Back to School

     As some children head out to school for the first time and more and more pictures of them come up on my Facebook wall, I stop and wonder what this milestone must be like for parents of a typical child. 

     I only have one child (God knows what he does, I could not have handled more than that) and my experience, although life changing, was not typical. GP was non verbal, and there was no excitement. There was only dread. There was the thought that while other children his age stayed home and played blissfully, he would be in school struggling to communicate with strangers. He wasn't even potty trained. It was such a sad time. I remember sitting in my car and sobbing uncontrollably after leaving him at school. Then, I remember deciding that I would not leave him, and staying in school with him until I weaned myself off the drop off. It took a long time...

Again, it was a heart wrenching experience. There were no pictures, no smiling faces or Disney lunch boxes. It was such a horrible, horrible time. 

My FB wall has smiling faces, excited children, happy parents and once again I stop and think, "What if???" I will never know. 

Remembering Mama Billa

This morning my beloved grandma, Mama Billa as we all called her, passed away in her sleep. She had been in the hospital for a week now and I started mourning her loss then. We all knew it was inevitable, and there was nothing to be done, therefore the goal was to make her parting as painless as possible. Although it really doesn't make it less sad, the fact that she died peacefully in her sleep is of some comfort to me and those who loved her.

My grandma was no wallflower. Married at 14, she was the mother of 15 children. She was the matriarch of her family. Growing up I can remember her at the head of the table leading the rosary. I remember her sitting in a chair braiding tobacco while all the children deveined it. My grandfather was a farmer, and all his children worked the farm until they left the house. None of that, "I'm not doing that!" If you lived there, you worked... you sat at the table, you had a bowl of beans to shell, you sat on the porch, there were peanuts to shell... busy hands are happy hands... work,work,work. Funny the things that one remembers. When my grandfather died many, many years ago, she kept her family in check. She was a small little woman, under five feet tall, and when she spoke we stopped and listened. She was sweet, caring and soooooo loved by all. She lived in her home, assisted by her daughters until last week, she was 92 years young.

I will always love her, and miss her.

Life Changes In An Instant

Pepperdog on 02/28/2012.

Some days are harder to face than others... our beautiful Pepperdog suffered a ruptured aortic valve yesterday (just 24 hours after this pic was taken), and I chose to euthanize her rather than put her through open heart surgery. She was 12 and in her golden years. She was half deaf, half blind and had developed a thyroid problem; then her little heart just decided it had had enough so it gave way, just enough so we could say goodbye. What a hard day it was. I thought today would be easier, but it hasn't been. I miss her.

I'm so sad...