Parents

The darkest days of the darkest years

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Isn’t it funny that Christmas comes during the darkest days of the year, the time of the year that we so desperately seek out light. That was all that I wanted those darkest years, to be able to see a ray of light, a glimmer of hope. But all glimmer of light was gone. I had lost my hope. I fell into a time of deep despair. I was angry with God.

Those are the years that I don’t talk about to even the closest of new friends. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. The darkest years happened when I was in middle school. My autistic brother Matt became increasingly violent. So much so that he was not allowed to go to school with other kids. He had to have a teacher come out to our house. When Matt got “kicked out” of school, my mom took my brothers and I out of school too. My parents had us 4 children in less than 5 years, with me being the oldest. I was homeschooled between 8th and 10th grade. While my classmates attended prom and homecoming, I was at home in isolation.

Through the darkest years, my dad totally checked out emotionally and became very depressed. My mom became desperate to find a cure for autism, taking Matt out of state to a hospital that did extreme allergy testing. She thought that if he avoided certain foods and allergens, it would curb some of his violent outbursts. When they came back everything changed for us.

Matt was allergic to everything. My parents got rid of their wood furnace and put purifiers throughout the house. My mom took down her bedroom curtains because they had formaldehyde in them. She used old sheets and blankets as curtains. If the local farmers were spraying their fields with pesticides, she would call them screaming if she didn’t get notified first and Matt would have to wear his charcoal mask. If they did call her to notify us, we had to pack up our car within a half an hour and head up north for a couple of days until things gassed out or it rained. My parents had to park their cars at the bottom of the driveway so exhaust fumes would not come in the house. If my dad snow blowed the driveway, he was not allowed into the house with his snow gear on and had to shower immediately. I wasn’t allowed to wear perfume, hairspray, or nail polish. Those were just a few of the changes that were made in attempts to control Matt’s violent behavior.

It was very hard that year at Christmas. My mom said that Matt was allergic to Christmas trees, even the fake ones. It was at that time that we no longer had a Christmas tree in the house. No decorations. No lights. Nothing. Even my grandma was instructed not to put up a Christmas tree. Instead she put little bows on the wall in the shape of a Christmas tree. It was horrible. Matt had meltdown, after meltdown, after meltdown. Day after day he attacked me. He kicked me, punched me, scratched me, hit me. Ironically, taking away all of the things away from Matt (and the rest of us) did nothing to tame his aggression. It seemed to hurt us more than it helped us.

But how could I be angry at my mom for trying everything she could think of trying? How could I be mad at my brother who wasn’t bright enough to read or write? I fell deeper and deeper into despair like a small flower buried under the cold deep snow.

One last Christmas of magic

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I remember one Christmas where my dad played the part of hero. But was he really?

Christmas at my parents house is kind of a blur now. I remember having two or three Christmas trees before it got to the point that my parents didn’t celebrate with a tree in the house anymore. One year I got 2 Cabbage Patch dolls, that was memorable. Another year Luke took a little earring box that I had and put a couple of pennies in it under the tree. I opened it before Christmas and wrapped it back up again. My mom found out and I got in trouble for that. But the most memorable Christmas was the one that my dad played the hero. I don’t think that my brothers will remember ever celebrating Christmas in my parents house. I will have to ask them.

It was Christmas Eve when our dad was a hero to us. My younger brothers and I had our Christmas program at church that evening. My dad stayed home. After we did the Christmas program at church, we received a bag of goodies which consisted of an apple, an orange, and peanuts. We came home that evening to find that my parents bought us an Atari gaming system. My dad had it all hooked up when we got home and was playing on it. He let us play on it too. We thought that it was really cool. Wow!

We thought that my dad was really cool to surprise us with it. But was he really? He didn’t come to our concert and watch us perform. Through  adult eyes, I don’t think that was very cool. He didn’t play the part of hero very often in our eyes, so I will give him that little small moment. On that one magical evening, he was a hero to us. It was the best and last  Christmas memory at my parents house.

Handing over the Christmas baton

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After decades of Christmas perfection, little tremors needled away at our  family tree structure creating (gulp) change. The Thanksgiving after Paul and I got married, Uncle Harold passed away. A few years after that my grandpa passed away. My brothers grew up and moved away, with the exception of my autistic brother Matt. I started to have children of my own. Grandma struggled more and more as she aged with doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and decorating involved in having a family Christmas party. We tried to help her as much as we could. Then one year it all ended. My grandma had open heart surgery the summer that I had my third child. It was at this time that my grandma handed the Thanksgiving and Christmas baton to me.

At the time, we were having my in-laws over every Christmas Eve. Year after year it was pretty much the same. My in-laws would show up 2 to 3 hours late. The table would be set. The food would be cold. The kids would eat supper at bedtime. The kids were tired and hungry which made them very crabby. They would cry and have meltdowns. This upset my mother-in-law which resulted in an argument between her and my husband over her being late. At this point, Paul’s stepdad and I would look at each other across the table with a knowing look that said “here we go again”. One of two things either happened. Paul’s mother would disown him and take off for awhile. Or Paul’s mom would scream at my husband and he would kick her out of the house. Eventually she would come back in both scenarios, the gifts were opened, and the kids would go to bed.

After receiving the Christmas baton, Paul and I did what most reasonable people do. We combined our families to make one big happy family Christmas. Insert thoughts of the National Lampoon’s Christmas here. It did go pretty good for quite awhile. Whoever showed up, showed up. We ate at 1:00 PM. If you were late, there were leftovers. Things went pretty well, although after awhile it seemed that my mom and mother-in-law started an unspoken “best grandma” competition. My mom won that one hands down because she could afford nicer gifts and spent more time with the kids. Then my in-laws started to find excuses not to come for Christmas. Either someone was sick, or my personal favorite was that Paul’s stepdad scheduled a colonoscopy the day after Christmas. Priceless.

Oh family, you bring laughter and tears but we love you anyway.

Then a couple of years ago, Luke and his family bought a house that was bigger than mine. I handed him the Christmas baton. All problems solved.

Christmas with the in-laws

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It is Christmas Eve in the year 2000, my baby and I are sick. I haven’t been able to leave the house. That prompted me to write in this journal even though it has been almost 5 years since the last time I wrote. It has been a hard Christmas this year. Aside from having a 2 year old and a baby, my grandpa passed away a week and a half ago. I haven’t been able to sing in church this year because I lost my voice and ended up changing a lot of plans for the funeral.

Tonight my in-laws came over for a Christmas Eve supper. We made cornish hens, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, bread, bars, and cheesecake for the meal. My in-laws arrived over two hours late. They brought their outdoor dog with them because it is very cold outside tonight. While I was eating supper, I found a dead flea like bug in my corn. It made me lose my appetite, but I didn’t say anything. Later I threw out my corn.

After dishes and presents, it was time to put the kids to bed. While I was doing that, their dog peed all over the carpeting in our new house. My in-laws fought about can openers. Then my mother-in-law said she wasn’t going to church for Christmas because she needed to make slippers. Her husband told her that she needed to get her G. damn priorities straight then promptly fell asleep while Paul read the Christmas story out of the book of Matthew.

They finally left around 11:30 PM. We spent a half an hour cleaning up the 2 big piles of dog crap that we found. After this Christmas, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Demons past, present, and future

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Every couple of months my mom and I take the day off of work to spend the day together. This usually involves going out to eat for lunch and getting a massage. Last week we had our mother-daughter day. This time it included a back burner task. I decided that we needed to take in all of our old family videos to be saved onto a hard drive. Silly me, I thought that we could drop off the old VHS tapes and be out of there in a half an hour. We ended up being in the store over an hour talking about not only converting our old family videos but also eventually taking the old family photos in to preserve them.  I know that I have at least 3 large bins full of pictures to scan. This is going to be a big project.

It was at that point when it really hit me that my parents are getting old. It seems like yesterday that I was going through all of the old pictures with my grandma and great aunt Grace trying to put names to faces. All of my grandparents are gone now. I have only one great aunt left. My mom is the oldest living sibling. My parents are close to 70. Now is the time to work on this huge project with my mom.

It is also the reason that I don’t want my mom reading my blog. She is getting old. I don’t want this to be a reminder of the most difficult times in her life. She finally has a sense of freedom that she never had before. She doesn’t need to be reminded of the hard times. I don’t need to remind her of the day that she was trying to stop Matt from hurting himself during a meltdown. That was the day that she ended up with a black eye and bloody lip. It would be very painful for her to have to remember those days. It is very painful for me. Her life has been very difficult, I want her last years to be happy.

Matt also went to my daughter’s choir concert this past weekend. At one point he became separated from our mother. He became very anxious and agitated pushing through the crowd to find her. I calmly reassured him that he was alright, that mom was close by. But what happens when she is no longer with us? How will I not only get myself through it but help my brother through when he cannot process change? Every time I spend time with my mom I reassure her that I will help take care of Matt when she is gone. It will be alright, I can do this.

I decided that I will write a book about the journey of life with an autistic sibling. It will be hard. It will be painful. Next year I will dig out the old box of journals written during the darkest years. I will share it with you. I will start the process. Maybe I will even find out why I can’t relax. Why I always have to stay busy. Relaxing makes me nervous. Why does my skin crawl listening to relaxing piano music? Why does quiet meditation fill my soul with terror? Time to face my demons. I can do this.

Why do I torment myself with this? Do you know how easy it would be to delete this blog and walk away like none of this ever happened? But I can’t seem to let it go.

The great parenting paradox

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This is something that I have thought about for a long time and it is still a mystery to me. When I was a child, it was such an emotionally crushing time of my life. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault and I am not trying to place blame. It was just the circumstances of my life and really Paul’s too. We both grew up in very difficult situations. So much so that we would do almost anything to give our children the “perfect” childhood. The childhood that we never had.

There were times that I didn’t think I was going to be strong enough to make it through my childhood. I emerged as a healthy adult, but not without battle scars and wounds. I don’t think that I will ever be able to outrun my demons. We have worked incredibly hard to provide an ideal childhood for our children.

However, surviving through difficult times has made me the strong person that I am today. It has given me the courage, the determination, and the grit. I am not a superficial person. I am raising children that I did everything I could to make their life like mine wasn’t. Parents always seem to want things for their children that they never had. I am raising children who have sharing a room with their sibling as their biggest hardship. I have no sympathy for that. I am happy that I feel successful in giving them a great childhood. Yet at the same time I feel resentful. Am I raising healthy kids or spoiled brats?

I sometimes wonder if I am like a parent who grew up hungry overindulging their children with food. Or a parent who grew up poor overindulging their children with vast material wealth without them having to work for it. Is too much of a good thing a bad thing? Will shielding my kids from stress and pain allow them to handle it better when they grow up?

So the question still remains in my mind. Am I doing the right thing? Would I be a better person if my childhood environment was ideal? Would I be able to appreciate the good things in life without experiencing the bad? Sometimes with parenting, there are more questions then answers..

The wait, the news

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Last night we received the news of my mother-in-law’s biopsy. I feel relief that it turned out the way that it did. We have been anxiously waiting for the past two weeks, putting everything on hold. Waiting to get that punch in the face that never happened. Worry that had me in a pre-ulcerative state. Worry that had me grinding my teeth during the night. Worry that tightened every muscle bracing for the punch.

Telephone calls spewed misinformation like the game telephone. News of a football sized mass in the stomach and lungs turned out to be two small football shaped masses in the stomach and chest. Small slow growing malignant tumors that will be treated with oral chemotherapy. Chemo is not going to be a walk in the park, nor is she out of the woods by any means. But, the prognosis is good. So much better than what we originally thought.

When we heard the bad news 2 weeks ago, we turned to google. Google is the hypochondriacs best friend. Website after website fueling our anxieties into one big ball of flames of death and dying. We literally thought that she might only have a few months, weeks, maybe a few days left. I really hate it when I let myself be worried by google. Every scrape, bruise, and cut has at least one website devoted to the belief that we are going to die from it.

Seriously, lets face it, we are all going to die. If anything, this has been a wake up call to not believe everything that you read online AND to treat everyday like it could be the last day.

Hoarding, clutter, and cleaning freaks

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I am knee deep in fall cleaning right now. I thoroughly clean my house twice a year, once for spring and once for fall. Spring cleaning is the big event of the year where I scrub the whole house with a toothbrush. Fall cleaning is more of a hairbrush clean. I used to thoroughly clean my house after every season, but I really hate dusting. Talk about a useless task! I dust everything and within a half an hour new dust takes over. Then I sneeze for 3 days.

I threw out and donated many items to the point of guilt. I come from a very long line of hoarders. When we sold Aunt Grace’s house, we moved everything into my grandma’s house. When we sold grandma’s house, we moved stuff into my parent’s shed. Now their very large shed is full. Time to build another shed! We did get a large dumpster for my grandma’s house which was emptied 3 times. We made multiple trips to Goodwill to the point where they didn’t want any of our crap anymore. Did you ever hear of anyone getting turned away from Goodwill for over donating? Yeah, me neither.

Yesterday I went to my parents house and watched them struggle to maintain their property. There was a pipe that was leaking into the basement. Mom took me downstairs to look at the damage. There was some water that pooled around food items that expired in the 1990’s. I feel overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning it all out someday. My mom has always been a food hoarder which she attributes to growing up poor.  She has 4 freezers and 2 refrigerators. The cupboards are full of mostly expired food. There are grocery bags sitting on the floor with new food. Downstairs the situation is worse. Multiple peanut butter containers that expired in the 90’s, homemade canned food items from the 80’s, glass containers full of stale grains, corroded cans, juice separating in bottles.

My parents also hoard other things like cars, magazines, paper, newspapers, clothing, blankets, wood, books, movies, old toys, candles, soap, empty jars, tools, and parts. My dad collects electronics, broken parts to fix other broken parts. The floor and chairs are stacked with papers. The dining room table is never clutter free and neither is the kitchen counter. Nothing is thrown out even if it is expired, broken, or useless. Paul’s mom and step-dad are hoarders too. They have 2 refrigerators in their small kitchen. One doesn’t work and is used for storage. Both of our parents have given us some of their junk which we throw out for them. Thankfully Paul and I share the same motto of when in doubt throw it out. Looking at my kids rooms, I think we may have a few future hoarders on our hands. 

As a clean freak, the clutter overwhelms me. I can’t breathe. I feel a lonely emptiness in a room stacked full of clutter. It rises within me a feeling of absolute despair which I cannot explain. It feels hopeless. I want to throw everything away. I want my house to be clean, but no matter what I do it still feels dirty and messy.

A few years back, my brother Luke and his wife brought her sister to my parents house with them for the weekend. Luke’s sister-in-law told my brother that my parents house was so messy that she would never stay there again. Luke told my mom. This started a big fight with a lot of tears and stress from my mom. Luke was hoping that my mom would throw things out like he does, but instead they built another shed. My mom gets very attached to items and needed a lot of moral support to throw out my brother’s baby blanket a few years ago when he was well into his 30’s. We also did not want our old baby clothes for our children. Why do items attach so much hurt for the people who don’t want to part with them and the people that don’t want to keep them?

I have helped my parents countless times in the past. It is so overwhelming to me. It is like emptying a lake with a cup. I feel guilty for not helping them more. I’ll be totally honest, I can’t handle it. It elicits such a strong negative response within me that is unbearable. So I scour every corner of my house. After cleaning I still see all of the streaks in the windows, all the stains on the carpeting, the little yellow rings that don’t come out of my sink and bath tubs, the grease that lingers around the oven, the little spots on the walls, and the cracks in the linoleum. Will we ever be free from cleaning or hoarding? Will we be forever haunted by earthly treasure or trash?

Post modern parenting

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Last week I had the opportunity to go a really nice indoor waterpark in WI Dells, the waterpark capital of the world. Why the supposed waterpark capital of the world is in a cold climate is beyond me. They only keep the outdoor parks open 3 months of the year. I absolutely love waterparks so I decided to tag along with my husband while he went to a conference. The first body slide I went down, I banged, bruised, and scraped up my elbow. By the end of the day I had a matching bruise on my other elbow and another on my back. Seems like I can no longer have fun without somehow hurting myself.

That day I ate lunch by myself at the waterpark. By MYSELF! That hasn’t happened since at least 1994. It gave me time to people watch, one of those hobbies that I don’t seem to have time for anymore. As I was waiting for my lunch alone at the table, I became surrounded by babies. There were strollers everywhere. I had to go through a maze to get back to my table with my food. As I watched the young parents, I noticed something. As soon as the babies fussed at all, the parents handed over iphones to pacify the infants. The babies watched music videos of some sort. It didn’t sound like baby music, but had more of a dance beat. Gone were all of the ridiculous toys to pacify babies like the plastic keys that I used to use. Gone also was the parental entertaining of infants. Gone was the opportunity to ask the babies how to set up parental controls for my teens.

What is going to happen to these device pacified babies? Will they be texting and getting their own phones at 3? Carpal tunnel at 4?  I remember being told that it was bad parenting to have your infants and toddlers watch TV or movies. What about cell phones, ipads, and/or kindles as babysitters? Who knows? When my kids were little I would have given anything to sleep to 8 AM. I was thankful if I could get a shower in. I wasn’t going to get up at 4:30 in the morning to take my shower before they got up. During the day, I would sometimes pop in a movie and take a shower with the door slightly ajar. That didn’t keep one from escaping. Little Arabella when she was around 2 took off for the road while I was in the shower. I remember running down the driveway after her wrapped in a towel with soap in my hair screaming at her to stop. Those were the crazy days of parenting. Now I wake up at 6 AM regardless of how late I stay up. I would give anything to go to bed by 10PM, but have to wait for my teens to get home. Oh, how parenting changes. Pity the poor parents with babies and teens. Do you actually sleep?

As I was sitting at the waterpark eating, writing blogs in my mind, and reflecting on the life cycle of parenting, I was also scrolling though facebook. That is when I found out from a post by Paul’s cousin that my mother-in-law was in the hospital. It is always great to find out things through social media, isn’t it? Especially when my husband was in meeting and I had no way of contacting him. I certainly was NOT going to wander around the conference hall sobbing and sopping wet in my swimming suit blubbering around with waterpark bruises all over my body.

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. It is great to be able to be in contact with anyone anywhere. But you can never truly get away from life’s problems and busyness unless you put your phone away. I long for the solitude of a phoneless weekend. Someday I will do that, until then my phone is two inches away still waiting for test results for Paul’s mom. We are hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

Waiting….for bad news

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Waiting…I sit here waiting. Worried. Waiting for bad news. I know it is going to be bad. I think of all the times that we didn’t get along. The guilt of feeling annoyed by you most of the time. You aren’t a bad person. You just talk before you think. My daughter called you rude the last time we saw each other. You commented that my hair looked terrible. Did I mean for it to look so bad? Did my finger get stuck into a light socket? I told you that I wasn’t offended, that your comments about my hair didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me. What did bother me is all of the empty promises you made to my kids your only grandchildren, the times you said that you would show up and didn’t. 

Now I am thinking that you might not be here to see your granddaughter graduate next year. I feel terribly saddened by this. When I saw you last weekend, you did not look good. You were out of breath, wheezing, and coughing. The cough that lasted over a year. You have been continually sick for months at a time with head and chest colds. Your doctor thought that it might have been some of your medications, that once he took you off of the offending pill that you would get better. But you got worse. Now you are in the hospital, waiting. We worry and wait, wanting the distraction of work but have difficulty focusing. What do we tell the children? That the doctors think that you have lung cancer. So we sit here waiting, waiting for the bad news.