It is May first and it has been a very long time since I have made a visit here to this blog. In these times there are just too many emails and passwords and losing things in this big information universe but today I found it, not sure how or why but there must be a reason.
Last month it was 15 years. I can't wrap my mind around it, the time has flown by but at the same time I feel like it has been a million years. Some memories are blurry or have been packed away in files in my mind, there for safekeeping but to painful to replay. When I do I feel like I will break into too many pieces and I will be lost forever.
I miss you, its been about 788400 minutes since I last got to see you and hold your hand, lay next to you and listen to you breath. I still count.
When you left and it hurt too much, more than I thought I could bear someone said, "it will be a blink of an eye..." I think a few people said that. It seems an odd thing to say and it didn't comfort me as much as I wished it could have, when you are grieving no words do, and if they come close they fade away.
Those words are proving to be true, time has never gone by so fast, days feel like minutes, a year like weeks, and 15 of those years, I can't even explain where they have gone.
Your brother is 22 now. He has a job mostly to get him out of the house and with people again. We have been in a pandemic for two years, some of that time locked down, it was surreal Stevie. I may have done better with it just because I am use to being isolated but it took a terrible toll on your brothers, this family, and we were the lucky ones.
Your sister quit her job for couple months to come home, so we could all be together. We shopped carefully, cooked, tried to make the best of it, tried to let it unite us, make it a time to learn and do things that we just never thought to do before.
I took the baby out of school, homeschooled him, what a disaster, I thought it would be for a couple months maximum but it just kept going and going and I never got better at it and he never took to online school. He just went back last week, he has been out since March of 2020. He is now home after five days because he got sick at school, we are waiting for his covid test to come back so he can return. It is the last month of school, second and third grade just didn't happen for him, he is going to have to catch up.
Kids are terrible, they have been sitting in front of screens for a couple years and a lot of them are having a hard time being in class.
I don't know when this thing is going to end.
I had to stop working so I could homeschool. That was awful, it was something I loved so much and was doing well at. I had a following, collectors, and I was making money of my own, it felt so good. Sacrifices had to be made and that was one of them. It has left me pretty depressed a lot of the time.
While all that was going on there were the biggest wild fires all over but especially here in California, I have never experienced anything like it. We woke up one morning and the sky was deep orange and grey, the sun couldn't penetrate the smoke and debris. It was apocalyptic, frightening. It stayed like that too long, the air thick with smoke, ash on our cars, we had to wear dust masks to breath on some days.
Oh, there is more...drought. Mt. Shasta doesn't have all the snow it usually does, the lake is half empty, some lakes are dry, lawns are brown in many cities, there were brown here for a while, my guess is they will be again. Little rain and rising temps (climate change) some wells have run dry, the reservoirs are not where they need to be.
There was food hoarding, empty shelves, fear, politics...
It might have been for the best I couldn't get into this blog. It has not been a good five or six years for the world.
Now there is a war Russia trying to take Ukraine, they thought they could go in and snatch it up, blow up a few things, scare people and take what they wanted. Never underestimate humans and a good leader. The world is showing up, the US is pouring money into the fight. Who knows what will happen, this could go on a very long time or if Putin can't handle the loss it might be the last war ever...
The immediate worries are this war and what that may mean if it goes terribly wrong, China continuing its shut down because of Covid, this means supply chain issues, food prices getting higher, gas almost 6 dollars a gallon, the pandemic lingering and primaries coming up, the fear that the new Republican Party is going to find a way to keep people from voting fairly and if they lose again finding a loophole to force their way back into the presidency with a religious far right agenda. We are also heading into an inflationary period.
It all sounds like a nightmare, one bad thing after another, and it has been quite scary.
Good things...There were some good things.
I have a really awesome garden, learning to grow food. We don't eat out much or at all so we have saved that money. The extra money I made helped pay down our debt. The boys and I had a couple nice trips. I started running, never thought I could (long story for another post).
I appreciate things I didn't before. I value friends and family more than ever. I have been trying to take better care of my heart and mind.
Oh and I bought myself a crazy little vintage camper at the beginning of the shut down. I felt like I needed to. It was a good deal, it needed TLC but it is a solid little lady. I spent a month fixing it up, I. kept the 1970's vibe, fresh coats of paint, personalized it, scrubbed and cleaned it, put in a new floor and I love it. It is a spare room, a hide out, a play house, a get away if we ever need. It does all the things it is suppose to and I love it.
Your sister has found a nice apartment, had a bad break up, finished community college and applied to a four year to finish a degree in animation. She is working hard. I am proud of her, you would be too.
There is so much to tell you. Sometimes when I run I talk to you. I put in an earbud and pretend I am on a call, in a way I am. I cry a lot when do. I feel like I need to apologize for being such a shit mom, selfish sometimes, hard on you sometimes, I let you down too many times. I think if I would have done one thing different you would still be here. I should have chosen a different doctor and said no to radiation. That was in my power and I failed and I can't take it back.
You should still be here.
If I live to the average life expectancy of a female on this planet I have about twenty years left to live, assuming I don't get cancer, I am not in a plane or car crash or I don't get a bad case of COVID. That isn't much time left. E will only be 29, I may not see my grandchildren or watch my kids get married. I can't think about that, I shouldn't but I do, about 3am I wake up sweaty and afraid that there is nothing after this, just nothing and there will be no you waiting for me at the end of some beautiful tunnel. There will be no heaven, no homecoming, just nothing, and nothing.
All this love I have for my kids, all our memories, even the sad ones all gone, meaning nothing.
Fuck that is brutal and too hard to feel, it is torture.
I try to focus on how big the tomatoes will be this summer, swimming, taking E to soccer, Aly graduating, your brother putting his new album out there in the world and it making magic happen. I focus on losing this damn 27 pounds, running a 5k, traveling to someplace beautiful with your sister and brothers and find you there on a warm breeze.
All this time and I still wish for you to wake me up and sit with me, tell me all about your heaven, tell me it will be ok.
I miss you so very much, I miss everything you were, the you I never got to know, the you that I can't reach where ever you are.
I only hope you can feel all the love I carry inside of me for you. I don't forget, I keep you wrapped around me like a soft sweater. You are in my heart, I have all the memories inside me. Don't be too far away.
I love you,
mom
