Dreamlike

This is not real. This cannot be happening to us. On Saturday we were spending wonderful day together, making plans for a future that would never come. The service is over, the family and friends have left...and still I cannot wrap my mind around it.

Leonard

My life, my beautiful, strong, sweet husband passed away on Sunday August 26. He was 37. He was my love and my future. Please don't ever let a day go by without letting your loved ones know what they mean to you.

A commentary on comments...

It took me years of lurking and thinking "Me too!" to myself before I actually began to leave comments on other people's blogs. First there's the "I have nothing to add" stage. Then there's the "Oh my gosh, I have so much in common with this person but if I mention that I fear I will appear stalkerish" stage. Finally I hit the "This person already has 5,or 10, or eleventy billion responses, so why would they want to read my comment" stage. In the end, I realized a few things. 1. I don't know these people in real life so what is the harm? and 2. I talk so much I couldn't help myself any longer and it appears that translates over into blogging.

Sometimes I have to restrain myself from posting 5-6 paragraph long comments because I agree or empathize so much with a poster. At that point, an unwritten code of conduct appears before me, and I find myself deleting and posting "Me Too!" or "You're the best!" and then spending the next five minutes kicking myself for not just saying what it was I wanted to say. So if I've commented before on your blog with a "Me too!" or "That's great!" there's probably a good chance I deleted what it was I really wanted to say.

And, totally off topic, what is with Catholic schools being completely un-Christian in their demands for money these days? Yes...it's that time of the year again and again I find myself in the check writing cycle that is the life of a private school parent. In the end, it is worth it, but all of this lunch fee, book fee, sport fee, breathing fee stuff can drive a person insane.

Rain, rain go away....Come again on Mother's Day...

At least that is what my brother (the guy on the left in the picture) said on that Sunday morning. We were walking down the street to a restaurant after church. I was 5, old enough to know that my brother was going to get into HUGE trouble for saying that. He was 7 and my older brother (on the right) was 9. It was drizzling and out it came. In my family you just weren't disrespectful. And man, oh man...was that ever disrespectful. Time stopped. We stopped, and Bobby paid for being funny. Which didn't stop me from making the same mistake and wishing my father dead in a restaurant in front of God and everybody a few weeks later. That's a rather long story so maybe I'll bring it up another time.

I brought this up because 1. It's raining....I mean really, REALLY raining and 2. it's a great excuse to post this picture. does this picture not totally scream "HELLO! IT'S 1989 AND THESE KIDS ARE COOL!" at you?

There are some interesting factoids about this picture. One: The day before this photo was taken, I had tinted my hair flame red. I was a beauty school student and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Until I walked in the door at home, my father took one look at me and said," Did someone forget family pictures tomorrow?" Which is actually what I wish he would have said. He actually said something like,"What are you? A nimrod? Family pictures are tomorrow. Get your butt back up there and fix it!" Or something to that affect. And, yes, I was a nimrod because I had forgotten. And the color over looked totally fake so they sort of airbrushed a "normal" looking color over it...I think. Two: This was the day I found out I was expecting ("holy shit! holy shit! It turned pink!) my daughter. It was also the last time I wore this dress. The last time I smiled (even for a picture) in a long time. The funny thing, now, is I thought I looked totally hot in this picture. As I am sure my brothers did. Check out the mullets (my brother on the right permed and highlighted his), tennis shoes and Cosby-esque sweater choice.

True confession....I just threw those shoes out recently.

Hi, My name is Laura, and I am a message board addict..

Or, I hope to say soon, I am a recovering message board addict. Who would have thought, back in 7/2000, when I stumbled across my first message board (Parent soup's Aug98' playgroup) that I would become hooked.



It started easily. I was googling for some information on my then two year old's constipation. The second hit was the Parents Soup message boards. I got an account, logged in, and embarked on 2 year love affair with this group. It was so darned interesting-reading about the trials and tribulations of others...who were raising children exactly my son's age. I admit, I would sometimes get up at 2-3 AM just to "check in" on what the London Moms were talking about. An addiction was born. Only I didn't realize it.

I joined the Expectant mothers group for Oct'01 during my time at Parents Soup. I loved that group. I loved the set up (this was before the crazy odd way they have it going now), fell in love with the leaders, cried over early losses (while secretly running out to get another pregnancy test, just in case). And then, we lost the baby. And I posted about it and read, re read...and then re read again the condolences. And got angry because I felt they didn't really "mean it", I mean, I bet they were gleefully rubbing their bellies, being glad it wasn't them. At least, that's how I felt. So then, I lurked on that board. Yes, I confess, I could not stay away. It was completely the pulling of the scab off to examine the wound, and perhaps pour a little borax in.

and then, joy of joys, I found the TTCPL group (trying to conceive after pregnancy loss) Of course, this was a stupid move, because my husband was already hoping for the vasectomy he was already sure he was going to have. I lost myself in this group. They,alone, knew what I was feeling. They bolstered me, cried with me and ranted about the vasectomy the day that it happened. I made a few very close friends there that I am sorry I didn't keep up with, because now I feel I used them.

Moving on, for we must confess it all to be truly cleansed ( I hope) of the addiction...

Sometime after September 11th, and the fear, anger, disbelief, we all went through, I found a place called DemocraticUnderground. At the time I first found it, they were not accepting new registrants, as the whole blue v. red thing was heating up and there were a lot of trolls around. Finally, in March '03, I gained access to this site. This is when my addiction heated up like the bottom of a coffee pot with no liquid in it. In 4 years I posted 40,000 times. About politics, my family, activism...you name it. I posted it. Even the baby panda from the San Diego zoo got equal time. I moderated, fretted, wrote and rewrote posts, placed people on ignore (only to un-ignore them to see what they were talking about) donated, stayed up way too late etc. I literally spent hours on this site. Until I realized the toll it was taking on my family. Even then, I still logged in three times a day, for an hour, to check up on "friends", post responses, read private messages, and the like. Then, one day, I realized I was no longer there for the reasons I had joined. I had joined for activism, change and politics. I ended up staying for the gossip, intrigue and high school popularity contests.

It has been 3 months since my last post. I only went there twice this week. I have not signed on to another message board...okay, I'm lying there. I'm a member of the Detroit Tigers message board, but I rarely post, and that's sports so it's...er...different.

I can see where message boards are both productive and harmful. I've experienced both. I am happy for the experience, yet relieved I appear to be done. For one, my kitchen is a hell of a lot (okay a little bit) cleaner.

Happy Anniversary Poppy!

It has been almost exactly one year since my father's kidney cancer surgery. I can't believe I just typed that.

My father, who has never been sick, hospitalized, seriously wounded in his entire life was diagnosed with kidney cancer in May of last year. Never will I forget the chill that ran through me when he called from the parking lot of the doctor's office. "Malignant" was the diagnosis from the MRI. A "growth" he had known about for four years but was told not to worry about was indeed something to worry about. He abruptly hung up the phone so I wouldn't have to bear witness to his fear. But I knew anyway. And my heart broke.

My father, our family rock, our clown, my daughter's first babysitter, ...was indeed mortal. And I was scared. My husband has often told me that he fears the day (and I hate to type this, let alone think of it) my father dies. He is that important to our family. In the 37 years of my life he is a constant...has gotten me out of scrapes, listened to me, been a friend. And now, he needed us.

And it was a scary time, from opinions that the whole kidney should go, to chemo to finding a wonderful doctor who said a partial nephrectomy was all that was needed. And that was the route he went. Even during those days, he showed a strength that was amazing. He never complained. He stayed at our house for two weeks afterward. The upshot is that my parents had divorced after 40 (forty...yes that was a 4 and a 0) years of marriage mere weeks before the diagnosis. My father had gone for happiness after years of "staying together for the sake of the children"...children who would have been better off had they divorced in our youth. By his second day home my father was up and walking. By the end of the week, he took the children to the beach...this man with the incision that wrapped halfway around his torso.

Today, I look back (and a little bit forward, because one never knows) and am grateful for my dad.

Two days ago we went to the Tigers game. They lost, but I couldn't help feeling like we, as a family, had won. My dad is still here...he is healthy, and we enjoyed what families have been enjoying for generations. Hot dogs, and sun ( a little bit of sun because it was kind of a crappy day) and all of us together.

Happy Anniversary Poppy... and here is to many more.

Rock a Bye Sweet Baby James

Today, my son has a birthday. I can't believe it. ***I started this two days ago and then all hell broke loose and so, it is now two days later...so pretend it's still Monday, for me***

He is the one who was eagerly awaited for so (almost too) long. He was the one I didn't believe I was ever going to meet. We had, in fact, given up mere weeks before I became aware of his existence. I was battling (plodding through) the depression that had overtaken me and my once sunny (no, seriously) disposition with the successive losses in our attempts to add to our family. When the doctor hugs you, sighs, ticks something off on your chart and gives her nurse a "look"...well that is when you become truly hopeless.

And then he arrived. After months of wavering between disbelief and certainty that this was not going to happen, "don't get your hopes up old gal" feelings. Feelings that were so strong they led me to not even being able to hear him when they placed him on my tummy upon his birth. I was crying the happy, shaking, no one ever really cries when they are happy, delirious type tears that I didn't think were possible. His little bleats were mixed in with the excitement over the moment, my husband's (God I will never forget that look) face, the doctor's extreme enthusiasm and my own crazy thoughts. But there he was.

And he became, very nearly, king of our household. The prince of our entire extended family...and very nearly pope. Thankfully, with time, we've reigned him in.

I can't believe it has been nine years (and two days) since that moment. It sounds stupid but it does really seem like yesterday. And then I think of all the days in between and realize it is more of feeling of not remembering life without him.

He, who pooped out a barcode at 1 month of age leading us to wonder what he would "scan for".

He who had his mama sleeping on the floor of his room for months because she was still afraid she would lose him somehow.

He with the sawdust sprinkled on his head at the local fruit market.

He who would spend hours on his big sister's lap watching while she played computer games...

only to turn into...

He who would (and does) spend hours tormenting the same big sister by getting into her stuff.

He who still will cuddle with mama on the couch and delights in reading books together.

He, who still is the prince of our household, to match the fair princess who resides there.

How grateful we are to be graced with his presence, no matter how surly, on a daily basis.

And that song? Rock a Bye Sweet Baby James? That is his song and it still make me sob those crazy, happy, shaking tears whenever I happen to hear it.

Happy Birthday little man.