Happy Birthday, Derby Day, Mother's Day

Back in August of 2012 I wrote my first blog. Not to be famous or to bad mouth others but to find an outlet for my own feelings and emotions. So this week was the anniversary of one of the traumatic events that got me to start writing.
This week is also Mother's Day and the Kentucky Derby. Now I know that in most houses none of these things have to do with the other but in my house the Derby and mom and grandma always went hand in hand. Mom and Grandma were both from Louisville, Kentucky the home of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby both their birthday's were withing a week or so before the Derby and just a few weeks before Mother's Day most years. Going to the Derby has been on my bucket list as long as I wanted to go to Times Square for New Year's Eve which I did for the year 2000. I am far from a fancy person but for that day I will wear a dress and flat shoes and a moderate hat but none the less appropriate for the Derby. I will drink mint juleps as though it were my God given right. The only thing I won't be able to do is call mom and grandma when I am done with the day and tell them how wonderfully long the day was and how amazing the hats and the clothes were and the number of famous people we see that day.
Today as most Derby Day's I watched the pre race festivities the early card races and enjoyed the call for riders up, the Post Parade and the singing of My Old Kentucky Home (which Brian used to believe was a song written about a house I lived in, in Kentucky) update babe: I never lived in Kentucky. Still makes me laugh. And then the fastest 2 minutes in sports. A new person at work was sitting with me this week and I spoke of the Derby and she being all of 20 years old did not know what the Kentucky Derby is. If you have somehow read this far and don't either please Google it or ask Cortana or your friend Seri.
So I did not talk on the phone today through all of this or watch with mom and grandma as we have in the past. One year we took the kids all down to mom's and made Derby hats and made bets on the race and watched it together. That was probably in 2011 or so. Funny how the time flies by and somethings will always stay with me. Like the Derby that I had 2 of my nieces over for and explained about betting and gave them each a quarter to bet on the race. They may have been 5 and 7 or so but the older of the two decided that she just liked that I gave her a quarter and she wasn't going to risk betting. I told her that was a choice she could make. It was so cute.
I try to share these bits of family history and tradition with the kids and recently I have been reminded by the fact that mom is gone that I have no one to pass my knowledge or love for any of these things on to. I have no children to instill my beliefs in or to share my joys with. This was something that when I was of the age of everyone around me is having children was a reality I did not want to accept, yet here I am of the age where my friends are now becoming grandparents and again it is brought to the forefront in my life. And since with the recent death of my mother I have been reminded of the 5 steps in grieving. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I realized I have done rather well with my anticipatory grief (fancy term for grieving before the person passes). This is my thing. I am sad before and even though I know I did everything that I needed to do for the person. It may not have been everything others wanted from me, or everything others expected but it was exactly what I could do. But in anticipation of not being able to save the person I grief for their loss ahead of time. I want for one more day while I still have days and want to make better what I cannot change. But after the loss of a person that I have grieved for ahead of time it
gives me acceptance. Something that a lot of times in my life I fall short of accepting myself. And here we are back to the fact that I never had children. It was not for a lack of trying but I always said God  and I didn't see it the same way. Even today I have all the signs of grief for a child I never had and life I did not live. I do accept the way my life is and don't want to adopt. This may be fear of acceptance by the child or fear of not being good enough to some stranger. That is all on me.
Since over these last few months I have struggled with what to write at times for fear of sharing someone else's sorrow or opening up someone else's wound I decided tonight that my wounds are the only ones I am speaking of and always have been. I am not going to stop writing for fear of what others think this is purely a selfish act which a dear friend reminded me this morning that I don't have enough of. So I am going to work to accept the things that I cannot change and I will write the things that I would have shared with my kids in hopes that one day someone else's children will find what I have written and think I didn't know that about my family. And that will be my way to share my history with the future generations even if they are not my children. Happy Mother's Day Mom and Grandma (both Grandma's for that matter).
 

The News

I have said many times since I started writing my blogs that we do not watch the news anymore. I have wondered through the last year and thought I might be missing out on what is going on in the world but every time I turn on the TV or I am somewhere where there is a TV on I find that I am not missing out on anything good. So now I must seem like some sort of hermit to the rest of the world. Not knowing what is going on. But that reminds me of a tour guide we had in Yellowstone, he told us that he lived in Yellowstone year round and that they do not get any TV reception and if it is not on the top half of the USA Today he does not know it happens. That was his daily news to stop and read the headline through the window on the Newspaper box. Well I now think this would be bliss.

Well today I went to eat at one of my favorite places for a late breakfast. Taking a couple mental health days alone. Just been getting a little to close to the edge lately and feel like I am on the brink. The anxiety and the tears are right there and I really can't explain why.

Just like a lot of places there is a TV on. It is on CNN. Nothing against CNN but is there never a good story to tell anymore. So my brunch included The memorial service for the bombing victims in Boston and a Sink Hole in Chicago that swallowed 3 cars with video footage of one of the cars falling into the hole and for the icing on the cake a Fertilizer Plant in Texas blew up. This was all in about 30 minutes.

All of these things I would not have to know if I wouldn't have looked. But with the TV on I guess I get the feeling if I'm not paying attention I will miss something. Or maybe just hoping some good will shine through at the end. Well I would be ok with not knowing. The image of a man who was clearly in the Fertilizer Plant during the explosion with cuts and blood splattered on his face must make for excellent ratings but makes for a terrible partner for a meal. I was trying to think back to when this obsession started. I guess the first Gulf War. So much could be watched live on TV 24 hours a day with only breaks for commercials and if it is just to terrible to break away for a commercial we will run them side by side like a Nascar race or keep the Crawl scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Why have we become a people obsessed with knowing everything terrible right away.

I usually get my news at work and that is where I was when the bombs went off in Boston. This is a subject I was not going to write about. I don't know why. But I wasn't going to. But I feel like as I wrote in December in What have we become? again another group of Americans are again going to start the process. The Grief. The Anger. The Pain. Hopefully the Healing.

Those viewers who soak up the news and feed off knowing everything. I just wonder if the people doing these horrible things are doing them for you. Not personally but to have their 15 minutes to be on TV. Or do these people committing the crimes just want to show how smart they are. By watching the play by play the of the police trying to solve the crime. Is the news their own Law and Order, Criminal Minds or CSI? See if they see them self on TV. I know these are pretty sick images of Human Beings but how or why else. The only word for me is Terror. The excitement of knowing others are running scared and the person committing the crime feeds from it. This is why I was not going to write about the bombing. It paints a bleak picture. And my words are painting images that no artist would put brush to paper to create.

So here we are for the I don't know how many times I am going to plead that the people hurt heal both mentally and physically. And again for those obsessed with knowing  I said it best in December "I think the best we could collectively do as a people is turn off the damn tv for the next week and let their advertising dollars go straight to hell", that continue to show the pain and suffering of others. The people showing these images do not know the effect it has on some. And would make a story of the suffering if they could make a buck.

I am sure there is no Beautiful World Channel because who would watch, but I know it is getting to the point that I would not be the only viewer. I love to watch Aerial America on Smithsonian and there used to be a show on called Sunrise and it was that first hour in the morning as the sun rose over some place any place. I saw ones that were from Tibet and Maine and the Everglades. The Sunrise showed the natural sounds of the morning Frogs and Birds letting each other know it is time to start another busy day. There was another show that showed different places from a Hot Air balloon. These shows are full of beauty, architecture, culture and history.

I will end with a happy image. How about a show of elementary school kids getting off the bus the last day of school in the summer full of anticipation and excitement for the summer ahead. Showing off their awards for perfect attendance or a prized picture made for their mom to mark the end of another great school year and a beginning of a fun and adventurous summer. Now that must bring back some memories and make you smile. It does me and there they are the tears again...

Grief

Cbarlie Brown says it best Good Grief.

Leading up to this interview tomorrow, scratch that today. It is 1:30 AM and here I am. My head spinning and I am wide awake.

I was thinking how has this LOSS changed us over the last year. Well as for me. I have Grieved. Now since I have been through this before like anyone who has had a loss. I think the magnitude and the way that this has happened has made this different.

In reading the steps of Grieving it says how you accept the loss of your loved one. Well, How 'bout loved 3. So is that 3 times the grief. 3 times the Anger, 3 times the Guilt, 3 times the Depression, 3 times we will start to recover and 3 times we will start working through this and 3 times we will start to feel the Acceptance.

I have spoke in my blog of Lisa and Amber both I knew. Even though we lived apart what I did not know  personally I learned a lot from Brian. He has told me stories about Lisa and their brother when they were kids and he has told me of times with Lisa and Hugo. Here is a great story he told me of a trip he took with Lisa and Hugo when Amber was a toddler. They were crossing from Texas into Mexico and Amber had a potty chair along for the ride. Well she used it right before they got to the border and the officers thought that by Lisa spraying perfume in the car to cover the odor of the potty chair that they were possibly covering up something else. Well this little event earned Amber the nick name Poo-poo head. Uncle Brian would talk to her on the phone and ask how his little poo-poo head was. Or is that you poo-poo head. She would kill me for telling that story in public as an adult but then again maybe not. Just another memory to share.

But I have stayed away from Lilly. Lilly is a whole nother ball of wax. I did not know her. I did not ever get to hold her or talk to her. I can not even try to list all the things that I will never get to do with her. If you think that kind of sadness can be accepted away. Forget it.

I never knew Jim. I am glad to see the pictures of him with Amber and Lilly they are all smiles. So I am glad they had him. Sorry he was there that day. Sorry any of them were.

I learned when Kody (our dog of 14 years) died the steps in the Grief process and I learned that they do not have to come in order. Because life is usually not that clean cut and straight forward.

I have seen the progress over this last year. I was reading over my blogs and there are certain ones I read a lot. It is as therapeutic as talking to myself to read the words I have written. So some of the steps I could even put a date on when I experienced them.

February 6, 2013 I felt Acceptance and Hope.
December 12, 2012 I felt Depression and Reflection.
November 17, 2012 I was feeling it all Anger, Denial, Depression and Acceptance.

So for however far we have all come I feel like I have a ways to go in this process. I am hoping by next year some of the things I have not yet shared will be shared and will help me move past them. Some things I will never share with the class. Some things I have to share. Like when I shared the story of the day of their Viewing. I have shared to try to forget but as with the night I wrote after the Sandy Hook Shooting. It bothered me more to think I put the words down for people to read that might upset others grieving as well. So I removed parts of that blog.

The point of this exercise has been from the beginning to help myself heal. Hurting others will never do that. Sharing things others do not know will not help either. I will stop here because this is where I will pick up next time.

Now that I have spent my 5 cents and spilled my guts to Lucy I hope to be able to go to sleep. Tomorrow scratch that today it is now 2:27AM will be busy.

Good night.

Giving Thanks

I thought it appropriate this week that I speak of Thanksgiving. Now most of you reading this will sit down at some point on Thursday and eat the biggest meal of year so far. And most will say some sort of prayer of Thanks for the things you have and food on the table and the hands that prepared it. My father always mentions the men and women serving in the Armed Services that are not home with their family.  And then dig in. But maybe this week on this Thursday stop and be thankful for how blessed you are to maybe have a job and if not a job how thankful you are to be with your family, maybe even have a roof over your head.

As a reminder it has been only 19 days since Hurricane Sandy made an unexpected visit to our friends to the north in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other states upon the Eastern Seaboard. Some of those visited no longer have homes to be thankful for. They have their life to be thankful for. They may not have electricity or hot water but they still have their family together. Some may have lost family members but they still have the clothes on their back and a warm meal to eat being prepared by volunteers. In other words some people lost everything just 19 days ago. They are trying to find a way to get through each day, each week and the months to come without loosing their mind.

Hurricane Sandy is just one example of the tragic loss that people from all walks of life all over the world have dealt with this this year. But from the tragedy we are able to look at and appreciate the smaller things in life that we just assume we will always have.

I have a friend in New York that has invited friends over that live in lower Manhattan and let them charge their wireless devices, offered a hot shower and meal before they go back to living as those who lived in the same part of New York in the early 1900's with the advantage of batteries to power their handheld devices to warm their hands while the power is out and the temperature is low by the glow of their ipod or tablet. A laptop you no longer put a pillow on your lap to protect from the heat you can use it to warm your lap.

So maybe on Thursday evening when you are sitting home after eating a delicious meal prepared with love by someone you don't know how you would live without. Turn off the lights and the tv and the heat and think of the people up north that are doing the same thanks to Sandy for 5 minutes. First you will realize how long that is to be without, but remember those still without power have been doing the same for 19 days. Some may have days or weeks to come before the smallest luxury electricity can be restored. When you turn the lights and the tv back on remember that is a blessing because those without do not have that choice. They will wake up Friday not at 4AM preparing to go shopping because the retail world tells us we can get a better price before the sun comes up. Some will wake up cold and alone but being thankful for what they have left and to those that are truly blessed they are not worrying about what they lost for that can not be regained.

No loss this great can truly be recovered from overnight. Life goes on and each day, each moment is living proof that you too are trying to move on as well. You will not forget what you lost but maybe build a future that you never expected out of it. A future that has love and family and a home just not the one you thought about on October 28th for those in the north or for those in Aurora, Colorado July 19th or those in Gilbert, Arizona on May 1st. I could go on and on. About people and their tragedy which may not be a loss that had media coverage but a loss of a job or a loss of a spouse or a Grandmother or even a cat. All of these losses are tragic to those that lived through them and the recovery though the time may be different the process is still the same. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. They do not always come in order or one at a time but no matter what you do they will come.

On Thursday hug your family and remind them all how much they all matter. And be thankful what you have been given and accept what you have lost.

Happy Thanksgiving has a whole new meaning now.