What is Your Beverage of Choice?

It just has to be the time of year that has everyone blah. Too many “events” have taken place this year and maybe it has caught up with everyone. We are on the edge of the holidays and it should be a time of holly, jolly cheer. But it isn’t. I wonder why. Maybe the election? Nah, it won’t be the first time that your guy didn’t win. Could it be the economy? Money seems to be the thing that drives just about everything, so possibly. Or could it be the holiday blues? I don’t know and I am no expert, but these holidays, for me, are not so holly, jolly. You know why.

It is important that I recognize this because if I don’t head my feelings off at the pass, then I could ruin the most magical part of the year for my kids. I don’t want to do that.

Choose to be happy. That keeps sounding off in my head. For me it isn’t that simple. I am not built that way and it frustrates me. Oprah said the other day that what we put out “there” comes back. I don’t know if that is right.

Is your glass half empty or half full? Depends on if you are drinking from that glass or pouring some more in. May not be the best way to look at it. I never liked that phrase. 

I think we are put on this earth to do whatever we are supposed to do. We are given challenges, nothing we can’t handle right? The challenges are what gives us strength. Or do they rip us apart? Again, I don’t know. This is probably not the right time for me to answer that one. 

Everyone goes through portions of their life that are tough. Everyone is challenged. Some are a little more than others. I can’t complain, but I have been haven’t I? I do apologize but this challenge is just about to beat me to a pulp and I just don’t have much control over it. I am guessing that by the time I am finished, I will be so strong that the mountain I am trying to move will be a piece of cake. Or as my kids say, “easy peasy jungle breezy.” 

As if you didn’t already know, my mom is still on my mind. This past week I have been missing her touch. I can feel her cheek. It was always so soft. I wonder if my daughter thinks that about mine. Her hands were just a little smaller than mine but so soft. I never understood how she was able to keep them so soft. Mine are rough. Her hair was the same style for as long as I can remember. Perfect. All she needed was her fingers and it would go back into place. She gave the best hugs. The kind that would last forever and you never cared. The kind that said, “Carole you are home and I will take care of everything.” I loved those hugs. I wonder who she is hugging in Heaven. Not me. That person is lucky.

Everyone has a story. I do and someday I might share mine. My mom loved to share my story with everyone we met. It always embarrassed me but I understood that she was proud and wanted everyone to know what God had done for me. Someday, I will share. I just miss that. I miss her voice, her love, her over-the-top sharing of my life.

This is the toughest thing I have had to go through. I don’t like it and I am not sure what I am going to learn from it. I guess I will find out.

Someone told me the other day that they had lost a parent quite suddenly. My heart broke for them but at the same time I though suddenly would have been less painful. Each day that passes is a memory of this time last year. What I remember is that each day that passed was the last. Horrible way to look at it, but I couldn’t help myself. That was how my brain saw it. Do you know that when I sit upstairs, I can almost see my mom walking up this time last year? When I go into “Emmy’s room” I can see her bag and her makeshift bedside table, this time last year. I know what is real, I haven’t lost it that much, but I can see her like it was this time last year. I hope I can keep those memories. I hope they don’t fade. The thought of that makes my heart hurt. Still, after six months, I will close my eyes and wish with everything that I have in me that she will just call or open my front door. I just know this is a joke and we are all going to laugh when it comes out. It has to be a joke. My mom isn’t gone. My mom isn’t dead. My mom is at home watching Dancing With the Stars. Right?

The answer will always be no. What an awful word.

My mom told me that she would miss us. I told her that we would be with her in a blink of an eye. Maybe for her but not for me. That was hard. She was comfortable with going to Heaven, but yet she was telling me she would miss me. I really don’t know how I managed to keep it together because the truth was, she wouldn’t miss us, we would miss her. That’s how it is supposed to be. I wonder if it is okay to not like the rules. I accept them, I just don’t like them. I would like a direct phone line. Even if it meant I could only use it a set amount of times. Who am I kidding, I would have used them up already. 

Someone at work the other day said that a friend went to the doctor for something and by the time she was finished, she was told she had pancreatic cancer. That hurts. Someone else has to fight, someone else most likely won’t make it. Someone is going to tell their children that they are going to miss them. Someone is going to feel like me…again.

Million Dollars for Mom has raised $2200 in six months. More if you count Purple Stride, I will. That isn’t enough.

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/evamckinney/KeeptheMemoryAlive

Wishes and Odd Ducks, What Does It All Mean?

This isn’t the entry that I originally wrote. I started writing yesterday and then today, I realized that it was just too much. I have had a rough week and that entry was going to reflect it in a way that just made me uncomfortable.

So I am writing a new one. 

I have had a rough week. No particular reason I guess. Most likely the same old reasons. I have needed my mom. I think I will always need my mom. I have had weeks like this before and she would swoop in and pick me up. She didn’t swoop in this time, so there would be no pick-me-up. 

Maybe it is the weather or the time of year but it seems that a lot of people are grumpy or just blah. Maybe I am feeding off of them. My moods seem to reflect that. These days, I seem to depend on others to help. I am not used to that. 

It seems when I am down that nothing can go right. Is that the same for everyone or is it just me? Some days I drop everything. Some days I bump into everything. Some days I think I should stay in bed. Someone the other day said that I must be depressed. No, I am just having a very eventful year not of my choosing. I’m not depressed, maybe at that particular moment, but overall, no.

 I said a while ago that I was grieving in reverse. Still think that. I had a moment where I actually asked God why he took my mom away. What on earth was I thinking? What gives me the right to question God? It isn’t any of my business but my point is, now I seem angry. Wasn’t that supposed to happen months ago?

 Well I moved through, but not before I realized that the hole in my heart is bigger than I thought. The void is still there and I need to patch it. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t thought for one second that it was gone. I just didn’t realize the size of it.

Some days I am still overwhelmed. I could give you details and part of me wants to, but I will not air dirty laundry that way. Let me just say, it hasn’t turned out quite like I thought it would and I am tired of carrying the load. I would love to speak directly to specific people, but in the end all that would accomplish is really nothing. So I will try to patch my void myself. I think I am the only one who can do that.

At this point I have lost my forward motion. I am not really asking anyone for donations, although I do have one particular thing that may pan out to be quite helpful. I feel like my fundraising has hit an all-time low. I just don’t have the energy. I wonder if my batteries are rechargeable. 

Must be the changing of the weather/season.

I need to take a step back and reevaluate. I need to decide what is necessary and what is just noise. 

Good grief! This entry is just as bad as the one I am not publishing. What is wrong with me? 

Enough. This isn’t working. 

Someone said the other day that I had to choose to be happy. Okay, let’s see if I can write about something happy………………………………………………………………………

Halloween is next week. My kids are super excited. My daughter is going to school as a princess Minnie Mouse and my son is a Meteorologist (his words). For Halloween day, a fairy and a tornado (I am guessing an EF5). I will be a big orange carrot and my husband will be a yellow angry bird. Anyone who knows us knows that he will be uncomfortable. He does it for our kids and I am proud of him. Me being a carrot, not that surprising. If I am going to draw attention to myself, it might as well be humorous. That will be a fun night and I am looking forward to it. I haven’t bought the candy or made a tornado costume, but it will all work out.

Rerun still walks his dog in his underwear. Same pair. Could it be his special dog walking underwear? Doesn’t matter it is still creepy. The dog’s name is Wishes. I am guessing that is because she “wishes” he would put on some clothes. BaDumBump! Wow I don’t know which is worse, my blah or my attempt at humor.

I am an odd duck. 

The same person who told me to choose to be happy also reminded me that I love I Love Lucy. She said she chooses not to watch the bad stuff on TV and chooses to watch something that will make her happy. I’ve been watching I Love Lucy this week. I’m glad she reached out to me. I think my week would have been worse had she not. 

I am not alone here and I do realize that. I don’t have to try to deal by myself. That is hard because that is what I thought I should do. I don’t like to ask for help, but I am getting better at it. My progress is slow and there are a lot of bumps and potholes that I am finding. I have to keep going, my family needs me to. So every day I am going to try to choose to be happy and when I am really down, I am going to choose to reach out to those who can help. It would just be so much easier if my mom was here. But then isn’t that the answer to all of my questions?

Today I watched Funny Farm. I laughed and it felt nice. My mom liked to laugh. Think I'll try it..again.

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/evamckinney/KeeptheMemoryAlive

I May Be Wonkey But I Am Progressing.

Grief. Not a word that I ever tried to wrap my brain around. In my life, I have had a few deaths that I have had to deal with. My dog, Baby died when I was little. I cried a lot. Elvis died when I was eight. I cried a lot. I lost two grandparents and a father-in-law, again, I cried a lot. Did I grieve? I don’t know. These weren’t people that I had a direct heart-to-heart connection with. 

What is the right way to grieve?

I thought of that question the other day. I wondered if I was doing it according to what the experts said. So….I looked it up.

I am a long-winded googler. According to my husband, I put too many words in the search window. Maybe that is what I did because one of the first sites to come up was about the symptoms of grief.

Grief and grieving - symptoms .

I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I thought that sentence was just too funny to pass up.

How do you know for sure if you are grieving?

• ·         Crying and sighing
• ·         Headaches
• ·         Feelings of sadness
• ·         Difficulty sleeping
• ·         Aches and pains
• ·         Frustration and anger

There are more.

It seems to me that symptoms would lead one to think that they may have “caught” something. I know you can have symptoms of other things, but if you are grieving, wouldn’t you know it? I know it. I don’t need to look at symptoms to confirm. So you could be grieving, or you could have the flu.

That gave me a chuckle and then I looked on. Please keep in mind that in my bubble, bad things don’t happen. I also know very little about how other cultures grieve.

It seems that if you are Jewish that everything is pretty spelled out. You have certain things you do and grieving is sort of scheduled. Now I am not so naive here. I know you can’t just turn off your sadness. But it seems that maybe because there are sort of guidelines in the Jewish faith that it could be possible to move through the process at a certain speed. Maybe that helps. Again, I know very little about other cultures and how they grieve. I only know how I am doing it.

There are lots of other cultures and lots of different ways to grieve. Or maybe there are lots of ways to pay respect, to honor the deceased, (I don’t like that word). Maybe we all grieve the same, some just a little more extreme than others.  I think that is ok.

Am I doing it right? Who knows. I’ve never done it before so I don’t have anything to compare it with. 

I have been rereading my posts. Not because I think I can write, but because I want to know how I am progressing. All I can say is that I am progressing. 

Today isn’t my best day. You know how I am terrified of my kids throwing up? Well one of them did, twice in the car and once at home. That was about 4ish hours ago. She has since been able to keep crackers and some non-sugar juice down. She seems fine. I’m not. My stress level has sky rocketed again and all I can think of is how much I need my mom.

Before I said that I have decided to be happy and I told grief to take a hike. I meant it and for the most part I’ve been doing better. It just seems like when the going gets tough, I need my mom. But here I am, I am the mom. I am supposed to do the things she would do. She would always tell me that when I threw up she would start cleaning, run to the bathroom, throw up and then go clean some more. Now that is a mom. My husband, he cleans up while I run to the bathroom. Then I lose weight because my appetite is shot. God bless my husband. I would be lost without him. He is my knight in shining armor. But still, he isn’t my mom and he knows it. 

I am still grieving and I know it. I am under so much pressure and when one more thing gets wonkey in my life, I feel like I am done for. (Wonkey is another word that I use often). Side story here. The doctor once asked my mom how she was doing on her pain medicine. She said that it made her tired but otherwise it was ok. He then looked at me and I told him that it made her wonkey. He looked at me like I was from another planet. My mom knew what I meant. 

I am wonkey right now, I am still grieving and my stomach hurts because my daughter barfed. What a life. 

When will I make it through my grieving process? 

It is official, I need my Mom2.

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/evamckinney/KeeptheMemoryAlive

If You Put Duct Tape on Grief Will It Make It Go Away or Is That Just for Warts?

Grief is tiring. I’m tired of sad. I need happy. Sure there is happiness in my life but I have been sad for one year and one month. That is long enough. There I decided. Today is the first day of me letting go of my sadness and grabbing on to my happiness…………Where is it? Okay, it isn’t that easy, I know but recognizing the issues one has is the beginning of the battle. Or something like that.  I’m good at recognizing but terrible at solving. I can solve your issues but mine, not so much.

Let’s just look at my issues for a moment. As if you don’t already know, I am a germ-a-phobe (not the crazy kind, I just think Wet One’s are the answer to all things germy). I’m incredibly sleepy all the time. I feel sad that my mom is gone and my dad is hurting. I didn’t get an instruction book when my babies came. What’s up with that? Funny thing though, when we were in the hospital we were watching an informative hospital channel that told us not to use duct tape to keep our child quiet. Never occurred to me but after many nights of crying I can see why they felt the need to say that.

Back to my issues because this is about me. 

I need a vacation. I need new clothes. I need a change in how I feel about myself. I live in a bubble with my family and that is where I am most comfortable but still, I am lost. My husband says my blogs are sad, so let me clear one thing up. This is not a sad blog today, this is one where the light bulb is going to go off and everyone is going to say, “hey silly girl, you finally got it. You are going to be great.”

Nothing.

Okay, not so black and white here. I guess I will need to dig a little deeper. 

I am really good at putting others before myself. I don’t mean to, but it always happens. If I go shopping for me, I come home with something for everyone else. I am always the last to sit down at the table to eat. I’ll feed all of those fish before I feed me. When did I turn into this lost person?

Growing up I was always Eva’s daughter. I never cared my mom was a superhero. Then I was someone’s girlfriend. That didn’t work out. I met my husband and then I became his wife. Many, many years later I became a mom. That is where I am today. I have never given myself a chance to find out who I am or what I love to do.

So, who am I? I am a daughter, wife, mother, in that order I guess. Maybe that isn’t the right way to start. Who am I? I will state the obvious here, I am a girl. I am a sleepy, silly girl. That question is too hard, I’ll have to think some more on it. Next question, what do I love to do? You don’t know this because you aren’t watching me type, but I have been sitting here for a while after I typed that question. What do I love to do? Again, just sitting. There is my problem. I don’t know what I love to do. 

For three years my life was turned upside down. That is what happens when you wait until you have been married 17 years before you have kids. That adjustment was hard. This past year I focused on trying to be a mom and trying to deal with my mom’s disease and the end of her life with me. I haven’t been on my list. My focus is always on something else. I don’t think I have ever done anything that I could say, “boy I sure love to do this.” Does that make me sad or do I just have my priorities mixed up?

I need to make a new list. I need to find myself and I am not sure how one goes about doing that. If I was a fella, I would go buy an expensive sports car. Cars don’t impress me. I don’t like to get my nails done, massages or anything froo-frooey like that. (That is another word I am reintroducing into mainstream vocabulary).

“You create your own happiness.” I read that somewhere. Is that true? Have I been causing my own unhappiness? Let’s see. My mom calls, tells me she has pancreatic cancer and there is nothing that can be done to keep her from dying. Chemo made her very sick, she couldn’t eat, she lost an amazing amount of weight and ultimately, pancreatic cancer beat the life out of her. I may not be Mensa but I do know that I didn’t cause all of that. So my answer goes back to my first sentence. “Grief is tiring.” I will say this, I have allowed grief to take my happiness. Gotta get rid of this grief. I have to let go before I move forward. The past is the past and can’t be changed. I will never get my mom back, at least here. 

Grief has caused me to sit in neutral for one year and one month. Enough is enough. 

Grief, you can’t have me anymore. I will agree to drag my boulder around, but not you. My boulder represents my mom and I won’t let go of her. But I don’t intend to let you ride on my coat tails any longer. I am sure you will try to come back from time to time, but be prepared, I am back on my  to do list, I think.

My homework, make a plan, figure out who I am and what I love to do. From this moment on I will work on me. I am going to find Happy Carole. The only problem, she is good at hiding.

Goodbye grief. I have no more use for you.  It isn’t that easy is it?

Today I feel like asking for donations. Pancreatic cancer has caused so much grief for so many people. I will never be the only one. When it strikes, it kills. This is a war that so many of us are in. We don’t have any weapons except our words and our money. Unfortunately we can’t fund all of the research that is needed. We need your money. Just a dollar, more if you want. But a dollar will go a long way. Join the war, donate. If you don’t like a good fight, that’s ok. I haven’t back away yet and I don’t intend to. I will do the fighting for you. If you like a good fight, donate then get your friends to donate. Keep it going. Million Dollars for Mom needs attention. One person, one business is all it will take for the rest of the country to latch on. You could be that person.

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/evamckinney/KeeptheMemoryAlive