Back Home (?)

We made it back to Michigan at about 6 PM tonight. I really missed being able to blog daily (connections were too spotty to be able to complete an entry) and it feels good to be back.

James had a wonderful time with his cousins and also meeting cousins he had never met before in San Antonio. My Uncle N. is a Lt.Col (ret.) in the USAF so he got to see all three San Antonio bases up close and personal. We visited Brooks, Lackland and Randolph... James was most excited about Lackland, due to it being a maintenance base and the fact that there were 12 C-5 Galaxies on the ground and one in the air. My uncle was very impressed with how much plane knowledge one little 9 year old boy could hold. He also drove us by two of the missions and we had dinner on the Riverwalk. I was able to see my cousin P. all three days, and she is really so very strong. One would be astounded to know that she has daily radiation treatments and just finished chemo. It was also a very sad time. I had to relive those days, and all the days after, for those who were not able to come up last August and-as it always does- it tossed me right back into those feelings again. Not that they ever leave, I just sometimes get really good at pretending I am someone that I am not.

It was so nice to have Leonard's Aunt M. along for the ride down. She is very entertaining and kept James in giggles for most of the ride there and back. We found out she is hilarious in making up voices and actions for the new puppet that I bought James in Old Town Spring. She touched on issues concerning my mother-in-law and all I could say was that it wasn't a major part of my life anymore (the incesant troubles seem so trivial in the wake of it all). She also asked me to recount what happened. Freshening the hurt, but sometimes (especially lately) I need to talk about it. I feel him slipping away from the memories of people. I can't stop it but I can't handle it either.

We looked at a ton of model houses while there. Aunt M. is a real estate agent and I am an appraiser so it is interesting to see what new houses go for, what they have and don't have as opposed to ours. What they are, in Texas, are amazing for the money... Which brought about another round of "you should move here's" from family. Only, right now, I am lost... I feel as if my place anywhere is gone. The missing has become intense again and it feels, each time, as if it takes a little bit more out of me. Me, scrambling to find something to hold on to. This evening, at home, has been one of tears and hastily wiped eyes, gulped sobs...in front of a little boy who so wants me to just be "normal" again... Only what, and where is that? So, here I am...back here...what used to be (but doesn't feel like) home anymore.


James and Uncle N.-happily looking over James's military airplane book. Uncle N. was delighted with his fascination with James's fascination with his military career... and a new bond is formed---