Helping.

Another oops-crazy-week-prevented-blogging moment.

My volunteer training for the domestic violence/sexual abuse shelter started Thursday night.

It didn't beat around the bush. The executive director promised long hours (75 for training, then 5 in the shelter practicum!), disturbing sights and hard-to-swallow facts and advice (the women that go back to an abusive partner or the child who shows signs of violence).

But it gave me hope. Hope for helping. Hope for making a difference.

I know that if I make it through these three hours a week now through December, I will become a part of something that gives me more pride than anything else I might do with my life.

I can help. I can heal.
With my hands; with a reassuring voice; with the tools I'll be learning.

I feel suddenly full of more strength than I knew possible. And I know that strength isn't for me, but for a complete stranger at the other end of the phone or standing at the door of a shelter in the middle of the night.

Life is funny sometimes.

Gloria Gaynor and I will do good things for survivors

First let's begin with the Day Off song...
I have a day off, a day off, a day offfffffff....!

(For working Labor Day -- you know, the day that celebrates America's workers? Riiiiight.)

I've screened every single phone call today and I refuse to look at my work e-mail. Those are big accomplishments, because I usually spend way too much of my "off" time still working. Not today, now way, uh-uh.

I have some wedding things to do today -- busting butts of people who STILL HAVEN'T RSVP'd, for instance. Our deadline was today and there's honestly like a dozen people who are MIA. And that's AFTER my stepmother and aunt and Scott' mom made rounds of phone calls earlier this week. People have some nerve.

Anyway. After I finish preliminary seating chart nonsense and watch some mindless television, I'm going to do something tonight that I'm really proud, excited and nervous about.

My training to be a volunteer with the local domestic abuse/violence shelter and hotline begins tonight. There are 3 hours of training every Thursday now through Dec. 10, so it's pretty intense, but I think it will be well worth it.

I'm not even sure yet what I'll be doing -- answering phone calls, helping with court case witnesses/victims, helping at the shelter, etc -- but I know that whatever it is will make a difference.

My bleeding heart is one reason for doing this, but I also feel that you really can never help your fellow man (or woman) enough. I see so much ugliness through work -- fatal accidents, premature deaths, fights, drama and scandals -- that it's nice to know that there are people, usually behind-the-scenes with no headlines to ever share of their work -- who make a huge difference, even if it's only to one person out there.

I'm also doing this for my mom.
My biological father was phsyically abusive to my mother for years. He hit her when she was pregnant with me and made her feel trapped and unable to get out of the relationship. The things I remember watching from my crib hurt to recall.

But the one good thing that eventually came out of it all (aside from my mom leaving and meeting my REAL dad, the guy who will walk me down the aisle) is her finding a shelter that really made a difference. I've found numerous letters from her to family members talking of the friendships she had made and the impact they had on her life and her outlook on life.

So I leave you with positive thoughts and one of mom's favorite songs. It gave her strength, family members say. And she could never hear it without groovin' in the middle of whatever room she was in, big smile on her face.




*Please continue to keep Julie in your thoughts -- no news yet...*

Lighting up the sky

Ahh, 4th of July. What you -- and two glasses of Riesling -- do to me.

We had a fantastic day -- really relaxing.
My favorite part?
A tie between sitting by myself on the front porch, enjoying our swing and reading a magazine while Scott ran an errand or two... AND... playing with Ryan's girlfriend's little girl, Jayda, the smartest three-year-old I've ever met.

I feel really content and did I mention relaxed? Perhaps so relaxed that my wind wanders too far for its own good.

I hear fireworks in the distance; I'm not sure if they're the "real deal" or just one of the MANY in-the-backyard shows in the area. (That's so frightening!) The police scanner is freaking out about burns and brush fires, presumably from the latter group of fireworks. We have the Sirius 90s station playing downstairs. The wind is rattling the blinds in my office, a breeze floating across the loose wisps of hair from my bun.

And I think of my childhood.

Despite dealing with things way beyond what I should have and far above my age, I really can't complain too much about my childhood. My mom and dad made it special, or as special as humanly possible.

My mom really made holidays special in our house. I don't know what it was about them or what gave her the added strength 5 or 10 days a year, but she found it and she used it, making reindeer noises on the roof Christmas Eve (how DID she do that?!) and creating bunny tracks through the living room on Easter morning (good ole baby powder).

The 4th of July was just as neat.
We always went to the same fireworks display in a nearby town, or at least until the year she passed away. I remember lining up along railroad tracks, semi-paralyzed with fear that a train would run us all down, sitting on my mom's lap smelling her hair and watching all the amazing colors in the sky. She would tell me which ones were her favorites and what some of them reminded her of.

"That one looks like a little pink cat, don't you think, baby?"
I was too mesmerized to respond. Maybe just a nod of the head.

She loved fireworks and she made sure we all knew that.

Whenever I see fireworks, I'm semi-paralyzed all over again, like the time on the tracks. Although this time, instead of a fast-speeding train, I'm being hit hard with a memory of her.

A good memory.

The colors flash above me and rain memories down upon me, filling me up with good times.

I had such a good childhood. Such a good mom.
And so many beautiful fireworks.

Happy 4th!

The chance that she never had

I've tried keeping it all inside these past few weeks. Pretending like it doesn't hurt.

Pretending I don't miss my mother with every ounce of my being.

It hasn't worked. Some days, some months are just plain hard. I'm not hiding it anymore. I need to get.it.OUT.

Today is the 15th anniversary of my mom's death. DEATH. It still hurts saying that word. I hate 'passing' even more.
I remember May 26, 1994, more vividly than I care to admit.

I saw my mom for the last time a couple of days before. It was the last day of school before a long Memorial Day weekend. I hopped out of bed, anxious to get the day over with, come home and play in the backyard and have a big ole fun weekend with friends and sunshine. Why are we so anxious to just get through mornings or days or months?
My mom usually got up with me, sitting with me at breakfast, sometimes walking me down to the bus stop in front of our house.
This morning, she was still in bed. The 10-year-old Wendy figured Mommy was just 'tired' again. After all, she had been in and out of hospitals at this point for years.

I went in to see her before bobbing down the steps to the first day of the rest of my life.

"Mommy, are you sick?" I asked with scared, but more impatient blue eyes.
"Just tired, baby girl," she said softly.
She held my hand and I remember her face looked so sad, tired. I suddenly didn't want to leave.
"Promise me you'll be good and you'll be strong?" she half-asked me, not even looking at my face anymore.
"Sure, Mommy... My field trip to the Statue of Liberty is on Tuesday," I replied, trying to change the subject to something I could grasp.
We said our goodbyes, and an 'I love you' and I left for school.

I can't imagine what those few moments were like for her. She must have known. I don't know if I could hold myself together like that.

When I stepped off of the school bus that afternoon, the first thing I saw was my Aunt Alice's car. Apparently, my mom had waited til I went to school and Dad went to work and she called her sister, who lived an hour away.
I was still hopeful.
Just another hospital trip, I shrugged.

I spent the next day at my friend Lauren's house. Lauren was my best friend at the time and had played with me at our bus stop with my mom and her baby-sitter looking on since the first day of Kindergarten.

I don't remember much of our time together that day, other than spotting my very first rainbow.
"That's good luck," Lauren told me. I prayed she was right.

Later that afternoon, Lauren and her mom dropped me off at home. I had to get ready, for I was visiting with Mommy in the hospital that night! I couldn't wait. I missed her already.
I walked up our steps and into the house. Where was Dad?
Inside, sitting on my day bed with the peach ruffly comforter, my big, tough guy dad sat holding one of my mom's stuffed animals. He had tears rolling down his cheeks.

I sat next to him, put my hand on his back and my head on his shoulder and he told me my mom had died just a couple of hours before.

But I was supposed to see her! I was going to tell her about Lauren's baby sister and the games Lauren and I had played. I wanted to tell her I got an award from my Spelling Bee win and that I needed her to sign the field trip permission slip.
She wasn't supposed to die.

I still tell myself that every day. She wasn't supposed to miss all of this.
I was a good girl, I rationalize. Good girls don't lose mothers. They need them to tell them how beautiful they are and to explain boys and tampons and help pick a wedding dress.

Still, I'm older now and wise enough to realize her being sick had nothing at all to do with me. And that everything happens for some reason we just don't get a choice about understanding or accepting.
And most days that's enough to get me from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Not today.
I break my promise to her today.
I just have to cave in and break down.

You be strong for both of us today, Mommy.

"The chance that she never had
is now the gift that is mine
and out here on this road,
I'm making up for lost time.
Yeah, I am my mother's child
and tonight in this car,
I got her words in her suitcase
and her dreams in my heart."

For the mommies and their babies

I've selfishly, immaturely only been thinking of myself the past couple of days... thinking I had it worse than most because I didn't have a mom to buy flowers for this Mother's Day. Hating yet again the fact that she gets no say -- not even a tearful nod or a crinkled nose -- when it comes to my wedding dress. Hating the entire month of May because it means nothing but loss to me.

Then, as if the stars aligned in just the right way to wake me up out of my wallowing, self-pity dream, I found out that Tuesday is more than just a day of the week.

And I thought yet again about beautiful, smiley Maddie and the impact she has had on millions of people in the past month.

And these well-said words of wisdom explained it better than I ever could.

This is just one of many days that are hard for hundreds of thousands of people out there. A loss is something that can't just be filled in with new memories or a pile of concrete. You can't un-break a heart anymore than you can un-crack an old sidewalk or make the rain clouds disappear.

I pray that Maddie's mom reflects on the 17 months she had with her beautiful daughter. And the impact her story has had on so many of us.

I hope that the family of little Eli realizes he is finally without pain, playing on clouds and doing what little boys are meant to do, not what a terrible disease dictates their worn-out bodies to do.

I beg the stars to give me strength to remember only a beautiful blonde with a soft voice and contagious laugh, who braided hair better than anyone else in the whole messed-up world that takes mommies and babies and all the in-betweens away before we're done kissing them.




I blow a kiss to the heavens.




Happy Mother's Day.


Your Baby Girl.

Somewhere between today and tomorrow

If there were a Leap Year in 2009 and my mom were still alive, she would have turned 61 years old.

Maybe you can look at it like she's really only 15.25, hehe.

The worst part, however, is that I can't celebrate, physically at least, with her. She passed away in 1994 and missed her 50th and 60th birthdays... and of course, my middle and high school graduations, college, romances, meeting Scott, our engagement... and much more to come.

I love her so much. I miss her more.

I like to imagine that she's up there in whatever Heaven we paint for ourselves, waiting for a special extra minute in between 11:59 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. that no one else will notice, and then, with all the angels singing behind her, she blows out candles made of bits of clouds, smiles, looks down on me and blows a kiss, letting me know that everything will continue to be OK and that she'll never, ever be forgotten.

Happy Birthday, Mommy.