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.      

         

Broken Angel Wings

 

I have always given great credence to the meanings of dreams and signs.  Ever since I was young, some of my dreams have seemingly been glimpses of insight into past and present situations, or “sneak-peeks” into what the future might hold.   I am NOT saying that I can predict the future.  I cannot.  It feels more like a deeply ingrained intuition or a God-given discernment.  Whatever you would like to call it, it mainly helps me to make sense of my life and what goes on in my sphere of existence. 

As far back as I can remember, I would have dreams about different people and within days, I would see/hear from them or would hear that something major was going on in their lives.  Some dreams were simply how my mind tried to make sense out of craziness going on around me.  For example, right after Ken was diagnosed with cancer, I started having a lot of “out-of-control” dreams.  I dreamed we were in a car with no brakes.  Then I dreamed we were in a helicopter being piloted by a family member whose driving in a car scares me senseless.  Those dreams could be completely attributed to the frightening situation of Ken’s terminal illness and how helpless and out of control I felt at the time. 

Other dreams, however, seemed to be more prophetic in nature.  When I was in college, I always knew if my little brother was sick or hurt, because I would dream about him and wake with a feeling of great concern.  Upon calling home to check, he would be running a fever, or have some sort of kid injury.  I can’t explain how I knew… I just felt it.  Once, I dreamed about my college “Big Sis”, whom I hadn’t seen in years.  In the dream, she showed me a sweet baby boy in a stroller and said, “Melinda, I would like to introduce you to my son.”  Less than two weeks later, she called me out of the blue and told me that she had had a baby… a BOY!  Two or three weeks before my niece announced that she was expecting her first child, I dreamed that I saw her pregnant.  Another time I had a crazy dream about a dear childhood friend.  When I called to check on her, she revealed that she was having some serious health problems.

Some of my dreams though, like the one the other night in which I acquired a new house pet… an OSTRICH named Gertrude, are just plain crazy and clearly not prophetic (at least I hope not!).  I think those are purely for our entertainment and to make us laugh.  God does have an awesome sense of humor.    

As far as signs go, I believe that God gives us signs all the time.  I laughingly say that having an iron shoot sparks and blow up in my hand was a sign from God that I was not supposed to iron, ever again.  I don’t, by the way.  J    I firmly believe that God gives us signs through nature, through the people we have contact with, through our seeking His face through the Bible and prayer.  Most of the time, though, I think we are too busy to notice, let alone take heed, of the signs He gives us to direct us during our lives.

Ken and I had discussed at great length what I should do if he didn’t survive his cancer.  We both agreed that if he died, I should take the boys and move to Alabama to be closer to my family.  There was no great sign that brought us to that conclusion.  Just a heart-felt consensus that it would be the best thing for us to do.  After moving down here, though, I was faced with disposing of his properties in GA.  When I sold his largest property, I wrestled with whether or not I should pay off our house, or invest the money or put it into savings.  Had been trying to decide for about a month, when my daily Bible reading just happened to be 2 Kings 4:1-7 where a widow with 2 sons (sound familiar?) came to Elisha and said that her sons were going to be taken as slaves to pay her husband’s debt.  She needed help to protect her sons.  Elisha asked her what she had.  The widow replied “All I have left is a jar of oil”.  He told her to go and borrow all the bottles and jugs she could find.  I am sure that the widow had no idea how collecting bottles and jugs would help her protect her sons.  She probably questioned Elisha’s sanity.  But she knew that Elisha was a man of God, so she did what he said.  Then Elisha told her to pour her oil (the only thing she had left, remember?) into one of the bottles.  She started pouring and kept on pouring until every single bottle and jug was full to the brim.  Elisha said to the widow, “Sell the oil and pay your husband’s debt.  You and your sons can live on what is left.”  THAT DAY, I made arrangements to pay off our house.  To the depths of my soul, I knew this Scripture passage, at this time in my life, was God’s sign telling me to protect my sons by making sure we had a home to live in.  Months later, when the housing market bottomed out and people everywhere were going “upside-down” in their mortgages, my sign was confirmed.  I praise God every day that we don’t have to worry about mortgage payments.

This all brings me to another sign… one I think I missed, until the Lord revealed it to me last week.  I’m still processing it, and it may be hard to get down into words, so bear with me.  From very early on in our relationship, Ken called me his “angel”.  I had never considered myself particularly angelic before we met, and I certainly don’t always act that way, but the love in his eyes whenever he said it made me believe it could be true.  When we were planning our wedding, I found the cutest set of kissing angels.  I thought they would be perfect on our wedding cake.  We already had a cake topper, so I decided they would look precious between the top two tiers, so I told our caterer that’s what I wanted.  As I was getting dressed the day of the wedding, someone came and handed me the box that held my kissing angels.  The caterer had sent them up with the message that one of the angels was broken, so we would just leave them off the cake.  In a panic, I opened the box and to my dismay, found that the wings of the boy angel, the one that represented Ken, were broken.  The feeling of dread I had as I held those tiny broken wings in my hand that day is difficult to explain.  Despair washed over me, but I knew that those angels HAD to be on our cake.  Folks probably thought I was having an attack of pre-wedding crazies, but Mama told Daddy to go and buy some Crazy Glue and fix that angel.  I think Daddy was probably already dressed in his tuxedo, but he took off in search of glue.  By the time of our reception, the boy angel was repaired and the set was perched on our cake, just as I had wanted them to be.  Mama and Daddy to the rescue, as usual.

Now… last week, out of the blue clear sky, a thought quietly came to me.  Were the broken angel wings a sign that I had been too busy to notice?  Had Ken’s broken angel been a sign that he would have to leave us too soon?  And if it was a sign, why did God wait until now, almost ten years after Ken died, to reveal it to me?  As I pondered, a line of the song I had played at Ken’s funeral started twirling around in my head… “but his body grew weary, for his wings were broken”.  A day or so after that, a FB friend posted a quote from Ernest Hemingway that said, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places”.  I am not completely sure what all the references to brokenness mean, but oddly, they have been a comfort to me.  Maybe it is God’s way of reminding me that He has always known every second of my life and that He will take whatever is broken and make it strong again.  I’m still waiting and listening for whatever else He wants to reveal about it.  In the meantime…

Pay attention to signs from above, and SWEET DREAMS!!

A Fat Girl's Take on "Healthcare Reform"

When I first heard the words “Affordable Care Act” and a brief explanation of its intent, my initial reaction was “sounds like a good thing – everyone should have health care they can afford”.  It sounded good, in theory, but I wondered how it would end up affecting my family’s health care.

Health insurance has always been a sticky issue in my family.  Since my husband, Ken, was self-employed, at the beginning of our marriage, our insurance was purchased through my job.  Due to some unexpected circumstances, I left that job just before our first son was born.  We were able to continue that insurance through a COBRA policy, at a much higher rate.  After Jesse was born and we knew he and I were both healthy, we dropped the COBRA policy because of the high cost. 

Somewhere between the births of our first and second sons, we were able to get a hospital policy, but it covered virtually NOTHING, it just got us in the door if we needed treatment.  It was only after Benjamin arrived and we saw how little the policy paid on the maternity costs that Ken even considered that we even needed health insurance.  He had always been a healthy man, so he had never needed insurance.  He was also a “cash-only” kind of fellow.  His motto was, “If you don’t have the money in your pocket for it today, you don’t NEED it today.”  That included going to the doctor.  When he realized how many bills we incurred during the birth of Benjamin, Ken began to see that health insurance could be a good thing.  Luckily for us, at about this time, BCBS was offering policies for self-employed families at group rates.  We applied and were approved.

We kept that policy for the rest of our married life together.  Ken would complain from time to time about the cost, but he never tried to get me to cancel it.  Later on, when Ken was diagnosed with cancer, the policy was an absolute God-send.  But even with BCBS paying like they should, during the first year of Ken’s illness, we paid roughly $12,000 out-of-pocket.  It really would have been devastating if we hadn’t had the coverage.

After Ken died, the boys and I moved to Alabama to be closer to my family.  I contacted BCBS of AL and asked them if we could transfer our coverage from TN to AL.  They said we would have to apply for a new policy.  Well, since I am a fat girl, they refused to cover me, except for one of the hospital policies that doesn’t cover anything except getting you through the door.  Said the only reason they even offered me that is because I was coming from another state with a BCBS policy.  The good news was that they agreed to write regular policies on Jesse and Benjamin. 

A few years later, BCBS began running an open-enrollment for a policy that required no medical underwriting.  It was a much better policy than the one I had, and of course the cost was much higher, but I didn’t feel as I really had a choice but to apply for it.  So I did.  BCBS had to accept me… it was open-enrollment.  During the 4 to 5 years I had that policy, I think the premiums increased at least 4 times, and the policies for Jesse and Benjamin increased at least twice.  I was paying $500 per month for our health insurance, which was a LARGE percentage of this single mom’s take-home pay.

That is when I started hearing about the “Affordable Care Act”.  I worried about my premiums going up again.  After all, I knew that SOMEBODY would have to pay for all the people who would now have to have insurance, but didn’t have the money to pay for it, but there was really nothing I could do about that.  Our president was assuring us that if we were happy with our current policies, we could “keep them … no matter what” (remember when he told THAT lie?).  So, I figured I would just keep what we had and hope the premiums would not go up too dramatically. (Eyeball roll … head slap … HEAVY SIGH.  How could I have been so naïve?)

Around the end of September, the dreaded information packets from BCBS arrived.  I was astounded by what I read!  My policy alone was going to almost double in cost each month!  The policies Jesse and Benjamin had were no longer going to exist (remember, these are the policies that the president said we could keep) and the premiums of the most comparable policy would be a full third more than their old premiums had been.  And of course, coverage in all three policies was not as good and deductibles were much larger.  I immediately called BCBS because the info packet also said that I might be eligible for some sort of subsidy or tax credit to help pay my premiums.  Well, they said the only way I could find out if I was eligible would be to go on the healthcare.gov website and fill out an application.  (We all remember the amazingly infamous rollout of that particular website, don’t we?!)  Anyway, at this point, I felt that I was in effect, being held hostage.  I couldn’t afford to keep the insurance I already had, and the only way to find out if I could get help paying for the premiums was to sign up through the Marketplace.  And there would be no other insurance companies offering better prices, because in my county of AL, BCBS was the only game in town.  No other companies opted into the program.  SHEESH!!    

I went on the website, or at least I tried to… I think it took about 2 weeks before I was finally able to create an account and get to the application process.  Some of the steps in the application were confusing, so I tried to “live chat” with a representative.  FORGET THAT!!  I finally called the telephone number and spoke with several very friendly representatives who obviously knew less about the Affordable Care Act and the healthcare.gov website than I did.  I felt very sorry for them, truthfully.  They were very pleasant, but they just didn’t know the answers to my questions.  They didn’t know the answers because they had not been properly trained.  They weren’t properly trained because NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE HECK THE ACA MEANS AND/OR HOW TO PROPERLY APPLY FOR COVERAGE THROUGH THE WEBSITE!!!!! (Whew!  Please excuse that little explosion… let me continue…) 

So, I finally filled out the application as best I could.  I hit the “review and apply” button and immediately got an ERROR MESSAGE!!  I called the number again and spoke with a couple of different representatives who apologized about the “few glitches” in the system and told me to sign out, wait a while and try again.  Well, that went on for the better part of another two weeks.  In the meantime, Jesse, my older son, signed up for health insurance through his employer, but didn’t tell me.  So when I finally got the button to work, the information was now incorrect.  It also said that Benjamin, my younger son, was eligible for Medicaid.  But by this time, he was two weeks away from his 18^th birthday, which would make him too old for that program. I clicked the “edit” button so I could go in and correct my information.  You guessed it… another error message!!  SIGH… so I called the number again.  I told them all of my troubles and said I needed to either delete the application I had filled out and start over again, or edit the info that was there.  They couldn’t figure out how to do that either.  Said they would send a request to their “Advanced Resolutions Center” and someone would call back and help me within 5 business days.  That was the first of three times I called and was referred to ARC.  NO ONE EVER CALLED ME BACK!!  In the meantime, a “delete application” button appeared on the website.  I tried it and POOF!  My application disappeared. 

So, I began again.  Put in all the correct info and with baited breath, hit the “review and apply” button.  I think I only had to log out and sign back in three times this time before it actually worked.  It said that I actually did qualify for a subsidy that would enable me to get a better policy than the one I had for a little less than I was already paying.  It also said that Benjamin qualified for AL All Kids insurance, which covers dependent children through age 19.  Great, right?  Well, I immediately contacted All Kids and they said, “if the marketplace said he is eligible for coverage, then he will be covered as of January 1^st”.  Said that the marketplace would be sending along Benjamin’s information and they would send out an insurance card.  I asked if there was anything else I needed to do.  “No”, they said.  “All is well.”  Just so you know… if a government agency tells you that all is well, you should probably NOT believe them.

My new insurance began on January 1^st, I got my new insurance card and the subsidy worked the way they said it should, so I was all set.  I was still waiting on Benjamin’s new card and the information from All Kids.  I waited, and waited, and WAITED SOME MORE.  The website showed that they had B’s application, but it never showed that he was covered.  The only way to check on the status of the application was to call All Kids in Montgomery.  I lost track of how many times I was “lost in the land of hold” for so long that I finally gave in and hung up the phone.  If I ever did get to speak to a person, they always blamed healthcare.gov for the delay.  If I called healthcare.gov, they always blamed All Kids.  It quickly became obvious that neither agency knew the status of Benjamin’s application and neither of them particularly cared whether or not he was covered.

Now, it is the end of February.  I stopped paying the BCBS premiums at the end of December, and no one can tell me if Benjamin is covered, so I have been holding my breath that he would not get sick or injured until All Kids can get their act together.  Yesterday, I FINALLY get a letter from All Kids and I’m almost rejoicing.  I open it up and see the following sentence, “We are sorry to inform you that it doesn’t appear that your child is eligible for this program.  Our records indicate that he is covered under private health insurance.” WHAT THE HECK???!!!!  And then it hits me… when I began this whole process, waaaaay back in September, he was covered still under BCBS.  Because they told me that he would be eligible for All Kids and I couldn’t afford to continue the insurance through BCBS, I let that policy lapse.  So, as of January 1^st, Benjamin HAD NO INSURANCE!!!!  But between two government agencies, no one can figure that out!!! 

I’ve been hitting my head against this wall for so long now, that I just don’t know what to do anymore.  The last three times I spoke to a real person at All Kids, they said, “it could take another 4 weeks”, so I really don’t even want to try getting them to understand that yes, when we started this whole crazy debacle, Benjamin did have insurance, but no, he does not have insurance NOW, because they said he was eligible for All Kids.  So I called BCBS to see if I had any options with them.  They said I have two:  1) go to healthcare.gov (AGAIN) and make a new application for Benjamin, which could take another month or two to go through, or 2) reinstate the old policy at the new expensive price by paying for the two months that have already passed and the one that is due tomorrow.  REALLY??!! 

So here I am, being held hostage once more.  It would take two months to get a new policy for Benjamin in place.  He will be graduating from high school in two and a half months and will be going into the Army.  By the time I got him covered with a new policy, he would be graduated and gone.  So my only real choice is to pay three months’ premiums (that I really don’t have) to reinstate the old policy. 

Mr. Obama, I don’t know, for some folks your “signature legislation” may be a good thing.  But for this fat widowed single-mom, working as hard as she can to make a living and pay her bills, there is NOTHING affordable about it!! L