I Got This, (and You Can Have It Too)

There have been some events that have happened in and around my life lately that have made me try to figure out where I came from, how I got here, what makes my world view different from so many others and why.   I started to put some things together in my own head.

Am I telling any of this story for sympathy?  No, I'm not.  Have I had a hard life?  not at all.  I had a wonderfully Blissful, blessed and amazing life.  but I have a little thing on my desk that Jonathan bought for me because I ask a lot of questions and hate to make mistakes so I have this stupid need to understand before I try on things that I am afraid might disappoint someone if I make mistakes.  I think that asking the questions may be just as disappointing to those people as if I just made the mistakes..  but I digress, It says "I can explain it to you, but I cant understand it for you" The though has occurred to me that there are people who are looking at me and not sure they understand how I do what I do.  

I also keep telling people that they should be REALLY Proud of me for the things that I DONT say. (which is the gods honest truth, it people only saw what does NOT come out of there, it might frighten them)  

But maybe its time to share a few of the things inside there that have in part of making me who I am.

It all started on February 4, 2018 sometime around midnight as I stood beside my mothers hospital bed.  The words she spoke to me were " I don't want to do this amore, I don't want to be here, this hurts too much."  I said the only thing I could say in this moment.  "Don't stick around here for me, go do what you need to do, I got this. "  What else could I say?  (Inside, my head was screaming, how am I going to do all this myself>)
Hummmm no that isn't where it all began.  I think we need to back up a few days.  When she entered the hospital and kept telling me to not worry about her and go on to the office, the hospital people would take care of her.  "No, really, everything is fine with work, phones are forwarded to me and I can do what I need to do from my laptop right here and anything else we will take care of later, its fine."   Hummm nope, that isn't it, lets back up some more.

I think it was 3 years ago in January, (correct me if I'm wrong)  We were sitting at a house in El Paso having a wonderful time with one of our drivers who we were becoming friends with.  The phone rang and Jonathan answered it.  His face went white, we all saw it.  Darla asked me if everything was ok and I told her I had no idea what was going on but No it was definitely NOT alright.  An hour later we drove across town to the airport and put him on a plane to San Antonio with nothing but the clothes on his back because his father had collapsed in the yard, required resuscitation and was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and we didn't know what was going to happen.  For the next month, while Jonathan was there to take care of his dad and get him to and from Drs appointments and therapy and help his sister out as best he could, I said nearly every day,  "Don't worry about what's happening here, I know that your hands are full with what you are doing,  Do what you need to do, I got this."  (truth is, I had NO IDEA what I was doing for the most part,  I cant believe how many problems I caused, ended up loosing that driver shortly after because of my mistakes but over all things stayed afloat)

Hold it, maybe we should back up a little further.  I'm not really even sure what year it was but I KNOW it was April 11 and I THINK the year was 2012.  That was the night we put Jonathan first in an ambulance then a helicopter for Las Cruces in the middle of having a heart attack.  The storm was coming in so they had to hurry and get him across the missle range before the weather shut down that possibility.  The boys and I stared at his deathly gray face in the back of the ambulance while he in turn told each of us that he loved us and to not forget that and asked Malachi to pray for us.  As the ambulance doors closed the three of us looked at him and said the only thing we could say... Do what you need to do here and don't worry about us, We got this." and we all sped off for the hospital.  By the time we got up there they had cleared the flight and he was already in the chopper.  The boys and I were headed that way in the pickup when Sam told me to stop the truck, he had to get out.  Mom I CANT do this.. I just cant.... and it was very obvious that he was having a panic attack.  I had a split second to decide whether I stayed there and took care of my son and got him through this or drove the 70 miles as fast as humanly and mechanically possible to see if my husband was even still alive when I got there.  I did the only thing I could do.  I left him on the side of the road at the top of Indian Wells to walk home and hopefully be ok and drove like hell. I called my nephew and asked him to go find Sam and make sure he was ok.  (My head was screaming, is this for real????? Can the world slow down and let me breathe for 5 minutes?, NO? )

Malachi and I got there just in time to hug him and kiss him and tell him we loved him before they took him in to surgery.  He was already drugged up and has no memory of any of that.  I'm not even sure at this point how Malachi got back to Alamogordo during time or really if he did.  Abby and Aaron were in Las Cruces at that point and they came and got me and took me to get some food and go buy a change of clothes and underwear.... They stayed at the hospital while I went to my aunt and uncles house to take a shower and change clothes.  Then back to the hospital.  We were there a week, in ICU because the doctor was not sure what had happened.  Jonathan had had a stress test 3 weeks before that he passed with flying colors and now we were in ICU.  Jonathan slept most of the time we were in icu.  Max ran the store and we talked on the phone and made decisions as we needed to make them.  Some of the Border Patrol agents that came by to check on us brought me in food from time to time.  I'm pretty sure I ate at least once a day but I honestly didn't really care.  We left the hospital from ICU and drove to Alamogordo a week later.  That day Jim and Layne were driving in to see him.  The doctor had given me very strict instructions for Jonathan on the need for further rest, for things he needed to eat and things he DIDNT need to eat and that he really MUST MUST MUST quit the tobacco.  I told the family that we would be at the house.  They told me they were too tired after the drive to come to the house so we needed to come see them at their hotel..... AND WE DID.  Sat there in the lobby "visiting" for several hours and ordered in Pizza before we went home and put Jonathan to bed for a while.  The next morning, jonathan rented a car... and I watched him get in the drivers seat to make the trip to San Antonio to see his mother.  Yes, he was driving because his dad and brother had back problems and couldn't do it.  Yep the guy who was a day out of ICU got to drive because the others "just couldn't"  I did the only thing I could do.... I hugged him, I smiled and said Don't worry, do what ever you need to do... I got this.  (I was dying  a little inside) But jonathan was right, it all worked out just fine.  Hummm nope lets back up a little further

The year is 2009. Summer, life is wonderful.. until the diagnosis.  My dad is diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable lung cancer.  he smoked most of his life was around many carcinogenic  chemicals, work on things with asbestos... how could he have gotten lung cancer?????   Well, chemo and radiation was possible but it was going to take a few weeks to get set up so Jim and Jeanne did the thing they did best while waiting... ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!  Off to Branson with his brothers and their wives they went.  I waved them off.  Don't worry, do what ever you need to do... I got this.  
So back they come and then off to Albuquerque for 2.5 months of chemo and radiation.  That was the somewhere in September.  On October 6, Leah calls me at somewhere around 4 in the morning asking me to come take care of the kids while they take Max to the hospital by ambulance with back spasams so bad he cant get up off the bathroom floor... that began 6 months of him being off work to repair that.  That's ok.  Do what you need to do to get healthy, I got this.  Ma and Pa came back from Albuquerque the first week in November and life was going to go back to normal, well normal ish... he was still recovering but things had gone pretty well.
The next week, Jonathan got the opportunity to go to Nogales Arizona to help guard the border there. The detail was for 6 weeks, no problem.  We will miss you for Thanksgiving, but you will be back in time for Christmas, its great to get to do something different and exciting and that has always been our deal.  I'm a yucca and live in New Mexico but you can go on any detail to any place in the United States that you want to go.
so, Don't worry, carreer calls, and I got this.....

I get a call one day asking me how I would feel about him extending his time out there another detail round.  Sure, that's fine.  Its good be needed and I know that they need you.  So, Christmas passes and that weekend the boys and I go out to visit.  First time I have ever gone to a place where jonathan was on detail.  The place he was living was far nicer than any place I have ever lived and it was spotless, now I know why you do this........ We had a great time and then came home.  The next weekend, of course, was New Years... I get a call from him about 10:00 on New Years Eve.  Jontahn tells me that he is having some chest pains and is going to drive himself up to the medical center in tuscon to get checked out.  Ummm ok well its going to take me a  wile to get there.. Long story there (yeah I say that NOW?)  I get the kids organize, someone to look after them, get the store closed down, pack a bag and start toward Tucson.  They have already told me not to rush because being New Years eve they were going to have to work him in for a heart cath anyway and it was going to be a matter of fitting him in at the end so we were probably not looking at anything before 9-10 that night and I had plenty of time to get there.  Then my phone rings in Las Cruces.. guess what, they are taking him in as soon as they can....... Interesting bit of trivia.. the cruise control on a 2004 Dodge 1 ton truck doesn't work over 90 MPH.  I get another phone call between Lordsburg and the state line somewhere.. My heart stops for a minute.  It is the border patrol agent who has been assigned to be at the hospital with him since I was not there.  Telling me he is out of surgery, things went fine and I could talk to him... We talked for about 3 mintues but he is still drugged and has no memory of that conversation.. or for that matter of knowing I was there sleeping in the chair next to his bed until he woke up when the sun came up in his room.  The doctors told me that he was pretty much ok.  this happened because some of his meds were probably interacting with each other and they made some changes to that and he should be ok to go back to work and finish his tour in Nogales just fine.. so after a day or two there, back to Alamogordo I go and back to life.

Then in July of 2010 the cancer is back with a vengeance and things become very short.  A fall in Sept breaks a femur, intubation in the hospital for the surgery, Things at the hospital there that I still really don't want to talk about... and a funeral.  No problem Jim, do what ever you need to do.. don't worry about me, I got this.. I will make sure Mom has everything she needs, I will take care of the businesses, I will take care of all of it... I got this.....

Then there was that time in 1994 that Mom had breast cancer, they had just changed insurance so we didn't know if either company was going to cover the surgery and treatment so my dad did what he knew to do.. he had the opportunity to work a very good job that would pay for at least most of the medical expenses if that is what they needed to do.  Its ok do what you need to do.. I got this here.
Mom was NOT happy about him leaving and I did my best to explain in a way that she could understand that he WAS taking care of her.. he just left me and Max to do the daily grind work and that is what we did.. We HAD this.

We an even back up if we want to the summer of 1990 when divorce happened.  Elizabeth was 4 and Abby was less than a year old and Cliff "wasn't sure if I want to be a husband or father at all, and I need to go out there in the world for a year or so and find myself"  Ummm yep, if you haven't been here for the last 10 years, you probably better look somewhere else... but hey, don't worry, I got this.. do what you need to do... (and frankly I AM pretty proud of how the girls turned out!!!!!!!!)  but at the time.. yeah my head was screaming.. how am I going to do this, I cant do this.. But I did.

We can go back before even 1990 to my college days.  I wanted to go to college to be a teacher.  I knew that paying for that was going to be a hardship on my family... so Don't worry, I had it.  Yes, I worked on weekends and summers in the family business earning much of the money there, but I worked my tail off.  I also always had a job during the year to pay my expenses, no loans, no grants, no scholarships.... one of the biggest fights my parents and I ever had was over them wanting to help me pay for a semester of school that they knew I was coming up short on.  NO WAY!!!!!! I GOT THIS!!!!!!!  And I did.

A car payment, a loan at the bank to buy my flute, neither in my name because I was underage... but I made every payment on both....

There are things clear back to childhood but this is far enough.

So, the moral of this story is, no matter what was floating around in my head, over my life time I have just learned to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking forward, to stay in my circle and just do the Next Thing.

Moving On Beyond.

What is the appropriate time of mourning these days? At one point in history it was appropriate to mourn a parent for a year.   If you read Facebook you will continuously see that there is never a time it goes away, Grief never ends, it just changes,  how everyone grieves in their own time and the hole in your heart never mends.  All of those things.  For years reading those things has made me feel like a cold hearted or maybe even NO hearted person, because, as we put it in our world today, MY Truth is different..  I truly have a hard time with grief over all believe it or not so for me, its past time to move on. I hope that does not offend anyone reading.    So here goes.....a new series.

You learn a great deal when you clean out someone's personal effects, if you slow down and look at items and look for patterns etc.
I learned when going through my grandparents life time of existence that nothing could be taken for granted,  every single envelope, box, drawer and pocket had to be checked.  Such a valuable lesson.

So here we are living in my parents house.. trying to make room for our things.  We moved in, little by little, I think back in September.  For a while we just kind of co-existed like we were just visiting and then it became evident that we were her for the duration so it was time to start getting comfortable. Now, its my home.

One of the weekends I realized that I HAD to find a way to consolidate all the cleaning products in this house and just find out what was here.  I had gotten some of my FAVORITE 31 bags.. and I was putting one together to go under each bathroom sink so you could just grab it out and clean the bathroom in less than 15 minutes and put it back... and then I figured I could have one for cleaning supplies for the rest of the house in the utility closet. You know, like with dusting supplies and window cleaner and things like that... and there has been a wooden box under the kitchen sink for many years that was full of kitchen cleaning supplies and pods for the dishwasher and things like that.  But as I started looking around, it became apparent that we had WWWAAAYYYYY more cleaning supplies than we needed. WAY more.... I began to wonder, can you be a cleaning product addict?  If you could, my mother was.... I even found cleaning supplies in the top back of her closet, things that were completely irrelevant to cleaning a bedroom..... Hummm it could be true.  Jonathan spent an entire day pulling things out of cabinets, boxes, closets, under sinks, in places you wouldn't imagine and sorting them.  There were things we couldn't even identify the label on any more. What do we do with this? is it safe to throw away? Would it be considered toxic waste?  We cant even tell what it is.  HOW OLD are these things, are they still useful?  Did they loose their potency, did it GROW?

I counted them up as I went through the house as well, there were more than 50 febreze small spaces air fresheners through out this 3 bedroom 2 bath house.

I know that part of the reason for these things came from a great fear that she had of  at some point "smelling like an old person"  I knew enough to know what she was talking about.  As a small child I remember going to her older relatives houses, which I dearly loved to do, but some of them DID have a particular smell.  The houses were old and generally uninsulated, they used either wood or gas heat in the winter,  I even remember wood cook stoves in some of the houses.  We have none of the things that would cause many of the smells in our houses today, but she never could get that thought out of her head.  Also, she had a fear of smelling like an old person, herself.  Again, we have much better bathing situations and even nutritional situations so that was not going to happen, but if we have thoughts in our heads.

I also know that she forever compared herself to those around her.  Well, not really that, more she was afraid that those people were comparing her to themselves.  She never felt like anything she did was of any remote importance, or in any way special, therefore nothing she HAD was of any importance, nor was special.  She just knew that anyone who came in her house was looking down on her for what she perceived as pretty meager surroundings compared to others she knew.  Instead I think those same people were seeing a house filled with love, and comfort and kindness over seen by a woman who was truly concerned about their welfare and wellbeing.  I think they saw the artwork that hung on the walls, much of which SHE had done herself.  Her creativity was something to behold in so many areas. They just saw comfort and mostly, LOVE.

 She always said that she had no idea how to decorate a home like all of her sisters in law did.  I believe that all of them would disagree with her on that subject as well.  Again, her house was decorated with LOVE.

But that leads me back to the original though of this edition.  Neatness, tidiness, and over all cleanliness were very important to her for many reasons.  I'm not saying in any way that she should not have concerned herself with these things but I certainly say that one of her blessings on me is that I will not have to buy cleaning supplies beyond a few items for at least the next year or so.

Thank you so much, I am trying hard to live up to your standards.

The ironic month of posessions 7 experiment

Well, I didn't get up as early today as my alarm went off but I'm up and moving now anyway.  I am trying very hard this month to stick to the goal of our 7 experiment program and not to deviate away. I wanted to do this program again for a reason so I'm trying to stick with the reason.  I am also sort of trying to catch up on the clothing month.  With my mothers passing and moving in to her house there will be many things to purge as they don't matter to me so I almost feel like I'm cheating in some way on this path but that's ok too I think. 

Our church is getting ready to have a yard sale to help fund our kids going to summer camp so this is the perfect time for me to do this.  I have a place for many of the things to go that will benefit someone else and maybe help raise some money for the kids as well.  I'm not sure how far I will get in this month either as now my mother in law is in the hospital with pneumonia.  She has advanced COPD as well so I'm afraid this is going to be rough.  My husband is in San Antonio with her while I am here taking care of all the businesses, beginning the legal stuff on my mothers affairs and just keeping the home fires burning.  Over the weekend I hauled out 2 garbage bags of things that were just trash.  Most of one of them to be fair was flowers that people sent us at my moms funeral.  They were beautiful and I loved walking in to the livingroom in the morning and smelling them, but time passes. 

There are so many things that need another home here in this house and in the Aloha House that it seems crazy and overwhelming to even think about it but I think that what I need to do to get over the overwhelm is to look at what Jen Hatmaker set out to do.  Her idea was to purge 7 items a day so I think that is going to work for me and then maybe I can also do more on days I have time.  I can then decide whether those 7 items go into the generic yard sale boxes or if they go in to the I have someone special in mind for these things boxes.  My goal will be to get those things out of my sight quickly before I decide that for what ever reason they need to be kept and I put them back away. 

So todays 7 purge has been completed.  4 vases from flowers that came.  I kept 2 of them that will be nice to have for future flowers. (I am going to do my best to keep fresh flowers in my house as they make me happy)  and 4 books that I don't care to read so that makes 8.  Now off to work and find 7 items there to purge as well.