Still Smiling

I realized I forgot a birthday this month, my brother, Bill. He has been gone a long time, but I think he is making his presence known lately. Little things like finding a poster he and my brother Sam painted my mom for mother's day, my nephew taking his picture down from the wall.

I think I was in 6th grade when my parents decided to become foster parents. My mom said that her family always took in her friends that needed places to stay as a kid and she wanted to do that too. So this teenage boy a couple of years older than me came to live with us. It was immediately apparent that this wasn't the kind of kid I would hang out with in school. I recall being at war about accepting him in, and losing my place as oldest. We would get along and then fight just like with my real brothers and sisters, but it was always a more tenuous relationship than I had with my younger sister and brother.

He got in some kind of trouble, I don't really recall what, but the result was he went to live in a group up in northern NM. We would go for weekend visits and I remember going to his GED graduation in Espanola. When he aged out of foster care he came back and lived with us. It was okay for a while, but eventually he started drinking and the alcoholic gene ran strong in his family. One night he was in very strange mood, locked in the room he shared with my brother blasting metal, my parents were out somewhere and I found a bottle of vodka in the freezer and of course mentioned it to them when they got home. The evening ended with him punching my dad, a scuffle and him being kicked out. My mom helped him get set up at an apartment and he still came to family functions. He would straighten up for a while and then he would start drinking again. He started going on binges where he would lose memories of a whole week, doing things like selling his car and having no memory of it. Still practicing tough love, they didn't bail him out and pay his rent when he had nothing left, and because of the past incidents they didn't let him move back in with us. I recall giving him a hard time when I went to go pick him up for Christmas dinner about it. You know in my self rightous 16 year old girl way, overall I was probably a jerk. He ended up living with his paternal grandfather, who I guess was a piece of work himself.

I still vividly remember coming home from a school trip in early January walking in the door and knowing something was terribly wrong. He had decided enough was enough and ended his life. I was pissed, how could he do that to us? He really had screwed up this time. Guiltily, and quietly, I also felt relief for him. Despite the fact that I had always been told suicide was wrong, I had seen his desperate struggle, his fear of never being able to break free of his family curse. I wondered if he was better off.

Watching my mother struggle with his choice, and her feelings of what else could she have done was hard. While she never hit bottom, I knew it nearly killed her. Years later when discussing another suicide, and when I encouraged her to offer comfort to the mother, she said something to the effect that her friend had lost a child while she was just a foster mom. I asked her if she had really loved him any less than us, because I don't' think she did, many people would have given up when he left for the group home.

You want to know something, I can't be sure I ever called him my brother all those years ago. I probably always referred to him as my foster brother, keeping some distance from him. Something that still cuts me to the quick today. I can forgive myself for being what I was, a teenage girl who had this kid living in her house. I don't think I was cruel, but not always as nice and giving as I could have been. Yet it is hard to recall my actions, and not feel ashamed, through the eyes of a more understanding adult.

The grief has found me throughout the years. The first time I went back to the same funeral home for my boyfriends grandmother a few years later, the tears I barely cried at his funeral found their way out. When a girl in college was freaking out about a suicide and grieveing for a kid we didn't even know, I was angry people made such a big deal about suicides. (Bill's was the second in a week that year, we think he partly did it because of the first.) When I went through my own worst depression and was thinking of how I wasn't so fond of life anymore, and there was no hope of recovery, the first hand knowledge of how much pain I would cause my family,helped me from doing anything rash.

Today I feel sad at all the joys in life he has missed, because I am sure if he was here, he would be involved in birthdays, holidays. I wonder what his kids would look like. I would be ribbing him about being old and almost forty.

In a moment of sadness, my mom wondered if being a foster parent was a mistake. I told her no. While it was hard, painful and often not beautiful, it was the right thing to do. Malathionman wrote an excellent post about his kids, who are adopted from the state. His post reminded me of how worthwhile these parents are. Yes it hurts, and the struggles can be awful, the outcomes often not ideal, but can you imagine if he hadn't made that rash mistake? I have hope for Alissa, Austin and Sarah. You may not be able to make all there problems go away by loving them, but you are still blessing them.

Tonight we made had a as scrapbooking event at church the theme was family. One of the best albums I saw had pictures of a now broken family and this quote... “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Suess*

Scandal: Stork bribes Santa to provide stimulating gifts to young couples

When I was pregnant with Zach was the first time I noticed this phenomenon. There are a lot of birthdays in September. It turned out that it wasn't just likely he would be born on someone in our families birthday but more than likely more than one of their birthdays.

For instance
9/11 two aunts
9/14 my sister in law
9/16 my husbands great aunt and great uncle (married, on that day too, isn't it sweet.)
9/17 an aunt, uncle and friend
9/18 two cousins
9/21 grandmother and friend.

There are more, that I am forgetting I am sure. In fact every year when having his birthday, there are sure to be conflicts with someone else's party usually not even on this list.

Why are there so many birthdays during this week in September. It all made sense once I realized this one little fact... Conception date for 9/17 (Z's birthday) 12/25. Before that, I had never realized that Santa and the Stork were in business together.

The blog where I explain my absence.

Max started Preschool....

Despite the unsure look here, he had is jacket off was busy playing and barely says bye to momma.

I also placed an newspaper ad for my mom's youngest sisters fiftieth birthday. I won't show it to you, I value my life and hope she doesn't find my blog and have written proof I am the one who placed it, even if it was at my mom's instruction.

Sarge had to visit the vet again, to get his stitches looked at, slow healer that dog.

Oh and I helped a friend move, you know with that last little bit that takes forever! I hate that, but boy I was tired. I should do that every day I would be skinny minne, well if we did not eat monster burritos at lunch since we were working so hard you know.

It was also homecoming in our football crazy small town. Ever seen Friday Night Lights?
You have seen us then.

I helped paint this sign for my aunt's class reunion. And one for the other side.

This is my other aunt's float, also having a reunion, with a sign I had nothing to do with. Too bad it is a nice sign.

Zach turned 6. I made him a clone trooper cake.
I find my lack of cake decorating skills disturbing.

He got his clonetrooper helmet. Yeah Nana!

Great Grandma turned 85 and we had a big party for her. She is the one in the bonnet, my aunt (left) and mom will kill me if they think I am suggesting that they are 85.
This week has less going on, but still promises to be insanely busy.

Jane how do I get off this crazy thing....

The Speed Limit is 35, slow down...

Some people have a habit of pointing out things you know but are trying to ignore.

I call these people, husbands, parents, aunts, evil friends.

I try to remind them to buy fabulous presents. They try to remind me of the number that is impending. Half past thirty, five till forty. Whatever. Then the bratty high school kids have to graduate and I realize I am more likely to know their parents, and have even gone to school with some of them. Then my quote unquote friend I graduated with has to post pictures on myspace of his son who is graduating THIS YEAR. Dude, that kid was born senior year! What the "HEdoublehockeysticks".

The point is, thirty five, as a number seems high. So far age milestones haven't really mattered to me, but this year it hit me for a while. Even the thought of one of those fancy chocolate cheesecakes to eat didn't cheer me up. Then we went to see Indiana Jones for my birthday and I couldn't help think as the movie opened how Mr. Ford is starting to show his age. Then he started kicking butt and I realized I still have thirty years until I get that old and if he can kick butt that age so can I. Do not dare burst my bubble and tell me that they used stunt men and special effects in the movie. DO NOT, old people can be grumpy. ; )

March Madness

March is a busy month. A time of change, rebirth, first blooms of spring. The last few years it has been the moving on after a hard winter, ones that contained too many goodbyes to loved ones.


Three years ago at the end of February we said goodbye to my grandfather and my husbands father within days of each other. We knew March would bring about a big change because Bubbles II, as we called him back then was just waiting to make his entrance. Three weeks later he joined us on the 21st.


I admit to being surprised when I first saw him. The reddish blond hair threw me for a loop. He was healthy and beautiful and of course big brother loved him too.

While in the beginning I saw a carbon copy of Zach except with blond hair, his personality has developed to be quite different than Zach. Maybe it is being the little brother, but he knows how to assert himself a lot more. In good ways and bad. Fun loving and adorable he garners attention where ever we go. Daring he can be found repelling, jumping and climbing.

One sitter dubbed him "Frank" because of his brilliant blue eyes. He tends to be a bit more pensive at times and can be found staring out his window, when he will sit still that is. He is one busy guy. In fact it will take me all day to write this between his "help" and the things he gets into when I am otherwise engaged. In all ways a typical 3 year old boy.

I may have got more than I bargained for thinking Zach needed a baby brother. Together they are a force to be reckoned with. While Zach runs to me and cries, Max take care of the problem himself, and then runs to me and cry. We actually thought we would have to hold him back from beating the kid who pushed Zach down at a soccer game. That's not nice Jackie, raging from his mouth.

He looks more like daddy than his brother does. I think he acts most like my father, quiet but forceful. The pediatrician at his 3 year old well child check up thought perhaps he is behind on speech and ordered an evaluation. We will see, I just think he doesn't always feel the need to speak. My grandmother claims they thought my dad was deaf he could ignore so well, Max seems to have the same skill. However he will tell me what he thinks. The other day as I called him Max Attack, he informed his name was MAXWELL WHITE, OTAY?

Otay baby, oops I mean big boy, I know you aren't a baby anymore. However you will always be my baby. I am glad that I saw a catalog cover with a boy and his baby brother that made me think, I need another. You are my favorite first blossom of spring.