so much time...
and so much has/hasn't happened. i'm just days shy of my 28th birthday and though it's not a great milestone, birthdays do tend to cause people to pause & reflect about where they are in their lives; not to mention, my 10-year high school reunion is this august (the jury's still out on whether i'll be attending that function)...
so...28 years of life...10 years of a relationship with the same man, 8 of them in marriage...and approaching 3 years of a relationship with the same man and another woman...multiple family deaths...my how my life has become so not what i thought it would be when i actually had to start thinking about it years ago...
about the time high school started wrapping up for me (before i met kevin) life seemed full of possibilities...i was an AP student (though i missed honor grad by a tenth of a percent!) a well to do one in the grades category. i was accepted to SDSU my freshman year and began as a freshman in all aspects except english, in english i would've been equivelant to a sophomore at the time. but fate was not to let it happen so idyllic. my freshman year of college started in september, i was running a full load along with working about 30-35 hours a week. i was still living at home and was only in my 7th month of my first ever relationship...and then the inevitable happened. october 1, 1998 my father suddenly passed away. i was a wreck. my parents were the foundation of all my academic stride. i wanted to excel in my studies to please them and make them proud. i was only the 2nd child of theirs to graduate high school and go to college and in one fell swoop i lost them both. my father physically and my mother mentally and emotionally. i was an 18 year old young woman whose family was just thrown into turmoil certain that her newly found relationship was going to go the way of the dodo as well, but lo and behold he weathered the storm and here we are today; but back to the past. my academic world came crumbling down. i barely passed my 1st semester of my freshman year and even though i tried to file an appeal was placed on academic probation for the following semester. still in a downward spiral and a definite funk the 2nd semester wasn't much better; i again barely passed my classes but the GPA just wasn't high enough to continue there.
that summer i got engaged. though my mother pulled $3000 out of one of her accounts to pay for my wedding (which she did! dress, caterer, dj, the works!) she still wasn't there when i needed her most. i didn't have a bridal shower, my maid-of-honor (matron-of-honor i guess cause she was already married with kids) was my then sister-in-law who had an 8/9 year old and a 3 year old of her own to deal with, just didn't have time to make sure i got a proper bridal shower or bachelorette party (not that i could have a really rousing & carousing one as i was barely 20 when i said 'i do'); but still...anywho...kev & i planned our own wedding shower and it was a coed thing that i think only a handful of people showed up, none of which were my mom. why you ask? cause she was moving in with her boyfriend that weekend and just didn't have the time. no bitterness there whatsoever, right?! wrong! it wasn't even 2 years out from my dad's death and my mom was already moving in with someone else. i couldn't take it. at one point, just cause i commented on how she was starting to dress sluttier (my take on her wearing old, too big for her sleeveless t-shirts that tended to show her bra) threw my brother buckey into a tissy who royally went off on me. i responded with hauling my stuff out to my truck to go live with kev's grandparents until we were properly married and could live together (both of our families are old school like that). my mom made buckey apologize to me, i apologized to her and buckey and put my stuff back. but the damage was still done. except for the points of the wedding that required money to be spent, my mom wasn't really there for me. my maid-of-honor was too busy with her own life, my other oldest bridesmaid had her own family and the last bridesmaid was even younger then me. even after i finally told my mom how her not being there made me feel she just simply answered that that's how her mother had been there for her. it still hurt and someday i'd like to have another wedding...probably one much different from the one i envisioned to begin with, but with the chance to have a 2nd time around bridal shower and bachelorette party and then a proper honeymoon cause unfortunately for us the best man stayed with us the entire time we were on our honeymoon, in our hotel room, mooching off of our money cause he was too stupid to book his own hotel room (we went to disneyland for 3 days and he asked to meet us at the park, no problem! we figured we could lose him at any time, nope!) and then the 'bonus' he was expecting to help him pay for his weekend, never showed up! so yeah...a wedding done our way, a proper bridal shower & bachelorette party & a proper honeymoon...someday...
so that brings us to 2000, a mere 2 years after i'd graduated from high school...i decided to try my hand at computer information science, the industry was booming, i had an excellent score on the entrance exam at coleman college, so i did it! missed my degree by 1 class cause i failed it the first time cause kev suddenly lost his job that was nearly completely supporting us (i was only working part-time) and i had to then concentrate on getting more money and more work hours. when i was finally able to re-take the class after i'd completed all the other classes, the new teacher combined the course with another course i'd previously taken way earlier and since i was simultaneously enrolled in both, i lacked the knowledge to complete the class with a passing grade. $12,000 down the hole. So at that point is when we found father joe carroll and a litle thing called promised land ranch. They were looking for test couples to see how a ‘family-oriented’ foster program on a property that would someday be nearly self-sufficient out in campo could help to accommodate the many children lost in the foster system cause they were too old and were highly unlikely to be adopted. Their ages, we were to learn, weren’t their only drawbacks to their inability to be adopted. The kids we were destined to foster would not only be older children ranging in age from 9 or 10 up to 17 (they were released from the foster program period at 18) but they’d be ‘trouble-makers’; children who had a history of sometimes violent outbursts, drug-use, academic troubles, etc.; you get the picture. Well…that only lasted a few months. We were initially offered the job in july or august but then right about the time we were supposed to move out to the ranch (cause not only were they going to pay us, but they were going to give us a house to live in (that they paid for) pay for all the ensuing bills, including groceries once we got kids, and provide us with work vehicles) september 11th happened and one of the higher ups was actually at the pentagon when the plane struck it and was immediately called upon for his services as he was a reservist; so we didn’t actually start working until november 2001; we were subsequently released from our jobs (forced to quit) for nothing more then our ages. The other test couple were in their early to mid-40’s, he had back problems, she had MS, but we were too young; and blatantly told so by our immediate supervisor in private. We were released from our jobs in february 2002 and given 3 days to get ourselves and all of our belongings off the property. And wouldn’t you know it, the night we were released we were going back out there after being in el cajon all day trying to recruit help only to wreck my truck and put it out of commission for at least a week or two. We didn’t even have the benefit of kev’s car cause we’d sold it when we got the job. So time turned, I got another job and then i decide to try my hand at some basic GE classes at the local community college only to find out that i didn't need to take the courses and was asked to leave the classes by the professors because i was beyond their classes abilities. final shot at school, child development classes so i could get my child development certificate, no good. the classes bored me cause i'd been working in child care for 3-4 years by now and felt i was just being taught stuff i already knew as i'd been everything from a peon in the child care arena to a full-fledged director that did everything for the program from hiring and firing to full operations of staff and charges...and i was just 22...for the next 5 months we lived with my brother buckey in the house that used to be our parents’ until kev & I could afford to move out on our own. By this time I’m working 3 or 4 part-time jobs and kev was only working 1 part-time job. There were times that we shared our last eggs and rice with our cats cause we couldn’t afford to buy any of us anymore food until the next payday. For a year we at least lived in our own apartment, just us 2 and our 2 cats. Then about a year after we’d been on our own my mother calls…
jr & julie are finally moving out of the house and kev and I can go move-in to the house that will someday be half mine! Though we’d be paying a little more then we were, it was a house that we’d have access to most of the time as my brother worked graveyard and dave (an old family friend of ours) didn’t really care. So we jumped on it! 3 weeks after we’d given our 30-day notice to our apartment my mom calls to let me know that dave was moving out and that kev and I would then have to pick-up a full half of everything! I immediately told her we couldn’t afford it. She insisted we move-in there anyways cause it was my responsibility as that someday that house would be half mine. Needless to say, over the next year and some change we put ourselves into debt cause we couldn’t afford it any other way, even though by the time we left there kev & I were both working full time.
It was also during this time that kev and I discovered something called the SCA. Our friend brandon took us with him to his first war, may war 2004. we camped with his friend bjorn who had a dog named jelly. This is when we met our friend rachael and her then boyfriend jason and a household called the romani. The romani told kev that if he could get his armor paid for and made by september, he’d be able to fight with them in september. So he did. And at september ’04 we camped with rachael’s household falaich teine. By this time kev and I had been through the lowest point of our marriage. It finally came to a head between may potrero and comic con. We’d been fighting non-stop about this, that and the other when I got fed up with him one night cause he wouldn’t do the dishes, nor would he allow me to. He blocked my way into the kitchen, we argued, I slapped him across the face, he threatened to leave. I eventually ended up in therapy. At comic con is when I began a conscious effort to turn my behavior around. So much of the last couple of years were a blur or not remembered at all, my therapist said it was due to rage induced blackouts, I eventually believed him. That september, right before september potrero, is when we gave my brother a very brief notice that we were moving out. from there, our relationship slowly changed and we started to mend some things, but kev was full of resentment and no matter how much I tried to please him, nothing worked. He was finally able to get back at me by treating me the same way I’d been treating him for years. He ignored my advancements to rectify my wrongs by changing my behavior and in turn I began to turn back to my old bitchy ways. It was a long road to recovery and by the time may potrero ’05 had come around, we were finally on an upward swing.
It was at great west ’04 that we briefly met liz for the first time. She was drunk, we weren’t; but after war we started hanging out with bjorn’s group and got to know her better, especially considering that one of then friends was someone I had gone to school with. By the time may potrero had come around I’d already come to realize that liz was attracted to kev and I gave her permission to flirt and whatnot with him cause I was intrigued, too. May potrero ’05 was when our friendship became a relationship. And in october ’05 is when we moved half way across the country just to stay with her because we’d come to the realization that liz was just as much a part of our relationship as kev and I were to each other. Luckily our stint in kansas was brief. We were home by january 8th of ’06. we’d missed september potrero ’05 because we just didn’t have the funds for it; but at may potrero ’06 kev and I proposed to liz, asking her to permanently share her life with us as an equal third party in our relationship. She happily agreed. and sadly we missed september potrero ’07 as well as my mother finally lost her battle with cancer just the weekend prior. I’d had the great fortune of getting my old job back when we returned to california, the only thing was, was it was only part-time; but that was good cause it gave me time to spend with my as her health began it’s rapid downward spiral. And on august 27, 2007 at around 8am-8:30am my cell phone went off with the unmistakable ring tone I’d specifically given my mom’s home number. By this time she’d been on hospice care for a few weeks with us kids taking turns spending the nights with her. I was in the bathroom when that fated call came in. I immediately wailed, bringing liz and kevin at a run into the bathroom. I finished what I was doing, got dressed and went across the street (literally!) and kissed my mothers already cold forehead as my brothers and I comforted each other while we waite for the coroner to come and retrieve her body. It was then that I realized how much I’d come to finally appreciate my stepfather (my mom married that boyfriend she moved in with before I got married!) as my brothers’ all thought that all he ever wanted from our mom was her money, especially after she’d insisted on changing every single one of her policies to reflect him as her sole beneficiary. I realize now it was so he’d have someway to pay off all her medical bills she knew she’d leave behind. My ex-sister-in-law and brothers agreed to have a service at my ex-sister-in-laws church for her. It was only last week that it finally hit me, the guilt I feel at not standing up during that stupid little service to bring to light the lies that they were telling about my mother. They made it sound as though she’d never known god until only recently when she was on her deathbed. My guilt now weighs heavily on me for I don’t know if my mother forgives me for not standing to reveal that she’d known christ long before that, long before I’d ever come into existence. I’ve been apologizing since it hit me on the way home from work, as I drove all alone (one of the rare days that kev and I didn’t need to carpool) asking for her forgiveness for not standing to tell the truth.
And on june 30, 2007 (the day before kev and I’s 7th wedding anniversary) not only did kev and I renew our vows (a promise we’d made to each other not long after we’d married) but we also ‘married’ ourselves to liz. In june I also finally got a tattoo. I’d promised myself after dad died that I’d eventually get a butterfly for him, and then once mom died I figured I’d put them together. It’s a pretty cliché tattoo, but it means a lot to me. It’s a simple rose and dark blue butterfly, the only difference is that the roses stem is wrapped in a black ribbon for remembrance. In july I got a new truck! I finally got my ford f150 supercrew! Granted it was because my little mazda pick-up truck was totalled by our insurance company simply because they didn’t want to pay for the damages, and I had to borrow $3000 from my stepdad (along with his signature as co-signer) to get it, but it’s mine! (and hopefully by this summer I’ll have it solely in my name through my bank!) And at september potrero ’07 kev, liz and I were sashed! We were full-fledged members of our loving romani household, a household that kev’s been fighting for since september ’04 and that we’ve been camping with since great west ’04.
The wheels turned and fire season was upon us again here in san diego. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and liz and I were just hanging out at grandma’s waiting for kev to get off of work when we hear there’s a brush fire in potrero. I immediately search the internet for any information regarding where it is, fearful that potrero park, home of the may & september potrero wars is burning to a crisp. That was merely the tip of the iceberg. By nightfall the potrero fire was off and running and suddenly another fire had popped up in ramona; and then another, and another. I finally remember drifting off to the sound of the news on the t.v. telling of several different wildfires burning from different directions around 1:30am. I awoke at around 2:30am to learn that there was a fire somewhere in san marcos, nearing kev’s mom. I woke him up and sent him to the computer seeking info as I ran to get a shower and dressed for the day ahead. It was at 5:30am, minutes after liz had left after much debate to go into work, that I received the call that my oldest brother rainie had just been rushed to the hospital. Immediately bursting into momentary tears upon hanging up I gathered myself together and ran for my truck. Through tears and panic as I tried to speed, but not speed, my way from lakeside to grossmont hospital I attempted to make calls to my supervisors to let them know that I may not be at work that day…the rest of this story is back in my blog under ‘nearly 39 hours…’ long story short, he didn’t make it. At the outbreak of the 2007 october wildfires, my family lost our oldest brother, a mere year and 2 months after losing our mom and only a couple weeks after the 9th anniversary of our dads’ death. The fires raged for a week, devouring a large portion of san diego county and displacing half a million people, only because we’d learned from our mistakes from the 2003 october wildfires were so many people displaced, better safe then sorry.
The holidays were bleak for my side of the family. With the lack of our parents our family’s holiday celebrations had started to wane into nothing more then an over-sized dinner night, and with the addition of rainie’s recent loss, it made it even more so.
So time turns…significant events I forgot in this massive time line…kev’s little brother got married in march of ’06, that december their first child was born, abby, 9 months and 1 day to their wedding date! The following july, kev’s cousin jenae gave birth to her first child, jacob. Us…we’re still childless and look to remain so as I don’t foresee my body ever straightening itself out. that’s okay, we have a niece and nephew to lavish attention on, as well as each other.
Now that I have just completely and utterly rambled on for way too long, I feel a slight catharsis, a somewhat purged feeling…if you’ve read this all, bravo!, if you haven’t, I take no offense. :)
so...28 years of life...10 years of a relationship with the same man, 8 of them in marriage...and approaching 3 years of a relationship with the same man and another woman...multiple family deaths...my how my life has become so not what i thought it would be when i actually had to start thinking about it years ago...
about the time high school started wrapping up for me (before i met kevin) life seemed full of possibilities...i was an AP student (though i missed honor grad by a tenth of a percent!) a well to do one in the grades category. i was accepted to SDSU my freshman year and began as a freshman in all aspects except english, in english i would've been equivelant to a sophomore at the time. but fate was not to let it happen so idyllic. my freshman year of college started in september, i was running a full load along with working about 30-35 hours a week. i was still living at home and was only in my 7th month of my first ever relationship...and then the inevitable happened. october 1, 1998 my father suddenly passed away. i was a wreck. my parents were the foundation of all my academic stride. i wanted to excel in my studies to please them and make them proud. i was only the 2nd child of theirs to graduate high school and go to college and in one fell swoop i lost them both. my father physically and my mother mentally and emotionally. i was an 18 year old young woman whose family was just thrown into turmoil certain that her newly found relationship was going to go the way of the dodo as well, but lo and behold he weathered the storm and here we are today; but back to the past. my academic world came crumbling down. i barely passed my 1st semester of my freshman year and even though i tried to file an appeal was placed on academic probation for the following semester. still in a downward spiral and a definite funk the 2nd semester wasn't much better; i again barely passed my classes but the GPA just wasn't high enough to continue there.
that summer i got engaged. though my mother pulled $3000 out of one of her accounts to pay for my wedding (which she did! dress, caterer, dj, the works!) she still wasn't there when i needed her most. i didn't have a bridal shower, my maid-of-honor (matron-of-honor i guess cause she was already married with kids) was my then sister-in-law who had an 8/9 year old and a 3 year old of her own to deal with, just didn't have time to make sure i got a proper bridal shower or bachelorette party (not that i could have a really rousing & carousing one as i was barely 20 when i said 'i do'); but still...anywho...kev & i planned our own wedding shower and it was a coed thing that i think only a handful of people showed up, none of which were my mom. why you ask? cause she was moving in with her boyfriend that weekend and just didn't have the time. no bitterness there whatsoever, right?! wrong! it wasn't even 2 years out from my dad's death and my mom was already moving in with someone else. i couldn't take it. at one point, just cause i commented on how she was starting to dress sluttier (my take on her wearing old, too big for her sleeveless t-shirts that tended to show her bra) threw my brother buckey into a tissy who royally went off on me. i responded with hauling my stuff out to my truck to go live with kev's grandparents until we were properly married and could live together (both of our families are old school like that). my mom made buckey apologize to me, i apologized to her and buckey and put my stuff back. but the damage was still done. except for the points of the wedding that required money to be spent, my mom wasn't really there for me. my maid-of-honor was too busy with her own life, my other oldest bridesmaid had her own family and the last bridesmaid was even younger then me. even after i finally told my mom how her not being there made me feel she just simply answered that that's how her mother had been there for her. it still hurt and someday i'd like to have another wedding...probably one much different from the one i envisioned to begin with, but with the chance to have a 2nd time around bridal shower and bachelorette party and then a proper honeymoon cause unfortunately for us the best man stayed with us the entire time we were on our honeymoon, in our hotel room, mooching off of our money cause he was too stupid to book his own hotel room (we went to disneyland for 3 days and he asked to meet us at the park, no problem! we figured we could lose him at any time, nope!) and then the 'bonus' he was expecting to help him pay for his weekend, never showed up! so yeah...a wedding done our way, a proper bridal shower & bachelorette party & a proper honeymoon...someday...
so that brings us to 2000, a mere 2 years after i'd graduated from high school...i decided to try my hand at computer information science, the industry was booming, i had an excellent score on the entrance exam at coleman college, so i did it! missed my degree by 1 class cause i failed it the first time cause kev suddenly lost his job that was nearly completely supporting us (i was only working part-time) and i had to then concentrate on getting more money and more work hours. when i was finally able to re-take the class after i'd completed all the other classes, the new teacher combined the course with another course i'd previously taken way earlier and since i was simultaneously enrolled in both, i lacked the knowledge to complete the class with a passing grade. $12,000 down the hole. So at that point is when we found father joe carroll and a litle thing called promised land ranch. They were looking for test couples to see how a ‘family-oriented’ foster program on a property that would someday be nearly self-sufficient out in campo could help to accommodate the many children lost in the foster system cause they were too old and were highly unlikely to be adopted. Their ages, we were to learn, weren’t their only drawbacks to their inability to be adopted. The kids we were destined to foster would not only be older children ranging in age from 9 or 10 up to 17 (they were released from the foster program period at 18) but they’d be ‘trouble-makers’; children who had a history of sometimes violent outbursts, drug-use, academic troubles, etc.; you get the picture. Well…that only lasted a few months. We were initially offered the job in july or august but then right about the time we were supposed to move out to the ranch (cause not only were they going to pay us, but they were going to give us a house to live in (that they paid for) pay for all the ensuing bills, including groceries once we got kids, and provide us with work vehicles) september 11th happened and one of the higher ups was actually at the pentagon when the plane struck it and was immediately called upon for his services as he was a reservist; so we didn’t actually start working until november 2001; we were subsequently released from our jobs (forced to quit) for nothing more then our ages. The other test couple were in their early to mid-40’s, he had back problems, she had MS, but we were too young; and blatantly told so by our immediate supervisor in private. We were released from our jobs in february 2002 and given 3 days to get ourselves and all of our belongings off the property. And wouldn’t you know it, the night we were released we were going back out there after being in el cajon all day trying to recruit help only to wreck my truck and put it out of commission for at least a week or two. We didn’t even have the benefit of kev’s car cause we’d sold it when we got the job. So time turned, I got another job and then i decide to try my hand at some basic GE classes at the local community college only to find out that i didn't need to take the courses and was asked to leave the classes by the professors because i was beyond their classes abilities. final shot at school, child development classes so i could get my child development certificate, no good. the classes bored me cause i'd been working in child care for 3-4 years by now and felt i was just being taught stuff i already knew as i'd been everything from a peon in the child care arena to a full-fledged director that did everything for the program from hiring and firing to full operations of staff and charges...and i was just 22...for the next 5 months we lived with my brother buckey in the house that used to be our parents’ until kev & I could afford to move out on our own. By this time I’m working 3 or 4 part-time jobs and kev was only working 1 part-time job. There were times that we shared our last eggs and rice with our cats cause we couldn’t afford to buy any of us anymore food until the next payday. For a year we at least lived in our own apartment, just us 2 and our 2 cats. Then about a year after we’d been on our own my mother calls…
jr & julie are finally moving out of the house and kev and I can go move-in to the house that will someday be half mine! Though we’d be paying a little more then we were, it was a house that we’d have access to most of the time as my brother worked graveyard and dave (an old family friend of ours) didn’t really care. So we jumped on it! 3 weeks after we’d given our 30-day notice to our apartment my mom calls to let me know that dave was moving out and that kev and I would then have to pick-up a full half of everything! I immediately told her we couldn’t afford it. She insisted we move-in there anyways cause it was my responsibility as that someday that house would be half mine. Needless to say, over the next year and some change we put ourselves into debt cause we couldn’t afford it any other way, even though by the time we left there kev & I were both working full time.
It was also during this time that kev and I discovered something called the SCA. Our friend brandon took us with him to his first war, may war 2004. we camped with his friend bjorn who had a dog named jelly. This is when we met our friend rachael and her then boyfriend jason and a household called the romani. The romani told kev that if he could get his armor paid for and made by september, he’d be able to fight with them in september. So he did. And at september ’04 we camped with rachael’s household falaich teine. By this time kev and I had been through the lowest point of our marriage. It finally came to a head between may potrero and comic con. We’d been fighting non-stop about this, that and the other when I got fed up with him one night cause he wouldn’t do the dishes, nor would he allow me to. He blocked my way into the kitchen, we argued, I slapped him across the face, he threatened to leave. I eventually ended up in therapy. At comic con is when I began a conscious effort to turn my behavior around. So much of the last couple of years were a blur or not remembered at all, my therapist said it was due to rage induced blackouts, I eventually believed him. That september, right before september potrero, is when we gave my brother a very brief notice that we were moving out. from there, our relationship slowly changed and we started to mend some things, but kev was full of resentment and no matter how much I tried to please him, nothing worked. He was finally able to get back at me by treating me the same way I’d been treating him for years. He ignored my advancements to rectify my wrongs by changing my behavior and in turn I began to turn back to my old bitchy ways. It was a long road to recovery and by the time may potrero ’05 had come around, we were finally on an upward swing.
It was at great west ’04 that we briefly met liz for the first time. She was drunk, we weren’t; but after war we started hanging out with bjorn’s group and got to know her better, especially considering that one of then friends was someone I had gone to school with. By the time may potrero had come around I’d already come to realize that liz was attracted to kev and I gave her permission to flirt and whatnot with him cause I was intrigued, too. May potrero ’05 was when our friendship became a relationship. And in october ’05 is when we moved half way across the country just to stay with her because we’d come to the realization that liz was just as much a part of our relationship as kev and I were to each other. Luckily our stint in kansas was brief. We were home by january 8th of ’06. we’d missed september potrero ’05 because we just didn’t have the funds for it; but at may potrero ’06 kev and I proposed to liz, asking her to permanently share her life with us as an equal third party in our relationship. She happily agreed. and sadly we missed september potrero ’07 as well as my mother finally lost her battle with cancer just the weekend prior. I’d had the great fortune of getting my old job back when we returned to california, the only thing was, was it was only part-time; but that was good cause it gave me time to spend with my as her health began it’s rapid downward spiral. And on august 27, 2007 at around 8am-8:30am my cell phone went off with the unmistakable ring tone I’d specifically given my mom’s home number. By this time she’d been on hospice care for a few weeks with us kids taking turns spending the nights with her. I was in the bathroom when that fated call came in. I immediately wailed, bringing liz and kevin at a run into the bathroom. I finished what I was doing, got dressed and went across the street (literally!) and kissed my mothers already cold forehead as my brothers and I comforted each other while we waite for the coroner to come and retrieve her body. It was then that I realized how much I’d come to finally appreciate my stepfather (my mom married that boyfriend she moved in with before I got married!) as my brothers’ all thought that all he ever wanted from our mom was her money, especially after she’d insisted on changing every single one of her policies to reflect him as her sole beneficiary. I realize now it was so he’d have someway to pay off all her medical bills she knew she’d leave behind. My ex-sister-in-law and brothers agreed to have a service at my ex-sister-in-laws church for her. It was only last week that it finally hit me, the guilt I feel at not standing up during that stupid little service to bring to light the lies that they were telling about my mother. They made it sound as though she’d never known god until only recently when she was on her deathbed. My guilt now weighs heavily on me for I don’t know if my mother forgives me for not standing to reveal that she’d known christ long before that, long before I’d ever come into existence. I’ve been apologizing since it hit me on the way home from work, as I drove all alone (one of the rare days that kev and I didn’t need to carpool) asking for her forgiveness for not standing to tell the truth.
And on june 30, 2007 (the day before kev and I’s 7th wedding anniversary) not only did kev and I renew our vows (a promise we’d made to each other not long after we’d married) but we also ‘married’ ourselves to liz. In june I also finally got a tattoo. I’d promised myself after dad died that I’d eventually get a butterfly for him, and then once mom died I figured I’d put them together. It’s a pretty cliché tattoo, but it means a lot to me. It’s a simple rose and dark blue butterfly, the only difference is that the roses stem is wrapped in a black ribbon for remembrance. In july I got a new truck! I finally got my ford f150 supercrew! Granted it was because my little mazda pick-up truck was totalled by our insurance company simply because they didn’t want to pay for the damages, and I had to borrow $3000 from my stepdad (along with his signature as co-signer) to get it, but it’s mine! (and hopefully by this summer I’ll have it solely in my name through my bank!) And at september potrero ’07 kev, liz and I were sashed! We were full-fledged members of our loving romani household, a household that kev’s been fighting for since september ’04 and that we’ve been camping with since great west ’04.
The wheels turned and fire season was upon us again here in san diego. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and liz and I were just hanging out at grandma’s waiting for kev to get off of work when we hear there’s a brush fire in potrero. I immediately search the internet for any information regarding where it is, fearful that potrero park, home of the may & september potrero wars is burning to a crisp. That was merely the tip of the iceberg. By nightfall the potrero fire was off and running and suddenly another fire had popped up in ramona; and then another, and another. I finally remember drifting off to the sound of the news on the t.v. telling of several different wildfires burning from different directions around 1:30am. I awoke at around 2:30am to learn that there was a fire somewhere in san marcos, nearing kev’s mom. I woke him up and sent him to the computer seeking info as I ran to get a shower and dressed for the day ahead. It was at 5:30am, minutes after liz had left after much debate to go into work, that I received the call that my oldest brother rainie had just been rushed to the hospital. Immediately bursting into momentary tears upon hanging up I gathered myself together and ran for my truck. Through tears and panic as I tried to speed, but not speed, my way from lakeside to grossmont hospital I attempted to make calls to my supervisors to let them know that I may not be at work that day…the rest of this story is back in my blog under ‘nearly 39 hours…’ long story short, he didn’t make it. At the outbreak of the 2007 october wildfires, my family lost our oldest brother, a mere year and 2 months after losing our mom and only a couple weeks after the 9th anniversary of our dads’ death. The fires raged for a week, devouring a large portion of san diego county and displacing half a million people, only because we’d learned from our mistakes from the 2003 october wildfires were so many people displaced, better safe then sorry.
The holidays were bleak for my side of the family. With the lack of our parents our family’s holiday celebrations had started to wane into nothing more then an over-sized dinner night, and with the addition of rainie’s recent loss, it made it even more so.
So time turns…significant events I forgot in this massive time line…kev’s little brother got married in march of ’06, that december their first child was born, abby, 9 months and 1 day to their wedding date! The following july, kev’s cousin jenae gave birth to her first child, jacob. Us…we’re still childless and look to remain so as I don’t foresee my body ever straightening itself out. that’s okay, we have a niece and nephew to lavish attention on, as well as each other.
Now that I have just completely and utterly rambled on for way too long, I feel a slight catharsis, a somewhat purged feeling…if you’ve read this all, bravo!, if you haven’t, I take no offense. :)