Messiah HWV 56: Part II , No. 20 Air: “He was despised” —George Friderick Handel performed by Eugene Ormandy, Martha Lipton, The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (1959)

The lady at the doctor’s office was asking about my parents and grandparents, while taking my blood pressure.  She had asked my grandmothers name, thought she had passed a couple of years ago but I said, “Billie.” And then, as she made a yikes face at the reading on the blood pressure monitor, I said, “It was last year. I was with her when she passed…maybe we shouldn’t talk about dead people while we’re doing this!?!” It wasn’t an unpleasant conversation, really, I promise, and the monitor soon showed a dip towards a more normal blood pressure reading. As I was leaving the office that evening, it had begun to snow; big, fat snowflakes drifted through the air as I jogged through the parking lot. 

By Wednesday, the sun had popped out and melted the light dusting of snow that had adorned the trees and grass for a day. Now, Thursday morning and I am listening to Handel’s Messiah. It took me a little while to find the right one. They’re not all the same, you know. I was trying to find the one that Mom had loved so much—the one that I was so familiar with hearing at Christmas time over the years. I added it to the Christmas music playlist that I have been compiling for Friday’s open house.

“He was despised.” They sing it kinda funny, if you’ve never heard things pronounced that way before, it might even sound silly. He was despised. People hate things they cannot comprehend—this is a difficult lesson for people to learn. When I was a young child, I remember grilling Mom about Jesus. I remember the late-night conversations about him—the ones where we both ended up crying. I just couldn’t understand why they killed him. 

I know, now. 

I watched Mel Gibson’s movie when it came out. That was a one and done for me. I’m still kinda upset about it…hell, I’m still mad about it. They KILLED HIM, you know!?!? 

Friday.

Today is the day. The Final Countdown.

I’m not sure we are all completely prepared for what’s coming in the next chapter of our lives, but I, personally, am excited to see where the future takes us. I know Dad is going to have a little more time on his hands. There are definitely some changes coming, but, like all the rest, we will take those in stride. 

It’ll be alright, that’s one thing that I know for sure. Today is the final preview before the auction closes at 6 PM. Today feels…both oddly exciting and also nerve-wracking. I finished my Christmas playlist and will set up my amp to play music while I’m there. Tonight is the town’s Christmas parade and festivities. There are other things on our agenda as parents today…

Ah, the Christmas festivities…look, y’all, I will be the first to admit that I did not love moving back here. Then I read the local newspaper. It doesn’t take me long to read each issue, hell it doesn’t take me long to edit it and sit it back down again, frowning at first, then laughing and shaking my head. I walk around here quite a lot, and I have visited a lot of different, really cute small towns…and this town doesn’t look like a hallmark movie for Christmas time and I cannot hide my disappointment. I would suggest making better, more creative choices, but then, I may have to also make those creative suggestions—and they don’t pay or praise me for that. They definitely don’t deserve a free creative suggestion. So, I just let it go. Laughing at the silliness of it all—the excessive spending for so very little in return—the lack of consistent creative vision is like a punishment, you know? Surely you all must realize that when things that don’t flow well, they also don’t sit well, in the end. Maybe these are things that I know and that some still have yet to learn. 

For now, my focus is on layering my clothing for this cold-ass day. And the day ahead is going to be a challenge, if only because of how I feel. It’s going to be difficult, at times, to deal with the many mixed emotions, but we will get through it together, as a family. And tomorrow the sun will rise again. 

Loretta Young Silks—Sneaker Pimps

I have been writing, obviously, but I have also been reading—a lot. Books, magazines, journal articles, reddit, twitter threads, memes, anything and everything. I also consume a huge amount of video media. Shows and movies mostly. Sarah keeps adding to the list of documentaries that I should watch but the list just keeps getting longer as I turn on another old episode of ancient aliens. And music. There’s a show on and the radio blasting and I am writing. Amongst the papers stacked on top of my desk are lists of my favorite songs. There are so many great songs that sometimes I forget the names and, when they pop into my playlist again, I am running for paper and pen. Some songs prompt a story. Sometimes they evoke a feeling and then that feeling brings a story. Oftentimes it’s just that I really enjoy it and it was the song that was playing as I was starting or finishing a piece. Sometimes, it sounds so nice, I wanna hear the same song twice. 

Just to be clear, I never, ever stopped writing. I just stopped sharing it as much here. I went back and read some of the old blog posts. I was angry and upset a lot of the times that I came here to write. It was cathartic then, it is now, but I am not so angry anymore. Sure, I have my moments, but I lost a lot of anger when a lot of my pain went away. 

I suppose there are a lot of gaps in the stories of my life that I share here. Maybe the gaps are a different story entirely, one that I just haven’t shared yet. If you know me, you may know that I have always suffered from allergies—food and seasonal—and spent a lot of my teen years in doctor’s offices to figure out that it was allergies. Mom knew there was something wrong with me. Before she passed away, she made me swear not to have any more babies—I almost immediately signed the paperwork to have a tubal ligation at the time of the birth of my third child—and did so well before the time that they wouldn’t allow you to make such a decision (when you are really far along or during labor). I don’t even want to pull out the soapbox right now but I will say this: it’s fucking bullshit that I had to have had three children and or like permission from my husband to get such a procedure at my age! What. The. Fuck. I could have died every pregnancy. It was my blood pressure that went wild when I had my first pregnancy. Mom and I were close when I was a teen, the last kid at home still. She had taken me to the doctor all the time and she had said that she wanted to get her money’s worth out of the outrageous insurance premiums they were paying for us to keep it. But maybe she knew there was something wrong with me that somebody was eventually going to figure out, and lord knows she tried her best to help me. My blood pressure as a child and teen was always on the low side of normal, the doctors were not concerned about it when I asked. But when I got pregnant with my first child, my blood pressure went the other direction and I was pre-eclamptic and toxemic. I had to stay in the delivery room for hours after Anna Lee was born, before they finally sent me to a regular room; they wanted my blood pressure to go down before they moved me. They also didn’t want to tell me that, but I could definitely see, hear, and understand that shit was serious, Mom and the nurses talking around and over me like I just didn’t need to be worried about it. Mom definitely knew something was wrong with me. None of my pregnancies were easy on my body. There’s something wrong with me.

I knew it too. I always have, but it’s hard to get help when you don’t know what “normal” is supposed to be like. For me it was five rounds of antibiotics followed by a prednisone pack in about a six monthish period of time and I knew everything that I personally needed to know about what was wrong with me. Autoimmune disorder. A lot of research told me that it probably wasn’t a good one to have, but I am not a doctor so I couldn’t exactly figure it or fix it completely on my own. But when a pack of prednisone cures every ache in my whole body, and I can breathe so easily again, all the inflammation just…goes away…it fucking means something. 

Now, let me just vent a little more in this moment: fuck all of you people in my life that ever told me that all of my illness symptoms were all in my head. I can’t help that there’s something wrong with me and that I didn’t yet have a doctor smart enough to figure it out. And I don’t appreciate that you thought that I was just some kinda hypochondriac, thinking that I am sick all the time without actually being sick. Step on a lego.

It was Sarah who gave me my first real diagnosis of part of my symptoms—which, in part, led me to again begin to research autoimmune disorders and which one it could be possibly. They had told me that I had an infection, another UTI, based on lymphocytes in the urine sample. After the last round of antibiotics and I was still in tremendous pain and discomfort, Sarah said: interstitial cystitis. I went back to the urologist and asked him what the fuck was wrong with me. The latest urine test had been sent out for culture and returned with no growth. They had been repeatedly treating me for infections that I didn’t necessarily have because of the lymphocytes in my urine. He diagnosed interstitial cystitis and offered me overactive bladder medication and suggested a procedure to stretch my bladder (no fuckin thanks, guy). The medication made me feel like I couldn’t empty my bladder and like I was retaining (even more) water. I said fuck these meds and a little later went to the urogynecologist, who gave me some different medication. One of them was elavil (amitryptaline) which was used to stop some of the bladder and abdominal pain and tension. It made me want to kill myself. I hadn’t had those thoughts since right after Mom had died. I stopped that medication and called the doctor. With her guidance I completely changed my diet and started chasing my daily orange juice with Prelief calcium tablet supplements. 

The next diagnosis from Sarah happened when winter came on last year and we were working outside together. My bones ached. Arthritis of some kind, she said. I should go to the rheumatologist. But a rash happened first and for about 20 days I had this unbearably itchy rash on my back and I ended up going to the doctor and getting steroids and ended up at the dermatologist. The dermatologist did bloodwork and despite the steroids, I had a positive ANA. They referred me to the rheumatologist. The rheumatologist did a whole bunch of bloodwork. And xrays. And then MRIs of my hips and pelvis. 

Non-radiographic Axial Spondyloarthritis, falling within the Ankylosing Spondylitis category of rheumatic arthritis disorders. That’s what they are “classifying my pain as of now.” At my last appointment, I asked for clarification of this point, “is this the official diagnosis or do I need to worry about some other really obscure illness that it actually is?” And they seemed to indicate that this was, indeed, the determination of the diagnosis with the information and symptom set that was documented. I go back soon, with more questions and some new symptoms/issues. BUT the most important part of that last appointment was that I told them, “How bad does this have to get before someone decides that something should be done about it? All I want to do is skateboard, run, walk or whatever I want to physically do every day without being in constant pain.” At that time I had stopped skateboarding every day because it made my foot hurt so bad when I did every day that I had to alternate running/walking instead of skateboarding every day. My doctor is a fellow with a dr boss, as I am fond of referring to him, and, after their little hallway meeting, and after I asked how bad it had to get, boss doctor said give me some celebrex, and we would know pretty quickly whether or not it would work. Bless that man. Celebrex was like a fucking miracle. I can’t wait to tell them how much my pain has improved. They also ordered physical therapy, which I completed and it did help make my hips and pelvis stronger, however, when I did the exercises twice daily I was in so much more pain than I had been since starting the medication, that told them that I am not doing it every day. I do exercises when I feel like it and if I am sore I don’t. Simple as that. No reason to push myself to the point of pain every day. Not when I don’t have to be in pain all day every day anymore. 

And that’s made a huge difference in my attitude and the way that I approach every day of my life now. I had a lot of pain before—physical pain—and now that the majority of it is gone, it’s a little bit easier for me to…just be. Even though the journey is no where near over, I am glad that I am able to, every day, improve myself and my life a little bit. Tomorrow we get to cross another small goal off my list of things that I needed to accomplish, and tonight, though it is late, I will rest well and look forward to the bright, sunny morning ahead. 

Shine—Meat Puppets

I had a friend, once. I wish I could say that I still had her around, but I am fairly certain that I am better off without her in my life. But sometimes I think about her and I miss being able to talk to her—well, I guess I miss listening to her complain incessantly for hours, with an occasional forced interruption so I could vent too—it was definitely entertaining, if nothing else. She told me that I was never really her friend. I guess she was never really mine, either. 

When I got divorced, when I was going through the divorce, I literally unfriended everyone who was also friends with my ex-husband on all social media platforms, but particularly facebook. I was going back through my old facebook stuff and, although I vaguely recall doing such, realized that I just started unfriending anyone and everyone, family members, friends, didn’t matter to me as much as it mattered that I was sealed off from him or anyone connected with him. Now I find myself feeling like I could come out of the bubble. I don’t need it as much anymore. 

Grief does strange things to you. I thought I had healed enough that it was time to leave that part of my life behind. I didn’t want to be a wife to someone who didn’t even like me anymore. I would and will always be a mother. But I didn’t have to try raise a fourth child, reign someone in, be their conscience, self-esteem, or their entire reason for keeping a job and making house payments. I didn’t want to always hold my tongue, hold my breath, wait for an argument, or try to de-escalate a bad situation made worse by inebriation. I mean, I suppose that I do have a particular set of skills now…

I was healed enough to accomplish that feat, obtaining the divorce officially in 2018. A few months later, I removed my longtime best friend from my life. A month later I broke up with my boyfriend and, because of the end of that, changed my number and culled my friends lists again. A little while after that, a brief engagement, two idiots thinking love could save the world, I suppose. He said we needed time apart to work on our own goals. He has a new wife? Anyway a new girl and a new baby were recently spied at a school thing I took my kids to—after I moved back to my hometown. Who says that you can’t go home? Isn’t that Jon Bovi lyrics???? Or someone else? 

None of that really hurts now. It didn’t matter a whole lot to me when I moved back home that I had been hurt, intentionally or not, by people who claimed to love me unconditionally. Whatever their intentions were, mine were always  to love and be loved. I still hold all the love I have ever had inside my heart. I came back here, my home, and last year, I was with my Grandmother when she passed. It wasn’t easy. In fact, I would say that all the other old wounds from watching other people die were clawed at all over again, fresh scratches atop even deeper wounds that had once been nicely scabbed over. Those deeper wounds had healed enough that, though freshly scratched again, their reopening did not cause me to completely unravel, like I eventually had after Mom passed.

I quit the job that I had at the knock-off bath and body works down the road. I had been working ten-hour days and my kids were really struggling without me being at home as much. This is a great understatement; the job was taking its toll on my body and my family. Some bitch decided to say some shit about dead grandmas again at work one day and I just clocked out and left without a word to anyone. Days later, I even went back to apologize to the HR lady for leaving abruptly in the middle of the work day—I called her first of course. Dad had insisted that I return and try to make amends. He wanted me to have that “good” job. He always wants the best for us. I told the kind HR lady that even if I could come back, would be allowed to come back by the hiring person, I didn’t know that I could actually tolerate what was happening at work. The two women in charge of making boxes were harassing me. I was fairly certain that one was a drug addict—I saw her several times outside my place in town, and at first I thought she was stalking me but then I was told that one of the neighbors was dealing hard drugs (don't worry, they moved). The grapevine was right, she was definitely on some kinda drugs (and NOT THE FUN KIND!), and not necessarily stalking me. But that other bitch. That was a whole other matter. She didn’t know me, and had she known my Grandmother, she would have been mourning as well. I tried to be nice to the woman, the box-makin’ bitch. She was a cancer survivor and if I had to work beside her on the line, I had tried to help her out because I knew that she struggled physically. Why did I do that!?!? Am I just a glutton for punishment!?!? I had to miss work abruptly because hospice said to come, and when I came back to work box-bitch started talking a lot about people dying, and not while using her inside voice (not that she had an inside voice, really). At first, the moronic local newspaper editor put Billie’s obituary as an ad in the newspaper because we wanted it to be in a certain format, and then, when he ran it again the following week, with the actual obituaries, the death talk at work by loud-box-bitch and her drug-addled sidekick became unbearable. I wore my headphones all the time. I spoke to people as little as possible, and only if it was absolutely necessary. I did the job they made up for me (because they had never dreamed of actually having someone to inventory as a job. Look, if I could make this shit up I WOULD). Then I did all the other warehouse jobs just because I could, I suppose, but all I was really worried about was taking care of my family. My mind was constantly preoccupied with what I needed to do next on the list to manage things as best I could at the time. People have been gracious and kind to me sometimes, and yet, those people who do it very consistently are the very assholes that I have spent my whole life with, my family. The HR lady said that they were waiting for good evidence of the two employees who were causing problems for me at work, causing problems for others, so they could properly dismiss them. I wasn’t wrong about what was happening, but I couldn’t fix it all by myself either. They knew it was going on, but did very little to stop it. So I left. I protected myself. And I spent more time with my family. I worked less hours, and, in turn, had less money, and not surprisingly (to me, at least) less stress. I drifted for a bit before I tried a job opening a restaurant and serving. Three weeks in I was left alone, except for the cook, a 20ish year-old who was just about as new to the job as I was, and, that particular morning I needed help. The tank thing to heat the food wasn’t working. It was supposed to keep the hot food hot. I called for help. And I waited for a few minutes and then turned everything off, left the apron and just clocked out and left. They called me a little while later to admonish me, so when I answered I said that I had needed help and when I called for it, no one answered. The woman said that I couldn’t do that. The nerve, really. I can’t recall my exact words but I think I just said that I could do whatever I wanted and hung up. I miss the guys that always came in in the morning and sat around and talked, the regulars who told me jokes and aggravated me about being the new kid. I loved serving. I think it might be my favorite job, so far, but I greatly preferred serving pizza and beer at Wick’s. 

And, if you have been following along, you know what I have been doing for the past year or so. The end is nigh!!! The auction draws to a close at the end of this week, and I have been juggling a lot of different emotions. I keep coming back to the most important one though: love. I keep sending it out there, in all directions, hoping that I can get just enough back in return to keep me going when things get tough.

Love. It really just boils down to how people feel about it. I like to think that love bursts from my body with every breath, every movement, showering all those around me with its presence and consistency. Some guard theirs. They offer it conditionally. Some give love pretty freely at times, and yet they try take it away whenever they think it will hurt you the most. It’s ok that they don’t understand that it can’t ever be taken away. All of the love that I have ever given in this world is still there, it can never be taken away, it only ever grows, just like me. I look around sometimes, and I don’t see the same people around me now—all I see is family. Maybe nothing was ever really missing at all. New family members appear, as you travel along this life’s path, and all of the love never really leaves.  

Radio — Sylvan Esso

We grew up with Dad going off to work early in the morning to what was known to us as “The Shop.” The front of the building had a big, hand-painted sign over the doors that said the words “Green River Machine Shop” painted alongside the arial image of a winding, pale green river. The Shop was always loud, full of sound—the ker-thunk of the machines running parts, the sizzling sound of people welding gates, and the twang of the music from the local radio station, cranked full-volume on a small radio somewhere in the back. 

At the shop we could only do certain things. Our Grandpa Bill taught us how to use a push broom and instructed us to sort nuts, bolts, and various other hunks of metal. Our parents had a small business that sold farm gates and made gate hardware. Of the many, many things we learned from our family as children, we quickly learned how to properly answer the telephone and take down a message, sometimes even an order. Mom taught us how to answer the phone, Dad told us to make sure we got a name and added the date and time. 

I remember when my Grandmother did the payroll; I rode with her to the bank to get the cash money for each employee’s paycheck. When we returned, we would place each check’s cash amount in an envelope with a name on it, paperclip the bills together with a pay stub, drop it in the envelope and make sure the amount, including the coins, was correct. Billie had a big bag to carry the bank stuff in and, back in her office, a long ledger in which to record all the information. In her bottom desk drawer there were a whole bunch of candy bars that she would give me when the other kids sent me after a treat. I think Billie liked that I was always too honest, “They sent me for candy bars again!”

Our whole family always attended a holiday party at The Shop, before Christmas, where our parents gave out envelopes with a Christmas bonus and a fruit basket that usually had some fresh fruit, nuts, and a ham. I remember going with Dad to pick the boxes up at the local supermarket and asking so many questions… Why did they have more boxes than they had employees? Why is it called a fruit basket if there’s a ham in it and there’s no basket? For the Christmas dinner at the shop, we usually had a pot of soup beans and cornbread and one (or more) of the ladies who worked there would usually have some kind of candy, cookies, or fudge. Billie always brought or sent a container of Christmas cookies that were her signature throughout the holiday season. Some of the employees always gave us kids a little gift of some sort, and I always remember how special that made me feel.  The Shop was always pretty quiet then, the noises of the machines and welders stopped for a long lunch break, replaced by the noises of a community meal and a couple of stove fires roaring in the background. 

I didn’t know it then but these were all the people who showed me what it could be like at a workplace. At a home. In a community. They showed me what it takes to be a good and decent human. Being polite, kind, and caring toward our fellow humans—it’s so simple. Give more than you take, show people that you value them, and do the right thing. It takes empathy and kindness to make it through life without leaving others damaged in your wake. It takes effort to turn the other cheek. It costs nothing to lend a helping hand, say a kind word, or share a laugh with those who are around you. In your home, at your workplace, and in your community, you can make that little bit of difference to one more starfish. Learning someone’s name, shaking their hand, and teaching them how to do something new is only the beginning…over time you learn to motivate, encourage and care for them as fellow human beings. That was the lesson. I didn’t know that I was learning it. And I suppose there is a cost, if you don’t mind paying it, for not doing what you think you should be doing, not bothering with what you know you ought to do, not pursuing what you wish you could do, not doing what you hope other people would do—and that cost is your own humanity, one little bit at a time. 

When I moved back to my home town a couple of years ago my Grandmother Billie said to me, “Who says you can never go home!?!” And at the time I had just chuckled and replied, “Well, here I am!” I am not ashamed to say that I didn’t quite know exactly what she meant at the time. I knew it was a quote from something and I was even familiar with the phrase and, in general terms, its meaning. But I felt towards the words the same as I had always felt about them: home is the place where you can always go to feel safe, why couldn’t you go back there? Why wouldn’t you? Now that both she and some time have passed, I realize that not everyone can go home. Not everyone wants to go home. Not everyone knows how to go home—even if home is just a comfortable feeling of belonging. But you can learn to be home for those who need safe harbor, and you can teach them how to create it for themselves and others.

For those of you in the know, you may already be privy to the information, but this year our Dad has decided to retire. He is selling The Shop property and its remaining contents. After about a year of closing down and cleaning the business property, we are rapidly approaching the auction date. We were discussing such matters with Dad this morning as I was writing this. I meant to share a few nostalgic words as I posted the link to the auction website and it led me back here. Full circle, once again. In cycles, in circles.

It’s been a wild ride for me. I can’t imagine what coasting into the station must feel like for Dad now. This year I learned how to weld and work metal a little, on the remaining machines at The Shop—and with the help of my sister Sarah and our coworker Tazz. Together, the three of us cleaned up The Shop, the outside property, and the office. Over the course of the year we have heard numerous stories about hauling gates, making sales, meeting people, going to new places and having interesting experiences—Sarah and I have told Dad several times that he should write a book (or several books!) about all of his adventures in business and life. I will keep encouraging him to do so. In the meantime, if you get a chance, ask him to tell you something that you don’t know. 

The office building is so empty that every sound echoes inside it. The paint pattern that runs along the lower half of the walls was designed and painted by yours truly, my name emblazoned in the same red paint in the hallway instead of a final stretch of the pattern. There wasn’t a place in the shop or office that I had been as a child, a teen, or an adult that I didn’t write my name somewhere. Beth was here. When we went to box up the last of the photos on Mom’s desk at the office, there’s one picure that sits on her desk facing his and it’s a picture of me and Sarah, as toddlers, and Dad at our house, in the corner where they had put the home office at first. It’s a candid snapshot; Sarah is standing in the desk chair behind Dad, preparing to scale him and I am sitting on his shoulders, one foot not quite all the way over his other shoulder when Mom had come in to snap the picture. And there the memory floods back for me, a picture to tug it from the recesses of my brain. The picture is in one of those clear acrylic frames that Billie so loved. Dad is sitting at the desk with notepad, pen and phone, his face turned towards Mom at the last second, as he was really concentrating on getting his work done and we were working hard to prevent him from doing any more work! I remember us climbing all over him, a game where he peeled one kid off his back about the time the other had gotten seated on his shoulders and then Mom pops in to capture the memory forever on film. I haven’t forgotten, Mom!! I still remember. Just like I remember Mom taking me outside to play run-&-go-fetch-it while she was trying to work and all the other kids were at school. Just like I remember trying to type a paper in college and grad school with my little ones climbing up over my shoulders while I tried so hard to just finish this sentence. 

They say you can’t go home again BUT WHO’S GONNA STOP ME!?!? 

Straight Lines -- Silverchair

Every week there's a 1.5 hour chunk of time that I have carved out in the middle of the day, when I talk to a therapist. It's a nice little respite from the rest of the world, even if it's a short time. It's place where I can actually be myself. And the truth is that maybe I haven't done that quite as well since Jonathan died, even though that was my intention. I somehow got super afraid of saying all the things I'd really like to say, do the things that I want to do when I'm telling a story, things that I wouldn't do around anyone else.... I try, but there's always a part of me that holds back, the voice that says, don't say that shit, don't do that, that sounds absolutely fucking crazy, that will look insane. And I usually say that bit out loud to the therapist, and because I know how it sounds, and there are like notes....meh. Whatever. 

I'm not the only one that misses Jonathan.

It seems as though everyone that I meet that knows Jonathan loves and misses him too. I struggled with that sentence for a second as I wrote and I thought should it be "loved?" but then I realized that the body is past tense, the love is still present, that's why it hurts so much. The other day I said that I had never really processed his death...

So I'll say something that I guess I have needed to say for a long time:

What the fuck, man?

Now we gotta do this shit without the pleasure of your insanely loving, always entertaining, and genuinely authentic company? That's a dick move. Like the worst. It's like getting up in the middle of a game of cards against humanity when you know you were dealt the best fuckin hand IN THE ENTIRE GODDAMN UNIVERSE. 

I don't think I had a conversation with Jonathan in which I didn't laugh, no matter the topic or the initial mood. Hanging out with my family is similar to going to a comedy club, but instead of it being stand-up, it's conversational style. Wait, I think I've just described a podcast--which we always say we're gonna do, BUT WE NEVER DO. And clearly, some of us deal with trauma and adversity by developing a particularly twisted and entertaining sense of humor over the course of our lives, Jonathan being no exception over the course of his, only he happened to just be better at it than everyone else. Effortlessly funny in all situations, that was Jonathan.

I miss you, man. It's real fucked up that you just died like that and things will never ever be the same without you.

I honestly don't know how to describe it. I guess the closest thing is that I miss one of the people I was closest to that I knew absolutely, without fail, I could say the most left-field crazy fucked up esoteric shit to and at the same time have a serious and fun conversation about it, without being judged for how fucking crazy it sounded. Like wormholes, time travel, entropy, zombies, video games, books, conundrums, music, weird words, anything and everything. And also real shit. Shit that was happening in the world and how awful is to feel things so deeply.

Salt in an open wound. As I write and think about him, the tears just flow. I don't want to feel like this, because I hate feeling sad, but I know it will be ok. I know the end of this life will come, just as everyone's does, and, until then...well, from now on, without Jonathan it's just not gonna be as fun, but I keep trying to do my best to make it entertaining anyway. Otherwise, what's the point?

MF - AWOLNATION

I stole something once. I was really little. Small enough to not yet understand the concept of money. It was a pack of bubbalicious bubble gum. We were in the check out line at the grocery store and I saw it, wanted it and took it. When we got to the car and I was chewing a piece, Mom noticed and asked me where I had gotten the gum. I told her. After explaining that you had to to pay for the things that you wanted or needed at the grocery store, or any store, she made me go back inside, pay for the gum and apologize for taking it. Mom was really unhappy about the whole ordeal, as was I, and I never stole anything from the store ever again. It was a truly mortifying experience.

I hadn't realized that I had done something wrong until she told me. Once I was made aware of the wrong I had done, and took the necessary steps to correct it, I never made that mistake again. When we got home we had a little more of an in depth discussion about money, what it meant to make money (how it's earned through working a job) and exchanging money for goods and services. I could understand concepts very well and I felt terrible about having stolen something. It still makes me feel bad to this day. It's a lesson that I have never forgotten.

Flash forward to the girl scouts meeting my kindergarten year of elementary school where we received a small goody bag with a few Christmas-themed items that included some erasers and a Rudolph the red nose reindeer chap stick. I was thrilled to have the chap stick and took it with me to school and placed it in my cubby with all my other belongings. When it was time that we could go to our cubbies, my chap stick was gone and I observed another girl using it. I will never forget. Her name was Heather. So I told the teacher and she asked me how I knew that it was mine and not, in fact, her chap stick. So I explained that I had received it at girl scouts, that it was unique, a Rudolph chap stick, and that I knew it was mine because it was in my cubby in the morning but was gone later and I saw her using it. So the teacher gets down on my level and tells me, "Honey, you don't want it back." I had insisted that I wanted it back. It was mine. Not hers. I knew she took it. The teacher knew she took it. Why couldn't I have it back? And then the teacher had to explain to me that this other little girl perhaps wasn't lucky enough to get to go to girl scouts and receive a special chap stick and that I ought to just let her have it. I, however, was adamant. I had already learned my lesson about stealing. I wasn't supposed to take things that weren't mine. How could she just take it and keep it? Didn't she know stealing was wrong? Why was she allowed to steal it and then, when caught red handed, get to keep it? What kind of message was this sending to her if she just gets to keep something that wasn't hers? I was furious. I wanted it back. That was when my teacher told me that the girl had already used it and that now it had her germs on it and that if I got it back I would have her germs. And couldn't my mother just buy me a new chap stick after school? I related all this to my mother as soon as school was over and she did, in fact, take me to get a new chap stick. It was cherry flavored (not peppermint) and had chap stick written on it in black and white instead of having a picture of Rudolph with a big red nose. It wasn't the same. This kid took what was mine and then just got to keep it. And I had to sit by and just let her.

That memory is seared into my brain.

I don't really understand why I am the way that I am. I remember things. Memories are like movies in my head that play on repeat if I let them. Memorizing things burns a crystal clear image of whatever it is inside my head like a photograph. It took me a really long time, years after Mom died, but I finally realize that I cannot control other people. The only thing that I can control in this world is my reaction to any given situation. I can't force other people to do the right thing.

I consistently remind myself that all that matters is that I am staying the course. I can sleep at night. I try not to lie. I don't steal. I try not to do anything that I was taught is wrong. I cuss. I say things that hurt people's feelings sometimes, most of the time I don't realize that it might be hurtful until someone else points it out. I feel bad about the things that I have done that I know were wrong or hurtful to others. I hold myself accountable. If nothing else, the memory of my Mother and all that she taught me reminds me to do the right thing.

But what about everyone else????