Members Only

 

 

 

 

It happens at about the same time every year.  The summer zips past at breakneck speed, and before we can catch a breath, it is time for the three words that elate parents and cause children everywhere to shudder and sigh ... BACK TO SCHOOL.  While most parents gladly anticipate the genesis of another school year, there is another smaller group, one with more restrictive membership requirements, that approaches this time with a swirling mixture of emotions.  We are the parents who will leave a child at school for the very first time.

 

I became a member of this club five years ago when I nervously walked our older son, Jesse into his classroom and bravely declared it the "coolest" Kindergarten room I had ever seen.  I reminded him again how lucky he was to have a whole roomful of new friends to play with.  I lingered - probably longer than I should have - just to be sure he wouldn't be frightened when he realized I had gone.  I shouldn't have worried.  Jesse was much too involved with a pile of brightly colored Lego blocks to even notice my tearful departure.  I rushed home and spent the greater part of the day holding and hovering over our younger son, checking the clock and longing for the hours to pass more quickly.

 

We've endured four subsequent "back to school" seasons since then, and I must admit that they have become progressively easier to bear.  This year, however, the emotions are swirling with an even greater intensity than before.  I feel in the core of my soul a profound difference.  This year our younger son, Benjamin, "the Baby", will embark on his own journey through the hallowed halls of education.

 

I chide myself regularly as the "big day" approaches, reminding myself that I've done this before.  Besides, Benjamin has been attending half-day preschool.  It won't be like leaving him for the very first time.  The logical part of my brain agrees, but my heart is harder to convince.  This time will be different.  There will be no pink, laughing baby at home to cuddle and hold.  This time our family will be forever changed.

 

In pondering these realizations, it occurs to me that Benjamin will no longer belong just to us, but to the great big world.  Up to now he has been a much-adored member of a small society of family and friends.  From birth he has been assured that he belongs and has been encouraged lovingly in all pursuits.  He has known undoubtedly that should disappointment befall him, there are always loving arms to hold him and kind words to comfort him.  Will these lessons be enough, I wonder, to sustain him as he takes his first steps into this larger society?  Will the encouragement we've given him be enough to spur him onward when he encounters defeat?  Will the self-assurance he displays within our group of family members and friends remain when teachers and school officials are too busy to remind him just what a special little boy he is?  Will the kindness we've tried to instill overcome the hurt when unkind words are spoken?

 

Before the enormity of my emotions begin to overwhelm me, I remind myself of another mother, a founding member of the club, who also had to prepare her Son to step out into a world less patient and less loving than their own.  Did Mary have the same concerns that are haunting me now, centuries later?  She must have - she was a mother.  Knowing the path that her Son's life would take, how it must have broken her heart to let Him go.  The only thing she could do was to leave Him in God's hands, where He had been from the beginning.  That is what I would have to do with my son as well - leave him in God's hands.

 

The morning is hectic.  The day I've dreaded is finally here.  I try to concentrate on packing lunches and loading book bags as my sons chatter excitedly in the background.  Jesse begs, one more time, for me to let them ride the bus to school.  He assures me, one more time, that he will make sure Benjamin gets to his classroom.  I calmly explain, one more time, that moms need to go on the first day, just to make sure there are no more fees to pay or papers to fill out.  I remind him that there will be plenty of days yet for them to ride that BIG yellow bus.

 

As I turn the car toward the school, tears threaten to pour.  The boys are oblivious.  All they can talk about is finally getting to go to the same school together.  I park the car and begin the pilgrimage with dozens of other parents.  Just inside the school's front door, my heart fills as I watch my boys hug each other and bid each other good-bye.  Jesse, who lately has been "too big" for public displays of affection, squeezes me tightly.  He whispers importantly in my ear, "Don't worry, Mom.  I'll keep an eye on Benjamin for you!"  As he skips happily down the hall, I'm left to marvel at what a wonderful young man he is becoming.

 

Grasping Benjamin's hand, perhaps a little too tightly, I turn and head toward his new classroom.  We enter a colorful room, beautifully decorated, and perfectly adapted to the needs of five-year-old children.  We are greeted by a smiling, cheerful teacher, genuinely pleased, it seems, that we are here.  She is busy.  Too busy, I fear, to remember that not only am I dropping off my child, but I'm handing her my heart as well.  We look for and locate the table displaying Benjamin's name in neat, manuscript letters.  After depositing his new crayons, scissors, pencils and glue at his desk, Benjamin points excitedly to his name on a cubby against the wall.  We hang up his Looney Toons book bag and his Spiderman lunchbox.  We stow his nap mat on the bottom shelf.  I linger, but Benjamin hardly seems to notice.  His eyes are riveted on a box of Lego blocks, silently enticing him from the toy shelf.  I run my fingers through his hair, bend down and squeeze him tight, and remind him to be a good boy.  He flashes he a full-dimpled smile and replies simply, "Bye, Mom".

 

I pause at the classroom door, yearning to stay just a while longer.  Just as I'm heading back in, I'm touched by a peace and reminded that my son, like Mary's, is in the hands of his Father.  I can trust that to be enough to see him through whatever the world might throw his way.  I sigh, square my shoulders, and turn back toward the hallway.  As I make my way to the door, I see another mother, emotions swirling on her face.  With one hand she holds tightly to the hand of her five-year-old child.  With the other she holds the carrier containing her beautiful, giggling baby.  I want to run to her and tell her how lucky she is.  She has her baby to hold and cuddle and occupy her time.  Instead, as our eyes meet, I feel a kinship with her that only parents in this particular situation could appreciate.  I smile and nod, and softly whisper as I head to my car, "Welcome to the club". 

Becoming Granny

Deciding what you would like to be called upon becoming a grandparent can be, for some people, a difficult issue to deal with.  I know some people who have wrestled with it until the day of their grandchild’s birth.  And the choices are so numerous … Grandma/Grandpa, Grandmom/Granddad, Grammie/Grampy, Mimi/Pop, Nana/Papa, YaYa/Papou, Nanny/Pappy, Mamaw/Papaw … and the list goes on and on and ON.  I already knew what my boys would call both sets of their grandparents because they weren’t the first grandkids on either side of the family and their grandparents had already been named.  My parents were Grandmom & Granddad.  Ken’s parents were Mamaw and Papaw.

I have known for a long time which name I want to be called.  I want to be Granny.  Now, some people may feel that Granny is a bit old-fashioned, but I love it and I will tell you why.  I LOVED MY GRANNY!  Her name was Willie Plunkett, but anyone who knew her well called her Granny.  She was everybody’s Granny.  She loved everybody like she was their Granny.  If you asked my childhood/high school/college friends about her, they probably wouldn’t remember her given name, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they would remember my Granny.  Once, when she was sick, someone told our pastor that Mrs. Plunkett was in the hospital.  He didn’t know who Mrs. Plunkett was.  When they told him it was Kathryn Kendrick’s mom, he said, “Oh! You mean Granny!”

I so enjoyed the time that Granny and I spent together as I was growing up.  I am blessed that we lived so close to each other that I could go out and visit her as much as I wanted.  When I got married, Granny loved Ken as if he was one of her blood-born grandchildren (and he loved her back, just as much).  When Jesse and Benjamin came along, all of the love she had ever shown me just overflowed onto them.  They were little when Granny went to Heaven, but I often told them about our Granny and how much she loved them too. 

So, when I started to get grandparent age, I decided that when the time came, I would be called Granny.  A couple of family members said that we already had a Granny, so I should pick something else.  But I want to be called Granny as a tribute to my own Granny and I will try and be the kind of Granny she was.

Recently, two sweet little children have become a part of my family … a beautiful little brown-eyed girl named Keira, and a darling, impish, freckle-faced boy named Kenny.  They are new to the family, but I told their sweet Mama that they could call me Granny if they want to.  I haven’t heard them say it out loud yet, but I already love them the way my Granny loved me.  In time, I hope that Granny will become my name too.      

    

       

RIP Harambe... Everyone else, take a breath.

Was it a tragedy that a beautiful, majestic animal was shot and killed?  Indeed it was.  It was doubly tragic because the animal was of a highly endangered species.  Was it horrible that the people who have worked with this animal on a daily basis were forced to kill him resulting from a situation that probably never should have happened in the first place?  Absolutely.  That being said, I have but one thing to say in the midst of the tsunami of emotion this event has caused.  Breathe, everybody.  Just BREATHE.

I am astounded by the hatred and vitriol that are being hurled by a judgmental public at a woman who has just gone through what I am sure was one of the most heart-stoppingly terrifying moments in her life.  A 400-lb. brute of a beast was dragging her CHILD underwater,  with his head bouncing along the bottom of a concrete moat!  It was NOT playing with or protecting the little boy.  It was hauling him around and crouching over him, which many wild animals do just before they kill their prey.  Thank God that the zoo officials took action as swiftly as they did in order to save the child’s life.  It wasn’t a matter of making the “right” choice.  In this situation, THEY HAD NO CHOICE!

Now, I can feel the rush of righteous indignation rising up against me as I say these words.  And I have to admit, when faced with the question, “Shouldn’t this mother have been keeping a better watch on her child?”, my initial response was a resounding, “YES!”.  But memories of some of my own motherhood moments started creeping in and changed my response to, “Probably”.  And after more memories and more thought, I would have to say the best answer I can now give to that question is, “Maybe”.

We were not there.  We did not see what happened from beginning to end.  There is no way we can judge the mother and say that she is a bad parent because she wasn’t paying attention.  We live in a world that is rife with distractions.  Sometimes things get past us, even when we are sure that we are paying close attention.  When my younger son was four, he was absolutely fearless and would climb on or over any place he could get a toe-hold.  And he was FAST!  One second I could have him firmly by the hand and before I could blink, he would break loose and be on top of something, smiling and saying, “Look at me, Mommy!”  Just because the little boy got away from her doesn’t mean the mother wasn’t paying attention.  I am sure that nothing anyone can say to or about her could possibly be worse than what she is saying to herself.  And, in the midst of this terrifying situation, what did this mother do?  Instead of carrying on and having a screaming melt-down (which many of the onlookers were doing and clearly, exacerbating the animal’s agitation), she was speaking calmly to her son.  She called his name and told him to be calm.  She said, over and over, “Mommy is right here.  I am not going to leave you.  I am here, and I love you.”  She must have been thinking that it would be the last time her child would hear her voice, but she did all she could to remind him that he was not alone and that he was loved.  That, in my humble opinion, is not an example of being a bad mother.

So now, instead of being able to recover from this horrifying event, this family has to worry about being arrested, having their children taken away from them, and even bodily harm, all because a large portion of the public, in their uninformed fury, are calling for vengeance over the death of an ANIMAL.  And I have to wonder why none of this indignant, retribution-seeking public seems to be willing to stand up for the babies that are killed on a daily basis in our country’s abortion clinics.  The rights of a 400-lb. wild beast are more important than the rights of unborn human children.  I can only shake my head.

In closing, I would like to relate an event that occurred when my older son was little.  He was a toddler, just beginning to be able to go places and do things on his own.  One day, my parents came up for a visit.  In all of the hugging, kissing and welcoming when they arrived, no one noticed that the front door didn’t close completely.  My Daddy sat down in the living room and I took my Mama back into my bedroom to show her something.  I, mistakenly, thought my Daddy was keeping an eye on my son.  My Daddy, mistakenly, thought my son had gone back into the bedroom with me.  In actuality, my son had pulled open the front door and toddled down the front steps, probably reveling in his new-found freedom.  When I came back into the living room, imagine my panic when I saw only my Daddy and the front door standing open.  I cannot accurately discribe the feeling of absolute despair I felt as I flew out the front door screaming my son’s name.  We lived at the corner of a very busy road and our yard was not fenced.  I found my son around the side of the house, smiling and happy to be outside.  That happened almost 24 years ago and the memory of that day still makes my throat close up and my stomach hurt.

Now, could the results of that day have been horrible and heart-breaking?  Absolutely it could.  Was I a bad parent that day?  I don’t think so.  Should my Daddy and I have been arrested for not keeping a closer watch on my child?  No, absolutely not.  Should I have had my child taken away from me due to my negligence?  NO. BECAUSE IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. 

It is easy to judge someone else when you don’t have all the facts.  But to use that judgment to hurl hate at someone you’ve never met, even to the point of calling for her arrest, injury and death is just SHAMEFUL.  Y’all, please take a breath and give this poor mama a break.  She made a mistake.  We all make mistakes.  Her mistake and its results are just more public than ours.  How fortunate we are that our Father forgives us when we make mistakes.  We should do the same.        

   

  

His Daddy's Hammer

 My younger son, Benjamin, was only seven (well, almost seven…actually still six) when Ken was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  In the span on one short week, he went from having a Daddy who would play and ride bikes with him, take him camping at the local flea market, and let him ride in the bucket of the backhoe (only when Mama wasn’t looking) to having to watch his Daddy fight for his life and wither away from a horrible disease.  It was a HUGELY scary adult thing for such an innocent and carefree little boy to try to endure.  It changed him… immediately and tremendously.

When someone in a family, whether a parent, grandparent or child, is diagnosed with a terminal illness, that family’s entire world immediately changes.  Emotions are heightened, schedules are changed, the phone rings incessantly, hospital stays, doctor appointments, treatments, medications and medical equipment become a part of the “normal” routine.  The family’s vocabulary even changes – they suddenly have to become fluent in medical terminology and the language of diagnosis and prognosis (it really is a language all its own … you have to listen for what the doctors DON’T say in order to interpret fully what they do say).

This is the world my tiny, dimple-faced boy and his brother were thrown into.  I was so busy managing Ken’s healthcare and helping him fight that Jesse and Benjamin were often pushed aside.  We were tremendously blessed with family and friends who tried to “pick up the slack” and help us with the boys, but it’s not the same thing as being comforted by your parents.  I soon noticed a marked change in Benjamin’s behavior.  He stopped talking and interacting with people and he began to deal with stress through physical movement.  He would run up and down the hallways, spin ‘round and ‘round in a circle in the floor, climb anything climb-able (and usually jump off).  I came into his classroom one day and he was reading his assignment, sitting in his chair, which was UP ON TOP OF HIS DESK!!  My initial reaction was to snatch him down and fuss at him, but his second-grade teacher, a dear, kind, compassionate, grandmotherly woman, shook her head slightly and continued their lesson.  When she finished, she came over and told me that she didn’t care if Benjamin sat on top of his desk, or stood on his head in the aisle… as long as he was listening, he could do whatever he needed to do to relieve his stress.  That teacher was an angel sent from God to help my child through that terrible time in his life.

Ken fought hard for two years.  Benjamin’s level of physical activity grew to a fever pitch.  It got so bad that Ken would snap at him about it.  He couldn’t help it… he was in such pain at the end.  Before his illness, Ken would never have been harsh with either of our boys.  But cancer makes you do things that aren’t in your nature.  Benjamin began to avoid Ken.  He would stay in his room or stay outside if his Daddy was awake.  It broke my heart then, and it still breaks my heart now, when I remember.

After Ken died, Benjamin would rarely talk about his Daddy.  I think, in his own way, he was trying to protect me.  If he didn’t talk about it, maybe I wouldn’t cry so much.  As the years passed by, I began to wonder if Benjamin really remembered his Daddy at all.  He was such a baby when it was happening.  I know that I don’t remember much from the time I was six or seven.  And the whole two years was so sad and stressful.  Who could blame him for not wanting to remember?  When he was younger, I would ask him if he remembered things that happened before Ken got sick.  He always said “yes”, but I wondered if they were just borrowed memories – you know, things you think you remember, but it’s only because you have heard other people talk about them.  But I figured that borrowed memories are better than no memories.

Now that Benjamin is grown, he has finally admitted to me that he has little to no actual memory of his Daddy, and my heart hurts for him.  But he has begun to talk more about him.  He has taken to wearing a beanie (toboggan) that was Ken’s.  He is built so much like Ken and his mannerisms are the same, so when he wears the beanie, though it makes me smile, it sometimes takes my breath away. 

Yesterday, Benjamin came to me, holding one of Ken’s hammers and asked me if he could have it.  He works in construction, so I asked him if he had lost his hammer.  He said “no”, but he would still like to have Ken’s hammer.  I said, “But Baby, that’s your Daddy’s hammer.  He used it… touched it with his hands.”  Benjamin said, “I know… that’s why I want it.”  I can’t really explain how it felt, seeing my son holding his Daddy’s hammer, and knowing that he wanted it to help him remember.  I pray that when he uses it, he will feel his Daddy’s strength, his determination, and the love his Daddy had for his family.  Ken would have wanted him to have it.

        

Chased By Darkness

Here I am … banging my head against the same wall … again … and again … AND AGAIN.  I know that I am not the first one, and I will surely not be the last one, but loving a child who has mental health issues and dealing with the horrendous tornado of emotions that occur because of those issues feels like the most alone place I have ever occupied.  I am usually able to remain optimistic and to see solutions.  But I am just so very exhausted this time that I do not know what to do.  Just trying to think about it makes my head want to explode.  I feel like giving up.  But I can’t.  My child needs me.

 People say that we, as a nation, have made great strides in de-stigmatizing mental illness.  I guess the fact that we don’t lock people away in horrid institutions to be ignored and mistreated for the rest of their lives is progress.  But speaking as one who lives continually in its midst, I would have to say that the stigma remains and that the misunderstanding of mental illness and its sufferers is as prevalent as it ever was. 

 Most people do not understand that a mentally ill individual can appear, for the most part, to be a “normal” human being.  They carry on intelligent, polite conversations, make good decisions, support themselves financially and maintain relationships with others.  My child is able to do all of these things, but as it is with many people struggling with mental health issues, it is an act that he has learned to perform to get by in a world which makes little sense to him.  He has learned enough people skills to appear “normal” because that is what the world expects of him.  But being what the world considers “normal” is so completely nonsensical to the way his brain is wired, the act he is forced to put on absolutely exhausts him.  Exhaustion leads to stress … stress leads to meltdowns … meltdowns lead to guilt and embarrassment … embarrassment leads to depression … depression leads to despair … despair leads to that dark place that I don’t like to consider.  Knowing that my child doesn’t remember a time in his life when he was truly happy and that he believes there is no point in continuing to exist in the physical world, has broken my spirit in to pieces so tiny that it is impossible to gather them all up without losing some along the way.

 Many people think that mental illness comes in “episodes” and that if you can just get them through another episode, things will look up again.  While my child’s illness is cyclical in nature, it is not something that ever completely leaves him.  The happy episodes he appears to experience are covering a darkness that he can never quite escape.  I try and try to shine light into that darkness, and sometimes a bright spot will stay for a while.  But mostly, he lives in the dark all of the time and I am always standing at the edge, trying to drag him back into the light, never letting him go, even on the days that the darkness is where he wants to be.

 There is also the belief that if we can just get him on the right medication, he will be okay.  Medication can surely help, but they usually (at least in this case) come with side effects that are as frightening as the illness itself.  Meds intended to combat depression and anxiety often cause a zombie-like sedation that counteracts the ability to be productive.  Or worse yet, sometimes the meds actually bring the darkness closer.  The types of medications prescribed for mental illnesses are not supposed to be stopped suddenly, so he’s faced with having to continue a medication that is making him worse, causing horrible anxiety because he is scared to death of the side effects, until he can wean himself off of it.   And if he happens to do well on a prescribed medication, the strong possibility always exists that he will eventually believe that he is well enough that he doesn’t need it anymore, so he will stop taking it.  ‘Round and ‘round it goes … and goes … and goes some more.

 Finding him the appropriate help in a world that pushes “tough love” and expects him to “suck it up and deal with it” is especially frustrating.  The stress of working with the public absolutely un-nerves him, but he is expected by society have a job and support himself.  He wants to support himself, and he can push back the anxiety he feels from time to time to work a minimum-wage, dead-end job.  But after a while, the anxiety builds to a level that he has a major meltdown and is unable to function in the workplace.  When that occurs, his feeling that he is a failure is, in his mind, validated as the absolute truth and the despair worsens.  And since he doesn’t qualify for a healthcare subsidy or Medicaid, he is only able to get bare-bones mental health services at clinics that are basically just for med checks and putting out fires if a client has a meltdown.  There is no affordable, consistent, personal and on-going treatment for him. 

 Faith used to help him, but lately, the darkness has become so overwhelming that it tells him there is no God, or if there is one, He surely must not love my child or He wouldn’t allow him to struggle so.  My child’s disability has dulled his emotions and his illness has stolen the emotions that he did have.  He believes that a relationship with God requires an emotional connection and since he doesn’t feel emotions, God must not want a relationship with him.

 So the darkness deepens.  It has a grasp on him that I am no longer able to break.  I am still holding on, as tightly as I can, trying to pull him into the light.  But the darkness is strong, and I am so exhausted that I fear I may lose my grip.  And the darkness is so seductive.  It calls to me too, encouraging me to turn loose of my child’s hand and to follow him in.  It leaves me teetering on the edge, still holding tightly to this child who has been my heart since before he was born.  My heart is heavy and my spirit bowed down at his suffering and the fact that, try as I might, I can’t seem to relieve it. The darkness taunts me – “Nothing you do makes a difference”, it whispers, “just let him go.”    And in the moments when I feel like I could, I feel a strong grip on my other hand.  It is so tight and so complete that I know without a doubt that it is my Heavenly Father, holding onto my hand as I hold onto my child’s hand, pulling us both back from the darkness.  He won’t ever let us go … He will never give up on us.  He can’t.  His children need Him. 

 

      

 

          

 

 

Best Friends Forever

This post is written in loving memory of my best friend, Janet Lynn Morris Benefield.

Wife of Brian Benefield, Mother of Kelly Benefield Carmichael,

Mother-in-law of Stephen Carmichael, Nana of Elizabeth & Sean Carmichael,

Daughter of Joe & Joy Morris, Sister of Jayne & Julie Morris.

She was a wonderful woman with a beautiful soul.

 

 

I have heard it said that good friends are hard to find.  Most people have only a few friends that they would consider to be their “best friends”.  It is my experience that if a person is fortunate enough to have a best friend, that friendship transcends time and space and endures through separation of miles and years.  Some friendships form instantly-the kind where individuals meet and feel an immediate and profound kinship with one another.  They feel like they have known each other their entire lives.  Other friendships form more gradually.  Acquaintances spend time with each other, many times due to shared interests or mutual friends, realize they have much in common, and a deep and lasting connection forms.  However the friendships begin, they are bonds that cannot be broken.   I am blessed to have had such a friend.  She was truly my BFF – my Best Friend Forever.

I met Jan through another friend, (I’ll just call her “M”) who was Jan’s co-worker at Erlanger Hospital.  Jan was having some folks over to her house to hang out and watch movies. M asked Jan if she could bring me and Jan, being the gracious soul that she was, said “yes”.  Incidentally, M also brought Ken Lunsford with her that night, so in the space of a few short hours, I met the love of my life, as well as my future best friend.  Sadly, my friendship with M was not the lasting kind, but I will be forever grateful to her for taking me with her that night.

A couple of months after meeting Jan, I was going to have some friends over to my apartment for a chili supper.  One of the guys who was coming was Brian Benefield.  I had met Brian at church and we had dated a little - before God smacked me in the head with Ken Lunsford.   ;)  M was coming and made the suggestion to invite Jan.  See, M was very good at matching other people up, just not as successful at matching herself with anyone.  Anyway, I thought it was a great idea and told her to invite Jan.  We introduced them to one another, and though I was busy being hostess, I did notice them talking to each other quite a bit.

About a month or so after my chili supper, I was talking to Brian one night at church.  Out of the blue, he said, “You know I sent Jan flowers, don’t you?”  Well, no, I didn’t know… hadn’t heard a thing about it.  As soon as I got home that night, I called M and said, “Did you know that Brian had sent Jan flowers?!”  To which M replied, “Is THAT who sent them?  Jan was thinking someone was playing a trick on her!”  It seems that Brian had signed the card, “From a friend”, leaving Jan to puzzle over who the “friend” might be.  Once M and I spilled the beans, Jan called Brian to thank him.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Ken and I got married in October, 1989, and about six months later, in February of 1990, Jan and Brian made their own trip to the altar.  I have always loved the fact that I met my husband at Jan’s house and then Jan met her husband at my house.

 From that point on, Ken and I, and Jan and Brian starting spending lots of time together.  We were all close in age, and being newlyweds, we had a lot in common.  We also all attended the same church.  We just gradually became really great friends.  Just before our first vacation together (we vacationed together almost every year until Ken got sick), Jan suggested that we bring our niece, Michaelann with us, so that she and Kelly, their daughter, could keep each other company.  The connection between our families only deepened as Michaelann and Kelly (Sweet Pea and Kelly Sue) became very good friends as well.  When Jesse and Benjamin entered the picture, we knew that our relationships were too close for the boys to call them “Mr. and Mrs. Benefield”, so they became “Uncle Brian and Aunt Jan”.

If I were to try and write all the memories of my friendship with Jan through the years, it would certainly be a book, not a blog post.   They have been swirling around in my head constantly since Jan made her journey home to heaven in October.  Her absence has turned these memories into treasures because they are all I have left now that her sweet spirit is gone from this world.  To honor her memory, I will list a few of the strongest and/or sweetest ones.

·          Jan bought a gift for baby Jesse to give me on my first Mother’s Day.  She figured that it probably wouldn’t occur to Ken (he was a man, you know) that he might need to take care of that.  It was only a poster, but her thoughtfulness touched me deeply.

·         Jan so lovingly cared for us when we were in the hospital to have Benjamin.  Even after I rattled her nerves by almost passing out on her, she quickly recovered and took wonderful care of us throughout the birth.  Because I had a C-section, “Aunt Jan” got to hold Benjamin first.  She bundled him up and brought him close so I could kiss him.  She talked about how he looked like Jesse.  She is the first one to notice his dimples.  When I couldn’t hold him in the recovery room due to a severe case of shivers from the epidural, Jan happily took Benjamin down the hallway so she could show off “our” new baby.

·         When my Granny died, Jan kept Jesse and Benjamin at their home so they wouldn’t have to go to AL and be around all those people they didn’t know and see everyone so upset.  Instead, they got to spend the time having a “camp-out” in Aunt Jan’s living room.

·         When Jan got her BSN degree, Ken and I let Jesse and Benjamin stand up in their seats and scream “YAY AUNT JAN!” at the top of their lungs as she crossed the stage to get her diploma.  It was at UTC arena and there were a go-zillion people there, so I know she couldn’t hear them, but we were all so proud of Jan’s achievement and the boys loved being able to be a part of it in that way.

·         At Jan’s pinning ceremony, it was just the sweetest thing watching Kelly pin her mom.  Even though Jan was not Kelly’s biological mother, she was her mom from almost the first time they ever met.  Jan’s heart accepted that sweet girl as her very own, regardless of DNA. 

·         On the day we received Ken’s cancer diagnosis, Jan stayed on the telephone with me through more than an hour of sobbing and screaming.  I don’t remember that we even had much conversation, but she did not hang up the phone until she was sure I was calmer. 

·         The day Ken died, Jan stayed with me all night long.  She had already had her first stroke by then, and being in places other than her home made her very nervous, but she did not want me to spend that first night alone.  We didn’t talk much, but her loving presence was such a comfort.

So, so many more memories… maybe I will get to them another day. The thing I remember most is how Jan loved me and my family for all those years. In the ten years since Ken died and the boys and I moved to AL, Jan suffered with many devastating health issues. It broke my heart to see how she struggled. I can honestly say that the one true regret I have from moving to AL is that I wasn’t close enough to be more help during Jan’s last years. She knew how hard it was for me to be in Ringgold without Ken and she understood why I left. I am just sorry that I moved away from her. And even as I write that, I can see her smiling and hear her telling me to quit beating myself up about it. That is the kind of loving and understanding person she was. She was truly my “best friend forever”. I miss her with my whole heart.

 

Jiminy Cricket Bites the Dust

ex·pend·able – adjective \ik-ˈspen-də-bəl\ 

    (1) easily replaced : not worth saving : not meant to be saved : to be used & thrown away;

    (2) more easily or economically replaced than rescued, salvaged, or protected.   

                     (Merriam-Webster.com)

Today marks one month and one week since I was unceremoniously dumped out the back door at my place of employment.  Through no fault of my own (again), I suddenly find myself on the job market (again).  Nothing but praises for my work ethic and the quality of the work I produce (again).  I am simply a casualty of budget cuts in a shaky economy (again).  I am expendable – AGAIN.

Once, just once, I would like to be the girl that people would fight to keep.  The one they would “close this place down before we let her get away!”  I am and always have been a very loyal employee.  Unfortunately though, when it comes to money (and it generally always does), most employers do not reciprocate that loyalty.  And even though I know for fact that money was a LARGE consideration in my dismissal this time, I feel that it was probably my words of caution regarding several unilateral changes causing sweeping turmoil which ultimately decided my fate.  I was a conscience that someone did not want to hear.

There are several real reasons why I am so upset at being on the job market again at this point in my life:

1.  I am 56 years old and there are a go-zillion younger, more attractive, more energetic people applying for the same jobs, and they are willing and able to accept those jobs for less money than I can afford to take.
2.  I am fat, and fat people have to work twice as hard to convince most employers that they are desirable and dependable workers.  I am not whining, it is just the way things are in this appearance-obsessed world in which we live.
3.  Friends my age are talking about retiring.  At the rate I am going, I will be at least 95 years old before I can even consider retirement. I was out of the workforce for many years, caring for my children and then caring for my terminally-ill husband.  I do not regret a single one of those days of staying home, but now, those years out of the workplace are working to my disadvantage.
4.  Just one week prior to my dismissal, I had to attend the funeral of my very best friend.  Heartbreak following the death of a dear one is not exactly conducive to searching for a new job. 
5.  I am just ever-loving TIRED of having to start over and be low-woman-on-the-totem-pole again.

So, now I am put in the position of having to beg people, most of whom are younger and less experienced than myself, to give me a chance.  It is EXHAUSTING.

I fortunately am blessed with many people who are sincerely praying for me as I search for the new direction my life will take.  I do not pretend to understand what God is doing in this situation.  My feelings have been terribly hurt and my anxiety about being unemployed is very high.  His response to my anguished cries has been from the beginning, “Trust Me.”  That is what I am trying to do.  I am more successful some days than others.