My Daddy Would Laugh

My daddy suffered from clinical depression. I remember it starting when I was a teenager, but from what I've heard from other family members, it probably started when HE was a teenager. He married my mother when he was twenty-nine and she was thirty-four; he adored her, and they had a good marriage. She helped keep him steady, and encouraged him to use medication when it was necessary. They were married for more than fifty years...he passed away at the age of eighty-two, and she died about eighteen months later at the age of eighty-nine.

When he was in his sixties, his GP retired, and he and Mother had to find a new doctor. The doctor that he ended up using was a Godsend. He helped Daddy find medication that actually helped his depression, and didn't leave him groggy and a little grouchy most of the time. My niece and nephew got to know the man that I had known growing up...the man who loved to tell a joke, who loved to tease anyone and everyone, and was the life of the party. He had a wonderful chuckle, and a sparkle in his dark brown eyes.

At his mother's house, there was a plant growing just outside the back door that my daddy really liked. It was called "sweet shrub", and had a lovely aroma when it was in bloom. Daddy cut several branches from my grandmother's bush, and planted them at our house. He babied the cuttings, and finally got them to take root. My husband and I lived in the house next door to my parents, and the bushes were on our side of the lot, so we enjoyed them, too.

After Daddy died, Mother became more and more feeble, and had to move in with us. We began looking for a house that would be suitable for the three of us, and found one just around the corner from my sister's house. Unfortunately, Mother never lived in the house with us; she had to move to a nursing facility, and passed away six weeks later. My husband passed away about three months later, and I spent the next fourteen months trying to collect myself, and get on with the business of living.

I have always been a photographer, as was my mother and my paternal grandfather. When DH and I lived in our "other" house, he kept the yard in beautiful condition, and had many varieties of flowers that bloomed throughout the year. I was the official family photographer, and even had one of my photographs published in a national magazine. After we moved and DH died, I had no interest in my nature photography for quite a while, but I did continue to take family pictures.

This afternoon, I picked up my camera and walked out into the yard. I had seen the irises growing along the fence, and I wanted to see if I could get some good pictures. DH had grown irises at the other house, but these are a different color, and are quite lovely. I took several pictures, and as I moved up the incline of the yard, I caught a whiff of a lovely fragrance. There is a large bush separating the two iris patches, and it is a sweet shrub bush. My daddy would laugh...

Tomorrow He Gets the Title

My husband was the eldest of four brothers. He was an alcoholic who did not drink and a faithful Christian; he stopped drinking several months before he and I met. When we were getting to know each other, I asked him about his brothers. He said that he and the second brother were the handsomest of the four; he and his youngest brother were the most alike in personality; and the number three brother was the one who had stuck by him through all of his difficulties.

Brother #3 married his high school sweetheart, graduated from college, went to work at one of the local hospitals in the endoscopy department, and became the choir director at the church in which the brothers had grown up attending. He is a trained paramedic, and was for many years the chief of their community's volunteer fire department. He works twice a year as a paramedic at the NASCAR track that's about forty miles from our town, and has a lovely daughter, son-in-law, and two fine grandsons. When his wife was twenty-seven years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer; she's been a breast cancer survivor for twenty-four years, and founded a local breast cancer support group.

Brother #3 and his wife own a little block house just down the road from their house. It was the house where her parents lived when they first married, and it was the house where they let my husband live when he finally hit bottom and lost everything. It was the house where my husband was when he called #3 and told him that he had to change or die. It was the house where their minister, my father-in-law, my husband, and #3 all prayed for God to strengthen my husband and bring him back from the brink of disaster. God answered their prayer, and after he and I married, God placed him as a Sunday School teacher for teenage boys at a local drug treatment facility.

Brother #3 always treated my husband with Christian love and compassion as well as brotherly love and compassion. He acted in a Christ-like manner, not to be confused with a "religious" attitude. I've read that the Christian army is the only army that shoots our wounded instead of healing them, and that's true in so many cases, but not with #3.

Tomorrow #3 is going to be ordained as a minister. He's been a minister for most of his life, but his church has recognized his calling, and is bestowing on him one of the highest honors that we can give. I went with my mother-in-law today to help her pick out a new dress for the service, and I'm going to the service with my in-laws. It will be a difficult time for me, because we will all be missing the presence of my husband, who would be SO proud of his brother. I thought about buying a gift, but #3 and his wife have everything they need. I'm going to make a donation to the church in honor of #3...and in memory of #1, my darling husband.

Cleaning Out the Refrigerator

I can't take full credit for this analogy...I read an online blog written by a woman who published a "real" magazine, and had gotten behind on the expected issue. She was apologizing for disappointing people, and trying to explain the overwhelming feelings that a person has when he/she has not fulfilled certain expectations.

I lost my father in January, 2005. My mother lived next door to my husband and me, so we looked in on her every day and made sure that she had groceries and ate regularly. We took her for doctor's appointments, paid her bills, and encouraged her to get back into her social activities, which she did for a while. After about a year, she began to deteriorate in several areas, and after a couple of falls in September, 2006, the doctor told her that she couldn't live alone any longer. She moved to our house, and we were fortunate enough to find some dependable help to assist my husband (he was retired) with her care. I continued to work, and we made plans to move into a larger house, so that my mother could have her own area, and so that we would be in a safer neighborhood.

We closed on the house on the Thursday before Halloween, 2006, and on that same day, we took my mother to live in a local nursing facility. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and given less than six months to live. We moved the next week, and my sister and I began an exhausting routine of working full-time jobs and trying to check on our mother at least four times a week. Mother passed away on December 2, and we began the work of settling her estate. My husband became ill on January 21, 2007, was hospitalized for nineteen days, and passed away on March 10, 2007, following a brain stem stroke.

I have struggled for the past year to get up every morning and go through my routine. I have kept my bills paid (generally on time), food in the refrigerator (most of the time), and the laundry caught up. I didn't keep up with cards I needed to send, wedding gifts I needed to buy, and paperwork I needed to complete. I let things pile up in my "life refrigerator" and the milk was ruined.

I had an upper-respiratory infection around the time of the one-year anniversary of my husband's death, and it took a toll on me. However, when I finished the antibiotics, decongestant, and cough medicine, I began to have a little energy and desire to clean out that refrigerator and stock it with good things...things that didn't have the mold of sadness and pain growing on them.

During the past month, I have done some work on my part-time business, sent sympathy cards to friends who have lost loved ones, sent "thinking of you" cards to friends who are facing their own trials, cleared up some long-standing paperwork from both parents' deaths, and made amends for a couple of things I should have done months ago. I'm on my spring break from school, and I have a list of at least six more things that I'm GOING TO GET DONE THIS WEEK. I know I'll let the refrigerator get dirty again, but maybe I'll keep it cleaned out on a more regular basis.

I Had a House Party

I remember hearing/reading that word when I was younger, and thought it sounded like a lot of fun. It is...

My niece, nephew-in-law (I have to find a new word for him because I love him), great-niece, and nephew all arrived Friday around 8:30 p.m. My sister got here just ahead of them (she lives around the block), so the fun was about to start. The baby came in and looked around (she's almost twenty-three months old), and decided that she needed a snack before she went to bed (she lives in a different time zone, so she was staying up VERY late, but had a nap in the car on the way). She helped me get out her chair, and we all talked and laughed a little before she went to sleep. The adults talked and laughed for another hour or so, then sister went home and we all went to bed. It's usually just the dog and me, so it was wonderful to have five people sleeping in my house...and a blessing from God that I had enough room (and enough bathrooms!) for all of us.

I got up first,showered, and made coffee. I then watched television in my bedroom to keep from being tempted to get the baby up to play! Everyone was up by 9:30; my sister arrived during the morning commotion, and I went to pick up breakfast for the adults. We finished getting ready, and headed for the municipal park that's about three minutes from our houses (see earlier post and picture). We got our admission bracelets, and went to the platform to wait for the train. We made a complete loop of the park, and on the second loop, we got off the train and went to the animal habitat to see what/who was there.

The baby wasn't exactly pleased with the decision to get off the train, but after we got to the animals, she decided that it might not be so bad. She was able to pet the llama, the sheep, and the donkey. There was a rooster waiting for us at the entrance to the barn area, and he was about at her eye level; she decided that she could probably see everything better if her dad was holding her (and she's right...her dad is about 6'5"). There were turtles, guinea pigs, baby ducks, baby chicks, various kinds of birds and fish, a wolf, a fox, a chinchilla, and a female lion. She heard the train whistle as we headed toward the deer enclosure, so we decided to look at the deer the next time they come over. We hurried to the platform, and planned to head home for snacks and a nap.

The train made its stop at the playground platform, and when her Grammy asked if she wanted to go to the playground, she thought that was a good plan. She tried out all the swings on one set, with her uncle pushing her (he pushes best). Grammy and Uncle went to the nearby fast food restaurant to get ice cream while the rest of us went to the slide and on to the bouncing purple dinosaur. We had our ice cream while sitting under a picnic shelter next to the playground, and then it was time to head home. There was some rebellion on the part of a young girl, but that 6'5" daddy tucked her under his arm and headed for the car (she's at a biting/hitting stage, and he deals with that very well).

While she napped, we visited and played Rook. After she got up, she and I went out to the deck and played with her plastic Easter eggs (they stayed at my house with her other toys). We sorted them by color, lined them up, put them back in the bucket, found the ones that rolled off the table, and talked to the dog. We ordered dinner from a local restaurant, and called Poppy (her step-grandfather), and asked if he thought he could come home from work a little early to see her before she had to leave for her house. Her parents usually try to leave for home (a two-hour drive) around her bedtime so that she will sleep during the drive (harder to do when daylight saving time starts), so after we ate and laughed some more, it was time for the fun to wind down. The travelers left for home, my sister and her husband went up the hill and around the corner to feed their dogs and cats, and my dog and I settled back into our routine. House parties are a lot of fun...