Summer Days

This is the first summer in 4 years that I have not taken a college class and it feels freaking awesome! I need to get motivated and finish my masters degree but right now I am enjoying this down time. This last week we celebrated my son's 16th birthday, oh boy! It doesn't seem like he should be 16, at least to me it doesn't. We took him and a friend out to eat and then to watch the new A-Team movie. I have to admit the movie was better than I had expected it to be. It was a total 80s week around here as we watched The Karate Kid just a few days earlier.
As far as readings go...I have started a book to help me write a story I am working on. The book is called Disappearing Girls and it is about girls and depression. I really am excited to work on this particular piece of writing. The main character is a mixture of the many girls that have passed through my classrooms over the years. I just hope it keeps flowing like it is now.

Relay for Life

This weekend was our county Relay for Life walk and this was my first year participating on a team. Some of us from church formed a team to join the fight against cancer. The whole event is awe inspiring to begin with. People who have lost loved ones, people who have survived, people who are battling, and others who just want to help fight cancer give up most of thier weekend to walk and raise money for cancer research.
At one point on Friday night, there is a luminary ceremony that is very touching. This year the organizers added these lanterns that float in the air with the heat generated from the candle/burner system. As the lanterns were floating in the night sky, I thought of my grandma. She fought a brave battle against breast cancer for 6 years before the disease finally won. 15 years later, I can still remember sitting in the hospital room with her, the oncologist, my mom, and her sisters. The oncologist wanted to show us her latest bone scan, which showed us that the cancer tumors had spread throughout her bones all over her body. My grandma looked at me and asked me if it was okay that she stopped fighting because she was tired of the treatments. I couldn't tell her no; I wanted to scream no but I couldn't tell her no. She had endured so much over the last year of her life that I understood she was tired. I told her I understood and she died almost 6 months to the day the oncologist told us she last. I still miss her terribly. As I watched those laterns dance in the sky Friday night, I thought of her. I could hear her laughter, see her smile, smell her powdery body perfume, and feel her embrace. It was a very moving experience for me. I'm glad I decided to join the team this year, it was worth the exhaustion I felt today.

Laugh til you cry

Every once in a while there are moments in our life that touch us and we know they will live forever in our memories such as: first kisses, weddings, births, and MAMA MIA!
I didn't get the chance to see Mama Mia last weekend but we finally made it to the theatre Saturday. First off I have to let you know that my parents had 3 LP records when I was growing up and 2 of them were ABBA records, so I grew up listening to ABBA. We sat in the very top row of seats at the back of the theatre, which was a wise decision seeing as how I started feeling the music during the show. My teenage son was initially embarrassed and kept whispering, "NO, Mom stop!" That didn't stop me though and by the time the Dancing Queen number started I was moving to the beat in my seat. Needless to say this totally embarrassed him but I reminded him that no one in the theatre was watching us. Anyway the show was delightful and at the end Meryl and company do encore performances. I started mimicking their moves and guess what? My husband joined in for fun and then to my total shock my son did as well. There we sat in the dark back row of the theatre with the light of the projector flickering over our heads doing small handmoves to Waterloo. This is a mental picture I will never forget. I started laughing and couldn't stop. I was trying to cover my mouth so no one in the theatre would hear and then subsequently turn around to see us. I laughed until I actually had tears in my eyes. I can't remember the last time that has happened and it felt so freeing to have that much fun. We spend so time wondering what people think and how they will react when we should really just go have fun. We made a family memory, however silly it may be, that all of us will remember for years to come. As Robin Williams says in the movie RV, which by the way if you haven't seen you must, "Can't buy memories like that."
Have a blessed day and go make some memories that you can't buy.

Grandma

I have been thinking a lot about my grandmother this summer especially when my cousin lost her infant son on July 4. My grandmother died 13 years ago and sometimes the pain still feels as if she only died yesterday. My grandmother was an awesome lady who in the last 20 years of her life was confined to a wheelchair with degenerative arthritis and even though her joints hurt during daily chores she never complained. She took care of me and my sister because my mom, her baby, owned a video rental store that kept her and my dad away from home a lot. Grandma was devoted to her family. Every Christmas Eve we were all at her house for dinner and by all I mean no one in our family missed. Most of the time extended families showed up too. My other grandmother used to come with us when she moved back from Florida and many other in-laws attended as well. It wasn't that we got big gifts from grandma because she lived on a small income it was the love. She would find us each a special gift and then she would sit in the middle of the room in her wheelchair and watch as each of us opened our gifts; grandkids opened first, her children opened next, and then everyone watched as grandma and grandpa opened thier gifts from us. Luckily since my parents owned a video store we had access to video cameras back then and I have the last two Christmas tapes before grandpa died. I watch them for about five mintues and then have to shut them off because I can't watch anymore. Since my grandma died our family has sort of fallen apart. I have not been around many of my aunts and cousins for years since I live almost 3 hours away and they have all changed. None of the family gets together for Christmas Eve anymore, several of my cousins can't even stand each now, and my I don't know the names of half of their children. At the funeral I had to have my mom tell me which kid belonged to which cousin. I was thinking of my grandma at the funeral because I know she took my cousin Mandy's baby in her arms when he arrived in Heaven that morning. I also thought of her when my aunt went up to Mandy at the funeral home and used her index to brush hair out of Mandy's face. Grandma used to use her index finger to push hair out of my face and I realized that we are not the same without her but we all have a part of her in us. My mom is loyal to her sisters no matter how many times they treat her poorly, my cousin Jennifer loves to hold babies just like grandma, my aunt Kathy rubs her hands together when she gets excited about stuff, my cousin Jeanettea looks like my grandma in the face, and my aunt Karen pushes hair out of our faces just like grandma did. I know when she died of breast cancer that she went to a better place and I wouldn't want her back in the condition she was when she died. I just miss her because she was one of those people who come into your life and change it forever.

Anyway back to work- must get the house clean and write for fifteen minutes today because I want to finish Laurie's challenge.