The Christmas Card File

Yesterday I picked up my Christmas cards. All 100 of them. I love Christmas cards. I used to be so much better with cards than I am now. My grandma used to send out cards for every holiday and then just weekly “thinking of you” cards. I guess we are living in different times now because when I’m thinking of you, I’ll just send you a text and tell you, but I still try to do Christmas cards because I love that tradition.

I have spent my entire adult life compiling and tweaking my Christmas card list. I have an old address book where it started some decades ago. I still have the address book, although the cover is gone and the pages are worn. I don’t like to turn through it much these days because so many of the people inside those pages no longer have earthly addresses. Tis the season to be jolly fa, la, la, la, la…but also the season for reflection and remembrance and nostalgia and heartache. I had a moment with all of those today.

When I left my job at the church, I made sure I got my personal files off of the computer and stored on a thumb drive to take back home with me. I was there nine years, so I had some personal files on the computer. One of those items was my Christmas Card list. After 20 years, I had this Christmas card list pretty much down to an art. I had tweaked it from year to year—removing when I lost people and adding when my circle of friends increased. This morning after I stuffed my cards in the envelopes, I began looking for my thumb drive. I was at a loss. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I had stored it. I was working two jobs at the time and I was trying to juggle old stuff and new stuff. I’m sure my brain was all over the place. And my chemo memory is iffy at best.

I looked all day in random places. No thumb drive. Maybe it was just time to begin a new list--start fresh. Maybe this was a sign that I needed to do something different.

I had to pick Natalie up from basketball practice tonight. I sent a text to a friend. This is a friend I met about 15 years ago when we moved back to Covington—a friend that I have shared a lot of things with over the last 15 years—smiles, laughs, tears, prayers, experiences. She probably thought I had lost my bloody mind when she read my Monday night words. I was a bit frantic and desperate sounding. I was all in my feelings and I was thinking back to when the kids were small and we were doing Christmas plays. I was thinking of all the great memories we had raising our kids in the church and it just hit me like a ton of bricks how truly special those times have been and how blessed I am to have experienced that. Then the tears started flowing and they wouldn’t stop. The thing I seem to cry about most these days is that “nothing stays the same" and "I’ll never get that back.”

You’ll never get it back either.

Whatever completely normal thing that you are experiencing right now…it might even seem like a nuisance or a pain right at this second…but one day in the not so distant future you will look back on it with tears in your eyes and wish you could have a do-over. And it won’t be because your life isn’t great now. I love my life today. I just miss portions of the past and people of the past.

I miss being a little girl and going and seeing Lacy’s Lights with my grandparents—the smells, the sounds, the anticipation. My grandparents are gone. And now that season has also passed for my own children. We don’t track Santa on his flight anymore. They don’t write letters to the big jolly man. There is a lot that now lives in my memory and they are GREAT memories but they can also bring me to my knees because they are also laced with grief. Grief is a rat bastard. You will start remembering something or someone and then BOOM! Knocks the wind out of you. Just like that. And nobody can tell you how to do it. We all do it differently and there is no right or wrong way. 

Natalie got in the car from basketball practice tonight and I was crying. She asked what in the world was wrong. I told her I wanted to go Christmas Caroling. I used to have a Cookie Exchange and Caroling party.  Some of my best Christmas memories are of these parties. It has fallen through the cracks over the last few years and in its place has been travel ball and school ball and obligations and busyness—just not enough days in the week or hours in the days it seems. Natalie told me not to cry and that just the two of us would go caroling. I told her that was hogwash due to the fact that neither of us could carry a tune in a bucket. She then began to tell me all the people we could ask and she said we would do it and make it beautiful.

How lucky am I to have someone who loves me so much to offer to wrangle up a bunch of people to go caroling, just to make Christmas special for me?!

I went on to tell her how I was all in my feelings because of thinking back to the way things used to be. I told her about the stupid thumb drive and I told her how quickly the child rearing years pass us by. I was crying and she was looking for a tissue. She opened up the storage compartment in the dash. No tissues. When she closed it, the stupid thing wouldn’t close. I told her there was too much stuffed in it and I began pulling things out of there so she could shut it. She said it still wouldn’t close. I told her the spring must have popped out and she began digging around for the spring. When she began digging, guess what she found in there?

My thumb drive.

Attached to my church keys.

There Goes My Life...

Monday, August 7, 2017—the day that I drove away and left my kid at college.

Let me clarify. I am not a wuss. I do not baby my kids. None of them. Never have. I have loved each fiercely, but I don’t sugar coat. I’m not the overprotective type. I love my kids and I love spending time with them (unless they are being jerks)—summers and weekends and evenings, but I am one of those moms who does cartwheels when school is back in session.

I never dreamed my kid going to college would shake me to the core. Yes, I’ve heard the Kenny Chesney song. And the Brad Paisley song. And all the other songs that talk about your kid driving away or the last time you do this or that, and they do make me a little teary-eyed, but honestly, I did not think my kid moving out would do that to me.

I have been a mess this week. A MESS! My husband finally told me today that I had to get it together. And I hope that he got through to me, because I DO have to get it together. I hate feeling like this. So much of me wants to be so proud and happy for my kid and I AM those things, but he’s gone y’all! And yes, he is only a couple of hours away and he is still my son and blah blah…all that crap that people say to make you feel better, but I know what happened when I went away to school. I never came back. I left in 1995 and I didn’t come back until 2003. Sure, I visited, but life as we knew it was never the same.

I carried this baby for nine months and I gave birth to that 9 lb. 4.5 oz half-grown kid and I still have the stretch marks and extra 30 lbs. to prove it. I held him and fed him and got peed and pooped and puked on by him on the daily. I pushed him out of my unmentionables and then I pushed him for hours upon hours in the swing. For years.

 I finger-painted with him. I pulled him in a wagon. I rode him on the back of my bicycle. I took him to Kindermusik. I took him to church. Soccer. Basketball. Cross Country. Track. I watched him get baptized. I watched him receive countless awards and accolades. I watched him become a big brother. Twice. I watched him grow into the handsome young man that he is. I watched him be a good son, a good brother, and a good friend. I watched him walk across that graduation stage as an honor grad. I even had to watch him watch his mom go through a cancer battle right before his senior year of high school when all he should’ve been worrying about was girls and who is going to win the football game and how many cheeseburgers can he get for $10. I have laughed with him until I have cried and I have cried with him until I laughed.

I remember my fear when he was still nonverbal at almost 3 years old. I went through 18 months of speech therapy with him, twice a week until finally he was speaking. I got a call when he was in Kindergarten for a meeting because his fine motor skills were not up to par. They tested his cutting with scissors and he actually held the scissors backwards and cut with the blades facing him. He got the job done, but they were at a loss because he hadn’t held the scissors the proper way. I left crying because I just wanted him to be like all of the rest of the kids. What I realize 14 years later is that I was underestimating him and not being brave enough to look outside the box. Sometimes the way one of us gets from point A to point B might not be the same as the way someone else does. And that doesn’t mean either way is wrong—in spite of what the PALS testing regulations say. After that battle, it turned out by 5^th grade, they felt he should go into the gifted program and so he did. He enjoyed those challenges and the students and teachers during those years.

I was struggling one time with him and I remember calling my dad and crying, “But I don’t want to break his spirit!” That has always been a fear of mine as a mother. I want my children to be kind, loving, civic-minded, productive members of society, but I never want them to lose an ounce of their individuality or quirkiness or uniqueness. That is their special gift to the world! My dad’s advice at that time was, “Don’t break…mold.” And those three words have stuck with me. Molding takes patience and time and practice. You can’t just wave a wand and mold something. You have to work with it until it’s pliable and then you have to keep working with it until it can be shaped and you have to continue to shape until it takes form.

So many things I have to look back on in the last 18 years…so many fun times and laughs and memories. I treasure each of them. I think back to that scared 21-year-old in the hospital who didn’t have a clue what to do with a baby. Riley and I grew up together. We screwed up some and we rocked it out some. Kevin always loves to tell the story of when Riley was an infant and I knocked his head into the door jam. Twice. It wasn’t as horrible as he likes to describe it and you turned out smart, so clearly, I didn’t mess your brain up too much.

So I think everyone is beginning to understand my heart-hurt. Those who have let go understand this. This was my first time. You know when they do the water release up at Gathright Dam? That’s kind of how it is right now. I’ve done a release and the levels are rising now—it’s a flood of memories. It’s everything over the last 18 years that made Riley’s time under our roof so special and wonderful. No longer will Natalie and Wyatt have their brother living at home. Everything is different now. That doesn’t mean that great times aren’t ahead! I do know they are! And oh my gosh I’m so proud. I’m SO PROUD! And I’m so happy that he is going out and doing what we’ve been preparing for over the last 18 years!

But a super selfish mommy part is really sad that things can’t remain all the same forever because I’ve really enjoyed the ways things have been.

But what if my parents would’ve clipped my wings? I wouldn’t have been able to experience all of this awesome life! So, I know in my heart of hearts that I have to do the same for him. And then Natalie. And then Papi. And it’s going to hurt so much with each of them that I might wonder if my heart will be able to take it. But I will do it because I love them. And because it’s what is required.

But mostly because it is frowned upon to keep your children in the basement against their will for the rest of their life.

If you are in this chapter, I wish you the best. And if you ever need to talk or cry or drink a fifth of liquor, just call me.

~lightningbug

Go out with a bang...

I have been dragging butt now for…well…for months if we’re being honest. I keep hoping that the time change and the promise of longer days and shorter nights and warmer temps and sunshine will be the medicine I need to get me motivated and moving. I work part time at the church. I used to come in at 8 or 9 am like a normal person. Now I can’t get moving that fast! I have a hard time getting here at noon these days!

A lot of people ask me how I’m doing…how I’m feeling. And my answer is always, “Absolutely fantastic!” Nobody (including myself) wants to hear about how my back hurts and how I have to sleep in the recliner if I’m going to be able to bend over and unload the dishwasher the next day. Nobody wants to hear about chemo brain and how it’s not something that I’m using as an excuse to focus or get things done. So the answer is “Fantastic!” because I’m cancer free and I am going on about my life and things are indeed, mostly "absolutely fantastic!"

My hair is growing back like a weed--like a wild and unruly weed. It is crazy curly and if I try to tame it, it laughs in my face! Ha! Each day I try to style it differently because I haven’t had short hair in a while and I haven’t had short, wild, curly hair ever! I also am trying to readjust to actually having to carve out time for hair styling again! For the last year I have done my makeup and then put a wig or a hat on my head. I haven’t had to dedicate time to drying and styling. That doesn’t help my chronic lateness!

This morning I was drying it and I was blowing all the hair forward and I wasn’t even watching what I was doing. When I looked in the mirror, I had bangs sitting on my forehead.

I laughed out loud because it reminded me of the funniest thing. I have a good friend who lived here for only a short time. Her name is Brandy. She moved here from Texas and was only here for about three months before returning to Texas. She and I hit it off from the get go and I miss her like crazy. During her time here, my hair was nice and long. I was wanting something different though. I wanted to cut my hair and get some bangs. She told me absolutely not and she told me there was a YouTube video to show me how I could pin up my hair to make it look like I had bangs. Well, I was in the kitchen (burning something I’m sure) and I went into the bathroom and pinned my hair back to make it look like bangs. It was awful looking (the uneven way I had it pinned up) and I snapped a pic and sent it to Brandy with “NAILED IT!” on the pic. We laughed hysterically and our girls threatened to show it to the whole world which at the time, seemed like the most horrible thing that could ever happen.

This morning as I looked in that mirror and saw those bangs, I realized they resembled those uneven faux bangs I had pinned up that day. After I laughed, I started thinking about how on that evening, the worst thing we could imagine in life was some botched bangs.

Fast forward a little over a year. She was back in Texas and I was in Virginia, but we remained in touch. February I got the cancer diagnosis. Now all of a sudden, crazy bangs didn’t seem like such a big deal. She was there for me through some ugly moments over the last year. 

And then as I was doing my victory lap, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Are you kidding me?!

The last year has taught me (and hopefully many others) that what we perceive to be the little things are indeed, the big things (sunsets, goodnight kisses, the smell of fresh coffee) and the things that we perceive to be the big things (chopping my bangs off, forgetting something, a disagreement) are so minuscule in the big scheme of things. 

Is it going to matter in a year? If so, then give it some attention. If not, then don't spend another minute of worry on it. 

My uneven bang game is on fleek!

Once Upon a Time...

I love children's books. I loved being read to as a child. I loved reading to my own kids and now that my kids are older, I love reading to other children! I have had the honor of reading to Mrs. Looney's class for many years now during Read Across America week. Last year it was difficult for me to keep my emotions in check. The day that I read, I knew I had cancer, but I didn't have my treatment plan mapped out yet. I was still kind of in limbo. I didn't know what stage my cancer was, I didn't know what my prognosis was—I didn’t know much of anything. 

Reading to children stirs something very deep inside you. It's a very special intimacy as they intently hang on every word. Thoughts flooded my heart on that day last year. When you face uncertainty, sometimes your fondest memories will all of a sudden just race like the shuffling of a deck of cards. As I began to read, I suddenly was flooded with memories of all the years of reading to my children. My thoughts raced as I remembered snuggling up on Riley’s big boy bed with sweet baby Natalie in Bluefield as we read Green Eggs and Ham and Hop on Pop. Then my memories shifted to sitting on the edge of Natalie’s bed reading the old set of Raggedy Ann and Andy books that she loved so much. I got those books one year at a Boiling Spring open house when they were getting rid of old books. And then my memories flashed to holding my sweet baby Wyatt. He loved to read Go Dog Go and Hondo and Fabian. “Do you like my hat? No I do not. Goodbye. Goodbye.” That was his favorite part. Time and time again we read that. I still say that to him when I put on a hat!

I had some really horrible moments in the beginning of my diagnosis. I don't like to think back to those times. They hurt down to my core. During that time, it was harder for me to deal with good things than bad things as crazy as that sounds. As the good things happened in my life, I would do my best to smile, but that was always laced with the bitter aftertaste of "Will this be the last time I do this?" "Will this be the last year I watch my daughter play softball?" "Will this be the last year I host my son's birthday party?" "Will I be here next year to see him all dressed up for his senior prom?”

As time passed and treatment plans were mapped out, I became more and more comfortable with the thought of looking ahead and thankfully, those bad feelings began to dissipate. I began to not fear the future so much. I began to not dread the thought of missing out on the future. I made a decision that I would do whatever I could to make the very best of whatever time I have, whether that is a month or 60 years. I decided to make every effort to live each day—not to merely be alive--but to live. I would rather live for a year than merely be alive for five. And I think that made all the difference in my life and my fight. I was determined that I was not going to sit at home and let cancer keep me from missing out on life. 

Today I got to read to the early education class at the YMCA Learning Center. The book I chose is called “Have You Filled A Bucket Today?” Have you read that one? It’s a great one! I will be returning it to the library next week so be sure to go grab it! It tells us how we all have imaginary buckets hanging over us. We can choose to be “bucket fillers” or “bucket dippers” by our words and actions. Bucket fillers use their words and actions to fill others’ buckets—maybe it’s a smile, a kind gesture, or a thank you. When we fill another’s bucket, ours become full also.

There are also “bucket dippers.” We are all guilty of being bucket dippers from time to time. We say or do something that hurts someone or we’re a bully or we exclude someone. Unlike the bucket filler, the bucket dipper can’t fill his or her bucket from dipping out of someone else's. When we dip, we empty both buckets.

See why I love children’s books?

Cheers to the future--one day at a time--but each to the absolute fullest. 

Do you like my hat? No I do not. Goodbye. Goodbye.

-lightningbug