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.

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.  

Things I Heard This Week That I Wish I Hadn't

It's been a long week.  Here are some snippets of conversations in which I took part or overheard during the last few days that made me want to either punch someone in the face or just crawl back in bed:

• You have to come in 4 hours early all week for cross-training.
• Mrs. Boymom, Little Man has mono. 
• Mom!  The cat pooped in the tub.
• Overtime has been cancelled until further notice.
• I need to buy ammo for my Firearms class this weekend.  Which bank account has any money left in it?
• Ask your husband if you can go out to dinner with me Saturday night.
• Honey, I came home and the water was turned off.  Did we pay the bill?
• Your deductible is $500. 
• We're out of toilet paper (screamed from the upstairs bathroom)!
• Mom!  Little Man is throwing up again! 
• I don't want to go back to school!  I hate it and you can't make me!
• Why is there no food in the house after you just went shopping?
• The reality is that the hard workers rarely get noticed.  People get noticed when they screw up or kiss the boss' butt.  So you need to decide whether you are going to screw up, kiss up or just work hard with no acknowledgement. 
• Quit bugging me or I will hit your spleen and make you go to the hospital (related to the mono symptoms, but I'm going to save this one for my own verbal threat arsenal.  It would really throw someone off, wouldn't it?).  

There were more things said that made me want to scream, but honestly, I'm too tired to try and remember them all.  Feel free to share some of your irritating conversations in the comments.  I could use a few laughs.   

This Post is For My Friend at Work

You ask me sometimes about marriage and kids.  About what it's like to be tied down.  You have not found your soulmate and you wonder if you ever will.  That's what you tell me.  I've watched you for a few short weeks as you choose your dates and search for "the one."  I don't always get your choices, but I get the need to feel wanted and needed.  I know that you are a real catch and one day you will make someone very happy. 

You tell me you aren't a kid person.  One day I watched you get really annoyed at some kid whose mom was letting him run amuck in a restaurant and you started to get loud about it.  I kind of told you to calm down, but realized that you had a point.  The kid was out of control and the mom was really lackadaisical about her kid ruining the atmosphere for the other diners.  So I see that maybe you really aren't comfortable around kids.  And I understand why you might think all kids are like that little dude.  But they aren't.  There are some good kids around.  Kids like the kind of kid I think you were when you were little.  I hope one day you get to experience the love of a really good kid.  It changes your heart.  It changes your life.  Ask your dad how it feels.    

You also mentioned that it seems like I am in prison sometimes because I have all these family obligations that keep me from really letting loose and being who I am.  You are right...I have felt like that sometimes.  I have felt like I was trapped and struggling to live a life that makes me happy.  But the truth is, my kind friend, if I have ever felt trapped or imprisoned by my life as a wife and a mom, it has nothing to do with my kids or my marriage.  It has everything to do with who I am and the choices I have made.  And more importantly, the reasoning and logic I used when I made those choices.  

Let me clarify.  Yes...when I was single, I could come and go when I pleased and I could spend my money the way I wanted to and I NEVER had to worry about having someone attached to my hip 24 hours a day (except for an occasional clingy friend).  My life was my own, my choices were my own and my mistakes were my own.  Rarely did I have to worry about others, unless I chose to do so.  Sometimes I do miss that freedom of not having to worry about anyone but myself. 

But I can honestly say that I never miss that feeling so much that I would give up the experience of being a mom and a wife to have that freedom again, no matter how much the choice to have a family costs me.  Maybe "cost" is the wrong word.  It's not so much a matter of how much the choice cost me, it's more a matter of how much of myself I chose to give up in trying to make a perfect family and live a perfect life.

We have these ideas of what relationships should look and feel like and so we go into life situations with expectations and pictures in our heads about what a perfect marriage and family unit should be.  And my choice was to set really high, pretty unrealistic expectations for what married life would be like for me. So when life happens and it's really hard?  Yeah...I have felt trapped.  Why?  Because I loved my husband so much when I married him, I never foresaw a time when we would not be as close as conjoined twins.  We would never tire of each other and we would have the best relationship EVAH because he was perfect and I was perfect and together we would be double perfect!  Whoo-hoo!  Even though I knew deep down we were far from perfect. I know...it was naive.  All I knew is that I didn't want to have the kind of relationships I had seen growing up, so I went into marriage hoping and praying for the best and thinking that if you love someone enough, the rest just kind of comes together.  I had no clue that I would have to have an advanced degree in human nature and psychology to navigate my new life with a man and kids!  I know.  I KNOW!!  Naive.  Too bad Dr. Phil wasn't around then to help me out. 

So being the optimist that I was at the time, I chose to set up my relationship with my husband on the highest freaking mountain peak I could find.  "Let's shoot for the stars, Honey!"  Then, I expected him to want to climb the mountain, and to be able to reach the peak with me where we would experience the pinnacle of "perfect married life."  Angels would sing and the clouds would part and the finger of God would reach out to bless our union with love and harmony and we'd buy everyone a Coke and there would be singing and laughter throughout the world!   

Except I never bothered to stop and ask him if he knows how to climb mountains.  I just assumed he knew how because he's smart and funny and he has goals and aspirations, so...cool!  Seemed like a good assumption.  Let's go, Dude!  Up the mountain!  Then one day it occurs to me he's not making much vertical progress and he's miserable and I'm getting angry because I'm tired of dragging him up the hill and when I finally take the time to ask what his problem is, he says he hates climbing mountains!   WHAT!?!  How did I not know he hates mountain climbing?!  In all our years of dating, how did this question not come up?  Not slightly dislikes it...HATES IT!  So now I'm married to a guy who is not a mountain climber.  He is something else.  Maybe he's a swimmer or a flyer or a runner.  Whatever he is, he's not a mountain climber.  So I end up being pissed that he sucks at climbing mountains.  Can I be mad at him for that?  Well, I can be, and sometimes I am mad at him for it, but should I be mad?  Probably not.  I made the choice to marry him and I made the assumption that he would and could climb mountains.  And I geared my whole life around making sure we got up the mountain together, at the same time, the same way.  I became his Sherpa.  I thought that's what I was supposed to do.  So I did it. I never gave myself the option of taking another path.   I also never considered that he might have his own life path to take.  I never thought about letting him fly to the top of the mountain while I climbed and then meeting him at the top, where we would both be happy with the separate paths that we took and then the clouds and the music and God's finger and the Coke....you get the idea.  But the key point here is this...I CHOSE to do all of this.  I chose to set it up this way, I chose to assume the role I did, I chose the path.  I chose. 

Then my kids came along.  And when they came, my heart turned to jello and everything in my entire body screamed out with joy and fear and the most fiery hot intense love that I have ever felt in my life.  And in my zeal to give them the kind of childhood I wanted, I threw my entire being into making sure they get a fair shot at being normal and functional as they grow and face life in an adult world.  I want them to have choices that I never had.  So I sacrifice. 

I sacrificed my business and my career.  I sacrificed my body.  I sacrificed my wardrobe, my health, my happiness.  I put everything on hold for my kids and my husband.  I thought it was the right thing to do and at first I was really, really happy with my choice to walk away from everything that took my focus and attention away from my boys' well-being.  Because remember...my mission is to give them something different than I had - a solid home life where they feel wanted and loved and safe, no matter what is going on in the world around them.  It all sounds so noble, right?  I should have been so happy making these sacrifices, knowing they would give my kids the kind of life I didn't have.  Everything I did was for my kids, and sometimes my husband. I never did anything for myself.

But I wasn't happy.  I was mad that no one appreciated my efforts.  And my being a martyr was not noble.  All I was doing was teaching my boys to feel guilty for having a good life that I was giving them!  How whacked is that?!  I was constantly angry that I was not finding any joy in my role as a wife and a mom and I was blaming everyone but me.    

 

Then one day the realization hit me:  I asked for this.  I told God what I wanted and he gave it to me.  I wanted a husband, I wanted children and I got what I wanted.  I asked to be a stay at home mom and I got what I wanted.  These were my choices.  I can tell you they were and still are the right choices.  I know that with every fiber of my being.  But somehow my choices left me feeling trapped and unhappy and wanting to escape my reality to just let loose and be who I really am inside. 

 

The truth is I chose to give up that "fun, crazy, impulsive, creative" part of myself.  No one asked me to give it up, I just assumed that part of my self would be counterproductive to raising a family.  And really, I don't want my boys to have to go through some of what I went through when I was crazy and impulsive, because frankly, it was kind of scary to figure out how to navigate some of those situations with no one to turn to for advice and counsel and help.  So in my mind that meant I have to be a different person now so my kids have a good role model.  Because I'm setting the example for them, right? 

So somewhere during my life journey, my values changed.  Actually, they didn't change, I just finally developed a core set of values by which I want to live my life.  Maybe I was afraid that letting loose would lead me back to being the person I was a long, long time ago.  That person struggled with being able to stay safe around toxic people and situations because I didn't always have guiding principles by which to make good decisions.  While I had some fun times, I had no self-worth or no sense of how to protect myself.  I don't ever want to go back to that place of feeling like I had no value or reason to exist other than to be abused or neglected by the people who claimed to care about me.  And I never want my kids to feel like that.  Like they cannot protect themselves or that they don't have the skillset to deal with life's trials. 

 

So I made choices.  I decided that I wanted something different. Obviously the choices I made were based on some flawed logic and ideas.  Nevertheless, they were MY choices.  Did my choices create some kind of prison?  Yeah...you were right about that.  They did.  But one man's prison is another man's safety.  Obviously I didn't feel safe being myself.  Assuming the title of wife and mom gave me something to hide behind, for awhile anyway.  Your questions about marriage and kids and happiness kind of brought things full circle for me.  Your calling me out made me realize that for the last 2 years, through this blog and my writing and getting involved in various other endeavors, including my new job, I have been coming out of hiding.  It's been quite a process.  Sometimes slow, sometimes painful, sometimes scary, but really very exciting and fun, all at the same time.  So what does this all mean? 

 

Does this new realization mean I walk away from my family so I can feel free?  That's one choice people make.  Is it my choice?  Absolutely not!  It means I change the way in which I live my life with them.  Because it is my life, right?  It means that I give them the best of who I really am, because they deserve that effort from me and because I truly want to give it to them, not because I feel obligated to give it to them.  It means I give MYSELF the best of who I really am, because I deserve that.   It means I let the crazy, fun, spontaneous, creative parts of me come out once in awhile because my family needs to be with "Fun Geri" too sometimes!  It means I quit using my husband and kids as an excuse for not living my own life.  It means, my friend, that I would not be the person I am today had I not gotten married and had kids.  So while the experience may have felt like a burden at times over the last ten years, the truth is I would have never known these things about myself had I not made the choices I have made.  Getting to this realization has kind of sucked.  It's been painful and scary.  But now that I'm here...I feel free to be a different, better version of me.  Like it's okay now.  Somehow I have permission that I wouldn't give myself before.  And I can thank a dear new friend for caring enough to ask some really tough questions and push me to finally address the issue at the level it needed to be addressed.

 

Thank You.  I owe you.  Big time.  And I love yer guts for taking the time to really get to know me. I hope someday I can return the favor. 

I got TAGGED!!

So here it is...


20 years ago I was:
1. Just finished with graphics school and working for a typesetter for very little money.
2. Trying to break into the corporate world.
3. Wearing the finest in '80's apparel and sporting big hair.

10 years ago I was:
1. Still a newlywed - 7 months of wedded bliss.
2. Starting my own business - corproate concierge service.
3. Taking a trip to Spain with my Husband.

5 years ago I was:
1. Losing my own business.
2. Staying at home to take care of my 2 and 4 yr old boys.
3. Helping my husband start a new career.

1 year ago I was:
1. Moving into a new house.
2. Helping my brother-in-law through a horrible divorce.
3. Taking a family vacation to San Diego.

This year so far I have:
1. Cried alot.
2. Started a blog and started writing again.
3. Watched my youngest graduate from Kindergarten.

Today I will:
1. Buy some groceries (I know, boring).
2. Watch my kids' basketball games.
3. Help my husband find a job.

Tomorrow I will:
1. Put up a cieling fan.
2. Write a post for my blog.
3. Jump on the trampoline with my kids.

In the next year I will:
1. Learn to let go of the past and be happy.
2. Submit something I've written to be published.
3. Help my kids be happier people.


There ya go. I tag anyone on my blogrolls who hasn't already done this!! GO!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Picture taken by Big Brother, who I am thinking was playing the "Agitator" role in this scenario.

This Matt Guy Doesn't Dance Well!

I've been following this guy for the last couple of years. I find his whole concept really refreshing. Check out his site, read his stuff and watch his Dancing videos. Maybe it's his exuberance, maybe it's his lack of concern about his dancing skills, maybe it's his genuine love for humanity...he brings the fact home that no matter where we live in the world, we are all the same. We laugh, we smile, we live, we struggle...and we dance. The guy inspires me to try to make my own part of the world a happier place. Maybe I need to dance more.

They Love Me Anyway

Sometimes I get bogged down in my past. I start feeling incapable of dealing with my baggage and "issues." Which is why I struggle so much with teaching my boys good life skills. Coping Skills. Positive Thinking. Confidence. Patience. Creative Problem Solving. Consequences. Love. Faith in God. Responsibility. Self-Discipline. Loyalty. Kindness. A Good Sense of Humor. Work Ethics. Love of God and Country. Respect, for Themselves and Others. A Sense of Fun and Adventure. The ability to pee in a toilet without spraying the wall.

All of these are fairly important if they are going to go out in the world and become successful, contributing members of society. I know there's alot of information out there on how to raise well-balanced, confident kids. I read some of it. Some days I am able to apply some of it. I pray alot about it, for them and for me. Some days I don't quite get through to them because I am still trying to get through to myself. How do you teach your kids principles that you are still trying to learn yourself?

I'm still working on that.

Other than the peeing part...I can honestly say I have NEVER peed on the wall. I've learned how to pee properly. Guess I can check that one off of my list. All indications say it will be on their list a while longer.