I say I love you a lot…..
One of the nice things about this little writing thing I do, is I get to break all of the rules Sister Teresa taught me… she was a wise woman who had seen it all and taught that way… No boy was too unruly, no girl too clever. I would have loved to have lived in the convent to learn life’s truths from my Sisters of Mercy.
But as always I digress… the summer is OVER, the neighborhood kids are leaving for college and adventures, my beauties start school on Monday… and my security blanket Dr. Harvard and his lovely bride are headed to Spain for a much needed rest (They are two dedicated and successful doctors, parents of a doctor and another recent graduate.)
So I’m a little numb. I hate this feeling of goodbye. I know all of these people in my inner circle will return with stories and great moments, but I’m nervous. Nervous and reminded that the only constant in life is change, we can’t hold it back, it continues with or without us…
I lost my step-father very suddenly on a normal day in October. My freshman year in high school was underway, I was adjusting, but on that day my world stopped and I felt the whole planet stop spinning. My step-dad was amazing, John I called him, I would have called him Dad; but my own Father was alive and God-bless him he was a hot mess. My parents did not afford me the most “normal” of childhoods…they divorced when I was 4 and mom remarried when I was 6. Her second; and by the time I was 8, dad was on his third marriage, my Mother was his 2nd bride. My parents frankly both stunk at marriage, both horrible communicators, I say this with love, although I know it looks like a criticism, it’s not meant to be. No one enters this world or leaves it unscathed, neither of them had the best childhoods and considering where they started, they did remarkably well.
My father, died in December of 1985, six weeks after my step-dad. Coupled with my brother’s near fatal car accident in the summer of ’85 and my mom’s serious hospitalization from pneumonia days after my Dad’s death in December, you can see why I really do get nervous….EVERYONE in my nuclear family had a serious medical issue that year…. It was awful, it was scary and it also has given me my greatest strength, my ability to love…..
I always say I love you on the phone to my girlfriends, my family and my close friends. I never let it go un-said. It is probably why when I’m hurt by someone I consider in my inner circle, I lash out like a child, “I have let “YOU” in and you have disappointed me!”.
It is also the way people get close to me. When you deliver, when you face the lions with me, you are in FOREVER!
I don’t cut many loose, I’m horrible at keeping up, forget everyone’s birthday but my own, and I’m incredibly selfish. But I like to think that I’m that person you call after 20 years and you say you need help, and then I’m all in, like no time has passed….
Certainly things change…, my health and having two small kids have dramatically changed how I can help. But I’m a lover, I want in, I can take the messy, the ugly, the awkward… I don’t like to be on the outside when the people I love need me or I need them.
That’s why I’m unsettled. My dearest family member is going through it right now and she won’t talk to me. It’s not about me, there are lives far more critical that matter, and I get it! She is in Mama Bear mode and I have tried to respect her privacy. I know exactly why, she is who she is, and I love her for it.
We are exactly the same two girls we have been since I can remember. I’m technically 2yrs older, but that’s a lie. She was a grade behind me, but always smarter, sassier, better with the guys, better in school, a much better drinker and she is by far one of the funniest people I know. She is my sister, even though we both have our own. We know the family history, we know all the backstories, and we know all the dirt. But when she works her stuff out, it is always alone, and when I have stuff, she is always in it. She will talk to me when the storm clears which is her right, but I’m selfish, I worry, I need to know she is fine. I’m on the outside, and I miss her. Her laugh, her humor, her anger… but I realize that in the moment of her deepest suffering, she has turned to others.
And I mourn for her, her life, her family, her pain, all of it... I mourn my girl. The ponytails and the first days of school, almost all my memories are with her. And as we begin a new school year, I miss my dearest, I miss my family, the girl who always steadied my ships, she has been there for all my big moments. But I realize I have not been in her most sacred moments. I’m not in her inner circle any longer.
And I’m sad for me, for us, for life moving on.
And that is why I’m sad today. Life is spinning and I can’t slow it down. I’m afraid today, for those I love the most that I can’t protect. I want them safe, happy and healthy, but I can’t control that…, only our faith can.
The Faith that can move mountains, I know this and trust. But that doesn’t mean I’m not unsettled by it, or have to like it…