Raw

 I had always wondered what I or we, my brothers and I, had done wrong to make our father angry or upset enough at us to not want to see us or talk to us.  If, as he told us, the divorce had nothing to do with us, then why did he stop wanting to see us?  Well, believe it or not, about 44 years later I actually found out the answer.  It actually floored me.  The biggest problem is that I don't remember this too well.  I vaguely remember the call and I know I didn't want to so I said I wanted to stay where I was.  That is all I remember.

My father died a couple years ago.  It was almost anticlimactic.  In so many ways, he left our lives when I was around 9-10 years old.  After he died, I did stay in some contact with my stepmother for a longtime.  There were times when it waz hard for me to hear things like, he was such a good papa and he was the best husband.  Well, to my xtepsisters, he was a good dad, however, to me and my siblings he wasn't.  You have to show to be a good dad.  He stopped showing up.  You know who did?  Yup.  Mom.  Mom showed up.  Mom was there.  My mother never missed a choir, band, or marching band performance.  Dance recitals, that was way more iffy.  She missed a few until she realized how important it was for me to learn how to dance for what I wanted my career in.  Then,she didn't miss any.  I digress!  (Pesky ADHD!!!)

As I was saying, I stay in contact for a long while after my dad died.  Now before my dad died my stepmother had said at one point that it did not make a difference either way to my dad if I kept in contact with him or not.  That was when I actually realized, he did not care, he really didn't care.  That did hurt as I had been searching for him since I was a teen.  I even wrote a letter after I paid about $150 to a company that found his work address and his home address.  I wrote a letter to him.  I used Kathy's address as the return address because I was afraid of he saw my address he may think it was from my mom.  When I found them on Facebook and then talked to my stepmother for one of the first times, she mentioned getting the letter but they didn't know who it was from.  All I said was, it was from me.  If you had bothered to open it and read it, it would have been perfectly clear that it was from me.  They did not.

After my stepmother told me my father didn't care either way,I stopped contacting them for a really long time.  I think the next time I actually spoke to her was on the day he died or right before.  Fast forward to about 1 1/2 years after my father passed away.  I was speaking with my stepmother and she was saying how my father was always trying to teach her how to just put someone out of her mind instantly like he could.  She said something to the effect that that was what he had to do after we three really hurt his feelings when we didn't want to move and live with them on a farm.  I vaguely remember this phone call, very vagudly.  I do remember him asking me if I wanted to come live with him on a farm.  We all said no.  All of us saying no hurt his feelings.  Now that I think of the timing, I am not sure if my older brother was living with them or mom.  I don't remember the exact time of how long my older brother lived with them.  I was really quite shocked to find out that because we said no, that was why he cut off all contact.  My younger brother and I were really small.  Our world had been upside down for a while.  I don't understand why he thought that we would want to live with him.  The last visit we had with him, did not end on a great note.  They had a NYE party and my younger brother got blamed for the neighbors kids stomping candy in the carpet.  He did not do it.  I saw the kids who did do it.  I was accused of lying.  I did not lie.  My brother was too shy to do something like that.  Both me and my younger brother were so tired because our bedtime was not after midnight and we were falling asleep so we kept getting woken up.  Then, because I saw about 5 minutes of a scary movie, I came home with terrible nightmares.  Then months and months later we get asked about moving to a farm.

Life for me in upper Elementary School was not the best.  I am truly sorry that his feelings were hurt.  I don't think any of us meant to hurt him.  My life was so chaotic at that time.  The only person I even felt safe with was my mother.  At that point, I had been being sexually abused for at least six years, possibly up to eight years, by five different people.  I felt abandoned by my dad. I was at one time a daddy's girl.  Once he left us, after mom made her pinky promise, I was  Mommy's girl.  If you look at pictures of my around that time and until I was about 14-15 ish, when I am in a picture with me and mom, generally I am practically clinging on for dear life.  I had major nightmares and night terrors.  I still had a lot of major meltdowns when mom left for the reserves of cadets. It wasn't all the time, just pretty often.  The thought of moving anywhere without my mother was so frightening.  I do remember having a few nights of nightmares about it.  There waz no way I could have gone anywhere without my mom.  The world was not a very nice place for me.  How could I?  For this, he cut us out of his life, his mind, and his heart.  So for me and my three siblings, we were raised by strong mothers.  Our sister's mom did remarry and so she did have a really good dad and eventually, little brothers!!  My brothers and I had the best mom ever.  I miss her so much.  We would laugh a lot.  We liked a lot of the same movies and TV shows.  When I was in the hospital with my bloodclot, mom read all of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone and began Anne of Green Gables.  I had a roommate.  She was ,a bit older than my mom and she was discharged before me.  She had to stop and ask mom what the names of the books were because she needs to go and get them.  She really enjoyed listening to mom read. I was not surprised.

It just seems to me that parts of my soul are so raw and can't heal.

L

ooo okko

Once Time is Gone, You Can’t Get It Back

 The last ten months of my mother’s life, I so often heard that I needed to place my mother in respite care and go on a vacation or put her in a home.  The more I was told to place her, the more I refused.  As for respite care, I knew that the time was coming when I would have plenty of time to have a break from taking care of my mother.  Were there times I got frustrated?  Oh yes, both with myself and with mom, mostly with myself as sometimes I could not switch it up fast enough.  I do have some regrets from when I was taking care of my mother, all of them are about how I could have handled some situations differently.  Having mom go with me all the time really wasn’t new.  It was nothing for either of us to ask the other if they wanted to go wherever wanted to come with whoever was going so when it got to the time that Mom couldn’t be alone.  I generally enjoyed Mom’s company.  We liked a lot of the same things.  It was impossible to get some people to understand that.

I so miss my mom.  It so nice for people to say, you should take a week off and she won’t know the difference.  Really?  It isn’t about trying to make memories for my mother to remember, she couldn’t, however, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t be happy.  It was about the moment.  All day long, it was about mom and moments.  I would tell mom how much I loved her, I would ask her did I tell you how much I love you today, where’s that pretty momma smile, things like that.  I needed for her to know she was so loved.  I took her out to eat, even when I needed to help her eat.  Yes, I got some looks, I am sure I may have gotten comments, I am partially deaf so I really didn’t hear too many.  I didn’t care.  I was focused on my mother.  I read to her.  We listened to the music she loved.  Did I have days where I had bad migraines and where my fibromyalgia was horrible?  Of course, we dealt with it.  Sometimes, when I needed a nap because I was so exhausted or my migraine was horrible, she would watch TV or she would take a nap in her room while I napped.  If it was a super bad day, one where I couldn’t do anything, I was lucky enough to have friends to come and take care of mom while I rest.

Best Professor Ever ar Wayne State!!!!

  I had to take two accounting classes for my major when I was working towards my Bachelor’s Degree.  Accounting I, I had a good friend in the class with me.  I was rather glad of that.  We rode to school together several times a week as it saved on gas and on wear and tear of our vehicles.  We alternated weeks.  When it was my week, Dan still drove, he just drove my car.  It worked out well.

The way our Accounting I Professor taught the class did not mark sense to me.  It seemed so backwards to me.  At the end of the class, she would assigned the next class homework, then, at the beginning of the next class she would collect the homework before she would explain how it was supposed to be done.  It never mattered how many times I read the chapter or section we needed to read to do our homework, it did NOT stick in my brain at all.  I was very annoyed by that.  Naturally, now I know I have ADHD so it makes sense to me know why I couldn’t understand what to me was backwards learning processing.  So, needless to say, I did not get a great grade in that class.  I didn’t probably should have retaken it.  I just didn’t want to.  

The next semester, I was in Accounting II.  This was called Managerial Accounting.  At the end of the first class, as usual, I waited until most everyone was finished speaking with the professor before I went to speak with her.  For every class I took at WSU, if the class was in a big auditorium type classroom, I would always ask if it was okay for me to record the lectures as I most likely would have difficulty hearing in the b8g hall.  Only once did I actually come across a professor who refused to let me.  He commented that if I was that deaf I should attempt a school for the deaf.  That was about the one of a handful of classes I was allowed to drop and Mom was not upset by it.  Yes, I did pay a significant amount if the tuition myself with my own money earned from jobs, however, she was the holder of said money, which was my choice as I knew at that stage in my life I could not guarantee that it would not be spent foolishly.  

My Accounting II Professor was so awesome.  When I was speaking with her about the problems I had with Accounting I.  The Professor noticed that I was not dressed similar to the rest of the class.  Most business majors at that upper classmen status where suits to school or some form of business attire. I could not.  First, I really didn’t own any business attire and two, even if I did, I did not have time to change from school to lessons or classes after I was finished with my WSU classes.  The Professor asked me what my major was and I said, Music Business.  She said that explains a lot.  She then asked if I go straight to a dance class from school.  I said yes.  I both teach and take dance classes right after I leave school.  She smiled.  The Professor told me the bun on the top of my head definitely gave me away as she sees that bun about twice a week when her girls go to ballet.  The Professor did make me promise not to burn the book before the end of the semester.  Naturally, I promised.  I wouldn’t burn my book anyway.

It was really neat that semester because the Professor came to a couple recitals that I participated in and to the choir concert where she sat with my mom.  The hardest thing in the class was getting used to ignoring the stares I got from some of the other girls in the class.  It took about three weeks for me to be able to ignore them completely.  The other girls in the class did not approve of me so much because I did not wear a suite or business attire.  There were about three who were the worst.  I sat near the front row as it really made a difference in whether I could hear or not, and sometimes the Professor would say something to me about singing or dancing or piano just to irritate those three girls.  She was a really nice person.

You never know who you will meet along your journey, do you??

Justice that I will never see in this Life

 I love the TV show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.  It is more than just the well written stories and how great the acting is, it is how in the end, the truth wins and the victims get justice, something I never will.  In our state the statute of limitations ran out years ago.  It is too late for me, not for them.  It is really satisfying when they do get justice.  Do I wish I still could?  I don't know, maybe?  I don't know if I could get on the stand and testify. I was so young when it began.  Over the years there were multiple abusers, so I don't know.  I don't know exactly how old I was when the abuse began, or the grooming started first.  It was anywhere between 2-4 years old.  It did end when I was 12 years old.  About 10 or so years ago, I had decided that I should not be embarrassed about this.  I didn't do anything wrong. I was so small. I was a toddler at the earliest and a preschooler at the oldest when it began.  I don't remember as much as I used to. I am glad about that.  I know at least two of the abusers have died and possibly a 3rd one. Can you just imagine standing before God explaining this?  I don't think there is anyway to rationally explain any type of abuse to anyone or any animal, especially when it is your judgement day. I cannot fathom that.

I have been rather lucky in friendships.  Kathy has only ever been supportive as well as a friend from high school, Tonya and another from high school, Jennie.  Kathy now knows everything I can remember.  She is about the only one who does.  My mother did not know much about what happened to me.  I told her very little because she had gotten so upset that I never told her and apparently she had asked me questions???  Depending on when she asked me those questions depends on if I even understood what she was asking me.  I mean, this was the mom of mine who basically handed my a medical book opened to the page about periods and said you need to read this.  Here are some pads you will need.  Thankfully, in 5th grade after school, there was a couple hours a few days in a row where we learned all about the changes our bodies were about to go through.  Girls and boys were separated for this.  She also never had to give any type of sex talk either as our church did that one.  I think we were in 7th grade maybe?? Not sure.  I think the biggest thing my mother said to me was if you get pregnant don't come home.  I know, seriously? Umm?  I was not the only one of my friends who got told that.  Like, whatever.  Especially, now that I know I can't have children.  

I do hope someday the statute of limitations will extend to more years than it is now.  It may not help me, it could help someone else.

3 years old - Nursery School --- Santa Picture: 2 1/2 years old

5 years old - Kindergarten

Intro to Teaching at 18 Years Old

 I was 18 and a freshman in college when I began teaching private lessons.  When I went in August to sign up for my dance classes, my dance teacher handed me my teaching schedule.  I was pretty surprised as I didn't really know I was going to begin teaching.  The next week, I started.

At the end of October/early November, my mother asked me if I liked teaching.  I answered that not really, I have no idea what I am doing.  Mom asked to see my lesson plan.  I asked her what is a lesson plan?  She was very surprised that I had no idea what a lesson plan was.  That weekend, mom drew up some lesson plans to get me through to Christmas Break.

During Christmas Break I learned how to create lesson plans.  She taught me how to pace lessons. We did some role playing so I could get the pacing down pat.  Several months later, I was asked again how I liked teaching and I had a different answer.  I loved teaching.

I am so thankful that I did start teaching because when I got sick, all the plans I had made definitely blew up in smoke and I ended up needing a backup plan. Who knew what a great thing the back up plan was?

I have the best job in the entire world.  I do really miss teaching full-time.  I am grateful that I can teach some.  This week was a good week!!!  I have two new students!!  I really hope it works out very well!

What Is More Important?

 I just saw one of my favorite Facebook videos.  It was about what is more important, spending time with someone or buying that someone everything they ever wanted?  For me?  Time.  Little things matter so much more than buying me everything I want.  Coming along with me when I need to run a few errands, or going to a movie, playing a game.  

The person I spent a lot of time with was my mom.  I didn't care too much about gifts or expensive things from her.  I have saved several cards my mom gave me.  Those cards mean a lot to me.  

I worked in the afternoon and early evenings so I really could look only do my errands on the weekends.  Saturdays I generally finished teaching at about 3pm so I would get home around 3:30pm.  Most of the time after I got home, if I needed to go out for any reason, generally I would ask her if she wanted to go with me.  She and I would laugh so much when we would be out. When I had the music store about three months in, I asked mom if she could come with me to help with a few projects I wanted to get done and I knew she would do an excellent job.  She was in the mid stages of Alzheimer's, however, she still do a lot of stuff.  Mom really enjoyed coming with me.  She loves when the students would arrive for their music lessons.  She would ask each student how their lesson go and the students loved telling her all about their lessons.  When I began teaching at home, mom liked to go into the living room when it was time for a lesson.  

I was my mother's caregiver.  I was lucky enough to be able to keep her here at home until the last 10 days when she was on the Hospice Floor at the hospital.  I do have a few regrets on how I I reacted to a few situations, other than that, I am thankful for the time I had with her.  I was told a lot to put her in a home and/or I need some time away, she can go to respite care.  The more I was told to do these things, the more I dug my heals in.  I knew we had limited time with her, I didn't want to miss any time with her.

So time or everything you ever wanted?  Time.  Hands down!  Time!

My Favorite Picture of my Mom

Being a Burden

 For years I have felt like I am a burden.  I have never really been healthy.  I was born with tummy problems and then, well everything that comes with fibromyalgia plus several other things.  If you averaged out the amount of days I missed of school from kindergarten to senior year, it would come to about missing one day every single week.  

My older brother used to "joke" how when he couldn't find me, I must be taking a nap.  I never thought it was funny.  For some reason, it has always kind of seemed to annoy him how much I sleep.  Until I was actually officially diagnosed, it was difficult to get others in my family to understand there realize that I had something wrong with me, health-wise.   

I was 25 when I got sick.  My mother was a big part in helping me get better after the first flare that was absolutely horrific and I ended up needing to rest a lot.  Unfortunately, this was not the best choice at that time.  My mother helped me by stretching my arms and legs.  When we first started the new stretches, mom did not want me to do any stretches on my own, only with her.  We continued and eventually got a bit better.   I know there are people who disagree with how my mother handled my first huge flare, it is okay.  Those people weren't there.  They don't understand what we were working with or rather what we weren't working with: a diagnosis. It was somewhat easier when we did get the diagnosis.  It was January 2004.  11 years we waited to get an official diagnosis.  After we got the diagnosis, we started researching all about fibromyalgia.  We learned a lot and the journey has been interesting.  

Even with all her support, I still felt like a burden at times.  I haven't really figured out how not to feel like this.  

Being Deaf, Well, Mostly Deaf

 In my 39 years of teaching private music lessons, only 1 student has ever quite once they found out I wear hearing aids.  The ironic thing about this was this was after her mother gave me a really good review.  It was during her 4th vocal lesson that the student saw the thin cord of the hear aids on my ear.  She asked what that was and I told her.  The next day, her mother called the company I was working for and quit.  The company did know about my hearing loss and the fact that I wore hearing aids so they weren't surprised about that.  What they were surprised about was the week before the mom gave me a 5 star glowing review and now they were quitting because of  my hear aids.  The only reason I know about this is because the counselor who took the call, called me right after.  She was furious.  I was very upset about  it too, at first.  Then I just  had to shrug it off.  It was the first and so far, the only time that has ever happened.

When I was 13, I had gotten a cold and my mother was a firm believer that if you did not wear a hat,  you would get sick.  This was the late 70s/early 80s.  No one really understood virus-bacteria differences yet.   Well, I really hated wearing my hat.  This was also big hair days.  So I had a cold and did say much to my mom about it.  We had cold medicine at home so that is what I took.  A few weeks later, my ears were blocked.  My ears were blocked from about the end of October to mid-May.  This was not something I said anything to my mom about.  The reason? Remember, I WAS 13.  I thought I would get in big trouble because I wasn't wearing MY HAT! What can I say?  Teenagers get the weirdest ideas in their heads, don't they?  After watching a great many teenagers grow through the teen years, you never know what they think of next.

After my ears were blocked, I really couldn't hear much at all.  There was one particular person who would get mad at me daily because I couldn't hear what she was saying at lunch.  After about a month of the ridiculous tantrums  of why can't you hear me, I just ignored her at lunch unless she was sitting next to me.  Looking back, it was insane.  Someone was supposed to be a good friend, got mad at me because I couldn't hear her?  Wow. Whatever.

By Christmas, everyone of our friend group was used to me not hearing very well in the lunchroom or anywhere really.   

I had the same teacher for Math and Science.  In the beginning of May, I must have really answered very strangely because the girl who sat next to me, Julia, passed a small note asking if I could hear the teacher when he asked me the question.  I sent it back, saying no.  Everyone in that class was also in the same band class as me.  I also had know Julia much of my life.  She lived down the road from me.  In the five minutes between classes my teacher motioned for me to go to his desk to see him.  He was standing and asked if I could hear him when I was at my seat.  I said no.  He then asked how long has it been since I couldn't hear?  I said since October.  He flopped in his chair shocked.  He said, you have not been able to hear since October? I said, yes.  He said okay, go sit down.  He must have called my mother right after school. When I got home Mom told me about the phone call and she said that I had an appointment the next day already.  

I had surgery on my ears about a week later.  I don't remember too much about it.  In the end, it turns out I am one of the small percentage of people who's ear infections that do not hurt.  The ENT said I should have been screaming in pain for months with how bad the infection in my ears were.  I did get some hearing back.  Unfortunately, the infections did do quite a bit of damage and I could get all of my hearing back.

It drove both my brothers crazy that I was partially deaf.  They both would holler for me from the back door and I would be in my room so I would have to run down the stairs to see what they wanted.  Eventually, my mom say one of them doing this and she stopped.  She told both my brothers that if they want to speak with me then they needed to take their shoes off and go upstairs or downstairs to where  I was.  To this day, I do not think either one of my brothers even remembers that I wear hearing aids and what the percentages are of what I can hear.

Side note: When one of my students was little, she loved to tell her friends that her singing teacher was deaf.  She thought that was hilarious.  Then she would say, well, not completely. Little ones are so funny.  You never know what they are going to say!

Fishing and Me

 When I was a child, we camped quite a bit.  I am unsure the first time I went camping, I am thinking probably about 4 or 5.  I am an extremely prissy girl.  I absolutely hate getting dirty, I always have.  Generally, I am not all that fond of being outside either.  Strangely, I loved camping.  I also really disliked the sticky feeling of the anti-Mosquito spray Off.  I could not go in outside without it on.  Mosquitoes loved me so much.

Anyways, I digress.  After my parents got divorced, my mother kept the trunk of her car packed except for fresh food that would go in the cool and our clothes and such. We camped so much that summer.  This particular memory to this day still makes me laugh.  As much as I love camping, I really did not like fishing.  I refused to put the worm or bait on the hook, I would hold the pole, I would not touch the fish, I would not clean the fish, I would cook the fish, and depending on what kind of fish it was, I maybe eat the fish.  Don't hold your breath  though. My brothers really did not like fishing with me. For some reason, I have no idea whatever gave them this idea, that I talked too much and scared all the fish away.  I have no idea why they would ever think that, just because my mother called me her chatterbox, seriously.

This particular weekend, I don't remember where we were going, my younger brother and I were loading our toys in the trunk of the car.  I had more room for toys and books than my brothers.  They started to complain when mom said do you want her to be quiet or not while we are in the boat fishing?  One of my brothers, I don't remember which one, said, can't we just leave her at the boat launch?  My mom was horrified at that, she said no, we cannot leave your sister at the boat launch.  If you want her to be quiet she needs to take her books and toys.  At that both brothers began emptying the trunk of their toys and books.  They then loaded more of mine.  They did leave some of their toys and books just not all of them.  They previous school year I had really got into reading. I had had  a lot of difficulties with reading and by that summer I simply loved to read.

Much to my brothers surprise, I was quiet the entire summer when we all went fishing.  I did not fish at all, nope.  I read my books and had lots lots of adventures in my imagination!

Sometimes I really miss those days.

A Mother's Promise

 At 17, I had my first Fibromyalgia flare. I missed about the last 6 weeks of my junior year of high school.  It was awful.  Then the pain just went away.  After I graduated  University, that was when the Fibro really started and never went away.  Like so many of us, no one knew what was wrong with me. My mother took me to so many doctors. The last one we went to told my mom that I was emotionally disturbed.  She was furious, so furious that she wrote a letter to the AMA. 

After the disastrous last doctor appointment, my mom sat me down to have a chat as she calls it.  She said we were on our own.  Mom promised me that she would be with me all  through it.  She never broke that promise.

In March 2003, I got Vasculitis.  It is actually because I got Vasculitis that I got diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.  Most people who get Vasculitis, it is chronic and it doesn't go away. Me?  I got lucky.  With the exception of the daily headache, everything went away. This is what started the never-ending daily headache.  I was having a few issues in December 2003, I didn't think it was vaculitis, but I wasn't sure so I made an appointment with a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic.  Mom and I went down there the night before and stayed at one of the hotels on the Clinics Campus.  

The next morning we went to the appointment at one of the hospitals, there are several.  Unlike most doctor appointments, the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic encourages family members to go with the patient in the appointment.  There is where I was officially was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I cried.  It had a name. I looked over to my mom and she was crying too.  She said the same thing.  It has name.  On the way home mom again promised we would get through this together. 

Because of the support she gave me, when the Alzheimer's began to get into the end stages, I was able to  to keep her home with me until she passed away. 

The Yearly CT Scan

 Every year since about 2007, I have had to have CT scans or Ultrasounds on my abdomen because I have 2 cysts that are benign.  There usually are no surprises or anything, well, until this past week.  I had to switch urologist because the one I went to did nothing t accept the new insurance that I had.  I found another one that my primary doctor suggested.  He was really nice.  He retired so I have a different doctor from that practice.  Thursday, I thought I had a Telehealth appointment, however, I guess it got changed to in person and no one told me.  I called at 10:30. That is how I found out. The person I was speaking to was very insistent that I have an in person appointment.  I did think it was a bit strange, but I made the appointment.  I was extremely unprepared for what I was about to hear. The is another mass and I have to have a biopsy this coming week.  There is a 70-80% chance it is cancer.  I am trying to not think about that  too much.  I am very anxious about it. My ADHD brain has been racing ever since.  All I right now is I have to have a biopsy.  I am working being strong. I am a work in progress.