I was nominated by Dru, to post three quotes for three days. This was a challenge. I thank you for thinking of me!
Feel free to take part in this challenge if you wish!
Day Three Of Quote Challenge
Tag: Family
Nineteen Years Ago The Second Half of Eighteen Years Ago
The pain I experienced was nothing I prepared for back then. I was single through high-school and after, someone came a long and changed my life. My lonely nights, to late night calls, beside my parents, hugs. He hugged me as if he were holding onto his own life, he asked me how I was. And questioned my past. We talked about his past, and at the time I just was not catching on
My friend, Cher, came and picked me up one day. She said she was “taking me up to the big city to find him”. We went to his sister apartment. She got into our car and showed us where you were staying. The place didn’t have all the windows, the skirting was unraveling like yarn, the yard had no grass, and there was blue-tarp over the roof. I can’t believe at the time, my eyes were sewn shut but they were. You took ten-minutes to come out and greet me. You looked whiter than normal, thinner than remembered, The black circles you had around your eyes are still embedded in my mind. You grabbed both of my hands and whispered to me “what are you doing here” I had to see you, and thought I deserved to know where you were… “Go back home.” I promise, I will call you tomorrow at twelve” I never got the call. But our phone did ring, my parents had them all locked up in their bedroom because I had been making long distance calls.
Eight months later I moved to the big city because I crashed my car. I moved in with my best friend. My friend Cher came up to visit me. She knew where you still stood with me. She said “let’s go over to his sisters” we did and you were there. I walked over and sat on the coach beside you. You were thinner than last time, you still had those black circles under your eyes, You would not look on either side, just straight ahead and you never said one word. We wrapped up talking to your sister, and on my way out, I turned around and asked if I could have a pen. I wrote down my phone number on the paper with a note. I walked over to you and tucked the piece of paper in your sweaty palm, you opened it right up, shook your head and smiled. I heard from you on and off after our visit. I chased after you, a few more times, and told myself, I was finished. However, a few months after I decided to throw in the towel. You showed up at my job, where I waitresed, you said nothing to me, as you waited for your pizza. I said nothing to you as well, not because I didn’t want too, but because I was mad. I got a phone call that night from you, you said you wanted a chance and that you would call me after you got off work.
The other night at the grocery store, seeing you, took me right back, to those moments in my life. The feelings I had did not follow the now. I told my mom how upset I was that they were not there and wished it wouldn’t have happened. She said “you got what you have been looking for, closure and closure is what you needed’
My friend Chris over the last six years has told me “give it up woman” she don’t understand why I hold on. She says “he’s the one who got away” I will ask her, do you think he did care? and she will say “no” he would be here if he did.” Another friend of mine, three said to me a couple of weeks ago it’s “your story, you’re a writer, why don’t you come up with your own ending?”
Dearlilyjune: Once wrote a memory of “Eddie” a guy she dated in her past. Even though, the story is different. These words stood out to me in neon flashing lights. I had an A-ha moment.”I stopped talking to him altogether. And it was the cruelest and kindest thing I could think of. And he, whether he felt it at the time or not, was lucky to be free of me”.
We didn’t say too much to one another besides the same old hi how are you, I may, may, I tell you been a little nervous, and picked up a Lipton tea package, turned it over acting like I was reading the package/ingredients because I was nervous. And said “Oh hell, it’s just Lipton”. You walked away to go stock another shelf. I could tell this wasn’t a moment you wanted to be in. I trailed behind you hoping, before the end of the aisle you would give me some sort of an apology and it did not come.
And this quote from -Leo Christopher landed in my lap a week ago today and clarity comes to my mind. I believe we get answer to our questions through other’s. The process might be slow but if we’re truly after peace, peace takes foot-work but it’s all right here in whats been wrote from other’s and their feelings.
I took the day off today, our step-children are visiting us from Texas. We got stuff moved from the garage to the basement, three of us went out to eat and my step-daughter and I went for a walk in Forest park. We took pictures, talked, we broke through to each-other. We came home and my husband filled up the pool, and the kids done some late night swimming. I’m sitting here about to wrap this whole thing up but first before I go.
My dearest first love,
Thank you for walking away from me, thank you for knowing, you weren’t for me, thank you for giving me a life I deserve.
Hanging On To My family By A Thread
This morning hasn’t started off good. I had made an appointment, a month ago, for today. I thought it was for ten-o-clock but it was for nine-o-clock, which is weird, Gabe starts school around then. This was the second time, they have re-scheduled me. The receptionist called me at nine, asking if I was there? I said no, I thought it was at ten? She shuffled through her papers while continuing to say hmm, “no, my Calendar says nine” (swallowing crow) I said: it’s my fault and I’m nowhere near the office, I’m sorry. I talked to my mom a bit about the situation. She told me to start writing things down, and how there is an app, that will remind you, of the appointments you have.
It’s all well in good, but writing things down is a downfall of mine. I hung up the phone and checked the weather. I noticed one of the anchor ladies, on the news site. Stacey Skrysak. My mother had posted this post of her’s, on my fb page, a while back ago. It has been my favorite piece of writing ever since.
My eye’s filled up this morning with tears as I read her post this morning. I thought about having to wait another month to get Ativan for my panic-attacks. They come on like a deer jumping out in front of your car. I do have some daily medication, it don’t always cut it. It helps but not fully.
They started over a year ago.
One night, around three, I woke up to what felt like a water hose of adrenaline filling up my body. I shot STRAIGHT UP into a sitting position and gasped for air, slid out of bed, and into the bathroom. Where I noticed my melons shaking back and forth with every beat of my heart. I thought about taking a Xanax that belonged to my husband. I stared at them thinking about the knowledge I knew. With being a nurses aid. My heart was going to need medical assistance and the hospital would not like to hear that I took medication that was not mine.
I woke up my husband and told him he would have to stay with our son. I called the ambulance to take me to the emergency room. He hated doing such, but all in all this is why we have each other. I told him to take him to school in the morning and he could meet me afterwards.
When the ambulance picked me up. I walked out and climbed into the back and laid on the stretcher. The guy started to put in a Iv. He told me if my heart rate did not slow down he was going to be ordered to give me a medicine, that basically stops the heart for a second. He did not want to have to use it on the ambulance but would if he had too. He asked me some questions about my life. I was able to get comfortable with him. I asked if he had seen this happen with a lot patients? “all the time” we got to the hospital and they had a room waiting for me and started asking me questions.
Had I taken illegal drugs?
Did I take anything at all?
I told them a Sudafed, actually two within that day.
If you took anything illegal, you can tell us, we won’t turn you in?
No, I did not take any drugs!
The doctor came in and ordered medicine that would drip slow. He thought it may help bring down my heart-rate and if he could bring it down. He could see more about what was going on.
I laid there in that one moment, thinking this could be the beginning to the end of my life.
Who knows, what they would tell me?
I’ve had a heart problem before.
Where there is one rat there are a hundred more you don’t see.
What about my husband, my son, my dad, my mom, how will they get through it?
I’ve been in the shallow part of water when it comes to loosing a child
After placing my feet on dry land, I changed.
In one blink of one eye
I lost a family of four. I lost a piece of my husband, my sons Will and Gabe, I lost half of myself, and any thought that life, would last into our thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and so on. I lost being grateful, for my family, when hearing of another families misfortune. Because just as you thank God it wasn’t your son or your daughter. You’re thinking to soon. I’m thankful every second, every minute, of every hour for the life with my family.
The fear I have, isn’t the dying part. It’s the loss, the grief, one would have to feel. It’s the hollowness in a room filled with furniture, clothes, and toys. The silence when all you want to hear is crying. The passerby’s you don’t know but wish you did, so they would stop for a second, while you try to wrap your head around what had happened. It’s the guilt and the choices you made before the boom. It’s the guilt that your gone and I’m here. It’s the triggers, like missing an appointment to the psychiatrist.
The other day I was reading another writers post on loss. Her words as a survivor touched my heart. “I have to keep living and loving because they can’t. And it breaks my heart. And it mends it too”
Update
Longstockings, is in her mid forties. Years ago she developed a rare brain disease. The disease has affected her eyes, speech, and walking. It’s not a fatal disease but it has come with neurological problems.
You can’t walk past her room without her calling out your name to either show you some move she learned in exercise or to complain about the argument her and her mother had.
Her parents are involved in our home activities. Her mom helps the activity director with the residents when taking them to the Muni, fundraisers, Special Olympics, and she always helps me organize Longstockings room
Her siblings that live in our town will also show up to our chili supper, Christmas party, and once in a great moon to fix or give her something.
This particular brother that she had on the phone the other night lives In another state. He don’t get in as much as the others, however he will call, write, and send updated pictures to her.
He did make it to the home. He brought his wife and kids. They played a few games in then went out for pizza!
Reminder
I was in a residents room giving her, her medicine. She asked me to write down a phone number her brother had left on her answering machine. I was just about to push play when the phone rang. I answered the phone “Longstckings room”
“This is her brother, can she come to the phone”?
“Sure”
I handed the phone to her and she motioned me to wait there till she got off the phone. I stood listening to their conversation about how he would be home this year for Christmas. She had a smile from ear to ear on her red flushed face. She asked him how his kids were doing, his wife, and how long he would be here. She answered back “Oh wow” and quickly her voice changed and her smile came down a few notches “I know you have to see your wife’s side of the family too.” The next questioned he asked was what she wanted for Christmas? She paused for a minute then said she could use a photo album, cold coffee, and cookies. She then said “you know what you could really do for me”?
Bring the girls to the home and can all go down to the dining room and listen to you play a few songs on the piano.
The Be Thankful Challenge
Raphaela, has nominated me for the Be Thankful Challenge. Thank you for this honor.
Challenge Rules
Share this image in your blog post
- Write about five people in your life you are thankful for
- Write about five things in 2015 that you are thankful for
- Spread the love and challenge five other blogs to take part
Five people in my life that I’m thankful for.
*My husband Steve, he gave me my son and also his ears. I have told him more than one dark secret. He listens like a hunter hunting a deer. I am thankful he still here.
* My son, he has brought the joy to my life. I blurt out in song all the time when we’re home, tonight he is under the weather. I was giving him cough medicine while singing “a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down the medicine go down the medicine go down” Mom, I’m tired of you singing all the time. I let out a wine and made a sad face. Mom, I still love you, I just don’t feel like hearing you sing right now…
*My mom Linda, she has taught me how to look inside myself and others. “It’s who we are there that counts” this may sound a bit off the bunny trail… I have this head full of hair, it is black, thick, kinky, course, and grows out instead of down. Years ago before developing vitiligo (which turns the skin milky white I’m one hundred percent covered now) people would refer to me as mixed with black and white. We lived in small towns during my childhood. I got the worst of one world. I won’t go into it because I have already. I’m just trying to help you understand Linda. I suppose living in the small town we do now people see my hair and may think I have something in me. My son the other day came home and told me “I was not his mom because he was white and I’m black” I told him that I was not black and changed the subject. This brought back triggers of being younger. I didn’t want to make my thoughts his thoughts. I called my mom later and she said you just tell him “so what it does not matter what color I’m” I forget myself at times that it don’t matter if people think this. The only reason it hurt me is because of my past. I’m thankful that she reminds of the person I’m instead of labels people put on me.
* For readers on this platform who have encouraged me to continue writing and told me it’s okay to write whatever you want. You don’t have to have a plan. Write about what happened during your day, whats going on right now, or what Gabe says “readers love to hear about what kids say” These comments have taken the pressure off, given me fuel to write, and not feel as though I need to impress the world.
*For my dad, he is a believer and has pushed me all through life. He never lets me talk down to myself. When I did he would build me up. I took a class three years ago out at the community college. I had to gather lots of information from my past because I needed proof to get the help they offered for my organization skills. It brought me back to who I let people believe I was then. I made several calls to him during this class because of the nice comments the teachers would make about my writing. I was always shocked because I had never had anyone else comment on my work or what I put into it, except for him. At the end of the class she pulled me aside and told me she had enjoyed reading my work. She wanted to publish one of my papers into a college art book. I decided against it because it had to go through a board and they had the last decision. I did not want to take the chance of having my balloon popped. The gesture was enough. When I told my dad, I cried because of everything I went through how kids treated and talked about me. My dad said “they were kids then Shelley they are not the same people anymore you still think people think that way about you and they don’t” he also said I had a hidden talent and I should continue to write. Here I-am on my two-year anniversary!
Five Things I am grateful for
*Ears for those who listen
*Joy during grief
*Wisdom for the long haul
*Support when the going gets rough
*Love to light the way
I nominate the following to take part in the challenge
2. TheLoneRose
I wrote
The last post to build more story, Does anyone else use this method?
It was hard trying to keep some sort of normalcy for Gabe while “Saltine Cracker” was fighting for his life. My friend Audra, named her, her first name. We finished her middle and last. We bought her at Pet Smart when she was Ten weeks old. She had light green feathers, two or three red feathers under her right-wing, a black tail, with a black cap head and a sweet disposition. Gabe ruffled those green feathers of hers one to many times. Towards the end of her life if she was out of her cage. She enjoyed sitting by him and watching his every move. When he “tried” to pick her up she would peck him! She loved my husband because he was the one who held her, cleaned her cage, and fed her. Steven acted like he always does during sad times. The middle wrinkle on his forehead gets bigger, his face looks clammy, he shuts down, and always look as if he’s about to flee the scene. When I asked him if he was okay he said he was feeling stressed out and he hated to see Saltine die.
When calling my mom for comfort, she asked me if we were taking care of the bird. She said when she was here last the bird was picking at itself. First off, that is what birds do, it’s called Preening. Lets just say when my moms bird died it had lost all its feathers. Saltine was loaded to the gills with feathers! My parents did not like the bird. They said it was the source for Gave and I always being sick.
My friend Audra had lost her cat the night before, my friend Nico lost her gecko, minutes before my bird died. I felt uncanny about how close together they all died and wondered if something was in the air. I mentioned my thoughts to Steve, he didn’t say much. I have to watch my thoughts. My anxiety gets the best of me. This last year I have had panic attacks. I TAKE medicine for them but it doesn’t ALWAYS help. I have heard if a bird drops dead it is usually the sign of a gas leak. At one point during this turmoil I just knew the air in our home was looking smokey, everything around me was blurry, and my stomach was bilious. I couldn’t tell you what snapped me out of it, maybe the medicine?
I had also taken a pregnancy test this same night and we found it negative. We have been trying for another baby for about three years now and haven’t had any news. We are not devastated just disappointed. It’s hard to believe the sun is going down on this part of my life.
Stay tuned
The Other Night
Keeps re-playing in my mind.
It was supper time at work and two other people were working with me. Things were to quiet and I felt uncomfortable. I let out this loud random laugh. The guy serving looks at me and says “are you okay” “yes” in a quiet tone looking me deep in my eyes he says “are you sure” uh yea I’m fine thanks! after asking for the second time I realized his question was sarcastic.. I feel bad and dumb about laughing out loud. There wasn’t any reason for me to do such a thing. It must have made him think it was directed towards him and I guess it was.
We live in a duplex and my neighbors just had a baby I can hear her crying over there and I want to run over and ask if I can hold her.
My friend Allison just called. She told me on Halloween her and her family made hot chocolate for Trick-or-Treaters, next year she said they’re going to grill hotdogs for everyone who wants one because when she was Trick-or-Treating with her kids she got hungry walking around with them. She didn’t have time to eat after she got off work. She thinks this will help a lot of parents out in their travels…
Last night Gabe was playing with his tablet before bed. On his tablet screen was the weather and the dark night full of bright stars. I watched as he held it up looking into the night on the screen and says…
“I wish a may I wish I might have this wish I wis tonight”
“I wish for all the Pokemon cards in the whole wide world”
My Six year Old
Has been into Pokemon cards. Don’t ask me what there all about because I have yet to figure it out? All I know is he loves to take them to his after school program and share them with other kids. He recently had them taken from him here at home because his listening skills have not been up to par. I gave them back to him a few nights ago and he’s been carrying them around like a kangaroo with her babies.
In the early morning hours around four last night. He climbed into bed with us, I barely opened my eye and there he was with his deck of cards resting right beside me. I was still in an unconscious state and was able to fall back to sleep. When I woke up around eight thirty this morning, I was lying on a bed of cards. It has been humid and sticky here lately so when I stood up a few cards fell off me and onto the floor. Barley awake I stumbled to the bathroom and sat down, a Pokemon card fell right out of my undies and into the toilet…
Foster-Care
Recently On Life In My Tin Can I have written about conversations I have had with woman who were not ready for motherhood.
I believe some events in life set the sail for who we are and where were going.
I wrote this back in 2010 in a beginners writing class. I have been waiting to share it with you because I felt you needed to see some of my backlog leading up to why I became a Foster-Parent. The teacher asked us to pick a paragraph out of the book we were reading “Dead End In Norvelt” and tie it in with our own life. I choose page 196 paragraph two.
In such a fertile home devoted to beauty, love and understanding only one thing was missing-A child. My sister was a little too old for motherhood but in 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when Japanese Americans were being rounded up and sent to internment camps, a Japanese couple with a new baby arranged for their infant son to be adopted by my sister and her husband. This way the child would have a loving home and not have to be sent to prison camp and suffer the hardship and shame of that life. I remember that beautiful baby and the love my sister and her husband graced upon him. They had an angelic 6 months together until the federal government tracked that baby down and took him all because he was of Japanese origin An enemy of America in diapers.”
I can relate a bit to this part in the book because six or seven years ago I got my Foster Care license and fostered a little boy by the name of Jordan . He was around six weeks and weighed maybe a little over five pounds. I had only been a foster parent to one other little guy before Jordan his name was Thomas and I only had him for three or four weeks.
When I had gotten the call to see if I wanted an infant, I was so excited! Usually in foster care if you get a call for an infant seven times out of ten you will be able to adopt the child. So I made a few calls before picking him up. I called my mom for advice, did she think I was ready for this. I lined up a babysitter that I trusted for when I had to work. I wanted to be prepared.
When I went and got him at the State Office (DCFS) all by myself all he had with him was this plastic sack full of formula and diapers, and what looked like used stuff animals, and extra used clothing. I could not quit thinking of that plastic sack and how it spoke volumes of his abandonment and how very alone this child was. The things in that sack should have been his, picked out with him in mind new things to welcome him to a new place. He should not have to be checked out of a hospital into a state office, surrounded by strangers. In this moment I realized how sad I felt in a moment when I thought that I would only feel excitement. The fact that he didn’t realize any of this made the lump in my throat so much bigger.
At the time I did not have a child of my own, so this is the path I decided to take, because I so much wanted to be a mother. This is why, while in that state office I was so happy but so sad. Happy to have a baby to take care of but so sad about the cards he was dealt. I decided regardless of how scared I was to take him home, because of his medical history, addicted to crack and methadone, and born from an abruption because his mother decided she was going to do heroine one night which caused her to go into labor. I was just going to love him, spend my entire time holding, rocking, kissing and singing to him and I did throughout his entire detox, which would cause him to shiver and shake. I held him through two seizures. I took of work to stay and lay with him at the hospital. I just knew in my heart that love was the answer for him, and I gave him all of it for the six months that I spent with him.
Then the call came. There was a woman who wanted to step up and claim him. After the DNA testing was done she was his father’s mother. His grandmother had three of his brothers and she wanted him as well. I struggled with the fact that she decided to take him too. I felt that because she had three children already and because I didn’t have any; she should see that I would be the better choice for him. Why couldn’t she see that? Why was she so selfish? She had enough on her plate as it was with the three other boys, a full-time job, plus she was older and couldn’t keep up with his needs the way that I could. I know she felt that he should be there with her and with his brothers. They were his blood family.
Why is “flesh and blood” so important? Wouldn’t the whole process be much easier if they didn’t search for the “real” family? They could save a whole lot of time and money that way. Unfortunately children cannot just be distributed out to people just because they want a child so badly. I know morally that they shouldn’t be, but at the time those thoughts were a way that I could vent my frustration. If the world worked like that it would be better for people like me. In that fantasy, I found comfort.
The day they came to take him away, and drove away just like that, after all the heart that I put into this child, I cried in my mother’s arms like a baby. She just held me and let me cry, lost, powerless, helpless and empty, something you can’t feel unless you are there yourself. Children have a way no matter biological or not, if you let them in your heart you are never the same. The day he left I felt as if I gave him more than just a plastic sack. I gave him a stable place to live, a crib every night to sleep in, cloths that were fresh, food that was hot, and love to hopefully last that little guy a lifetime and with this said I too was also proud of what I gave him. Being a foster parent was bitter-sweet.
Life In My Tin Can red rug 