Comfortable

I spend all day today at a local health fair/flu shot clinic, talking about the company I work for and promoting it to whomever walked by...

Yesterday, I had a hard day. Mainly stress, but also knowing that this second course of chemo is hitting my mom a lot harder and she really is not feeling well... I almost didn't go to class last night, because the teacher's mom and cancer survivor was speaking about her treatment and such. I did not want to sit there looking at someone who had beat it and was doing so well, knowing that my mom feels like absolute crud right now. No, not just crud, but as far as I can tell, crud that has been stepped in, and walked around on ... x4.

But I ended up going, ended up crying, ended up talking to the mom, was reassured a thousand times over that while I will NEVER feel like I am doing enough to help her, I really am doing enough. And, I found a new friend... You ever meet one of those girls you just think is not really your style/type of friend and something happens that draws you close together? Yeah... My first impression of this girl was that she was totally preppy, and stuck up... Ironic too, because she was the cheerleading captain for Sierra last year and I cheerleaded in 8th grade to prove that not all cheerleaders are stuck up. (hey Brenda, I'm doing the ellipses thing again.. hahaha)

While I was talking to the mom, the girl was talking to the teacher, and the teacher spilled about why I was talking to the mom. Not that I mind, because the girl is really supportive... And! She knows not only what it is like to lose people close to you, but to lose one of your best friends (that is close to your age). I cried. And learned we have a lot in common...
1) We are both former cheerleaders
2) We both would like to be an EMT (she's in training, I haven't made it there yet, but have always wanted to test it out before I go into nursing (I've ruled Heald out...) .. although now I'm working more on going towards a fast track to nursing... I'm gonna stop rambling and just say I need to go meeet with a school counselor about my goals...)
3) We both have asthma.
4) We both have lost a best friend, tragically
5) We both, at different times, have felt like we have no family. (Okay, for me it wasn't NO family, but more of no present family.. no one nearby- I was ignored where i lived.. or fought all the time where I lived.. That has passed now)
6) We both have watched (well.. she's going through it now) a grandparent near their end stages of life (for me, both of my grandparents).

So, in this moment I am proud of my maturity in accepting the differences we have and don't have and am glad to have a new friend...

Now the real reason I sat down to write this, was that last night in class, I was talking to the Mom about how we still "feel" people we have lost. I told her about my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary, where I made my Grandpa (Kenneth) promise he would be at my wedding, to see my grandkids, and be there with me at my 50th anniversary. :D I know that when I do marry, he will be watching over me. I think about him a little more, because I wish he could have met Neil. But my other grandpa and I had the M&M thing, and as I've already stated, I still cannot eat M&Ms any other way than how he taught me- by color! I might not necessarily "feel" their presence, but my feeling towards them is still strong...

I'm not sure that makes any sense... I'm eating M&Ms right now...

Before I went to Florida, I picked up a book at Bel Air called Through Violet Eyes. The book is about people born with violet eyes, who contact those "not quite on the other side" i.e. those dead but in the middle, not having gone to wherever they are supposed to go. They are in limbo.
Okay, now if you will picture Sam in Ghost, coming into Whoopi Goldberg's character... in the book, whoopi would be the violet eyed person, and Sam would be telling someone through whoopi how he died... the violet eyed people can control who comes in through them, and who doesn't and when. they are called upon often to solve murders by recalling those who have died.

Okay... Now comes the hard part. If you have lost anyone you were close to, and you could talk to them today, would you, and what would you say or want to know?

Something that changed with me after Tawnya died, is that I try to be more cautious about telling people how I feel about them- i.e. I try to make sure we don't hang up without telling my mom/dad/neil/whoever that I love them (as applicable). I know part of why I feel the way I do about Tawnya is that I was able to talk to her before she "died" (only in parenthesis because she was in a coma on life support, and I don't know about brain activity to know whether or not she was still "here") . Same with my grandpas. I made sure they knew I loved them.

LOL When my grandpa Ken had a stroke, and was in the hospital, I believe on hospice care, I went with my dad to go see him. We stayed with him for a while, and on our way out, stopped at the gift shop. I found this pug/bulldog stuffed animal, and KNEW that I had to get it for Grandpa. Dad obliged, and let me run back to Grandpa's room to give it to him. He couldn't talk, but somehow managed a laugh for me when I handed it to him. I told him I loved him, and he did the best he could to tell me he loved me too. After he died, Grandma made sure I got it back... Its one of the few stuffed animals I keep out still, and I'll never forget that laugh...

*sigh*