Grief

My dad died on last year. I have been thinking about him a lot. I left to see him on 22 October. When I got to see him, he asked if I was close to finishing my degree. I was like, "I can't afford it-- the kids, you know--" He shushed me. "What do you dream of doing?"

I was surrounded by angels of death and felt them there. I said I wanted to be a doctor. I really did want to be a doctor. His doctor came in and he said, "This is my daughter. She is pre-med at the University of _____ at ______." I was in a medical training facility and whenever Dad dozed, someone poked their head in and said, "Hey Tea! Check this out!" His physician had been told that I had a fear of flying and had not left my state in fifteen years-- both facts are true. He was sad that with nine children that I'd seen so little so it seemed that on little errands that interns, nurses, and social workers had, I got to go along to get laundry or eat lunch across the hospital and see something on campus. I was there for a couple of days. I'd been a hospice volunteer and they asked me about death and things of that nature which was all that we had in common.

They knew that I wasn't pre-med as I told them that I'd been out of school for 15 years and was just going back. Still, they showed me around for the time I was there. I miss the 70 degree heat in October. I'd be willing to overcome my flight issues again to go down there! I took care of his horses and fell in love with the American Southwest. My family's home is there in the land of Wyatt Earp and Nellie Cashman and the other legends of the area.

I got home and worked at Wal~Mart as a cashier and it was good for me to get out of the house and be at someone elses' beck and call. I loved some of my coworkers, and the ones I didn't like I called "cow-orkers." They took me as being playful so they didn't mind and I could stand them being my cow-orker friends!

Anyway, I got money for college and decided to finish a degree in social work and take science classes and go into medicine. I can do biology and chemistry-- and I may still lean that direction. For now I am where I need to be. I couldn't take so many "hard" classes and do well enough in pre-reqs with so many kids, anyway.

I am thinking of my dad because of this comic strip. Last year, Jim, the grandfather, had a stroke just a few days before my fatehr did and he was recovering as my dad was dying. Now "Jim" is back in the hospital. The family is grieving the possible death. Jim is trying to communicate with his family. This strip is usually happy, but it is always realistic. The main character in it, the mother, had her daughter April right before I had Peaches. Michael, the eldest son, had his children within days of me giving birth to Roo and Boom-Boom. The family had a sump pump when we needed a sump pump! (How much sump/ would a sump pum sump/ If a sump pump could pump sump?) Seeing Jim in the shape that my dad was in last year is weirder than had he died when my dad did.

My dad and I didn't even get along-- but right now I keep thinking about how we did for those two weeks before he succumbed to the cancer. My mom just called and said that she'd bought my tickets and that I had to leave in eight hours.

We didn't even know it was cancer until I got there and the doctor operated on what was to be a four hour operation and then called us a half hour later and said he closed him up as there was nothing he could do. I really liked him-- I remembered his name from (I think) a Newsweek article back int he eighties after he headed the first team of surgeons to do a liver transplant. His name is really cool, which is why I remembered it. I was a debater in high school and basically memorized everything I read before the internet hit.

Now I am doing English and I love it. I get excited about linguistics and speech fascinates me. The deeper I delve into linguistics, the more I go into history and the psychology of the peoples I am studying. I know my dad just wanted me to finish my degree. He didn't care if I became a doctor or not-- he hated doctors, anyway. He'd gone into medicine but left it because he was in it during M*A*S*H when "everyone wanted to be a Hawkeye." He'd go in to operations and they'd be cracking jokes and he was furious as they were disrespectful toward patients. He was in his thirties then and was an early nontrad, but he refused to conform to it and walked out. (Oddly, as a father, he was full of ridicule to me, but the best people are often jerks in private! Everyone liked him and he was a prince most of the time to non family members-- but he liked us and abused us verbally. It was odd.)

When my dad died, of course all of his money was in his ranch and my mom has it all, but i got what I wanted: his cowboy hats! I have two Stetsons of his.

As of late, I have been having nightmares about his cancer on me. I keep touching my neck and my arms and feeling under the skin. I am not scared of it-- if it ever takes me, the one good thing is that it's fast. I miss the side of him that I liked. The image of him that I have is actually a picture of us when I was my baby Tatiana's age (2) and he was my brother's age. My brother looks just like my dad. He was laughing at what looks like me miming a wall.

Grief is a funny thing. I know that after the official anniversary date of his death, I will let go of it for the most part. The anniversary affect is on me right now.

I'll be more cheerful tomorrow. I have learned a great deal in Russian about history today and cannot wait to share!

Mould in my house and other things

I had a carpenter come by to check out my house. The humidity in it is high and quite bad and I have black mould. The guy came, got a friend, came by twice then he had his friend call and say that my house is a bio hazard. He said that neither one of them would come over, etc. and how they couldn't understand how with nine kids I was still alive.

I was freaked. He told me this right before Russian class and my mind was blank. I called a friends' husband who is a building appraiser who said that was odd that he would say that as they usually try to make other arrangements. He gave me a number to call and I will call the guy in the morning. I got to Russian, my face was apparently ashen and sad and I told my prof what had happened and she said, "If they call you in a few days and want a higher price to fix it, refuse them." She thinks the carpenters were trying to scare me. Both she and the appraiser said that you don't make such bold claims and leave a person hanging-- you tell them the next steps.

I'd thought that I'd failed a test on Tuesday but I got 21 out of 23 on it which is still an A.

I get to memorize a poem by Pushkin.

Mrs. Me, Queen of All She Sees

Pageants. . . I am going to be in one for my state in a year and a half. I have run twice before but my time is coming to actually place in the top ten. I really want to do it right when I do it.

My husband bought a book for me about Grace Kelly. I photograph well and he said that her shots need to be studied and that I need to see a photographer about specific ones. I am trying to get him to pose as Prince Ranier Grimaldi in a Napoleonic military suit but he says he can't. The photos of Princess Grace are amazing. I wonder if looking at her everyday can make me prettier! She was so perfect.

Gotcha Day!

Today is my third daughter's Gotcha Day that she celebrates with my husband. It's the day that he adopted her, ten years ago when she was a little over a year old!

She got up and made him lunch this morning and made him a sweet little card.

He takes her to the nicest restaurant that he can afford.

This man who I occasionally threaten to divorce is a great guy 99% of the time. We had dated off and on and I had her when he and I were not dating. I didn't expect him to want to marry me. I had two children from a previous marriage and then she was from six years later, after that marriage ended. I never expected anyone to want to get with me after that and there he was, a man with a master's degree, asking to go out as we always had. Not long after that he asked me to marry him and when I stared at him he said, "For God's sake, say yes before you get into more trouble!" At times I am ungrateful but he is really a great person!

Munchausen Syndrome

My ex's wife is showing signs of Munchausesn's Syndrome. She has for years. She is on all kinds of antidepressants and had had lots of stomach stapling surgeries and operations and orders to take medicine, but she is also an alcoholic and frequently drinks with her medicine cocktail. She let herself get into a mess last week with certain issues and the ex had to go home from work to rush her to the hospital. Peaches started to google various terms and told me what she thinks she has. I've known it for years. Peaches is trying to act like it's not a big deal so as to not positively re-enforce her behavior.

I hate seeing doctors, but she relishes it. It is so weird. I get doctors smirking at me and I get up and leave. One poor guy called me on my cell phone after I walked out on him and was like, "I've never had a woman throw her clothes on with me in the room and leave. What did I do wrong?" I told him that he smirked at his nurse when I mentioned certain female-related symptoms and asked about herbal remedies instead of hormones. Well, he said that it was my age and he hears it a lot, thought nothing of it, it was just typical of women of my age to ask about. I asked him what he'd do if his kids rolled their eyes at each other when he spoke. He apologized.

I hate talking to nurses about my problems, then telling the doctors when I am in a gown. If I seem stressed out, they downplay it and if I act like it's no big deal when I am worried, they still go slow on reacting. Therefor I go see the doctor once a year. I have one who I have clicked with. I coach his son's basketball team. I feel like knowing him out of the office makes a world of difference. He knows how to joke with me and his nurses and I have taken classes together. He does the history on me himself which is really spoiling me, but he said, "You have nine children and you are a good person. I just want you to be healthy and comfortable getting help when you need it."

Anyway-- my daughter's stepmother relishes medical appointments. Tiger said that when she lived with her and my ex husband, her SM was always seeing doctors and complaining that they didn't take her seriously. She had stomach stapling surgery and started binging on purpose, has always obsessed over taking her antidepressants and she'd get into a situation and grab her happy pills. When Peaches spoke to her last night, her two days in the hospital was exaggerated to a week in the hospital. She made the tests sound worse. Argh. Do people with Munchausen make it impossible for the rest of us? If I go in with pain over say a pulled muscle, it takes me two hours with most doctors to get two doses of weak pain medicine-- for my daughters' step mother, they said that she goes to the hospital when it's busy and complains and they can't get her out fast enough.

I asked what good things were happening to other family members for her to do this as it seems like it happens when all is good with everyone. Well, their son was getting honors in Boy Scouts, then my ex got a promotion (that he had had to drop so he can be home with his wife,) PEaches is getting college scouts calling over her GPA and languages, Tiger was given a raise at the college job she is in after three weeks of working, and basically, everyone was getting attention so she didn't get her due and drank instead of taking certain pills that she needed to treat diabetes, headaches and whatever. Tiger doesn't even listen to her. This woman is someone who'd fake suicide to revenge someone.

My daughters asked me if this will go on for the rest of their lives and I said I didn't know but the truth is, I think it will and she will keep it up. She's someone who looks at people in wheel chairs and envies them--it is gross. Weddings, births, college graduations. Peaches said that with how she drinks that she won't live long. She drinks a big bottle of brandy every day.

How can people afford that?