Queenofphrump's Weblog

I would never in a million years pretend to think that I know what it would be like to be in a war.  I would tell you very honestly that war is at the top end of my scariest things list.  I am terrified of war.

I would never in a million years tell anyone that I know what it means to come home from something such as war and have those memories and experiences at the forefront of my mind while most everyone else around me hadn’t a clue of any of that as even being possible.

It isn’t until we stop.  Stop to take a moment to really think about what that must be like, that we get a sliver of a glimpse into that veteran’s mind.

When I was in the midst of The Stinky Story I felt as if everyone else’s life had gone on while mine had stopped, taken a grotesque turn, and then returned to something I was supposed to redefine as normal.  I would suppose this is to be the same as coming home from a war, especially an unpopular one, only magnified to the 1000th degree.

Today I raise my glass to Uncle Ron and all the others out there who did what was asked of them at the time.  Cheers to what life has been redefined as being, in the aftermath, with memories etched into your psyche and influencing your spirit forever.

The King spent one day last week in Hiroshima as a tourist at ground zero.  This so deeply affected him that he called to tell me that he wants his children to all be witness to what is left in memorium there.  He said, “All our kids need to come here because it can’t be explained.  I think everyone should see this and that would solve all the problems in the world.”  The incredible affect humanity has upon humanity and the toll of innocent lives lost to protect the freedoms we enjoy today.  Difficult decisions calculated to cost the least amount of lives made by our veteran’s who lived with that the rest of their days.  Cheers to the WWII Veteran’s who are a dying breed of men and women we cannot ever fully appreciate.  The Hiroshima experience has moved my King to tears along with the other grown men he was with and we are decades down the road.

I am not a fan of war.  I do not pretend to know much about war.  I just know that for a day it is good to reflect and take time to express gratitude to those who have come back with lives to put back together.  I also think it is a good day to remember those who have not been able to do that successfully and who need our compassion and love shown to them.  The most generous amounts of our compassion and love to all of them.

Girlfriends, God’s greatest gift if you ask me.

I began this day with breakfast.  Two friends with whom I had grown up with.  As girls we most likely took each other for granted because we were always “there” in the same classes doing the same things, together.  I loved them then, but, I love them more today.  It has been years, literally years since I have seen one of the two.  The other I saw in February but only briefly.  And as we sat down for a simple breakfast it was as if we were sixteen again.  Girlfriends.

The middle of my day was spent with Michelle and Nicole of recent posts.  Rebecca’s daughters.  Beautiful woman.  Absolutely stunning, both of them.  And for two hours I made mental notes of how much they were both like their mother.  In some ways the same and in other ways separately.  Michelle is Rebecca in looks and she carries herself in a similar way.  Looking into her eyes as she talked I saw Rebecca all over again.  I momentarily flashed back to my last conversation with Rebecca and felt okay with it.  These girls heal my past.  We compared some of our memories and although I get some of it wrong as far as numbers go, I am close.  So are they with what scatters through their memories too.  I was enriched by them.  They are strong, independent, loving, capable, clear minded, authentic women.  And I am so moved by their closeness as sisters.  We ended our hours together at Rebecca’s gravestone where I was still shocked to see her name on a headstone.  I felt like bursting into tears and mourning the loss of her but instead I chose to focus on what was happening in the present, my standing there with her amazing daughters.  I will have my time to go back on another occasion where my conversation with Rebecca can take place in private.  On another day.  Today we celebrate the fact that I have replaced memories with two new friendships of women who I already love.  Girlfriends.

My mom, my daughter and myself played a half hearted game of cards and while there were many distractions we tried.  People in and out, Stinky trying to help, people texting and phones ringing, but we played.  Three generations of women with me in the middle.  It is a cozy place to be.  Then my sister arrived.  My one and only sister.  And we spent an hour just being silly and spending time together as a family.  The boys were there too but it was the girls that made me smile tonight.  Girlfriends.

It is the love between friends that makes the world a stable, happier place to reside.  The strength we get from one another as girlfriends is where it is at.  It never fails, ever.

If you don’t believe in an afterlife you might want to reconsider.

There is nothing more powerful in my bank of knowledge than the fact that we exist beyond this body and life experience.

In 1991, I was going about my day when the phone began to ring.  Rebecca had been in a terrible accident and she had lost her life.  The three kids were in the car with her but would survive.  I remember Ann’s call the most because she was working in the E.R. and the information had come across the EMS radio some information so she knew that it was Rebecca.  Ann told me that she thought I might need to know firsthand from her that Rebecca had been killed but that the kids were going to be okay.  And then the phone kept ringing as other people called to tell me the news as they heard it.  I listened over and over as each person told me “Rebecca has died in a car accident.”  Then I would let them know I appreciated their call and go back to lying on my bed.  How could this be?

To say it wasn’t a good few days would be such a complete understatement not worth the letters to type.  I was devastated.

The family asked that I go down to the Children’s Hospital to be with Nicole during the funeral.   Nicole had suffered terrible injuries and would be undergoing surgery on her broken pelvis that morning.  Of course, that is where I belonged.  I belonged with Nicole and I wanted to be there for her.  I was momentarily calmed by such a solemn request of Rebecca’s husband.

Then I was angry.  I was angry at Rebecca for things I needed to talk to her about but never would have the chance now.  I screamed at my own mother because I needed to be angry at something that wouldn’t budge.  I was angry at how cruel life could be.  Somehow I missed getting the information that I would have needed for the viewing services the night before the funeral.  My sister called to tell me how sweet the viewing was and that was when I realized I had missed it!  I screamed and cried as if I was a small child, scaring the neighbors in our apartment complex.  I was not myself and I was out of my mind.  My mom told me she thought I knew there was always a viewing service the night prior to the funeral.  Somehow I had completely lost that in my processing the loss and I had missed the opportunity to say my own good-bye to Rebecca.  I was 90 miles away and would never make it in time.

The morning of the funeral service my mom called early and told me that I should pack my dress because the surgeon had scheduled Nicole’s surgery for the hours during the funeral.  She said if it worked out she wanted me to have what I needed with me.

I drove down to the hospital and found Nicole’s room.  I remember not knowing how to prepare myself for her.  She was alert and seemed as peaceful as she had always been.  She was eleven years old.  Nicole has a very light energy and she smiles easily.  Nicole’s easy energy was just like her mom’s.  She put people at ease with simple effortless grace.   For some reason this shocked me that day because I was a blithering mess until I arrived at the hospital.  Nicole made me feel calm and I will never forget her bright countenance as she lay in her hospital bed.  We talked a little and she told me a little about her mom’s funeral plans.  She wasn’t a little girl who was outwardly suffering but I could not imagine what this day was feeling like for her on the inside.  We talked about what injuries Michelle had and what hospital she was in.  Nicole was just sweet that morning.  Sweet. Sweet.  Sweet.  I admired her and in my state of emotional hangover the drained feelings I had were helped by a child who had lost much more than I.

The nurses came in.  We then began the pre-surgical portion of her day.

I was with her until she was pushed into the surgical room.  I had been assured I had plenty of time to go to the funeral.  So I left.  I jumped in my car and I drove.  I changed my clothes in the church bathroom as the other mourners arrived.  Then I exited the bathroom and I stopped thinking all together because my best friend Vonda was there and her mom Ann had told her that they were bringing Nicole’s older sister, Michelle by ambulance to the funeral.  They would be arriving shortly and we waited.

You can not believe how many flowers had been sent.  There were flowers from the Governor and there were flowers from the guy who had washed Rebecca’s car at the local car wash.  She touched everyone who had worked for her or with her the way she had touched me.  Everyone there felt the loss as much as I did.  And then a miracle happened.

Vonda told me they were still holding viewing in one of the rooms outside of the chapel.  So I got in the reception line and I made my way toward Rebecca’s husband Ray.  The words that came out of my mouth are lost to me but I remember he hugged me and thanked me.  I can only imagine he made it through that day on valium because Ray was standing there and with gentlemanly charm, greeting those mourning the loss of his wife and he was offering comfort to them.  I suppose I would imagine myself in those same circumstances curled up in a ball in the corner somewhere.

Then I saw Rebecca in the casket and cried my eyes out.  It was real.  This horrible nightmare was real and I had not had the chance to make things right with her.  I spent a minute with her body and then we went and sat in the chapel.

The funeral was beautiful and I kept looking at my watch and calculating how much time I had before rushing the 50 minute drive back to the hospital.  Michelle had been wheeled in for the services and I was so overwhelmed by how many people she had that were going to take care of her.  I knew that Rebecca would be so thankful toward them.  Family and friends who were concerned about Rebecca’s oldest child.  Family and friends who were looking after her little son who was almost or barely 8, I cannot remember now.  And then I left out the side door and got into my car.

I arrived at the hospital well before surgery was over.  The surgeon came out and sat with me explaining what had been done while the rest of his team finished up her final sutures.  I remember thinking while he talked that I was being spoken to as if I were Nicole’s parent.  Somehow I didn’t expect to receive respect like that.  Then someone took me back to Nicole WAY before I had expected to be allowed back.  Special circumstances grant special privilege.

I was standing in a post op room before she was wheeled out of surgery.  I was surrounded by machines and complex and intimidating medical apparatus.  And when they brought her bed out she was in such bad shape.  It took her a while to stir and I remember how dry her lips looked and how much I wanted to put salve on them.  It was the only possible thing I could do to help her feel better.  I cried.  The nurses earned my immediate respect for how much they did for her and I was overwhelmed by their medical expertise.  Nicole began to stir more and it was explained to me that she had an epidural in place and wouldn’t have much pain or discomfort when she woke up.  I couldn’t calculate that into what I was seeing.

Then I felt a warm, deep to my bones, calm.  It was as if someone poured really warm water into the marrow of my bones.  And I suddenly knew Rebecca was in the room.  Tears were streaming down my face because I was so overwhelmed.  A nurse took a miniscule moment to rub my back and offered comforting words.  Rebecca was there.  She was there and I felt her.  While other’s were placing her physical body into the ground, her baby Nicole was coming out of surgery and she was here with her daughter.  I was just a bystander to the most significant mother moment I have ever known.  And when Nicole opened her eyes long enough to look at me her first words were, “How was my mom’s funeral? Was it nice? I’ll bet it was nice.”

The next hour I spent with Nicole as she lay in the recovery room.  Her aunt arrived and then her dad too.  I faded to the background and knew when my responsibility was over.  Nicole was going to be okay.  Her spirits and her family support were in place.  I left the hospital.

That time in recovery when I recognized Rebecca as being there established more for my own knowledge of life after death than any other experience I have had since then.  I know as a mother that is exactly where I would choose to be and I know that Rebecca loves Nicole from where she is today in that same powerful way.  It was my honor to be witness to that and I hope to never forget the way my own body felt physically in Rebecca’s spiritual presence.

There is a life after this life on earth.  We were born to learn through the experience of a physical body but we go on after this.  I am witness to that.

I ask forgiveness from Rebecca.  My silly young girl weaknesses and faults haunt me to this day.  If I can take one lesson from that it would be to make amends with those we care deeply for before the chance has passed.  I think that I will get my chance with Rebecca and I think I already know she will smile at me and embrace me for my worries.  I just wish I had taken the time to sit down with her before she went away.

More on the Rebecca stories today.  As I was turning 14 Rebecca and her husband asked that I babysit overnight for them.  This was a big responsibility but it was fun to do!  I could not imagine how much money that would cost them to pay me a $1 per hour for an overnight stay!  What would I do with that kind of cash?  It was crazy to sit and add it all up.

I would stay up so late and then crawl into their bed and sleep until the kids got up the next morning.  Then we would do the housework and sometimes I would do the laundry and everything would be done before they returned.  I remember the pressure of wanting to do everything the kids wanted me to do for them while getting the things Rebecca had asked me to do done too.  It was like playing house only I got paid too!

I loved those little girls and having a little baby (younger than my youngest brother)  boy to care for and play with was great.  Michelle and I would turn on the stereo and we would have it loud.  We would jump on the mini trampoline and Michelle would dance and sing with Nicole.  Rebecca was musically inclined and conducted music for our church.  The girls were right behind her in singing and performing talent.  Both girls were a perfect blend of mom and dad in personality but I think Michelle took after her with stronger traits as a child.

Rebecca wrote and conducted our church “road show” one year and we won!  We won and she was so proud of all of us.  We surprised her with flowers and a visit to her house one evening at the request of her husband.  All of us in the production packed into their living room to praise her as much as she had praised us in the weeks prior.  I remember choosing her flowers and taking them in and giving them to her.  Her big blue eyes glowed.

On several occasions I was asked to travel with them.  This was great because I was able to go along on a little vacation and for them it was great because when it was time for the adults to go have some fun there I was, the babysitter.

Rebecca taught me some new cooking techniques that I wouldn’t have learned from home.  She had a few dinner parties which she did the cooking for with my help.  We would make things in advance and then while she was getting other parts of the night prepared I would be in charge of the kitchen finishing touches.  Then as the guests arrived, I would take the kids down the stairs and play with them until the last guests had left.  I still make some of the things she taught me to make all those years ago.

When I was sixteen Rebecca just automatically assumed that I would be driving her cars to get more done for her.  It was fun to drive her cars and run errands with the kids.  I would take them to swim lessons and where ever else they needed to go.  Rebecca trusted me and never questioned aloud my abilities to get the job she had asked of me done.  This really built my confidence.

Her kids were growing!  The three kids were in grade school and I decided to get married really young.  This was the only time Rebecca voiced her concerns for me.  She met my soon to be husband and I think she liked him more than I did.  She became, again, encouraging and engaged in our plans.  She helped make the travel arrangements for our honeymoon and booked us into one of the most luxurious hotels I have stayed in, to this day!  I was just shy of my 18th birthday.  When we arrived at the hotel room service brought us this amazing gift basket of fruit and delicacies.  I remember thinking it must have cost a fortune.  We were horrified when upon check out we were charged for it but didn’t have the money to pay.  I called Rebecca who then called the hotel and set the desk clerk straight.  Rebecca was a business woman when it came down to it and I remember that day just thinking about how much money she had spent to make our weekend getaway as nice as a new young bride could imagine.

For a few years I didn’t go to Rebecca’s house.  A new girl named Megan began to work for Rebecca.  I was jealous of Megan and missed Rebecca’s time but I had my new life started as a new wife going to college.  Two and a half years would go by before I would work for Rebecca again.  I saw her and her family on occasion but the era had passed.

I ended up needing a divorce from my young husband.  We were young and didn’t have the relationship skills marriage takes.  I moved back home with my 10 month old Hilary.  Rebecca called that same week and had me come by her house for a chat.  I would clean for her between my classes at the community college and my night shift at the restaurant.  She allowed me to bring Hilary with me and paid me $2 per hour. I would not have been able to buy diapers without her employment.

This was generous on the part of Rebecca.  She was also less gracious with me.  I remember a time when I was cleaning the hall closet and she was working at the dining room table.  Rebecca made it clear to me that she did not like my getting a divorce and that she wanted me to reconsider the commitments I had made.  She was a true believer in marriage and didn’t agree with my move back home.  She was to hear nothing of my reasons and I was offended.  It didn’t mean I didn’t know she cared about me.  She cared a lot and that is what felt so horrible.  I was so young and so in over my head.  I just wanted her approval on something she didn’t approve of.  She was honest and good hearted and a wonderful woman.  I needed to have her agree with me and she didn’t.

It was to be a lesson in differences.  Looking back on it I know that she was right in many ways but I had made a gigantic mistake that needed to be turned back.  Rebecca didn’t see it that way.

I took the kids for a week while Rebecca and her husband went scuba diving on the east coast of Mexico.  It was my last week working in her home because I was going to move 90 miles away and marry Jason.  The year at home was over and my time at Rebecca’s was too.  That week I tried to be a fun babysitter for her kids.  We went to the amusement park and it seemed the kids were complaining more than usual and my patience was less than the day needed.  The last night I had the kids I forgot to get a lunchable for the next day’s field trip.  I went out after putting the kids to bed to buy it.  When I got home, Rebecca had returned and was worried because I hadn’t left a note for her.

I remember standing in the kitchen with her and feeling ashamed that I wasn’t the perfect help that I had been in the years prior.  Having school and Hilary and another job took it’s toll on my enthusiasm to meet the high standard we had set for my work in Rebecca’s home.  Over the years she had made allowances for my adolescent mistakes but she was looking into the eyes of a full grown woman now and I was doing less for her than I had done at 14.  I left that night feeling badly.

Then I married and moved away.

The summer before I turned 12 I was asked by a woman named Rebecca to babysit.  Although I was very young, in our neighborhood and during that era, this was the time most girls, and a lot of boys, began babysitting outside of their mother’s own brood.  We were mormon kids and there were a lot of us on every block.  It took the full staffing of adolescent girls to keep the younger kids in check.  Most of my friends found babysitting to be where we spent our summers.  Babysitting and sleep over’s at each other’s houses.  We didn’t have full schedules of lessons or anything else to do.  Just church activites and then to mind the younger kids and hang out with each other when we could.

Rebecca was a young mom.  She had a little one year old and also a 4 year old.  Both little girls were very sweet but the younger one still had that baby part of her that bonded to me and she loved to be held.  Since I had only brothers at home and had always wanted a little sister, babysitting these girls was something I very much enjoyed doing.  I was paid $1 per hour.  It felt like a fortune.

I loved working for Rebecca.  She was very respectful of me and treated me like everything I did for her was exactly perfectly done.  She never belittled me nor did she ever make me feel embarrassed.  There were plenty of things that went wrong, my being so young and inexperienced, but she always turned the other eye and found praise for me.  This made me want to go the extra mile for her.  On nights when she was out with her husband I would play with the kids and after they were put to bed I would clean.  It is always more fun to clean someone else’s house but to clean Rebecca’s house was great because I could always find something that was disgusting and make it so much better.  I remember cleaning her dining room chandelier one time.  It was filthy and when it was finished it gleamed.  Then she praised and then I glowed.  It was an easy equation.

Many days I would finish my own chores at home for my mother in such a hurry that no praise was due.  Then I would head to Rebecca’s to put in the full detail work I was capable of.  I would take the kids down stairs to the unfinished basement and we would set up elaborate make believe scenarios and then after playing for hours we would sort through the toys and clean it all up.  Time was good to us and the hours were easy.  The pay was great!!!  I was young.

Rebecca worked for her husband at his office.  She did all kinds of things but she worked hard.  He was an attorney and she was one of the more frugal people I had ever met.  I think for a decade she wore the same winter coat.  She would rather have adventure than luxury items.  She praised me for my adventurous spirit.  She spent time talking to me when we were working on a project side by side.  She was one of the busiest women I knew at the time and she allowed me to be a part of helping her with what needed to get done.

I remember she came outside one day and talked to me about the yard work I was to do that day.  She told me how her husband liked the lawn mowed and we walked through the side yard so she could talk to me about some of the trimming I was to do.  All the while the mascara she had put on was smearing on her face as she blinked.  She had come out in the middle of doing her make up and her lashes were so long that they touched her face.  Little tiny dots were forming and becoming larger as I watched.  She went back inside and finished what she was doing while I went to the mower and got it ready to start.  When she was loading the kids into the car I went to help her out with the load to the garage.  Her makeup was then perfect and she was glowingly beautiful.  I idolized her because she was kind and gracious and beautiful and hard working and she was my friend.  My much older sister-like friend.

Oh, there are so many stories about my time with Rebecca’s family.  Tonight I am going down memory lane in my mind because Nicole, the sweet little one year old is now 30 and I were able to talk tonight for the first time in many many years.  To tell Nicole that her mother was the single most important influence on my teen age years was an understatement.  I loved Rebecca because she was such an example to me of how to treat other people respectfully.

The years I worked for Rebecca were important to who I am today.  Rebecca was different from most of the other moms I knew and because she was younger I identified differently with her.  She took an interest in me and was excited for me when life happened and she always asked about cute boys I knew and it was just different to have this kind of respectful mentorship from a woman like her.  And I loved her kids.  Especially little Nicole.   Rebecca had one more little boy and I was called in to babysit the night she went into labor.  I was so excited!  I remember her husband coming home hours later, looking exhausted, telling me it was a boy and then going in to gather the girls to tell them they had a little brother.  I wasn’t a part of the family but I was a witness to their home.

I ask myself how I can be someone like Rebecca to a young girl outside of my own family.  All these years later she remains such a poignant part of how I remember my teen years.

I wonder if we could all take a moment today and ask ourselves if there is a young person we could incorporate into our own lives for the influence of good.

For two weeks the set of The Jason Show has been full!  It has been a house that was described a few days ago by a brief visitor as “A clown car”.  Jason and Giancarlo have a huge house but it has been full!

The normal occupants; Jason, Giancarlo, Amelia and Diego have been here.

The seasonal occupants; Peitro and Elsa, Giancarlo’s parents have been here.

The normal weekday occupant; Inez the nanny/housekeeper has been here.

The normal pets; Patches and Pumpkin have been here.

Then add Me; The Ex-Wife/Mother has been here.

Then add my children; Snoball and Stinky have been here.  With an occasional sighting of Hilary!

Then add my pets; Will and Grace have been here.

It has been a full house.

Tonight Elsa and Pietro have gone to their home in Matzatlan.

Tonight Inez is at her home for the weekend.

Tonight Giancarlo has taken the three younger children to the park and out to dinner at McDonald’s

Tonight Hilary is at work.

Tonight Amelia felt well enough to go “hang out with friends”.

Tonight it is the realization that it is just me and The Mullet Man. Home alone for the first time since 1995.