With the exception of the bride and groom, the wedding went without a hitch!

The groom in last weekend’s wedding is the only child of my Aunt Jan. For the wedding, Aunt Jan walked down the aisle followed by her husband and ex-husband who walked in together. We all loved Aunt Jan’s ex-husband Rob. That is, until he started his second family while he was married to her. This happened many years ago. Now Aunt Jan is married to a wonderful guy.

When Rob was my uncle, he always made us laugh. He teased me about boyfriends. I remember him saying that he sang the song Elvira in the shower. Why I remember he made that general comment back in the 1980’s is beyond me. Why do we remember what we remember?? My memories are very strongly tied to music. 

My brother Luke and I couldn’t wait to talk to “Uncle Rob”. This was the first time that we saw him since the divorce when we were young kids. He seemed kind of sad to me. Other than that, I spent a lot of time talking to my relatives that I only see for weddings and funerals. We might not even get together for Christmas anymore.

Last night I was much too tired to write. I didn’t sleep well while I was gone. The first night, Angel and I tossed and turned all night. The second night, the alarm clock went off at midnight in our hotel room. The third night, the smoke detector went off. When we were at the waterpark, our hotel room was located along the main walkway between indoor parks and restaurants. It was so loud that I turned the fan on high for some white noise. The A/C didn’t work with the fan. Our room was hot and humid enough to set off the humidity sensor on the smoke alarm.

Plus I woke up in the middle of a dream, a nightmare in fact. I was dreaming about opening a box of high school memories and it was full of notebooks and writings. Then I opened a box of Matt’s high school memories and it was full of knives. My friends I lost were watching me open Matt’s box and it was just as unnerving as the alarm. Do I have nightmares often without knowing?? The last night at the hotel two thunderstorms rolled through in the middle of the night. Then I dreamed my son overdosed on drugs and died. 

What miserable sleep! With over 10 hours of driving, three different hotel rooms, and two nightmares I felt pretty crappy.

Last night I took Matt back to his group home. He attended the wedding with my parents. My dad dropped my mom off to go on vacation with a friend of hers. I felt very emotional and down about dropping Matt off. Afterwards, I asked my dad if Matt would be able to come home over the next couple of weeks while my mom is gone. My dad said that he didn’t know how to take care of Matt. I think that was what was bothering me. I don’t know how to take care of Matt either.

When Matt is at home, my mom won’t let anyone take care of him. She crushes his pills with a mortar and pestle. He takes different medications, elixirs, and vitamins throughout the day. It used to be hard enough when Matt couldn’t have dairy and gluten. But now he is allergic to many more things like potatoes, cinnamon, beet sugar, and black pepper. My mom scours labels for hours searching for the type of sugar on ingredient lists. If anyone cooks an offending food on the same grill without proper cleaning, puts the finished food on the same plate as an offending food, or gets the diet mixed up then my mom gets upset. It has been this way for years, just not quite so extreme. I would have a hard time figuring it out if I was a dietician. We can’t be like my mom and that alienates us from him. 

I am safely back home now, got some rest, and am back to my normal routine.