We Salute.

The day I gave birth to my son was one of the most beautiful days of my life. He was the first child I had without an epidural, and by choice. The intense pain combined with the momentum of the adrenaline I got afterwards was unequivocally one of the most outstanding memories of my life. Looking down at this beautiful boy, his red hair placed into a perfect mohawk, a tell-tell sign of the calycs I would one day hairspray on to his head before pictures, he was perfect. His face noticeably more masculine than his sisters before him. His little body with a perfect count of everything. The way his face curled into looks that hilariously made him resemble an old grumpy man instead of the newborn baby he was.From that moment came a whirlwind of precious memories. His first steps which quickly became him running as fast as he could on his tip toes, the way he would put one leg straight when he would come down the steps so it was lightening speed and made us all laugh. How he was immediately more intrigued by mechanics and all things boys typically gravitate to. The day he poured his own cereal all over the table at 2 years old, and I walked into a toddler covered in flour. His three year old self laying down with me every night and looking over and saying "Mom, you wanna hold hands?" while we watched movies. The day he walked into my room and caught me having a crying mom moment, and he came over and kissed me on my forehead and said "Why are you sad mom? Don't be sad, I love you". Watching him jump off diving boards and face his fears and try to keep up with the big boys...working on stuff in the garage with his dad. His voice when he told me about his first fish. My son. My light. He's only four and I can only imagine the amount of memories my heart will hold 14 years from now when he becomes 18. Millions of tiny moments forming a mosaic of my memory of him. My little boy.

I think of my years in high school. The boys I went to school with. My husband. All of them, so young and vivacious. Fooling around and laughing louder than they should at things not as funny as they seemed. Playing baseball, pulling up in trucks and cars....mere shadows of the men they'll become. Then, before life beats them up a bit. Before the world puts them to work slaving under the sun to support themselves and their families. I remember those guys. Before 9/11. Now I'm thinking of my Dad, and his friends in school. Vietnam raging in the background of their youth. Being afraid, and yet living in the shadow of those who had fallen before them. World War II never too far out of mind. Those stories of the glory days of war replaying on an endless soundtrack of boys wanting to do their part as men, and yet afraid to do so at the same time. They came from big cities and farms and suburbs, as different up-bringings as night and day, and yet they all found themselves being a number twirling around waiting to be plucked out of a sea of names. Some of them, not waiting around for destiny to decide their fate, they volunteer. They turn 18 that morning, and are at the recruiter's office that afternoon. Young men like my Dad's friend Randy Harris, who went to the grocery store where my Dad worked, excited to tell my Dad that he'd just joined the Marines. My Dad wanted to fly, so it was Airforce instead of Marines. This is a decision he feels great guilt over to this day, because Randy Harris never made it back from Vietnam. His mother's mosaic of her son ending in a memory that no mother wants. My Dad went to the Airforce recruiters office and took the test. They said they'd call, and he waited. And waited. In the mean time, a friend told him they were all going to go sign up that day for the Airforce reserves, that they were taking guys right now. My dad was ready to go NOW instead of later, so he went that day. The Friday after he left for bootcamp my grandma got the call from the Airforce, but my dad had already shipped out to bootcamp. The what ifs of those decisions still linger, but the fact is I might not be here to write this had things not worked out the way they did. He went on and did the things he needed to do. He learned. Then one day his group got the call. This was it. This was the beginning of his own glorious war story, because no young man ever really sees their story ending the way Randy Harris' did. You accept it as a risk, but not as a reality. I imagine his adrenaline pumping. I imagine the fear and excitement of the unknown that they all felt was something their teenage bodies could not contain. Then he found out that those in supply, like himself, would not be going. For that reason he never spoke about it. He felt like what he did didn't matter. He doesn't speak about his time in service like it was much at all. What he does speak about every now and again is Randy Harris. He can still see his smiling face walking in the grocery store to tell him. He can still feel the pang of guilt that he wasn't there beside him. It's a sad thing to be able to see a young smiling face in your mind's eye, and yet know the tragedy that awaits them at the turn of the page. That thing that snuffed out their flame. The light of Randy Harris' life still glows bright in my Dad. He remembers him every year, and now I do too.

Now there are men and women who pack their bags every single day. They leave their homes, their families and their friends. They sign a piece of paper that demands them to uphold their promise long after the whim is gone. They willingly make a choice that should it hit the fan, they might actually die for their country. The mother's say goodbye with just as many memories as we all have with our children. Those small hands we hold, those little shoes we tie, those hugs and laughter and tears...the endless hours you pour into someone you love. We could all lose children we love, but it is a strange thing to watch your child willingly walk into that possibility. Should I ever have to do the same, I hope I do it with Grace. Thank you to our Veterans, no matter where you served or for how long. Thank you for willingly putting your life on the line for us. Thank you for enduring the bootcamps and the long hours and the terrible food. For those that look into the face of death and scream into oblivion...not today, Thank you. Thank you to the ones who came back without sight or limbs or outwardly scarred beyond belief. Thank you to those who walk through life with the scars we can not see. The guilt of surviving when some gave it all, and all of the unsaid things that come with it.  Thank you Randy Harris. Even though you were only 18, your life not even scratching the surface of adulthood, you were brave and gave the ultimate sacrifice. Veteran's day is for all of you. We salute you.

Your Mom is Crazy

Yeah, your mom is totally nuts. WHY? Let me tell you why. Because I have a kid with this crazy spider bite on his arm that had to go back to Children's urgent care, but I also help out my BFF and get her kids off the bus, and I have to wait until at least 4:30 to get my littles off the bus and then need to pick up my 7th grader from Volleyball practice at 5. These are all simple issues...no big deal. UNTIL one of the two ways into town from my house is closed and I sit for an hour in traffic to go from Batavia High School to Batavia Middle school...which is roughly 6 miles...yeah. It sucked. The whole entire time I'm thinking "crap, I'm 45 min late now", no I pull up to the school and have the most pissed off coach I've ever seen in my entire life. They called off practice at 4 and have been sitting there trying to get a hold of me. WHAT? So, in situations like this I'm not one to make excuses for myself, because c'mon...does anyone really care why you're late when you're late? Not really. So, I just sat an hour in traffic to go roughly six miles, to get a lecture from a coach about how they have to be able to reach us and how traffic is no excuse because all the other parents were there 45 mins ago. I take it, say sorry...which at that point I truly was sorry I had NO IDEA why my husband wasn't picking up the phone and felt horrible. I get in the car and ask Li why she didn't just sit with her cousin at football practice...her coach wouldn't let her etc because she was responsible. I get home and ask my husband why he didn't pick up the phone? He said he received no calls or messages. Yep, that's right...she was calling the wrong number...because Li gave her the last digits of 4179 instead of 4174.  I have to wonder why I even filled out contact information if no one is going to use it(because I MADE SURE to put the right number). So now I have to face this awkward pissed off situation that really wasn't my fault at all because EVERYTHING went wrong yesterday. I mean what are the chances that practice is called off, a road is closed down, Traffic is INSANE and someone dials the wrong number all in one day? You'd be surprised how often this kind of crap happens to me personally though.

 I feel cursed. I'm like an example of Murphy's Law every day of my life. For example....after the volleyball scenario I have to take Joey to the doctor....so of course it''s a god awful wait and I end up there until 10:30 at night. OF COURSE Karleigh wakes up in the worst mood ever and doesn't want to wear the shoes or shirt or hair or ANYTHING that was perfectly acceptable the night before...oh AND OF COURSE Aubreigh's poison ivy spread to epic proportions last night so that I have to cover her entire legs in calamine while fighting Karleigh to keep her shirt on and let me comb her hair. AND OF COURSE I forgot to dry the freaking towels the night before and my husband is banging on the bathroom door asking where the towels are....and I'm throwing him a hoodie to dry off because I failed at life.

As Karleigh is screaming "I don't like mommy" because we have to ride in the van because we missed the bus, I realized that I have not even brushed my hair or put on deodorant, but there is a slight chance that MAYBE we might make it on time....I'll just brush it on the way to school and keep my arms down. NOPE. Oh wow, look, someone removed my brush from my purse that I hide in there because everyone loses the brushes. Whatever...I'll just brush it with my fingers I guess and do the walk of shame because I'm almost there now. I get into the school...and I kinda feel like "that mom" when I see the eyes of the office peeps,  if you don't know what that means...count yourself lucky ducky...because being "that mom" is never that much fun. I know...because I'm pretty much always "that mom". Then I take Aubs to the nurse to give the nurse the medicine for the poison ivy and the assistant volleyball coach is in the hallway, and I want to explain the debacle from yesterday, but my hair is a hot mess, I'm not wearing any make up, Joey is covered in donuts, Aubreigh is covered in poison ivy, and at that point I'm just really trying to avoid eye contact and hope she doesn't recognize me...which I'm sure was the wrong thing to do and will make life all that more awkward for me when I try to explain to them that they dialed the wrong phone number yesterday and that's why they had to wait two hours at the school with my kid.

Am I crazy? Absolutely. So please proceed with caution...because one day I'm probably not going to just apologize for being late...I"m going to go on a rampage about the crap that happened to me that day and give you about 15 common sense ways to have solved the problem you had...because that's one good thing my crazy life has provided for me....I very seldom get mad at anyone because I completely understand, not just that...I have full faith that I can survive an apocalypse better than your average bear because adaptation is my life homie. Nothing EVER goes as planned. So I welcome the apocalypse because I really feel like that will be my time to shine. Until then, I'll just keep trying my best to fit into a society that can't possible understand me because I'm soooo "that mom".

My Happily Ever After.

   Once upon a time a man jumped into an ice cold pond (literally with snow and ice) to save a neighbor's elderly dog from drowning. When he had pulled into his driveway that cold afternoon there was woman screaming/jumping/ and crying by the side of the other neighbor's pond. The man did not hesitate and jumped in to save the dog who was struggling to stay above water in the middle of the pond. There was a knock on my door, and I opened it with a gasp, for there stood my husband soaking wet holding his shoes and wallet. "What happened?" "Let me in I'm freezing". The neighbor later came over and dropped off a thank you card and a gift certificate for Applebee's and the very animated tale of his heroism. As I listened to the retelling I couldn't help but giggle on the inside because Joel's retelling was so much different. "I pulled up and that lady from next door was losing her mind, I thought a kid or something was in the pond, so I ran over there and her dog was drowning and so I had to jump in there and get it. I don't know why she didn't just jump in and get it..."  It was pretty funny. He didn't want to do it. He wanted to walk away because it really wasn't his problem, and the lady really could have rescued her own dog. (Honestly who wants to jump into ice water after working a 12hr shift in the winter?) The point is though that he DID do the right thing, even though it would have been much easier not to. Bless that little neighbor, She just froze up in the crisis. The ice on the water, not knowing how deep the pond was. Basically she wasn't sure what she should do so she panicked. My God father once explained this to me when the movie The Titanic came out and out of all things I couldn't believe about the story, I picked that Jack was so calm and always knew what to do. I thought that was ridiculous, how could anyone stay that calm in all of those situations AND know exactly what to do? My God Father said there are two different kinds of people. Those who shut down in a time like that, and those who can function and think through it to save their lives. I believe in science they call it fight or flight,  but my God father explained it much cooler. In any case, my neighbor flew, my husband fought, and the fluffy white four legged granny dog lived to see another day. My husband is that kind of guy. He faces his fears and steps up to the challenge. It would be so easy if he walked away from all the responsibility he has, and I'm sure some days he wants to, but he doesn't.

   That's just one day in our lives, not even a whole day, just a breif moment that became a good story. We've been together long enough now to have quite a few good stories. My nephew asked me how we met, and it had beena long time since I had told the whole story. The story about how we grew up in the same small town, went to many of the same places, attended the same middle school and high school, but never ran into one another. (Although, he does say that he remembers seeing me in the library but only remembers because he thought I was a really pretty redhead, and he thought pretty redheads were very rare, funny now that we have two red haired children that he thinks are absolutely gorgeous) . The story about how my one cousin I had that lived in Cincinnati, lived in the same neighborhood as his cousin, and they just so happened to be friends. About how my car broke down on Washington St., and we had to push it into his Grandpa's driveway a year before we ever met. My Grandmother and his Grandmother had recently passed away in the intensive care unit at Columbus Regional, and my mom had called my Grandfather to go over there and take care of my car because she was recently divorced and working. It makes me teary eyed now thinking of our two Grandpas talking to one another briefly about him leaving my car there until a tow truck could pick it up later. Now that they are both gone it comforts me that they met one another. Maybe not at a wedding or reception or at the birth of their great-grandchildren, but they shook hands one day long before that. Strangely Joel stayed home from school that day and his Grandpa told him that a nice guy had left his granddaughter's car in the driveway until later and not to mess with it. Of course, as rotten as he was, he went through my entire car, and still we had no idea who each other was. I even knew his older sister, but never knew she even had brothers. The day our paths finally crossed wasn't in some beautiful serendipitous moment that you would think would have happened, but rather it was a girl working at a greasy fast food drive thru and a boy just pickin' up some chicken. I know, you laugh, but it is true. I met my husband face to face for the first time at a KFC drive thru window. I was working, and looked out the window to see what I thought was a cute guy. So I did what any girl would do. I flirted, and asked if he wanted a job....just so happened he needed a job. So I gave him an application. That was that. I stopped working so much because I had school activities, and he went about his life. Until one day....my car broke down. It broke down at my high school, and for some weird reason I chose NOT to call any of my friends or parents. I chose to walk to KFC, not the one in town, it is exactly 10.9 miles away from the high school. I have NO idea why I wanted to do that. I couldn't have given you a good reason then. In fact a couple of kid that were in my drama class gave me ride the last 5 minutes of my walk and asked me why, and I really didn't know. Just felt like walking there. When I walked in there stood the guy from the window, and he was turning in his application. He asked if I needed a ride home, and I politely said no, that I would have my brother come get me, and he left. I then looked at my manager, who was a friend of mine, and BEGGED her to hire him even though they weren't really hiring. She did, and she scheduled him every shift with me. He asked me to go fishing, and the rest is history. When I finished telling that story to my nephew he looked at me like I was crazy " Like, you guys were really meant to be, like that's weird".  I guess it would sound weird to a kid that hasn't experienced love before, but that's how love stories go. You meet someone by chance. You could have met any number of people the day you met them, but you didn't. For Joel and I it was chance that brought us together, but a perfect storm of situations that made us love one another.

   

    It's been 12 years now since I met that boy that became my man. We've had five, yes, FIVE, children together. That's five pregnancies. Calculated to 45 months or roughly 4 years of insane hormones. I honestly don't know how he deals with me sometimes, although during those times I would NEVER admit that I'm crazy...probably because it's legit and I am, indeed, crazy.  He works and I stay home, and I have to admit that I take that completely for granted sometimes. I don't take it for granted when it's snowing out and he has to go scrape his windows off and I get to snuggle in bed with our sweet babies. On those days I say an extra prayer of thanks for my husband. I'm thankful that I don't have to do it on my own. That he does come home and play with our kids, and he does love them so much. I'm thankful that we can still stay up late and crack up about stuff. I'm thankful that going to a lake with him will always make me feel like a kid again. I'm so so so happy I have a man that is strong enough to deal with my strong personality and not feel like his manhood is threatened. I'm glad that he taught our girls to fish and play in the mud and to mow the yard and doesn't make them feel like the are "just girls". I'm so so glad that our son will have an awesome Daddy cheering him on in life and teaching him things. I'm glad our kids have him to be there for them, because he's the kind of Dad that will be there for them in their 20s and beyond when they need his help.  We fight. We've gone through hard times where we couldn't stand one another some days, but so far we've managed to understand that life without one another would be terrible. We understand that even though it can be hard and trying, it is twice a rewarding. I'm fortunate to have a man who wants to do the right thing, even though it's hard. He loves his family. He works his butt off for his children. He has developed and improved himself so much so that he could be a man they could be proud of. No matter how mad I can get at him, that fact always humbles me and brings me back to what truly matters. What truly matters is that I love him. I adore him. From that first night we went fishing, to all the days we've spent together, to all the tears, and sweat and love we've poured into one another...I have always adored him. I know that if we keep God first, we keep praying for one another, and we keep making the choice to fight for us we will make it to those two rocking chairs under a covered porch over looking a lake or river. In a world that tells you that you deserve this and deserve that it's hard to remember the take the "de" out of it and just serve one another. I'm so grateful for him. I'm so grateful   He is my knight in shining armor, he and our children are my Happily Ever After.

  

Head Down, Keep Walking

DVIDS - Video - Camp Atterbury Former Landowners Reunion Story


In the 1940's the US government established Camp Attebury in order to train troops for WWII. Most people from my home town have heard of or been to Camp Attebury, but what you may not know is that before it was Camp Attebury it was mostly family farms made up of nearly 600 families. One of those families was my Grandfather's. I recently went out with my Grandfather to see where his family farm was, and to visit the grave sites. As he was telling me the stories about his grandfather and family, showing me places he used to play, and just talking about life there. He told me about how they were in church when he was a young boy and here comes a car on the dirt road, and in walked a man who sat in the back. He remembers his father had gone to the post office and had seen that man's face. His father whispered to him that that man was John Dillinger. He talked about his friends riding their bikes for miles on dirt roads to get a soda in brown county. He talked about who's farm was where and briefly told me of his memories of them. I realized how truly hard it was for these families to loose their farms. He told me about his Grandpa "Pa" that had fifteen children with his wife, Hannah, and 26 years after she died he still loved her, he still missed her, he never remarried. Something about seeing them buried next to one another, still in the place they had called home, a place that is now surrounded by fences and unexploded mines, something about it touched my heart . They are buried there together, untouched by time, but the world around them changed greatly. They raised their fifteen children on this land, and at the end of his life there were 13 living. He had given each of his children land there, they each had homes, farms. They built their lives here. They lost it all.

 My Grandpa was 12 years old, the youngest of seven children. War had just broken out in the country, his Grandfather, whom he was very close to, had passed one year before the government came for the land at Camp Attebury. He told me one thing his father told him and that was when you go through hard times just keep your head down and keep walking and you'll walk through it. He said that small bit of advice is something he's lived by. I can't imagine what my great-grandfather was feeling when he had to move his wife and children from their home. Or when his older sons enlisted to go fight for their country. I imagine that he was very worried, angry, and probably wondered why, but no matter what he was feeling he did not let it destroy him. He rebuilt his life, he kept going. I was recently reminded that life is not necessarily what happens to you, but how you handle it. I come from a strong line of people that have put their faith in God and worked hard for everything they wanted and needed. There have been times when I've taken that for granted thinking that they'll always be here, times when I've forgotten how wise and how much of a life my Grandparents had long before I was ever born. It's made me reevaluate what's truly important in this life.

So many times I get sucked into what others think of me that I forget it doesn't really matter. What matters is the person I truly am, who I am on the inside. There was a time in this country where things were not based upon illusion. There wasn't credit. You worked for it, or you didn't have it. If you didn't have the money, you didn't buy it, and the only thing you were getting when you retired was that you had saved for. For these reasons men and women were tough.  They were what made this country amazing. I can't say I don't feel guilty for being the weak person I am at times, worrying about petty things that in fifty years won't matter at all. The thing about this life is that in a moment, one single moment, everything you have can be stripped away. You can loose your job, your home, your car, you can loose every single thing you work so hard to achieve, but the one thing that can't be taken from you is your will to keep walking through. That fire in your gut that screams out when you feel like giving up. That love that you have for your family that keeps you going. The strength from God that always comes the moment you have a very real understanding that it is all beyond your control and in his hands. There have been times when I thought my fire went out, times when I felt so discouraged, disheartened, but then I look around and I'm surrounded by so many people who have been through so much. I've seen people survive heartache, the loss of loved ones, I've seen them overcome cancer and some have buried their children, some buried more than one, I've seen them loose jobs, and homes, overcome addictions, I've seen children without parents, and people who have gone through pain that I have not yet experienced, and all of these people have survived. They lived through it, they walked out the other side and found joy again, and it seems that those who have gone through the most are the absolute best people.

I wish I could name all of the people and tell you all of their stories. They have all been such encouragement to me that I wish I could give them all the recognition they so deserve. Two of those people are my Grandparents. They've lived through 8 decades. They've lived through Great Depression, numerous wars, they've raised their children, loved their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they've helped friends and neighbors and their church. They've been married for 6 decades. When they went through hard times they made it through. They probably do more in their eighties than many people do in their thirties. They value hard work much more than they value riches, and even when I may not always do what they want me to I know they love me. I know they care about me. I will always remember that small bit of advice my great-grandfather gave my grandfather, that when I come to hard times I'll keep my head down and keep walking, and I'll walk through it. When things don't go the way I want, when life takes unexpected turns and times are hard I will remember that years before I was born, years before my parents were born, from the dawn of time people have gone through hard times, but it's not what happens to us that speaks of our character, it's how we react to it.

Extended family

  I remember a lot about the fourth grade. Turning 10 was a big deal, you know, double digits and all. I remember the boy (who I liked from kindergarten until then)actually asked me to "go out" and gave me a necklace, I broke it off the next day because I realized I just wanted to us to be best friends again. I remember indoor recess and dancing to Rumpshaker by Wreckz n Effect and we actually thought it was cool to jump up and down throwing one arm up then the other like crazy monkeys. I remember starting my period and having to go to the nurse, when I got back my teacher summoned me to her desk and told me she was so proud and excited for me, then gave me a pack of skittles. Of course, everyone wanted to know why I had gotten skittles. For the record, if you are a teacher and that happens, down play it as much as possible. To sum it up, fourth grade was a big year for me, but the most life changing thing that happened was meeting my best friend.

When I was little I used to watch Anne of Green Gables, I felt a connection with her because of her red hair, and she acted a lot like I did. Anne had, what she called, a "Bosom Buddy", Diana. Although calling my best friend my "Bosom Buddy" sounds ridiculous to me, Amanda is mine. From the moment we met we just clicked. No matter what our differences were we always found a common ground with each other. I remember the first time I spent the night at her house. It was so different than mine. It was cool. She had a young hip single mom who laughed a lot. We slept out on her covered front porch in sleeping bags. Her dog, Lady, was with us. Her mom had so many cool knick knacks. Stuff from the sixties, seventies, eighties. You name it she had it. I remember laughing on that front porch, and finally falling asleep. I remember her mom sitting around the table with her friend Jeff and they were putting together a puzzle, they were always doing puzzles, and teasing us. They were funny and happy, and even though it wasn't like the family I came from, it was a family. I remember her mom picking us up in her car and she would always have a sun dress and sun glasses and she would sing at the top of her lungs, and Amanda would either sing with her or roll her eyes depending on whether or not they were getting a long that day. They were all each other had as far as family goes, and even though it's a beautiful thing, it was also very hard for them. There was no one for her mom to share the load with, and there was no other parent to share the punishment with. Her mom, like many single moms, always had to be both parents. Even though they fought, and boy could they fight, they had a bond with each other that is nothing short of amazing. The memories I have at their home are all immersed with this magical bohemian feel. The feeling of a bigger family. For the first time I was witnessing a family made up of extended friendships. With people like Susan, and Foster, and Gert, and all of the other people that came and were excepted for who they were. Don't get me wrong, not everyone was just invited into the inner circle, the inner circle wasn't just made up of people who were just friends, they were people who had been around for ages, people that were more than friends now. They were family. They were there when things went bad, they counseled and laughed and cried together. They were Amanda's family. The love they had for each other was no less than that. Gertie was the closest. He was always there. He was the cool laid back uncle that always made us laugh. He never got mad at us, never told us to be quiet even though I'm sure we gave him reason to. They had a good time, and the thing I remember the most was laughing. Laughing at each other, laughing with each other, telling stories, or sharing ideas and laughing about them, riding in the car and laughing at Amanda making fun of her mom's singing voice. I remember her mom waking up so early, before any human should wake up on a Saturday, and singing opera. We loved that as teenagers.

If we weren't at Amanda's house, we were at mine. I called her mom mom, and she called my parents mom and dad too. We used to go through my mom's old yearbooks and pick out the prettiest girl and guy. We painted the roses on my bedroom wall. We put together the trampoline I got for my birthday, and we probably have more memories of that trampoline than anything. We figured out half of our life problems on that thing. We used to make up foods from scratch and say we would have our own restaurant one day, and that we would use our last names...then we decided we would use our future husbands' last names "Pitt and Cruise", because she was going to marry Brad, and I was going to marry Tom. I'm not going to lie, we made some pretty amazing concoctions in that kitchen. My parents would always let Amanda come to hockey tournaments that were out of town, and we spent a lot of the time running around the hotel, pretending we were grown up and traveling. We both still have a love for travel and hotels.

When we started middle school, I always hung out with, what Amanda called, the "preps". Amanda didn't care too much for people who thought they were better than other people and tended to scare the living day lights out of the "preps". She didn't put up with any non sense, and had no problem sticking up for herself. I, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of getting my butt kicked. I would be quick to stand up for someone who was getting picked on, but never one to engage in a fight. Point blank, I was scared of getting beat up in front of everyone, and didn't even want to be on the radar of some of these people. Of course, now as a mom I see how silly it was to be afraid, and tell my daughters not to be, but it is totally different when you are there. In any case,  Amanda and I were inseparable, until the day of the incident. The ice cream debacle of 1997. It was summer vacation before the ninth grade, and my mom was working and my Dad always had class on Monday nights. No one was ever home until after 4. Amanda called at 2 and said two of her friends, who happened to be boys with a car, wanted us to go with them for ice cream. (seriously, we were going to Dairy Queen). We both knew that neither of our parents would be cool with this idea, but we knew our intentions were true and that we'd have plenty of time to get home and no one would know. I started to get ready and five minutes before they were supposed to be there my Dad came home early from work. Uh oh. I realized I was in a pickle, and improvised. "Dad, can I go get ice cream with Amanda?", "who's taking you?" "Gert said he'd take us", "No, not today". Then I did the whole, please, why, guilt trip and almost had him saying yes, then these two idiots pull up in the driveway bumping rap music and looking like thug wanna be's. "who's this Grace?" It wasn't the loving Grace he called me, it was the one he only says we he is the angriest. He then goes outside and proceeds to tell those boys to get back in their car, that I wasn't going anywhere for a very long time, and when I do it won't ever be with them. I look back and realize that I'm really glad my Dad came home that day, because no 14 year old girl has any business riding in a car with two 16 year old boys she doesn't even know...well, no business riding with 16 year old boys that she does know really. In any case, I never did meet those two boys, and I don't think Amanda ever talked to them again either. Dad immediately grounded me, called Amanda's mom, and told her that we were no longer allowed to talk to one another. It's a funny thing that parents do, and I hope I don't do this, but he had it in his mind that Amanda was a bad influence and that the best thing was to separate us. It was the most miserable two months of our lives. We would sneak and call one another, and we would seriously cry because we missed one another so much. I know it hurt Amanda terribly, because at that point my Dad was like a father figure to her. It was horrible. It was the longest, most boring summer I could remember, and then it was time to start high school.


The first day of high school, the time when kids stop looking like kids and look like mini grown ups, or at least that's what I though back then. The first familiar face I saw was Aaron who went to elementary school and middle school with us. He was a friend of Amanda's too and rode her bus, I asked if he had seen her, I was looking everywhere for her. He said yes that he just showed her where her first class was. I asked him what room number because I had to find her before class started, he gave me the room number of a Spanish class, and low and behold, it was my first class too. I ran to that classroom, and we both freaked out and hugged each other. It remains one of the happiest moments of my life.

It didn't take long for Amanda to get noticed. I think whenever the Bully on campus sees someone who isn't afraid, they take it upon themselves to keep their territory. The girl that did this to Amanda had a rude awakening when she realized that Amanda may have been half her size, but had twice the fight in her. Every pent up angry feeling Amanda had came out in swift kicks to her head. Needless to say, that one fight kept Amanda from ever having to fight anyone in high school again, and by association I never had to fight either. We were totally different in so many ways, from our style to our other friends, but no matter what, no matter who we hung out with, or what happened, we were there for each other. Later on we became friends with another girl who became one of our best friends, and through out high school we were all always together.

Over time we've seen each other cry over boys, we've been there for each other through death, divorce, and we welcomed each other's children into the world. We've seen relationships come and relationships go, even the ones we thought were forever. We've both kept each other from killing our mothers, and hopefully we can talk each other out of killing our teenagers when we get there. We've fought like sisters, and we've loved like sisters too. This week she called me to let me know that Gert just found out he has cancer throughout his entire body. I met up with her and her mom, and we rode into the nursing home to see him. It had been years since we had all been in a car together, and it felt like home. While we visited Gert, and laughed like we used too. I looked at my best friend and saw the love in her eyes for Gert, a man that biologically isn't her father, but was the only father she had growing up, and even though he wasn't a step Dad or Dad he still loved her like she was his. He never had children of his own, and I could see in his eyes that he felt the same about her. All of the memories of cooking out on the front porch and sitting outside at the picnic table, and all memories of them sitting around the table putting together puzzles came back into my mind. Not all families are picture perfect, sometimes families are like puzzles and we have to find the pieces to complete them, but the final picture is just as, if not more beautiful. Amanda, and her mom, and Gert are all pieces in my puzzle. I was not born to them, but found by them, and even though I was blessed by birth with an amazing family, I would be lost without my extended one. There is no way I can put into words how much I love them, and no way to describe how much better my life is because I know them. They have been, and will forever be in my heart.

Some Echanted Evening

    For some reason there are some people who just have unlucky breaks in life, and even more mysteriously those seem to be the people who have the best attitudes. I never heard my Grandma say a bad word about anyone, ever. She never said anything to hurt my feelings, she never made me feel like I was anything less than special. I remember as a little girl I would sit in her apartment with her and watch old movies. She loved old movies. John Wayne and Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. We would watch TCM in that little apartment all afternoon. She would give me candy or tell me to go get a cookie out of the cookie jar she used to keep in her kitchen. She always called me honey. "go ahead honey". I remember she had this little music box and I told her that I loved it for years, then one day she let me take it home with me. I would wind it up and it would play "Some Enchanted Evening".

    I know that her life didn't turn out the way she wanted it to. You see, she had a mental illness that kept her from living a normal life, not all of it, but there were years that she missed. Years that I know she didn't want to miss, but sometimes bad things in life happen to good people. Sometimes the worst things happen to great people. I'll never really know everything she went through, and I'm not sure I'd want to know. There were times she lived a nightmare, trapped in her mind. I can't imagine seeing the terrifying things that she did, or rather what her mind thought it was seeing. I can't imagine living with an illness like that and maintaining such a positive disposition. She experienced state hospitals in a time when you didn't want to. She went through shock treatment after shock treatment. She didn't start out this way. I think that's the scariest thing about mental illness, it can hit anyone at any time.  For my Grandma she had her first lapse after child birth. I honestly wonder if she had severe post partum at first, but they didn't know how to treat it back then. That, of course, is just me wondering. No one has ever said that to me. It just makes me wonder how many women suffered from sever post partum that were put in state hospitals. I wonder how electroshock treatments affected their minds. Sometimes I wonder if she wasn't a victim of this. How my mother explained it to me was that she was Bi Polar with a form of schizophrenia that is triggered by a traumatic event.  I'm sure there is a medical name, but I don't know it. In any case, for my grandmother the traumatic event was childbirth. My Grandparents had met at a roller skating rink where they used to dance like Fred and Ginger. The fell in love, they got married. They had two children, and something flipped the switch in her mind. My Grandpa told me once, that she used to not believe my mom was her child, and deny that she was hers, then sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and see her holding my mom. He told me one time he was immediately concerned and asked what she was doing, and she said simply "what, she's hungry, I'm not going to let my baby cry for being hungry". He was a man in the 50s, he didn't know what to do, what was happening to her. It was just simply a sad story, one that eventually ended with my Grandparents being divorced and my Grandma in and out of hospitals for nearly the rest of her life.

She ended up getting well, well enough to be the person who primarily cared for her parents. She was well enough to hold down a job at Cosco for  20 years. She is an inspiration. She had her own apartment for years, and when she drove she drove a little blue ford mustang that always had stuffed animals in the back window. There were times when she needed a little help, times when the medication needed to be changed or times when she stopped taking it like she should, but over all she was one tough cookie.

 By the time I could really remember my Grandma she was on the right medication. Her last mental lapse happened when I was very young, and I have little to no memory of it. What I remember about my Grandma is what I mentioned before. Her kind spirit, her love for old movies, how she used to go out to Jerry's and Home Folks with her sister, and how she and her best friend, Lil, used to crack me up how they would talk about the old Casanova that lived in their building. I guess my Grandma had to set him straight a few times. I remember how sad she was when Lil passed away. I remember how sad she was when my Grandpa passed away. That part of getting old terrifies me. It terrifies me to think of people I love dying off one by one, until I don't know anyone anymore. You would think after everything she'd been through that she would be a complainer, but she wasn't. I know that some of the fear in her mind was still going on. I know she still had a problem trusting people completely, and I'm sure some of it was for good reason, some of it was the paranoia creeping back in. She was very quiet, and I knew she was living in her mind a lot, but every now and then, right when you thought she had no idea what was going on, she'd say the wittiest funniest thing she could possibly say in that moment. She had perfect timing, like one of the classy women in the 30s/40s movies, like Bette Davis. It would shock us, and I think sometimes she shocked herself, and it almost always ended with everyone, including her, laughing at what she'd just said. She was adorable like that.

She didn't live an extravagant life. She didn't have a list of accomplishments in her obituary. She lived a humble life, from the time she was born until she passed away, but she was far from ordinary. She was strong, she was a fighter, a survivor, a lady who could roll with the punches. She was my Grandma, and I love her, and whenever I hear Some Enchanted Evening, or when ever I watch Gone With the Wind or see Fred and Ginger dancing I'll think of her. Her mind is free now, it is no longer bound by illness. She is dancing again, smiling her unforgettable smile.