Much better

I am feeling much better. I still get teary occasionally, but it isn't that bone crushing pain anymore. How grateful I am for my knowledge of the gospel, and knowing that he is no longer in pain. I took a personal weekend last week, just to wallow, with the determination that Monday, I would jump back into life. And all week I have been okay. Not great, but getting thru.

Chandler is still sleeping on our floor each night. He is terrified he is dying. How do you convince an over anxious child that he is okay?? I got notice that our primary care pedi is no longer taking our insurance, as of 2/01, so I am waiting til Monday, and I will call the new one and have him see Chan. Maybe if a doctor tells him he is okay, he will believe it.

No daycare this week, either. The dad's dad passed so they have been in Vegas all week. So Bill and I have been kicking around like two marbles in a shoe box. We had Chan home a few days, but that didn't stop us.

As soon as we show the licensing board that we have workman's comp insurance, Bill can start working. We put in a call to Richard, Bill's numero uno nephew, and he is searching out quotes. We are going to have a lot of insurance needs really soon, so let him get his feet wet with WC. Next is Unemployment insurance and the dreaded 1,000,000 liability policy. Yikes. Rumor mill says it is 600 down and 200 a month. I worry that we are starting in such a mushy economy. But Bill's contacts still swear they have work for him.

Taxes come Friday, the sixth. With it we will get ahead on rent (the owners will have a heart attack I am sure), do a couple car repairs we have been putting off, and buy Bill a work truck. I have to have a decent car to do the school drops and pickups, so he needs his own. Adrianne goes to preschool in Norco, 7 miles away, and I refuse to walk her, even though she has asked. I told her Norco was horse country and shy of sidewalks. How would I push the stroller with Lillia and Maribella if there were no sidewalks?? This appeased her. LOL. I am so glad, as I do not want to hike that.

Off to finish dinner.

Oh, this is the last pic we have of Arik. It is Christmas Day, and he and Kailey are goofing off.

I am not doing well.

The funeral was yesterday. It was a beautiful service, the chapel was packed and the overflow needed, and everything went off well. I gave the eulogy and everyone laughed in the right spots, nad were quiet appropriately. It was the worst day of my life. I am tired of the family drama. Out of twelve cousins AJ had, I only spotlighted his best buddy, my sister's son. A cousin of mine felt slighted that her daughter, a rarely seen second cousin, wasn't mentioned. Hey, I didn't mention any of my kids either....didja notice?? This was for Mom, not you. Let someone else have the spotlight this time. Same cousin horned in on the family table, too. Really. Mom and dad have three daughters and 13 grandkids. There wasn't enough room for all of us, definitely not for you.

Emotionally I am a wreck. We ran to the store to get trash bags. Ran into a girl I have always counted as a good friend. She knows what I have been thru this week, and even though I am trying to put it behind me and move on, I am still teary, and need a friend. I feel so lonely right now. She was right out rude, and really hurt me.Bill was with me, so I am not being over wrought or hysterical. He was surprised by her behavior, too.

I am thinking of staying home from church tomorrow. Except, my co teacher already told me she had a barrel race today, and wouldn't be up to teaching. Hello?? Your barrel racing is your job and your everyday life. My life has been turned upside down and shaken good.

Edited to add, Friend in grocery store had no idea. Bill had said she told someone else, who called with condolences, and he got the name wrong. Friend was embarrassed by her insensitivity. Had I not been such an emotional mush, the encounter would not have been rude at all. She said she was late to a funeral at the time, and in normal circumstances, I would have had an amused indulgence.

Full Circle.

I am glad this blog is not a real person, because I shamefully neglect it. Then when I need it, I come looking for the release and the solace it brings me to type out all my woes. IF this were a real person, he/she would have kicked me to the curb long ago.

Thursday was a big day for me. Cameryn turned 10!! I have a bad habit of thinking of her and Tyler as 'the babies'. With Tyler almost seven, it no longer applies to either of them. 10 years ago she made her weak entrance into the world. How devastated we were to learn how ill she was. Her lungs collapsed shortly after birth due to the very hard, long labor I had with her. She was finally delivered emergency C section, just in time. Her heart had stopped a few times, and the doctor could not be found.

11 days in the NICU, and we brought her home. To see her today you would never know she had such a rough start. Her birthday dinner was tomato soup with Ritz crackers, grilled cheese (with real cheddar) and cheesecake.

On a different note that day, my 15 year old brother was hit by a car and killed.

Let me back up and give a little history. My dad married my mom in January of 65. He brought his two daughters, Debbie and Patty to the union. Their mom had decided that being a mom was not for her and she split. Debbie and Patty had a tough life, made tougher by the fact they wouldn't let my mom (I was born in Nov. of 65) be their mom. They grew up and were very unhappy, and both ran off by the age of 14, and had their first babies at 16. Debbie had John and my parents took him in when he was 6 weeks old. He was now our brother. I was nine and Karen seven when he came. Debbie and Patty had been gone a while by this point, and i was used to being the oldest. Two years later, when she was 16, Patty had Monica, and disappeared in the night when she was three days old. So, my parents raised her, too.

I was told they were my brother and sister, and that is how I have always thought of them.

Debbie went on to have three more kids, nad Patty one, and all ended up being raised by assorted family members, or foster families.

One day in 1993, Karen called me in a panic. A social worker out of LA called her and Debbie had had another baby (the youngest of Debbie's was 11 by this point). The SW told Karen since she had Debbie's other two boys, and she is next of kin, she was bringing the baby out, and didn't give Karen a say. Karen had four kids of her own, plus was expecting #5, and Fernando and Adam. There was no way she could take a sickly (He was born with drugs in his system, and an STD) baby. I had three kids myself, but I had a three bedroom house. I rushed over there to meet the sw and bring AJ home with me.The social worker said Debbie had named him Angel Jr. I could not see calling a baby after his drug addled, gang banger father, so I called him AJ. I asked for financial help since Kailey was eight months old, and now I had two babies in diapers and formula. THe SW told me I was family and it was my responsibility to provide for him. It broke my heart when he was five months old to call her back and have her come get him because I just couldn't afford it. I have often wondered if his life would have been different if I had stuck it out. But we were sinking, and I couldn't see taking him down with us.

Patty then took him, since Debbie's rights had been terminated. I thought this odd at the time since she had lost her second daughter to the system, and she had been adopted out. And they gave her this baby?? When he was three, Debbie had him again, and was living on the street. The social worker found him starving, and sickly, and them in an alley. She called us again, and my mom felt prompted to quit her job and stay home and raise him. My parents adopted him at four and he was no longer my nephew, but had been promoted to brother. He was, age wise, right in the middle of his twelve cousins.

We had found out later that the social worker had lied. Debbie did not name the baby. Debbie called at some point and asked my parents why I had named him after Angel. So, since he was so used to AJ, my mom named him Arik James at the time of hte adoption. Kind of a nordic spelling for a dark hispanic kid. LOL.

AJ was always a confused, and angry kid. I blame the drugs in utero for his unhappiness. In the last year he had run away often, and was repeating a lot of the same mistakes made by Debbie. In October, my mom's bishop stepped in and offered to give him a home. By this time he had an arrest record. One more, and juvie was in his future. Christmas morning, he dropped Arik off bag and baggage. He apologized to my mom for his thinking that he could do more than she could, and left him. My mom was apprehensive that he would behave and stick around. He took off immediately, and was in and out of the house all thru January. On Thursday, he was supposed to be home by 5:00. Mom went to bed, and the cops knocked on the door about midnight.

Arik (He went to Arik when Monica married a man named AJ. Too confusing.) and two friends decided to cross the freeway at 10pm. The other boys turned back, and Arik kept going and was hit. There were no skid marks, which means the lady who hit him had not seen him in time to brake. In his black jeans and hoodie, with the hood on his head, he was virtually invisible to traffic. My heart goes out to this poor woman who has to deal with his dumb and selfish behavior the rest of her life.

So now we are planning a funeral for a boy who had potential to be a great man. The pain just must have been too much.

My kids are terribly upset. Hunter and Chandler are joining Cory and Karen's three boys to be the pallbearers. I am in charge of the program, and all the music. Brittany is in Colorado, and can't make it down.

Bill has come full circle, as he blessed AJ when he was four, confirmed him a member, ordained him a deacon, and a teacher, and will now dedicate his grave.