carries that feather in his wallet.
Throughout my unstable childhood with my mother's erratic moving and multiple abusive husbands, my father was my anchor. He always reassured me. Always stayed in the same home, even though his new wife wanted to move. My home, my room...they were the same. There was one constant. He sacrificed so much for me. So I could go to school. So I could have the things that he didn't have growing up. We didn't have a lot of money, but I never missed out on anything, because he made it happen.
My father came from a very poor family. Poor, as in not enough food to go around a lot of the time. When he was eighteen, he moved out. Got a job. Worked. Saved. He's worked all of his life. Uneducated, but one of the smartest people I know. He is successful now. Wants for nothing. He's worked very hard to get where he is, and I admire him for that more than I can express.
He is a manly man. Very tough. At almost sixty, he could probably win a fight against a man half his age. The thing that not everyone sees is how sensitive he is. The way he coos at a little baby. The way he helps people in need. The way he can cry. Express emotion. Feel things.
He taught me how to love. How love is shown in actions. In the little, day-to-day things we do. In little presents that he would buy me, from a new book to a pencil to just having me a soda and candy bar in the truck when he'd pick me up from school on Fridays. When I was older, it was by having money hidden in my car so that if I called him with an emergency, I wouldn't be stranded. Keeping my oil changed. Taking me shopping. Giving of his time and resources to someone he loved. Giving, giving, giving. Always giving. That's what love should be. On both sides. Because when both give fully and freely, no one wants. He is the standard by which I measure a man, a father, and depth of love. They're some really big shoes to fill. And I don't know if anyone ever could.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy. And Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, December 11, 2009
O Christmas Tree
Every year at the end of October, it started. We'd be in Walmart, shopping for whatever people shop for in that place. And she'd tell me, "Oh look!! They have their Christmas trees up!" We'd go over to that section, browse the cheap ornaments.
When I was about ten, she bought a 3-foot-tall tree for my bedroom, and we bought ornaments every week. As soon as she felt she could get away with it, she'd pull out the old Christmas records. Elvis, Willie Nelson. Dolly Parton, The Chipmunks. Her eyes always lit up at Christmas, the house was over the top decorated. Not the yard, but inside, so we could enjoy it. It was an Occasion in my home. Not a holiday. Not gifts or obligations. She loved it. And she made me love it.
The tree was decorated on Thanksgiving day. Afterward, I'd sit in the dark and stare at the lights, reveling in the magic of the season. She'd bring me hot cocoa and we'd listen to those old records and sing. On Christmas day, she'd make a tiny cake and decorate it so we could sing happy birthday to Jesus.
We never had a lot of money when I was a kid, but I never knew it. She bought presents, but it wasn't obligation. She loved it. She loved to buy presents for people. There was none of the frustration and anger and rush. She loved to find the right presents. She never asked me what I wanted. She just knew. She made Christmas magical.
She's been gone for so long now. I don't remember her voice. She's just flashes, vague memories, a part of me that I will never stop missing. As much as I try to hold on to her memory, she fades a little more every day. But not today. Not this season. I'm sitting here, looking at her tree. I got it when she died fourteen years ago. It's old. This year, a little piece of a branch fell off. But I can't bear to part with it because it's hers. Over the years I have changed the decorations, but I only to look at it to see in in her house the year I was sixteen, the last Christmas she was alive.
And every year, when I look at my kids on Christmas morning - when I see that I have managed to find exactly what they want without them telling me, when I see their faces shine with the magic of Christmas, I remember my mama, and I smile.
Monday, September 28, 2009
B-L-U-E spells nostalgia
According to the parent/teacher conferences and the report card I had to sign and return last week, six weeks have passed. Six weeks! We're settling into a routine now. J is getting into trouble only occasionally. Yeah, so, more than occasionally. but I have stopped getting the nasty notes every day, and he doesn't pull all of his straws every day. (I don't totally understand this custom, but it's apparently the pinnacle of deviant kindergarten child to have pulled four straws in a day.)
So as I settle into a routine (yes, it has taken me a month and a half to settle into a routine), I feel it's time to relive those milestones of this rapidly passing chapter. I am realizing how much I can learn from this wonderful little boy. He's amazing to me.
He comes home every day just bubbling over with the things he learned that day. He tries to talk in spelling at me. This makes him feel grown up because his dad and I do that when they shouldn't hear what we're saying. But it's really funny, because all he can really spell is names and colors...So I get:
"M-o-m-m-y? Did you, um, see that, um, y-e-l-l-o-w power ranger? I thought it was next to the b-l-u-e one, or um, maybe the g-r-e-e-n one."
Dear, it's in your hand.
"Wow! Thanks, M-o-m-m-y. That's a great job looking!
He's getting so big and confident, and arguing with me about things the teacher says.
It's a hard road in a way. Letting go is very hard for me. I know that everyone goes through this, and it will pass, but now, I'm missing that baby that used to think I was the awesomest thing ever. The one who would take down anyone in the sandbox who disagreed with the infallible Mommy. It had to happen, right? They tell me he will finally think I'm cool again when he's an adult. Just thirteen more years, my friends...I can do that.
So as I settle into a routine (yes, it has taken me a month and a half to settle into a routine), I feel it's time to relive those milestones of this rapidly passing chapter. I am realizing how much I can learn from this wonderful little boy. He's amazing to me.
He comes home every day just bubbling over with the things he learned that day. He tries to talk in spelling at me. This makes him feel grown up because his dad and I do that when they shouldn't hear what we're saying. But it's really funny, because all he can really spell is names and colors...So I get:
"M-o-m-m-y? Did you, um, see that, um, y-e-l-l-o-w power ranger? I thought it was next to the b-l-u-e one, or um, maybe the g-r-e-e-n one."
Dear, it's in your hand.
"Wow! Thanks, M-o-m-m-y. That's a great job looking!
He's getting so big and confident, and arguing with me about things the teacher says.
It's a hard road in a way. Letting go is very hard for me. I know that everyone goes through this, and it will pass, but now, I'm missing that baby that used to think I was the awesomest thing ever. The one who would take down anyone in the sandbox who disagreed with the infallible Mommy. It had to happen, right? They tell me he will finally think I'm cool again when he's an adult. Just thirteen more years, my friends...I can do that.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Innocence
I don't think anyone could forget that defining moment. When we realized we were not, in fact, safe here. It was the day that America lost its innocence, so to speak. I guess that always happens. Innocence can't last forever. But we all grew up a little that day. We grieved, for the fallen, for the lost illusion of safety, for our future.
My husband was a Marine, stationed in North Carolina. I remember driving to class when I heard the news, the time it took to process. I had no schema for the words being said. Thought it was an accident. Then the deejay said, "Oh. My. God. Another plane!! Another plane has just crashed into the other tower!!" The knee jerk reaction of "what a weird coincidence" was followed by this deep dread. I went into the class, told them. We all went to call our husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, boyfriends...but the phones on base were locked.
After my class was over, I went with a friend to her house to eat takeout. I will never forget sitting there on her floor, mouths dry, food growing cold as we stared at the tv. Watching the plane crash into the second tower over and over and over and over.
Later that night, base was on lock down. In the dark, outside our homes, my neighbors and I sat, waiting, clutching our cordless phones and holding hands, waiting for our Marines. Waiting for something, anything to stop the waiting. Finally the boys started trickling in. 9pm, 10pm, midnight instead of 4:30 - but home. They had no real answers, but I guess what we wanted was them, after all. To touch them and know that they wouldn't be taken from us, not today at least.
Since that day, military wives and children have waited. The longer the war goes, the more routine it becomes, but they still wait for their love. Wait for half their heart. Wait to live a normal life. It's the military. It's what they signed up for, but the families still wait, terror half a heartbeat away for the phone call that says it's not okay this time.
It's like that day, eight years ago, a loop playing over and over. Nothing changing, yet everything is different now. Yes, I still remember September 11. How could any of us forget?
My husband was a Marine, stationed in North Carolina. I remember driving to class when I heard the news, the time it took to process. I had no schema for the words being said. Thought it was an accident. Then the deejay said, "Oh. My. God. Another plane!! Another plane has just crashed into the other tower!!" The knee jerk reaction of "what a weird coincidence" was followed by this deep dread. I went into the class, told them. We all went to call our husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, boyfriends...but the phones on base were locked.
After my class was over, I went with a friend to her house to eat takeout. I will never forget sitting there on her floor, mouths dry, food growing cold as we stared at the tv. Watching the plane crash into the second tower over and over and over and over.
Later that night, base was on lock down. In the dark, outside our homes, my neighbors and I sat, waiting, clutching our cordless phones and holding hands, waiting for our Marines. Waiting for something, anything to stop the waiting. Finally the boys started trickling in. 9pm, 10pm, midnight instead of 4:30 - but home. They had no real answers, but I guess what we wanted was them, after all. To touch them and know that they wouldn't be taken from us, not today at least.
Since that day, military wives and children have waited. The longer the war goes, the more routine it becomes, but they still wait for their love. Wait for half their heart. Wait to live a normal life. It's the military. It's what they signed up for, but the families still wait, terror half a heartbeat away for the phone call that says it's not okay this time.
It's like that day, eight years ago, a loop playing over and over. Nothing changing, yet everything is different now. Yes, I still remember September 11. How could any of us forget?
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Slot machines
So. I haven't been around in a few weeks. Busy things, holidays and quasi-disabled husbands and such. I have been alone with my thoughts and they run rampant. I am scared to think about things - scared to admit my thoughts. Either they are crazy/silly/ridiculous or I don't like what they mean.
For years now, I have struggled with my walk with God. I haven't been satisfied with the non-level of relationship I have had with Him. But I haven't found the gumption to make it better. Or I struggled with it for so long that now I have learned helplessness. Whichever, I suck, and I don't like that.
So all this disbelief/wariness for Him leaves me feeling strange. I believe in Him. But I don't want to trust Him with the big things because I am afraid that I will be disappointed. I guess I think that if I don't ask, then it's not His fault he didn't answer.
I understand that it is flawed logic. But there comes a point when faith is smaller than the mustard seed, and I begin to come undone. Grasping at straws to save myself. But God is not like that. He doesn't have a tally sheet of the misdeeds and successes I've made, and a complicated formula for the strength of Smite he will use on me today. Simply put, Jesus died for our sins, and I accepted the forgiveness He offered. The rest is just growing.
But therein lies my problem. Water is essential to the growth of a plant. I feel so dry. Like God is turning a deaf ear to my problems, and so I'm hurting, and parched.
I don't know the answer here. I guess I'll just keep plugging away at it until something makes sense. Like playing the slot machines of life.
For years now, I have struggled with my walk with God. I haven't been satisfied with the non-level of relationship I have had with Him. But I haven't found the gumption to make it better. Or I struggled with it for so long that now I have learned helplessness. Whichever, I suck, and I don't like that.
So all this disbelief/wariness for Him leaves me feeling strange. I believe in Him. But I don't want to trust Him with the big things because I am afraid that I will be disappointed. I guess I think that if I don't ask, then it's not His fault he didn't answer.
I understand that it is flawed logic. But there comes a point when faith is smaller than the mustard seed, and I begin to come undone. Grasping at straws to save myself. But God is not like that. He doesn't have a tally sheet of the misdeeds and successes I've made, and a complicated formula for the strength of Smite he will use on me today. Simply put, Jesus died for our sins, and I accepted the forgiveness He offered. The rest is just growing.
But therein lies my problem. Water is essential to the growth of a plant. I feel so dry. Like God is turning a deaf ear to my problems, and so I'm hurting, and parched.
I don't know the answer here. I guess I'll just keep plugging away at it until something makes sense. Like playing the slot machines of life.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Friends
I have come to the realization that I have no friends. Ok. I knew that already, but I am feeling keenly the absence of bosom companions with which to share my life. I have Husband. But he's all. In a way, he's enough. But I need a girlfriend. I need someone who understands my hormones and, well, my female-ness.
I am trying so hard to understand my life and purpose...I feel eighteen again but with more perspective this time around. I don't seek to change the world anymore. I understand that I lack the ambition to do that. I just want to hold my own.
I want to be musical. I want to sing and play and write. I want to have kids who live up to their potential. I want to be the best darn wife and mother ever. I want to live out my life in a manner that I can be proud of. When I am on my deathbed. I want something meaningful to pass before my eyes.
I want to learn how to praise God again. I want to get back that intimate relationship that I once had with Him. Some might call it foolish, but I know what it was for me. I am a little misdirected sometimes, but I'm not crazy. I know that peace that came from knowing Him, and I have found that nowhere.
Believe me, I looked. Hard.
At 30, I have matured a good deal. I am calmer now. More laid back. Way more organized. But in my head, I can be the same spastic little girl. Flitting about from idea to idea, never settling on one thing for long. Focus. It's a good thing. If someone could tell me where to buy that, I would totally stock up on it.
I think that if I had these elusive female companions, we could channel our estrogen to accomplish great feats, we could. Maybe they're in the store, next to the focus. Go figure.
I am trying so hard to understand my life and purpose...I feel eighteen again but with more perspective this time around. I don't seek to change the world anymore. I understand that I lack the ambition to do that. I just want to hold my own.
I want to be musical. I want to sing and play and write. I want to have kids who live up to their potential. I want to be the best darn wife and mother ever. I want to live out my life in a manner that I can be proud of. When I am on my deathbed. I want something meaningful to pass before my eyes.
I want to learn how to praise God again. I want to get back that intimate relationship that I once had with Him. Some might call it foolish, but I know what it was for me. I am a little misdirected sometimes, but I'm not crazy. I know that peace that came from knowing Him, and I have found that nowhere.
Believe me, I looked. Hard.
At 30, I have matured a good deal. I am calmer now. More laid back. Way more organized. But in my head, I can be the same spastic little girl. Flitting about from idea to idea, never settling on one thing for long. Focus. It's a good thing. If someone could tell me where to buy that, I would totally stock up on it.
I think that if I had these elusive female companions, we could channel our estrogen to accomplish great feats, we could. Maybe they're in the store, next to the focus. Go figure.
Friday, November 14, 2008
upheaval
Well I have not disappointed. I have continued to obsess. But things were, as things so often are, taken out of my hands. I left the blog to go to Wal Mart to walk off some nervous energy on election night. When I came home, ready to find out who the president was and then collapse blissfully into my bed - my father is coming out to my house (he lives next door) and saying that Husband needs to go to the veteran's hospital. It's a little over 2 hours from here and I hate going there. First of all, it's 2 hours away. Secondly - it's the middle of the effing night. Thirdly, I have to make a choice between my husband and my children. Fourthly, we have to wait up all night for them to make their minds up for what to do with them. They're unbearably slow at all they do.
The stomach flu he got on Halloween was either precursor to the gallbladder attack or the gallbladder attack was masquerading as a stomach flu. Whichever it was, he'd been sent home from work early for being decidedly yellow of skin and eye. And for all that noisy vomiting. Bad for business, you understand.
Daddy kept the kids, and off we went. I was exhausted, and the fuse that makes my radio work is blown - so it was fun trying to make it to the hospital without first visiting the ditch or oncoming traffic. Long story extremely short, he was admitted to the hospital for removal of the offending organ. First they had to do all manner of tests (the most alarming was the ultrasound where the technician stopped the ultrasound mid-swipe and went to find some random dr. and proceeded to exclaim and share knowing nods over the state of Husband's insides - and then leave with no explanation.)
They did an upper GI to look around and while they were in there, flushed a couple of stones that were blocking the duct to the liver, which was causing bile backup, and was what made his skin/eyes Simpson-esque.
They did the surgery the next day, and we were expecting the laparoscopic surgery, but it seems that this gallbladder thing had been going on for quite a while - behind the scenes - and his gallbladder was scarred to his liver!! So it ended up going into the enormous 8.5 inch incision across his abdomen, cutting through muscle and temporarily shutting down other organs and the whole nine yards.
Lovely?
Oh yes.
So he had nine days in the hospital. As did I. And let me tell you, I am of mixed feelings on this sick-husband-induced vacation from reality. On the one hand, I wanted a break. Like, maybe someone to offer to sit with my children for four or five hours while Husband and I went to do something fun, alone. I think a nine day severing of all ties with my kids is a bit excessive. I had never been away from the little one over night. From that to almost a week and a half is crazy. He didn't know what to think of us when we came back in. He was all shy and running back to my dad.
On the other hand...I got really used to the peace and quiet of the hospital. The return home has been hard for me on that plane at least. I guess it's good. It's let me realize how tightly I stay wound most of the time. I am probably more stressed than I should be, and it's mostly because of the noise levels in my home.
So now we wait more. Wait to see how long this recovery will take. Wait to see if Husband will be healthy through the process. Wait to see if he will keep full time at his job. Wait to see if we can make it through this financially. It is not good to have a six-week recovery ahead of you in the middle of a recession in a county with such a high unemployment rate, and factories shutting down and everywhere laying off...Merry Chrismas!
I feel so crunchy for not going out to look for a job. But he says, and rightly so, that it would be pointless. By the time I could find daycare and pay all the deposits and two months of daycare, there would be nothing left for the bills. So we wait.
I also am fighting with selfishness because I want a break again. I have been home all of two days, and I want a break again. I am so frustrated. I never realized how much I depend on Husband when he's not working. I depend on him to change diapers and fix cups and play with kids and read stories for just a little every day. And that little bit is all that has kept me sane. Now, I have the kids from wakeup to sleep - with no help. They're not so much trouble to need help...but they're on all the time, and I need a fifteen minute respite a couple of times a day to go breathe and remind myself that I'm a grownup.
Husband had been hopeful that his mother might take this moment of "family need" to remember that she has two kids, but it doesn't seem like that will be the case. She kept the baby one night out of nine, sort of accidentally. She got him from her daughter's house because she needed a break. My dad thought she was keeping him, and when I mention it, I think she felt guilty or weird or something. Bah. I don't know But she kept him. Then Husband's grandmother came down and wanted to keep both kids at his mom's house. The other seven days and nights, my dad had them.
The last day in the hospital, she called and asked if we needed "money or prayers", and he later pointed out to me that she was excluding herself from the kid watching detail.
I feel sad for him. I wish he was close to his family. He feels that absense so keenly, but he isn't close to any of them. I don't know how to help him.
My little world has been a little crazy lately, but I'm hanging in there. I would elaborate more, but this blog has already reached such lengths that I'd be surprized to find anyone still with me at this point. So I'll leave you with two last hospital ephphanies:
Pinochle is much harder to spell than to play, and I don't really get the point of it.
Houses of cards are pretty simple to build, and I have less respect for gravity since learning this fact.
The stomach flu he got on Halloween was either precursor to the gallbladder attack or the gallbladder attack was masquerading as a stomach flu. Whichever it was, he'd been sent home from work early for being decidedly yellow of skin and eye. And for all that noisy vomiting. Bad for business, you understand.
Daddy kept the kids, and off we went. I was exhausted, and the fuse that makes my radio work is blown - so it was fun trying to make it to the hospital without first visiting the ditch or oncoming traffic. Long story extremely short, he was admitted to the hospital for removal of the offending organ. First they had to do all manner of tests (the most alarming was the ultrasound where the technician stopped the ultrasound mid-swipe and went to find some random dr. and proceeded to exclaim and share knowing nods over the state of Husband's insides - and then leave with no explanation.)
They did an upper GI to look around and while they were in there, flushed a couple of stones that were blocking the duct to the liver, which was causing bile backup, and was what made his skin/eyes Simpson-esque.
They did the surgery the next day, and we were expecting the laparoscopic surgery, but it seems that this gallbladder thing had been going on for quite a while - behind the scenes - and his gallbladder was scarred to his liver!! So it ended up going into the enormous 8.5 inch incision across his abdomen, cutting through muscle and temporarily shutting down other organs and the whole nine yards.
Lovely?
Oh yes.
So he had nine days in the hospital. As did I. And let me tell you, I am of mixed feelings on this sick-husband-induced vacation from reality. On the one hand, I wanted a break. Like, maybe someone to offer to sit with my children for four or five hours while Husband and I went to do something fun, alone. I think a nine day severing of all ties with my kids is a bit excessive. I had never been away from the little one over night. From that to almost a week and a half is crazy. He didn't know what to think of us when we came back in. He was all shy and running back to my dad.
On the other hand...I got really used to the peace and quiet of the hospital. The return home has been hard for me on that plane at least. I guess it's good. It's let me realize how tightly I stay wound most of the time. I am probably more stressed than I should be, and it's mostly because of the noise levels in my home.
So now we wait more. Wait to see how long this recovery will take. Wait to see if Husband will be healthy through the process. Wait to see if he will keep full time at his job. Wait to see if we can make it through this financially. It is not good to have a six-week recovery ahead of you in the middle of a recession in a county with such a high unemployment rate, and factories shutting down and everywhere laying off...Merry Chrismas!
I feel so crunchy for not going out to look for a job. But he says, and rightly so, that it would be pointless. By the time I could find daycare and pay all the deposits and two months of daycare, there would be nothing left for the bills. So we wait.
I also am fighting with selfishness because I want a break again. I have been home all of two days, and I want a break again. I am so frustrated. I never realized how much I depend on Husband when he's not working. I depend on him to change diapers and fix cups and play with kids and read stories for just a little every day. And that little bit is all that has kept me sane. Now, I have the kids from wakeup to sleep - with no help. They're not so much trouble to need help...but they're on all the time, and I need a fifteen minute respite a couple of times a day to go breathe and remind myself that I'm a grownup.
Husband had been hopeful that his mother might take this moment of "family need" to remember that she has two kids, but it doesn't seem like that will be the case. She kept the baby one night out of nine, sort of accidentally. She got him from her daughter's house because she needed a break. My dad thought she was keeping him, and when I mention it, I think she felt guilty or weird or something. Bah. I don't know But she kept him. Then Husband's grandmother came down and wanted to keep both kids at his mom's house. The other seven days and nights, my dad had them.
The last day in the hospital, she called and asked if we needed "money or prayers", and he later pointed out to me that she was excluding herself from the kid watching detail.
I feel sad for him. I wish he was close to his family. He feels that absense so keenly, but he isn't close to any of them. I don't know how to help him.
My little world has been a little crazy lately, but I'm hanging in there. I would elaborate more, but this blog has already reached such lengths that I'd be surprized to find anyone still with me at this point. So I'll leave you with two last hospital ephphanies:
Pinochle is much harder to spell than to play, and I don't really get the point of it.
Houses of cards are pretty simple to build, and I have less respect for gravity since learning this fact.
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