Happy Birthday Mom

Today has been a long day.

It started with a meeting, then a busy day of work. A horrible fight in the parking lot between two teen girls, with their mothers egging them on.  Questions to be answered, groceries to be bought, dinner to be made, just another day.

Except it wasn't.

Behind all the routine and drudgery of another Wednesday is the knowing.

The knowing that sixty-two years ago today my sweet grandparents had their first of five beautiful daughters.  They named her Carol Ellen, I am sure they thought it was the most beautiful name in the world.  She was their first and until her sister Nancy came along, the most precious thing in their lives.

She would grow up to be funny and sweet.  She would would love her family and her sisters would be the whole center of her little world.  She would be caring and her lifetime of nursing others would be seen in her from a young age.  She would be daring and wild.  She would be a pirate and a gypsy and pioneer.  She and her sisters would have countless adventures.

She would fall in love with a boy.  He would be the first boy she fell for, but it wouldn't matter.  He would be all she needed for the rest of her days.  They would pine for each other when they were apart and they would laugh and love when they weren't.  They would get married and have the first of two beautiful daughters.  They would name her Lisa Marie, because they knew it was the most beautiful name in the world.  They would have another beautiful daughter and they would be a family.

She would laugh and love and she and her daughters would have countless adventures.  She would work all day and go to school at night and she would achieve and accomplish all that she thought impossible.  She would care for others and be there for them when they were sick or hurt.

She would be happy and sad and the routine of life would go on.

She would live a full life, but not long enough.  When she was gone every one's heart that she had touched would break a little, but still beat and go on.

So today was a regular day, expect it wasn't.

Joan Crawford wasn't all wrong...

This morning when I was monitoring my daughters Facebook page, which I do on a regular basis, I came across this post from one of her "friends"

"Kiss me like you miss me, fuck me like you hate me and when you are fucking someone else just fuck her like she ain't me."

Really?

Is this an appropriate Facebook status for a 15 year old girl?  The answer is no.  I know it's just a song lyric (thanks DRAKE) but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

Not too long ago this same girl had a status that said,

"It seems like all my guy friends just want the same thing from me." 

Hmmmm, I wonder why.

Where is her mother? I am finding it hard to believe that she would feel like this is an okay thing for her daughter to be saying on Facebook, so I am assuming she just doesn't know it's there. The girl's father is a police officer, I am sure he has seen enough horrible things in his time to know it is unacceptable.  Where is he? Why aren't her parents as upset as I am? Equally as disturbing is the fact that 20 of this girls friends "liked" it. What is going on?

This is horrible.

I remember turning up the radio so I could catch the lyrics to a favorite song, but most times I just sang it wrong. Now the kids can just google it and then post it on the Internet. Maybe not such a good thing.

I remember hanging out with my friends and laughing and acting stupid. But none of these antics were video taped on a cell phone and preserved on You Tube for all eternity.

I remember thinking someone was a dork or a slut, but I never picked on them or attacked them with words until they saw hanging themselves as their only escape.

I remember talking to my friends for hours and hours, even though we had just spent the day together in school. Now the kids talk and talk and talk, but they never even open their mouths. They say things they wouldn't say if they had to look the other person in the eye.

I miss those days. I think know it was a better time.

I believe it is my responsibility as mom to make sure my daughter is using social media and texting in a safe way. I don't think it's spying and I don't think it is unfair to her. I'm not her friend, I am her mother, her protector and her teacher. I deleted that "friend" and tonight we will be having a talk about why that girls post was unacceptable and the ramifications of that behavior, because that's the right thing to do.

I feel bad that the other girls mother doesn't feel the same way...

"I’ll become a blue sky and watch over you." -Tae-hwa

I know that my mother is always with me. I know in my heart that she protects me and guides me in so many ways. I have had example after example these last twenty-two years, too many to not believe. Yesterday I had another....

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a homebody, and weekends are my paradise. I love to be home, I love to putter and cook and not go anywhere. Yesterday was the local Olde Tyme Christmas and spectacular Parade of Lights. CG and I were in the parade with the library float. So, I had to fix myself up and head out in to the world, grudgingly. We left the house at 4 o'clock to head to the 6 o'clock parade.  Another weird qurk I have is being early, to everything, all the time. Just minutes after we had left there was a horrible car accident, in our front yard.

A woman, a woman that I know, was trapped in her car for over an hour. My husband was there with her the whole time, listening to and watching her pain. He said it was horrible.

I could never, ever have been there and seen that.

When my mother and sister were in their accident, just a little farther down the road from this one, I was not home. I was at a concert, with a boy whose name I don't even remember and wouldn't be back for hours. I didn't know. I didn't feel anything. I didn't live at home and I visited very rarely. Friends and partying were more fun than my family. That wasted time with my mother haunts me everyday.

I have a thin veneer of normalcy I wear over my pain, seeing that woman suffer would have shattered it. My mother knew I couldn't see that. We left early, we missed it by moments.  We were gone for hours, until the accident was erased from my own yard.

As a mother I know that not even death would stop me from protecting my daughter.

I learned that from my own mother.

Thankful

Thanksgiving is upon us and everyday I am filled with gratitude for all that I have in my life. I will suddenly stop in the middle of an average, every day act and have an aha moment....

I have friends and family that love me.

My husband and I both have jobs and are able to take care of our daughter.

We have a home that we love.

I am grateful.

Last week was sad for me. My mom's birthday makes me miss her and I feel like I got jipped by losing that irreplaceable person in my life. But as I stood around at my cousin's beautiful apartment laughing and having fun with my mother's sisters I had an aha moment....

Even though I lost that one special person, I still had four more.

I am grateful.

Thank You

If I can but keep on believing

What I know in my heart to be true,

That darkness will fade with the morning

And that this will pass away, too –

source

Yesterday was a dark day and all the kindness from my loved ones and friends made it easier to bear.

Today will be better.

My two best friends told me that my mother would not want me to be so sad and to lose a day with people in my life right now by mourning the fact that she is no longer here.

They are absolutely right.



Happy Birthday

I am a loud person. I talk, a lot. I smile and greet and try to make everyone I meet feel good.

When I am sad, or mad it is very obvious. I am quiet and withdrawn, and I don't really give a shit if you feel good.

Today I must have had 15 people ask me if I was alright.

"You okay?"

"You sure seem quiet."

"Are you not feeling well?"

"What's wrong?'

And I didn't have a good answer for any of them.

It didn't seem right to say,

"Well, it's my mom's birthday today and I haven't been able to kiss her or suprise her with a balloon or maybe a flower or take her out to dinner in over 20 years because she is dead."

I just don't think that is the answer any of them were looking for.

Sugar and Spice And Everything Nice

source

To thank the men and women who have given and continue to give their lives for our freedom, my daughter and I went to the mall to shop. It is a basic human right and one which should not be taken for granted. Unfortunately, I hate to shop for clothes and the only thing I hate more is shopping for clothes with my teenage daughter.

Those few precious years of dressing up your compliant and beautiful baby are barely payment for the years of fighting over every scrap of clothes they want to put on their bodies. Parenthood is not to be taken lightly and I think my #1 fear is screwing her up somehow. I constantly question myself and my decisions, "Is the right thing to do? Will she hate me and be on The Bad Girls Club someday?"
What if that 8th birthday party that I cancelled is the thing she talks about when she is on Intervention?MTV is full of girls whose parents screwed them up. I don't want my daughter to be one of them.

Anyway, we headed out to the big city and the big mall, with the cool stores, to get a few things for my growing-taller-every-day teen. My girl has been bewitched by Seventeen magazine and all those ridiculous teen shows about how she should look and what kind of clothes she should wear. Never mind that she is six feet tall and curvy, not an Abercrombie zombie at all. She only wants those outfits she sees in the media and none of the ones that fit her body type and make her look stunning. And so the fighting begins....

What was supposed to be a nice day together turns into a crying in public kind of day. It is so frustrating to me that she can't see what other people see and that she is so disappointed in her inability to look like that picture in a magazine. I start to doubt myself, what do I do? What is the best way to open her eyes and show her? Surely, it is not getting so upset that I walk away from her in a busy mall and leave her sitting on a bench hiding her tears.

I miss my mom so much now that she is older and I need more advice than when she was a easy baby. This is the time when I need reassurance, someone who will tell me what to do so I can just do it, without worry and doubt. 

I wonder when iPad will come out with an App for that?

Bad Seed

 

My aunts are always coming up with pictures I have never seen before of my mom and all of them as little girls. I love to see them and how cute they all were.

But this one is weird...my mom looks like that little girl from the movie Bad Seed without the braids. Like she just came home from pushing little Billy off the top of the slide because he made fun of her monkey baby.

Don’t make fun of her monkey baby...

Day 19 – 30 Day Blog Challenge

Something you miss…

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my mom’s 60th birthday.

I am sure we would be having a huge party, everyone together and laughing.

I think my dad would have planned a trip or a get-a-way of some sort.

Maybe she would have announced that she was retiring from her nursing career, since dad is retiring in a few months too.

They would talk about the things they would do together in their dotage.

We would sit around talking and laughing about all the the things she has done in the last 60 years.

She would hug us all and kiss her granddaughter and tell us how lucky she has been to have had this life.