Tough decision to make today.



Asked for a meeting with my supervisor. My co-worker
was not getting her job done, so guess what? She got promoted and I
get her caseload (which will put my case load over 150
in active case management). Not right and not fair.
Not fair to the customers and not fair to me--the competent,
caring, and better employee. But, who said life is fair?
I just know I have to stand up for me. There comes a day
when enough is enough. Today may be that day. And I realize
it's going to be dfficult to make it without my salary and I'll
have to find health insurance, but I've been cornered here
and will not feel helpless to defend myself. May the force
be with me!!!!!

15th day of the 7th month of the longest 3 months of my life


Took my mom, my niece from FL, and my youngest son to see a local
production of The Sound of Music last night. First night Mom has been out
since Dad died. She made it ok, though she looked extremely tired when
it was all over. She was a volunteer at the Fine Arts Center for a number
of years, and then they actually made her their photographer, so she and Dad
were there for all the musicals, art shows, plays, and performances. At some
point it got to be too much for her, so she gave it up and she and Dad stopped
going for the most part--they went to an occasional show, but Dad was slowing down
and it was hard for him to see at night to drive home. It seems to me that I took
them to the last show dad attended, but I can't recall what we went to see. I can
just remember helping dad get to the car. His hip was complete bone-on-bone and it
was terribly difficult for him to walk, so I just hooked arms with him all the way
to the car. It looked more like he was escorting his daughter to the car than being
helped by her. God, why were we out there? Annie maybe? Yes, yes. It was Annie.

I had another melt down the other night--body racked by sobs--could hardly breathe
I was crying so hard. This terrible missing. This thought that I may never see
my dad again. This aching to hear him laugh, to hear him come in my back
door and call out, "Whoa, Sis, are you home?" He'd come with food Mom had cooked
(trying to lighten my load a bit--school, work, a two hour commute to school at night,
taking care of my youngest son--15 now--trying to keep the home fires burning
kind of thing), or he would come here with books and magazines Mom thought I may
want, or he would just stop in to chat when he was on his way home from the store.
Or he would come by after he'd been to the Farmer's Market and bring me fresh corn,
tomatoes, melons, yellow squash, and whatever other fruits and veggies were in season.
Or he would come by to drop off a birthday gift or a wedding gift. Or he would come
by to see how the home renovation was going. Most of the time Mom was with him,
but she preferred to wait in the car. She didn't like for him to drive alone. He was slowing
down and he couldn't hear well and she worried he may run a light or something.

Oh Dad, do you know how much I miss you?

I best stop now before I get all teary and incapable of doing anything. I am going outside
to start putting together my arbor I bought at Lowe's. It's for Dad's garden which I've
started out back. I bought some beautiful clematis to put on either side of it and some of
the most extraordinarily beautiful garden phlox to plant at the entrance to the garden.
The heat index is supposed to be 105 today, so I best get out while it's early and not too
terribly miserable.

Fifth day


The 4th came and went with little fanfare. Worked on a paper
and paid bills in the morning. stopped to see my mom briefly
in the afternoon. Came home and went to bed. Got up, ate,
watched a little tv, thought about all the people out there
celebrating and me at home sad and anything but wanting
to celebrate.

Rainy today. Gloomy, but we need the rain. Herbs are prolific
this year. Japanese beetles are eating all my roses and starting
on the hardy hibiscus.

Lauren called on Monday from Mexico City. She should be in Tampico
by now. No word since Monday.

I want to feel better.

The second day of the seventh month

Dad has been gone for 2 1/2 months.
I can't get to my blog at work any longer (the state
blocked all blogs and poetry forums).

Bloody nose last night. I started crying
and then it started bleeding.

Lauren left for Mexico Friday. She called
last night from Ciudad Victoria--not where
she was hoping to be but the bus they were going
to take to Mexico City will not run until tonight,
so I guess they'll see what they can do in C.V.
(she, Sadie, Ryan, and Santana).

Father-in-law is recovering well from his quadruple
bypass (had it Thursday). Heart attack on Father's Day.

I will finish my first summer class this Wed. The next
one starts on the 11th. One more in the fall and my undergrad
work will be done (only took me 20 years!).

Much more to say but my omelet is ready and the sun
is shining, so I am going to eat and then go lie out in the sun.

Two things I don't want to forget


On the drive home from school the other night--through the river
bottomlands--lots of windy, narrow roads, I topped a hill and saw
2 cars pulled off on the shoulder, so I slowed down, rolled down my window
and asked if their was a problem. The man standing on the shoulder of the road
with one of his two children pointed at the woods and his wife and other child
and said, "Do you see that?" I scanned the wooded area he was pointing to,
but things were hard to see--it was nearing dusk, but then I saw it.

"It" was the tiniest fawn I've ever seen.

It looked like it had just been born--still wobbly on its little legs. The wife (that's
an assumption, I know, but the whole crew had on matching t-shirts that had
some kind of baseball team logo on them, so I am assuming wife) was trying
to coax the fawn to come to her. I asked them if they planned to call a shelter
and he said he wasn't sure what they could do but they were going to do something.
They had been there for some time and there was no mother in sight. I kept
wondering if I should have gone back and put the little thing in my Highlander
and brought it home to care for it, but I knew that wasn't an option.

Next:

Dad was in one of my dreams again last night (actually was dreaming about him when
the alarm went off this morning). He had just been released from the hospital.
He looked tired but younger and better. He seemed a bit jaundiced, but otherwise
he was much better than he was when I last saw him alive. He was missing a few teeth,
his hair was still black, and he was walking with no problems. But what I remember
most was his pink tongue--free of all the dried blood and caked matter that covered
it in the ICU. We would ask them if they could swab it or do something to moisten
his mouth. It just looked so uncomfortable. I know there is a concern that a person
may aspirate and get pneumonia, so you have to be careful, but they did allow us to take
these sponge sticks to swab out his mouth. Sometimes he'd fight us because he didn't
know what we were doing. Other times, he would just lick his lips and then rub them together
and we knew how much better his mouth felt. So, I remember that most vividly from
the dream. I also remember that home was not "home"...it looked like our home in Virginia
Beach, but I know it wasn't there either. He said he felt better but would have to go back
to the doctor for more tests.

It's still so hard to get through each day. Yesterday, on my way to the post office, a Medivac
helicopter flew over and that was all it took for me to choke up and start crying. All I could
think about was the night they flew dad by helicopter to University Hospital Louisville.
Oh, if we could only go back. Just for even a day. I miss my dad so much and would just ask him
things that I never thought to ask him about, and I don't even know if they're all that important,
but I would ask him. I don't know if he ever had a dog when he was growing up, or a cat, or any kind of pet. If he ever told me, I have forgotten.

I want to read Our Town again.

Dreams of Father

I can't remember everything in one of my dreams last night, but I remember my father telling my mother not to jump into the water--to just wait where she was and someone would come to help her. She was on a vessel of some type with other people I knew but can't place today. I was viewing the vessel as if I had x-ray vision and could see through the steel hull of it (side view showing all levels) or as is someone had created a model on the computer and you could view what the levels inside looked like. I remember peering into an opening at the top of this vessel (before my father arrived in the dream to tell my mother not to jump), but I could only see her legs and socks. From the inside view I had of the vessel, I could see that my mother and the others were in some type of sleeping quarters. They were moved in and out of the quarters on racks (reminded me of an oven rack). Even though this was some type of ocean-going vessel, it was on land, but surrounded by water. Something had happened and the bottom half of the vessel had disappeared. My mother wanted out and was going to come up through the hole and jump to the water below (looked about 40 ft or more). Why she couldn't come up through the same hole I was looking through and be ok, I don't know.

And then, there he was--my father. I didn't see his face. I saw his legs. They were wet, as if he had just come out of the sea, and he said in a very calm voice, "Joyce, don't jump into the water. Wait for help." I could see him basically in profile only, and only as if it was a passing glance of someone very far away but very close at the same time. His hair was dark and he was lying on the concrete, propped up on one arm. He told my mother he was ok but his legs hurt.

That's all I remember. I woke up when the alarm went off and for the first morning in some time, I felt I had actually gotten some sleep. I also felt better for the first morning since Dad's death.

Yesterday, I had a meeting in Hopkinsville, so I stopped by the Veteran's Cemetery. I went to Wal Mart first and bought red carnations, a disposable camera (I'm going to have to put my old Minolta back in my car and keep it there like I once did), and a Father's Day card. I thought the cones we put flowers in on Memorial Day would still be there, but they weren't, so I made a little hole in the very wet earth with a pair of scissors I bought at Wal Mart (to trim the carnations), and I stuck them in the holes on either side of Dad's stone. Then I poured some bottled water in the holes. I stuck my card in between the carnations. And I took pictures. Why, I am not sure.

I wanted so badly to just stretch out on top of the grave--to just curl up and nap there, but I didn't have a blanket with me, and the groundskeepers came within 15 minutes of my arrival to dig a new grave, so I didn't stay long. Since Dad was buried on 4/24, 15 more graves are now next to him--some with stones, some with just markers. That whole generation of men and woman are dying in such great numbers daily. I thought about the 15 other families who were mourning the loss of their loved one. I packed up my things, got in the car, and drove home (about 36 miles). I cried all the way.

Started class Monday night. Meets 2 nights a week--5:15-9:15. Makes for a long day after I have worked all day, drive an hour there and an hour home. It's going to be an extremely busy and time-consuming class, but hopefully it will be interesting. I have chosen to design a curriculum to teach an AIDS/HIV Family Support group. The purpose of the group cannot be therapeutic, and the group can't meet in an educational setting (those are the stipulations with Family Life Education Outreach). So, I have much research to do and many things to pull together. On Wed. night, I have a mid-term and after the mid-term, I will have to present a movie clip demonstrating to the class something I would use in my sessions. I am going to look for a scene from Philadelphia.

Sunny and warmer today. Lauren and Ville are here to work on the kitchen this weekend. I am glad they are here. It is so good to have family and friends visiting with me. It so much helps this grieving.

Can you imagine us...


years from today
sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends
Old friends

That was playing in my CD player this morning...made me sad all over.
Again and again, this sadness. Only such a brief few moments
of each day am I not filled with it. I can't bare losing Dad.
I just can't bare to think I'll never see him again, kiss the top
of his sweet head, give him a big hug and feel him hug me back just as tightly.
I'll miss his quiet, soft manner. His amusement at our inanities. His beautiful
eyes (blue and green and grey and little streaks of brown). I'll miss his voice
coming from upstairs as I came in the front door of the house
and called for him "Ho, Sis!"

Oh my dear, sweet , Jesus, this is terrible pain. I can't even bring myself
to look at his pictures. It just makes me feel like I'm choking. I can't sit
in his chair or lie across his bed without feeling like I'm suffocating.

Oh, Dad. Come and make things right again, Ok?