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Making Peace With Not Getting A Hallmark Ending

We all want a Hallmark movie ending. Sometimes though, it’s not in the cards.

Days before Christmas Day 2021 my last grandparent died. It was my maternal grandmother. The weekend before, I had tried to go and see her as we knew she wasn’t going to last much longer. I bought the plane tickets and reserved a car.

But I was given the message she was refusing to see me and if I showed up at the nursing home I would be turned away.

To my knowledge, I’d never done anything that would warrant this. I felt hurt and conflicted. I wanted the chance to say goodbye and this would be my only chance. Grandma was leaving instructions that there was to be no funeral, no graveside service. No gathering of any kind.

The truth is, my grandma was difficult in many ways. Many of my siblings have had no relationship at all with her because she couldn’t be bothered to have a relationship with them and show up. Some only saw her once, at our brother’s funeral. As the oldest grandchild, I had more of a relationship with her than most. But even for me, she couldn’t be bothered to show up for my wedding.

There are good memories too.

When I was a little girl, it was my grandma who showed me the world of books. She and her husband had previously owned a used book store that closed, and many of the books found a home in their home. Every wall in their house was lined with books. Every time Grandma came to visit she brought boxes of books. I was a struggling reader. She shared Nancy Drew books with me and I was hooked for life. Nancy Drew was eventually followed by Agatha Christie and then I moved on to biographies.

To this day, one of my greatest joys is a good book. It brings me so much happiness. Reading has opened new avenues and ways of thinking, helped me dream and move forward in life, and escape for a few hours when life becomes too much. It’s one of the greatest gifts she gave me.

I didn’t get a Hallmark movie ending with my grandmother.

A lot of times with family we don’t.

So what do we do when that happens?

We take the time to mourn the relationship that never was and then recognize the good things that the relationship brought us. Even in the worst ones, there’s something. My grandmother’s refusal to see me? It reemphasized how I did not want to be a grandmother like her should I ever become one. It made me hold my kids closer.

I’m grateful for that reminder even if …

I didn’t get the closure I wanted.

Our relationship was strained.

I was left fumbling around with grief I didn’t know what to do with.

Will It Be My Fault?

I sometimes think back to the early years of my kids lives. They were born in 2006 and 2007. Until 2015 I dealt with debilitating back pain. In 2013 I had my first back surgery which didn’t work. In 2015 I had my second surgery and almost 8 years later I’m still doing well.

But those early years meant a lot of mom laying on the couch or bed, trips to doctors, emergency rooms, and chiropractors. When we were preparing for my second surgery my daughter was terrified what would happen to her and her brother. She remembered that after the first surgery I couldn’t do much. Who was going to take care of them? Who was going to feed them?

As I remembered this today, it struck me that my husband and my roles are reversed now. He is frequently in hospital, or at doctors when I can drag him there (men!)., in bed and not feeling well. Now they worry about him.

Who is going to be there for them when he cannot?

Parents are central to a child’s survival and psyche. It is from them a lot of our self talk comes from. It is from them often we learn to rely a lot on others or be very independent.

I worry that because of all the physical pain I was dealing with, which in turn greatly affected my mental health, I was not enough. Add to that dealing with other people in the family’s mental health and the strain it put on me.

Did I raise children who will sit on a therapist’s couch one day because their mother ruined them? Because she wasn’t emotionally or physically available?

As they are teenagers now, I wonder through these years of their hating me one minute and breaking down to tell you they love you the next. Did I fill their needs? They were fed and clothed.

Going Gray

It’s a right of passage for everyone. If you grow old enough, you’re going to find those pesky gray hairs- everywhere!

I found my first one a week before my 20th birthday. Thank you Mom for those genetics… At about 28 I started dying my hair. At 42, 43? 44? I have considerable gray but compared to some of my friends who have gone completely gray I still have a lot of natural color.

Gray takes getting used to.

It takes acceptance and self love.

And I’m just not there yet.

At the beginning of the pandemic when no one could get into their hair stylists, I toyed with the idea of letting it go natural. Several friends have. But I just couldn’t. I found myself at the grocery store buying color to cover all that gray up.

Fast forward 3 years and my hair stylist seemed to be ghosting me and once again I found myself toying with the idea of letting it go natural. But I just can’t. Instead I’m dragging myself out on a Saturday morning sitting for hours to get my hair done. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to accept the march of time showing up in my hair.

To all of you who have chosen to show off your gorgeous gray locks, I salute you! You are brave and beautiful!

I’m going to hide mine just a little longer. Maybe one day I’ll call it good and rock the gray streaks that frame my face like Morticia from the Adams family. Until that time, I’ll put in the time at my stylist’s.

A Twist On Opening Presents Christmas Morning

What are your Christmas traditions? What makes your family belly laugh? The stuff of legends? Here’s one of ours.
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My Greatest Hope and My Greatest Fear

“Two and one half years.

That’s the amount of time I have left until my son turns 18. Every time I think about it, terror grips my heart.”

My Christian Friends Who Have Left Church

I have seen your heartache. I know the person you are. You are people I dearly love, who I know have hearts of gold.

My heart cries out for you because of what you have been through!

This one has a child who is transgender.

Another was sexually assaulted by a man in authority and then told she deserved it.

Yet another, questions the very existence of God because of the many trials that they have gone through because why would a loving God put her through that?

Another just never felt close to God and no matter what he does, he feels nothing.

Oh, how my heart bleeds for you all!

I see your pain and anguish.

I don’t purport to know all the answers. I wish I did. I’ve had my own path to walk with things I have had to plead for help and understanding.

My path hasn’t been yours.

But with everything I have been through, with the answers I have found, this is what I know:

God knows the answers.

And even more than that, he understands.

I think one day when we are able to have a conversation in person with him, he’s going to clear up a lot of confusion for all of us. He’s going to know that one person dealt with life long depression which made it extremely difficult to feel his presence. He’s going to take that into account.

He’s knows the horrific experiences you went through and the effect they had on you. That you were blamed and told you deserved it. That for your own health you had to separate yourself from the church. I believe he has compassion and love for you and he’s going to understand that you did the very best you could.

Sometimes we get so caught up as Christians on things we think we are supposed to do, that we forget the core principal of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.

We forget that those who have made different choices than we have, deserve love and respect.

We want to grade someone else’s sins greater than our own, and regard them as less worthy. But we don’t get to make that call. Only God does.

So when all is said and done, and judgement is given, I think we’ll see a lot more of those people who left the church, unable to walk our traditional ways, with God. Even if I’m wrong, God says to love him and love others, so I’ll keep walking that path and keep reaching my hand out to you in friendship.

Just because you left the church doesn’t mean God, nor I have to leave you.

So we’ll be right here loving you.

Holding a Job and Being a Parent of Special Needs Child is Often Incompatible

“The first story I’ll tell you is that of a single mom. She recently discovered that her daughter had serious medical issues. All of her sick leave and vacation now go to time off for medical appointments. She has enough for this year, but next year, she will likely burn through that quickly. Vacations will now be a thing of the past while she desperately tries to balance working, being a mom, and the care of her sick child. She is lucky. She has worked with the company she works for, for over a year and therefore is eligible for the government program of FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act). This act protects her job and ensures she gets time off- though unpaid, to care for her child.”
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Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

My husband is away right now studying to become a EMT for his work. Something that normally takes 6 months to do, his job is squeezing it into 2 months. That’s a lot of medical info to learn in a short time.

The night before his first test we were on the phone and we did a couple of his practice tests together.

I discovered something.

I knew most of the answers or could reason them out. I’m pretty sure I could have passed his first test without studying at all.

Earlier in the week I was out to lunch with friends and one of the woman’s sons has recently had to have an ultrasound on his thyroid. Another woman’s child had to have X-rays on her torso. We were talking over their children’s results, and I was explaining some of the things.

I’m no doctor or nurse. I don’t begin to claim to give any medical recommendations. However after so many years, and hours upon hours in doctor’s offices, therapist’s offices, and testing facilities I’ve found I have picked up quite a bit.

If your child has to undergo X-rays weekly, then biweekly, and then monthly for an extended period of time, you’re going to start knowing what to look for. Because my son had had so many X-rays as a small child of his trunk with his gastro intestinal problems, I knew what I was looking at when we xrayed him to see how bad his scoliosis was recent. I didn’t know what the percentage of curvature was, but I knew where to look and what was what on the x-ray.

So I’m going to call all of this hard-won knowledge “lemonade”. All those lemons of medical issues for myself, and my family, has brought knowledge I can put to good use. Both for myself and others. I really believe that all knowledge gained can be put to good use.

Being Held Emotionally Hostage

“I was recently talking with another mom who has a child with mental health issues. While talking she used the term “emotionally held hostage.” Those three words struck a cord with me because so often in the special needs, disability, and mental health worlds it can feel like we are being held hostage. By our children, spouses, parents, and even ourselves through our own illnesses.”
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Summer-time and the Living Is Easy

“I grew up in a very small town that boasted between 800-900 people during the time I lived there. Summers were hot. I can still hear, and feel my feet slapping against the hot pavement as I ran. I would never wear socks or shoes if I could help it. They were too hot and confining.”
Read more. . .