What if you don’t live another day?  Hence, the need to believe in God and all the gifts he has already provided you with.  Although, for some reason we are always wanting more?  Is that a complication of society or just plain part of being human?  We think we know what we want, so we just go after it.  Stupid isn’t it?  We think we know what is best for us, but do we really?  I guess only time will tell you the ultimate truth.  I mean if you just keep on living things good and bad things are going to happen to you everyday and for the most part you don’t have a lot of affect on those things.  If your car dies, if you get hit by a bus, or you suffer some significant loss such as a loved one.  You have no control over those things.  So what do we ultimately control of?  I can say that I am going to get up at 4 am tomorrow and go to the pool.  When I wake up at 4 am, I decide that, “Nah, I’d rather sleep.”  Sometimes I wake up with the zest of a cheerleader and I get right up and get going, although, lately I feel a little emotionally drained to do that.  Now we’re back to, “Nah, I’d rather sleep.” 

I guess I will continue to deal with the frustration because it’s just better than hearing something I don’t want to hear.  Another stupid answer.   Another stupid reason.  Oh, Ye of little faith….hold onto your faith, for your faith will give you strength to face the unknown, your faith with lead you to the right answer, your faith is a true test of your integrity and perseverance.  OH BUT THE FRUSTRATION!!!!  Okay, so I guess in my own words I’ll hide the answer…..

I guess it’s time to get going.

God bless!

I’m so excited for spring to get here.  I can’t wait for it to get here I really can’t!  It’s been a long hard winter for me and I’m ready to let the sunshine in!  I’m feeling a little better than where I was a few weeks ago, but I won’t really feel it until I get a better handle on things with school I hope.  It’s been hard this semester with some of my set backs with, oh, crashing the car into the deck, and then my grandfather passing.  February is a rough month for me and I’m all too happy to say goodbye to it this year.  Even though we have one more day of Feb left, I am hoping I can get through it with a little faith and a smile! 

So here’s to what I really hope will begin my 2011!  I’m hoping that I’m “Coming out of the dark” now, “and hopefully see the light now.”

God Bless!

One of the pictures that stuck in my head this week was the night I came back to Grandpa’s room after everyone had gone to get coffee and just leave Grandma with Grandpa for a minute.  I got half-way to the elevator and turned back to get my purse from his room.  I came in and there was Grandma knelt beside him with her head down next his and they looked just so sweet together.  I have had that picture flash over and over in my mind the past few days and imagining how she feels would just about rip my insides to shreds.  Here is the man she has loved since she was 15 years old, and after 64 years of marriage is dying and not a damned thing she can do about it.  Just watch, that’s it.  One minute here asking you what to wear for the day, next minute not able to speak a word to you…no sign, no warning, nothing.  Someone clearly peering out, but unable to say anything.  Eyes looking back at you clearly trying to communicate something, but what exactly?  Slowly evolving to sleep and shutting down before your own very eyes, but you are powerless to save them.  How?  How could this happen?  How in seconds flat?  I’m sure you find yourself bargaining with God, “Just one more hour, one more minute, one more sentence, second???  PLEASE?!  We all feel this, but no one more so than my grandma for him.

And things we never knew…coming out from all members of our family.  He is a WWII vet who until recently refused to talk about it for a very, very long time.  From my uncle..He spoke German and Polish. What?  None of us knew that at all.  He was part of the military police who came in the day after D-Day. 

From myself…”I remember a retirement party and an old metal box..it has a German uniform (I think) and a flag in it. He brought it out once”… I wasn’t allowed to get very close. It was 1983 when he retired, I was only 11, I didn’t know anything about WWII at the time, but I remember this…just bits and pieces from conversations over the years.  He rescued people from the concentration camps and the things he saw were unspeakable…very, very unspeakable.  Pieces I refuse to even write myself.  He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not at all uncommon for the circumstances that he endured.

My cousin…He told me about the metal box and about the German soldiers.  Told Grandma, “We need to find that old metal box Marie.” 

I’m sure my uncles will go home and go searching for the box.  I have to admit, I am very curious myself about the metal box.  So are my uncles now that 2 of us girls have confirmed that there is one and Kelly only heard of it a couple of months ago, and I have remembered it for some 27 years?  I wonder why I remember it so well?  Him talking with his friends at the dining room table.  I was in their old kitchen and curious enough to wonder what was going on.  But then again, this is me you are talking about, I am  curious!  If the adults in the room were all huddled around it, it must be something worth knowing right?  Funny I can’t remember anything else. Grandpa, and I don’t remember if my other cousins were there or not.  I wish I could remember the story he was telling, but all I remember was everyone being fixated on the metal box, and feeling a little scared about it.  I can’t even tell you for certain what color it is.  Maybe the story is too horrific? Maybe the information is so terrible I don’t want to remember it?  This is WWII, I hate to say it, but it was war.  I’m sure he had to kill some people. I’m sure it came down to ‘Kill or Be Killed’.  Maybe this is what I don’t want to remember.  I don’t want to know. To think about someone I love so much, and who is this close to me, and being my own grandfather able to take another human life so easily..able to peel off one shot and take someone else.  And now at any moment being about to lose his own life. Dear God. NO NO NO! This is why women are not in combat.  We are givers of life and that is probably why it is so hard for us to think of taking another life, we would contemplate it way too long.  Does this come easier for men?  I am obviously not able to say, but it somehow must be.

Having had two children of my own, and in the very first paragraph addressing how I didn’t want to cause my own child pain.  You can see why I would grapple with this!  Well, any woman who has felt a living being grow inside her for months would.  Well I will say 99.9% of us would.  War is hell as they say.  It can’t have been easy for him to live all of these years with that piece stuck inside, and not able to tell us some of those pieces of him.  He could be gruff at times, but he always, always loved us.  He could hurt and punish with a word, but we knew he loved us.  No matter what. The three of us grandchildren that can be here, and all five of his children, and of course Grandma have relived our many stories at his bedside for the past few days about growing up with him and the crazy things that our family will always remember about all of us and him.  Hoping to make sure it is the part of him he will take on his journey above and beyond all of us.  For me, I know, I will always remember the sound of his voice when I would wait so anxiously for him on the phone…everytime to hear…”HI STACE!” Thank you God that I got to hear it so many times and I can’t forget that sound in my head.  It is forever on playback so clear.  Thank you so much for letting me hear it and remember it even though it hurts so much to listen to right now.  I miss you, I miss you, I love you, I love you all the way to heaven and back again!

In my own silent prayer at his bedside tonight.  I found myself begging God for his peaceful end.  To please whisk him into Heaven and let his body finally rest. He is tired Lord, he is ready Lord, I know he is, we are not ready, but he is Lord.  He has suffered long enough, please, please, please take him to Heaven with you. Amen.

Love you, love you, love you Grandpa!!!!  Miss you, miss you, miss you and love you so, so much!!!!!

My future…highly uncertain.  I know what I want for myself but it is truly hard to find.  I wish to find the last true love of my life.  You know how they say you find love when you truly aren’t even looking for it.  I know that no relationship you have is perfect no matter what picture you paint in your head, the reality is that there will always be a crack in the wall somewhere that you have to repair every once in a while.   With marriage, there are something things that just are not repairable no matter how many times you try to fix it, it will only fall apart again.  In the end, it is best to recognize this before there is a total break down in communication and the two of you end up hating each other and living on spite.  I’m glad we recognized it and protected ourselves against feeling before it was too late.  That being said, I loved being married.  I will miss it dearly.  I am hoping that I will have the chance once again in my life someday.  One thing I don’t regret is that I made a lifelong friend, maybe not a lifelong committment as I had vowed to in the beginning, but I never lost my friend through everything that happened and I have God to thank for that, and of course, David, who will always have a very special place in my heart forever.  I’m sorry that I failed you and us, but I am not sorry that I let you go so, that you may find true happiness with someone else,  and hopefully I will too. 

The truth of the matter is I am a very strong willed person.  I live for going after what I want in life.  Apparently, I need someone else who is like that, otherwise I will drive my partner up a wall?  Someone who is always striving to find a new facet of themselves and re-invent themselves every so often.  After a while, you need to become a new and improved you?  I wish I understood more about that need, but I don’t.  It’s just a part of me.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the past year and done many things I am not proud of.  I managed to chase a couple of people right out of my life without meaning to which has probably hurt me more than it hurt them.  I was blinded by my own emotions and my actions were overwelmingly stupid.  I am human and I make mistakes (daily).  I am truly sorry to especially one person that I drove away and miss very much.  In a perfect world, I could say, I’m sorry and you’d forgive me, but I don’t feel it happening, at least not anytime soon.  I am only hoping that you will some day find it in your heart to forgive me because I am sorry. 

Not every person is an open book, but I am most of the time.  If you ask me a question about myself, you are likely to get a very honest answer because I don’t hide much.  The reason being is that I don’t really need to.  I can be complicated at times, but I’m really not.  I just want the same things that everyone else wants.  To be loved, trusted, and respected which is what I try to provide to others as well.  Why privatize things that are universal?  So learning to let go….is just that, let go, let yourself love, be loved, let your friends take care of you as you take care of them, respect and honor them the way you want to be respected and honored.  Love and cherish the people you are with and don’t be afraid.  Pay compliments!  Pay many compliments!  When it comes down to it your words mean more than you’ll ever know to someone else.  And above all never be too good to say you’re sorry.  We are all wrong sometimes.  When you say it, mean it, just like as when you say “I love you!”  You have to mean it. 

Let your love shine!

God bless you!

But to those who feel a little un-Christmas-like right now…and are deeply wounded…from death, divorce, break-up, loss of anything of utmost importance..

So I ripped the band-aid off, but the wound was not nearly healed, it bled again and again.  No matter what I did, the skin would not close. It would not heal itself, every movement just exacerbated the pain more  like a deep searing knife.  It was impossible to think about anything but this consuming pain.  I go to bed with it and wake up with it each morning the  same knowing it will be with me all day.  I make plans and go on about my job, but the pain cycles again and consumes me.  How does the pain stop?  What finally stops this vicious cycle?  What does it take to feel whole again?   I don’t know…it’s just too far away.  The answer I lies in a small spark of hope, I tried the lighter. It was broke.  The flint is gone and the oil only smoked.  In the corner, the ceiling is leaking and beyond repair, I keep trying to sop up the rain, but it just keeps on pouring in. My soul feels dark and full of sin, I try to repent, but just end up giving in. 

Broken and scattered,  somehow I pick up the pieces and I go on…someday a new light, a new phase, a new place, a new face must come about to shine upon.  Where, where do I go from here?  Which way is up?  Which way is right?  Do I go left or right?  I’m not even sure if this is day or night?  I need a guide and a flashlight? I’m scared God, hold onto me tight.  Please Lord send an angel….and send a very good one so I can pick out who to follow….I know he hasn’t come today, but maybe tomorrow?  Please, please God help those of us who feel all of this sorrow.  I just don’t know if I can face tomorrow.

To me and to you…anyone feeling this very blue, you are not alone…I’m here too.

For anyone who is out of the loop, we filed for divorce on Wednesday.  Don’t get me wrong, David is my best friend, I harbor no real ill feeling toward him at all, but I am looking forward to being by myself again.  Much as I hated being single and I loved being married and I hope I will have that chance again someday, this is really happening.  Although I know this is taboo in the Catholic religion there are some things you need to interpret on your own.  I know I am going to get myself into trouble here for my own interpretation, but here goes…Back when the Bible was written, I would likely have been dead before I reached my current age, which will advance another digit here in about 3 weeks!  Most people only had time to marry one person and probably didn’t have time to get tired of them, then they died, end of story.  My main reason for us getting divorced is that we are just not romantically interested in each other anymore.  We are just good friends who have children together. 

I am looking forward to spending some time alone in reflexion for what has happened and focusing my sons, along with school and work, working out, and last but not least finding someone to date?  I haven’t been out on one in a long time and I’m not quite sure what I’ll find out there..we’ll just have to see.

Well it’s that time again.  I’m tired.

I’m trying to get the house cleaned up.  I cleaned both the bathrooms tonight.  Threw out a ton of crap!  Went through my medicine cabinet and tossed out a bunch of stuff in there.  Even got under the sink and tossed some stuff.  Looks much better!  Less cludder.  My bathroom is always kind of cluddered though.  I have like 50 combs and brushes and 50 different hair products!  It’s ridiculous, I will admit!  3 different hairsprays, pomade, curling stuff, straightening stuff.  Oh, I have two curling irons too!  A straightening iron and of course who can live without a blow dryer?  Root lifter, do guys even know what that stuff is for?  I’ve learned it’s just another name for “mousse” if you’re from the 80′s, and if  you have ultra thick hair like I do, (and some people would like put me on a hit list just for complaining about), it doesn’t even work!  I have to have stuff like Nexxus, Paul Mitchell, or my newest addition, Big Sexy Hair!  Wow, now who came up with the name for that one?  I think I actually have a nail polish color called “Frisky”.  LOL!  I don’t think they mean cat food color, but that’s technically “Friskies” right?  My one roommate Becky and I were sitting around drinking (but of course!) and talking about this stuff.  We were wondering who comes up with the names for all of the colors.  Becks is hilarious, “How about F*** Me Red, or Blow Me Beige?”  I miss her, we had such colorful conversations.  One day we got up, on a Saturday, and at the time she was dating this guy Jim.  We got up and she said, “What do you feel like doing today?”  “I don’t know, let’s leave this God foresaken country!”  “Are you serious?”  “Yeah, let’s go!”  “Well, we’re a little short on cash..”  Jim calls.. “Yeah, we’ve decided we’re leaving the country, you want to come too?”  So we basically kidnapped him and made him get in the backseat.  Well, the easiest way for us to leave the country was to drive to Detroit and spend a few hours in Windsor, so that’s what we did!  Silly, but it was fun, just to go, and we had a guy with us, which was nice.  The border patrol was kind of interesting but they let us across…It was fun while it lasted.

Well, I should probably end there.  My night time regime is starting to kick in..

Good night!!

Monday, Kendall goes to preschool!  I think he’s going to love it!  His teacher’s name is Becky and he really likes her.  The whole bus transfer thing might freak him out a little bit.

I am going back to exercising on Monday if I have to kill myself to get up and go do it!  Can’t wait to feel better again.  My antibiotic should have my cold kicked out of me by then.

Have to get papers signed on Monday, then I have an appointment, and a test at school after that!  Going to be a busy day.  Lot’s to do this next week!

Tuesday involves dissecting a sheep’s heart (won’t be eating lunch that day).

Thursday is another Test…

Semester is almost over….just a couple more weeks!

That phrase usually hits a nerve  somewhere. I just really want to say we really do have laws about free speech in this country. If your life story is interesting enough. You might be the next, I don’t know, Dean Koontz.

I’m starting to throw caution to the wind in some of these things Blogs are wonderful, even just to vent sometimes. People need to just get out there and write, everyone has a story! How do you think the Bible got written? Don’t be shy, let us read your story. Write a little bit at a time. Just like a journal entry or a diary or whatever. If you don’t write anything anywhere, who will know you were here? Make your mark! Your spiritual experences, share them! Although, I would be very careful about sharing names and experiences at work. I try to limit mine to my private life.

As I was driving, the place I had the hardest time with was Madison. It made me think of someone so much and what exactly I had done wrong and if I could somehow repair the damage, but I think in all honesty, I just need to let time take care of that. It’s hard for me not to overstep the boundary (yet again) to try and make things right, but you can’t push someone to heal faster than they can. It’s just so damned hard because I feel so guilty about it. I keep trying to tell myself, it’s not my fault, and I can’t possibly know more than what is being told to me. I mean, I can read some minds, but not his, not yet, or maybe ever for that matter. I had so much time to think while I was driving at times it was hard for me to just not bawl my eyes out about everything that has happened in the past few months, but I couldn’t. I tried to focus on my tasks and the rain, I felt much like the weather, overcast.

Kendall made things extremely hard sometimes. It is scary how much like me he is in some ways. I hate loud noises, I am not a fan of thunderstorms really. I was very afraid of them at his age. So I understand the fear at least, but I hate to say this, he was bellowing in my ear Sunday night and I was just thinking, I need earplugs and severe restraint not to reach around and grab him and say, “Alright, I know you’re scared, I hear you! Now Shut up child, we are right here!” I kept thinking, if I yell at him, it’s only going to make it worse, so I just tried to use the calming voice and talk to him. By the time, we made it to our hotel in Illinois for the night he was hoarse from crying and screaming. David turned on an Elmo video and that seemed to help for the most part, kept his mind off the rain, which was scaring him more than the lightning which freaks me out and thank God I couldn’t hear the thunder! Both Kendall and I are night owls too! Keegan just sat back and watched the videos, when I would look at him he had this look like he was bored out of his little mind! He was just fine! For the most part he traveled great, hardly a peep out of that kid! We started talking as we were leaving Minnesota and I told David, I said, “You know, Keegan has never even been out of Rochester that I can think of!”

The trip was short-lived, and I am kind of glad. They saw everyone they needed to see, all grandparents and great-grandparents, even Grandma Doris from New York! Kendall doesn’t remember seeing them all when he was one I’m sure. Keegan will not remember either, but he so darned friendly! Loves everyone, well just about everyone. Kendall had such a good time! At first, he didn’t want to go to Michigan, then as we were getting ready to leave my Mom and Dad’s..”No, I don’t wanna go! I stay here.” Misses our Moms the most, loves both of his grandmas like crazy! David’s Mom being a mother of three takes that all in stride whereas, my Mom is a little more emotional about it being I am the only child. I am somewhere in the middle of them. I don’t want to get too emotional because I don’t want to upset everyone, but leaving both houses and seeing my kids say “goodbye” for what could be months is sometimes hard. It’s a natural part of life that family members move away to other places with careers and such, but it difficult even for the “adults”.

You know when I was about Kendall’s age, I just pined over my Mom being gone a lot. I felt a little like an annoyance in her life at that stage. She was divorced and involved with someone, and I would often be left with babysitters. I mean I do remember seeing her and spending time with her, which I loved, I often rode in the car with her an awful lot sometimes and late at night. I guess that is why I know so much music from that time period because we would listen to the radio. My Mom and I are alike in some ways. When she has something on her mind, often she would just get in the car and drive, sometimes for hours. I have done that also. No particular place to go..just around, I love to drive. Like Jay Leno says, “I was born the day I got my driver’s license,” I know exactly what he means. Not exactly a “green” way of thinking, but I love driving and listening to the radio.

When I graduated from Ferris, I did what was expected of me, I found a job, moved out of the house, yet again, and worked. Only, the job I had at the time I didn’t feel as though I could stay there thirty years, I felt the need to go somewhere else. Mayo actually called our office one day, very strange, and asked if anyone there was interested in going out there for an interview. At the time, everyone’s answer was “nah”, but even when I was in school, I wanted to go and check it out. I had heard of it, I had heard great things about them at the time. A distant classmate went on an internship and loved it! It wasn’t until I got the phone call at home that it struck me..”You really want me hunh? I’m a little ‘green’ yet.” It was funny, I was in the driveway at my parents’ house and the phone had just rang. “Stace, it’s someone from the Mayo Clinic? They want to talk to you about a job. Do you want to talk to them?” It took some convincing. I think she knew she had me because she called me everyday for a while until I would schedule an interview. So I did it. I remember being in the hospital and having to reschedule for a bad reaction to Imuran, they tried it for my CUC but it didn’t work, it gave me pancreatitis, lovely! I lied about where I was going at work. Oh well, if the plane goes down, nothing really to explain right? I said I had to take my mother to Detroit for some tests. I was actually flying to Rochester…it was Friday, February 19, 1999. Does anyone else remember what they were doing that day? I sat next to a lawyer on the plane and shared a taxi with her into downtown Rochester from the airport. She was deposing a physician that day at the clinic. I started at the Clinic on April 19th. On the plane ride back into Lansing, I kept thinking, what the heck should I do? Should I stay in Lansing or go to Rochester? The answer came to me in a wedding date actually, I took a couple of weeks cried about it, listened to the same Beatles’ song over and over in my apartment. That’s when I decided to leave. Odd sequence of events, but that’s when I decided to leave without looking back. Of course, I did a few times, did I make the right decision? Would I regret it? Nope…a little colder here, but no, I don’t regret that decision in the least. Will I stay here forever? Hard to say. I could fly again. Home? Not sure. I love Michigan, but I am just not sure. You know, that Fall, in 1998, I got a call from a place in Green Bay, Wisconsin too. Hmmm, I had NEVER thought of moving there, but I could be a Packer fan..I could. I do love Wisconsin. Never would’ve thought of moving there but I’ve driven across the state a few times and really do like Wisconsin. Beautiful place. Even passed Ripon one time Ian! If you’re reading, can’t remember where the heck it is at the moment, but I think I was on my way to Manitowoc, to catch the ferry. You know, I ride roller coasters, and I will do almost anything once, but that stupid thing made me sicker than I don’t know WHAT! “Thank you, and here are your Sea Bands (which actually work, to my amazement!) the saltine crackers are on that table over there.” Not too many moving things can make me sick, but a boat moving like 12 miles an hour across Lake Michigan WILL do it! The trip takes about 4 hours. I had to go sit in the restroom for a while until the nausea passed, then I mostly sat out on the deck, not much to see, you can’t see across Lake Michigan, unless you are on a plane. That is very neat especially at night! You can tell because there are no lights for a long break. When I was single I flew back and forth most of the time, now that I am married, it is just not cost effective to fly as many people that short a distance, especially if two of them can drive.

Well, even on ‘night owl’ time it’s getting a little late…Good morning!