OK June is better

I've been noticeably silent. I know. Sometimes, when you can't say anything nice, or in my case, good or positive. No words is a better option.

About Memorial Day. I really like this post. Primarily for the quote from the tombstone. "Remember Me and Not My Fate" Yeah. That's a much better thing and once I focused on that I started pulling myself up and out of my little yucky melt down.

More help followed from Trying's place, here and here. She's so good, that girl. Anyone lucky enough to be her friend and hang out with her and go visit the cows is very lucky. One more, there is Claire of the Hooah Family. Claire has turned into such a good and positive part of my life. I just need to say thank you, you have no idea how you both helped me regain perspective and find my center. Maybe prayer, maybe insight, maybe sharing, simply caring. No idea, but thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We now return to our regularly (or maybe not so much) scheduled programming. Carry on :)

Friendship and Memory

Megan called last night, while she was driving home from picking up Ryan at the half-way point between her home and his so he could stay with her during spring break. They wanted to know what their Mom's dream car was. I told them, the little BMW convertible or the Saturn Skye were the two she really loved. When we hung up I was hit with such sadness.

Megan is Beth's daughter, Beth and I were pregnant together and Megan was born nearly one month to the day before my son Zach. Zach and Meg grew up together. Meg is now 25 years old, soon to be 26. Ryan, her brother, is now 15. Zach died January 23rd, 2004, Beth died July 2 of last year. She had a stealth aortic aneurysm that decided to rupture while she and Ryan were at the mall one Sunday afternoon.

Beth was my best friend, but more than that, she held memory with me. She knew Zach from before the day he was born. She remembered all the little stories, all the things I did and didn't. Beth remembered with me and when she was away from me. Those memories, the funny (and some not so funny) little stories...they are what is most precious to me. When you lose your child (or anyone you love dearly) you want nothing more than for him to be remembered, not forgotten, but kept alive in memory and story and laughter and love. That is all there is now.

After Meg and Ryan called, I realized I am now that for them, the holder of memory, of years and years of shared history. The person who will know the answer to "what was the dream car Mom wanted" and probably many other questions to come.

When I first saw Megan before Zach's funeral, she hugged me for a long time and we cried, and she whispered in my ear "I will have your grandchildren for you." It brings tears to my eyes whenever I think of her saying that. With all her heart she meant it. So my job is to be her children's grandmother, to tell them the stories of their grandmother Beth. Not what I expected.

Now I am the holder of memory and it is the very least I can do for my friend.

Real Life...

...vs virtual life. Hmmm

I started this post on the 25th of January with just those words, then I had to go do something and never got the post done. So now I'm back to revisit it. Today is really February 12 :)

I've always been an on line geek, since back in the days of Internet Relay Chat when the only people on there were MIT guys and other computer geek people (and my sister Lisa who lived across the sea and that was the only "cheap" way to talk to her regularly). We're talking like early 1980's. All through the years and over various interweb (I just like that word-it makes me giggle) forms I have made friends and acquaintances , all over the world.

You could debate about whether they are "real" friends or "virtual" friends, but imho, they are all as real as can be. My point is, there isn't a pretend person generated by some wondrous computer on the other end of the conversation you are having--this is a real live human being with real live human being thoughts and dreams and fears and well, the list is endless. Many people actually forget that, this is a real person here, and treat that person as though they are some disposable thing -- not so.

I may not be a part of my friends daily life, sitting in the kitchen having coffee, but I am there nonetheless, participating in a conversation, thinking together, supporting each other, sometimes holding on to a little thread of sanity. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to actually meet those friends, we've had gatherings of various sorts where people come from all over the world to meet. I was "best woman" in a wedding in Australia -- two people met on the internet and later married and I knew them both through our on-line conversations. Another two people who met in person at that wedding after talking on-line for years ended up getting married shortly thereafter.

I met my husband on the internet in a mmorp (massively multi-player on line role playing game). Yes, I'm an on line gamer, I blame my son Zach, its all his fault! My husband and I met playing this game, we spent two years of many hours playing this game and talking and laughing and sometimes being serious until finally he asked me to meet him to go to a wedding as his date. The rest (6 years later) is history.

I don't remember what started me on this little jaunt, it was something I read somewhere about "real vs virtual" and I just don't believe there is such a thing. We are all real, the form we use to communicate is virtual but still, we are real. My friends that I haven't physically met are just as valuable to me as those I have. I still wish for my teleporter though, for any number of reasons a teleporter would just be over the top awesome.

Conversations

Sometimes being in this sort of military limbo LT Dan and I are in...well, it leaves me sitting here singing the "all by myself" song. Now LT Dan and I have been together these 7 years, but we just got married. That makes me yes *gasp* a newlywed, more than that, a military wife.

It isn't the nomenclature, the process or any of that, I was an Army Mom for a good number of years. I survived my son's 13 month deployment. I survived losing him. I had a military family that I still have (only now its much bigger). It's the emotional place, the commitment, this whole military wife thing is life-altering in ways I hadn't considered and have only now after nearly two years dealing with it come to realize.

Soooo I found SpouseBUZZ , then I found several military spouses who have blogs. LT Dan said "oh boy, like a kid in a candy store." Yeah. Mostly though, it's finding other people who, like me, have to deal, and embrace the suck. I'm not singing the all by myself song quite so much any more. Butterfly Wife understands why I want a teleporter and Non-Essential Equipment understands Guilt Trips . We are making one of those for more than one third of our Exodus time. Well sortof. I'm thinking NEE could teach me a few things about begging forgiveness as opposed to asking permission too!

But anyway, back to what I was thinking. Last night I went to a neighborhood Ladies Night. It was themed for Christmas and you brought soup and a ten dollar gift. Cool, ok, I haven't been to one in the whole year I've lived here so I'll go. I made taco soup and trotted up to the lodge being all brave and such. The soup was a hit, I didn't have any left to bring home. But when we get into conversation, now, I am become Alien. The usual "whot dew yew dew" questions...I am retired and a military wife. I watch, they blink, then they don't know what to say. Well, where is he? I tell them. Well how do you do THAT? I say I commute a lot, I spend ten days here at our home and two weeks there at our home, or he comes here. Well, what if *insert random variable here*. Oh Lord, have mercy. If we weren't in military/injury limbo (long story, some other post some other day) we would make some decisions about our living situation but right now, no. We commute. We talk on the phone and on instant messenger. I leave him enough food in the fridge and freezer to last (usually) until I am there again.

I came home, read the other wives blogs and felt all better. At least...to them, I don't have to explain very much at all. They are there, I am here, we don't really have conversations, but I know they are there and they know I am here and if I needed to I would ask for help and I would get it. So I am not become Alien all the way at least. Only sometimes. LOL

Yeah, I changed it

So I changed the name of my blog. On a whim. I'm like that. Mostly I did it for Beth. Beth was my best friend for 26 years. She had a sign over her desk, for as long as I can remember, that said" One by one, the penguins steal my sanity". Her Mom put a modified version of that on the back of her tombstone. We all agreed it belonged there.

Damn. I miss her so much. Especially at this time of year, there are no Beth goodies, no something weird made with chocolate, no little tiny loaves of yummy sweet breads, no slice and bake cookies (which I hated but I ate them anyway because she made them), no puppy chow (another weird thing made with chocolate.) If it was chocolate Beth was into it. If it was Christmas Beth was into it. If it was a penguin Beth was into it.

So here's to Beth. Fair winds and following seas dearest friend.