In case I never told you

It was fun.

I loved hanging out with you, giggling over inside jokes, doing ridiculous things like headstands in hotel rooms. Oscar Movie Madness, and happy hours, and Vegas trips. Loud ghetto laughs at inappropriate moments, Super Secret Trips of Awesome, surprise parties, BBQ's, karaoke, and marathon movie nights. Just Dance competitions, 2AM texts, and I Spy. Picture booths, water gun wars, and concerts. Helping me get pictures with rock stars. ESPECIALLY THIS.

Thank you.

For not judging me. Much. Even when I was obnoxious. Or weird. For lending me money, helping me clean. For your helpful assvice. For giving me a shoulder to cry on, or crying with me, when I needed it. For just being there when I didn't want to talk. For knowing when I needed what. For being honest with me. For sticking up for me when I couldn't/didn't do it for myself. For standing behind me looking all menacing and shit when I started popping off at the mouth. For loving me.

I'm sorry.

For hurting your feelings. Sometimes, I don't think before I speak. OR. I can be too blunt. Or mean, impatient, inconsiderate. I'm human. For getting so caught up in my life that I didn't call to see if you were okay. Or if you needed me. I can be selfish, and easily distracted. I wish that I had spent more time with you. I wish that I could take back that thing I said/did that hurt you.

I LOVE YOU.

I am blessed to have family and friends such as you. I have known you forever, and not quite as long. I met you when I was 5 years old, at work, walking to the bus stop, randomly, over the internets. I didn't know how fast we would click, how easily we would fall into friendship, how tightly we would hold on to each other. But I'm glad we did. I love you for loving me the way I am, for being able to read me like a book even when I haven't said a word. For being able to cheer me up when I haz a sad. For telling me things I need to hear, whether or not I wanted to hear them, sometimes without you even knowing it. I love you for being you.

If I never get the chance to say good-bye to you. I just wanted you to know today.

The thoughts I keep inside my head

So it's like 10:45 in the evening and I'm sitting in the Emergency Room. The Man is sick. I really, REALLY hate it when he's sick. He's been sick before, and he's been sick recently, and every. single. I tell him he's gonna be okay, but in the back of my mind, I worry that he won't be.

Now that they've pumped him full of Morphine for his pain, I can cry without worrying him, or having HIM trying to comfort ME while he's lying there in his hospital gown, with his IV and the blanket we always take when he has to go to the hospital (no matter what hospital we go to, you can be sure it's gonna be FREEZING). I don't have to tell him that he's going to be fine when I'm desperately afraid that he won't be and that one of these days he's not going to make it. I know the body can stand a lot of pain, and that he has been through worse...but what if he doesn't want to anymore? What if he just...gives up?

I try not to let these thoughts of doom and gloom get to settled in my head. I have to be strong for him. I kiss his head and tell him that I love him (because if something does happen, I want it to be the last thing that I said to him), and I shove the scary thoughts out of my head again. He tells me that he loves me too (for the same reason?) and goes back to sleep.

And I will read my book and sit here. When he wakes up, I'll be sitting here waiting for whatever happens next. No tears, no drama, calmly ready to help The Man with whatever he needs, for as long as he needs it.

and I'll say a quiet prayer that he'll be okay. Please let him be okay.

Still here

Neither of my children look like me. When I had The Boy, I said in disgust, he looks just like his damn daddy. And I was bitter, because really? I spent 7 of 9 months hugging the toilet. I couldn’t keep ANYTHING down. And he shows up looking like his daddy spit him out. At least I can take comfort in the fact that he thinks like his mama.

And The Brat, well…it took me some time to figure out what side of the family she took after. She had her daddy’s eyes for sure, but I just couldn’t say because like The Boy, she had my mannerisms, but not my face. I’d say she was the milkman’s kid, but you know… I was there, and I’m SURE I wasn’t banging the milkman. And one day it hit me. I went to go pick her up from her GranGran’s house, and she was holding her hand and looking up at me, and OMG! SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE HER. Which is kind of funny, because I always said that The Man looks like his Mama. And he does. From the tip of his eyelashes to the dip in his lip. It just never occurred to me that it just came full circle and The Brat who looks like her Daddy, looks just like her Gran-Gran.

The Brat loved her Gran-Gran so much. She pretty much went wherever she went. She went to church – her too. She went shopping – “gran-gran please come take me with you”. She was her favorite grandma…as my mom called her “the real grandmother”. Because she never went anywhere without her grand-daughters. They always wanted to go visit, spend school vacations “helping” in the daycare (although, I don’t know how much help 6 & 7 year olds can be), they even went with her on Black Friday – while I stayed in bed with a food hangover.

The Brat’s birthday was a few weeks ago. And I took this picture of her & posted it to my facebook. When I went back to look at the picture, it was never more clear as she’s losing the baby fat and starting to look more like a young adult than mommy’s baby that she looks like her grandma. Down to the hips, which I KNOW she didn’t get from me.

We lost her Gran-Gran to breast cancer 2 years ago today. She's gone, and I still miss her so much. But I look into the faces of my family and I see her looking back at me.

She is still here.

Somewhere in an Alternate Universe

Every Saturday is more or less the same. Errands, avoiding laundry, I try to squeeze in gym time –but lets face it, it’s the weekend. I’m more interested in sleeping in.

So after a day filled with running around like a chicken with my head cut off…I DON’T go to bed. What do I do? I go to my neighbor’s house. My presence was requested by them, and the bottle of tequila they had. No special reason; no birthday party, or graduation, no quince or bbq. Just some tequila and sunflower seeds. I may or may not have even twittered.

Yes, my neighbors and I like to keep it klassy, why do you ask?

A month ago, I probably would have been eating from a taco bar that my neighbor had made while she dug through the “girl fridge” (like a beer fridge, but stocked with wine, hard ciders and REAL liquor ‘cause I don’t drink beer) for something to drink. We would have been discussing 4th of July festivities, The Man’s retirement, maybe even the Superbowl Cruise next year. She would have had some “honey do” task for The Man to do because she lived alone and we loved her like family.

She lived next door to my family for almost 20 years. She didn’t have any children of her own. But she adopted me AND my brats. She became my Mom’s best friend. She used to put a bowl of fruit on the bottom shelf of her fridge so The Boy could get his own snacks when he would invite himself over to watch cartoons at her house. She’d take him out every Sunday for Mickey D’s breakfast. She had a hat box filled with barrettes and hair bands and she would do The Brat’s hair Sunday afternoons for school on Monday.

We all called her Auntie. Last month, she died unexpectedly. I couldn’t write about it then. It was too much of a surprise, too hard to put into words, too painful to talk about. It’s one thing when you know that somebody’s gonna die, quite another to come home and realize that somebody so full of life was snatched away with no warning at all. And you’re left with that confused feeling of why it had to happen like that.

I saw my neighbor on Mother’s Day. She had returned from her Mother’s house, where she had spent the day and was going to bed. And she’d wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. This Sunday, she probably would have wished The Man Happy Father’s Day..maybe even cooked something. If I was going to cook, I would have made sure I had enough to send her a plate.

This Sunday, I’m going to wish The Man a Happy Father’s Day and spend time with my family. I’m going to visit my Dad and my FIL and wish THEM a Happy Father’s Day.

When I go outside, I’m going to look over at her house, but I know she’s not there. I’ll try not to cry, but I’m sure I probably will, if just a little bit. And while I keep The Man company as he smokes a butt on the porch (because he is NOT allowed to smoke in the house) we’ll probably talk some about if Gail WERE here. If Auntie Gail WAS here, she’d wish you a Happy Father’s Day, and make you a jar of salsa that you wouldn’t have to share with anybody (except me because I would totally steal some if you didn’t). And she’d let you talk her into having a drink with us. We would thank her for the salsa because I swear she must sprinkle crack in it, it was so good and she would say “c’mon you know I love you guys”

And we loved her back. I’m pretty sure that if she were here, she’d say all of those things.

But she’s not.

On this last day of October....

It wasn’t the first time I had seen her lying in a hospital bed. But I knew this time, she wouldn’t be going home.

The time before that, the doctor tells us, it’s just a matter of time. But we already knew that. She was strong. For those of us who couldn’t be. She told the doctor no more surgeries, no heroic measures. Do not resuscitate. She had to convince her husband that she was ready to go.

I took the Brat to see her because she wanted to go. She loved her Gran Gran, and she wasn’t going to let the fact she was in the hospital stop her. And not to get all “Lion King” on you, but it is part of the circle of life… People live & people die. Even when you don’t want them to. I had actually been okay, up until then. But when I saw her through my baby’s eyes, I couldn’t help but burst into tears. She says, stop all that crying...and come sit on the bed next to me. You know I’m not going to live forever, nobody does. And I don’t want you crying over me. I just want you to spend some time with me while I’m here.

So we did. As much as we could. She was never in that room alone. She had her husband, her children, and her grandchildren there round the clock. And she had visitors. We spent so much time there, the hospital staff had given up on trying to get us to leave after visiting hours, and just put her in a private room, so no room-mate had to deal with all of her family & friends.

She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to be in the hospital. She came home, finally, but not for long. Her cancer left her body broken, but not her spirit. She hung on longer than they told us she would. She was stubborn as hell. She told us she couldn’t go because who was going to take care of her husband? Who was gonna cook and clean?

In the end, it was US who had to tell HER it was okay for her to go. The Boy who had been coming to see her religiously after school, sang her a song. Told her he was going to miss her, but that it was okay, he knew she would be better once she left us. The girl, who had just turned 12, said SHE would take care of Papa, she didn’t have to worry. I told her that I loved her, and that I’m so glad that my Mother in Law was a Mother I could love, as I did my own. I’d been bogarting my way into the family since I was 15 years old…and I loved her for accepting me as a daughter, even before I became one.

Nobody wanted to leave that last time. She had been brought by ambulance, and we knew this was IT. But as the room got cold, and crowded, we all spread out over the hospital. We wanted for my Father in Law to have some time to say whatever it was he wanted to say. Alone. The nurse shook me awake in the waiting room, and while I was still trying to figure out where I was, told me my MIL had passed.

She passed at 11:20PM on October 30, 2007. When we buried her, she was wearing her Live Strong bracelet which she didn’t go anywhere without, and a pink ribbon.

She gave us strength and courage to face the truth of her situation. She held our hands as we cried against the unfairness of it all, and wiped our tears. She is missed. She IS loved.

It's not that I don't want to remember

September 11, 2001

Yes, I remember where I was and what I was doing.

But that's not important...it's what happened AFTER. After this day, NOBODY'S life was the same.

After, I watched in horror as innocent people went about their daily lives and never made it back home. People, who I'm sure never thought in a million years that their flights would never make it to their destinations. People at the Pentagon, who even knowing they were a terrorist target, STILL never could have imagined a scenario like the one played out on national TV.

After, it wasn't unusual to hear family members, friends, or friends of friends talk about how
so-and-so is being deployed. We've sat with children waiting with them getting ready to leave. They've held babies in one arm while holding their weapon with the other. We've cried and kissed them good bye and watched them get on buses just like this one to go to airports that were taking them to the other side of the world. We've said prayers for their safe return, and waited anxiously for phone calls & e-mails. We've sucked it up and taken care of business here, so they can handle their business over there.

After, it wasn't unusual to see these kinds of pics of your loved ones. Showing you what life was like in their little sand box. Letters saying how much they missed/love us and can't wait to see us again. SOON. And to please send naked pictures (ahem. maybe that one was just mine). Thank yous for the care packages that we send faithfully so that they know we are thinking of them, and giving them pieces of home.

After, we've made signs welcoming them from their latest deployment...knowing in the backs of our minds that they will only be here for a while. Just long enough to get us used to sleeping in their arms again, or get their wives pregnant with babies they won't be here to see be born, before they pack up and head back out to save the world..

After, some never made it back. Families mourned, sons & daughters never saw their moms or dads again. After, some gave their lives and others live with the knowledge that they may be called upon to do the same.

After, my life changed completely. I became aware that I wasn't quite as safe as I thought. Not even living on my protected, insulated little base. The Man, who had not been to the Middle East since Kuwait, got his orders sending him Iraq. And each time he got those orders, I would have nightmares for weeks. After he left, I would talk to him for an hour AT work, if that's where he called me, and I would DARE anybody to interrupt. I would live with the fear that every phone call, or letter, or e-mail might be the last thing he ever said to me, and so I would always tell him "I love you", even if I was spitting mad.

That day is with me every day in the way I go about my life as a military wife. Every time I say good bye to another friend leaving, or support another wife who is going through her 1st, or 4th deployment. Every time I have to send out care packages and letters, or somebody asks me "Do they need anything? Is there anything I can do to help?"

I may try not to think about it, because I want to believe that this kind of thing could never, would never, happen again. But I will never forget.