kaliluvszack

Well, there was a massive ice storm Thursday and Friday. There were only 250 at the viewing and a mere 650 at the funeral. Honestly, I was relieved. If as many people came as we expected... well, I'm just glad they didn't. And now it's Christmas. I don't even want to think about it. If I didn't have a son that was requesting a remote controle pickup truck, I would totally skip it. Just another day. Better yet, a day that we celebrated by sleeping all day. No meal. No family gathering. No stupid carols, flowers or screaming kids. But we can have alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

Finally. It is over. Mom passed away yesterday at 2:00. Half of the family was there. We got there twenty minutes too late. But that's okay. She went peacefully, they said. Just stopped breathing. She looks so different. A stranger. Mom weighed about 220lbs. This person is probably no more than 100lbs. So pale. So weak. The veiwing is Thursday and funeral on Friday. There will probably be about a 1,000 people coming. I wish I didn't have to go.

I wasn't at Mom's bedside today. I was at our house, cleaning and decorating, pretending that nothing was wrong. I wish I could skip Christmas this year. I'm just not in the mood to deck the halls and ring those bells. I would, however, like to sit in a very dark room and drink vodka.

My brother-in-law, Joe, is such an ass. He is dragging my sister-in-law off to some remote part of the US to help start a church. His church asked him to be part of the group that is going before they realized how sick mom was. The told him that he could back out, but no, he insists that they are going. "If you are not willing to forsake everything to follow the Lord, then you are not fit for the kingdom of heaven." His wife is mom's oldest daughter. She asked mom how she would feel if they would move away and mom told her that if it were up to her, she would want them to stay, but she does not want to stand in the way of the Lord, so go ahead and go. Of course, her husband takes this as a big green light and is already trying to find housing and whatnot. It would not bother me so much if I thought that he were truely called by God, but I don't. He has gotten really pompus lately, using cliches and preaching at people. But when it comes right down to the heart of things, he doesn't got it. For instance, our brother-in-law, Mark and his girlfriend, Sara are not Christians. Joe can't stand Sara even though he never got to know her. Never even met her. He went so far as to ask Mark's friend if Mark and Sara were sleeping together (not that it was any of his business). When Mark's friend said "yeah" Joe asked him if HE was sleeping with her too, and acted like it was some big joke. IGNORANT! In my opinion, if Joe were truely called by God he would love the unsaved, not try to insult or embarass them into heaven. It doesn't work that way. Idiot.

Five year old kids can drive you crazy. They say the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. They mess up the house. They puke in the middle of the night. They tell their school teacher that you say bad words some times. They make up stupid jokes. They think dandelions are more beautiful than orchids. They are unpretentious and bring unequaled joy into my life. I was sad today. My husband's family is talking about bringing Mom home to die. Loren and I were lost in thought when suddenly our son appeared in the doorway in his underware, with his jeans down around his ankles, and arms folded across his chest. We stared at this idiotic looking creature in bewilderment. "So," he said solemnly, "where should I start picking up toys?" He gets it from his father.

The more that I think about it, the more it seems that everyone's life around me really, really sucks right now. I have a friend who is twenty-two years old and is losing his eyesight. He is getting married in January and at the rate he's going, probably won't be able to see his bride. Nobody can figure out what's going on. The did a scan for tumors, there is no tumor. They did a battery of other tests - nothing. Twenty-two years old. And he's a great kid. Hard worker. Great sense of humor. Good looking. Nice guy. He was going places. Not some useless schlub laying around on his momma's couch playing video games and living on workers comp for a backache aquired from lifting a "heavy" box of cornflakes. But I guess in a twist of irony, that might be a good thing. If the schlub lost his eyesight he would never get off the couch and would probably be a drain on everybody forever. I know that my friend has dreams and ambition. He will make it. He will survive on his own.

The in-laws have always been kinda intimidating to me. Loren's mom and dad are firm believers in doing things the natural way. Using butter instead of margarine, feverfew instead of pain killers, no deoderant, and all that kink of things has been their way of life for over twenty-five years. They run an herb shop out of their home and have helped many sick people heal their bodies through nutrition. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to health, they have got a pretty good advantage over the rest of us. So why, why, why did mom get cancer? I mean, I can see that I, with my chocolate addiction and constant craving for sugar, that I'm probably on the road to diabetes. But for a family that grows its own food, and sneers in the face of pre-packaged, processed cuisine, to be touched by such a horrible disease... The family couldn't live a cleaner lifestyle. No caffiene, no smoking, no drinking, no pork, and very little salt or sugar. She used vinegar to clean her house. No chemicals. No microwave. No tv. No cell phones. So why? Why them? Yeah, I know. Cancer is a gene. The best we can do is live clean so we don't trigger the gene into mutation, but ultimately it is a roll of the dice. I just feel so bad for mom, though. She feels so useless lying in bed, weak. She is in constant pain. Nauseated. Depressed. The other day she heard about a tragedy where a church family was driving somewhere and hit a horse. The crash killed the mother instantly and later the father died in intensive care. They left behind, I think, five children. Mom sat and cried "God, those kids need their momma. Why did you take her and leave me? I'm useless here. Take me. Leave her." What do you say to that?

Sorry, I feel like I was whining. We are who we make ourselves and we can't blame our crappy lives on our mommies and daddies. We can only pick ourselves up make something good out of our lives. Life drops a pile of poop on our heads, it's up to us to plant the friggin roses.

I am starting this blog as an anonymous sketch of my life. I am a mother of three kids and probably the only time I will have to write is late late at night when my baby girl wakes me up and I can't get back to sleep, which is actually something that happens pretty regularly. Right now my life is quietly crazy. Very ordinary. Very human. First of all, myself. I'm 25, 167 pounds, an ex-blond, married with three kids. I got married when I was 18. Came home from a two week honey-moon when I was 19. My husband jokes that I married him to get out of the house and sadly it is kind of true. My mother is... well... I can't quite describe her in twenty words or less. Let's just say she loves me very, very much. I feel like I am her best friend, but she's not mine. A woman who is a little smothering and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I guess the thing I could never figure out was how she could put so much guilt on me for wanting to be independant and have my own life and my own friends when she never put our family before her work. I guess in a way she probably felt she was simply by working all the time, but I wanted my mom. You see, I grew up in a very... um.... conservative community. I went to a really strict church and a church run private school. Nothing wrong with that. I send my kid to a church run private school now. Anyhow, all and I do mean ALL of the other families had a dad that had a full time day job while their mom stayed at home. Well, my dad drove truck and was gone for 3-4 weeks at a time and mom cleaned houses from 8am to 5pm. My dad's truck driving job brought in more bills than it paid and mom compensated by working. I didn't mind being a latchkey kid at nine years old. It was safe where we lived and I looked at it like an adventure. But I was pushed into being independant even then. I figured out how to cook and clean on my own. My friends became my family. I went shopping with them and learned how to drive with their sisters. I asked my friends mothers how to sew, and asked their dads about religion and theology. When I got married, my fiance and I planned most of the wedding ourselves. Mom came home and would say something like, "I guess we need to plan this wedding now." I felt like she was probably too tired and busy to be bothered so Loren and I did it ourselves. When she realized how much we did without her she accused us of "conspiring" to keep her out it. So I let her be part of it. And she started changing stuff. I wanted rose colored roses. She got red because red means deep love. I wanted grape juice for the fountain, but that can stain if it's spilled, so we got some kind of pale punch. Deep down, right now I'm not sure if I wanted a wedding. I didn't have that many friends and we could have easily carved off about 150 people off the guest list if we didn't include all the relatives that you see once a year at the Christmas family-get-together. But I knew that it was important to throw a bash so everyone could come and ooh and aaw over the beautiful wedding. And not just to my mom. There were unspoken requirements in the family and in our church that you could get called on the carpet for if not met. If I had to do it over again I'd do a home wedding with about 10 families. Friends and immediate family ONLY. Not all the extra crap. It's not worth the stress. Stress. That's what the problem was. Is. I was my mom's best friend, probably only friend, for so many years that when I left, she had no sounding board. All alone with my dad. Empty nest syndrom, BIG TIME. I'm surprised they didn't kill each other. They would have never gotten divorced. That's against their beliefs, and mine; although if they had told me that they were getting a divorce when I was nine or ten, I would have been relieved. I grew up thinking that whoever screamed the loudest was probably the most wrong. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I wasn't. The doctors blamed her migraine headaches on stress. She blamed them on my dad and how his trucking caused all this debt that she had to pay for. I never wanted to be like my mother. I was so busy trying not to be like my mother I never thought to be careful not to turn into my father.