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…
Posts
