Fear

Grounded for life, part 5

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A few days later, Randy showed up with a car full of friends in his old boat of a car wanting to go for a ride. But I was grounded. Sometimes if I knew that my mom would say “no”, I would ask my dad. He always said “yes”. I suspect that if I asked my dad if I could go out for a wild drunken night of debauchery he would still say “yes”. But no such luck, my mom was home. Plus she got pretty angry if I went past her and asked my dad. Anyway, there was no getting around it, I was grounded.

Randy drove off leaving us behind. That was not all he left behind. As Randy drove off, the guys noticed that Randy’s car was leaking fluid of some sort. Brake fluid! Back in the day, we couldn’t just call him on his cell phone to tell him. I will liken it to my parents stories of walking to school uphill both ways. How did we survive? Sometimes it is amazing that we did. Instead we worried. Randy never came back to pick up my friends. Later that afternoon, we received a call that Randy got in a car accident and was in the hospital. He was going 65 on a back road. As he approached the stop sign he didn’t have any brakes, lost control, and ended up hitting a tree head on. Luckily he walked away with a few bumps, bruises, and glass imbedded in his face and body. It was a miracle that he survived a head on collision with a tree without wearing a seat belt. He remembered wandering around aimlessly in confusion. His Def Leppard tape still playing but the front end of the car was gone.

The next day, my friends and I went to the junk yard to see the remains of his car. It was a pretty dismal sight. We wondered what our fate would have been if I hadn’t been grounded. Would some of us be underground?? I remember getting the call that night and driving my parent’s car to get to the hospital. I was afraid and crying. We were all pretty shook up. I think that God was watching out for us that day. If I wasn’t grounded there is no way we would have all survived that crash.

It has been over two decades since I saw Randy. I don’t think of him all that often anymore. To be honest, if I saw him walking down the street I would turn around and walk away. Some doors are meant to stay closed.

Grounded for life, part 3

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Sometimes I sit and wonder about the things that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Sometimes that bothers me. I wonder why if Randy did some bad things, things that he ended up in prison for, why he never hurt me. He had the opportunity to hurt me, but didn’t. Why was I spared that pain? Was it simply because God knew that would put me over the tipping point of more than I could handle. Randy did some very bad things, but never did anything wrong, illegal, or immoral with my friends or I. Nothing beyond his vandalism of signs and driving fast on country roads without seat belts. Mainly we just joked around and laughed.

One of the last times I saw Randy was right around his 18th birthday. He told Shelly and I that some friends were throwing him a party. He wanted us to come out to celebrate with him. At the time, Shelly was living with me at my parents house. She wasn’t the first friend to live with me for several months. The minute Shelly turned 18, she lived with us until graduation. Her parents weren’t bad per se. They were smothering her with their overprotectiveness. Shelly never really did anything wrong, they never let her.

We showed up to Randy’s party at his friends’ house. It was the first time and thankfully the last time that I saw these friends of his. His friends were in their 30’s, seemed kind of strange but ok. We sat in the living room with the 3 teenage children of his friends. The six of us sat in awkward silence ready for the party to start. The couple throwing the party were in the kitchen behind a closed door. Something was wrong, there was yelling. It sounded like plates were being thrown and smashing against the wall. There was a struggle of some sort, a banging against the wall. Randy went to check things out. The screams continued. Randy came back and said that we were getting the hell out of there, something about someone chasing someone around with a butcher knife.

The three of us jumped into my car and as we were trying to leave the cops showed up. The cops said that we couldn’t leave the scene of a crime. They took us inside and threatened us with blood tests to test our alcohol levels. Our course we said that we didn’t mind because we hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t even see the domestic dispute so I was little help answering questions. Eventually they let us go. We dropped Randy off at another friends house. Happy birthday, it sure was memorable.

When Shelly and I got back to my house her parents called and chewed her out for being at a wild party. Guess they just hung around their house listening to the police scanner until eventually they could tell her what crappy kids Shelly and I were. A big part of me felt bad that day knowing that sometimes life doesn’t turn out like it should.

Running away

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I thought that after how hectic last week was that this week would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong! This week has been just as stressful if not more so. I left off with recent events telling about my brother’s wedding, coming back home and getting a cold, and ended Monday with the news that a best friend of my son’s ran away from home. Things would’ve probably ended up fine if he would have came home later the night he left, but he did not. 

My son and his friend Logan were the last ones to see Jake. Jake bragged on the bus ride home Monday night that he was going to run away from home. His friends didn’t believe him because he said that before several times and never did until Monday. Monday night our summer days reached an end. A cold front brought the wind and rain. Logan saw Jake walking down the road in the pouring rain with a backpack on. Logan called my son and they attempted to stop Jake from running away. He had a backpack full of clothing, water, food, and a couple knives. He told the boys he was going to catch a train out of town. The boys tried to stop him, but he ran off into a corn field. 

At this point, the boys went over to Jake’s house to alert his mother. Jake was born to teen parents who ended up marrying other people and having other children. He was having a lot of conflict with his stepdad. His father lives out of the state. I thought Jake would come home that night. 

Tuesday morning arrived, but Jake had not. His dad flew in to help try to find him. The neighborhood was scoured. Abandoned buildings, deer stands, unlocked sheds, farms, the railroad tracks, the park, fields, and woods were searched with no signs of Jake’s whereabouts. After school, my son and a group of boys looked for him in their secret hiding spots. I offered to search the corn field where he was last seen. All I found was a battery and an empty sleeping pill wrapper on the ground. The corn was over my head and I was searching after dusk. I heard noises out in the field and was convinced there was a bear coming for me. It was scary. When it got dark, we all met back by the road. A night bird cried out. Jake’s mother mournfully responded by shouting out Jake’s name. He was not there. 

We went back to Jake’s house where the boys were questioned some more. Jake’s stepdad was pouring over Google maps and also was looking over the railroad track locations. Jake’s grandmother cried. No one had slept the night before, no one had eaten. There were tears, anxiety, and anger. It was heart wrenching to see the family’s pain. They were so desperate trying everything with no answers. We decided to search outside of a trailer of a friend of the boys that recently moved out that had a broken window. Jake’s dad cried out his name in anguish receiving nothing but empty silence. After this, I took the boys home. It was going to be a cold night, near the freezing point with a boy who ran away a day ago into the pouring rain. We feared hypothermia. We feared death. 

Last night Facebook got flooded with missing person posters. Jake was spotted near a highway about 30 miles away. This morning brought relief that up until last night, Jake was alive! A couple of hours later, Jake was found. 

All of this brought back memories of the times that my autistic brother Matt ran away from home as a child. Multiple times he ran away. At times we had a search for him in the woods near our house. We feared for his safety. He couldn’t take care of himself. It brought back brief moments of the terror we went through searching for a lost child. 

Lately I have seen a lot of banter going back and forth about who has the hardest job as a parent. I want to offer my opinion. Parenting is hard! It doesn’t matter if you are a biological parent, a step parent, a foster parent, a parent of one or ten, or a parent of the disabled. If you want to be a good parent, it is difficult. It takes everything that you have. I think that parents who have both disabled and “normal” kids probably have one of the toughest roads to walk. We need to work together to bring our lost children back home. I am not sure what will happen with Jake now, but I feel a lot of relief that he made it home safe.

The civil war reenactment

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Apparently there is a memo out there about the things parents shouldn’t do with young children. Apparently that list is a little longer when you have a newborn. But I am a parent that never got that list. When my aunt and uncle told us that they were going to be in a civil war reenactment in our area, my husband and I loaded up our 5 year old, 3 year old and newborn into the car. 

Everything was going well at first. I just didn’t realize at the time how much acting I was going to be doing in the reenactment part. We had a fun time touring my aunt and uncles tent. My aunt sewed all of the costumes. We had our family picture taken in civil war period clothing. I think every family should do an old time picture just for fun. Then my uncle and two teenage cousins geared up to go to the battlefield for the reenactment. 

This is where things got a little sketchy. I probably should have stayed behind or had my aunt take the baby at this point. But I thought, this is just acting. I mean, how bad could it really be? We took the kids to an arena type area without seats. We were there a few minutes when my baby started crying unconsolably. After dirty looks and nothing else worked, I did what every breastfeeding mother of a newborn would do (except being there, of course).  I tried offering the comfort of milk. At this time, an announcer stated that the event was about to start. He said that there was going to be loud gun shots, loud noises, and cannons. It was advised at this time that parents with young children exit the way they came in. Not even stopping to reattach my bra, I headed out the way I came in. The only problem was that I came in the back way. When I left this way I couldn’t go back in and to make matters worse I was heading straight towards the cannon which was going to go off in a matter of minutes. The man next to the cannon said there was nothing that I could do but run fast. So here I am running as fast as I can with a newborn and my breast half hanging out. 

It really didn’t feel like a reenactment to me. I’m sure that mothers were running away from cannons all the time during the civil war. Lol. I couldn’t stop laughing when the other people saw me running. I haven’t been back to a civil war reenactment since. But with my performance I could say that I had a lead role. I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the local newspapers. 

Reflections on 9/11

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If you are an American and were old enough to remember, you probably know where you were when you heard the news of the terrorist attack years ago. When I think about it, really reflect on it, I remember exactly where I was when I heard all the bad news in my life. When my grandpa died 15 years ago, I answered the phone downstairs in the family room. I accused my mother of lying. I said it wasn’t true. I just spent the day with him a couple hours before it happened. I was in the kitchen when I heard that my grandma died. I was in my bedroom when I called her brother to tell him. I was in 6th grade when I heard that the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Teachers were sobbing over the death of the teacher Christa McAuliffe. The school was torn down over 2 decades ago, but I still remember the room I was in. 

It seems so strange that my children, nearing adulthood, have no memories of 9/11 because they were too young. It seems like yesterday that I was staring transfixed at the TV screen. My good friend called crying first thing in the morning telling me to turn on the TV. I remember feeling numb with shock. This couldn’t be happening. Our old neighbors stopped by later that day. I remember her sobs. The images we were seeing were horrific. Our children watched with us, not understanding. I remember watching the little children in the church nursery weeks afterward crashing little cars into toy buildings while pondering the fate of our country. Even though I didn’t know anyone personally affected by the loss, we as a nation mourned. We watched for weeks hoping that survivors would be found among the wreckage. We developed a new fear of anyone collectively different from us. We had to. We were afraid, even in rural Wisconsin. We worried that our Great Lakes would be poisoned. People in large cities were afraid. Then came the Anthrax scare. It poisoned our mail. We weren’t even safe in our own homes. Health care workers got small pox vaccinations in defense against biological warfare. People feared mass transportation, shopping malls, and traveling in general. Life as we knew it changed. 

Then came the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the bathroom that day taking a pregnancy test. Right after it said positive the fire trucks went down my road full sirens blaring with flags behind them. People came out of their homes and waved. Many years have past since then. I was even invited to a wedding that day. I didn’t think that it was right. But could I say it was wrong? Life goes on. Others were born that fateful day. Friends of ours were flying out of the country on 9/11/01 to get married. They spent their scheduled “wedding night” with hundreds of other frightened travelers grounded at the airport. 

Several years back, I had the opportunity to go to the 9/11 site and museum. It was solemn, eerie, and mournful. Outside the site itself, there were people protesting their foreign government in languages that I did not know. I don’t think that I could even describe how empty that felt. I was standing next to a blackened building hearing their cries, understanding but not. Inside the 9/11 site were the names of the victims, some people had roses placed next to their names. This was at the edge of an eternal waterfall. No matter how far you looked down you could not see its ending. I just remember how silent everything was even though there were tons of people there. I don’t think that anyone kept a dry eye in the museum. I think over time our country grew stronger because of this. We pulled together. We made it through. I just wish the cost wasn’t so high. We will always remember the strong and courageous people who gave everything they had that day. 

Control freak!!

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If I was the world’s most articulate writer, I think I would still miserably fail to communicate to you the world of chaos that I grew up in. I didn’t have any control over my environment. We would often try to go somewhere and end up going nowhere at all. At times, I felt like I had no control over myself, my emotions. I certainly had no control over whether or not my autistic brother Matt decided to inflict pain on my body. What may have been even worse was seeing Matt inflict pain upon others; friends, family members, or complete strangers. That may have been harder then being hurt myself. It was hard to place hatred upon my brother when he didn’t seem to have any control either.

I decided that I needed control and structure in my life. I became a control freak. I was not going to allow anything or anyone to control my life. I certainly was not going to allow addiction or vices of any sort control me. But then a couple of weeks ago, I realized I was wrong. I was allowing control to control my life. Then I realized that everything I am afraid of has to do with a lack of control. 

I thought I was afraid of heights. Being on an airplane freaks me out. But I don’t mind looking out the window. It is the hours of turbulence, grasping the sides on the seat in panic that got me to seek help. I felt trapped in a tight area. A person that I didn’t know had control of my life. You say that flying is safe compared to driving. Yes, I agree, that is why I was terrified of driving too. Several years back I was afraid of driving, especially over bridges and on highways. It got so bad that at one point any driving on the highway would bring about a panic attack. It wasn’t long before I realized that my biggest fear is total lack of control. There was nowhere I could pull over on a bridge or a busy highway. The big concrete partitions locked me in. Trapped. I refused to stop driving. It has been almost 2 years since I panicked while driving. I was driving through construction. There was nowhere to pull over. I started to sweat profusely. I opened all the windows. The music from the radio unnerved me. The tunnel vision started, darkness creeping in until I thought I would pass out. I slowed down, driving erratically. My heart beating fast. I always pulled off the highway at the next exit feeling like a total failure bracing myself to face it again, feeling exhausted. I refused to let fear control me. 

I think the secret to figuring me out is making me feel like I have control. My husband is very good with giving me a false sense of control. I am ok with that. I keep my days very structured, any average stalker could figure that out. Once again I need to find equilibrium. In response to total chaos, I allowed the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction. I need to let go….

Medal and crown recap

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I feel like I got hit by a truck! I think I figured out what happened to me at the marathon on Saturday. I may have injured my IT band. After I hydrated myself, the cramping should have gone away. Instead, the pain is starting to go away now. A running friend said that the pain I experienced in my left leg may have been me unconsciously overcompensating for my rolled right ankle injury a couple weeks back. It makes sense to me. I also felt incredible pain rising from a sitting position. It is getting better, so I hope next week when I start running again everything will be healed up. 

Sunday I helped clean out my grandma’s house. I refused to help out the week before the marathon. First, it is so dusty I feel like I smoked a couple packs of cigarettes after leaving. Second, I could imagine myself tripping over my feet and falling down the steps with an armful of junk. I know, I have always had an active imagination. 

Then yesterday was my crown on the tooth that doesn’t numb. Incidentally, I ran into an acquaintance yesterday morning while taking my kids in for physicals. We started talking and the conversation moved to dentists and my appointment in the afternoon for a crown.  She said that the strangest thing happens to her when she has crowns, her teeth don’t numb. She gave me great advice that even google couldn’t give me. I felt my prayers were answered running into her. Another strange “coincidence”. My panic lessened a little. 

Yesterday I drugged myself up and had my daughter take me in to get my crown. I asked the dentist to give me a deeper shot as suggested by my friend,  but my nerves were still shot. The deep shot really hurt. I could feel it deep into my marrow. The anti-anxiety sedative did little to calm my nerves, but I didn’t feel a thing! It was uncomfortable though, my mouth is swollen and bruised today. It was hard to eat or drink anything without sensitivity or tenderness. I got home from my appointment and slept. Then I slept the whole night through, the first time in 3 weeks. I am still very run down today. I feel like I ran a marathon and had my teeth rearranged. But I look like my husband beats me. I hope tomorrow is a better day. 

Medals and crowns

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I didn’t share this with you earlier, tomorrow I am getting my first crown. I guess this wouldn’t really be a big deal with the exception that I am getting it done on a tooth that 2 dentists have failed to ever numb. That’s right, I felt them drilling on this tooth every single time. Dental pain is the worst. I thought it was a fluke thing until my daughter had the same thing happen to her on the same tooth. God forbid, is it genetic? Even getting my teeth cleaned strikes a chord of panic within me. So, not only was I feeling horrified about my first marathon yesterday but I am horrified about my first crown tomorrow. My dentist said that he will be able to numb me, but I think he is a lying sadist. 

It reminds me of when I was a young girl of about 4 or 5. I got a little piece of gravel stuck in my eye. My mom had to take me to the ER. I laid down on the table. The doctors told me to hold still and open my eye. Instead, I lashed out and fought them. They told me they would strap me down if I didn’t cooperate. They brought what looked like an ironing board out and strapped me down to it. One doctor forced my eye open, the other came at me with a tweezers while I screamed and cried. It was horrifying. When it was all over, they said I was a good little girl and they gave me a sucker. But I really wasn’t a good little girl, was I? They did have to strap me down after all. 

So, after tomorrow I can tell you what is worse…..giving birth? Running a marathon? Or an hour and a half of dental pain? 

A driving controlling fear

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Mom is a good driver. I usually feel safe when she is in control. My dad likes to drive really fast. He says that we don’t have to wear our seat belts. I feel safer when it is on especially when we go over bumps and my head almost touches the roof. Bumps always make the seat belt tighter around my waist and I have to take it off to loosen it. I think that my dad learned to drive from Aunt Grace, except she drives really slow and goes through the stop signs. 

When mom drives she has to be careful. If she puts Mark and Luke next to each other they like to laugh and do funny things while she is driving, like open the door. The day it happened she wasn’t being careful. She put Matt in the seat behind her and she was wearing a ponytail. Matt likes to pull hair, sometimes very hard. I worry that Matt might pull her hair so hard that her head will go back and we will go off the road.  I am sitting in the back with Matt. Matt starts pulling mom’s hair. Gentle tugs. 

Matt pulls mom’s hair. It is loud in the car. Tug, pull. It is hot, the windows are open. It is loud. Tug, pull. Cars are coming down off of the highway. It is hot! Mom drives through a red light. It is loud, hot, a long ponytail of hair!  Mom keeps honking her horn. Loud, loud! Cars slam on their brakes and swerve. 

My little brothers giggle and can’t wait to tell everyone that mom ran a red light. “Did I just run a red light?” asks mom. “Oh my gosh, I could have killed someone.” Mom is upset and pulls the car into an empty parking lot. Matt is upset and runs away towards traffic. Good thing mom was able to catch him before he reaches the busy street. Mom is a good driver. Mom needs control. I need control. 

Fear tires

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A strange car pulls into the driveway. Inside an elderly man and a woman about my mom’s age. The car is shiny and new. The man drives. Matt is afraid of the tires. Mom says it is her old college roommate. Matt screams and kicks the tires. The man and woman stare out the window at us. Matt screams and throws gravel at the car. Mom tells them that her life has changed and it would be best if they leave. Matt is uncontrollable. The strange car backs out of the driveway, never to return. Mom cries for a long time.