I dropped my son off with his dad a little while ago… It’s a depressing moment every other week. I miss him until he comes home again….
Marriage is the joyous occasion where you think you are saying I do to the man you are going to spend the rest of your life with and then life happens..
2016 was the year that my world was flipped on its axles. I started off that year with a hysterectomy in May. It was an unwanted surgery that happened as fast as it was announced. A week later to be exact. A month later, my husband took us all to the beach. I couldn’t swim because of the incisions but it was, what I didn’t know then, our last family vacation…
End of June, I started my dream job. The one that I went to school for. My husband stayed at the business we had bought together, his dream job. Life was full of promise. Our lives were busy but full. As life often has a tendency of doing, my world was about to change forever..
July comes. My birthday month. My stepson would be turning 10. It was our last month of summer before my youngest, my only biological child, would start kindergarten. It was the single thought that plagued my brain.
July 22, I get a phone call from my mom in Texas, my biological dad had died of the cancer that had been eating at him for years. That phone call was on a Weds and I flew to Texas on Friday to meet siblings I had never met and to console my mom about a father I had only known about for 2 years… I knew that the next 5 days would be.. difficult but I never dreamed just how difficult. I flew into Dallas airport and rented a car and drove to Tyler, Texas. Literally, when I pull in the drive way to where my mom had been living for the past couple of years, this guy walks out (could not make this up if I tried) and asks me if I was a social worker. I’m positive, my face has never appeared more dumbfounded. I explain who I am and then go in to see my mom. She is a wreck. She has loved this man for 35 years and after her mother broke them up while pregnant with me, she got to spend 2.5 years before cancer killed him.
I’ve known grief. At least, I thought I had known grief. Mom happened to be the biggest lesson in grief. The trip in Texas was not the most pleasant. My bio dads kids were…. something else. My mom was beside herself and begged me to stay with them and knowing then what I know now, I would have done just that but I ended up getting a hotel room. I spent time with mom as much as I could. My attention was focused on mom, trying to get over that my baby was about to start kindergarten and fighting with my husband about every thing.
I came home on the following Tuesday. My mom and I discussed bringing her back home the next Friday. I rented a Uhaul and had planned the trip and all. My mom was having issues with my bio dads kids and I knew if I could just get her home, we would work on the rest…. I never got the chance. A week and one day later on August 3rd, my mom overdosed and killed herself. Pausing for tears…I still don’t understand what happened. I talked to her on that Tuesday night. August 2nd. One week after I was home. She died at 5 am the next morning.
Everything was a blur for the next 5-6 months. The pain was physical, mental, emotional. I blamed myself. I should have brought her home with me. But I’m getting ahead of my story… I was at work on August 3rd. I looked at my phone at 1:40. I had about 6 missed calls and all from my step sister in Texas. I walked outside and called her back. She said “I’ve been trying to reach you”. I explained that I was at work and could not answer the phone when I wanted to. That’s when she told me that something was wrong with Mom. My first thought was “why are you calling me, call an ambulance!!”, which I preceded to say out loud. She told me she was already gone…. I. Hit. The. Floor. My mind went from disbelief to…. I still can’t even explain that feeling. My world just imploded and there was nothing I could do about it.
The next couple of weeks were literally just breathing. I couldn’t cope past a moment. I would pick up the phone to call my mother and realize what I was doing and the pain would just seize me again. My mother had taught me everything except how to live without her.
The last hit of 2016 was when my husband and I broke in December. He sent flowers to my job that were intended for another woman. At this point, sad to say, I was numb. I didn’t even care. It was the straw the broke the camels back as they say and I was just too broken to be able to function using any emotions.
Life teaches you a lot but I never feel like we are fully prepared for some of the blows. 2 years later and in some ways, I am still healing and picking myself up. I would love to tell you that I’m happily remarried but it wouldn’t be true. I can function emotionally somewhat but I still have my setbacks. I know God has something large in store for me…. because in the Bible it says that God will never give you something you cannot handle.
He must think I can benchpress a Buick.
I have a couple of letters out on my keyboard and copying and pasting is not what it is cracked up to be. Plus, Im attached to my MacBook that I purchased after my divorce from a pastor… long story, I’ll tell you later… short story but still.I have a little boy named Mason. He is 7, soon to be 8. In May of 2016, I had a hysterectomy so unfortunately, he is it for me… naturally anyways. Mason’s father and I divorced the end of 2016 so I finally started dating again in March of this year. My boyfriend has two little boys that are 5 and 9. I plan on finally marrying the man at some point this year. It is not something I ever thought I would consider ever again but life is short… right? I don’t know but I guess you who stick with me will find out. I look forward to making you laugh and hopefully being able to relate to this thing called life..
