Monday, Monday

You know how, sometimes, when something important happens in your life - like you meet someone special or something awful and life-changing happens - and later on, you can't forget how you were made to feel, but you can't remember the day of the week that it happened on? I've had that a lot in my life.

I can remember meeting my first serious lover and I can remember being asked for my hand in marriage, but I can never remember the day of the week it happened on. Of course, that's what calendars and diaries and old cards are for.

I won't ever forget, though, that it was on a Monday that my big brother died.

Saturday is my day to do laundry and change my bedding. It was on last Saturday that I was putting in my second load of clothes when my phone rang. I had a strange feeling. My stomach fluttered and hot saliva filled my mouth.

My sister was calling to tell me that I needed to get to the hospital. My brother, Chubby, was doing way worse than he had been the night before.

For some reason, I took the few minutes to finish setting up the washer for the second load of clothes - my whites - and putting the first set into the dryer. When my jeans were tumbling and my whites were suds-ing, I ran around to get my purse and keys. I drove like a crazy woman to the hospital.

I don't remember much about that Saturday or Sunday except that I was irritated by everything.

Monday, when we all had to realize that Chubby wasn't going to get better and that he was in a lot of pain, I left his room and took a walk around the parking lot. I got into my car and went home. Two hours later, someone called to see where the hell I was at. I was home, finishing my laundry.

It seems like a crazy thing to do, to go and change clothes from the dryer to hangars and drawers, from the washer to dryer, from hamper to washer. It seems crazy, but it was soothing and normal and like everyday living.

When I did get back to the hospital, I only stayed long enough to go and tell Chubby, once again, that I loved him. This time, he didn't squeeze my hand or look at me like he knew what I was saying. This time, he just slept or dreamed or was already breathing his way home to After.

I left and went over to my niece's house and held my great-nephew.

DJ didn't know that something was happening that was hurting so many hearts. He was tired and wanted to cuddle while refusing to actually go to sleep. He just lay in my lap with the back of his head against my chest, reaching back to put on of  his warm toddler-hands to my face while he sucked a bottle of milk. He didn't see the tears I was trying to hold back.

Some friends came by to bring cold drinks and paper plates and stuff for sandwiches and salads. They stayed long enough to let me know they cared.

My sister called and told me that Chubby was gone. She said that he had been given enough medicine so that he wasn't in pain when he left. She didn't cry - not then - because my sister is very, very strong and knew that I couldn't have taken her crying just then.

That was on Monday. I won't ever forget that my brother died on a Monday.

Peace
--Free

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” 
― Anne Lamott


“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” 
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

The Cover of Love

April, May, June and July are tough for our family. Two of my older brothers celebrate birthdays this week. Born a year and a day apart. Chuck and Joe.

My mother passed away in the month of April on Joe's birthday.

My father was born in the month of May and died in the month of July shortly after my June birthday.

Mother's Day this year is on the 13th of May.

It took me until just now to figure out why I have these blues. Happens like this almost every single year.

I really miss my Mom. Being lucky to have super-amazing people in my life, I think about the different ways we (all people, men and women) can be a Mother/Father comfort to one another. Or a "covering." I will explain that later.

Think about it, mothers and fathers just love. That's really the main job. Everything else comes out of that love. They care for, teach, lead, discipline, comfort, protect, push, challenge, inspire, encourage, advise, listen & hear, and just love. As children, we get different measures and degrees of all those things from our parents as we go the the stages of life, but it is never not needed.

Once, when I was around 30 or so, I went through some minor life crisis (can't remember what exactly) and my mother was sitting and holding my head in her lap one day. I was just laying there, watching the news with her, feeling miserable about whatever I was going through. One of our good friends happened to drop by for a visit at the time. She saw me being miserable and my mother being comforting and instantly just "got it." She didn't think was weird in any way that I had gone to my mother right after work to just curl up on the couch and be tended to. (My brothers would have joked about my being a big ole grown baby, but they would just be joking.)

As my mother always told me, I never stopped being "her baby." All of us, even my big 6 foot 1 brothers (okay, and the short one, too!) never stopped being hers. (Understand this, my mother stood about 5 foot 7. My brothers would not only stand still but stoop so that Mom could smack on across the back of their head. I think the last time she probably did it on a regular basis was when they were around 16 or 17. I know because they all laugh and tell those stories now.)

My father was just as bad. He didn't "baby" the boys, but they were still his "kids." My sister & I? Now, we were still "his girls." (Up until 2 months before my father died, he sang to me. "My Girl," "You Are The Sunshine of My Life," and "Sugar Pie, Punkin Pie"... My dad sang his love for me.) I have a picture of Dad and my older sister. She is all married & grown, but you can see that, to him, she is still one of "his girls." (And I will tell you something that means nothing at all to me as far as our family love: my dad was my sister's step-dad. People who knew us for, literally, 40 yrs or more and did not know about that until my silly-assed stepmother mentioned it after my father's death. Witch.)

When both my parents were gone, my sister & I became "mothering" to each other. My brothers became "fathering."

In marriage, my parents believed that your spouse was supposed to be what some Christians call your "covering." In other words, the husband becomes the wife's comfort or her cover: covering her worries, fears, needs and dreams. The wife becomes the same for the husband, but under his submission. (I don't care what your ideas about feminism or power are. This is the way I was raised and I have no problem submitting in love to love. Love, not abuse. Been there, done that.)

Because I am now not "covered" (wasn't ever really covered in the first place by the soon-to-be-ex), I am covered by the men in my family (blood & chosen). I go to them for advice and strength, I go to them the way I would my father. Until I am loved and covered by a man I choose, I have that comfort of the family.

With my mother gone, I not only have my sister, but I have my mother's friends and my own best friends you hear me talk so much about. For some of my friends, I am sometimes "Mom." Me - Ooe of the most childish adults around!

Uh oh. Somehow I forgot where I was going with this post, if I was going anywhere at all. I think I just needed to be writing after I realized where my recent mood was coming from. Now I know.

Peace
--Free