This is NOT sleep ....

What is it about my psyche that wants me to wake up spitting mad? Really?

Years ago, I spent countless nights chasing up and down strange houses with bizarre floor plans looking desperately for my crying children. I could hear them, I would yell “Mommy’s coming!” but I could NEVER find them - not once.

When I woke from these dreams – ALWAYS was SO RELIEVED because of the level of desperation and the frantic feeling were very real. Apparently so was the running, because I never awoke refreshed – I was always exhausted and drained. I would then, breathe a sigh of relief and drop back into the same troubled sleep.

Thing is?

The floor plan? That I was getting a hang of, and where I had cleared say floor one through three and only had the fourth floor and the spooky attic to go – WOULD TOTALLY CHANGE to an entirely different floor plan. But my children were still crying for me and I was still going to find them … but – not before shaking my fists in the air and screaming “It’s not fair! You CANNOT change the floor plan!” apparently at the “Sleep gods” and apparently I knew I was dreaming or at least remember the previous dream so that the sense of injustice made me mad enough to scream at my “Sleep gods”.

It always seemed as if I searched for hours and hours and I would roll over after awaking yet again – shaking and exhausted and only twenty minutes had elapsed.

Sometimes this went on all night.

UNTIL …

I wised up and decided that NO SLEEP was TOTALLY better than this, and I would get up and stay up the rest of the night. WAY LESS EXHAUSTING.

Who said sleep was supposed to be restful?

They never had the dreams I have!

Apparently, I have grown out of the ‘Searching-For-My-Crying-Child’ dreams – or at least I cannot remember the last time I had one – but now that I mention it, I will be totally prepared for that evil mansion and a crying young’un tonight …

NOW – my psyche apparently misses tormenting me so it has come up with a NEW “Lets-Keep-Lori-Running-All-Night-Just-For-Fun” dream. It’s called:

“Going to the mall with my extended family – and Gary … who does not want to go ….”

Oh, yeah. Fun times.

The first thing I remember is that when we arrived home – to a home I TOTALLY did not recognize, there was a RV in the driveway full of strangers – complete with two very ratty, tatty children. They hung around the rest of the dream – so I brought it up.

Went into the ratty, tatty house that apparently was … someone’s. I don’t feel as if it were mine – maybe we were just visiting – maybe another planet since nothing looked familiar. Someone made the monumentally stupid suggestion that we go eat dinner at the mall.

My sister had come in wearing the softest sweater and told me she would show me where she got it. Problem was, my other sister or someone was also speaking to me at the same time and I didn’t really hear everything she said since neither stopped speaking since the other was. I felt it would be rude to interrupt the one who continued to speak to tell my oldest sister that I would love to get a sweater like the one she had – but somehow indicated this to her. Apparently, as I think back on it – since we never really got round to that – maybe she didn’t get my hand signals at all …

Eeeek! Went to a Chinese type restaurant but they were out of most everything and I won’t bore you with all the trouble that abounded while in there.

But really, now … what is it about my subconscious that insists that I wander aimlessly, worried about something for hours on end all night? What does this say about me?

After the restaurant, I was leaving, oddly with a high school friend who had taken me out for ice cream on my birthday (in a previous dream episode – not in real life). She looked just as she did in High School, but I was the age I am now I believe. She is active on my Facebook – thus incorporated into my dream. Another lady that is active on my Facebook from my old ward down here where we lived before we moved to Norway was apparently the executive from the ice cream place and had told Allison, my friend, that if I took her out for ice cream on her birthday – she would get film and it would be a sweet news item.

I don’t like my photo taken – let me tell you – being ‘Film at Eleven’ was 100 times worse and I told Allison that this just clinched the fact that I would NEVER take her for ice cream on her birthday – sorry.

As I had turned my head and said this to her as we were leaving the Chinese restaurant (apparently my family had already abandoned me) – two other girls from High School – one that I was close to but have not really ‘spoken to’ and one that I barely knew (how your brain picks and chooses fascinates me … the thing is – I never know the answer – but still fascinating none the less …) walked by.

The one I barely knew saw me and started laughing and apologized to me.

I was confused.

She explained as she was walking past that they had ‘pranked’ me and had hidden film of me at the ice cream store – which I don’t remember doing anything embarrassing or anything, but she also mentioned they had footage of me asleep on the couch in the ratty, tatty house and them sitting on me? That seemed a titch more embarrassing, but I realized that I really couldn’t do much about it. I was at the emotional maturity I am now, not while in High School and while they might post it on You Tube – it was not the end of the world and decided that I would worry about it later.

Why?

Because I had somehow misplaced my family and I knew that Gary had not wanted to come – don’t remember him in the funky grey van that I rode to the mall in, and that he was antsy to go back … home or at least to the ratty, tatty house.

So I started looking.

I wandered and wandered.

At one point (and I only share since I want to know what the hell my psyche was thinking) I was in a ‘Ladies Room’ and as I walked in, realized that there were no stalls – just lovely toilets and bidets inserted in cushioned couch like things. I decided that ‘communal peeing and bideting’ was not my style so I left. Won’t share the conversation a mother and her tween daughter were having about the bidets – but again – psyche? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

I found my family in a store watching a movie. I was THRILLED. I had not accomplished anything but look for them so my ‘mall experience’ was rather lacking. The movie had just ended and so I was asking if we were leaving – but they told me that it was the first of three movies and so I left again – Gary seemed happy to watch the movie. Strangely enough – he had been shopping and had changed into his new duds. He had on the ugliest argyle sweater I have ever seen, some ugly mustard cord pants and some weird boots on, but hey, he was a happy guy so I let it go.

Saw a door marked “Women’s” and went through – it was just a hallway to another part of the mall. I did a bit of window shopping and was not really enjoying myself until, as I was standing in a large hallway wondering what to do next, a family walked by. Someone shouted and started speaking to them and I heard the father say it was their youngest first birthday.

At this point I realize that they are dressed in the most beautiful costumes. The one year old was a little prince – which his king of a father was carrying. Mother was queen and the two walking children were dressed as playing cards – I don’t remember what card. I wanted a photo and my camera was with my family – I needed to quickly go fetch it.

I turned to two people standing next to me handing out stuff and realized they were in costume also – as gold statues wearing white togas (psyche?) and I asked if they would be there for a bit (maybe if I couldn’t get the walking family I felt to recoup my losses I could take photos of them?) One nodded his head and off I went to where the movies where showing (in an electronics store, of course). I got there and everyone was gone.

I wandered for a bit – a little frantic that they were probably wanting to leave and couldn’t find me. I seemed to wander for hours in this hideous mall until my sister shows up and tells me to come on. I followed her to an escalator and told her that we had gone neither up nor down during the entire time we had been in the mall – so what were we doing? She muttered something about the mall being on a slope and we needed to go up.

I stepped on the escalator, but she was already to the top. As I reached the top, I realized that she had continued on to parts unknown and I was standing in a mix of that photo of the stairs that go to nowhere and the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. In the (massively ugly) airport – there was an area (it was being remodeled when I was there so maybe it looks better now) that was just a TON of escalators that seemed to be going off in different directions and very confusing.

Here - a photo I found of the escalators in the airport:

I had no idea where I was supposed to go and here the frantic wandering intensified.

I did it for hours and hours. I was annoyed, they were probably annoyed. I was SO READY when I found someone to shake some sense in them and give them a piece of my mind about how to help someone find the ugly grey van …


… when I woke up – totally mad at my sibs and mad as hell. And tired and frustrated.



Guys … this is not rest …





Why does my psyche do this to me?


What in my mind decides that even though I got only two hours of sleep the night before that THIS night I was going to wander a mall – a place that I shun at every opportunity?

I won’t even go into the discussion I had with an ex-boyfriend out in the parking lot when I THOUGHT I was close to the van. It was rather weird and again? Psyche? What drugs are you on?

All in all – I’m exhausted, tired but oh, so very happy to be awake!

Eeeeeet's Alive!!!

I don't have a particularly bad attitude when it comes to reptiles. I like snakes, frogs, lizards - I don't know why - go figure ...

The only time I TOTALLY freaked out about an amphibian was a few years ago. I had put Charlie out with the patio light on - which tends to attract froggies to eat the bugs that are suicidally drawn to the light.

I made the MONUMENTAL MISTAKE of turning off the light before opening the door (thinking – oh, so cleverly that I would avoid buggies flying into my house) and letting Charlie back in.

Slammed the door …

and – boing!

It sort of bounced back. Our front doors flashing (I think that is what it is called) has a piece that sticks out and sort of hampers the door shutting – so I thought that was what it was.

Slammed it again – HARDER. Then a few more times for good measure … and because I AM STUPID.

BOING!

So, I decide it was time to put some oomph behind it and shoved … HARD. And, oddly, it sort of gave, but then bounced back?

Hmmmm?

So, I my INFINITE WISDOM I decided to OPEN THE DOOR and see if there was a problem.

Oh yeah …

There was a GIANT bullfrog groaning in the door. I had slammed the door on him at least four times, them pressed it on him as hard as I could.

He looked up at me with this WTF? sort of look and I screamed (totally like a girl) for Ryan.

I can still feel the 'goosh' as I shoved the door trying to shut it and cannot get the picture of a poor bullfrog with bulging eyes out of my head when I do.

GOOSHY.

I told him I could not get rid of a frog that I had halfway smooshed. So he got a broom and schooched it out the door and shut it.

My hero.

He went back a while later at my behest to see if it was still there – in the hopes that he had TOTALLY recovered his beat down and hopped off to happier, safer climes. He came back in and said that he was still there, alive and sort of hopping in circles because half of his body didn’t work.

I felt SO BAD! By morning he was gone – hopefully a cat had finished him off – we were too big of ninnies to put the poor thing out of his misery. And this coming from a girl who – without a conscious thought at all – pithed a frog and opened it up to watch its beating heart, then somehow killed it (I cannot remember if in this biology course we were left up to our own devices for this part) then dissected it – let me tell you – that was WAAAAY more fun than dissecting that cadaver (eeek! The smell, and the old, wrinkly HUMAN skin ….) but I digress …

I was on the computer this morning - a HUGE upgrade from lying in bed cocooned in blankets too ill to even read a book. After I finished something, I told myself that I needed to go clean up the kitchen.

It was fairly clean. Gary had a group of people over for a planning breakfast Saturday and is pretty good about cleaning up after himself, but he does not posses the gene to WIPE THE COUNTERS AND WASH DOWN THE SINK. I am unsure if any man possesses this gene, actually.

Loaded a few dishes into the dishwasher and as I lifted the last plate out of the sink - there was the CUTEST GECKO EVER!!!

They get into our house ALL THE TIME and I yell and yell at them that it is a death sentence. I yell the next thing I will be doing is dropping their jerkified body in the garbage can - but do they listen to me?

No.

But this guy - happy as a clam snacking on a bitlet of pancake, taking dainty sips of water that had collected in a pecan - of which he might have been snacking on also seemed pretty content to stay and just ... well veg and eat. He had moved a bit - so I was THRILLED that I could rescue a gecko before it succumbed to all the dust bunnies on the floor.

He was NOT HAPPY about the capture, though. Maybe if I had thrown in a piece of pancake?

I let him go outside and went in to finish the kitchen.

And just in case you think I'm lying about cleaning out the sink - not sure why you would think that, but it's so BRIGHT AND SHINY now!

All clean and amphibian free!

I have lived here six years and this might be the first gecko I have saved from a gruesome death in my home - I am so proud.

Frogs - now I like frogs better than geckos - and the geckos bug me when they break off their tails and run like the wind - leaving their tails all a wiggling to detract me from the gecko part that is trying to escape - I find it rather creepy.

So I have rescued a lot of frogs - the big ones - mainly because I really don't want to see what they would look like dead. I find itty bitty ones dead, all the time - covered in dust bunnies which I am assuming suffocated them.

I saved a frog just last week - and he clearly was happily content to try to live out his wee froggy life in my 'garden' in the great room.

Thing is? It is damn hard to catch a frog when it does not want to be caught - but I have become rather good at it - just call me crafty ...

The other thing? After you pick them up? THEY PEE IN YOUR HAND. THIS is what you get for saving a frogs life - froggy pee all over your hand.

You've been warned ....

Kids ... Don't Do This At Home ...

Went to my monthly doctors appointment last Thursday. Told myself that I WAS NOT going to take any photos while driving. It is dangerous and stupid. After my 'big swerve' (which I was not taking photos at the time) I vowed I need to stay more focused on the road, including the crazy drivers surrounding me.

Got in my lovable Tahoe, backed him out of the garage, and as I was exiting our 'hood', I saw this ... and maybe swore a wee little bit:

I TRIED to ignore it! I really, really tried, but somehow my purse was getting itself all unzipped, the camera found its way to my hands - having it's own zipper mysteriously being undone.

And, all of a sudden ... I was pointing my baby 'point and shoot' at the beautiful mist and colorful sky ...

I decided that it was worth it ...

I LOVED the mist - Gary has mentioned it and has suggested that I go up to Brazos Bend State Park (I think it is a state park ...) and get some photos of the deer and other critters up there. I tell myself I will, but somehow I have avoided it all summer - basically I had not even seen this mist until Thursday.

I was actually pretty restrained on the photo taking this time ... but still got some pretty photos - a compromise!

And on to the Westpark Tollway!

Up, up, up and over Hwy 59 ...

And if I had tilted down that yellow sign with the arrow pointing left, it would be pointing at the clump that is 'downtown Houston' hiding behind some ugly apartment buildings!

And would you look at the Transico Tower building (sorry, I don't know its new name ...) lined up between those two poles! I did that on purpose ... *nods sagely*

And here is a non-hidden shot of the clump that is 'downtown Houston'! Also - looking like Hwy 59 ends up right in its front porch - the towers of the medical center clear over on the right hand side of the photo. The medical centers skyline has changed drastically over the years. My old 'home away from home' ...


... don't miss it at all!

Down onto 59, then right back off again ...


almost there ...

Ahhhh, my FISHIES!!! I am a wee bit early so I took photos of my fishie buddies!

No safety issues here ...

I turned off the camera flash - not only are they the most skittish bunch of scardy fishies I've come across, I didn't want a pile of those lovely photos of glass reflecting the idiot that did not turn off the flash and nothing else ...

Turning off the flash slowed down the shutter speed, which gave the fish a pretty severe case of the 'fuzzies' but I also had some funky ones like this one - when I look at this shot, I can feel the movement ...

A packed bunch ... and I just realized - they are COLOR COORDINATED! They were either Royal Blue, Bright Yellow or Silver/Grey! I had never really thought about it, but now when I look at the photos - they do look lovely!

I, personally, think that who ever came up with this idea should seek therapy - but still: SO COOL!

My fave is a MIS-MATCH!!! Just look at those lips!

ADORABLE, no?

Had a few more photo opportunities that day, but they will have to come on another day.

The Petals and my Mother ....

I have been thinking about my mother today.

Mainly one specific event, I don’t know why it has lodged itself in my brain today. It is a weird one, but I cannot really help that now, can I?

I love the marker that I had made for Rachael, I thought that it would be perfect. It is, except for one tiny little thing – people either love it, or they hate it – basically – there is no in between.

Since the episode that I am going to relate, I am always nervous whenever I head to her burial site. Her marker is directly behind a very large bush with a very large “Baby Land” granite marker in the middle of the u-shaped bushes, so I cannot see her marker until I round the bushes and I am almost on top of it.

In general, when I get there to clean it up, to remove the weeds, the overgrown grass, the lime deposits on the marker, I discover that my anonymous angel has already taken care of it. I don’t know who does it, but they do. I always find gifts on it. Small happy meal toys, candles, flowers. For some reason they make me feel odd, so I pick them all up and wander Baby Land and place the items on markers that have nothing adorning them.

These are the people who have ‘taken to’ my Rachael’s marker. This is not always the case.

The incident I was thinking about today was probably the first year after – so Valentine’s Day of 1998. I went up to clean up the marker, sit a spell and well, I don’t really know – I was new at this ‘cemetery’ thing.

As I rounded the corner I realized that something was not computing. Where Rachael’s marker should have been there was a three feet by four feet rectangular pile of shredded, ripped up roses – about two and a half feet high. I am talking a TON of roses, mainly petals, very few stems.

I immediately dropped to my knees and started digging. It is probably the most surreal experience that I have ever had. Digging through piles and piles of shredded rose petals to see if my baby’s marker was still there.

It was.

I looked up and noticed a man in a beige trench coat sitting on a bench rather near me and was watching me. I got up and started to head toward him, to ask him if he had seen anything – but he got up and ran off.

I went back to the petals and was in such a state I was totally in shock. I called my mother. She said hello and I started to sob. All I could do was scream over and over “There are so many petals, I don’t know what to do with the petals.”

Of course this makes ABSOLUTELY no sense whatsoever, but that did not deter my mom. In her calm quiet voice, every time I shouted “There are so many petals, I don’t know what to do with the petals.” she calmly said one word: “Lori”.

After I don’t know how many permutations of this we went through, her calm, quiet, gentle voice permeated my hysteria and I started to explain what had happened.

She then quietly, calmly and gently kept saying “Breathe” and I would take a breath. “Breathe” and I would take a breath. This went on for a bit and she asked me if I was OK? I told her yes, it had been such a shock and I didn’t know what to do.

She told me to go look through the cemetery and see if there was a recent burial with the same color roses, then go and report it at the office. It gave me something to do.

She asked me if I was going to be OK? I told her yes and promised to call her back.

I was now calm and had a purpose. I had needed my mother, she knew exactly what to say.

I did as she told me and when not finding any matching recent burials, went to the office where they looked at me a bit askance and said somebody was just pranking me. I told them it was disturbing – not prankish and insisted they come and see.

They did and were rather disturbed by the site also. They estimated the cost of the roses in the high hundreds and had never seen anything like it. They took photos and started a case on it. They told me the man I saw probably was the ‘culprit’ and was getting his jollies watching a bereaved mother freak out over her babies marker. They also said he was smart – if he had damaged the marker itself, it was a punishable offense – but just piling a truckload of shredded petals on top of it – obliterating it – was not. It was just – and they agreed – rather creepy. Especially since they were not just petals – they were shredded and you could just feel the rage that had gone into doing this.

I thanked them for coming out and starting a file and they left. Then I sat down in the middle of the petals and gently made sure that none were touching my babies marker. As I sat there I vowed that I would never, ever ‘put on a show’ for someone to get their jollies off a bereaved mother – thus the ‘steeling’ myself as I round the corner – because no matter what I find on her marker – I NEVER, EVER react – even if I can see no one in sight.

I called my mother back. Gave her an update and spoke with her as I, armful at a time, gathered up the shredded petals and carried them to a trash can … until not a single speck was left.

I sat back down – told Rachael I was sorry, that I loved her and goodbye. Got up and went home.

I literally don’t know what I would have done if my mother had not answered the phone.


This was not the first time she has calmly ‘talked me down’, nor the last. I might have been the most hysterical, but of course, after the tornado hit our house and I had called Gary and he was on his way home – I called my mother to calm me down.

After being diagnosed with PTSD I suffered severe panic attacks and every time I would call my mother and listen to her calm, quiet, gentle voice until everything was OK again. I am sure none of this was fun for her – but she did it and she was GREAT at it.

She always knew what to say. She knew when to coach me through breathing so that I would not pass out from hyperventilating, she knew when to make me talk something out until I understood the source of my panic, she always knew the exact thing I needed.

Not only was my mom my ‘phone buddy’ – she took on some very, very heavy burdens for me when I just could not do it myself. I will forever be grateful to her for all of the absolutely horribly awful things she did for me, so that I would not have to. A lot of these had to do with Rachael and I was not functioning at 100%. I did hold her – but as my mother held her, I can still hear her quiet whispers to her. It was a healing balm for my soul – and something my soul desperately needed.

She had words when I did not. She had her arms ready when I could not. She made sure everything was perfect in the coffin when I could not. As I said – she did all the heavy lifting.

A mother’s love of a daughter is a profound thing. As is a daughters love of a mother. I cannot imagine life without her, or without my ‘go to guy’ being at the ready when I am hysterical and call. But, even when that is no longer possible – I can REMEMBER. I remember her voice – I can still hear her say to me “Lori”, “Breathe”, “Calm Down”, “Everything will be OK” and she has said all this and more to me today, in my mind – over and over and over.


I will ALWAYS have that.




And I am forever, eternally grateful. I love her more than life itself. She is truly a beautiful angel walking this earth.

Mysteries of Mortality ... Part 2: The Piano

I guess that I am on a theme here ...


Grief.


I mentioned in my previous post that I had a friend who desperately wanted me to help answer the question of 'how do you go on living' after losing a child. And I could not answer her question.

I was thinking about this as I walked from one room to another in my quiet house today and it hit me: I KNOW THE ANSWER!!!

I did not come up with it, nor am I any part of it. I found it linked to a blog that I was sneaking on. My nieces husbands brother and his wife (got that?) lost their little 18 month old daughter in a drowning and they have a blog about it. I do not know them, but my niece had a link to their website and I was going through it. I remembered when it happened and all of my nieces from their area knew them were devastated. In the section where they kept a daily update of how there daughter was doing, her death and the aftermath, she links to this post. I clicked on it one night and decided that it was the most wonderful explanation of how parents who have lost a child deal with their grief.

I am going to just copy it verbatim - it follows:

STEVEN KALAS:

When you lose a child, grieving is a lifelong experience


When our first child is born, a loud voice says, "Runners, take your marks!" We hear the starting gun and the race begins. It's a race we must win at all cost. We have to win. The competition is called "I'll race you to the grave." I'm currently racing three sons. I really want to win.

Not everyone wins.

I'm here at the national meeting of Compassionate Friends, an organization offering support and resources for parents who lose the race. I'm wandering the halls during the "break-out" sessions. In this room are parents whose children died in car accidents. Over there is a room full of parents of murdered children. Parents of cancer victims are at the end of the hall. Miscarriages and stillbirths are grouped together, as are parents who have survived a child's suicide. And so it goes.

In a few minutes, I'm going to address Compassionate Friends. This is the toughest audience of my life. I mix with the gathering crowd, and a woman from Delaware glances at my name tag. Her name tag has a photo of her deceased son. My name tag is absent photos.

"So ... you haven't ... lost anyone," she says cautiously.

"My three sons are yet alive, if that's what you're asking me," I say gently.

She tries to nod politely, but I can see that I've lost credibility in her eyes. She's wondering who invited this speaker, and what on earth he could ever have to say to her.

My address is titled "The Myth of Getting Over It." It's my attempt to answer the driving questions of grieving parents: When will I get over this? How do I get over this?

You don't get over it. Getting over it is an inappropriate goal. An unreasonable hope. The loss of a child changes you. It changes your marriage. It changes the way birds sing. It changes the way the sun rises and sets. You are forever different.

You don't want to get over it. Don't act surprised. As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving. Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child's life. To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again. If I had the power to take your grief away, you'd fight me to keep it. Your grief is awful, but it is also holy. And somewhere inside you, you know that.

The goal is not to get over it. The goal is to get on with it.

Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set. The piano paralyzes the play. It dominates the stage. No matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players. You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it's still there. It takes all your concentration to work around it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.

The piano changes everything. The entire play must be rewritten around it.

But over time the piano is pushed to stage left. Then to upper stage left. You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano. Instead, you engage it. Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.

You learn to play that piano. You're surprised to find that you want to play, that it's meaningful, even peaceful to play it. At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair. But later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion. You and grief -- together -- begin to compose hope. Who'da thought?

Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen. You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month. But later, when you're 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child's life mattered.

You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.