A right to life and a right to die

This post was written Thursday, October 22.  I had to let it sit awhile before posting.  

This morning I lay in bed in that half-awake dream state, waiting for my alarm to go off.  I can't tell what time it is by the light coming in my window, these days,  I'm one of the few who actually love the mornings when it is 6am and still dark...but I digress.  After battling with my want to stay asleep and the sounds of life coming up from the valley, I gave in to the knowledge that it was bus-to-work Thursday and I had no wiggle room in my schedule. I rolled over and flipped open my Kindle to check the time.  It was 37 minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off.  I had three minutes to get out the door to make the early bus.  Not happening.

The morning started in a rush.  As I was getting ready and listening to the news, I caught part of a scrolling headline...right to die bill likely to be held up for months...

Trigger.

Memories of June 2014 came flooding back and the moment when I knew we were to leave the hospital and Papa Bear wouldn't be coming with us.  The moment when I leaned over him and said "I don't like this decision but it is your decision to make and I will respect it."  That day Papa Bear made the decision to end his life.  We could have kept him on the machines and hoped and prayed and fought for him to stay alive but it was ultimately his choice...and we all honored that choice.

The tears started to flow.  It wasn't even 7am.

On the bus ride to work I started thinking about my friends D, J and S who are waiting to see if their Dad/Grandpa Hal, after almost two weeks of hoping and praying, will make a rebound.  The ups and downs of the days are eerily familiar.  He is on a ventilator.  There is gunk in his lungs that need to get out.  The question is, is he strong enough...**

Trigger.

I started thinking about modern medicine and science and God and faith and all the things that seem to stand either for or against the right to die bill.  We have come so far, with modern medicine, both for the good and the bad.  We stay alive longer but, do we keep people alive longer than they should be, causing a new set of angst and pain that didn't exist before scientists and doctors figured out a new way of attempting to fight diseases?  Does longevity of life outweigh quality of life?

Do we call it something different when someone is being taken off life support after, in our case, going through treatments in an attempt to save a life, which is why he was one life support to begin with, because it's easier to justify that then when someone doesn't want to wind up there at all, knowing that they have a terminal condition that is untreatable and wants to choose to end their life before the machines and the surgeries and the treatments deteriorate their quality of life?  Why is one right to die justifiable but the other not?

Papa Bear made the choice to end his life.  He chose to fight the leukemia to begin with but he also chose to stop fighting when hope ran out.  If circumstances had been different, if we knew that there was no hope from the beginning, and he wanted to end his life before his quality of life deteriorated, I would have supported that decision.  He had the right to live...he also had the right to die.

It's easy, so easy, to say what is right or what is wrong when you don't have to make this type of decision.  It's another thing altogether to be by the side of the person who is looking down the road, seeing the potholes and road closed signs.  It's easy to judge.  It is far harder to be in the passenger seat, trusting the decisions of the driver.

I woke up 37 minutes late this morning...4 hours in and it's already been a long, emotional day.

**Addendum: Hal was taken off the ventilator and a few days later he passed away surrounded by his family.  I will never again hear the hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy" without thinking of Hal.  Godspeed, Hal.

A tale of a purse, a phone and a video

I got a pretty new purse some months ago.  It's quilted with a black and white print. The other day, I was looking at my pretty new purse and thought "it's time to wash this!"  The white was looking a little more yellow in places.  Gross.

So Sunday, I came home from church and a quick stop at G.G's to turn on the water for her dogwood tree (being a dutiful niece following a text from her uncle who was thinking about his mom) and gathered up clothes to wash.  I remembered my yellowing purse and grabbed it, emptying the contents onto the coffee table.  I put everything in the HE washer, hit start and went back out to go back to G.G's house to turn off the water (it had been about 20 minutes total).

As I drove the mile and a half or so, it occurred to me that I didn't have my cell phone with me and my brain began to backtrack.  The last place I remembered having it was when I was sitting in the chair, with my purse.  Hmmm.  I finished what I was doing at G.G's and headed back home.

I arrived at home and searched for my phone.  High and low.  With dawning horror, I called my number, listening for the buzz so I could locate it...and it went straight to voicemail.  CR*P.  I knew where it was.  At that moment I heard the washer slow to switch cycles and I hightailed it to the bathroom.  Opening the washer, I reached in, felt around and found my phone.

And I fell apart.  Not because of the phone.  I could care less about the phone.  It wasn't about the pictures.  Yes, there were some great pics on the phone but they were on a MicroSD card that was more likely to be salvageable.  No, I fell apart because on that phone is a video from December 2013 of Papa Bear and Little Miss P.  It was after dinner one night and she was using the napkin rings and napkins to decorate her Grandpa.  At one point she draped the napkin over his head, placed the gold napkin ring on his ear and proclaimed "He's a pirate!"  She was giggling, he was giggling, sitting patiently and enjoying the moment.  The video is only a minute and 35 seconds long but it's the only thing left where I can hear Papa Bear's laugh and his voice.  Where I can see him move, blinking to adjust the contact lens that was knocked off his eye in the fun, holding onto Little Miss P so she didn't fall off, and in the final seconds, leaning forward and to hug her.  I fell apart fearing that one last connection was lost.

We aren't a family that has done a lot of video recording, nor are we so good with taking photos, though I have plenty of photo's to remind me of good times with Papa Bear.  It's the sound of his voice and his laugh that I so desperately long to hear again.  As I sat pulling apart the phone, drying off everything I could reach, googling how to dry out a phone and MicroSD card, my heart was breaking again.

Yo Momma and I had made plans with some friends, and so after doing what I could to salvage those items, we left home.  I broke down on the car ride to our friends house.  The looming sense of ONE MORE loss just too much to handle.  Yo Momma cried with me as I shared my worries.

I've held myself together over little, silly things these past 15 months.  But this one didn't seem so little or so silly.  This one was tangible.  I can watch that video over and over again and for a minute and a half, I can see and hear Papa Bear again.

As I contemplated my phone that was sitting at home drying out, with the potential only copy of an irreplaceable video trapped inside, a glimmer of hope suddenly pushed it's way to the surface.  When I was putting together the slideshow for Papa Bear's celebration of life party, had I transferred the video from my phone to the laptop?  I patiently waited through the movie and ice cream with my friends (and enjoyed the time) but once we got home, I turned on the laptop and stared at it with the fervor of that lady who starred in the Mervyn's ad's years ago thinking, "Open, open, open."

A few clicks later, I opened a file and breathed fully for the first time in a few hours.  The panic eased as I watched Papa Bear and Little Miss P on the screen, playing, laughing and hugging.  I heard his voice, listened to his laugh and saw Papa Bear again.  I cried and cried and cried.  I hadn't lost that connection after all.

My washed phone is truly dead.  I have a new one.  Phones are easily replaceable.  I've lost most of my contacts but I can get many of those back.  The MicroSD card works.  I've transferred the photos onto a flash drive.  I've backed up the video onto a flash drive and will be putting it on a DVD and Dropbox.  I'm not taking any chances.  All was not lost, and for that I am very grateful.

"He's a pirate!"

 *Sorry, I couldn't fix the photo so please excuse the eye glare.*

This is grief

There are moments, say at a Baseball game when the bases are switched out after 3 innings, when the thought runs through my head, "When I get home I'll ask Dad why they do that."

Or I drive the Prius and look down to see that the MPG is at 52 and I think, "I need to take a picture and text it to Dad and prove that I can get good MPG in this car too."

Or every time I walk by his computer.

Or when I walk in the door at the Tahoe house.

Or when I really, really, really want to talk politics with him.

Or when I go to make a change on the laptop and find the icon that says "Dad's phone".

Or I really need a Dad hug.

Or when I fill the bird feeders because he isn't here to do it.

Or I see someone riding their bike on the road and for just a moment it looks like my Dad.


Or when someone looks at me and says "I thought about you and your Dad the other day."

These moments and so many more continue to tell the story of my walk with grief.  It's the daily reawakening to the reality of life without my Dad.  A year and a month hasn't lessened the pain.  A year hasn't healed the wound, though it's not quite as gaping and oozing as before.  The healing continues.

A year and a day...

The last family photo we took together was found on my Dad's computer just days after he died.  He had this way of taking photo's and then editing them and never doing anything with them or at least we family members never saw them again.  As soon as I saw it, I remembered taking the photo in the house in Tahoe, Thanksgiving night 2013.

We took several photos, with Dad setting up the camera and trying to figure out the timer and then rushing to sit on the arm of the couch.  Little did we know, as we sat there giving him a bad time, that would be the last official "O" family photo we would have.

The man sitting on arm of the couch on the left, in this photo, just shouldn't have died so soon. There is a part of me that wishes he would just get up off the arm of the couch, walk in the room and say "Gotcha!" and erase all the pain and sorrow of the last year.

 What I wouldn't give for just one more family photo.

Memories of Memorial Day

Last year I spent Memorial Day sitting by Papa Bear's bedside, with the gradual realization hitting my soul...I was losing my Dad.  By the end of the day, I had first hand experience with what happens when a crash team is called into a room at a hospital. I stood in the corner, trying really hard to be brave and strong.  Really, I was falling apart.

The crash team was accompanied by the hospital chaplain, a woman, which made me extremely happy.  She made her way into the room, stood by my side, put her arm around me and said, "This is your dad?  Can I pray?"  I'm pretty sure I fervently said yes, please and then she prayed.  I don't remember the prayer but I remember the moment and the comfort I received, being reminded that God was there.

The past year has been tough.  Really, really tough.  In the last year I've realized that I didn't just lose my Dad that week, I lost one of my best friends.  The friend that greeted me each day when I came home.  The friend that I talked politics with, watched Giants (baseball) with and the Jon Stewart show on occasion.  I lost a friend who helped me see beyond myself and my little world, who urged me to explore, cheered me on and made me laugh, even when I really didn't want to laugh - I cannot tell you how frustrated that skill made me as a teenager!

A month or so after Papa Bear died, I was in Star$ and ran into a friend.  It was one of those days where I had woken up crying and just continued to cry throughout the day.  I was holding it as together as I could, while getting my coffee before going to work, when I saw this friend.  He came over and said "How are you?" and the tears started again.  This friend looked at me, with the wisdom of someone who knew about grief and said "It comes in waves.  Just ride the waves."

This week, I'm going to be riding the waves.  The waves of memories of the week when life changed irrevocably, the waves of pain that have been hidden under a protective layer for a few months, the waves of loss and loneliness.  Yep, this week I'm going to be riding the waves.  I miss my Dad...a lot.

Dear Facebook,

I saw the generated post on my wall the other day "It's been a great year!  Thanks for being a part of it!"  I saw the photo that the algorithms came up with as the one to highlight my "great year"...and I pulled the drop down arrow to hide the post.

For me, Facebook, 2014 was not a great year.  It was a pretty sucky year.  I would give pretty much anything for a do-over.  The photo chosen as the cover for that generated post was the last photo I have of just me and my Dad.  I know a bunch of people liked it, which is why it was front and center on that slideshow thingy.  When I saw it, though, I started to cry.  I'm not blaming you, Facebook techie people.  I know the intention behind the post thing was to remind people of the good things that happened, the places we've been, the people we've met, the memories we have, the things that occurred in our lives, so in one sense you did accomplished your goal.

It's not your fault, Facebook, that in 2014 leukemia disrupted my family.  It's not your fault this f***ing cancer wasn't eradicated by the massive amounts of chemo my Dad was given, opening his immune system up to the infection that took hold of my Dad's lungs and wouldn't let go.  The photo's that slide through my mind when I think back to 2014 aren't on your generated post.  They are in my head, snapshots of moments when I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again, as I watched my Dad go from strong, healthy, happy and hug-able to a resigned, defeated man who spelled out the word "torture" with his fingers, because he was on a ventilator and couldn't speak, and mouthed the words "I'm ready to die".  You don't have the pictures of the wild look on his face when the fever spiked, nor the picture of the scene of the room when the crash team came swarming into his hospital room.  You don't have a picture of the hospital chaplain who stood by my side in those moments offering a silent prayer, with her arm around my shoulders, nor of the ER doctor who rode by on his bike as I sat outside by the fountain, the day my Dad died, and gently raised his hand in greeting as our eyes met.  He knew what was happening in the room three floors up.

I'm the only one who can see that slideshow.  It reminds me daily that 2014 was not a great year.  It was a year that my family is going to take a long time to recover from.  Yes, there are some good memories in there.  Somewhere down the road I'll be able to go back, look at 2014 and find the good memories.  So, thanks for storing those memories, Facebook.  But if you don't mind, I'm just going to skip right over everyone else's "It's been a great year posts".  It just hurts too much today.

Sincerely,
Brittany

The gift of comfort from an unexpected source

"Hey," said the voice, as I walked by the table outside my favorite dining establishment in small town.  I braced myself as I turned to look at the person who belonged to the voice.  I was sure it was one of two types of people, someone from town who knew my family and wanted to offer their sympathy or one of the local homeless/down on their luck folks who occasionally ask for help.  Turned out to be both in one.

As I swung around, I looked into the eyes of R.  I've written about him before.  I smiled, as best I could, and said "Hey, how's it going," and there was this silence and a look in his eyes...then he got up and suddenly his arms were around me, holding me close as he whispered, "I'm sorry." 

I whispered back, in a very shaky voice, "Thank you, R.  Thank you."  After a moment, he stepped back and went back to his seat.  I smiled again, struggling to keep the tears at bay, and said "Thank you" again, before I turned and headed to my car.  I cried all the way home.  Shuddering sobs.  The gaping wound in my soul was opened again, but also soothed...by someone unexpected but very welcomed.

I caught a glimpse, yet again, of the beauty of R's soul tonight, of the person behind the addictions, of the person behind the label "homeless".  I was given the gift of comfort from an unexpected source.  It's a gift I'm going to cherish for a long, long time on this journey of grief.

Formation of a tribute

On Sunday, I will stand up in front of a crowd of family, friends, acquaintances and people I've never met before and talk about my Dad.

I've been thinking and praying about these words for weeks, but honestly, I've been thinking and praying about these words for four years.  Call it a hunch, call it facing reality, call it whatever you need, but I've been preparing for this day for awhile.

The last few weeks, as I have driven to work and driven home, I've been using the drive to talk out loud.  In the days when I was occasionally called upon to sermonize, I found the way I solidified my thoughts was to just start talking...if you know me at all, that's actually opposite of what one would think about my writing process...it's worked, though!

Except this time it's been harder.  I have things to say...I have so much to say...but the clarity has been missing, the twist, the part that makes this go from a daughter blathering on about her father to a tribute.  I couldn't grab that one thing that would make it all come together.  That one thing that would have made my Dad come up, wrap his arm around my shoulders and say, "You did good, kiddo."

This morning I woke up and suddenly the missing piece had appeared.  I grabbed my computer and the words started to flow...so did the tears...and since I'm being honest, the snot.  I wrote and cried for two hours.  Yo Momma came in a one point and I snapped at her (and apologized later) and I wrote and I cried and swiped at my nose and finally, finally, I think I have it.

Sunday is going to be really hard...but I think, at the end of the day, my Dad would throw is arm around my shoulders, pull me into his side and say, "You did good, kiddo."  and really, nothing else matters. 

This journey of grief

I'm not unfamiliar with grief.  I am unfamiliar with this particular road.

Losing a grandparent, a brother/friend, a job, a pet, is different, oh so different, than losing a parent.

The sorrow, the sharp, aching hollowness, the ever present "lump in the throat" that is unlike any before, the sudden, intense dislike of all things Father's Day, those things are new.

My previous experiences with grief have helped me walk through some aspects of this journey, though.

• The realization that there are people for whom I will be the one consoling not being consoled.

• Compassionately and gently deflecting comments meant for support and comfort that really do not bring comfort at all.  I move to ban "God has a plan" from all offerings of condolences, ever.  There is nothing comforting to me about God planning for my Dad to die. NOTHING.  As much as I have clung to Jeremiah 29:11 in the past, that verse isn't bringing me comfort right now.  So let's just drop the whole plan thing as a means of comfort, OK?  Thanks.

• The awkwardness that comes when someone just doesn't know what to say...I usually don't know what to say either, you are welcome to sit in silence with me and "hold my hand".

• The offering of food or help or "whatever you need".  The problem is I really don't know what I need...besides one more hug from Papa Bear and that's not an option on the table.

And then there are those things that have taken me by surprise.

• The overwhelming, and I do mean overwhelming, show of support and compassion from the people in our community.  Oh.My.Gosh.   

• Newish and older church friends who have reached out through phone calls, texts, cards, hugs.

• People I have known well that haven't said a thing...that has been pretty telling.  I'm not sure if that one is a reflection of me or them.

• Hearing stories from former students, Facebook group friends, and others who were impacted by Papa Bear.  There are so many things we never knew.

A few years ago, I read an article by someone who had explained grief as a winding road with many twists and turns.  Sometimes you will turn a corner and there will be something beautiful that takes your breath away.  Then you go around another corner and there will be something horribly hard to deal with and the tears and sadness overwhelm you again.  Two weeks into this time of grief and I know those words to be true.

And so, down the winding path I travel...

Papa Bear - March 1942 - June 2014

Maui, October 2014 - Our final father-daughter photo

Day is done,
Gone the sun.
From the lake,
From the hills,
From the sky.
Fare thee well,
Safely rest
God is nigh.*

(*Not the exact words but they are what I hear...so that's what I'm singing today.)

Things change rapidly

The following was written on Friday.  It seems like a year has come and gone in the last two days. I don't have words for the hurt of unknowing and despair.  I'm working at just resting...  

I'm sitting in the atrium at the big hospital, while two floors up my Dad lies in a hospital bed with a fever, pneumonia setting in, delusions and is in the process of being intubated.  I pray that in a week, I will come back to this space and have good news...today I'm hoping he makes it until tomorrow.

That has been our week.  Monday, after I posted about watching him twitch in bed, things changed rapidly.  He started vomiting and then aspirated the vomit and things went down hill within 15 minutes.  The Rapid Response Team was called and within the space of a half hour he was being moved to ICU and that is where he has been all week.  He has a fever, an infection in his blood, pneumonia and today the decision was made that to insert a breathing tube, with the goal of getting him through the infection.  We have no idea if the chemo worked because they can't take a bone marrow sample until he is cleared of the infection.

There are things that I anticipated, there is much I was not prepared for.  Holding my Dad's hand and repeatedly telling him that he can't get out of bed, that we can't take him home, that he needs to just rest. Holding onto his leg so that he didn't just leap out of bed, listening to him struggle for breath, watching his hair fall out, and this morning getting a distressed phone call from him about his computer.  He was in a delusional state, again and was certain the hospital had stolen his computer...that was sitting right next to him.  I was given instructions to "Go, LEAVE", and then "Get the police".  I left, that's what he needed me to do.  I cried all the way out the door and down the three flights of stairs to the atrium.  That's where Lupe found me.

Lupe was cleaning the floor.  She came by once to clean the floor as I was sitting there crying and texting friends and checking to see who else my Dad had called in his delusional state (there were several people).  She came by again when my Mom was there and stood and talked to us and said something that just struck my soul.  Just rest in Jesus hands.  We both got hugs and kisses, Lupe relayed her story but I heard what I needed.  Rest in Jesus hands.

There are words of comfort and compassion that people have offered.  I've found three phrases helpful, so far.  "I'm praying."  "I love you."  and today from Lupe, "Rest in Jesus hands."

I don't know what the next hour will bring.  I don't know if my Dad will leave the hospital alive.  I'm not ready to say goodbye, but who is?  All I know is that this sh*t is hard, and right now we're resting in Jesus hands...and the doctors at Stanford.

What I did on my day off

I'm sitting in a hospital room at the really good hospital about an hour away from our house listening to Papa Bear sleep.  We've teased him for years that when he drops into a deep sleep he sounds a little bit like Darth Vader breathing.  He doesn't always appreciate the comparison.  Every so often his fingers, toes or legs will twitch and then the bed adjusts so reduce the risk for bed sores.  I'm finding these little things comforting today.

It's been two weeks since Papa Bear was admitted.  Almost 30 full days since the Acute Myeloid Leukemia diagnosis.  His last day of chemo was Thursday and it won't be until this coming Thursday when he has another bone marrow test to see if the chemo has been successful.  We'll know the next steps once those test results come back.

Last Monday I arrived at his room to find Papa Bear in tears on the phone with Yo Momma and a big white bandage on his temple.  He had fallen in the wee hours of the morning.  Luckily it wasn't super serious but it was serious enough.  Additionally, there had been a complication with some of his medicine that caused another problem and he was in pain.  I left the hospital that night feeling helpless.  There was nothing I could do but offer support and encouragement and cry along with him.  So that's what I did but still, I wanted so bad to take away the pain.

Friday there was another issue that caused him to be transferred to the Critical Care unit.  He just needed to be monitored for about 48 hours then was transferred back to the Oncology floor.  Today, I walked in to find him completely out, Darth Vader breathing and all.  He'd had a reaction to something and so they gave him benadryl to combat the reaction.  Sleep city.  His blood count is low, so they will be doing more transfusions today but for right now the nurse just wants him to sleep. 

I could go somewhere else, shopping, to lunch, for coffee, IKEA, (I would say the beach but it's back at home and with the amount of people heading into Beach Town as I was leaving, I'm perfectly content to not be there), but really all I need to do is be here, listening to him sleep, watching the twitching fingers and toes and being near.  Today that's my job and I'm okay with it.

Curve balls

Last Sunday afternoon I found myself flipping channels.  On one station was a really awful horror movie, the type I NEVER let myself watch because my imagination already runs rampant enough.  But there I was, my attention caught, as this cross between a human/bat kinda thing that was called a creeper stalked down unsuspecting humans.  It was an awful movie.  I will never go in a cornfield again.

On the other channel was the Hallmark movie of the week.  Some schmaltzy equally awful romantic something or another that clearly wasn't as captivating as the human/bat creeper because I kept going back to that channel.  Back and forth I went between the two until the creeper thing came to an end and then, well I wasn't going to watch Final Destination 2 or 3 or whatever it was, so I wound up on the Hallmark channel again.

Later that evening I was with a friend, relating my day spent watching two awful movies and beating myself up ever so slightly for wasting my day when the 2x4 of reality hit me over the head...watching those two movies was really all I could do that day, I had no more emotional or mental strength left.

Almost two weeks ago, now, Tuesday my Dad or Papa Bear as he is known on this blog, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  Just like that he went from living to be 105 like Great-Grandpa Ben to really hoping to make it to 73 or 74 or 75 or 76, heck 80!  There's a lot they are doing to treat Acute Myeloid Leukemia and we are going to be aggressive and fight this all the way into remission but still, the blow of the fragility of life took it's toll.

Yo Momma and I were on our way to meeting Lil' Bro and family at the Happiest Place on Earth when we got the news.  Yo Momma has a lead foot when she wants to...she almost cut across two lanes of traffic to make a u-turn to head home.  I did wind up going to meet Lil' Bro the next day and we spent three days together attempting to push away reality at the Happiest Place on Earth, being family and keeping things normal for Little Miss P.  Sometimes you just do what you gotta do.

Last Sunday morning I woke with dread knowing what was coming in church that day and not wanting to get up.  Not only did I not want to talk about what is happening with Papa Bear, I knew that sometime before church was over Youth Pastor Friend was going to tell the congregation he was leaving full-time ministry.  Even knowing it was the right decision and that God is in the midst of his decision, it was still hard to sit and listen to the words flow from his lips.  There was this horrible mix in my head of Youth Pastor friend leaving, Papa Bear's life in crisis and my own sense of everything being so far out of control I just couldn't breathe.

And so, there I was on Sunday afternoon with nothing left in me, watching a horrible horror movie and a horrible Hallmark romance and occasionally finding tears welling up in my eyes.  Tears are only a millisecond away these days.  It's been a long couple of weeks and there are longer weeks ahead.

Tomorrow I will get up and go to work as usual. Yo Momma and Papa Bear will get up and call the hospital to find out what time he is to admitted.  Five weeks from now we hope the leukemia is in remission so that a bone marrow transplant can take place.  As I have told Papa Bear, there are no options, he will fight this and he will fight this hard.  We are going to kick leukemia to the curb.

This afternoon Papa Bear and I sat in the family room and watched the Giants and Dodgers battle for a win. We watched the players do their thing and eventually cheered when the Giants won in the 10th inning (they can never make it an easy win).  I look forward to the day when Papa Bear and I can go to another Giants game together at AT & T park.  I will buy the best seats possible for that game.  Life throws curve balls every once in a while and sometimes all we can do is just step back and watch them go by, waiting for just the right moment to hit that ball right out of the park.

A day of reminiscing

This morning on Facebook, I saw a message from a former classmate of mine to New Sis.  It struck me as funny that the world is small enough that New Sis and former classmate met up, without my introduction, and are now Facebook friends.  Very strange.  It also got me thinking about elementary school (yes, I've known this person THAT long) and being invited to someones birthday party and what a big deal that really was when I was in elementary school.  Then I started thinking about how my mind works and how my mind has always told me I'm not likable because of a certain issue, which I really don't want to get into here and so we'll move...and no I don't want to talk about it later, thankyouverymuch.

This afternoon, again on Facebook, a high school classmate posted about another high school classmate who died suddenly.  Shock has been rippling all afternoon.  I happen to be friends with the aunt and cousin of this classmate who passed away, pretty good friends with them actually.   My classmate's husband died earlier this year in a very tragic accident, leaving her 6 months pregnant.  Which means there is a 4 month old out who is now an orphan.  Words are just failing.  Pray, if you are the praying kind, for the family, please.

Then tonight as Papa Bear and I were leaving a restaurant this guy smiled and said "Hey!  Hi!"  I know I looked at him blankly and kinda looked a Papa Bear and then realized, I KNOW HIM!  Another high school classmate, though he was a freshman when I was a senior, whom I literally haven't seen since I graduated...not saying how many years ago.

Some days I marvel at how we are all connected, how cool it is to reconnect with people, how small the world is and how unfair life can seem.  I am very glad I am not in charge.

Friday Five: I Need Help--Day Three

I am horrendously awful about asking for help.  The part of me that always, always, feels like a failure gets in my way and stops me from asking for help.  I am the helper, not the one in need. Maybe I don't like to feel indebted to other people.  Maybe my perfectionism gets in the way and its easier to ask to do things myself than ask for help.  I know a part of me hates to be let down, so not asking for help means that no one can let me down.  Whatever it is, I am awful about asking for help.

So I don't.  Yet there are two people who help me all the time, without being asked or even when I don't want to ask.  Now some may say it's their duty, but I know better.  They help because of love and I am grateful.  I live with my parents.  When I moved back in after college they were gracious and I only intended it to be for a year or two.  That year or two has been extended, considerably.  I like to think it's a little give and take.  They are retired, they travel but I'm around and can take care of things while they are away.  I've heard from both of them, separately at times that there is absolutely no rush to move out, in fact I'm pretty sure they both like having me around...most of the time.  I am human, I do get grumpy and they are the first line of fire when things are going awry.  I'm sorry for that but I'm also so grateful for their help.

If I am close to my breaking point, they are the people I will turn to first.  It never fails if I'm feeling stressed or scared or sad or whatever and I hear the voice of Yo Momma or Papa Bear, I'm done.  The tears start.  And they are always there to help.  No matter what.  I also know they are proud of me.  No matter what.  Sure, my relationship with my parents can be a little rocky at times but never once do I doubt their love and support.  I know beyond a doubt that I am blessed with two amazing people for parents.  And I am grateful for their help...even when I don't want to ask.

Monday evening dots of randomness

• Little Miss P turned three this past weekend.  Of course Auntie B had to make cupcakes and cake pops.  She had the best look on her face as people were singing "Happy Birthday" to her.  She had a good day and ate three fishy cupcakes.  Hard to believe it's been three years since she was born!
• I am very, very grateful for Papa Bear.  Last night when I arrived home after the drive from Tahoe, I wished Papa Bear was home as the rat trap had been activated.  This evening as I dealt with the dead rodent, I was really grateful that Papa Bear usually deals with this stuff.  The rat trap will go un-baited until he gets home.
• There are certain things that get me riled up.  Men denying the validity of rape turns out to be one issue.  I have spent the whole day stewing and being pissed off about the whole "legitimacy of rape" comment by a certain Missouri Representative.  I hope the women of Missouri wake up and refuse to vote this man into office.
• Monday night TV really stinks.  I refuse to watch Bachelor Pad, The Closer went off the air and NCIS re-runs don't run on Monday nights because of WWE.  Maybe I should just go to bed.
• One of the office coordinators in my office building came into my office last week and asked for change.  Her car was running on fumes, she had no more money in the bank and was just trying to get home from work (there's so much more to this story).  I gave her $5 and I thought she was going to cry.  Later, talking with Papa Bear, it occurred to me that when you have nothing, you don't need much to be grateful or happy.  I think that's a lesson that those in political power need to learn.
• This morning as I was waiting for the bus, there was a college student doing a practice run before school starts on Wednesday.  I made sure to tell him not to get on the wrong bus and how to know which one was the right bus.  I will NOT be one of those bus people who don't help out newbies!
• And that ends the dots of randomness this Monday evening.  Have a good week!

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• I thought I was done...Tonight I declare war on ants.  The swarm that made it's presence known in the kitchen in less than an hour has been eliminated.  The dishes are washed, there is no food on the counter and honest to goodness I will kill every single ant that I see.  That is all

April 18, 1970, 5:02pm

42 years ago today, these two got married.

The four of us are extremely grateful they did!

Happy Anniversary Yo Momma and Papa Bear!