Halloween

As a kid, I loved Halloween. My mom painstakingly crafted our outfits, not because we were poor, but because she thought store bought outfits were tacky. We won many contests. She didn’t sew, and we didn’t have Walmart, but she put together some really cool costumes. The kind we were proud to wear to school in the Halloween parade. Me being crafty myself and able to sew, you would have thought I would follow in my mom’s tradition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I had three good years of Halloween with my kids. Oh, I tried- trust me. Our house was decorated from top to bottom. Dave did the annual pumpkin carving. I was willing to create any costume within reason. When Molly was one, she had a little Denver Bronco cheerleader outfit. Jake had a jersey and helmet. Perfect. They were adorable and matching. When she was a baby, Jake was a cow. She was a pumpkin, and Dave and I were farmers. We have the perfect neighborhood to trick-or-treat in, a couple of subdivisions with lots of neighbors we know. It was like a fairy tale. Until Molly could voice her opinion. I quickly came to realize the kids didn’t want my homemade costumes when there was a perfectly good Walmart nearby. Anything they wanted, I hated to have to spend money on because it was so horrible. Halloween quickly became a holiday I dreaded. I was never so glad when junior high rolled around, and we were done. When Molly was in kindergarten, she balked at everything. Her classmates were all Disney princesses, but that was a definite no. She probably wanted to be the guy from “Scream”. It got so bad, that when the class party day rolled around, we had nothing. She ended up wearing Old Navy Halloween long johns, a black wig and a witches’ hat. I thought it was cute and acceptable. She still talks about the embarrassment she felt. You brought that on yourself, sister. She doesn’t agree. Jake had been sick for six weeks, and was barely able to go to school and also had nothing. I constructed a mummy costume out of material I already had and long johns. He was too tired to protest. When I put black around his eyes, I was reminded of how sick he’d been. Molly’s 5th grade and last year found us at a stand still again. Her best friend’s mom had bought her daughter a candy corn witch outfit online.  Yes, online was the place to buy costumes, but somehow I’d been out of the loop. They were either sold out or too expensive, but I found myself at the fabric store buying all the materials I would need to craft a candy corn witch outfit. It went together brilliantly. It was adorable and constructed 10x’s better than the store bought one. The girls were adorable. My friend later confessed that she felt embarrassed by how good my outfit was. Molly later confessed how much she hated that outfit. Why couldn’t I have just bought one like Jessica’s? I’m glad she didn’t tell me that until much later. I couldn’t have taken it. I was in my full glory that Halloween. It had been many years since I had outfitted my kids in something I felt proud of…

Tattoo

Just as I finished college, tattoos came into vogue. My mom said a hundred times, I’m so glad you graduated college before the kids started getting their Greek letters tattooed on their ankles. I know you would have gotten one.”  She was probably right. Maybe at 49, I would regret getting my Greek sorority letters on my ankle. I never had any desire to have a tattoo. In many cases, I don’t think they are  attractive. I started to warm up to them when one of my best friends got a cross tattooed on her wrist in honor of her childhood best friend who had been battered and eventually murdered by her husband. I was a little shocked by it. It was fairly big, I thought, for her wrist. As time went on, she got more tattoos. I started to warm up to them, especially the meaning behind each one. One night she explained to someone the significance of each tattoo, only to have the person question if it was appropriate for a teacher to have a tattoo. Sometimes places of employment do have policies on tattoos. They require you cover them with a bandage or clothing. We debated it one night in the pharmacy. The two pharmacists had tattoos. The male remarked that his goal was to have a “sleeve”. He figured he’d always wear a dress shirt to work so it wouldn’t be a problem. None of his were visible. When the female pharmacist wore her hair up, you could see one her tattoos. It certainly wasn’t offensive. One of the girls got a tattoo of an infinity circle with her 2 kids’ names near her heart. I thought it was pretty. Tattoos are so popular, it would be difficult to hire only people without visible tattoos. Who is going to make the decision of whether they are offensive or not? I thought when my mom died, I would get a tattoo. I wanted to get her signature on my foot. I saved a card she’d signed, “Lots of XO, XO’s, Mom”, so it could be copied. I have not gotten it yet. This summer, when Molly turned 18, she declared she was getting a tattoo. I wanted to go with her. She took her best friend instead. She decided on “& sometimes, all you need is one” with the date 4/27/16. I approved. It was a favorite quote of hers- “6 billion people in the world. 6 billion souls. And sometimes, all you need is one.”  The quote has special meaning to me because all Jake needed was one person to save his life and how remarkable that it was his only sister! 4/27/16 was the day she donated her stem cells, the day he received her stem cells- the day she gave him new life. I went to visit Molly at college the other day, and she suggested we have a mother/daughter tattoo date. I didn’t disagree. My biggest concern, as I discussed it with the tattoo artist with cotton candy blue hair, was what my 74 year old father would say. When I showed him, he rolled his eyes and sighed, “That’s a prison tat!” Don’t you think it’s pretty? I love it.  He finally declared, “How can I argue against something with that kind of meaning behind it?” He’s found a few times to tease me though, and Dave declared that he never dreamed he’d be with a tatted woman. I’m already thinking about my next one. Yes, even though it felt like she was cutting me with a piece of jagged glass, they are addicting. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired or too old to tell the meaning behind my tattoo…

Blessings in disguise

When Jake and I were driving home after he withdrew from college, he was lamenting, why couldn’t this have happened when I was a freshman in high school? I didn’t disagree. The few documented cases like Jake had leukemia in their 30’s. I was so thankful he wasn’t older- with a family, kids, career, a mortgage… That was a blessing in disguise. It took me a minute, but then I had an answer. “Jake, the NK deficiency wasn’t even diagnosed until 2012. If you would have had leukemia earlier, they would have gotten you into remission, and we would have been happy for awhile, but the leukemia would have returned. It probably would have been a different, harder to treat kind. They wouldn’t have known that your only chance for a cure was a bone marrow transplant. Today I was thinking about the long holiday back when he was being treated for the leukemia. Everything took longer. We didn’t know Molly was his perfect match until the day before the bone marrow registries. I worried that people would think the Be The Match drives were a waste of time. They were careful to let us know that the registry was in honor of Jake, but it was likely they wouldn’t produce his match. I hoped the participants understood. The morning we received our wonderful news, my friend stopped by. She too was in the middle of a mysterious illness that had plagued her since elementary school. It would be months, but she would eventually be diagnosed with Lupus. When my dad also showed up, I asked him if he minded me riding home with my friend so I could shower. We left, and she wanted to take me out to lunch. We settled in at the bar of her favorite Italian restaurant with a waiter she seemed to know. We visited. We were almost giddy. She told the waiter a little of my story. He seemed surprised that I seemed so happy. “Yes! There’s a lot more to the story. Do you want the short version, or shall I go back to the first grade?” We were the only ones there so I had plenty of time.  I looked at my friend. “We have an announcement we are going to make at the Be the Match drive tomorrow night. We just found out Molly is his perfect match!”  I looked back at the waiter. “So you see, leukemia was a ‘Blessing in Disguise’. Jake has a chance to be cured of everything. He will have a whole new immune system!” We all agreed it was cause for celebration. At that time, I was oblivious to all the things that could have gone wrong. I’m thankful I did not know. I only had hope. There were many times that people expressed sympathy for Jake’s cancer, and many times I explained how the leukemia was a Blessing in Disguise…

Handy Man

The other day my friend and I were installing faux barn wood on his bathroom walls. He made the comment that he wished he was a “handy man”. I giggled. Uhmmm no, that would require you to get dirty. If you were a handy man, you would remove the toilet so we wouldn’t have to work around it. “True.”  We wish we could buy houses and flip them, but we’d have to have a good contractor to do the dirty work. Tanner wasn’t even born when I graduated high school, so I am old enough to be his mom. He was my student in junior high. It wasn’t until much later that we became friends. One night my husband asked me what I thought about hiring Tanner to be the varsity cheer coach. He was concerned about a young man with a big group of teenage girls. Is he the best candidate?  He would line up the squad, and I would alter the uniforms to fit perfectly. One night I took a size 16 skirt and made it a 5.  Later Dave asked me what I thought about hiring Tanner to be his office assistant. Sure, why not?  Weeks later I walked into the high school office and announced, It’s about time Meister got some eye candy in here!  No offense, Loretta… The friendship blossomed. When Dave was desperate for a substitute teacher, he had Tanner call- I wouldn’t say no to him. Sometimes Tanner asks my advice, but only asks when he wants the truth. He knows I’m going to be that voice of reason and will talk him out of spending money. When you say “on sale”,  how much are we talking?  I knew he was looking for his first house. I looked on-line and threw out a couple of suggestions. He finally found the one he wanted. We went shopping for a dining room table; I gave him our gently used recliner. When he closed on the house, he had the luxury of not having to move in immediately. We both agreed the woodwork needed to be white, but he doesn’t pay me enough (zero) to paint woodwork. I got a text one day, Do you want to hang some pictures? I flew out the door. One thing led to another. He bought a burn barrel, yes a burn barrel, to use as a side table. We found faux brick wallpaper for his bedroom. We resurfaced his counter tops. Finally after hours and days of work, I told Dave, You are going over to Tanner’s tonight, and you are going to ooh and ahh over everything he’s done.  We were working on something, and Dave showed up. I remembered that feeling of being so proud to show visitors everything I had done to make our house a home. Now Tanner had that feeling. Dave looked around. “It looks very cosmopolitan,” came out of his mouth. Tanner looked at me, did you tell him to say that?  “I told him to act excited, but cosmopolitan– that’s all his.”  At 8 pm one Sunday night, I got a text, Do you think I could hang wallpaper on my kitchen wall by myself?  I immediately called him back. “Absolutely not! I’ll be right over.”  I understood the excitement of wanting to get it hung right now. My mom didn’t understand our friendship at first. He later sang at her funeral. We are decorating buddies. We work well together. We spent last summer decorating the new high school. He also worked well with my husband. He has a lot of friends. I’m glad he called when he did. Both kids had left for school, and I was feeling empty, sad and unmotivated. Decorating his house has been just what I needed…

20 years ago

When Jake was born 20 years ago on a beautiful October 1st, we were blessed with  a seemingly perfect, healthy, beautiful boy. Having him wasn’t easy, so we were especially thankful for our miracle. We had been married for 6 years. We started trying to have kids 4 years before. In 1994, I had a miscarriage. A year later I asked my primary care physician, Do you think I need to see a fertility specialist?  “Kiddo, I think you need to relax- you’re fine…”  He ultimately agreed and made a referral to a doctor an hour away. On a cold MLK’s birthday, we traveled to have our first consult. Everything appeared normal and healthy. The lab results would take a few days. We discussed the first steps that might be taken- of course these were not covered by insurance. That got my attention. When we got to the car, I turned to Dave, If you were ever going to get me pregnant, now would be a good time!  Ironically I was already pregnant. I took a home pregnancy test before I talked to the nurse. I told her the news. “Honey, there is no way you are pregnant. There has to be something wrong. You’re likely to have a miscarriage. I’m going to order some labs. You probably have gonorrhea.” WHAT?  I immediately called my PCP. “Kiddo, relax! First of all, you don’t have gonorrhea or anything else wrong. Let’s get our lab to run a pregnancy test.”  I know the lab technicians personally, so I told them what I had been told. They screwed their faces up in disbelief. They delivered happy news. They also sent the results to the specialist. I decided to stick with him because I received VIP care. Instead of waiting for 12 weeks for my first appointment, I’d had an ultrasound by then. We could see a little heartbeat before they could hear it. Implantation. Heartbeat. It was likely this was going to be ok. Things went normally. I had a few scares (with both kids) because while they were very active on the inside, I had trouble feeling them. We planned that I would take a whole year off with the new baby. It wasn’t until the 20 week sonogram that we knew the baby was a boy. He became Jake from then on. I went into preterm labor, but they were able to stop it. My mom retired from her job. We were ready. I finally went into labor at the appropriate time. For 48 hours I was in labor. They tried different things, but I wasn’t progressing. Lucille, my nurse, came in with an enema. For the first time, I got scared. It kicked in fast and with force. I was in the bathroom, embarrassed to death, but there was no holding back. I called out to the room, Can you guys hear me? My mom laughed out loud, and Dave comforted me, “Honey, the whole hospital can hear you.”  Finally an I.V. medicine was used, and I dilated to 10. It was literally Lucille’s last delivery on her last day before retirement. She was stoic. We didn’t joke around with Lucille. When I finally hit that magic number 10, Lucille decided it was time to push. It didn’t last long. She ordered the doctor STAT, and declared I’d be going to surgery NOW. Jake’s umbilical cord was caught between his head and my petite pelvis. Yes, I apparently have a petite pelvis. His oxygen was being cut off when I pushed. When they started to cut me, I could feel it. Dave was taken out, and I was put completely under. Hours later, I woke up. Dave and my mom had Jake. They placed him in my arms. I quietly looked at him. My mom finally broke the silence, “Don’t you like him?” I was still pretty loopy. Yes, he’s fine…I was expecting him to look like I had when I was 6 months old. Newborns aren’t particularly pretty. It didn’t take long for me to warm up to him, and my mothering instincts kicked in. He was so happy and such a good baby. I literally held him that whole first year. Had we known then what we know now, it would have been too stressful. I don’t think I could have handled it. I don’t know if we would have questioned having Molly. What if she wouldn’t have been born his perfect match? I’m glad we didn’t know. It amazes me that a gene mutation likely caused my two miscarriages. A gene mutation likely caused Jake’s natural killer cells to be present but not work. I wonder how many gene mutations are yet to be discovered? They guessed that it wasn’t genetic, but only because the rest of us appear to have normal immune systems. How many gene mutations may be cured or helped with stem cells in the future?  I’m hopeful now that Jake will be healthy. He was sick on his birthday with a cold. It was actually his first “normal” cold. He was able to recover like a normal person would recover. That in itself was a gift…