Dear Oliver,
I have this horrible fear of dying before you can remember who I am/was. Before you I would hear people on movies who had cancer lament, "My child will never know me!" and while I thought that was sad I didn't truly get how sad until now. I am not saying having a child makes you some guru on the meaning of life but when a child BECOMES your meaning of life, it puts things into a perspective you didn't know existed.
This will not make sense to you for a long time.
You are growing too fast, if you ask me. You bounce in your Jumperoo like you're going to jump through the roof. How do you not give yourself shaken baby syndrome? Somehow, you don't. You're still pretty small compared to other babies, but that's fine with me because it's less weight to have to put on my hip. Besides, you are so big in so many other ways. You have the best smile, the best laugh, the best attitude. You wake up every morning filled with this immeasurable joy that is so contagious, darling. It doesn't matter how tired I am, I can't help but smile and hold you so tight in your drool stained Gerber sleeper. I love you.
You eat all kinds of things now. You love to talk all day long. It's just babble really but I know YOU think you're speaking very plainly so I try to respond in kind. Your favorite food is sweet potatoes. Your favorite drink is still Similac. Your favorite person is a tie between Daddy and me. For play, Daddy wins. I win for snuggles. That's perfect as far as I am concerned.
You make me want to become the best person I can be because I think that's how you will become the best person YOU can be. And I see your future and I see so many wonderful things, sweet angel. You can truly do anything. You are small but you are MIGHTY. I will always be in your corner, pushing you as far as I know you can go.
But for now, stay close. Stay in your footie jammies and onesies. I know babies don't keep.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Monday, October 1, 2012
What Is Permanent
Dear Oliver,
I want to tell you about someone you will never meet but who you will hear about your entire life.
Your grandpa (my dad) was very conservative. He thought Bill Clinton was the devil and that Rush Limbaugh was a modern apostle. The year Barack Obama was elected he almost left me in Memphis, Tennessee on a cross-country roadtrip because I told him I was considering voting for him. He only watched Fox News and his celebrity crush was Ann Coulter. I would argue with him about the importance of social services and question why he cared about babies before they were born but not once they were out in the world and he would stump me with his own questions about how we were going to pay for my "hippie Utopia."
I loved my dad.
I was constantly reminded from an early age where my father stood on all things political. I am really going to try my best not to influence you like I was influenced. (Not saying my father was wrong or right, just wish I had a little more variety in my lectures from him on how the country works. He wouldn't even put on CNN in our house.) I would like you to have some thoughts of your own but it's probably a lost cause. What we believe in always comes out in the end. But I will try my best.
One thing I regret telling your grandpa is that I didn't think I believed in God any more.I told him this a couple of months before he died. Your grandpa was stubbornly Baptist, and very knowledgable on everything Biblical. In his lifetime he probably read the entire Bible at least half a dozen times. He loved Jesus very much. One of the great highlights of his life was going to Israel when he was in the Navy. He walked where Jesus walked. Dipped his legs in the river Jordan where Jesus was baptized.
I enjoyed those stories very much. I wish he could be here to tell them to you. He was the best storyteller. Ever.
He was not thrilled with my heathen proclamations. Not that I would call your grandpa a fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination. He smoked. He cussed like the ex-sailor he was. He didn't drink much but it didn't bother him when others did. He knew many obscene jokes and had a pretty fantastic and very secular sense of humor. But the man did not joke about Jesus. They were truly homeboys. But most importantly, my father would never ever ever ever disown me because I didn't agree with him on something, even religion. Besides your own father, no one else has ever loved me so unconditionally.
My father and I would battle it out. Not over things like dinosaurs and the age of the Earth. More about suffering. Why did we have to suffer? Why were we put here in the first place? Why did we have to guess correctly in order to go to heaven? Why am I right and a Muslim is wrong? Maybe the Jews have it right. Maybe the atheists do. Maybe we're just a bunch of fleas living on an organism that lives on an organism that lives on another organism. (I thought of that one when I was "under the influence" of a certain fungi in my early 20s. Please don't ever do drugs, son.) Maybe we're in the Matrix. Maybe we're in purgatory. But either way... Why, if the good Lord is so good does anyone have to suffer? It's a very elementary question but Dad always had an answer:
"We're paying for the sins of the father. Bad things happen because we have done bad things. This is a temporary place we are to learn to trust God. He wants us to depend on Him and not the world. He wants us to love one another like He loves us."
It made little sense to me. So I decided it was all bullshit. Religion was something we clung to so we could get out of bed every day. Typical juvenile philosophy. I thought I was so smart.
(You will go through a phase like this too. I dread your teenage years when you will tell me 2 horrible things for the first time. Those things being "I hate you!" and "I don't want to go to church, I don't even believe in God!" You will say them and I will cry.)
Then one day, a horrible thing happened and it happened very suddenly. Grandpa died. I have written about it and won't write about the details again, but it was a horrible day. It was the defining day of my adult life. I thought.
It was a hurt so deep I cannot describe it to you. It has been over three years and I still cry about it a couple times a month. The thing about this wound is that sometimes the happiest moments in life can open it back up and make my heart sting.
Things That Remind Me of My Dad and Make Me Sob Like a Baby: (Or Like an Ollie):
--- The last scene in Field of Dreams
--- Seeing little girls holding hands with their dads in public places
--- The word "sweetie"
--- His ball glove. It's older than I am. I will show it to you. It's in a box and I pull it out every now and then and put my face in it. It smells like my childhood.
--- People dying of heart attacks in movies
--- Dads dying in movies
--- Sheena Easton's "Morning Train" (He sang it to me when I was very small but changed the lyrics to "My daddy takes the morning train")
--- Passing a softball complex
--- Packs of Virginia Slims. (That is seriously what your grandpa smoked. Not even kidding)
--- The soundtrack to A Chorus Line (No, grandpa was not gay.)
--- Seinfeld re-runs
--- George Strait's "A Father's Love." He sang this at your great-granddaddy's retirement party.
And really... about a thousand million billion other things.
But that defining moment? It got replaced. On June 8, 2012, that horrible day got replaced with a great one. The greatest one.
Yes, Oliver. Your birthday. You came that day and my heart was mended in a way that nothing else had been able to. Everything else had been bandaids.
I don't cry as much. I don't question the Universe much either any more. I don't know if I ever really stopped believing in God. I think it was a weird way of showing my dad I didn't have to believe in something just because he told me to. I wish I could apologize to him for that. I wish I could apologize for a lot of things. Sometimes I think I was a pretty lousy daughter.
I see your smile and hear your laugh and look at the tiny indentations in your very tiny knuckles and wonder how there ISN'T a God? What else could have made you and me? What else could possibly have made any of us? I understand why people doubt, and I still have plenty of doubt but... you're so f'ing beautiful, I don't know any other explanation. I am Baptist to my bones, I guess. Dad wins again!
God might have sent the world Jesus but God sent you just to me. And I just can't wake up every day thinking that there wasn't a purpose and plan. I can't wake up every day and not know I will see your grandpa again. I cannot wake up every day and not know I will be connected to you for all eternity, my little baby. You have made me believe in things again, my darling sweet boy. Jesus might save my soul, but Oliver, you saved my life.
I want to tell you about someone you will never meet but who you will hear about your entire life.
Your grandpa (my dad) was very conservative. He thought Bill Clinton was the devil and that Rush Limbaugh was a modern apostle. The year Barack Obama was elected he almost left me in Memphis, Tennessee on a cross-country roadtrip because I told him I was considering voting for him. He only watched Fox News and his celebrity crush was Ann Coulter. I would argue with him about the importance of social services and question why he cared about babies before they were born but not once they were out in the world and he would stump me with his own questions about how we were going to pay for my "hippie Utopia."
I loved my dad.
I was constantly reminded from an early age where my father stood on all things political. I am really going to try my best not to influence you like I was influenced. (Not saying my father was wrong or right, just wish I had a little more variety in my lectures from him on how the country works. He wouldn't even put on CNN in our house.) I would like you to have some thoughts of your own but it's probably a lost cause. What we believe in always comes out in the end. But I will try my best.
One thing I regret telling your grandpa is that I didn't think I believed in God any more.I told him this a couple of months before he died. Your grandpa was stubbornly Baptist, and very knowledgable on everything Biblical. In his lifetime he probably read the entire Bible at least half a dozen times. He loved Jesus very much. One of the great highlights of his life was going to Israel when he was in the Navy. He walked where Jesus walked. Dipped his legs in the river Jordan where Jesus was baptized.
I enjoyed those stories very much. I wish he could be here to tell them to you. He was the best storyteller. Ever.
He was not thrilled with my heathen proclamations. Not that I would call your grandpa a fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination. He smoked. He cussed like the ex-sailor he was. He didn't drink much but it didn't bother him when others did. He knew many obscene jokes and had a pretty fantastic and very secular sense of humor. But the man did not joke about Jesus. They were truly homeboys. But most importantly, my father would never ever ever ever disown me because I didn't agree with him on something, even religion. Besides your own father, no one else has ever loved me so unconditionally.
My father and I would battle it out. Not over things like dinosaurs and the age of the Earth. More about suffering. Why did we have to suffer? Why were we put here in the first place? Why did we have to guess correctly in order to go to heaven? Why am I right and a Muslim is wrong? Maybe the Jews have it right. Maybe the atheists do. Maybe we're just a bunch of fleas living on an organism that lives on an organism that lives on another organism. (I thought of that one when I was "under the influence" of a certain fungi in my early 20s. Please don't ever do drugs, son.) Maybe we're in the Matrix. Maybe we're in purgatory. But either way... Why, if the good Lord is so good does anyone have to suffer? It's a very elementary question but Dad always had an answer:
"We're paying for the sins of the father. Bad things happen because we have done bad things. This is a temporary place we are to learn to trust God. He wants us to depend on Him and not the world. He wants us to love one another like He loves us."
It made little sense to me. So I decided it was all bullshit. Religion was something we clung to so we could get out of bed every day. Typical juvenile philosophy. I thought I was so smart.
(You will go through a phase like this too. I dread your teenage years when you will tell me 2 horrible things for the first time. Those things being "I hate you!" and "I don't want to go to church, I don't even believe in God!" You will say them and I will cry.)
Then one day, a horrible thing happened and it happened very suddenly. Grandpa died. I have written about it and won't write about the details again, but it was a horrible day. It was the defining day of my adult life. I thought.
It was a hurt so deep I cannot describe it to you. It has been over three years and I still cry about it a couple times a month. The thing about this wound is that sometimes the happiest moments in life can open it back up and make my heart sting.
Things That Remind Me of My Dad and Make Me Sob Like a Baby: (Or Like an Ollie):
--- The last scene in Field of Dreams
--- Seeing little girls holding hands with their dads in public places
--- The word "sweetie"
--- His ball glove. It's older than I am. I will show it to you. It's in a box and I pull it out every now and then and put my face in it. It smells like my childhood.
--- People dying of heart attacks in movies
--- Dads dying in movies
--- Sheena Easton's "Morning Train" (He sang it to me when I was very small but changed the lyrics to "My daddy takes the morning train")
--- Passing a softball complex
--- Packs of Virginia Slims. (That is seriously what your grandpa smoked. Not even kidding)
--- The soundtrack to A Chorus Line (No, grandpa was not gay.)
--- Seinfeld re-runs
--- George Strait's "A Father's Love." He sang this at your great-granddaddy's retirement party.
And really... about a thousand million billion other things.
But that defining moment? It got replaced. On June 8, 2012, that horrible day got replaced with a great one. The greatest one.
Yes, Oliver. Your birthday. You came that day and my heart was mended in a way that nothing else had been able to. Everything else had been bandaids.
I don't cry as much. I don't question the Universe much either any more. I don't know if I ever really stopped believing in God. I think it was a weird way of showing my dad I didn't have to believe in something just because he told me to. I wish I could apologize to him for that. I wish I could apologize for a lot of things. Sometimes I think I was a pretty lousy daughter.
I see your smile and hear your laugh and look at the tiny indentations in your very tiny knuckles and wonder how there ISN'T a God? What else could have made you and me? What else could possibly have made any of us? I understand why people doubt, and I still have plenty of doubt but... you're so f'ing beautiful, I don't know any other explanation. I am Baptist to my bones, I guess. Dad wins again!
God might have sent the world Jesus but God sent you just to me. And I just can't wake up every day thinking that there wasn't a purpose and plan. I can't wake up every day and not know I will see your grandpa again. I cannot wake up every day and not know I will be connected to you for all eternity, my little baby. You have made me believe in things again, my darling sweet boy. Jesus might save my soul, but Oliver, you saved my life.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Dear Oliver-
This week you get to meet Grandma and Grandpa Perry. Your daddy is so excited. So am I. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't exist. We are all pieces of the people who came before us.
I am most excited for you to meet your grandpa. He's your only living one, which makes meeting him all that more special. I am sure he is going to love you so much. Everyone does. A lot of people are so in love with you, sweet darling.
I am so sorry that you will not get to meet your other grandpa, Oliver. That has been a hard truth for Momma. Really hard. It isn't fair, baby. It isn't fair at all.
I think about what you would have called him. Grandpa? Granddaddy? Papa? Pop-Pop? Paw-Paw? It haunts me a little bit, his absence. He has been gone for 3 years and although Momma has healed some, I still have a heart that is broken. Daddy has helped heal it some and you have healed it a LOT, but it is still cracked. It always will be. The place your grandpa filled in my heart cannot be filled by anyone else but him. It's hard for me. I am still so sad, sometimes, Oliver. I hope you never have to feel this way. I hope you get to see your Daddy and Momma live a long long long time. We want to see your grandbabies. Your wife. I will try my best to make sure it all happens, baby. I will.
It's probably a very silly, juvenile thing but I think of you as something my dad sent me. To remind me we don't end with just us. Just like my blood runs through your veins, his runs through mine. When I pass on, a long time from now, I will live on through you and the people you make. It's comforting, yes. But still... painful to be without the people you love.
Hard Life Lesson #1: There will be pain, Oliver. I think that's something I dread you finding out. The pain you feel now is temporary. Hunger. Gassiness. Fatigue. You have your baby pains but I can heal those quickly. I can swoop in and save the day.
I am dreading the day you have the kind of pain that I can't heal. The kind that sits on your heart. I wish I could say it will never happen. I very much wish that more than anything.
Know that as long as I live, I will try to make your heart as happy as I can. I love you, baby boy. You've been in my life for 5 weeks now! You have changed everything. For the best. I hope I can make this life really great for you.
Love, Momma
This week you get to meet Grandma and Grandpa Perry. Your daddy is so excited. So am I. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't exist. We are all pieces of the people who came before us.
I am most excited for you to meet your grandpa. He's your only living one, which makes meeting him all that more special. I am sure he is going to love you so much. Everyone does. A lot of people are so in love with you, sweet darling.
I am so sorry that you will not get to meet your other grandpa, Oliver. That has been a hard truth for Momma. Really hard. It isn't fair, baby. It isn't fair at all.
I think about what you would have called him. Grandpa? Granddaddy? Papa? Pop-Pop? Paw-Paw? It haunts me a little bit, his absence. He has been gone for 3 years and although Momma has healed some, I still have a heart that is broken. Daddy has helped heal it some and you have healed it a LOT, but it is still cracked. It always will be. The place your grandpa filled in my heart cannot be filled by anyone else but him. It's hard for me. I am still so sad, sometimes, Oliver. I hope you never have to feel this way. I hope you get to see your Daddy and Momma live a long long long time. We want to see your grandbabies. Your wife. I will try my best to make sure it all happens, baby. I will.
It's probably a very silly, juvenile thing but I think of you as something my dad sent me. To remind me we don't end with just us. Just like my blood runs through your veins, his runs through mine. When I pass on, a long time from now, I will live on through you and the people you make. It's comforting, yes. But still... painful to be without the people you love.
Hard Life Lesson #1: There will be pain, Oliver. I think that's something I dread you finding out. The pain you feel now is temporary. Hunger. Gassiness. Fatigue. You have your baby pains but I can heal those quickly. I can swoop in and save the day.
I am dreading the day you have the kind of pain that I can't heal. The kind that sits on your heart. I wish I could say it will never happen. I very much wish that more than anything.
Know that as long as I live, I will try to make your heart as happy as I can. I love you, baby boy. You've been in my life for 5 weeks now! You have changed everything. For the best. I hope I can make this life really great for you.
Love, Momma
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Four Weeks
Dear Oliver,
You have no eyebrows.
It's one of those things. I know you'll get them eventually. Your daddy has great ones. Mine are decent when they have been groomed. Otherwise I look like Eugene Levy. Not a good look.
Your eyes are changing color. I am hoping they settle on brown but right now they're this beautiful slate color. I can stare into them all day. Why do I want them to be brown? Because I want part of me to be part of you. I have a feeling most of you is going to be all daddy's genes. Which is not a bad thing.
You have such tiny ears. Your hands are too big for the rest of you. So are your feet. Daddy hopes this means you'll be tall and athletic. That's fine and all. I sing to you every day hoping you'll have a good ear. I guess that's no better. I always promised myself I wouldn't put expectations on my children, but it's hard. It's hard not to try to guess what you'll become. It's hard not to hope you will become the things I never became.
Good Lord, and you're only a month old, Oliver. You poor little, beautiful thing.
You have the most pathetic cry. It's so cute, I hear it and it breaks my heart. Your cries have different timbres. I can tell when you're hungry. Gassy. Today you were sleeping so soundly and you suddenly broke out in the most horrible cry. It was fear. I could hear it. You were having a nightmare and both Daddy and I wanted to cry. I plucked you out of your bassinet and rocked you and held you and the crying stopped. Your eyes opened. You saw it was me and you were fine.
Do you know how wonderful that made me feel?
It is something to have someone count on you to make everything ok. I have never been that for anyone. I am not known to be counted on. I have been selfish my entire life. I have always done what I wanted, when I wanted to. I was a horrible roommate in college. Such an asshole. In my 20's I floated around trying to figure things out and making a lot of mistakes.
You'll do the same thing maybe, one day. Or maybe you won't. Maybe you will take after Daddy who is the kindest person I know. He makes decisions based on what is best for everyone but himself. He says he wasn't always that way, something that is hard to imagine. Everything that is good in you probably came from him. The parts of you that want to leave the laundry for another day or want to snark on the people in your English class... that part probably came from me. Sorry.
I just want you to know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're one month old or 504 months old. It doesn't matter if you end up being fantastic at life or not so fantastic... I will love you and hold you and cry for you just like I did today when you had that nightmare. This is the love that has no end, sweet Oliver. You will always have it, it will never go away.
And all those mistakes I made? The day you were born it was like not a single one of them happened. If it got me to this, they weren't mistakes. They were just little bumps on my road to you, sweet baby. Just little bumps.
Love ALWAYS,
Momma
You have no eyebrows.
It's one of those things. I know you'll get them eventually. Your daddy has great ones. Mine are decent when they have been groomed. Otherwise I look like Eugene Levy. Not a good look.
Your eyes are changing color. I am hoping they settle on brown but right now they're this beautiful slate color. I can stare into them all day. Why do I want them to be brown? Because I want part of me to be part of you. I have a feeling most of you is going to be all daddy's genes. Which is not a bad thing.
You have such tiny ears. Your hands are too big for the rest of you. So are your feet. Daddy hopes this means you'll be tall and athletic. That's fine and all. I sing to you every day hoping you'll have a good ear. I guess that's no better. I always promised myself I wouldn't put expectations on my children, but it's hard. It's hard not to try to guess what you'll become. It's hard not to hope you will become the things I never became.
Good Lord, and you're only a month old, Oliver. You poor little, beautiful thing.
You have the most pathetic cry. It's so cute, I hear it and it breaks my heart. Your cries have different timbres. I can tell when you're hungry. Gassy. Today you were sleeping so soundly and you suddenly broke out in the most horrible cry. It was fear. I could hear it. You were having a nightmare and both Daddy and I wanted to cry. I plucked you out of your bassinet and rocked you and held you and the crying stopped. Your eyes opened. You saw it was me and you were fine.
Do you know how wonderful that made me feel?
It is something to have someone count on you to make everything ok. I have never been that for anyone. I am not known to be counted on. I have been selfish my entire life. I have always done what I wanted, when I wanted to. I was a horrible roommate in college. Such an asshole. In my 20's I floated around trying to figure things out and making a lot of mistakes.
You'll do the same thing maybe, one day. Or maybe you won't. Maybe you will take after Daddy who is the kindest person I know. He makes decisions based on what is best for everyone but himself. He says he wasn't always that way, something that is hard to imagine. Everything that is good in you probably came from him. The parts of you that want to leave the laundry for another day or want to snark on the people in your English class... that part probably came from me. Sorry.
I just want you to know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're one month old or 504 months old. It doesn't matter if you end up being fantastic at life or not so fantastic... I will love you and hold you and cry for you just like I did today when you had that nightmare. This is the love that has no end, sweet Oliver. You will always have it, it will never go away.
And all those mistakes I made? The day you were born it was like not a single one of them happened. If it got me to this, they weren't mistakes. They were just little bumps on my road to you, sweet baby. Just little bumps.
Love ALWAYS,
Momma
Friday, December 9, 2011
October 21, 2011
October 21, 2011
Dear Baby/Embryo/Zygote/Blastocyst/Angel,
I am not really sure how to begin this.
Today is the day I found out that I am pregnant with you, baby. I am hoping you will read this later in your sweet life and appreciate the fact that I loved you enough even as a zygote to write you a letter. You’ll be an angsty teenager who hates me most days but you’ll read this and maybe forgive me a little for being a little uptight. (Probably a LOT uptight.)
You’ve made the entire universe feel so different.
Like, the moment I saw that very faint second pink line. The SECOND I realized it… everything changed. HOW CHEESY IS THAT? But holy hell, if it isn’t true. Suddenly I was hyper aware of my body, how it was feeling. I started panicking. I kept thinking about the very strong Long Island ice tea I had the week before and the hydrocodone I had taken the previous day for a headache. I immediately envisioned you being born with fetal alcohol syndrome and/or addicted to crack. I was scared. I am still scared.
I still cannot believe this is happening to me. (Sorry, right now it’s all about me but very soon everything in my world will be all about you, so give Mommy a moment to digest.)
I never was one to think I would be lucky enough – BLESSED enough – for God to allow me to make another human being. (I mean, with the help of your Daddy of course. It takes two… I will explain it all at a much later time.) I just thought it would be one of those things that would happen for other people. It just seemed too BIG to be something that would happen to me. I am not sure how to explain that. One day I will try to think of a better way.
Something I wish I had on video for you is Daddy’s face when he found out I was pregnant. He was sitting on our bed waiting for me to come out of the bathroom. I walked out of the bathroom, one hand over my mouth, the other holding that little First Response test, my eyes probably bulging out of their skull. I remember falling into him and both of us staring at the faint little second line. I looked up at him for a second to gauge his reaction…
I have never seen such a smile. It is the best smile he has ever given. He was staring at the ceiling smiling so big.
I tell you this because I want you to know you are so so so loved, little baby. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s only been a few hours and all I can think about is you. I can’t remember what I was worried about yesterday. It seems so trivial. You have made me feel so alive, so important.
I am going to try my best, little baby. You are a piece of the people I have lost, come back to me.
I will love you more than anyone else could ever love you. I can’t wait to meet you.
Love,
Momma
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Lessons of My 20's: A Vegas Story
My first roommate when I moved to Las Vegas was an escort named Melissa.
That was her real name anyway. Her professional name was "Katrina." A year later when that infamous hurricane hit New Orleans I thought of her.
She had her own card. The ones they hand out on the strip, the men hitting them against their cargo jeans as they press them into the hands of men walking by. They wear t-shirts with neon lettering "HOT GIRLS STRAIGHT TO YOUR ROOM". Her card showed her squatting, her legs spread, her bare breasts in her hands, a sultry look at the camera. There was a star between her legs with the number of her escort service company. She worked on call, so I never knew when she would be gone. She had long white blond extensions and high cheekbones. The card said she was Russian but she wasn't. She was from Medford, Oregon.
I hadn't known she was an escort when I found her on craigslist. Her photo on there had been of her sitting on a couch, her legs crossed wearing jeans and a white sweater, reindeer antlers on her head.
Hope your holidays were awesome!!!! Need a roommate STAT after my last one bailed!! I'm a laid back girl from the Northwest, love to HIKE! and eat FINE DINING! and HAVE FUN!! Please be clean and please be NONDRAMA. Security deposit will be 1 month's rent! E-mail or call me!!
She looked like someone that might work at a florist. Someone who might volunteer at the animal shelter on weekends. Someone who had a boyfriend who spent the night a couple times a week. Someone who might go to church every so often, who drank socially. Someone who participated in breast cancer walks.
She was some of these things. But mostly she was none of them.
But the rent was cheap and I was new to town. She lived in a gated community off Tropicana that was close to my work. It would do.
******************************
The first night I met Melissa she had just been in a car accident. She had rear ended someone on Pecos while talking on her cell phone.
I had told the people I had bought my mattress and boxspring from (also on craigslist. They have furnished my adult life for the most part. In so many ways.) to meet me at her house at 6. When I got there at 530 she called me sobbing.
"Alison! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, girl! You won't believe this! I just rear ended someone!" Imagine being able to hear the saliva and mucus from the sobbing. It was a messy voice.
"Oh no! Are you ok?"
"Yeah. I mean no. I mean maybe? I don't know, I am SO FREAKED OUT. The front of my car is crunched and leaking and the guy in the truck I hit is screaming at me and I just want to get out of here! Can you come and get me?"
"Um. Sure. What cross street are you at?"
"Pecos and um... Shit. I don't know. I don't know! I think Eastern?"
"No, honey, that's impossible."
"Oh right... duh. Oh wait I know. I'm at Pecos and Russell."
"Ok, that's fine. I will be there soon. Are you on the north or southbound side?"
"Alison, I don't fucking know, I just was in an accident! Just get here!" Click.
I stared at my cell phone. I considered many things. I considered calling the mattress place and cancelling the order. I considered never picking her up and trying my luck on another roommate site. I considered packing up my Jeep and driving to another city. I considered doing it all over again.
I did none of this. I drove to Pecos and Russell. I picked Melissa up.
Imagine the most obnoxious girl you ever met. Imagine someone from the Jersey Shore times 1000. And then add another 3000. Imagine a girl with a short jean skirt on and a bikini top. Imagine she is wearing Uggs. Then realize this was January. It doesn't get freezing cold here but it gets cold enough where wearing a bikini top would be considered a sign of insanity. I was wearing a peacoat and jeans that evening. Imagine this girl arguing with the very sincere tow truck man who has had the misfortune of coming to pick up her neon green Honda Civic. Imagine a belly chain with a marijuana leaf charm on it. Imagine acrylic nails, yarny yellow hair, pock marks. Imagine a fuzzy Hello Kitty dangling from the rear view mirror, hating it's own life. Imagine a backseat filled with clothes and shoes and money order receipts.
This was not looking good for me.
******************************
We got home just as the mattress people were driving away. I chased them down and begged them to come back, that I was sorry I was late. They made me pay 20 extra bucks for the trouble. (Oh scandalous Vegas craigslist.)
Melissa was still sobbing, had BEEN sobbing for the entire ride. I know accidents can be traumatic but this was a little overboard. It felt like theatrics, like she was putting on a show. I had turned on the radio to drown out the awkwardness and she had screamed at me to turn it the fuck down, I'm in shock here! Oh Jesus. Oh dear, sweet, Jesus. Save me from myself.
Once the mattress guys had left I was able to take account of my surroundings. Melissa owned a three bedroom one story home. It was clean enough. There was a huge hole in the wall in the hallway that was shaped like a stilleto had been thrown through it. Ok. Otherwise I was relieved to find it completely fine for what I was paying. My room and hers were next to one another but she had her own bathroom and mine would be the guest one. It was decorated in seashell decor. It was the first normal thing.
Just keep to yourself. She says she works weird hours, that she's not home a lot. It will be fine. Make it work. Always can look for something better down the line.
*******************************
That first night I awoke to the sound of music. LOUD music.
I looked at my cell phone. It was 3 am. I could hear the cackle of Melissa faintly over the sound of Ginuwine asking a nameless woman to ride his pony. Oh dear God.
I got up and lightly rapped on her door. I realized my mistake and began to pound. The music was lowered and a very cracked out Melissa opened the door.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?" she roared. Her pupils were huge.
"Um. You mind keeping the music down? It's loud. It woke me up."
"So what? Don't you LIKE MUSIC?"
"Yeah. Sure. But not this loud at 3 am. I have to work tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow is SATURDAY."
"Yes. And I work on Saturdays. So..."
"Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."
The door shuts in my face. The music is turned back up to what sounds like maybe 1 decibel lower than it had been before I knocked.
No. This is not good.
******************************
The next evening Melissa is getting ready to go to work. She is showing me her card and I smile, internally noting that she looks almost nothing like the girl in the photo.
"Why does it say you're a Russian tease? Aren't you just an American one?" I inquire.
"Hahaha! You're funny! Yeah, men like the Russian, eastern European thing. I don't get it, but whatever. Once I am there, they don't care." She opens up her compact and starts dolloping a dark blush on her cheekbones. It makes it look like she has two huge bruises on the sides of her face.
"How did you get into this? How does one become a hooker?"
"Um. ESCORT. I got in through my friend, Heather. She moved to LA last year. I had been stripping at Little Darlings FOREVER. And it was just getting so old. The hours, the managers, the shitty tips. I wanted something more consistent," she angles a strip of fake eye lashes above her lid, "And there's not a huge difference in the work. Just penetration."
You know how the off hand things people say sometimes stick with you forever? This is one of those things.
******************************
The next night it was the music again. This time it was sweet, lyrical lullaby of Tool pulsating through the house.
I banged on her door for almost ten minutes. I fiddled with the knob. Locked. She never answered.
********************************
The next day I knocked on her door to talk to her about the music issue. She opened it a crack and asked me in a shaky, froggy voice if we could just talk later, she thought she was getting sick. The plumes of marijuana smoke drifted through the hallway. I nodded, she closed the door and I went to the kitchen to eat the danish I had bought the night before at Albertsons.
I padded through the kitchen and saw the plastic container on the counter where I had left it. It was opened and the danish was gone except for the flaky crusty pastry part that didn't have the strawberry and cream cheese on it.
The girl had eaten 6 pieces of danish middles. MY danish middles.
I was pissed. I was done. I had been there barely three days and I knew that even if the rent was FREE I wouldn't be able to take living with this one. And let me be clear... I am not a great roommate. Ask any of the girls I roomed with in college. I kind of suck. I'm lazy, I'm messy (not dirty leave garbage out messy, just clutter leave my clothes on the floor and never make my bed. Ever. Messy.) I can put up with a LOT.
I decided in my head that I would move out tomorrow when she was sleeping. The girl slept in til 3 pm almost every day. I would rent a little U-Haul truck. I would put my stuff in storage. I would go stay at Budget Suites til I figured out my next move.
******************************
That night there was no music. Just loud... orgasms?
At first I wasn't sure of it. It was 1 am and I had gone to sleep early, anticipating the 3 am wake up.
But yes, I heard her yelling theatrically. "YES.YES.YES.YES. IS THAT WHAT YOU LIIIIIIIKE?'
Had she brought a client HOME? She had sworn to me she never brought men home, that she worked the hotels, that she didn't even use her real name. Perhaps she had lied? Perhaps this wasn't a client but a... boyfriend? She hadn't mentioned one. I listened for a male voice, a grunt, a whimper. Something.
Only her. Going on and on. And then abruptly... nothing. No sound.
What if she was dead? What if this "guy" had just strangled her. What if he wasn't even aware I was here?
Then I hear her muffled voice again. I think I hear her say "Yeah. Slow night. That one was a weirdo."
Completely confused I get up. Knock on her door. This time, she answers it and doesn't immediately scream at me.
"Sorry, Alison. Was I loud?"
"Um. Yeah. Is there someone here?"
She looks at me confused and then laughs "Oh God no! I thought I mentioned it to you? During the week when I am not on call I do some phone acting."
"Phone acting? You mean you're a phone sex operator?"
"Uh, yeah. Money never sleeps, boo. I gotta get back on my phone. I can't promise it won't get loud again."
A few minutes later I hear her say "You want me to bark? Like I'm a little doggy? RRRRRUFFFF! RRRRRUUUUFFFF!"
I grabbed my keys and drove to a hotel. The next day while she was sleeping off her shift I quietly packed up my things and left. I didn't even bother taking the mattresses.
I figured it was the price I paid.
That was her real name anyway. Her professional name was "Katrina." A year later when that infamous hurricane hit New Orleans I thought of her.
She had her own card. The ones they hand out on the strip, the men hitting them against their cargo jeans as they press them into the hands of men walking by. They wear t-shirts with neon lettering "HOT GIRLS STRAIGHT TO YOUR ROOM". Her card showed her squatting, her legs spread, her bare breasts in her hands, a sultry look at the camera. There was a star between her legs with the number of her escort service company. She worked on call, so I never knew when she would be gone. She had long white blond extensions and high cheekbones. The card said she was Russian but she wasn't. She was from Medford, Oregon.
I hadn't known she was an escort when I found her on craigslist. Her photo on there had been of her sitting on a couch, her legs crossed wearing jeans and a white sweater, reindeer antlers on her head.
Hope your holidays were awesome!!!! Need a roommate STAT after my last one bailed!! I'm a laid back girl from the Northwest, love to HIKE! and eat FINE DINING! and HAVE FUN!! Please be clean and please be NONDRAMA. Security deposit will be 1 month's rent! E-mail or call me!!
She looked like someone that might work at a florist. Someone who might volunteer at the animal shelter on weekends. Someone who had a boyfriend who spent the night a couple times a week. Someone who might go to church every so often, who drank socially. Someone who participated in breast cancer walks.
She was some of these things. But mostly she was none of them.
But the rent was cheap and I was new to town. She lived in a gated community off Tropicana that was close to my work. It would do.
******************************
The first night I met Melissa she had just been in a car accident. She had rear ended someone on Pecos while talking on her cell phone.
I had told the people I had bought my mattress and boxspring from (also on craigslist. They have furnished my adult life for the most part. In so many ways.) to meet me at her house at 6. When I got there at 530 she called me sobbing.
"Alison! OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, girl! You won't believe this! I just rear ended someone!" Imagine being able to hear the saliva and mucus from the sobbing. It was a messy voice.
"Oh no! Are you ok?"
"Yeah. I mean no. I mean maybe? I don't know, I am SO FREAKED OUT. The front of my car is crunched and leaking and the guy in the truck I hit is screaming at me and I just want to get out of here! Can you come and get me?"
"Um. Sure. What cross street are you at?"
"Pecos and um... Shit. I don't know. I don't know! I think Eastern?"
"No, honey, that's impossible."
"Oh right... duh. Oh wait I know. I'm at Pecos and Russell."
"Ok, that's fine. I will be there soon. Are you on the north or southbound side?"
"Alison, I don't fucking know, I just was in an accident! Just get here!" Click.
I stared at my cell phone. I considered many things. I considered calling the mattress place and cancelling the order. I considered never picking her up and trying my luck on another roommate site. I considered packing up my Jeep and driving to another city. I considered doing it all over again.
I did none of this. I drove to Pecos and Russell. I picked Melissa up.
Imagine the most obnoxious girl you ever met. Imagine someone from the Jersey Shore times 1000. And then add another 3000. Imagine a girl with a short jean skirt on and a bikini top. Imagine she is wearing Uggs. Then realize this was January. It doesn't get freezing cold here but it gets cold enough where wearing a bikini top would be considered a sign of insanity. I was wearing a peacoat and jeans that evening. Imagine this girl arguing with the very sincere tow truck man who has had the misfortune of coming to pick up her neon green Honda Civic. Imagine a belly chain with a marijuana leaf charm on it. Imagine acrylic nails, yarny yellow hair, pock marks. Imagine a fuzzy Hello Kitty dangling from the rear view mirror, hating it's own life. Imagine a backseat filled with clothes and shoes and money order receipts.
This was not looking good for me.
******************************
We got home just as the mattress people were driving away. I chased them down and begged them to come back, that I was sorry I was late. They made me pay 20 extra bucks for the trouble. (Oh scandalous Vegas craigslist.)
Melissa was still sobbing, had BEEN sobbing for the entire ride. I know accidents can be traumatic but this was a little overboard. It felt like theatrics, like she was putting on a show. I had turned on the radio to drown out the awkwardness and she had screamed at me to turn it the fuck down, I'm in shock here! Oh Jesus. Oh dear, sweet, Jesus. Save me from myself.
Once the mattress guys had left I was able to take account of my surroundings. Melissa owned a three bedroom one story home. It was clean enough. There was a huge hole in the wall in the hallway that was shaped like a stilleto had been thrown through it. Ok. Otherwise I was relieved to find it completely fine for what I was paying. My room and hers were next to one another but she had her own bathroom and mine would be the guest one. It was decorated in seashell decor. It was the first normal thing.
Just keep to yourself. She says she works weird hours, that she's not home a lot. It will be fine. Make it work. Always can look for something better down the line.
*******************************
That first night I awoke to the sound of music. LOUD music.
I looked at my cell phone. It was 3 am. I could hear the cackle of Melissa faintly over the sound of Ginuwine asking a nameless woman to ride his pony. Oh dear God.
I got up and lightly rapped on her door. I realized my mistake and began to pound. The music was lowered and a very cracked out Melissa opened the door.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?" she roared. Her pupils were huge.
"Um. You mind keeping the music down? It's loud. It woke me up."
"So what? Don't you LIKE MUSIC?"
"Yeah. Sure. But not this loud at 3 am. I have to work tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow is SATURDAY."
"Yes. And I work on Saturdays. So..."
"Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine."
The door shuts in my face. The music is turned back up to what sounds like maybe 1 decibel lower than it had been before I knocked.
No. This is not good.
******************************
The next evening Melissa is getting ready to go to work. She is showing me her card and I smile, internally noting that she looks almost nothing like the girl in the photo.
"Why does it say you're a Russian tease? Aren't you just an American one?" I inquire.
"Hahaha! You're funny! Yeah, men like the Russian, eastern European thing. I don't get it, but whatever. Once I am there, they don't care." She opens up her compact and starts dolloping a dark blush on her cheekbones. It makes it look like she has two huge bruises on the sides of her face.
"How did you get into this? How does one become a hooker?"
"Um. ESCORT. I got in through my friend, Heather. She moved to LA last year. I had been stripping at Little Darlings FOREVER. And it was just getting so old. The hours, the managers, the shitty tips. I wanted something more consistent," she angles a strip of fake eye lashes above her lid, "And there's not a huge difference in the work. Just penetration."
You know how the off hand things people say sometimes stick with you forever? This is one of those things.
******************************
The next night it was the music again. This time it was sweet, lyrical lullaby of Tool pulsating through the house.
I banged on her door for almost ten minutes. I fiddled with the knob. Locked. She never answered.
********************************
The next day I knocked on her door to talk to her about the music issue. She opened it a crack and asked me in a shaky, froggy voice if we could just talk later, she thought she was getting sick. The plumes of marijuana smoke drifted through the hallway. I nodded, she closed the door and I went to the kitchen to eat the danish I had bought the night before at Albertsons.
I padded through the kitchen and saw the plastic container on the counter where I had left it. It was opened and the danish was gone except for the flaky crusty pastry part that didn't have the strawberry and cream cheese on it.
The girl had eaten 6 pieces of danish middles. MY danish middles.
I was pissed. I was done. I had been there barely three days and I knew that even if the rent was FREE I wouldn't be able to take living with this one. And let me be clear... I am not a great roommate. Ask any of the girls I roomed with in college. I kind of suck. I'm lazy, I'm messy (not dirty leave garbage out messy, just clutter leave my clothes on the floor and never make my bed. Ever. Messy.) I can put up with a LOT.
I decided in my head that I would move out tomorrow when she was sleeping. The girl slept in til 3 pm almost every day. I would rent a little U-Haul truck. I would put my stuff in storage. I would go stay at Budget Suites til I figured out my next move.
******************************
That night there was no music. Just loud... orgasms?
At first I wasn't sure of it. It was 1 am and I had gone to sleep early, anticipating the 3 am wake up.
But yes, I heard her yelling theatrically. "YES.YES.YES.YES. IS THAT WHAT YOU LIIIIIIIKE?'
Had she brought a client HOME? She had sworn to me she never brought men home, that she worked the hotels, that she didn't even use her real name. Perhaps she had lied? Perhaps this wasn't a client but a... boyfriend? She hadn't mentioned one. I listened for a male voice, a grunt, a whimper. Something.
Only her. Going on and on. And then abruptly... nothing. No sound.
What if she was dead? What if this "guy" had just strangled her. What if he wasn't even aware I was here?
Then I hear her muffled voice again. I think I hear her say "Yeah. Slow night. That one was a weirdo."
Completely confused I get up. Knock on her door. This time, she answers it and doesn't immediately scream at me.
"Sorry, Alison. Was I loud?"
"Um. Yeah. Is there someone here?"
She looks at me confused and then laughs "Oh God no! I thought I mentioned it to you? During the week when I am not on call I do some phone acting."
"Phone acting? You mean you're a phone sex operator?"
"Uh, yeah. Money never sleeps, boo. I gotta get back on my phone. I can't promise it won't get loud again."
A few minutes later I hear her say "You want me to bark? Like I'm a little doggy? RRRRRUFFFF! RRRRRUUUUFFFF!"
I grabbed my keys and drove to a hotel. The next day while she was sleeping off her shift I quietly packed up my things and left. I didn't even bother taking the mattresses.
I figured it was the price I paid.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
The People That Leave Us
My father was one of five children. He had two older brothers and two younger sisters.
My father's youngest sister was named Lisa. She was born with numerous birth defects and was not expected to live past the age of 1.
I imagine my beautiful grandma holding that broken baby in her arms. I imagine her heart being broken for this child that she had been looking forward to meeting all those months of carrying her. I have never talked to her about this, it is just what I imagine, knowing the woman she is now. I assume until the day Lisa was born they thought they were having as healthy a baby as the first 4 had been. Strong, athletic children. This was the 60's. The technology was not there to predict something like this.
Not that it would have changed anything. My grandma has never quit a thing in her life.
Lisa was born with her legs backwards. She could fit in the palm of your hand. To get her legs facing the correct way the doctors put tiny little braces on them and slowly moved them back, centimeters at a time. I imagine the pain of that little baby, imagine what it must have been like to enter a world that must have looked so cruel to her. I cannot fathom how my grandma and grandaddy did what they did, how they were able to watch their most precious little baby girl go through what she went through that first year of her fragile life. How badly they must have wanted to tell her It gets better without truly knowing if it would.
*************************************************************
It is now 1981. My mother tells me Lisa loved me from the moment I was home from the hospital. I would be propped up in front of the television to watch Sesame Street. Lisa's favorite thing was to push me over and laugh at my helplessness. I would coo and giggle. I didn't mind.
Lisa had lived at home mostly, making cameo appearances in hospitals over the years. She was truly busy. There is camera footage of her running with her braces in the Special Olympics. She was a poster child for March of Dimes. One of my earliest memories is being at one of the Children's Network Telethons jumping in a bouncy house. Lisa was on TV. I asked some little boy with a cast why he was bald and his answer was to whack me in the head and scream "I HAVE LEUKEMIA, DUMMY!"
I remember sitting on the floor of my grandma's living room watching her put a pair of stretchy pants on Lisa who was not much bigger than I was when I was five. She was small, and freckled, with blond hair. I would imagine how Lisa would have looked had she never been born this way, what she would have turned into. My little cousin Lauren is my answer. I think she would have looked a lot like her.
Lisa would sit in her wheelchair in the side yard with me while I played. We would hit the tetherball. Back and forth. One time Lisa's brakes on her wheelchair came off and she coasted down the hill in the back of my grandma's yard, fortunately landing in a pile of wet leaves.
She didn't cry. That kind of pain must have been nothing to her.
By the time I was six or seven Lisa had to stay in the hospital full time. The hospital was in Norfolk, a 2 hour drive from home. Every weekend Grandma and Grandaddy would pile my brother and I into their Lincoln towncar and we would go see her. We would stop halfway at Stucky's and eat tuna on pita bread. Sometimes my grandma would let me get a key chain or fake license plate with my name on it. Of course, I always had to settle for the ones spelled with two L's instead of one. Not a lot of Alisons out there in the world. Just a bunch of Allisons. Or Alysons.
The hospital smelled as all hospitals do. Withered men would sit in the hallways in their wheelchairs, their feet dry, their heels hanging over the metal footrests. The sound of Sally Jessy Raphael hummed through the halls. Lisa had a roommate who was always sleeping.
We would bring her balloons and smiles. My grandma would make my brother and I sing her a song called "Love in Any Language" that we learned in school with accompanying sign language. We would sing it at least 4 times. Grandma said she could tell it made Lisa so happy to hear it. After we were done I would go to the bathroom and cry.
*****************************************************************
That little baby that was not suppose to live past 1 died when she was 25 years old.
Lisa is the reason I believe in God.
Which is a weird thing to say, I guess. Because the sane human being would say "Are you crazy? Why would God put a human being through that? To make us more aware of ourselves? What a bunch of bullshit!"
I wouldn't even disagree. That thought has run through my own mind, many times. Particularly since losing Dad and my Grandaddy.
But then I remember... She lived 25 years. And no one knows how. How is it possible?
How could there be any other way?
God is not a choice for me. If I don't believe in Him I have to believe I will never see her again. I cannot bear that thought.
****************************************************************
The day of my father's funeral is blurry except for this.
It was a double funeral. My granddaddy's casket was one side, my father's on the other. We had two sets of military people there since they were both veterans. The Army was there for my granddaddy. The Navy, for my father. Imagine that! I don't think I will ever go to another funeral where such a thing happens. They played taps twice. They folded two flags.
My brother got my dad's flag. It was so hard to watch. My grandma got my granddaddy's. She sat stoically. I couldn't handle that this was happening. My heels were stuck in the soft earth under us. All I could think about was how I hoped this would never happen again. How I hoped I would never have to be what my grandma now was.
Not just a widow. But a mother who had buried two of her own children.
******************************************************************
Day 6: Something You Hope You Never Have to Do
(Note: I apologize that my posts have been kind of depressing. The 30 Days of Truth just brings out that side of me I guess. Anyway, I'll try to be funnier/lighter next go round.)
My father's youngest sister was named Lisa. She was born with numerous birth defects and was not expected to live past the age of 1.
I imagine my beautiful grandma holding that broken baby in her arms. I imagine her heart being broken for this child that she had been looking forward to meeting all those months of carrying her. I have never talked to her about this, it is just what I imagine, knowing the woman she is now. I assume until the day Lisa was born they thought they were having as healthy a baby as the first 4 had been. Strong, athletic children. This was the 60's. The technology was not there to predict something like this.
Not that it would have changed anything. My grandma has never quit a thing in her life.
Lisa was born with her legs backwards. She could fit in the palm of your hand. To get her legs facing the correct way the doctors put tiny little braces on them and slowly moved them back, centimeters at a time. I imagine the pain of that little baby, imagine what it must have been like to enter a world that must have looked so cruel to her. I cannot fathom how my grandma and grandaddy did what they did, how they were able to watch their most precious little baby girl go through what she went through that first year of her fragile life. How badly they must have wanted to tell her It gets better without truly knowing if it would.
*************************************************************
It is now 1981. My mother tells me Lisa loved me from the moment I was home from the hospital. I would be propped up in front of the television to watch Sesame Street. Lisa's favorite thing was to push me over and laugh at my helplessness. I would coo and giggle. I didn't mind.
Lisa had lived at home mostly, making cameo appearances in hospitals over the years. She was truly busy. There is camera footage of her running with her braces in the Special Olympics. She was a poster child for March of Dimes. One of my earliest memories is being at one of the Children's Network Telethons jumping in a bouncy house. Lisa was on TV. I asked some little boy with a cast why he was bald and his answer was to whack me in the head and scream "I HAVE LEUKEMIA, DUMMY!"
I remember sitting on the floor of my grandma's living room watching her put a pair of stretchy pants on Lisa who was not much bigger than I was when I was five. She was small, and freckled, with blond hair. I would imagine how Lisa would have looked had she never been born this way, what she would have turned into. My little cousin Lauren is my answer. I think she would have looked a lot like her.
Lisa would sit in her wheelchair in the side yard with me while I played. We would hit the tetherball. Back and forth. One time Lisa's brakes on her wheelchair came off and she coasted down the hill in the back of my grandma's yard, fortunately landing in a pile of wet leaves.
She didn't cry. That kind of pain must have been nothing to her.
By the time I was six or seven Lisa had to stay in the hospital full time. The hospital was in Norfolk, a 2 hour drive from home. Every weekend Grandma and Grandaddy would pile my brother and I into their Lincoln towncar and we would go see her. We would stop halfway at Stucky's and eat tuna on pita bread. Sometimes my grandma would let me get a key chain or fake license plate with my name on it. Of course, I always had to settle for the ones spelled with two L's instead of one. Not a lot of Alisons out there in the world. Just a bunch of Allisons. Or Alysons.
The hospital smelled as all hospitals do. Withered men would sit in the hallways in their wheelchairs, their feet dry, their heels hanging over the metal footrests. The sound of Sally Jessy Raphael hummed through the halls. Lisa had a roommate who was always sleeping.
We would bring her balloons and smiles. My grandma would make my brother and I sing her a song called "Love in Any Language" that we learned in school with accompanying sign language. We would sing it at least 4 times. Grandma said she could tell it made Lisa so happy to hear it. After we were done I would go to the bathroom and cry.
*****************************************************************
That little baby that was not suppose to live past 1 died when she was 25 years old.
Lisa is the reason I believe in God.
Which is a weird thing to say, I guess. Because the sane human being would say "Are you crazy? Why would God put a human being through that? To make us more aware of ourselves? What a bunch of bullshit!"
I wouldn't even disagree. That thought has run through my own mind, many times. Particularly since losing Dad and my Grandaddy.
But then I remember... She lived 25 years. And no one knows how. How is it possible?
How could there be any other way?
God is not a choice for me. If I don't believe in Him I have to believe I will never see her again. I cannot bear that thought.
****************************************************************
The day of my father's funeral is blurry except for this.
It was a double funeral. My granddaddy's casket was one side, my father's on the other. We had two sets of military people there since they were both veterans. The Army was there for my granddaddy. The Navy, for my father. Imagine that! I don't think I will ever go to another funeral where such a thing happens. They played taps twice. They folded two flags.
My brother got my dad's flag. It was so hard to watch. My grandma got my granddaddy's. She sat stoically. I couldn't handle that this was happening. My heels were stuck in the soft earth under us. All I could think about was how I hoped this would never happen again. How I hoped I would never have to be what my grandma now was.
Not just a widow. But a mother who had buried two of her own children.
******************************************************************
Day 6: Something You Hope You Never Have to Do
(Note: I apologize that my posts have been kind of depressing. The 30 Days of Truth just brings out that side of me I guess. Anyway, I'll try to be funnier/lighter next go round.)
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