We Put the FUN is Dysfunction

Hi everyone!

I decided this morning to listen to my doctor and go home and rest after class, but by the time I finished the things I had to get done my morning turned into 2:30 PM.  Oh well…such is life.  One of the items on my agenda was going by to check on my stepfather.  I promised mom 4 ½ years ago I would take care of him and though at times he plucks my last nerve, I have honored her request.  But leaving there this afternoon several things seemed to hit me at once. 

For as long as I can remember I have always been more emotional than normal when I didn’t feel well.  And since I am the Queen of the Hallmark channel and when commercials come on my kids will say, “Now mom, it’s just a commercial, don’t cry,” it’s been a pretty draining afternoon.  My mom use to say that no matter how old we got, when we were sick we just wanted our momma.  Yes, that is true and thus it makes the grief kind of run over me like a Mac truck today.  It’s funny, no matter how old we get, when we don’t feel well we just want mom.  So to deal with the grief I write. 

Raising kids is tough, but taking care of our family members when we are older is not something anyone ever told us about when we were in our 20s.  Why do I do it?  Why do I take care of a stepfather that really never had to accept me as his own?  Well I do it because he did just that.  He stepped in and became the dad that I didn’t have and that I needed.  None of us who are parents are perfect.  We all make mistakes; all wish we could do things over; but we do the best we can with the cards life gives us at the time.

If I got nothing else from my crazy teenage years in this blended family I did get my sense of adventure.  And many of you who went through this time in my life with me also got a taste of Jane & Clyde’s Big Adventures as well.  Some of you are reading this, shaking your heads saying, “I can’t believe we did that!!”  I did get my ability to learn to put the fun in dysfunction from these times.  After all, there isn’t a family around that doesn’t have some level of dysfunction.  It’s how you choose to handle it that makes all the difference in the world.

In college I worked for International Paper here in town and the men under him would always ask me, “Does he smile at home.”  I guess not letting his sometimes gruff nature get to me prepared me to deal with many gruff people in my life.  It also taught me that under every gruff exterior there is a teddy bear that just needs a hug – I was saying “Whatever” through my actions long before the teens of today put it into words.

So on days when I don’t feel well and I am missing my mom; on days when he is plucking my last nerve; I smile through the tears and simply say, “Whatever” because I hope and pray that one day when I am plucking on one of my kids last nerves that they too will be there to look after their momma. 

I hope that I have taught them to always chase the sun and to always look for the fun in the dysfunction.  Most of all, I just hope they always know that their momma will always be here to give them a hug whenever they need it and when my time here on this earth is through that they will feel my hugs from heaven like I feel my mom’s.

Until tomorrow…