Missing my MIL

The little people and I drove up to Cleveland yesterday for a birthday party. It was fun. Always nice to see friends and enjoy a great milestone all at once. Another plus was it was decent weather and the traffic was bearable.

The big downer is that I am missing my MIL. I never thought I would miss her as much as I do. The reality is we were not that close. At least not in the traditional way. She lived to make my life difficult. If I said the grass was green she would insist it was blue. She also made H's life an uphill battle most of the time and for that I would often quietly stew. Never have I met someone so difficult. Never.

But all that aside - I am kinda missing it a bit. I guess I got used to it. I am not perverse enough to say I enjoyed it, but I guess it had become a normalcy that is now missing. I miss the phone messages in her heavy accent declaring - Susan, It is meeeeeeeee. (She made "me" sound like a really long word.) Or her litany of complaints about the neighbor, the cost of produce, the weather, the priest at church, the news, doctors & medication. I miss our Germisch discussions. The conversation flowing in and out of German and English, effortlessly. Not knowing the language flow was happening unless an outside party gave us a funny look.

The true sadness of it all and I have concluded this recently, but kicked it around for years, is that we could have been close. We both liked alot of the same things: cooking, reading, flowers, gardening and H. (I mean that is what brought us together.) It was handy that I studied German in both high school and college. I mean it made arguing all that much easier and in the last 18 months, it was helpful as her English failed her more and more. We were both strong willed, determined women. I admired her in many ways. She came to the US in the 70s at almost 40 years old. She self taught herself English for the most part. She left the only home she had ever had in a small village (I have been there and I mean it is small. I can walk from one end to the other in less than 10 minutes. Today it is roughly twice the size as when she left.) and moved to one of the larger Metropolitan areas in the US (Cleveland.) Not a path for the faint of heart.

Many times over the last 12 years, I have wished that we could have been closer, that we could have had more common ground. That I would have suited just a bit more. I am on the fence as to whether she liked me or merely tolerated me. I go back and forth. I mean we have spent a fair amount of time together. Be it trips to Cleveland to visit or once she relocated closer to H & I, dinners and the like. In the last 2 years, I had become a regular at her house. Helping with the grocery and checking in on things when H could not. I am who she called the day she had the heart-attack.

Towards the end, she seemed to be at peace with my visiting. That last night we spent together reading and talking, seemed like the truce I had always wanted. I wanted to make her feel comfortable that evening. I knew in my heart it was closer to the end, little did I know how close. I had wanted her to be at our house, but she would not hear of it. I had wanted her close to those who cared about her. I am still not sure if she understand that even though she made me nutts, I still did care. I kept facing the "firing squad" year after year, because I did care. As a human being and as the DIL I did care. On a certain level I really did like her - even when it felt a bit like a head ache that never went away- you just managed along with it. It was what it was and in the end - I ached for her, for H and for L & E. It was such a tough situation. One of her own creation - in many ways - but painful for us all.

We had argued about a month before she passed. She just could not accept the fact that her dogged determination to stay home until the bitter end was slowly killing H and I . It was a hard pill to swallow all around. Little ones to care for, a career that takes H away for days at a time, watching someone slowly slip away and trying to hold it together on so many levels, knowing that she was not following all the guidelines as outlined by those trying to help her achieve her goal. Watching the end was hard - so hard I cannot put it into words. While I was living it, little things escaped my notice - but now they creep into my conscience in a slow ebb and flow.

It is not that I regret anything. I just miss her. There is a place in the family that will never again be filled in the same way. I guess perhaps this is part of the grieving process, normal.

I would have gone to the cemetery while in Cleveland this weekend, but it was still snow covered. So that made it bitter-sweet. Not that I think you need to go to see, to remember - but there is something about being there and being near.

Questions to which I have no answers....

Yes well, here is a sample of the questions I have been trying to answer today:

1. Are dinosaurs in heaven with Oma. Does she get to play them?

2. If princesses have to wear pants and boots on cold and snowy days - do princes have to wear sundresses in the summer and at the beach?

3. Where does snot come from and why do I have so much of it.

I swear I am not making this up. There were a dozen more like this yesterday, but I have forgotten them. How does on answer questions like this. I mean sometimes a totally tongue and cheek answer is right there on the tip of my tongue. (Like number 2 - I almost blurted - well maybe on Miami Beach! All the while that is zinging around my head the self editing fairy is screaming - shut up shut up. Smile and say no!)
Where in the world do all these questions come from.

Funny Story II

Again some of you may have heard this one too, but it is funny so I thought I would share it too.

So the back story - just had E. H was gone for two and half months. I have the best friends in the world. It was a very warm spring and when I am pregnant and right after having a baby I crave ICE. Not the drug mind you - but rather frozen water.

So here beginnith the story!

It is in May. It is warm and I am eating a half pound of ice a day. Thank goodness we have an ice machine in the freezer. In theory, it will make as much ice as you could ever desire. You take ice out via the door (very handy - that ice dispenser) and it dumps more, refills and you can repeat the process as often as you like. Unless, it betrayes you and stops working. Ahhhh, the horror!

So, that is what happened. But never fear, we have a warranty. Sears must come fix ice maker. So I set it up. Repair guy comes to the house. L is napping and E is hungry, but ice repair man is there and is freaked at the idea that I might nurse the baby. So I am holding E off, while repair man is messing in my freezer. I am dreaming of ice.... must have ice. Baby can cry a bit, I need ice. Well, no dice. We need a part, so the repair guy orders the part, sets up a follow up appointment. Leaves. I feed E and stew over another week of no ice.

A few days later a package comes for H. I put package in the dinning room. He's not around and if he wants it - he will tell me. FORGET ABOUT PACKAGE.

So, the repair guy shows up. New guy. (Please note: he was really cute!) He looks in the freezer. Then asks me if I have the part? (Do I look like a ice machine fixer. No, why would I have the part. MMMM, ok, new mom, have a toddler/preschooler, not sleeping alot - totally forgot about the package that came for H. I thought the point was he would come with the right part and fix my ice machine. Dreams of ice.) So he plays in the freezer a bit more, tells me to call when the part arrives. It will be delivered to the house. (Might have been nice if first guy had mentioned that.......)

So still no ice (oh, alright who am I kidding - I bought a 5 lb. bag of ice at the store. Must have ice.) So I take the kids out and about and then return home. After getting them settled into bed for naps and setting down myself to rest, it hits me like a ton of bricks. The package..... I run to the dinning room and open the package. Some funky part. I call the repair guy on his cell phone. I describe part - he says: "Yep, that is it!" He says he will come back in the morning or on his way home.

He comes and fixes my ice machine. Ice from the door is bliss. He also kindly did not make me feel like the biggest idiot in the world.

Now, while I am somewhat embarrassed that the part was there all along. It is not totally my fault. First of all not sleeping alot..... secondly, the box no where says SEARS. How was I to know it was for the SEARS Kenmore repair guy. Hello! Furthermore, someone should have told me I would be getting the part and to keep it handy for cute repair guy.

But it worked out.....I got my ice :)

Truth

I have been pondering this alot. Well, I ponder alot of things alot. Ideals fly around my head like butterflies. As a kid this was a real problem. Now that I am older and wiser and not employed in the psycho world of finance, I am letting the ideas flow and sometimes they drive me a little bit batty.

So I have been thinking about the many sides to an issue or an event. It seems to me there are as many sides to a story as there are viewers or participants or both. Person A will see something slightly different from Person B. It is human nature. We all see the world, life thru a slightly different lens.

My mom and I have a rocky relationship. My high school years were not the best and my parents did not really get along. The road to divorce was long and rocky and no one managed to drive along it without some chips to the paint as it were. But funny thing - we all see those chips differently. We have also all dealt with the chips, differently.

But what is the truth to what was happening. Whose truth is more valid. Which truth is true. Can someone wanting your truth to be different ever succeed in changing your mind. Should you let them and at what cost? MMMMM.

I am not sure what is the answer to my quandry. I am still puzzled. I always tell L she must tell the truth, that if she tells me honestly what happens - that I might not like what she has told me, but that the truth - honesty is always better than the alternative.

Sometimes I wonder though.... IS IT???

The VISIONS OF HEAT meme

AS a bit of intro- I discovered Nalini from a Sil Desire novel, that was in a bag of books that a friend gave me. Then I stumbled upon her web-page and her Slave to Sensation novel. The first para-normal fantasy book I had every read - unless you count Tolkin, which I read for a class in college - or maybe that story about the Lilliputians - in Eng Lit.

But anyway, I wanted to pass this along to you all, to support the release of her new book.(Ok, Ok, I also get entered into her contest - so that helps too.... but seriously - this is fun too!)

The VISIONS OF HEAT meme

1. Which psychic power would you most like to possess?

I would so like to be able to find things, that are missing without tearing my house apart. I spend a serious amount of time looking for my car keys, sippy cups, favorite toys, a stuffed bunny named Babalious aka BABY aka BABS, a stuffed bear, the remote control, my cell phone, my sunglasses, my husbands sunglasses, his car keys, his work ID and any number of other household items. To simply be able to wish them to appear in front of me would rock!

2. If you could see the future, what would you like to see?

I really would hate to be able to see the future. I am not sure it is health to know what it going to happen in the future. Messing with time is a heady thing. I remember reading The Time Travelers Wife and that just seemed to freaky a concept for me. I will just stay right where I am.

3. Imagine you woke up one day and could shapeshift - what would you shift into?

I would like to shift into a hawk. I would really like to be able to fly and see the world from the sky. It also would not hurt to be near the top of the food chain, as an animal and as a human.

4. What kind of a paranormal creature would you invite over for dinner if there were no limits on who you could ask?

I would like to invite some fairies over for dinner. They seem like they would be fun and my daughter really really likes the fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty. Although the Valkyie form Kresley Cole's Vampire series seem really cool too, they might be fun dinner company too.

5. Which future innovation do you wish would hurry up and get here already? i.e. flying cars, a transporter, computers with artificial intelligence, an auto chef?

Well I may sound like a broken record, but seriously I spend so much time searching for my stuff and other people's stuff, I would love a household computer that keeps track of stuff and brings it to you when you ask. If you want your coat, just ask. If you want the groceries put away, just ask. Like a smart house that cleans itself.

This meme was begun by Nalini Singh to get the word out about her next book, Visions of Heat (releasing March 6).

Want to play, too, and enter to win a $50 Amazon voucher plus an ARC? Click here for details.
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