Prompt 1.) A mom fail moment.

When my son was born, our cats were already considered senior citizens in the lifespan of the domesticated feline.  My cats, Lizzie and Rosie, were nine-years-old and Grant’s cats, Scotty and Spanky (yes, my husband named them after The Little Rascals characters, even thought they are both females!) were eleven.  My goal was for Tyler to at least be able to remember our beloved kitties, which was how Grant and I met, so you could say that they were responsible for Tyler even being on this earth.

Rosie died when Tyler was only three.  It took him months to grasp that Rosie was never coming back and he broke down with grief about four months after she died.  I told him that Rosie was up in Heaven and that Grandpa Joe was taking care of her and that in Heaven she wasn’t sick any more, that she was running around playing and Grandpa Joe even had interactive kitty toys that he played with with her.  She was our “Play Kitty” once more up in Heaven.  (Giggle if you might, but I really believe this because what is Heaven without our beloved pets, and I have seen too much evidence to NOT believe that my father is…somewhere)

In July of last year, Spanky suddenly died, with no warning.  She died in the morning, I hid her from Tyler and when he went to daycare, I dealt with Spanky, as my husband was absolutely bereft from her loss.  I had to tell Tyler that Spanky was also up in Heaven with Grandpa Joe, Rosie, etc.  He did not like Spanky as much as he liked Rosie and the feeling was mutual so he did not grieve as much as he did over Rosie.

A few months later, my now four-year-old and I were reading in bed and he asked if one day Lizzie will die (Lizzie is his favorite and she feels the same way).  “Well, yes, but, hopefully not for a long time. But Lizzie IS an old kitty.  When you’re sick and old you die, right? Grandpa Joe was sick and very old and so he died.”

“Does that mean that WE will die someday?”

“Well yes, honey, it does.”

And that was my Mom Fail Moment.

“What?  What?  You and me and daddy are going to die?  NO!  NO!  It’s not true, say it’s not true!  Say we will never die!”

He was hysterically crying, inconsolable.  I could have kicked myself in the ass with my hypermobile leg.  What the Hell was I thinking, believing that Tyler could handle our mortality?!

“Okay, okay, Tyler, it’s not true!  You are right, you, daddy and I will NEVER die!  Okay?  We are never going to die!”

“Really?”, he sniffled.  “Yes, really.”

Yes, honey, the rest of the world, your grandparents, your animals, everyone else is going to die but the three of us will be the one trio who defies the odds.

It was not the truth, but he was not ready to hear the truth, just as he is not ready to hear that there is no Santa Claus (WHAT?).  I realize now that in time, it will just come to him and right now we have left it that only very sick and very old people and animals die.  Being a disabled mom with some very serious, potentially life-threatening illnesses, I am constantly stressing that even though I may be in a lot of pain and sometimes very sick, I am not dying.

And when that time comes, just as we did the deaths of our kitties, we will all experience the grief and shock that any death brings, and we will all deal with it in our own ways.

Freyja and cats and angels by Blommer

The post A “Mom Fail” Moment first appeared on Mama Sick.

(You may want to stop reading here if you do not want to be shaken to your core and be made very upset.  Okay, you have been warned.) 

People always say that I have got to be more positive, more optimistic.  Well friends, I tell them that I am not pessimistic, I am REALISTIC.  These past few weeks I have come the closest I have ever felt to dying.  Two weeks ago I was having a fever every day, freezing, sweating, nauseous.  I had wounds that were not healing, that would bleed profusely by me absent-mindedly scratching a mosquito bite.  The pain was off the charts, the medicine for it, a joke.  Two weeks ago, when my fever was running and I could not get out of bed or barely speak, I swear I felt God next to me.  “Do you really want to die?  Well here is what it feels like.  Be careful what you wish for.  Death is not the peaceful, calm you think, at least getting there sure isn’t”.

I was crying.  I thought of Grant and Tyler and my cat.  I thought about the things I enjoy, just for ME, writing this blog, my voiceover work, my book club, Twitter, Google+, and then I realized…life is fun.  Not just with Tyler.  There are fun things in MY life.  There are still books to read and places to go and candles to be lit and beautiful but cheap things to have. Money is coming.  I WILL travel.  I will take Tyler to Disney World one day.  And then I said to God, “Stop!  Stop!  I don’t need to see this any more.  I don’t want to die.  I thought I did but I DON’T.  I want to live, not just for Tyler but for ME, God please let me live, I still have living to do!”

And then, it was either God the steroids or both, I got better.  Not better like I am trying out for the Olympic team but…my fever went away.  My mouth sores were gone.  My wounds healed.  I bought that “Imagination” candle I had been thinking about from the Disney Store and the Alice in Wonderland Vinylmation and my surprise “Buy one get one free” Vinylmation “Pete” from the Mickey Mouse Club House show.  And all three things are with me right now, bringing me joy.

Last Tuesday, I went to the hospital again.  I had horrific abdominal pain, with all of the symptoms of an appendicitis.  Unfortunately whenever I go to the hospital I am such a complex patient that they often do not want to treat me.  They gave me an ultrasound on my stomach and then up my…well let’s just say I could have had a career in pornography, I took it like a champ.  There was a lot of waiting, a lot of blood-letting and peeing in cups.

Throughout this my feet were swelling, like they have never swelled before.  They were purple and red, as if I had not been walking on them, as if they were starting to clot.  They looked like….like the way my father’s looked as he lay dying.  Like the feet of death.  The only feet I had seen looked like that were my father’s.  All discolored, painful.  I kept asking if they would examine my feet, if they would treat my pain, but they didn’t want to do much until they figured out what was wrong with me.  Alone, in a private emergency room, I started to pray, I started to beg and cry.  “Dear God, Jesus and Daddy.  I have a little boy that I have to make it for.  You can take me, but please, not now, not until he is a teenager and he no longer needs his Mommy.  That’s all I want!”  People on Face Book were praying for me, people on Twitter and Google+ were praying and I thank them very much.

And suddenly, I was getting better.  My feet cleared up.  My diagnosis was spastic colon or a possible flare-up of my Ulcerative Colitis.  That was a lot better than, “You need surgery on your BLANK or your BLANK.”  They had been almost positive I was going to be needing surgery of some kind!

And then I was discharged.  And Grant and Tyler came to the hospital to take me home.

So, where was I going with this, what the Hell does this have to do with BlogHer’12?  Well, the truth is I am being REALISTIC when I say I may not be there…or here.  How lucky can I get?  When God wants me, he wants me, I can only continue to pray that I live to finish out being Tyler’s “Mommy”.

Really, where will ANY of us be in 2012 anyway?  Any one of us could get into a car accident tomorrow.  Our plane might crash, we could get breast cancer.

Yes, any one of us.  But for people like me, with Lupus and other serious, worsening chronic conditions, we REALLY have to ask ourselves, where will I BE?  Will I even be here to make it to an event that for three years now has been so unobtainable?  When I have the money for next year’s BlogHer…will I really…be here?

The post BlogHer Conference 2012: Looking Ahead and Wondering first appeared on Mama Sick.

It sounds a bit silly, that I am still counting, now that he is gone, yet I remember my father doing the exact same thing.  He had a yellow legal pad of the birthdays and deaths of his mother and father, and some other relatives that I cannot recall.  I remember him telling me, “Grandma “T’resa” would have been ‘X’ number of years today.” I never knew her as she died when I was an infant, and have really only shadowy memories of my grandfather who died when I was three.

My son never knew my father and that is a shame because as good as he was a father to me, I know he would have shined in the role of “Grandpa”.

My father died after a long battle with prostate cancer and suffered terribly.  I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis the year he died and despite his pain he always asked me “How are you?”  “How are you doing?”  We seemed to be kindred spirits in our pain.  He “got it”, although I think he would have understood even if he didn’t have a chronic illness.

With things so dire right now, between Grant and I s’ illnesses and our financial situation, I often think how things would have been for us had he been alive.  How much I still need him now.

At his funeral, I was pretty much going through the motions, as many people do when they lose a close loved one, and when you look back on it, it’s all kind of a blur. One thing that did stay with me was something the priest said at the funeral mass.  That God had a room for my father in Heaven.  I pictured Heaven as a kind of modern, sketchy mansion with an endless amount of plain rooms, each with a person in it, and it comforted me.

It still does, I guess.  I try to teach Tyler that Grandpa Joe lives up in Heaven.  He is the grandpa that Tyler cannot see but is always watching over him.  Since Tyler has been alive we have lost two fish and two cats and to comfort Tyler I tell him that they are up in Heaven with Grandpa Joe and he’s got the fish in the fish bowl in his room and he plays with the kitties and they are all happy and don’t feel any pain.

I’m not sure if Tyler sees the picture but I sure do.  Happy birthday, Daddy, in your room in Heaven.

My father walking me down the aisle, his hair growing back after the latest round of chemo. Thank you for living to see my wedding, daddy, it meant the world to me.

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