Missing the Kids: A letter to my Daughter

  I'm really missing your kids right now, kiddo.

Haven't seen or talked to them since Thanksgiving. They didn't even call me or text me to say Happy Birthday. (Christmas was sad, and they hadn't called me then, either, but there's no grudge there. I'm the one who had to cancel at the last minute.)Between the weather, my health, and my car's condition, I just haven't been able to get there. Seems like I'm farther away now than when you were in Georgetown and we were in Winchester.

    There's no "we" anywhere now for me, not in Winchester, not in Bethel, not in our 'hub' of Mt. Orab. Tracy's miles away (good for her; I'm proud), and you and your daddy are gone. 

    I miss you, but this last few months I've finally begun adjusting to that. It's been a long hard pull, almost three years, but maybe I'm finally getting on. I guess I hope so, anyway. 

    It's those strange weeks between my birthday and yours,(also known as February) with Valentine's Day smack in the middle. That's always been a pleasant time for us, although I can't say anything specific that we've regularly done or shared. It's just that somehow, the month of February, at least right now, seems like the time we have usually been closest, as a matter of routine. 

    That probably doesn't make much sense, because it's really hard to explain. Mostly because I don't understand it myself. Maybe because it's one of those delusions that sneak up when one is bereaved. I don't know.

    I miss you, but I know there's nothing to be done about that, except cherish memories and share photographs, I suppose.

    And try to see your kids. I want to hear them and hug them so badly.  Hopefully soon I'll be well enough and it will be warm and dry enough for me to make the drive.

    In the meantime, you know if no one else does how often and how yearningly I think of them. 

And you.   

Be happy, my dear, wherever you are, in whatever form your energy is in.

I love you and miss you still.

No Neighborhood? Not Nowadays.

I have to admit, I'm surprised. Even disappointed. There has been no outreach from my neighborhood after the death of my husband. And we live and have lived in this small rural town (Winchester Ohio in Adams County) for several years.

I'm not complaining, just observing. I have plenty of support and assistance from my personal (not physical) neighborhood. Not complaining, but surprised.
Not complaining, except about one issue.

The local newspapers did not run my husband's obituary. One paper didn't run the obit at all; the other county paper ran an abbreviated version. I don't complain that they didn't make a big deal, or didn't make him the headline, or anything like that. That would be unrealistic, considering that we are not lifetimers in the town (or even the county.)
But we have lived here, quietly enough, for several years. My husband offended no one, was in no trouble these years, was a quiet man living a quiet life.
Wouldn't you think an inoffensive man could, on the occasion of his death, have all his credentials (or relatives) credited to him in the place wherein he lived?
Is that so much to ask?
Is it too much to ask?

Another surprising observation is that I received no communications from any of the local churches. It sure was different a few years ago! The churches then (more than ten, less than fifteen years ago) would send out a condolence card of some sort. Some sent full sized cards; others would send post cards; still others would enclose a small card, along with a comforting tract or two.
Some churches would have visitors who made condolence calls, unsolicited.I have to admit,  I am glad that practice has (apparently) stopped. It's no time for strangers to visit.

I am surprised that there was no outreach from the churches.
One of the churches hosts a bereavement group -- but the only way I know that is because I looked it up online, following advice from a friend. This church is pretty active in the community, so it was no surprise that they have this group. It was a surprise that no one had let me know that it was available.

And there have been no solicitations for memorials and plaques and headstones. No one offering to take the nonexistent insurance money. Did get one card about monuments, but it was from two counties and many miles away; nothing local.

Just surprising.

And, if this is true for someone like us, who have been here, what support is there for relative strangers? How can they cope or find help, or anything? How many in our neighborhoods have died and left behind loved ones truly bereft because there is no help or no heart in our neighborhoods anymore?

Someone should recognize each life in the community, long term or on a short visit. A life lost in a community is a life lost to the community. 

They keep coming, and we can't stop it

The damn tornadoes, that's what I'm talking about. Out in Oklahoma, throughout the whole region, they just keep coming.
And there's not a damned thing anyone can do to stop them, or avoid them, or do anything but stand by helplessly while Mother Nature runs her vacuum.
Afterwards, yes, we CAN, and should, and DO rush in to help. It's what we'd hope for, were we the victims.
And we could indeed be the victims, anywhere, any time, any one of us.

Tornadoes are less a regional phenomenon than some disasters. Hurricanes hit shorelines, floods occur near rivers, mudslides are usually in hill country (slide implying gravity), forest fires happen in forests.
Tornadoes, like earthquakes, can happen anywhere.
Therefore, they can happen to you.

Now, they do have preferred playgrounds, like the Great Plains for tornadoes and the San Andreas in California, but they can happen anywhere.

The one advantage in the Plains is that usually one can see (if one is looking) from miles away and hopefully take shelter before the twister gets to you.

Last night, because of heavy rains, many, many people could not see because of the heavy rains and the preternatural darkness of the storm. Many, many people are today still shaking, still fearful, and still looking for loved ones. I hope that everyone locates one another, and that losses stay low. I wish that no one would die in these horrific storms, but that has already happened, and there's nothing I can do to change it.

I wish I could.

I haven't had a close encounter with a twister, although members of my family have. Heck, I have a brother in Kansas. My sister played tag with one last spring.(She won.)A long time ago, one collapsed my grandfather's barn. Then there was the Thanksgiving tornado, mid 90s. I went outside because it was so hot and humid, and heard the trains about a mile away, cane inside and said, "It's still and sticky, and I heard a train. Think we should hide?"
A tornado took down a garage and damaged some trees approximately a mile away.

I still shake at the memory.
The Menace that roars out of the night.
Out of the nowhere.

I can't help you, Oklahoma. Not in the preventive, sheltering, protecting ways you are so in need of.
I wish I could.
I will do what I can to help afterwards, but it will never be enough. It can never be enough.
And there's always going to be guilt that I can be so grateful it wasn't me or mine, and I feel bad about that, too.

Because I know it could have been.
May someday be.
It's good to know you will understand, if that time ever comes.

But for now, I think we would all like to put this into the past.

We are trying to help do just that.

Sui-sides: My side

When I decide to die, it's not your fault. You are in no way responsible for my decision. It's MY decision.

When I choose to die, it won't be about you. I acknowledge that there will be a feeling that I didn't love you enough to live, and there will be a lot of wondering how could I do that to you. I say again, I can't say  often enough -- it's not about you.

I didn't love you enough?

First off, it is my great, great, overwhelming love for each and every one of you that has kept me going this long. Because I have loved you, I got up from my bed and cooked, and advised,  and even drove all over the countryside  because YOU NEEDED ME.
It is my love for you that keeps me trying.

My love for you has kept me going beyond all reason, beyond all sanity.

Sometimes, in the bad times, I resent that. I don't want held. I want free. Free to live my life  -- or NOT!

How could I do what, exactly, to you? End my life? Lay myself down to  a sleep where I won't have to go to the bathroom, or answer  the telephone, or do any of the many, many things that rob me of my rest, that steal peace from me?
How is that doing something to you? What makes you the star of my death?

I'm tired.
I'm sick.
I'm sick and tired.

I am also in pain. Mental, physical, emotional. Doesn't matter. I hurt.
I hurt, and you can't make that better, although  I know you want to.
I hurt, and healing is too hard. Another chore, another job, another effort.

It's not that you aren't worth  the effort -- you ARE.
It's just too hard, and it hurts too badly.

Finally.
I can't.
I just can't.

Not even you can make it worthwhile.

Give me rest.
Let me rest.

Mamma, May I?

Sunday was mother's day. It was also my grandmother's birthday. Were she still alive, she'd have been celebrating 107 years.
When I was a kid, there always seemed a special magic to the day when Mamma's birthday fell on Mother's Day. I can't explain what made it so special, but I felt it.
I can say this, now, as a mother and grandmother: If any woman, ever, deserved to be born on Mother's Day, it was this woman. She epitomized Motherhood.
We'd have been lost without her, and a lot more neglected and abused than we were.  She fed us, she clothed us, she treated us, and she gave us a quiet place to go. She saw that we were awake and got to school on time. She had and kept a telephone.

I wonder, now, how she felt about the inadequacies of her daughter as a mother.Did she worry? Without a doubt. I don't know what her specific worries were, but she worked awfully hard to prevent our feeling too much of a lack.

Did she feel like she had failed as a mother? I don't know, but I think now she must have, at times. Wonderful woman that she was, I never saw it. But, dealing with my own faulty child(ren), I know she had to have had those moments, hours, and long-dark-night-of-the-soul nights over her faulty daughter.

But, whether in spite of this or because of it, she was there. Remarkably, outstandingly, always there. Even when she began losing her mind, even when she wasn't sure who she was with, she was there for us. It was startling to be informed that RuthE was going somewhere or doing something for her, when I was right in front of her, but -- BUT -- it meant I was in her heart and in her mixed-up memories.

That's love.

That's Motherhood.

Happy Mother's birthday, Mamma. We all still miss you and want you around, somewhere.

Some of us know that you are.

Lawns are Overrated

This summer may be as memorable for its Lawn Mowing Crises as it will be for its No Bathing scenario.

When last we mowed, the riding mower  wasn't starting, so not running, and our quasi son-in-law had been mowing when the push mower decided to oil both him and the yard, as if from a cut artery. Rex went to a yard sale and bought another push mower. The Doofus mowed, but before he finished, he managed to break a ceramic guard off the newly purchased mower.

Rex managed to start and run the rider a few times, through the magic of jiggling and wiggling the fuse box, so the yard was done after a fashion. Not that he has had any business outside in heat and humidity, throwing up clouds of cut grass and pollens.
Earlier this week he was mowing on the rider when it quit cutting. It was running, but it just quit cutting the grass.
His diagnosis: a bearing on the deck went out. (Later he said it might be a broken or stretched-out belt, but of course the first thing he thought of was the most difficult and probably the most expensive cause.) We're waiting for Doofus to come and help him check it out, since it isn't something Rex can do alone or with my feeble assistance.

Yesterday I got out the push mower. I couldn't start it. Starting a push mower requires more co-ordination than I have ever had, and a fair bit of strength. I had hoped to have some mowing done by the time Rex woke, but that wasn't going to happen.

The sad thing is, he no longer has the strength to push/pull/hold and start the mower. At least, he didn't yesterday. It may have been a bad day for him. More likely it is his chronic illness catching up with him.
He's not ready to concede that, and it will take something from his spirit when he does.

What's so important about mowing anyway? Have you ever tried letting your lawn grow and seeing what Mother Nature will provide when you don't scalp her abundance to nothing?

There are shy little white flowers, with sprinklings of gold fairy dust that will creep out from the exposed roots of trees. There are exquisitely tiny johnny-jump-ups that jump up from nowhere. There are, of course, the golden sun discs of the dandelion. The white-to-pink-to-purple fronds of clover. There is the weaving waving sinuous grass-in-the-wind. And that's just the plant life!

Lawn mowing is overrated. It's too bad that so many towns require a certain amount of lawn mowing, because Nature provides a nice variety of textures and colors and scents and sounds and general liveliness that will never be felt, seen, smelled, or heard in a properly manicured and subdued lawn.

I cherish the variety Nature provides. I also cherish my husband, and I mourn with him that he cannot do this one thing that he has taken pride in being able to do -- keep his yard looking nice. If we cannot fix or replace his rider, or get a push mower that doesn't need starting (my first brother suggested an electric mower -- a wonderful idea for the purpose), then we will have to look into a different living arrangement.

Different indeed, with no lawn for him to mow or me to watch nature grow. It will be sad to leave the roots and wonders, but a joy to leave the(before, during, later on) malfunctioning machinery behind and have it out of our lives.


When that day ever comes. It's taking its time, as Nature takes hers, and fills my yard with flowers.

Environmental Assessment: Asian Longhorn Beetle: Bethel Ohio

To anyone interested in this fight -- yes, that should be you, if  it isn't -- the Environmental assessment has been prepared, and the officals want to hear from you. They are seeking opinions from the public. Please read the report thoroughly -- it will take a while and multiple readings -- before deciding your stand. But please, do take a stand. Do make your voice heard. The report can be read here: http://www.bethelalb.com/ALB-OH-ClermontCounty-2012-EA.pdf

Now, they are not promising that they will act on what people tell them. They are a government organization which means essentially that they will infer everything and promise nothing. But they are asking for opinions. Let's give them that much.

This is important to everyone, although it is most important to the people of Bethel. It is their trees that are being eradicated. (Not the beetle.) It is their properties being destroyed, it is their countryside being laid bare for flooding and wind erosion. It is their small hometown being turned into a hot spot.

The numbers are hard to comprehend, but there are people gifted with the ability to put the concepts into words. Bill Skvarla, beetle activist, offers this example:  If the street tree in front of the Midway Theatre is the only tree in Bethel that has a beetle, every single healthy uninfested host tree in the entire Village will be destroyed according to USDA's EA-Alternative B.

Imagine that.
Imagine if your home town had to be denuded of all its tall shady trees because a tree in the town part of town had a problem. Would you like that? Would it seem reasonable to you to lose all the shade on your house because someone a half mile away had bug holes (and maybe-probably bugs) in one of their trees?

This is a problem for everyone, not just Bethel. If the government can do this to us, they can do it to others. Maybe the excuse won't be the Japanese long-haired beatles. Or green borers. But There will be something,
I promise you.

And you will have to suffer it, because allowing this without a fight sets a precedent. A precedent of government takeover of your private property. A government takeover of your community's landscape. A government takeover of your right to stand up and say "No!" to the chainsaws and bulldozers.

Read.
Research.
And speak out and speak up.



http://bugs.clermontcountyohio.gov/ALB.aspx;
http://www.agri.ohio.gov/TopNews/asianbeetle/;
http://clermont.osu.edu/news/asian-longhorned-beetle-found-in-ohio-osuextension-offers-information-hotline; the APHIS ALB plant pest page
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/asian_lhb/index.s
html.

Another Good-Bye

Dick Clark died today.
Davy Jones died a few weeks ago.
Mike Wallace.
Whitney Houston.
Thomas Kinkade.
Before that, someone else.

Of course, people die every day, just as people are born every day. Deaths of celebrities really have small meaning in the real lives of real people, except that they give us pause. A pause to remember a time in our lives when they were that important, perhaps, or just a pause to acknowledge that, hey, they did something with their lives. They made multiple lives better, somehow.

Of course their contributions are no greater than the lives of a grandfather succumbing to age -- Alzheimer has already stolen his mind and heart. The loss of a celebrity has less meaning than the loss of a young bald woman leaving behind children and one more clue in the fight against cancer. No celebrity death touches that of a  death in utero.

2012 has already had more than its share of celebrity deaths, or so it seems.

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world, according to ancient Mayans. They even predicted an exact date, in spite of our completely incompatible calendars and the many changes we've made to ours over the years.

There's a theory that the end of the world could be the end of the world as we know it.

As our artists and entertainers and informers die off, one by one, we know there may be something to that. The leaders of one of the greatest eras of entertainment are dying off, and We Who Made Them Great must mourn, and know that it will be our turn, one turn sooner than we'd thought.