A Step Back in Time into Love

My children's paternal grandmother, Leona, passed away in December.  Her family decided to have her funeral in February.  My daughter wanted to go and I agreed to go with her this past weekend.  I have always loved my ex-husband, Jim, and I was so very "in" love with his family.  Walking into Leona's home the other night was a step back in time.  Seeing everyone was nearly overwhelming for me.  After all theses decades, they made me feel at home. Welcome.  It was as if years of separation had never happened.

Jim was a wonderful man, a very caring and compassionate husband and an awesome father.  It was me, my secrets and my mental illness.  I think I was mentally ill long before my marriage but the birth of my daughter and the depression that followed was my first glimpse into hell.  I thought my husband was my dad and I was my mother and Trisha was me.  I couldn't make sense of the world or anything in it.  My husband went to our doctor and the doctor ordered a prescription of Valium for me (my start into the world of addiction).

I somehow felt I had to hide who I really was from everyone.  My husband was the oldest of 10 and hiding in his large family was easy.  I loved them and for the first time I understood the meaning of family.  I never had a real family.  Jim's family made me feel loved,  protected and secure.  The large stately home they lived in was my sanctuary.  I went there all the time and I couldn't have been happier and I was never again saner.

Jim went into the Army, his family moved to Florida and I had two more children, my sons.  During my third pregnancy Jim had to leave for his third tour in Viet Nam.  I was in horrible shape mentally.  Jim did everything he could do to stay home with me.  He took me to Army doctors and they said I would be fine just have a couple drinks before bed to help me sleep.  (My first steps into alcoholism.)  He left and just before our second son was born Viet Nam ended.  My husband came home and we bundled up our new baby boy and headed off to Fort Sill, OK.

The third kid was overwhelming for me.  I couldn't figure out how to take care of three of them. I only had two arms.  Who would I save in a fire?  What would I do?  Big Jim worked nights and I was so terrified.  He brought a hand gun home but that made me more fearful and so he had to take it away.  My third kid was very ill and would stop breathing often.  He wasn't gaining weight, couldn't hold up his head and was not connected to the world.  The doctors thought he had mental issues because the cord was wrapped around his neck at birth.  It turned out to be allergies but the damage to my mental health was swift and severe.  The solution for me was more Valium or Librium and booze.

I met a woman during that madness and she would take my hand and walk with me into the very pits of addiction, alcoholism and insanity.  She helped me find the false courage I needed to get divorced.  Many years before, in the late 1960's, I had left Jim.  My parents with my daughters Godparents told me if I divorced him they would go to court and have Trisha (my only child at the time) taken away from me.  So, I felt like I had go as far away from family as I could.  Besides, why would they want to hear from me anyhow?  I moved to California and stayed low.  I would never give up my babies.  Never.  By now deep paranoia had set in.  I self medicated and drank more and more.  I stayed in the pits of hell for nearly ten years until 1984.  That is when I found Dr Jacob and my 12 step program.

No one will ever know how much I still mourn the loss of my husband and his family.  How much I wish my children could have known the normalcy and love this family would have freely given them.  I often wonder how things would have been different for me and my children if and if.  This weekend I was able to tell Jim's wife of 20 plus years how much I appreciate her. Jim deserves happiness and a good wife who can take care of him.  I was able to tell Jim I will love him until my last breath and I am so sorry I couldn't be the wife he needed and deserved.  I was able to embrace and be embraced by the people that taught me to love and to be loved, for the first time in my life, all those years ago.

Thank you to my Higher Power for the gift of one of the most beautiful, bitter-sweet weekends of my life.  I only pray today for forgiveness from this family and my children.  Your will Father not mine.
     

God and the Woodpecker

November is gratitude month and believe it or not, as of today, I have not sat at one gratitude table.  In Michigan it seemed all we had were gratitude meetings in November!  I hated those meetings.  People said, "I am grateful for my sobriety." I always thought, "Big deal everyone in the room is sober."

I learned the biggest lessons of my life in March of 2009.  First, I need to back up a few months.  I had a beautiful backyard in Michigan with a creek and huge old trees.  In my kitchen was a big sliding glass door and I could sit at my breakfast table and behold nature.  Out in my yard I had a tiny little bird house with a tiny little hole in it.  Every spring these little birds would come and have babies birds and leave at summers end.

In the late fall of 2008 I was watching out my door and along came a red-headed woodpecker.  He started pecking away at the little hole in my little birdhouse.  At first I wanted to shoo him away but I had never seen a woodpecker up close.  So I watched in fascination as he hammered away.  When he left I looked and to my horror the cute little hole was big, ugly and out of shape.  Before I could get up from the table along came these bigger birds.  They made their home there in the birdhouse.  The imperfect house, in my eyes, became a perfect home for those birds!  My gift was a lesson about perfection and God's grace but it doesn't end there.

In March of 2009, the movers came and went and I was wrapping up a bittersweet move from Michigan to Mississippi.  I was cleaning out the last remaining things from the kitchen and I looked out and saw my poor run down birdhouse.  I was wondering if those little birds would live in that house ever again.  All of a sudden a huge storm started.  It got very black and the wind blew very hard.  The river was way above its the banks and the huge trees were water-logged and heavy.

When the storm ended many trees had fallen across my backyard.  Part of my garage roof was torn back and I had minor damage to my house.  My fence had collapsed under the tremendous weight of those huge old trees.  I looked through the limbs and devastation and there, standing proud, was the birdhouse.  What a beautiful gift my HP gave me!  He showed me His grace and His love.  If He cared so much for His birds, I knew I was "worth it".  I also knew everything would be O.K. and for that I am very grateful.

Coat Hangers and Safety Pins

I have had a ton of stuff going on in the last few weeks.  A new doctor, oxygen and new medications.  I think I am doing great for a 61 year old that smoked too much, drank too much and had way way too much fun.  So I am here in Mississippi and I needed a new doctor.  The new doctor wanted new tests and oops, I am not getting enough oxygen. Oh, and one more thing the cholesteral is way too high.

I told her I am opposed to taking medications.  She was fine with that and wrote me a prescription for fish oil for my cholesteral.  She ordered a monitor to check my oxygen levels at night and I was way too low.  She then ordered oxygen at night and a sleep study.  The sleep study requires another new doctor.  Yikes!  Scarey stuff.

And here is how my wondrous life goes, my sponsor Wendy called me.  We chatted about nothing really but I got out of myself.  I have trouble calling because I never can figure out the the first few words when I am, well to be honest, scared.  People don't live without oxygen.  My mom died from lung cancer and on and on the fears swirled.  Wendy helped me find something else to do and she didn't even know it.  I looked for and ordered CD's by Holly Martin and Poor Boy Rice.  It takes me forever to do that kind of stuff.

Oh the title of this blog? I did laundry after the oxygen came the other day.  When I was hanging clothes up there was the coat hanger with the safety pins on it.  It was my mom's.  Mom always wore skirts and always pinned them to a hanger with safety pins.  This treasure was my unexpected inheritance.  After mom died I was given a bunch of her old clothes to take to the Goodwill.  Somehow this lone coat hanger with the pins got left behind in my closet.  It seems just when I need a Mother's touch there is her coat hanger.  The safety pins were no doubt pinned to her blouse like a medal before they were pinned to this old hanger.  I can still see her removing the pins from her blouse and lovingly pinning her skirt to the hanger.  And now that old hanger lovingly embraces me.

Breaking for Rainbows

I started a blog a while back.  My vision was to do something with my idle time so I wouldn't worry about my son so much. (My son, James, is in Iraq.)  The thoughts around, the planning and the writing of the blog occupied much of my time. The benefit to me was time passed and fears diminished.  The awesome gift I got from the blog was hope and peace of mind.

When I started blogging I wanted to write about my fears and my relationships with family and friends.  Like many in my age group I came from a fairly normal dysfunctional home.  It would have been very easy for me to name the sins of all my family members but for what purpose?  Some would say "to heal" and to them I say "bah".  These people have partners, spouses, children, grandchildren and other family and friends.  Do I need to destroy them to heal myself?  I don't think so.

What I decided to do was write things that are positive about these people.  My mom always said, "If you cannot say something nice, don't say anything at all."  As much hurt as some of my family caused me they also blessed me with wonderful gifts.  So many gifts that to name them would take me hours!  Music, theater, love, discipline, laughter, the list is endless.

Today I have an appreciation for everyone who has walked my journey with me.  When I cannot find anything good to say about an individual I remember the lesson from our relationship was life changing.  I am very grateful for all the days of my life and even during the worst of storms, I still break for rainbows.