by Band Back Together | Oct 18, 2010 | Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Hospice, Loss, Sadness, Stroke |
Cancer sucks. My grandma, barely sixty years old, died from breast cancer when I was four. Even though I was so young, I still remember watching her suffer. I remember watching my mother and her sister suffer, too. Even though I was young, I still remember thinking if there was really a God, why would he put my grandma through all of this?
She never hurt a soul…and I loved her.
Cancer claimed my mother-in-law, too. I loved her as though she were my blood. Maybe even more than that because she never said a harsh word to me, or as far as I know, about me.
She had lung cancer and yes, she smoked. “I shot myself in the foot,” she said to me when she was diagnosed. She fought like the feisty Scottish lady that she was. She was diagnosed around Thanksgiving and lost her battle that following June.
Just about six months. DAMN! It was so quick! I know it didn’t seem so quick to her.
She went through chemotherapy and all of the horrible shit that went along with it. She did everything she was supposed to do. She did everything right. And then they found cancer in her brain. The woman never took a fucking pill in her life and here she was having fucking brain surgery! She made it through the surgery. My sister-in-law and I went into the recovery room and damn it if that lady wasn’t sitting up and talking right after having her skull busted open.
While she was in rehab, she had a stroke. It was a kind I had never heard of. It was progressive so it started out slowly. She knew what was going on.
Chef and I went to visit her in the hospital and at that point she said she had had enough. She said to us, “if they find any more cancer, I don’t want to be treated.” If she had known that she only had six months to live, she would have said, “Screw chemo,” and gone to visit her grandchildren in Wisconsin.
I know that because she was an open book. She had no secrets. What you saw was what you got.
The next day she could not speak.
We were the last of her children to carry on a conversation with her. When the doctors finally determined that she had had a stroke and that it was progressive, my sister-in-law decided to bring her back home. The doctors said she had less than a week to live, so she would come home to be surrounded by her children, grandchildren and her beautiful antiques.
My husband and his sisters took care of her for that week. Because my children were so young, I stayed home and came for the weekend. My two year old daughter stood by my mother-in-law’s bed and spoke to her. She called her “gammy.” My mother-in-law would grunt occasionally. Sure enough on day seven – just a week after we had our last conversation with her – my mother-in-law lost her battle.
I ask the question once again, forty years later… if there was really a God, why would he put my mother-in-law through all of this?
She never hurt a soul…and I loved her.
by Band Back Together | Oct 17, 2010 | Coping With Divorce, Divorce, Sadness |
My sister and brother-in-law are getting divorced.
You know on video games when one piece explodes and all the other pieces around it are shaken? I feel like one of the other pieces. Shaken. And, sad.
I feel overwhelmed by my sadness. I stood up for this marriage at its beginning. And, now I’m watching it crumble. I go to bed in the middle of the afternoon, unable to sleep, unable to read, unable to move. My husband says nice things to me like, “Get some rest,” and “Are you okay?” and it makes me cry. Then Rosey Grier’s song “It’s Alright to Cry” starts running through my head – and that’s just annoying. (Don’t get me wrong, Rosey. I think you have an awesome name for a guy. I think it’s awesome that you were a huge football player who knit and taught the boys of my generation that it was okay to cry. But, your hokey song is messing up my breakdown – not awesome.)
I empathize far too well with their 6- and 9-year-old girls. I want to make sure my sister doesn’t fall for my older niece’s act that she’s so mature and she understands (an act I myself perfected at the age of 12). I don’t want my sister to make her her confidant or tell her more than her young heart and head can handle (I don’t think she is doing that. I just really, really don’t want her to accidentally do that). I’m glad my sister is taking them to a counselor.
I just really wish I didn’t feel like a 12-year-old girl right now. Talk about someone who needed counseling. Could I really have 24-year-old emotions with which I’m dealing? Probably. The best counseling I ever got over my parents’ divorce was one session with a lady who told my mom I needed to go to a Christian summer camp for a month. I guess she thought Je-sus (please read that in your best evangelical voice) could solve all my problems.
(And, don’t get me wrong, I think He’s a great guy who has blessed my life immensely and saved me a place in heaven. But, I don’t think He was the guy to let me sit down and vent about how much my parents f*%#ed up their marriage and my childhood.)
So. That’s that. Pray for my sister and brother-in-law friend and their kids. Don’t worry about me. I’m a grown-up who can take care of my own emotional well-being now.* I really shouldn’t take someone else’s crisis and make it about me. But, when I blog, I’m selfish that way.
And, sad.
*I was smart enough to marry my best friend. He’s strong when I’m weak. Also, thanks to this crisis, we’ve both looked each other in the eye and sworn we’re in it for good. We’ll always talk, always be honest and always do whatever work it takes to keep our marriage together. At least I have confidence in my “forever” when so many other “forevers” are ending all too soon…
by Band Back Together | Oct 15, 2010 | Fear, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Sadness |
My little girl, Jillian, due Christmas Day has been diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.
I feel like everything has caught up with me today. Emotionally and physically, I’m just worn out. I’ve tried to be strong for the last six weeks but… I feel like that’s slipping away.
I’m starting to realize that I need to be honest with myself: Yes, I’m optimistic. Yes, I’m hopeful. Yes, I believe we’re making the right decisions. But I’m also hurting. Deep down, this just hurts.
Through all of this, I’ve had amazing people come forward in support for us. I’ve met some people who have gone through this and other things parents shouldn’t have to go through, too. And while all of that makes me feel better, it can’t heal the hurt. It doesn’t get rid of the guilt I feel and it doesn’t ease the pain. It doesn’t make it go away and it doesn’t answer any questions. I’d like to say that my heart is broken, but I’ve been shown now, twice, what a truly broken heart is. I’d like to say that something positive has to come out of this, and honestly I do feel that way, but why does there have to be so much pain first?
I’ve asked myself a million times why this is happening? Why does this have to happen to my family? Why do all of my kids that have to go through this? Why does it have to be MY kids? Why does it have to be JR? And why does it have to be me?
It’s not like I’d wish this upon anyone else. But I wouldn’t wish it for myself, either. It all just seems so unfair. I hate to host my own pity party- truly I have tried my best not to- but really? Two babies with heart conditions? Wasn’t one enough? And why three or more surgeries this time?
What did I do to deserve this? Was there something that I was supposed to learn after Ethan’s surgery that I didn’t? Some lesson that I was blind to; that maybe if I’d understood would have changed all of this? Did I want a little girl too much? Did I wish too hard for another baby to make my family complete when I should have been happy with what I had? Why do I have to excitedly yet apprehensively count down the weeks until she is born? Why do we have to try to put on a happy, brave face everyday when really we’re mad and scared and hurt inside?
Why do we have to face the fears that our baby might not come home with us?
I just don’t get it.
The rational side of me says that it’s just something in our DNA. One of those crazy things where you have to have two parents who carry a recessive trait and twice now that recessive trait has been expressed.
But then there’s the other side of me. The side that asks all these questions and wants answers that aren’t based in science. Who cares if it’s genetics? The fact still remains that this is happening to MY family. The truth is, it will be MY baby that I have to watch fighting for life- again. Something so many people take for granted. I don’t blame them. After all, that is how it’s supposed to be.
A newborn shouldn’t be required to fight for their life. Ever.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Anger, Feelings, Grief, Infertility, Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sadness |
Sometimes you don’t even realize what you have been running from, or for how long.
Until the night (why is it always at night?) it knocks you down, sits on your chest and forces you to stare directly into the eye of the storm. The night when you turned your head too casually and found it, there, staring at you from your peripheral. Angry for being ignored, pained for not being nurtured.
It is on this night that you pay for the days, months, (years in my case) of composure, the relief you have culled from choosing to ignore your demons.
And oh, I paid dearly.
Six years ago, I woke up from anesthesia an altered woman.
I have never allowed myself to mourn what I lost that day and how much of my soul has been scraped away since. I have been too busy ‘looking forward’ and ‘moving on’ and ‘being thankful’. I have kept a smile on my face and I have continued to placate myself with thoughts of ‘it could be so much worse’ (it could) and ‘I still have more than others’ (I do). But last night night, I was not thinking of how much worse it could be, but how bad it is, not caring that I don’t have it as bad as others because my situation is looking worse by the day.
And it all fell down. My feelings of frustration and inadequacy. My overwhelming pain over never being able to do what I always thought I would and could do.
It honestly became exhausting to hold down my feelings about losing part of my body, of being let down for the past four years by other parts of it. My arms and my heart gave out from the weight of it all. I have been holding my hand over that little girl’s mouth for too long but last night she was allowed to wail and cry and stomp her feet for what she has lost. For the life she felt promised, but was never and may never be fulfilled. For being the exception to the rule and for being held at arms length from almost every goal she ever set for herself.
Today, yes, I will try to get back to my zen, a place of acceptance and a place where I can build from.
Last night though, was about how much has been lost and destroyed.
by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Abandonment, Anger, Blended Families, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Estrangement, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness, Loss, Psychological Manipulation, Sadness, Self Loathing, Sociopathy |
I’ve never written for a blog. I mean, I tweet, but to share something so insanely personal? I can’t believe I’m doing this…but then hell, the guy with one ball had the courage to tell his story, so surely I can muster up the courage to tell mine! Single-jingle, you’ve inspired me! Well, okay, that’s a half-truth. Aunt Becky inspires me too; and can I say that I secretly want to be her when I grow up? (ed note: *blushes*)
I know you may be shocked with the title of this. I mean, come on, what parent would ever admit that they would give back their precious little heathens?
I am an eternal optimist. My glass is always almost-full & I can always find something positive in every person and situation. I am the oldest of six children, raised in a home that cherishes family. My parents are both alive and still married. My mother’s parents were married for 68 years and they raised eighteen children. My grandmother died first and when she did, my dear grandfather told me that he would die from a broken heart; and he did, six weeks later.
So, when my ex-husband (the charmer that he is) and I divorced almost nine years ago I was the second one in my mother’s entire family to divorce. As painful as the divorce was, little did I know that I would experience a pain so great, and so severe, that it would cause me to question my very existence.
My ex told me on 9-11 that he wanted a divorce; that he had never loved me. Great, gee thanks you asshole. He was psychologically and verbally abusive for most of our marriage. He wasn’t like that when we dated, or even for the first two years that we were married.
Honestly, it was as if a light-switch had been flipped the day we brought our daughter home from the hospital. He was angry with me because I was giving our newborn too much attention. WHAT?!? Are you fucking serious?? Yes, he was. That started the downward spiral of our marriage. He would tell me to do something, but when I did what he asked, he yelled at me because I either didn’t do it exactly as he thought I should, or he denied ever asking me to do it in the first place. In a nutshell, he expected me to play ball but kept changing the rules of the game without telling me.
I decided that I didn’t want our daughter thinking that our marriage was the example she should use as a basis for her future relationships. I knew our marriage wouldn’t last, but I had to wait for the right time. During our separation we worked with a child psychologist negotiating our co-parenting plan. Afterward, the psychologist told me that she believed that he was a sociopath. Perfect…and I have a child with this guy.
The first three years after we were divorced weren’t bad. We actually got along well and cooperated. Don’t get me wrong – the guy was still an asshole and thought he could/should control me, but I guess he was just less of an asshole. Well, that lasted until he met and married his current wife. Now, I’m not blaming her, but she certainly hasn’t told him to straighten his shit up. In fact, I believe that the two of them feed off one another.
You see, as parents, we all know that kids naturally try to pit us against one another, right? Well, it can be even worse with children of divorce. As soon as these two yahoos got together, they began telling my daughter what a terrible mother I am and how I must not love her because I don’t do this, or a I don’t do that. Step-monster has told my daughter that she thinks I’m a bitch; they both told my daughter that they think I dress funny, I’m stupid, I’m fat, I talk funny, etc…the list goes on and on.
I share this with you for you two reasons:
1.) If you’re a parent and pulling this bullshit – STOP THE SHIT NOW! You think you’re hurting your ex, but really what you’re doing is demoralizing and destroying your child. My divorce attorney said to us (before he would take my case), “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” That was the smartest thing that man ever said.
2.) When I divorced, I made a promise to my daughter that she would never know exactly how I feel about her father; that while I may not agree with what he does, what he says, or how he lives his life, I would demand that she respect him as her father. I’m not perfect but I’ve done a pretty good job of this. I think I’ve called him an asshole a couple of times, immediately realized what I had done and asked her for her forgiveness.
Last July, after picking up my 13-year old daughter from an extended weekend with her father and step-family, she got angry with me and became belligerent and uncontrollable on our way home. I will say right here that I believe in corporal punishment, but only when it’s used sparingly. There are just some kids that need a good swat on the behind – mine being one of them.
So, I did what many parents have done and will continue to do and that was to swat (there IS a difference between a swat, a spanking, and a beating) her.
It was done to get her attention and only after I had pulled over on the side of the road in an effort to calm her down and talk through why she was so angry. I swatted her on the leg – she was wearing shorts – there was no redness, no mark, no nothing. That night she was hugs & kisses begging to do ‘girls night’ (girls night consists of us hanging out doing whatever she wants to do & always ends up with us giggling and snuggling in bed).
The next day she went back to her dad’s and thus began my personal journey in hell.
My beautiful, precious daughter accused me of beating her. Yes, beating her. I’ve never even kicked a dog, how could I beat my child? I may have had visions of killing severely maiming my ex, but I could never intentionally harm my child. Because my ex never questions anything that our daughter says and wants so badly to believe that I am the bitch that has made his life hell (it couldn’t possibly be because HE’S made his life what it is today), he believed her and hot-lined me.
Then, he took her to a therapist (which may just be the smartest thing the asshole ever did), and the therapist hot-lined me. It was at this point that I suddenly realized that if my daughter was so willing to make these false accusations against me, what would she say about my husband, her step-father? I emailed her father and suggested that until our daughter have several therapy sessions and we figure out what’s going on, that I thought it best that she stay with him. And there she has remained.
Working with the division of family services, or children’s division (whatever clever name your state has given it), is akin to having your annual exam (ladies) and inviting everyone in to see your vagina. They invade every freaking part of your life. Fortunately for me, the caseworker I was assigned to work with was thoughtful and compassionate.
I spoke with her on the phone and she explained to me that I was being accused of physically abusing my daughter. I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. I wanted to vomit. How could the child I so dearly love and would give my very life for say such monstrous things?
The only logical, rational reason I could come up with was that she was being influenced by her father and step-monster.
The case worker then proceeded to tell me that after her interview with my daughter and her father, she had decided not to interview me. Her conclusion: “This is not a case of abuse or neglect, but a custody issue and I am closing the case.” Thank God – what a relief!
My hell isn’t over. I haven’t seen or talked to my daughter in over three months. While I retain joint physical and legal custody of my daughter, I don’t want her here if she doesn’t want to be here. Do you know the story of Solomon? If not, look it up…you’ll understand me.
So, why do I not want to be a mother?
The pain I have experienced over the last three months is so intense that there are many, many days that I just don’t feel like I can go on. I have been rejected. Repudiated by my own daughter. She won’t return my calls; won’t respond to texts or emails; won’t have anything to do with me. I sit down every Sunday and hand-write her a letter updating her on what’s happening in our family. I tell her about Buddy, the family dog she left behind and how he lays down in front of her door almost every day waiting for her to come home; I tell her about her new cousin Ainsley that has a hemangioma on her eyelid and may go blind; I tell her that all of her aunts, uncles and cousins ask about her every time I see them. I also tell her that we love her and miss her.
What I don’t tell her about is the intense sadness and pain my husband and I have inside as a result of what’s been happening. I struggle most days just to get out of bed. I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to do the things I used to love doing, I just don’t want to do anything, or be anywhere. I cried everyday for two months. There are still days when all I do is sit with a box of Kleenex and cry all day. Seriously. All day. I hate coming home – because it reminds me of her. But where else would I go? Dying seems like an attractive alternative sometimes, but then I realize that would give my ex too much pleasure. Fuck him.
I don’t want to write to her anymore. In fact, I don’t want to be a mother anymore. There’s just too much heartache and pain. Where the hell is the reward? She doesn’t respond to any of my communications, so why keep up the charade?
Through this experience I am learning what it truly means to love another human being. To be able to look past the faults of another and still love them with all your heart and soul is an incredible place to be. I’m also learning what it means to forgive. Not to just say “I forgive you,” but to really feel it in your heart.
Wait, wait, wait a minute! I’m not forgiving that son-of-a-bitch father of hers, not sure that I will ever be at a point where I can forgive him for what he’s doing to her. I’m working on forgiving her. I realize that this isn’t all her…she’s torn. She is a true ‘daddy’s girl’ and adores her father. However, she needs to bear some responsibility in this. I have to believe that as she grows and matures she’ll realize what she’s done and she’ll be embarrassed and will regret her actions.
I’ve also learned that to be rejected by one’s child is perhaps one of the most painful experiences, other than the death of a child, that a parent can ever experience. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I tried that…there’s this guy that I really can’t stand, yet I pray that he never experiences the pain and agony I live with every day.
What do I say when people ask how my daughter is; how is she liking the 8th grade; how is she doing in school; what sports is she playing this year? Uh, hell if I know. Call her father. I’ve moved all of her pictures from public viewing at home – it’s just too painful. I put away all of her personal belongings in her bathroom and have redecorated it…again, too painful to see her stuff. Her bedroom door is closed and I haven’t been in there for two months. Too painful. When I go in there I am reminded of all of the love and the fun that we shared together. I am also reminded that she’s not here.
For all you out there that are divorced with children, please let this be an example of what NOT to do and remember what my attorney said, “it’s not divorce that screws up the kids, it’s the parents.” Your children deserve the best of what you have and that includes treating your ex with kindness, compassion, and respect.
I will see her for the first time next week in a joint therapy session. I’m sure it’s going to be awkward and I expect her to be cold and distant. I am going to do my best not to cry. I’m going in armed with drugs. Buspar and I have become very close friends in the last couple of months.
In my heart, my hope is that next week will be the beginning of the end of my personal journey to hell.
