Go Blog Yourself

A favorite memory of our little soldier and her besties before she got sick.

My crazy, kids cancer hating, twin mama, internet friends are at it again!  Doing their best to raise awareness and help families suffering through cancer battles with their children.  These mamas mean business!  They are hosting the 2nd annual Tuesday Blog Party.  It’s the second time they are hosting this fun, online auction, but I’m still a little fuzzy on exactly how it works.  Here’s the gist:  Check out the list of giveaways below, visit the blog hosting said giveaway, and then leave them a comment and donate $1 to enter.  The donate button will be right there.  Easy peasy.

There are some awesome things to bid on, including an Orlando Vacation home for a week.

This is what I have donated

A little hand sewn Tuesday doll, complete with tutu, that I whipped up while taking muscle relaxers.  (I threw my back out, I’m not taking them just for fun.  Or am I?)

And all you need to donate is $1 per bid.  The money is going to be seed money for our organization whatchagonnado.org    We hope to have it up by Mother’s Day.  I’m pretty excited to share it.  I do need to say that money from the blog party will not be going to research.  100% of it will be going directly to families with kiddos in treatment.  This is how we feel we can make the biggest difference right now.  Thanks for helping us make that difference.  A HUGE thanks to Debi and Brandi for your hard work and commitment to the cause and all the gals who donated.

Now get out there and start bidding!

Sometimes it’s very clear that I’ve been put back together with Scotch Tape and safety pins and only a strong wind is required to blow me apart.

It’s been a windy week.

We’ve had a school meeting to address one child’s “emotional needs”, another child that wants to fix or have a solution for everything, but only winds up frustrated by everything, and a little girl that is obsessed with a cartoon about twins, because “I Love it because I’m Tuesday’s twin.”  She watches and then she melts down because

1.  I tore the toilet paper and she wanted to do it.

2.  Her raisins are stuck to the bottom of her cup.

3.  That’s not her best shirt.

4.  Her panties aren’t on rightaways in.

5.  Her  panties are on rightaways in.

6.  She doesn’t like the panties that I’m wearing.

7.  She’s 3.

Charley and I are totally burned out and are desperated to get away for a few days, but we are totally and completely incapable of making any plans or decisions.

I know that this is cyclical.  We’ve been through enough cycles that I know a day or two from now the sun will come out.  When you’re in it, it’s as though the sun doesn’t exist.  The bummer is that I know my mood sets the mood for the whole family.  I’m blue, the kids are blue, my husband is blue and the dog is blue so he pees in the house.

I’m also aware that this is not unique to us or to our situation.  I know that.  I know that every family has cycles like this, regardless of what has happened or has not happened.  What I don’t know is how to tell when I should be concerned by these behaviors.   Is it because of, or just because?  Should I be doing more for them?  Am I doing too much?  Are we depressed or just sad.  Are we going to be ok?  Do we just need the sun to come back out?

The extreme highs and lows, joys and sorrows and feelings of love and emptiness  still come with too much frequency and too much unpredictability.   It’s still, sometimes, too much.  It’s got to be better than complacency and numbness, right?

I don’t need answers.  I know we are going to be ok.  I just needed to get it out so I can clear my head enough to choose a restaurant and a movie.

And the world spins madly on.

My Mother-in law was just here.  She was here to speak, to teach, of the Civil Rights Movement, at an amazing Spirituals Project concert that we had the privilege of attending.  I’m not just saying this because my Mother-in-law reads this blog.  Or because I want to give a shout out to Larry Bograd and Coleen Hubbard who directed a powerful documentary on The Spirituals Project and the history of this important music.  But, since I’m talking about you, go ahead and take a well deserved bow. Kudos!

About halfway through the performance, Margaret told the story of 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing.  She told of the 4 young girls that were killed that Sunday and of the women, mothers, who stood there wailing and pulling out their hair in grief and disbelief.  I sat next to a woman, a mother, a friend who is walking this lonely journey with me.  Who has stood there wailing and pulling out her hair in grief and disbelief.  We sat there with our husbands, the fathers, who for some reason are never really mentioned when discussing the loss of a child.  I wonder what the fathers did that day in 1963.  I’m pretty sure they wanted to wail and pull their hair out too.  I didn’t wail that night at the concert, but I did weep.  I wept through the entire singing of He Knows How Much We Can Bear.  I wept for the four girls that died that day.  I wept for Tuesday and for Emmy.  The four of us didn’t talk about it that night.  I guess we didn’t need to.  We just knew.  That night I had an epiphany that the four little girls that were killed that day in 1963 were our little girls.  Their story belongs to all of us.  Just like Tuesday’s story is your story if you keep coming to share in it.  Suffering should not be a solitary act.  It should be shared.  In that sharing there is empathy and a new understanding of humanity that softens this world and makes us want to be better.  I believe that God designed it that way.  That part is pretty easy to understand.  I’m still trying to understand the part where He knows how much we can bear.  I don’t get it, but I do believe it.  I do feel it.  Most of the time anyway.  He’s keeping me from washing down stream.  Is God the dam or is it just his finger in the dyke?  Keeping me from the flood.  Does it matter?  Even when I’m at the end of my rope, he knows how much I can bear.  After all, I haven’t drowned yet.