Lost And Found

On Sunday, I met with out of town company. The company? My sister-in-law, or rather my former sister-in-law. That’s one of the things I lost in the divorce…family.

I was close to this sister-in-law and had been for many years. Even once I was separated and divorced, we remained close for a short time, until things got complicated. It was the little things that broke the bonds. Little things like something that I said innocently being repeated to her brother and causing me problems and things that she said that I repeated to her brother that caused her problems. So I thought it best to keep my distance from her. My kids still saw her. My girls were in her wedding. But I was left out of the picture as much as I left myself out of it.

I saw her from time to time, like when her daughter was born and at my daughter’s baby shower and we invited her to school and scout functions. Most recently we saw each other at my son’s wedding in 2013.

And so when she messaged me late last week to say that she would be in town for the weekend, I was glad that it was going to work out to see her and her family. I was a bit apprehensive because, well, you just don’t know. But it was fine. It was just for a couple of hours at a bakery in Portland with outdoor seating. My youngest daughter, her husband and the baby (my youngest grandchild, six months old) were also there. I’m glad we were able to do that and I’m hopeful that the lines of communication will be more open from here on out.

I wish it were that easy to pick up the pieces and reunite with all the family I lost in the divorce. My father and mother-in-law are both gone. The rest of my ex’s siblings are kind of off in nowhere land or at least the land of non-communication.

The same with friends. I lost so many during the divorce. And he lost them too. Most didn’t want to be caught taking sides. And the ones that remained his friends were friends that had been his friends before we met or those that were work friends. But I lost them…I felt the loss. I felt like I had been left all alone.

On Sunday, I got a little bit of the past back. We remembered when she was a teen and used to come to Los Angeles to spend the summer with us. I would take her everywhere…Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Fisherman’s Village in San Pedro, Long Beach, the Queen Mary, and just about everywhere else. And then we would hit Jack In the Box for strawberry milkshakes! Sometimes we’d get two in one day!

I’m hopeful that we will get to reminisce over more memories in the future. One can always hope.

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Family – Weekly Smile

Last Sunday I got to have all five of my grandchildren under the same roof at the same time and two of my three adult children, too.

This never happens. Well, at least not in a long time. The last time we were all together was for Christmas in 2013. Three of the grandchildren weren’t even born yet! So definitely not something that happens often.

It might happen again when the newest grandchild is born. She is due in December 26 so at some point the Seattle group will come down to Portland to meet her. It might not happen right away because we have to be extra careful to not expose her to anything, like COVID or flu. Everyone is vaccinated and “boostered” except Maya who won’t be old enough for the vaccine until February. But not everyone has their flu shot yet.

That was my weekly smile. What was yours? Stop by Trent’s blog to read more weekly smiles and leave a link to yours!Trent’s blog

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Joy –#WeekendCoffeeShare

If we were having coffee, I would be out of sorts and once we got settled and comfy, I would probably start telling you about my favorite aunt, Joy.

When I was little, around four, my uncle who lived with us, got a new girlfriend that lived down the street from us. He met her when my mom sent him to Maio’s Market, on the corner, for a dinner ingredient. When we walked by the house where Joy lived, she was outside. That was the beginning of a year sixty year marriage. He brought her to the house to meet us and to meet my mom. My mom was ten years older than my uncle and had practically raised him as she cared for him when my grandmother was at work. So she was very protective of her little brother. Aunt Joy and my mom didn’t get along at first and even once they came to appreciate each other and truly care for one another, there were some rough times, mostly due to “boundaries” perceived and real.

I felt a special bond with her, even in the early days. My middle name is Joy and when I found out that her real name was not Joy, I asked her why she used that as her name. She answered that she hated her given name, Jovita. And one day, while washing dishes as part of her chores, she looked at the bottle of dish washing liquid and decided she would from then on be called Joy, like the soap.

I really liked Aunt Joy. I would go visit her, even before they were married. And I kind of shadowed her when she came to visit my uncle. Later, she took very good care of us, driving across town when my mother was in the hospital and I was having a lot of pain. She helped me and brought medicine and stayed until I felt better and my brothers were home from school.

When I went to college and my parents moved from San Jose in California to Orange County, I spent a lot of time with my aunt. They lived about a half hour from Palo Alto where I attended college. I spent weekends with them and holidays. That’s when she taught me one of the most important things in my life. Volunteering. I went along with her to deliver cupcakes or cookies to my cousins’ classrooms for their parties. I learned about Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts and going on field trips with the kids’ classes. I went along with her to help at church craft fairs and other fundraisers. I asked her once why she did all of that. My mom hadn’t done any of that so it seemed different to me. She explained that we always have a duty to help out whenever we can, especially with schools and youth groups and churches because they don’t have a lot of money or a lot of help. That stayed with me and when I became a mom, I started volunteering as soon as my kids got to pre-school. I never stopped. Class mom, field trip chaperone, den mother for Cub Scouts, troop leader for Girl Scouts. Fundraising chair at the elementary school. PTA president. Foundation President. I still volunteer (well not since the pandemic shut everything and everyone down last March) at the grandkids’ schools.

She taught me so much. She was like a second mom. I’ve always thought of her as one of the five most influential people in my life.

She died yesterday.

I am deeply saddened. I cannot be there to honor her or memorialize her as I am very high risk and not vaccinated yet. It would be too big of a risk. And then there is the money involved. So I can’t. Instead, I will share with others, as I’ve shared here with you. I’ll continue to sip my tea and think about her and just talk to her spirit.

For more #weekendcoffeeshare posts, please visit Natalie the Explorer and, if you are so inclined, please write your own coffee share post and link up here.

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Home

Where is home? Is it a physical place? Is it where you live?

Home seems to conjure up so many feelings in each of us. Earlier today, I came across a post in Daily Musings that got me to thinking about “home”.

It’s a lot of different things to me. It’s where I live, physically, in my home. But home is not always just a house. To me, home is family. Family is home. I once noticed that to me, home was wherever my mom lived, even if I had never actually lived there myself. Mom equaled home. Whenever I get to go back to that house, if I ever do, I know it won’t be home. My mom isn’t there anymore. She’s gone. My sister lives there so I guess that it’s still home in the way that family is home but I don’t think I’ll feel that.

Home is where my kids are or even where we all are together even if it isn’t anyone’s domicile. It’s home because family is there.

In another way, home is also California where I was born and grew up. I love going back to California and it still feels like home. The house where I grew up in San Jose also brings back feelings of home, as does San Jose. I lived there for so long. When I go to San Jose I am home, even though I’m no longer familiar with everything there or how to get from one place to the other. It’s still home and when I leave San Jose, I have a sad feeling in my heart.

I guess home is many things to many of us. Where is home to YOU?

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Maya

I was over there today. She didn’t know I was there. When she saw me, she yelled out “Nana!” and came running to me, wrapping herself around me. While I was there, she kept saying, “I do glad you’re here.”

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Tomorrow

Tomorrow there will be remembrance posts about 9/11 and I was going to write one but tomorrow is also the day that Spencer (my six year old grandson) will be having kidney surgery and I will be preoccupied with that. I’m going to try to not worry. I can’t even be there with my daughter  (Tina) because it’s in the afternoon and I have to be at her house with the other kids who will be home from school by then. Luckily, my other daughter (Susie) volunteered to go to the hospital to be with Tina before I even asked her to. Yay for sisters and family!

It’s a three hour surgery. And of course, they probably won’t start on time so it may be late by the time I get any post-op word.  Can you tell I’m already nervous? I’m babbling!  Anyway, if you read this today or tomorrow, please hold a good thought and send positive energy!

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Hugs And Smiles #WeeklySmile

The past three weeks have been different as we get used to a new routine. With the kids in full time daycare, I’m not needed as much. However, we haven’t gotten into a routine because things keep popping up. The kids now live in Vancouver, Washington. You may have heard that there is an outbreak of measles in Clark County. That’s the county that covers Vancouver. Over half of the exposure sites are within a couple of miles of where they live. The daycare classes that the kids are in have kids that attend one of the elementary schools with confirmed cases of measles. The boys have been vaccinated but Maya had not been. My daughter does not like to vaccinate with the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)until after age three. Maya turned two over the weekend. So it became a challenge to keep her from possible exposure. She stayed home from daycare and I stayed with her. She finally was able to get an appointment to get vaccinated against the measles. Then we were told she would be considered “safe” after ten days. My daughter was between jobs so she stayed home for her for a week then she had to start her new job so I stayed with her. She’s finally safe, or as safe as can be with the first of the two vaccines. [There are two vaccines. The first is given between 9 and 15 months and the second between 15 months and 6 years. The first vaccine is 93% effective and the second bumps the immunity up to 97%.]

Then the weather changed just in time for me to go up there for Maya’s birthday and get snowed-in! So I was up there again for a couple of days. I’m home. I’m a little sad (depressed, actually) because I miss them.

So where’s the smile? Well, after not seeing me for a week and a half, I went up there for Maya’s birthday and got up there early so I went to get the kids from daycare. They weren’t expecting me. When the boys saw me, they did a double take. Then we walked over to get Maya. I didn’t even have to call her name. She heard the door open and looked in that direction. She saw me and she tore off running toward me faster than you would guess a 2 year old could run. With outstretched arms, she jumped into my arms and grabbed a hold of me around my neck with a death grip! She put her little head on my shoulder and just held on tight. THAT was my smile. She missed me that much.

As I sit here typing this, although I’ve been depressed these couple of days since I last saw her, this memory is bringing back more smiles and I’m pretty sure that when I see her again next Sunday, she’ll be just as happy to see me. I’ll be staying with the kids while their mom works and the school and daycare are both closed for Presidents’ Day. I’m looking forward to that.

What made YOU smile this week? Tell us about it in your own #WeeklySmile post and head over to Trent’s Blog to check out more smiles.

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2018’s Last Smiles

The end of last year was good in a lot of ways and brought many smiles. There were new friends as I met some of my daughter’s friends for an evening of making tamales, a Christmas tradition in my family. I was the one that taught the new people how to spread the masa on the corn husk and fill it and roll it. They turned out tasty; a bit different from the usual but still fine. Next year I think I will take over the cooking of the meat again but maybe not. I won’t be around forever so the ones after me have to learn so maybe I should just make sure I am here to supervise when the meat is put on the stove (or in this case the Instant Pot).

I also managed to carve out a little bit of time for me. I had a day of doctors’ appointments the Thursday before Christmas so I went home on Wednesday night. After the appointments, I stayed home so that I could attend a pizza night across town at some friends’ home. It was a lot of fun. We had pizza, birthday cake (for me and for three other women who were there and had December birthdays), yummy drinks, and then a very fun game and a white elephant gift exchange. Those are always fun because the gift you choose can be “stolen” from you!

The BIG smile came on the Friday before Christmas. I think I have mentioned Lularoe clothing in the past. Well, I follow one consultant on Facebook. They are a local husband and wife team (they are actually the ones who hosted the pizza night) and they are very generous. They’ve become friends with their 8800 members, and in a lot of ways the group is more like a family. This year they did a Twelve Days Of Christmas giveaway. Each day there was a question asked and those who participated were entered in a drawing for a shopping spree. The shopping spree time length corresponded to the “day of Christmas” it happened to be. Friday was the ninth day of Christmas so the shopping spree was nine minutes long. The winner had to be online when the name was announced at six in the evening then their time began immediately. Well, I won the ninth day of Christmas and was standing by with my list of items I wanted to claim (there was a specific phrase that had to be typed as a comment to each item claimed). I scored big! I was able to claim nineteen free items! If I totaled the sale price of the items I claimed, it would be well over five hundred dollars! Some of the items I used as gifts and some I kept for myself. It was the icing on the cake that was December.

Christmas was good. It started very low key as I woke up with three of the grandkids and enjoyed watching them open their gifts. My two daughters were there. Then I drove the three hours to Seattle to spend the rest of the day with my son and grandson and daughter-in-law. So for the first time in about five years, I got to see all three of my kids and all four of my grandchildren on Christmas!

These were my many smiles for the last couple of weeks. What did you smile about last week? Check out Trent’s Weekly Smile post and tell us about your smiles!

#theweeklysmile  #weeklysmile

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#AtoZ — Grandma

Join me during the month of April as I blog through the alphabet. My theme will be What’s In A Name. I will attempt to write up a short fictional character sketch beginning with a different letter of the alphabet each day. Remember that a place can also be a character.

Granma

The smile on Grandma’s face made Barbara cry. It had been so long since she had seen anything but a vacant look on her grandmother’s face. She had tried to get her room changed for many months. Finally, Mr. Adams’ room had been vacated and the Director had asked Barbara if it would be adequate. The window overlooked the playground in the lot behind the home and it was perfect. Grandma had been moved while Barbara pushed her wheelchair all over the home, marking time for her things to be moved. Barbara talked to her grandmother non stop as she pushed the chair.

Finally, arriving at her new room, Barbara placed her grandmother’s chair by the window where she could watch the children playing. At the moment, there were several children there, including two little girls who appeared to be sisters, playing with a woman old enough to be their grandmother. Barbara wondered if Grandma, somewhere in her mind, was remembering all the park days they had shared. There was a slight change in her eyes. Maybe Barbara was wrong. Maybe she was looking for hope where there was none. But she seemed to see a bit of a light starting to shine, way deep inside those clouded blue eyes.

As she left, Barbara looked back at her grandmother and although there were tears, she also had a smile. She knew changing rooms had been the right thing to do for Grandma.

Alexa

Babs

Curtis

Diane

Eve

Fran

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#AtoZ–Babs

Join me during the month of April as I blog through the alphabet. My theme will be What’s In A Name. I will attempt to write up a short fictional character sketch beginning with a different letter of the alphabet each day. Remember that a place can also be a character.

Barbara

Barbara walked into the room. She had been standing at the door watching her grandmother sitting at the window looking out at nothing with a vacant look in her eyes. No one knew what she was seeing or what she was thinking. Grandma hadn’t been able to tell them that in a couple of years but Barbara never lost hope that one day her grandmother would be able to tell them something or recognize her.

Day after day, she sat at the window looking out at the wall of the adjacent building. Barbara wished she could have her moved to a room with a view where she could look out at the park behind the home, or even out at the street in front of the building. The Director said there were no rooms available so they had to wait. Barbara felt a little guilty because as she hoped for a vacancy, that meant someone would be dying because that was about the only way people left this place. But Barbara wanted a view for Grandma. She remembered all the times her grandmother would take her to parks to play and to the river for walks. Her grandmother had loved to watch people and make up imaginary stories about where they were off to when they left her view. At the park, Grandma would push her on the swings, even after she learned to pump her legs to swing herself. Grandma ran with her and laughed with her; she kissed her boo boos and held her tight. Grandma was the only one allowed to call her Babs. No one else could do that without getting a kick in the shins. Only Grandma. Barbara missed her so much.

She walked to Grandma and started talking to her. They said Grandma didn’t understand her but Barbara didn’t care. Barbara sat and talked to her and reminded her of the days they went to the park and the trips they used to take and she laughed for Grandma, even if Grandma couldn’t laugh for herself.

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