Motherhood

A Mother of a Day

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As we spent yesterday showering our Mother’s with a barrage of photo collages and lovey dovey sayings, I thought back on my time in this club, my very short almost fifteen years. One I used to think I wanted nothing to do with it, a membership that is wrought with judgements and finger pointing, defending, crying, feelings of absolute inadequacy and failure. A clandestine understanding of how to lose your shit, the million and one ways to ugly sob into your pillow, and the overwhelming love when you get handed a dandelion because the pretty flower had to go to you.

I was twenty when I found out I was pregnant with Sam. I spent the whole pregnancy in one dark spot or another, for so many reasons. Mostly, in utter disappointment with myself. I had imagined the trajectory of my life a completely different way and this felt like failure. Having grown up in a restaurant, many of the patrons felt close to me and had no qualms sharing their thoughts about my choices with my young self. More than a few shared their surprise. “You’re so smart, though!” some said when they heard. I was constantly defending myself and it was one hundred percent because I was right there with them. I get it. A small town girl saying she wasn’t going to be a mom or a wife right away and that is ALMOST EXACTLY what I did. One thing I was adamant about, though, was that becoming a mother didn’t make me any less smart.

Mother’s Day is a weird holiday. Yes, I love the concept behind it, but it gets so murky, so dirty and it takes away from what it’s trying to be. For me, the idea of what a mom is has changed numerous times in my first half of life. My parents divorced when I was two years old and I was lucky to get to stay with my dad. He met my mom (she’s mom in my book, no step-anything about it) in one of the best cute-meet stories I’ve ever heard. It isn’t mine to share, but let’s just say he was adamant he would get her number…

My mom chose to take on a role that wasn’t optional to her. I think there’s an inane amount of beauty in that, alone. I see the same majestic loyalty in Ku, just being a pivotal part of raising the boys with me. Being a step-parent seems like such a hard title, one that I cannot understand and it’s what I’ve been around since a young age. From the beginning, I was harmed by the ghost of my biological mom, although not because she died. She’s still very much alive, but she wasn’t in my life. She wasn’t around to see important milestones in my life and it was through no fault of anyone but herself. I want to judge her harshly most days and on good days I want to forgive her. Sometimes I think I have but I just never really know. She was battling her own addiction demons for most of my formative years and that kept her from being able to keep her word to me at any given time. When I think about it, I feel like she failed me. Because of her, I take it very personally when someone tells me yes, they’ll come to something with me and then they don’t follow through. If you say yes to me, I take it as a blood oath. If you don’t show up, I have a very hard time letting it go. It tears me up. I call her a ghost because she would call when she could, make impossible promises and then not show up. It haunted my soul. I always believed her.

“She said she would be here on my birthday,” I would tell my Mom as I peeked out the window on April 10. Then she would try to pick up my broken pieces and attempt to put me back together when she wouldn’t. She had to have known EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. that my BM (biological mom) wouldn’t follow through but she never let on, she never bad mouthed her. I was always so heartbroken and I never once stopped to think how it affected her, too. How did she constantly soothe me as I was aching inside? Or when I would get mad at her for parenting me so I would say the easiest insult I could think of because I was young and children can be a-holes. How devastating must it have been to hear, “You’re not my mom!” from a kiddo that made you one? She is the unconditional mom.

When I was eleven, I moved to Mexico with an Aunt and Uncle for a year and a half. It was an incredible experience and helped me understand and learn my culture, proper Spanish, and family values. My Aunt became like a second mother to me, who taught me basic cooking skills, let me watch her put makeup on, told me about periods. She asked me questions about my BM, scolded me when I was getting too angry about it all, hugged me and held me tight when she could sense I needed it. She was tough love and deep love and gentle. She never trusted my ex-husband, took me aside and told me I deserved better. She adored meeting my Sam and told me I was an incredible mother full of love and she attributed it to all my heartache over feelings of inadequacy with my own experiences. “You are compassionate with Sam because you want him to know he’s loved, because it’s what you’ve been searching for,” she astutely told me one day. She was never more right about anything. We lost her to cancer a number of years ago and I think about the life lessons she taught me all the time. My aunt was a deep love Mom.

I remember hearing once that if you want to know what kind of a man someone is, to watch how they treat their mothers. It sounds legit, makes perfect sense but I am here today to tell you that is a CROCK OF SHIT sometimes. My ex-husband treats his mom like a queen and told me to my face that she came before me. He hit me in front of her once and she said to me, “You should have stopped arguing. He wouldn’t have hit you if you had stopped snapping back unnecessary comments.” Not all mothers are nice. Many are wearing blinders. It doesn’t even matter if your child is old and grown and pretending to be mature. Those blinders don’t always come off. She never liked me and the feeling was mutual and I’m so thankful every day that I don’t have to see or speak to her anymore. Her and her son hold no more power over me and it’s a beautiful feeling. She is the narcissistic mom. She’s not the only one I’ve known.

And then I met an absolute angel. Ku’s mom (and a lot of her family) are what I needed to see in terms of what a family can be. Even if it’s blended differently, even if there’s some divides, her mom has helped show me that amicability is absolutely possible, that motherhood doesn’t stop at any one age, that you will always worry about your littles, and that asking for help is okay. Asking for help is okay. Asking for help is okay. Sometimes you have to say things to yourself more than once so it sinks in. She teaches me how to be more thoughtful, how to love harder, how to let go when you need to, when trust is warranted, and how to talk about hard situations. I am so thankful she is in my life, all the time. ALL.THE.TIME. She is a thoughtful mom.

What I’ve been trying to say is that motherhood is a messy business. It isn’t always a happy feeling and one day a year doesn’t make it better. Sometimes motherhood is wished for, prayed for, pleaded for. Other times it happens when you weren’t expecting it, didn’t think you wanted it, don’t know how to do it. There’s the accidental mothers, the choose to be moms, the I’ll-be-what-you-need-me-to-be moms who fill voids and roles that you desperately seek. It’s a title with many sub-titles and those with the sub-titles, the prefixes, the add on, get inexcusably forgotten. It takes away from what they deserve and makes them feel less worthy. And almost every mom is a worthy mom.

A big I LOVE YOU to my Mom, my Aunt watching over me, and my Mother-in-Love. So much love. And to my Mom Friends, who inspire, motivate and encourage me to be better. Love to you, also. 14264074_804611123011068_8170020838427018602_n

What I got from 13 Reasons Why

vylit Ku and I recently dove in, headfirst, to the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why.”

I’ll admit, I was hesitant at first. We recently had a young student in a nearby city take her own life, reasons unknown to me, but I hope not to her family. It shook me to my core, we both recoiled in horror when we found out about it. Suicide is nothing to take lightly, a serious act of which you lose control of righting it. It’s forever and leaves so much pain behind. I feel selfishly lucky that suicide hasn’t touched our family directly, but we felt total sadness at the passing of the middle schooler. Her name was Vylit (read: Violet).

Her death has been an upheaval for the town she lived in. Oddly, it hasn’t exactly brought everyone together. Lynden, where she lived and went to school, happens to be a very religious, Christian community. It is predominantly Dutch, with a large number or migrant dwellers, who move with the produce seasons. There is a divide, a feeling of judgement, an inability to integrate, just in general. Throw in something that has rocked every resident to their core, and it has become something short of ugly. There has been blaming, a desecration of religious beliefs, finger pointing, hurt, people have turned on the parents and family, or blaming the town, etc. We lived in Lynden for almost three years. Our kiddos were students there that whole time. It is picturesque, almost too clean, and definitely hard to feel welcome. We always chalked it up to the fact that we were two lesbians, not primarily Caucasian, living in one of the hardest communities to feel a part of. In all honestly, we never did. We lived on the same block the entire time and only knew one set of direct neighbors. We didn’t really know the rest.

During our time in Lynden, once deemed the highest ratio of churches per capita, we began dealing with two of our kiddos being diagnosed with two very different issues. Samuel, our oldest has ADD (attention deficit disorder). He had been failing fifth grade miserably, was repeatedly showing as below grade average for every subject. Doing homework was more work for us than him once he got home, he just didn’t have it in him to sit and do it. Abraham was diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). HE.CANNOT.SIT.STILL. He cannot follow multiple directions at once. He is definitely not calm, more emotional than his brothers. You can watch his mind go into overload in front of your eyes. But he isn’t unmanageable, he isn’t ridiculously outrageous with energy; not to me. Samuel was prescribed Ritalin and it was PURE MAGIC. He needed just a small dose and it was wonderful. All his grades went up. He was a different kid overnight and not at all in a bad way. Abraham, though. Complete different story.

AB began with Ritalin. It worked wonders for two seconds (read: a few weeks). Once the doctor realized he would need an adjustment of the dosage, she upped it a touch. It changed him. He became moody, withdrawn. My sweet, loving boy was turning inwards and it freaked us out. We switched it up to Adderall, to see if the composition of what is essentially a very similar drug, would make a difference. Again, the smallest dosage gave us a glimmer of hope, because it had begun to impede his learning. I want to note that we fully recognize medication isn’t the only way. It wasn’t our only method. This post isn’t entirely about Abraham and his diagnosis, nor do we want to be judged for medicating our children. If he had diabetes and needed insulin shots, we would have done that in a heartbeat. I see this as the same. That is my truth. It doesn’t have to be anyone else’s. So, his doctor wanted to try Ritalin with him. The smallest dose seemed promising, but when we upped the dose by a tiny amount, he got very dark. We noticed immediately. He was seven years old and had pure hatred in his small eyes. He was overly emotional, had extreme mood swings. We were coming home from Thanksgiving, around a lot of noise and family and he struggles with that. We could see it and were anticipating getting home to our little duplex so he could unwind. He was hard to calm in the car on the drive. He seemed so angry, just unreasonably upset for such a little guy. Our loving, thoughtful, funny mini-man.

We got home and I was on a phone call with an employee about something when Ku came in to the room, visibly upset. She asked me to get off the phone, that it was urgent. Abraham had been so pissed at life that he said the words you never want to hear, “I just want to kill myself.” How was that even possible?! How could a seven year old even KNOW about suicide? We were floored. I held him, hugged him. We told him how much we loved him. I asked him what I would do without my Abraham and he said, “You can find another.” We had never seen him this way and it freaked us out. We stopped the Ritalin. Apparently, changes in mood can happen but it is very rare. It makes perfect sense. AB is a rare specimen of a soul. He marches to the beat of his own drum, he is a natural problem solver, and wouldn’t you know that gets him into more problems than fixes them? His mind is naturally curious, he reads above his age level. He is too smart, sometimes, for his own good. We found him a counselor shortly after this and it was a major help, especially with us. We can read all we want on ADHD but his counselor was able to put into words what is going on better than any book; at least for us.

His being out there, different, unique has raised some concerns with us. He comes home and tells us about how he is bullied and we talk so much about it with him. The thing is, how do you teach your kiddos to stand up for themselves yet also develop a thick skin? Kids can be so mean, so honest, so hurtful. In turn, he started to be mean, also. It has been such a learning curve for us.

Enter in Hannah Baker, the protagonist of 13 Reasons Why. The show begins with her narrating the aftermath and explanation of her suicide. It has become widely talked about. Some people have felt triggers, based on their own history with suicide attempts, some want their teenagers to watch it. Some, like me, wanted to see what the buzz was about. It sounds sad. Well, of course it sounds sad. A teenage girl committing suicide? That’s a horror story we don’t want to be real. Ever. Ku and I watched it and talked about it. I feel like the show did a good job of making it feel like it could be any community any of us live in. It has not been without controversy, though. Is anything worth talking about ever, though? Without controversy?

I get that it can look like it’s glamorizing suicide. A part of me understands it so wholeheartedly and another part of me suggests that it has to, in a way, to really hit home with us. Or maybe there is added drama for the viewers to keep your attention. I know that this was a novel and that while it stuck pretty close (I’ve heard, I didn’t read it) to the book, some parts were changed, most importantly her method of death. It is much more gruesome in the series. There is also the notion that it’s pointing fingers. At 13 humans. Souls who, for the most part, are not bad people, but rather find themselves in situations where they either make a bad choice, aren’t mature enough to make the right one, or don’t know what to do so they remain silent. She put herself in a lot of terrible situations. Yes, I can see it. Yet, I also recognize that as a teenager, so did I. I made bad choices, wrong decisions, and that was how I learned. It’s how we all learn. The school is made to look like the bad guy. Yes, but our public education system can certainly seem like it’s failing our youth in many ways. Suicide awareness, bullying, rape culture, etc are all areas every school can improve in.

We recently learned that a friend’s daughter wanted to play on the football team. She is in fifth grade, but is beginning to develop. The boys on the team couldn’t stop asking her out, bothering her because she’s pretty, so she was taken off the team. This is along the lines of what Hannah talks about in 13 Reasons. Why is it always on the girl? If she looks too pretty, or dressed “scantily” she deserves to be raped. Was asking for it. How many times have we heard THAT argument? It’s horrendous. Our society has become one in where boys are being raised, even in the best homes, to believe that being told they are “acting like a girl,” is one of the worst insults for them. We aren’t teaching what consent looks like with the shows on tv, advertisements, how schools handle certain situations. A friend recently didn’t receive a promotion. She was told there was concern that the added stress of the position might strain her home life, yet the employee who was promoted has a family, also. He just happens to be male.

The inequality of genders is something I took away from 13RW. I also saw a lack of listening skills. Hannah tries to reach out at times, albeit clunky and not poised. Asking for help isn’t always gracefully done. Many times those she tried to tell were involved in issues of their own; it’s through no fault of theirs that they don’t hear her. She needed someone to stop and listen, or maybe not finish her sentences. I took away that I can ask my children questions and just stop my mouth and listen. Let them stumble through whatever it is they want to share. I can make time for them, foster them finding good friendships. Encourage them to talk to me. I watched it wondering how I would have responded to AB if he showed any of the signs that she did.

Suicide began to tear her parents apart. It wreaked havoc on friendships. I can’t imagine what it’s done for Vylit’s family, or her friends, or her classmates. I don’t even know that 13RW can create the right dialogue for anyone hurting from her loss. I certainly didn’t finish watching Hannah’s story and think, My kids need to watch this. Not one bit. I am thankful, though, that I did. I will say that it made me think about me, about my parenting, and how to be there for my boys. Yes, there was a lot more I can say, but I’m choosing to focus on this.

Much love to the VanderGiessen family. You are always in my hearts and I’m so sorry it’s because of the loss of your loved one.

The Birth of Vee

Being as I have officially reached my half-way point in life, at 35 years, I can really reflect on the last half of my life and have some real talk. Both with myself, and with my friends.

My whole entire life (well, the first half, stop correcting me) I was known as Virginia. People have forever been trying to give me a nickname. Seriously. There is the EVER ANNOYING Vicky, Ginny, Ginger (!?!?!), Vagine (but in the gross sense because kids are mean), and Virg. Ewwww. I never took a liking to a single one. I only ever answered to Virginia. I get asked all the damn time about if I realized I’m named after a state (and I mean, HOW COULD I NOT KNOW, LIVING IN THE USA!?!?!?!), they play the “There REALLY IS a Santa Claus!” with me, they mention queens, etc. Name games are so fun unless they are about you. It’s slap-your-knee funny except it isn’t. Everybody in my life called me Virginia.

And then my life stopped on April 14th, five entire years ago. And Vee was born.

It wasn’t foreseen but it should have been. For a legit decade, ten years, 3,650 days give or take a few, I had been living in my own personal hell. Granted, there were good days. Of course there were. I won’t say it was non-stop. It just gradually began to feel that way, slowly, like you’re falling asleep. Little by little, Virginia was fading away as each day, week, month, and year passed. That light I had been born with was dimming. I could see it and yet I couldn’t find the strength to relight it.

It’s weird, what trauma will do to you. It’s even more bizarre what repeating trauma does. To you. Today I woke up and felt blah. It’s unlike me but it does happen. My head and my heart very rarely are on different pages, because for the better part of the last five years I have been trying to rebuild who I am, because I gave myself a chance to start over. I talk so much about rewriting your shitty first draft but five years ago, ON THIS DAY, I threw away the whole damn book. I grabbed a new pen, found page freaking one, and started the HELL OVER. Today, though, my head was happy and my heart was heavy. I already knew why, though. I’m forever remembering numbers and dates and moments in my life. I can’t help it.

When I met Kulia, forces in nature began to bring us together. First with daily lunch dates, even though that’s not the right way to describe it. I hadn’t told one single person about what I had been going through for the past ten years and yet with her, I began to feel like maybe I could. How do you reach out to your family and friends, out of what would seem like nowhere, and say to them, “I’ve been a victim of domestic violence for the past decade?” How do you start that conversation? And what would they do? If they hadn’t seen it, or noticed it, or even wondered the whole entire time, could you trust them to know what to do? And WHAT DO YOU DO? That’s the real question. It is the question I had been asking myself, over and over, every day, for the past 120 months. It isn’t lost upon me that if one of my friends had come to me and said ANY of the words I had about what I was going through, I wouldn’t have known where to start, either.

I’m not blaming anyone for not helping me. I couldn’t even help myself, guys.

She (Kulia) talks often about how she thought I was happily married when we met. It isn’t just that I was putting on a show for anyone, but more because I can find a reason to smile every day. I had my boys, who I will forever acknowledge as my life savers and that wasn’t lost upon me. Without them I don’t know if I would be here, today. I had a fantastic job. There were positive things in my life and I used them as a shield. My smile was my sword. As we learned more about each other, I felt safer. I started to feel like the old me. I had a sincere laugh around her. Without knowing what she was doing, she was bringing me back to the ground, because all I had been doing, what was helping me deal, was floating outside of myself. I rarely felt like I knew who I was. She started to help me remember.

As I remembered how to blossom he noticed the changes. I started to find words to tell him that I used to be afraid of saying. I started to defend myself. It didn’t take him long to piece together that it was around the time her and I became friends. Except this time, I wasn’t getting convinced to stay. I told him I didn’t love him. I told him I never had. And he lost his damn mind. He started to pull the boys into it. Brought Samuel into the living room and demanded he choose, in that moment, if he wanted to live with him or with me, should we split. I started to see a maniac emerge, when all I had known was Devil’s Rage. When I wasn’t home he would harass my phone. He had to travel to the mainland for a few days and I didn’t answer his calls one night. He was upset I had gone out to dinner with friends and before I knew it, there was something like seventy-eight missed calls on my phone.

The more psychotic he became, the more I knew my life was becoming precarious. I read a statistic recently that said that 50% of domestic violence victims lose their life to their offender. It brought me back to those moments. He came home and big fights happened. More and more frequently and I didn’t know how to stop them anymore. I didn’t even want to. One day on my way home from work, as I walked there, he called me. “I’m in the car. With your kids. We are headed to the airport. You’ll never see them again.” And then out loud, in a scary voice, he said, “Tell your Mom bye, boys.” I tried to run home, frantic, because I didn’t doubt any of it for one moment, but I wasn’t a runner then. I couldn’t go more than ten seconds without having to stop and catch my breath. I never hated my body as much as that day, thinking I would never see my children again.

And then April 14th. My REBIRTH-DAY. Another dinner date with friends. Kulia was with me. As we enjoyed our meal and some wine, he called. A lot of times. I wouldn’t answer because I was hashtag OVER IT. Of course, he made it about the boys. “Abraham is sick and has a fever and there is no medicine in the house. I bet you don’t even care,” his voicemail said. So, I told her I had to get home. She took me to get medicine and then dropped me off. The next time I called her was for her to find me at a busy intersection.

I won’t go into everything that happened that night. I don’t even think I remember all of it. It was one of the scariest nights of my life, and then the best. Without thinking about it, without giving it a second thought, I found myself, less than four hours later but what only seemed like four minutes, jumping out of a moving vehicle and running, again, for my life. I didn’t have my kids with me. The threat of them leaving the island was still very real but I couldn’t stay with him and give him ONE MORE DAY with me, not one more moment. I had to trust that he would keep his word, just this once, and not run off with my little men.

When I told my Dad about it, for the first time and not without some anxiety, a few days later, he said he was proud of me. “You have to show yourself some respect, Mija,” he told me. And it finally made sense. We went on to have an incredible conversation about divorce when I got back to the mainland, a couple weeks later. It was one of the best conversations we had as father and daughter, in a way we never had before.

Whenever I think about that April 14th in my life, I feel my heart race. It has replayed in my dreams many times. I can’t escape it and this is the first time I’ve woken up on it and not hated the day. Never because of what I did to help myself, but more because of what had to happen for me to find that insane second of courage to finally do it. I feel like this is the first time, in the past five years, that I woke up and felt like I had finally forgiven myself for it, which seems backwards. Shouldn’t I be so proud of having done all that?

Yes, I am. But it’s hard to acknowledge every piece of that puzzle, for me. Sharing my story has helped me move forward, but it has come with a price that I didn’t know would be paid. Thinking about it keeps it fresh in my mind. My heart gets tender, my brain wants to forget, my body finds itself in fight or flight and I can hardly breathe sometimes. A friend told me recently that she’s like me, an open book. I agree to an extent that I can be, but so much remains off topic. So much still, hasn’t allowed itself to come to surface.

And then I try to imagine how Kulia must have felt, to get a call from me just so many hours after she had dropped me off, at a place she knew I wasn’t safe in. She had to have known that it wouldn’t be a happy call, although it was the happiest call, too. And to put herself out there and be vulnerable, without knowing what could come next. I try to remember that when we argue. That even when I’m upset with her or her with me, she has never made me want to jump out of a car and risk injury to myself. She’s never made me feel like I’m garbage or unwanted. She’s never made me think the next breath could be my last. When she answered my phone call, she never said no to me. She took Vee and made it feel right, made it feel like love.

She’s continued to encourage me to find this voice and use it. When I said I wanted to be on the board of the local DVSAS (Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services) in the area, she knew it was the place for me. And it happened! I was just voted on, unanimously, by the board this week and begin a new chapter, as a Domestic Violence Victor. I can use my words and my love to help others in this community. My mid-way point has just continued to get better. It feels amazing to be seen as someone who can make an impact. I mean to do just so.

I will never say starting over is easy. It was the fourth hardest thing I’ve ever done, and yes, I keep track. I have found so much beauty, though, in those moments. I’ll continue to share them with you all, as I find the voice for them. And April 14th will no longer be a dark day for my life. It is light and I will honor it.

Happy REBIRTH-DAY to me!

The Secret to Life

My grandmother recently celebrated her eighty-third birthday.

EIGHTY-THREE!

As a treat, we offered to take her to lunch at her favorite spot. She loves Olive Garden, so naturally, that was where she picked. She called early the morning of, wanted to know when we would be there so she could be ready. I could hear the excitement in her voice and couldn’t help but smile. My grandma has always been down for a good time and some laughs. This was clearly not going to be an exception to the rule.

Of all the people I’ve met in my life, my Grandma has been the least judgmental person. Ever. She is always kind, offering a smile and sweet words to anyone. I’ve never heard her raise her voice or be upset, not even with my Grandpa, who is quite an ornery fellow at times. My Grandma was one of my first friends, near the top of a short list of people who know how to really hug.

My grandparents lived on Lopez Island for most of my formative years. For those that don’t know, Lopez is a relaxing, calm, almost hippie-like haven full of good souls and sunshine, soft rolling hills and welcoming friends island off the coast of northern Washington state. You can only get there by ferry, where you can drive your automobile onto. Lopez is where I spent nearly every Thanksgiving, Christmas holiday, and spring break. I would have lived there, with them, if I would have been allowed. My grandparents are true gems; absolute angels. My Grandpa gave me my first set of luggage, which I would eagerly pack whenever I was given the green light. Always without hesitation.

When I was five, I had gotten sick to the point I needed to be seen by a doctor. I was supposed to go visit Grandma and Grandpa but needed the go-ahead first. My Mom was told I had a touch of heat stroke and was prescribed more fluids. With that said, I was off for my next adventure. Except, I was in for a different kind of fun, you could say, since about two hours after arriving, I started to break out in spots all over. It was chicken pox, friends. And it was RARING to be seen.

Being sick is no fun. Unless you happen to win the sick lottery and end up at Grandma’s. I WAS IN HEAVEN! She took the BEST care of me, waited on me hand and foot. Made any meal I asked for, which was almost always pancakes or French toast (which I can’t stand nowadays, probably because no one makes them like Grandma) and played so many games with me, like cribbage, rummy and hearts. That summer is still one of my favorites.

When we picked Grandma up for lunch yesterday, she was glowing. Had her makeup on, some lipstick and a vibrant green shirt to match her energy. She was genuinely happy to see us. After we hugged Grandpa and promised to have her home safe before long, we set out on our date. Once we got to OG, we sat and jumped right back into our conversation that had started in the car. Chatting and spending time with my Grandma is one of my absolute favorite things in the world, and it was needed.

I shared my thoughts on this being my half-ways point in life, what with my upcoming thirty-fifth birthday. She laughed and said she thought that was a fun idea, a good idea. “You never know,” she said and she’s right. I, of course, asked her what her best piece of advice is for life, because I wanted to ask my friend when I saw her in hospice the other day, but couldn’t because she was sleeping and never woke back up. Grandma isn’t dying but I don’t want to miss my chance. I want everyone’s advice. I don’t want time to work against me anymore. I want to ask all the people, especially those close to me. Her answer made us all laugh out loud, but rang with so much truth.

“My Mom shared this with me once,” she began.

“You just got to learn when to shut your BIG, FAT mouth. If you can learn that, you got it made.”

Ohhhhhhhhmaaaaaagooooooodneeesssss, did we have a fantastic chuckle over that. It’s such a friggin truth bomb, though! I asked her so many questions yesterday, trying to remember every moment. None will stick out as much as that one. What we thought would be lunch with Grandma became life lessons, how to day drink a bottle (or two) of white wine, marriage tips, and raising kids. We learned about her Mom and all her ever knowing wisdom, taught Grandma about Snapchat, took hilarious photos. We made memories with her that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Life is so short but can be as sweet and loving as you let it. Give people an opportunity to speak openly with you. Spend time with them and ask questions and don’t wait until it’s too late. We all just want to be heard and feel loved and all of us have that power in our hands.

Happy birthday, Grandma! I hope I get more years with you by my side!

Vee's Happily Ever Laughter