Day 92: Grandma and Dad

This morning, I got a Facebook message from my cousin. She and I keep vaguely in touch on Facebook, but haven't talked in years. She and I were never really close. I was older than she was and I was closer with my aunt who was more like a good older girl friend to me during my high school and college years.

I opened the message wondering what she had to say. It said to call her ASAP. I was instantly worried my aunt had died. She isn't sick or anything and isn't very old, but that was the only reason I could think of that she would need me to call her. I didn't even think about Grandma.

Until my cousin said that she had died. She was my last grandparent. My mom's parents both died when I was very young. I only have the vaguest of memories of my mom's mom from my early childhood and remember a picture of my mom's father holding me before he died when I was still just an infant. My dad's dad died when I was in college. I remember my dad telling me about my his death. We didn't have much to do with them, but it was hard emotionally for the same reasons hearing about Grandma is hard today. If hell is a real place, I worry that they are both there.

My dad's parents were the type of parents that makes me sick when I see it in my students' lives. They were abusive to the extreme to my dad and his sisters. They abused everyone they came into contact with. We were very protected from them as children. While my dad wanted us to have family, he kept us sheltered from them.

We visited with them from time to time. I think we visited my aunts and them around every four or five years. They came to see us a few times. But we were never allowed to be alone in a room with them and if my dad felt they were acting poorly, he would protect us from them. I have no negative memories of them personally, but I know they damaged my dad and aunts beyond healing.

While God can heal us because He can do all things, the depth of the wounds were such that evidence remains forever. My dad's personality and behavior still exhibit the scars of his childhood. He never became an abuser like so many abused children do, but he has issues that seem to stem from his childhood.

I have so many deep emotions about losing a family member, even one I am not close to, because it reminds me how fragile our lives are. Part of my dad's issues has led him to become extremely religious to the point that almost no one can satisfy what he believes are God's requirements for being a true Christian. He hasn't spoken to me in about a year and a half. And less than ten times in eight years.

I tried to call him tonight to see how he was doing after his mother's passing. He wouldn't talk to me. I know he called my aunt today, but he wouldn't speak to me. My sister answered the phone, probably two feet from him. She said she would pass on the message, but he knew I was on the phone and couldn't summon ten minutes to have even a casual conversation with his oldest daughter.

I know I am going to lose him. I've really already lost my father. He wasn't happy with me because my ex-husband had an affair and I didn't make him leave. I made him sleep on the couch, but did everything I could to repair our marriage and protect his already damaged children. He quit talking to me before the divorce was even final. I really don't understand what I did. But somehow I didn't measure up.

The last time I spoke with him was because of the shooting at Fort Hood. He answered the phone that day to make sure we were all OK. We talked a few times that week. We've exchanged five or six emails since, usually at the holidays. I've invited him to visit. I've called. I've emailed.

But I guess I just don't get to have a father. Nothing I do is good enough. Nothing I say seems to make him understand underneath all my poise, confidence, knowledge that I am inside just a little girl who wants her daddy to love her.

He would say that he does love me and prays for me daily, but you can't hug that kind of love. And I can't even count the number of issues I have with self-esteem in part because my dad's love is and hasn't been tangible for much of my adult life.

I'm a sinner. I've done things I regret. I have never killed anyone or cheated on a spouse, but I've been full of pride, I've gossiped, been cruel, drank too much, etc. etc. But if God can love me and forgive me, why can't my dad?

I don't know and I always feel so incredibly lost when I think about it. It hurts so much. So today when I heard my grandmother died who was always this crazy figure from my childhood, full of life and laughter, but dark underneath the surface, I teared up not for the grandma I lost, but for the grandma I never had. And then for the dad I will lose/have lost. My heart aches in sadness.



I even looked at buying a plane ticket to go visit him, a man who won't even take my phone call. I want him to hold his granddaughter, to hold me. I realized my daughter lost her great grandmother today, even if she would never have met her, I don't want her to lose her grandfather without ever meeting him. I'm really close to just driving to the house (yes, all the 25 hour drive) and ambushing him.

Why do the people we love the most hurt us the most? Why do we hurt the people we love the most? Family is a double-edged sword. And I just seem to keep getting sliced. 

Day 210: RIP Dad

I was driving home tonight after a long day of critical reading training, which is excellent stuff, but hard to be excited about with a head full of dayquil and chain sucking of cough drops.  I sat at one of those interminable lights and noticed the read window of the car in front of me said, RIP Dad in yellow window paint.

I read it once, almost like an afterthought, but then my drug addled brain caught up with what I had just read, and I looked again. I don't have to know the people in that car to know they are hurting right now. There is no story that ends with RIP Dad that isn't heartbreaking. With all the things I am struggling with daily, all of the challenges that make me feel overwhelmed, nothing I am worrying about compares to what lead to that pitiable notation on a car window.

I finally got into see a doctor and have bronchitis and ear infections and a sinus infection. I am miserable and in pain, but whenever I feel like I am at the lowest point I can reach, something reminds me to count the blessings I have. Even in my darkest moments, my blessings far outweigh my troubles. As long as the people I love are healthy and safe, even with sniffles and bronchitis, I am pretty blessed. My husband is alive and well.

Today, I remember to be grateful for that fact because someone else can't say the same thing.

Day 336: My parents

I could spend years discussing my parents. They are so much a part of who I am. But today I was writing an example of creative writing for my students. They are working on stories about events that had they happened differently, would have prevented them from being here. My students are struggling with showing a story using creative language and sensory images rather than telling me what happened. They are writing things like this:

The day I was born was the day I might not be here if it happened differently. It was my due date and my mom went into labor early in the morning. She didn’t rush to get to the hospital because she didn’t think it was so bad. When I was born I was very small and sick. The doctor didn’t know what to do, so they decided to let me die.  My parents were very sad.  Finally they decided to try to save me. An ambulance took me to a hospital downtown Chicago. I had a surgery to close my stomach and was fine. 

Obviously this is an interesting story, but isn't told in such a way to to inspire curiosity. I am giving that to my students to look at tomorrow - and then giving them the one using figurative language. 

The first day of my life was almost my last.
    Penny rubbed her back. She wasn’t sure if this was labor or not until her water broke.
    “Bill, it’s time,” she said more calmly than she felt.
    Bill’s eyes grew wide as he flew into action. He grabbed the car keys and a small suitcase Penny had packed two weeks ago in anticipation of this moment. Holding Penny’s elbow, he guided her carefully down the steps and into the wood paneled station wagon. The day they had been waiting so long for was finally here. The birth of their first baby was imminent. Bill wondered if he would have a son or daughter by the end of the day. Little did he know that it might be neither.
    Later, in the delivery room, the doctor stood poised to deliver the baby who seemed to come too quickly and easily.  He looked down expectantly, but what he saw defied any of his expectations.
    “Doc, what is it?” Bill asked, holding Penny’s hand. She was groggy from the sedatives they used to ease the pain of labor. The doctor didn’t answer. He and a cluster of nurses whisked the baby away without saying a word.
    The doctor carefully cut away the umbilical cord so the tiny girl could breathe, but that was the least of her problems. The skin covering her abdomen had not developed. She wouldn’t make it. Sighing, he gave the worried father the news that his little daughter wouldn’t survive the day.
    Bill hovered over the bassinet, watching the tiny chest struggle to rise and fall. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he waited for the inevitable, but it never came. She just kept fighting to breathe.
    “Doc, she is hanging in here. Isn’t there something we can do?” Bill pleaded.
    Finally the doctor decided that if this itty bit of a little girl could fight so hard for her life, she deserved any effort they could make. He picked up the phone and called Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and arranged for an ambulance. Within minutes he had set the right people in motion to save my life.

While I have taken some liberties with the details and shortened the account considerably, this is the story of my first day on earth. As I wrote this example for my students, I was able to put myself in their shoes for the first time. When I spent eight days watching my comparatively healthy daughter in the NICU, my heart was in my throat repeatedly. Every little positive sign gave me immeasurable joy, but every new concern or test was terrifying. I watched when they performed a head sonogram, knowing they were looking for whitening around the ventricles in her brain that would signify the birth mother had abused drugs during the pregnancy, but not knowing what her brain was supposed to look like. Every time they stopped to freeze an image, my breath felt wet and heavy. I was almost in tears by the time it was over without having any idea if anything was wrong (all good btw). 

I can't imagine seeing this little tiny person I love so much struggling to survive. The love and fear they must have felt overwhelmed me. I found myself near tears in empathy for the twenty somethings (more than ten years younger than I am now) watching their baby girl nearly die and face a critical surgery and a month in the 70s equivalent of a NICU. They were all alone. I don't think either of my grandmothers were there. My mom was left an hour away while my dad rode with me and waited for the outcome. 

Then my mom could only visit every few days when my dad could take the time to drive her into the city. When Lil Bit was across the street from my hotel, I was standing at the NICU door every three hours and nearly hysterical if I couldn't get in to see her. Penny left the hospital without her new daughter and still unsure if she would live.

I have thought about that day before and thanked God for all the pieces that fell into place in order for my life to be saved. I have understood before that my parents were worried and scared, but my perspective has changed. As a mother today, my heart understood those fears. I also am able to appreciate more the choices they made for me and the childhood they gave me. It is too bad we always appreciate the really important things in retrospect. Thank you, Mom and Dad. I love you, too! and am starting to finally understand you were just kids trying to make it through each day too. I miss you both. Wish we lived closer.