I Hope He Meets John Wayne

I went to Arizona over Thanksgiving to see my step-dad.  If you read my last post, you know he had bone cancer.  Yeah.  I said had.  He passed away the morning after I arrived in Arizona.  Unfortunately, I did not get to say goodbye, because I had stopped overnight in Phoenix and had not yet made the 3 hour trip to the mountain top where he and mom lived. 

When I received the call I was both grateful and devastated.  He was in so much pain, the life he was living as a cancer victim was horrible and hard and humiliating to him.  How could I not want him to be free from that situation?  At the same time, I was sad.  I didn't get to tell him how much I appreciated him.  Or how much I loved his ridiculously funny stories.  Or how grateful I was that he gave us a safe place to live and gave me employment when I needed it.  Or how his love of all things John Wayne has become my love of all things John Wayne.  There are all these unsaid things just hanging out there.  I hate leaving things unsaid.  

My step-father was a lover of really cool muscle cars.  I wish I would have shown more of an interest for them when he was collecting them and fixing them up.  At different times in his life he bought and restored a GTO, an old Chevy something that looked kind of like the original Batmobile that he called the Ghetto Sled (because of where he bought it), an old Buick Riviera with that weird back window, and several others that I don't recall the makes and models.  But they were all cool.  But part of the reason that they were cool was because he was cool.  He didn't have to try to be cool, he just was. Kind of like the cowboy version of The Fonz.

He was one of those guys that knew what the trends would be 6 months before anyone else did.  He came home with black Reeboks one day and we all laughed about how weird they were.  Six months later EVERYONE was wearing them!  

John was one of the original "preppers" and a MacGyver kind of guy that would make MacGyver jealous! He could figure out how to make just about anything out of stuff he found laying around.  

He loved food and music and guns, all equally.  He got me hooked on these:

And he taught me how to use these:

And he made me download hundreds of these to his Ipod:

 He was a master story teller who had many, many stories to tell about traveling with his dad, who rode and trained race horses.  He talked about the things he would do as an 8 year old kid wandering around the fair while his dad was busy. Watching the monkeys dressed like jockeys riding greyhounds was high on his list of favorites.  He talked about how his mom would take him to church and give him money for the bus ride home and he would wait for her to drive off, then go to the ice cream shop and buy a cone with the bus money and walk home.  His mom could never figure out why his suit was so dusty all of the time. His stories about fighting and drag racing and his overnight stint in jail when his dad got mad enough not to bail him out were hilarious and filled with real life details that no one could make up.  I'm sad that we didn't take the time to record him telling those stories. 

John had a wickedly, sarcastic sense of humor.  He was the kind of person who could totally slam you and it was so funny and accurate that event though the joke was on you?  You had to laugh!  When he was in a good mood, there was not a funnier, more fun guy to be around. His grin and his laugh were so indicative of who he really was when he was happy.  His laugh was not a laugh that fit a man of his character, reputation or build.  He was a big, tough guy.  His laugh was not at all tough.  When he really got going, his laugh got very high pitched and when you heard him laugh that hard, you had to laugh too!

He had nicknames for everyone.  Hammerhead, Numbnuts and Honyock were among his favorites.  My boys were never Tanner and Eli when they were with him.  The were Big One and Little One.  My sister was Bird when she was a kid, because she was all knees and elbows.  He called me Thumper for a while when I wore my Nike Canvas or Converse sneakers because he said my big feet looked like rabbit feet. They did look like rabbit feet when I wore the shoes with what is now called skinny jeans.  

John loved Old Westerns and John Wayne and Gene Autry.  He would watch reruns of Gunsmoke and Bonanza for hours.  I'm pretty sure he has watched every single John Wayne movie ever made.  Watch the movie "The Cowboys" sometime.  John Wayne in that movie?  That was my step-dad. His humor, his tough exterior, his truly soft heart, his work ethic, his intolerance of bullies...all my step-dad.  

There were downsides to living with John, to be sure.  He hated holidays.  He would get grumpy and hide in his room all day.  We kind of laughed this year during Thanksgiving dinner that his grumpiness had become part of the tradition.  Because of his upbringing, he didn't let a lot of people get close to him.  Not even us.  He put up a lot of walls and it's too bad that he waited so long to let the the walls start to come down.  He missed out on a lot of great relationships with his family and friends.  And we missed out too.

Last visit with Grandpa John in June 2013

I'm sad cancer took him just when he was figuring out that family was important and that he needed to spend more time getting to know his grand kids. He had a lot of hard-earned advice and wisdom to share with them.  He had so many stories to make them giggle and laugh.  He had so many skills that he could have passed on to them.  And they would have loved almost every minute of their time with him. 

There is so much more I could write, but it wouldn't sum up who he was.  And nothing I could write right now could ever convey my appreciation for him, as a step-father or as a person.  So I will just finish by saying this:  John, thanks for giving me a safe place to live, for teaching me how to change a tire and defend myself and for hiring me back every time you fired me for speaking my mind.  I hope where you are now that you get to meet and talk with John Wayne.  I bet you'll be good friends.

And this, which only a few of you will get:  That whole thing about you going to hell with a bad back?  We win.

My Achy Breaky Heart

I have a billion and one things to do today.  I have a review to write about chocolate.  I know.  I am so lucky to get to taste chocolate and then write what I think about it... and get paid to do it!  But there are no words in my brain about chocolate right now.  I need to write a post to promote our Holiday Craft Expo coming up in two weeks.  And promote it on Facebook and Twitter and every other social media platform that I can think of.  But I have no words for that either.  My heart is full.  Achy breaky full.  So much sadness seeping out of it that I cannot stop the flow.  And my brain is paralyzed.  Having to arrange words into anything that makes sense right now seems so impossible.  But I need to write.  It's the only way to wash away my hurt.

 

Someone will probably think this post is selfish.  That's okay...it is. I am acutely aware that I am not the only one hurting tonight.  My entire family hurts.  My mother hurts as she cares for her husband in what has become the most unimaginable circumstance.  He lays in his bed, dying of cancer.  My step-dad hurts.  He's the one who is dying.  To say I can't fathom what he must be feeling and thinking is an understatement..  A month or two ago he was diagnosed with bone cancer and told he had about 6 months to live.  It was shocking and sad and we were not prepared for the news.  I guess no one is ever prepared for that kind of news. But we thought we had more time to say our goodbyes and get our relationship affairs in order with him.  To say the things we needed to say to a man who welcomed us into his home, even though we were not his children.  To hug this John Wayne-esque, giant of a man who was never big on showing emotion or public displays of affection.  All of the sudden, his health deteriorated and now we are, along with him, staring his death in the face.

I am not ready for this.  I am not ready to lose another person with whom I did not get the chance to develop the kind of deep, meaningful relationship I wanted to have.  I am not ready for my boys to lose the only grandfather they have had who was willing to spend time with them, JUST when he decided to quit being a hermit and start paying attention to them!  They were just starting to get to know him!  They were just starting to hear his hilarious stories and see his face light up when he talked about all of his life adventures.  They were just starting to earn nicknames from him, because he rarely calls anyone by their real name...he has a nickname for everyone. 

My grief over his passing is way more profound than I feel like I can handle.  And I have had to stop and figure out why his passing is affecting me to the point that I want to shut down.  I can't shut down.  People are counting on me to take care of them and help them.  My mom doesn't have the luxury of just shutting down and she truly needs and deserves to shutdown over this.  Why am I not able to be stronger this time around?  It's not like my step-dad and I are super close.  I love him very much, but we haven't had a typical father-daughter relationship (more on that later).  So why do I feel like I am losing more than I can stand to lose?  That sounds bad.  Like I'm saying I shouldn't be AS SAD that he is passing away because he isn't my real dad and we weren't as close as we could have been.  That's not what I mean by saying I shouldn't be so very, very depressed about this. I'm saying that the level of sadness and grief I feel is debilitating and it feels like there is more to it than my step dad's untimely and pending death.

I have to believe that this is less about his rapidly approaching crossover to heaven, which is truly a blessing given the extreme amount of pain he is enduring, and more about my feeling that one more time I am being left alone to deal with life.  I feel like my whole life has revolved around people leaving me.  I won't go into details. But it's happened a lot. And the hurt has caused has started to become unbearable.  I thought my real dad dying tragically and unexpectedly was pretty painful to sort through.  But now I am losing my other dad - the only one I have left and have struggled to develop a relationship with - and it almost feels worse than the first loss.  

Clearly I need to get over my own abandonment issues and focus on the good times that I had with my step-father.  I have some good memories of him.  He is a good man who had issues of his own due to his upbringing.  His walls were so high.  It took him until just recently to finally decide to let them down and start to let us in a little more and now he's leaving us. It doesn't feel fair.  I know...we all have our issues.  I just wish my family's issues would have been less detrimental to our having a rich and full "normal" life. The whole thing just really, really sucks and I'm not ready to say goodbye to one more person who means something to me. Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how NOT ready for this I am. 

And yes...I feel like a self-absorbed, whiny ass, drama queen for posting this.  Because my dad's cancer and death should not be all about me.  But the truth is, it is about me.  And about him.  And about my mom and my sister and my aunt and my sons and whoever else is affected by his disease.  Every single one of our lives is changing because my step-dad has cancer and is dying. And it hurts.  So I sit and write to process and heal and then I have to choose whether or not to share what I feel with everyone else or hide it away somewhere.  Who will I hurt by posting this?  I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there will be someone. Who will feel like I am seeking out attention?  I don't know that either, but I know sometimes I have a problem with that.  Who will just read the post with an open heart and identify with it and walk away with a greater desire to spend more time with their kids and grand kids so they don't have to feel like they missed out on one of life's greatest joys?  I hope many.  

Will sharing this do any good?  I don't know.  I just know it helps me.  And I choose to think I am not the only one in the world who has these kinds of thoughts and struggles.  So I guess I hope that when I make my personal issues public, it helps someone, somewhere, deal with a difficult situation because they know they are not alone.  So for now, this post will go live.  Because it's what I need to do to cope and to find some peace in my out of control life.      

A Life Well Lived and Some Other Stuff about Life and Death.

This is a post about death and dying and life and living.  I know.  I'm sorry.  It's where I'm at right now.  It's what is happening in my world.  So I am using my blog to process.  Because I can't afford therapy.  I will not be offended if you stop reading right now.  Maybe you don't feel like crying.  But if you do need a good cry, this might be a good post to read.  It's making me cry.  But I tend to do that a lot these days.  So now that you have been warned, stick around or don't.  Either way, it's all good.

I think I mentioned in a previous post how ironic I think it is that I am dealing with end of life issues at the very same time that I am trying to create a rebirth for myself and my family.  As I contemplate the marks left on communities by those who are leaving us, I am still struggling to find my place in the world. As I feel sadness for the loss of people close to me, I feel joy and gratitude for those who have been sent for me to raise and nurture.  One day finds me holding a dying man's hand, 

 

while the next finds me helping very much alive and overly-excited boys make a lemonade stand to earn money. 

The emotional toll this juxtaposition has taken on me is exhausting, mentally and physically.  My brain keeps trying to process deep life and death concepts that make me think about my own mortality and my own happiness (or lack of) and other complicated stuff that causes me pain to think about.  Not liking it at all.  At. All.  I keep trying to shut it all out by just focusing on living in the moment and enjoying each moment for what it is.  Except some moments are kind of painful.  Like watching someone you love pass away. 

For a few weeks now I have been watching my step-grandfather deteriorate and face the end of his life. Because he is 100% coherent and aware, it has been tough on him to deal with a body that refuses to give up the fight to live, even while it is shutting down and cannot support him any longer.  It has been tough on his family too, to watch him struggle to die with some kind of peace and dignity.  We were hoping it would be an easier passing for him.  It would have been nice for him to go to sleep one night and not wake up.  The phone call I got tonight indicated the further breakdown of his bodily systems and I was told that he may not make it through the night. Even now though, during these last hours, he is experiencing much discomfort and frustration.  I hate that this is how he has to experience death.  

I have been blessed over the last month to spend some days sitting with him as he winds up his time here on earth.  He is an amazing man.  He has some incredible stories about growing up in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years, about working for the Civilian Conservation Corp during the Depression and about surviving D-Day on Omaha beach during World War II.  He lived through some of the worst times this country has seen.  

Despite struggling to endure and survive some really tough and sad situations, my grandfather never dwells on the negative aspects of his experiences.  If he mentions the pain or negativity at all, it's kind of in passing and then he quickly moves on to the valuable lessons he learned from what he went through. He is seriously one of the most positive, upbeat people I have ever known.  The last few weeks of visits haven't brought much conversation from him.  It's painful for him to talk because he can't breathe well.  But I talk to his nurses and others who stop by to see him.  In spite of his weakened state, he offers them a smile or a quick hello.  They offer hugs in return.  Even the cook came out of the kitchen to see if her "favorite guy" wanted anything special for dinner.  There is never an unkind or impatient word about him from anyone in the facility, or for that matter, in his life. They talk about his humor, his enthusiastic attitude, his positive outlook and his ability to remember names.  He leaves a lasting impression of all that is good about humanity on everyone he meets.  

 

When he married my grandmother after she left her horribly abusive first  husband, he changed not only her life, but ours as well.  He opened his heart and his home to her and her family without hesitation.  It was his idea to invite my grandmother's mother to live with them instead of living by herself halfway across the country as she started to suffer from the effects of a stroke.  And even though he loves Idaho, he was happy to relocate every winter to Phoenix after they retired so my grandmother could be closer to us.  Her life was so much better because he understood the give and take required to have a happy marriage and he understood that her family (no matter how messed up he thought we might be) was part of the package.  He never judged us.  He accepted us and did his best to love us. I am going to miss him an awful lot when he's gone.  Strength of character, a positive outlook, a kind heart and resilience will be his legacies.  I hope I have learned enough from him to emulate him even just a little as I continue my own earthly journey. 

There's so much more I want to say about Grandpa Russ, but I don't have the words tonight.  I just know that I'm a better person for having known him.  And I know when he is reunited with my grandmother in Heaven, he will have nothing but great things to say about his life here on earth.  Even the dying part.  I know he will find a lesson in all that suffering.  I hope I can say the same thing about my struggles some day.  

Until then, I will say thank you to a great man who served his family, his country and his God well.  

New Year's Eve was a Funeral

New Year's Eve was a funeral.  I don't mean a funeral like I was at a party and it was really dead.  I've been to those kind of parties though and they suck because you don't want to be there, but if you leave the host gets all offended because they know their party sucks and you leaving early just makes them feel worse.  It wasn't that kind of thing.  I mean I literally spent New Year's Eve giving the eulogy at a funeral.  It was my Uncle K's funeral.  He died just before Christmas and my poor aunt waited until New Year's Eve so that we could get through Christmas with our own families and deal with traveling and stuff after the holiday. Christmas was already kind of stressful (hence no Christmas post) because Big Man (the hubby) was out of town looking for work and it was tough to get through the season without him.  It felt weird and incomplete and we all felt kind of lost.

Then my aunt called to tell me Uncle K had died.  And she asked me to do the eulogy. I couldn't say no.  My Aunt K is almost my mom.  She took my sister and I into her home and helped raise us when we needed a safe place to live. She gave us the childhood we needed and had not been given the chance to have until then.  She treated us like her own children and loved us unconditionally.  How could I say no?  I wanted to, though.  Because eulogies are so personal and important and what you say when a person dies to commemorate their life may have a huge impact on the living who are listening to your words, trying to hear anything that might help them find peace or laughter or closure.  It's a lot of pressure to get that right.  To make sure you honor the dead and uplift the living.

How do I know it's pressure?  Because this is the third eulogy I have delivered.  The first one was for my Dad.  He was my dad and there was lots to say about who he was and how he impacted my life and there was never any thought about speaking at his funeral, it just seemed like it was my responsibility and I wanted the opportunity to honor him.  It was amazingly cathartic and I was so glad afterward that my sister and I chose to take on the responsibility, as tough as it was.

The second eulogy I delivered was for my grandmother.  My Aunt K had been her caretaker for several years and asked if I would talk about Grandma G.  My Grandma G was such a wonderful lady and she too did all she could while we were growing up to love us and help us through some very tough times.  I lived with her on two different occasions while I tried to find my path in life and spent many, many nights listening to stories about her life.  She was so tough and funny!  I loved going through all of her pictures and sharing stories about her life while we prepared for her service.  It gave me the opportunity to see her in all of her glory!

So Uncle K was the third.  An honestly, I wasn't in a real great place emotionally (what's new, right?), so when my aunt asked me to speak, I wondered why her kids didn't want to do it.  She went on to answer my question without me asking..."my kids aren't good at expressing themselves and sharing their emotions in public."  Ah. Well...I'm not sure I am either.  And honestly...who IS comfortable giving a eulogy?  Just because I like to talk a lot and don't mind doing it in front of people doesn't mean I have anything of value to say about a person who just died.  But...I would do anything for my aunt, so I said yes.

It was a tough eulogy to prepare.  I'd visited them throughout the years, but I hadn't lived with my aunt and uncle for 35 years. He was a truck driver, so even when I was living there as a girl he wasn't home a lot.  I had a few memories, but not enough for an entire talk!  So I started trying to interview his kids and brothers and sisters.  His kids couldn't seem to talk much.  Which is so opposite of how I process grief and sadness, so I was really struggling with how to talk about their dad without their input.  His younger brother, however,  painted an incredible story about a man I barely knew.  Apparently my uncle had a pretty tough childhood, which explains a lot about why he wasn't very talkative about his life.  I won't go into details, but it was tough and his dad made it tougher. His brother shared  a lot of things about mu uncle's life that even my uncle's kids didn't know about him.  What I really came away with was that Uncle K wasn't a talker. He was a doer.

He didn't tell his kids about driving trucks, he taught them how so they could make a living.  He didn't tell them how to fix cars.  He taught them so they could fix their own.  He didn't say he would be over sometime to help fix the house.  He just went and fixed the house. Almost every person I talked to shared an experience about how my uncle had helped them.  The picture that emerged as I wrote his eulogy was a huge lesson in judging people and assuming that we know people when we really don't.  Honestly, I always thought my uncle was kind of high maintenance, because I really only saw him at home, where he relied on my aunt a lot for his daily needs.  Turns out the person I thought I kind of knew was in actuality a much more giving, loving person that people realized.  He wasn't a touchy, feely, talky guy who walked around saying flattering things he didn't mean.  He served people.  He helped when he was needed.  He was present when he could be - Daddy Daughter events with granddaughters and nieces (me), time spent working on cars or in the shop with his boys or the neighbors, hiking, camping with the family and grandsons.  There weren't a lot of words.  He didn't talk about helping and loving and sharing feelings.  But there were actions.  He willingly gave of his time and talent when he was needed, from the time he was a young boy until his worn out body wouldn't work anymore.  And I think we all needed to know and understand that about a man that some of us thought was kind of quiet and detached, even grumpy at times. 

So I spent New Year's Eve talking about the life of someone who had just died, while pondering the beginning of a new year in my own life. It was an irony that was not lost on me.  At 48 years old, after five years of struggling with our finances and life in general, I am more lost than ever about who I am and how to get my family where we need to be.  I have no life plan anymore.  Our plans have fallen apart.  Our back up plans fell apart.  We have to start over.  I have to start over and I am scared and worried and afraid to take even one more step forward because I cannot handle one more failure.  So I have been taking stock of my life.  And then I got asked to take stock of someone else's life and present the findings in a pleasant way that would honor the way they lived. Karma or blessing? Maybe some of both.

I was surprised at how emotional I was during the talk.  I thought I would be more composed.  I cried more than I wanted to.  Because I was blessed to get a glimpse of who my uncle really was and share that with people who needed to see him in the most positive light possible.  I got to see how someone who rarely got the best life has to offer accepted what he was given and tried to do something good with it.  And I suddenly felt very grateful for the example my uncle had been.  I'm great with the words of love and support, something my uncle didn't always verbalize, but not so great at actually showing up when I can be of service.  I don't want to be the person who offers help and lots of hugs and "I love yous", but never delivers the goods when push comes to shove.  And sometimes when I am asked to sacrifice my time or energy, I complain because it seems inconvenient or hard.  Uncle K never complained.  He just did what needed to be done.  And mostly...I don't want to die and have my kids not feel like they can talk about me at my funeral because they didn't know me well enough to have something to share. Or because they don't like to speak in public.  I want to tell them everyday how much I love and appreciate them and what a blessing they are to me and how incomplete my life would be without them.  I want to tell them how important it is to serve and love others and not judge.  I want to tell them how important it is to be happy and positive, even when it's hard to feel that way.  And then after I tell them, I want to show them.  

I hope one day they will look back and say, "Remember when we spent New Year's Eve at that funeral and mom had to speak?  Boy...Mom really got her crap together after that.  Life got so much better for our family in 2013."             

Mom Strength

This is a hard post for me to write tonight. And I'm writing for purely selfish reasons, which is the last reason I should be writing, given the subject of this post and the example that has been set for me today. Selfishness has no place in this drama I have watched play out over the last few days. And yet, here I am, with my high maintenance ways, selfishly working through my issues at the expense of my readers. Sorry...the grief is too much to bear alone.

Having said that, the grief and sadness I feel today is NOTHING compared to the loss and suffering my friends have had to endure the last few days as they deal with the tragic loss of their 2 year old son. What makes the loss even more unbearable is that the little boy's caretaker was the one who unknowingly took his life when she backed over him in the driveway. In an instant, 2 families who are the best of friends have been changed forever and a little bundle of energy and mischief is gone.

As I sat at the church waiting for the funeral to begin, I was immediately struck by the fact that the large chapel was full to capacity. That was not surprising. My friends are amazing people who are so easy to love. And the town where they live - where I used to live - is a kind and giving community, full of people who truly care about one another and who delight in serving and supporting their neighbors. I miss my old town.

The service was full of spiritual moments and incredible music that sounded as if it had been flown in on the wings of angels. The people who were there to support this dear family, including those of us in the congregation, offered our hearts and our voices, doing our utmost to usher in a feeling of love, reverence and faith though melody and lyrics that brought even the strongest man there to his knees.

As I struggled to maintain even a modicum of composure, thoughts raced through my head at a breakneck pace. How does a person even begin to deal with the loss of a child? How does the babysitter ever recover from the guilt she must be feeling? How is my friend still standing and talking? Why has she not fallen to the ground by now in a broken, sobbing heap?

I stopped to think about that last question for quite awhile. The question arose when I watched my friends get up to speak about their son. The father did such a great job of supporting his sweet wife. He was trying to be strong for her, for his other children. He spoke with great tenderness, then broke down for just a moment.  As he regained his composure, he had no more words, so he turned to his wife - my friend.  She stood there in front of a few hundred people with quivering lips and swollen eyes. That's when I wondered if she was going to collapse under the weight of the situation. I watched with tears streaming down my own face as she put her hand out on the podium to steady herself. Two or three times she opened her mouth to speak but no words came out, only choked back sobs. She hung her head for a few moments and her shoulders shook visibly as her body tried hard to fight back the grief. We all felt her pain and sat helplessly, offering our heartfelt love and support through silent prayer.

After a few moments, she stood up straight, wiped her tears, took a deep breath and stepped up to the microphone. She had a renewed strength about her. It was her Mom Strength kicking in. It's that strength that magically appears when we are beyond exhausted and longing for peace and sleep, but we keep going because a sick child needs us. It's the kind of strength that allows you to sit back and watch your child make mistakes, even when you know it will cause them great pain. It's the same strength that God gives you to keep having babies, even when the pain is so unbearable that you think it might kill you. Her Mom Strength was getting her through this. And with everything she had, she began to offer up her thoughts, her memories, her feelings, her testimony and her thanks to God for the precious gift of motherhood that she had been given. She recognized that it had been their privilege to bring that sweet little child into their home and thanked Heavenly Father for blessing them with the opportunity to share in their son's short life here on earth.

And then, this incredible friend of mine, this broken, hurting human being, did the most humbling thing I have ever witnessed. She looked to the babysitter, who by some miracle had managed to drag herself to what I can only imagine must have been the second most torutuous event of her life (the first being the horrible drive backward out of my friend's driveway), and thanked her for taking such good care of their son while my friend went to work each day. She offered her love and condolences to the caretaker, knowing that she too must be consumed with grief and overwrought with sadness. My friend did the most unselfish thing a person can do...she reached out and offered a hand of forgiveness to someone that others might have cast off as unlovable because of a life-ending mistake. There was no hate, no harsh words, no blame. Only solace. My dear, sweet, incredibly strong friend rose to the occasion and offered the ultimate sacrifice and example of Christ-like love. She laid her anger at the alter so that everyone could heal and move on.   

You would think I would leave there trying to live up to my friend's example of strength. And yet, here I sit, in my own selfishness tonight, sobbing like a baby. I lost nothing because of this tragedy. In fact, it opened my eyes and I gained a much better perpective of what matters and what doesn't. But I still sit here with giant tears pouring out of my face...horrified at the thought of having to go through something so traumatic with one of my own children; racked with guilt that I did not make a bigger effort to spend more time with my dear friends since moving from that little town; overwhelmed with homesickness and a desire to move back to the only place that ever felt like home; heartbroken for a friend who suffers so greatly and for whom I can do nothing to ease her pain; and finally, feeling incredibly moved by my friend's selfless actions.  All of which keep the tears flowing.  I guess this is how I process.  I write and I ramble and I cry. 

So thanks, dear readers and friends, for indulging my need to sob on your shoulders. I hope I cry enough tonight to wash the selfishness and grief away so I can be a source of support for my friend and her family. She gave me a great gift today when she offered up her example of courage, faith and selflessness. I would like to return her the favor.

I Know from Funny!

I love funny people! I used to be a funny person - seriously! I WAS FUNNY!! I even did a set once at the Johnny Walker Comedy Search. It was AWESOME!! That was probably one of my funniest days ever. I'll tell you about it someday.

Now I get too stressed out trying to figure life out. I used to joke about everything! Now I just worry about everything! I worry about my husband and kids. I worry that they will be too serious. I worry that I won't find funny me again. I worry that the pee that misses the toilet will never come out of the grout. I used to use humor as a coping skill. Now I guess I use denial, the internet, frustration and depression as coping skills? Oh yeah, and food. There's progress for you.

Slowly, each day, I am remembering how great humor is and sometimes I can actually manage to crack a joke and laugh with my kids! They are actually hysterical. Remind me to tell you the story about Little Man and fart juice. I know, I KNOW!! How disgusting! But seriously hysterical! And my husband can be hysterical too. Sometimes. He needs new material.

Which brings me to the joke of the day, which I found hilarious, but my husband did not. He still tries to make me laugh with the same stupid face and funky dance move that I thought was funny when I first met him. Like 20 years ago. Like I said, he needs new material. Or I need more patience. At any rate, here's the joke:

I was walking past the mental hospital the other day and I could hear people shouting "13...13....13...13..." The fence was too high to see over, so I looked through a hole in the fence...Some idiot poked me in the eye with a stick and then they all started shouting "14...14...14..."

Speaking of jokes...I am sad today (not crying sad, just Oh no! sad) that George Carlin died! I watched and listened to him growing up (well, not all of his stuff, cause he could get a little raunchy, and I wasn't ALLOWED to watch or hear all of his stuff), but one of my favorites was called A Place for MY Stuff.

While I didn't agree with all of his political statements, George pushed the envelope when it came to using comedy to make people really see how ridiculous we can all be at times. Anyway, hit the internet and dig up some George Carlin stuff when you get a few minutes and really laugh! I'm sure that's how he would want to be remembered.

After you've laughed a bit, feel free to share your favorite joke or funny link here, if you like. But keep it clean! And just know...I used to be FUNNY!!