Friday, June 29, 2012

Rolling back the server myself

I am going to post the post I had intended to post for mothers day. I can't change the events that happened that day but I can take back my power my doing what I wanted to do that day.

I don't allow myself to linger too long in the pits of any head space that rolls through. The longer I stay there the more comfortable I get and that is dangerous. My personal madness is a seductive beast that isn't frightening, but rather a cozy chum that buddies up to you. I existed for years in that head space and it took three professionals a few years to drag me out of my den of personal madness. I have no intention of setting down my guard and returning.


That is me.  That is Dogdancing...or (Meekiwios).

I spent many years celebrating mother's day by dressing up in my regalia and dancing for hours at the powwow at our city park.

I believed my whole life that I was never going to have children. A lie told to me as a small child. Mother's day served as a painful reminder that I was never going to have children.

When I lived on the farm and my farm kids were small they spend the day celebrating with their real mothers. To young to understand that I felt as much like their mother as their mothers did. I loved them deeper than any other human I had ever met before. They were my chosen children. I didn't have to love them, I choose to love them.

Mother's day would make me sad and angry so I took myself out of the picture and would disappear to the powwow and loose myself in the smell of sweet grass and the sounds of the drums.

One year I stopped by to catch a ride with a friend. I was standing by his porch untangling the leather fringe on my dress when he pulled in and circled around the house to pick me up.

He cut the corner too sharply and his bumper gouged into the rose bushes and ripped out half of one of the plants.  He leaned out the window as he stopped by me and smiled his cheesy-I-am-so-adorable-smile and said "I picked you up some flowers, happy mother's day!"

The sight of those roses dangling from his bumper with the roots still attached made me howl with laughter.

To this day that is my favorite mother's day memory. But not because of the laughter....because he was the first person to tell me those words and honor me for the mother I was that no one else saw at the time.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

impending doom

I really, really need all this car accident stuff to go away.

I want a roll back and the server reset to May 11th.

I want a do over.

I want my life back.

I want the anxiety back under control and it to stop eating me alive.

I want to feel better.

I want the serenity back in my mind. I do not function well when there is more chaos in my life then in my head.

I really want to be done making calls, going places, seeing people.

I have been a horrible mother, cause I can't be present for my kids. I have to spend so much time keeping myself safe right now that I'm physically present but not mentally.

I need to focus on Hansolo's speech therapy stuff and read the IFSP and make sure its okay. But my brain can't focus.

I want to be able to drive to and from work without bawling my eyes out both ways.

I want to spend time with my husband, feels like I haven't seen him in ages.

I want to runaway and hide somewhere and cry till the pressure in my head cracks it open.

I want to sleep and sleep and sleep.

I want everyone to really see me, really see that I am not doing well at all here. (or anywhere for that matter)

I want to know that my arm is going to get better. Feels like we took a step back in physical therapy yesterday.

I want to have this sense of impending doom to go away.

I want to wake to no pain.


(Todays episode of "Anxiety Street" has been brought you by the letters P. T.S.D and the number 7734)

Monday, June 25, 2012

Perfection

Not biased at all....I think all my kids are perfect.


This is my farm daughter. I shot her wedding last week. When I first started shooting photos of her all I could see was a quarter sized spot of her head as she started to crown. 

She was this red faced hot little devil baby. She was so pretty....still is so pretty.


That's her on the left, a few hours old and already trying to squirm out of my arms and fight with her cousin on the right. That is 25 years ago.

The farm kids grew up with me. I don't think they initially realized that I wasn't blood related. I was simply just there in their lives.

When the baby on the right, KSS was 6 or 7 we were at a park and a child pointed to me and asked her, "Is that your mother?"

KSS answered "No."

"Then who is she?" the child pressed.

I saw KSS stop and look at me the wheels rolling in her head. Finally she turned back to the kid. "that's my P. Don't you have a P?"




Everyone should have a P.

I am so glad I belong to the farm kids. My chosen children. I love them more then they know.

Monday, June 18, 2012

The Field Jacket

Somewhere last night on the drive home from work I spanned the stretch of midnight and my writers mind turned to the dark complexities of The Field Jacket manuscript I have been working on since I was 11 years old.

I love this story. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE it.  I am not just saying this because I wrote it. When I reread it I get lost in it, its just a compelling story.

I want to share some of it with you.

I will warn my sensative readers its a darkly distubing romp inside the mind of a young soldier. I the "F" word makes you cringe this isn't the story for you.

Since I am dumping you in the middle of the book I will introduce you to the three main voices.

Dean the soldier - His story is aligned to the left.
Father - His story is aligned to the center.
Author - Their story is aligned to the right.

The "author" is a characture in the book...and doesn't represent me.

I think I want to lead into this with some of the reviews this book has gotten from some of the people who have previewed it. Then you can decide if you want to read on.

"Wow, that's some mindfuck story, completed or not." DR Feb 2001.

""You say at the end of your notes on the TFJ that you know the story. That you wrote it first. Do you know it? I think you do. Better: I am left with the idea that you lived it!!!!! Paradox!!!!" HRP 2000.

"You are a mean mean woman, hurry up and finish the damn thing!" JKM 1996.

"I get dibs on playing Dean when they made it into a movie." MM 1981.

"See me after class" My English teacher 1976.

The Field Jacket

By PR - all rights reserved (C) 1976-2000




"Never trust anyone who is not up to anything, they is the ones plotting all sorts of things." 

I angryly bobbed my head. Crazy old man, his trolley had slipped its track. I won't let him have the satisfaction of haunting me. In the cool air my fathers words find the frost from my breath to cling to. My nose sanded from wiping it across the frozen sleeve of the field jacket drips bloodly snot. Who would have thought the Swiss of people would suddenly strike out and in a few brillent stratigic moves have control of Europe. I was thankful when the cold saw fit to numb my hands. At last I couldn't pull the trigger of the gun that propped my bundled frame up .

"CHRRist " I heard my father mutter under his egg salad breath. "FRRiggin' woossy... Bad as you damn mother... cold will only get you if your weak"

I shift my eyes skyward and marvel at the clean slate of blackness void of starlite. Where is this place?

Authors note:
Lightning flashes. Thunder presses on my chest. Sweet warm rain washes the blood from my face. Lighting flashes...PHOOM...the laughter wells and pours from my mouth. I can take no more... the tape in my mental projector spins loose and flaps around the spool CLICK...BUZZ...WHIR...

The winter wind moaned in endless agony as it painfully dragged itself over the desolate valley. with in my numbed mind the pitiful howling of my tortured spirit kept my eyelids from closing and concealing what I saw. On its own accord my rifle slid off my shoulder and collasped against the uneven side of the fox hole. Brubaker lay at my feet with his eighteen year old intestines spilt clumsily onto his lap. He cradled them in his arms with the fragil awe of a new father. I felt my body pulling me down closer to the heat rising from him. I wanted to warm my hands on the last of his life. Brubaker's head rolled to the left and in the twilight I watched as darkness poured from his mouth. Behind me I heard the familiar windchime of dogtags approaching.

Authors note:
In my mind I wander endless circles, hampster on a wheel I spin and spin...Oh some nights the roar of the madness is too great, I feel the darkness pulling and tugging at my soul. Are normal people haunted to the edges of their sanity by snatches of stories that scratch and howl in their attempt to he heard? The pull of The Field Jacket is strong. The story has a strangle hold on my subconcious, sleepless nights ... the images so strong, so vial, so very hard for an eleven year old to understand. I put the images down on paper, and for a while the gods were appeased
but now they clamor "tell us more".



Marching us in endless circles with the infernal scuffing of boots on concrete, wrasping out a distantly familiar tune. He stopped our line by pointing his pistol at my head. My frozen face, weary and drawn out, only allowed me to respond with a guttural "Do it". I closed my eyes and felt them burrowing deeper into skull. The tiny ice crystles cut my face as they fell from the sky. The canvas field jacket flapped like an old circus tent as I fanned my arms out, I know why the lion roars at the tamer...no fear...nothing he can inflict could equal the psychosis that being wrapped in steel bars...the sting of the whip is not felt...


The cocking hammer and the sound of the rotating pistol barrel brought the guard back into focus. My outstreached arms are suddenly heavy, I curl one of them to my hip.
"I'm a little tea pot, short and stout here is my..."
His pistol butt swung and sent my record needle skipping.
"... tip me over..." I rose up on one knee and looked up at him as the blood finally exited my frozen nostrel. "and pour me out.."
"Enough!" Sargent Tiomo screamed

Authors note:
Lightning flashes. Chaos reigns supreme. The full moon's light amplifing my mental turmoil and casting a shadow as dark as a glistening pool of blood. I can hear the sounds of my sanity leaving its tracks and I can feel my body lurch as I cross into a different awareness. Piano cords pounding. The rhythm brings tears. I use sleep as an escape and so the madness speads its dark gospel to the unknowing.

Wearily I drop against the muddy ground and nuzzle it until it comforms to my head. I can take no more click...buzz...whir my mental projector tape runs out and flaps around the spool.

"There there" Mama croons pulling me closer. I melt into her ample warmth and surrender... I surrender.
She rolls me over and wipes the mud from my face with the hem of the rough field jacket. "Quintana?" she inquires.

I find it ironic that angels speak swiss. My laughter disolves into tears as I clutch onto her arms and let the pull of the blackness sweep me away. I writhe in agony fighting the images that flickered in quick succession through my mind. Anjaline, my sister. Her pale eyes trying to pull me closer. I fight the haunting void of nothingness that separated her hand from mine. Try as I might I can not reach her. Our finger tips softly brushing each time I reached for her. I scream to drown out the chocking sound she made as the water rose and swirled her beautiful hair around her like a halo.

Phoom ...lighting flashes

Again I see Anjaline. She is riding on fathers shoulders pointing to the holes she dug in the freshly tilled earth only yesterday. She is crying because over night, ground water seeped in and made her holes into tiny puddles.

Father laughes his insidious laugh and tells her " Create a hole Anjaline, and SOMETHING will fill it."
Phoom...lighting flashes

Our cabin, pirched on lava rocks over looking the Sycan Marsh. Father raised us there. That bastard lied to us. Crazy old man. I survived inspite of you.Twisting I feel his hands burn into my neck. I struggle, christ will I ever be free from you?!

My beautiful Swiss angel pulls me from the clutches of the dreamtime. She draws back the collar of the field jacket and grimaces in sympathy pain. Reaching up I realize that as I wrestled the night memories the stiff canvas had sandpapered my neck into a pulpy mess.

Over my shoulder I heard Johan's wispy voice comment " That's some ring around the collar ya got thar Dean."

I cast him a glare. "where are we?"

His voice cracks " Doesn't matter we ain't out there."

Wanting a second opinon I pull myself up and stiffly limp down the narrow hall and open the door that is painted with pictures of Swiss fairy tale charactures. The night air greats me and tousles my hair. For a moment I shift my eyes skyward. I choose to return inside, Johan was right it didn't matter. Somewhere out there the war was lurking, playing hide and seek in the blackness.


Authors note:
What could be so vial a force to creep into a mans sanity and gnaw a hole, allowing the liquid madness to seep in and jell, its destructive tendrels flaying out to take root like a cancer? 

She set the bowel of potato chunks swimming in a spicy gravy between Johan and me. From behind her skirt a small round face peaked. She spoke swiftly with her musical voice and the some how familiar face smiled and held out two drumsticks carefully clutched in her dirty hands. Where has I seen this face before? Anjaline?

"Thank you little one." I smiled. At the sound of voice she dropped the chicken and bolted from the room. With a chuckle her mother retrieved the meat and set it on the edge of the table and left us to our meal.
As I carefully stripped each tiny bit of meat off of the bone I suddenly eyed Johan's skinny arm as he used it to cradle his head as he chewed slowly. The long muscles in his transparent arm jumped like piano wires in a silent symphony...just how long would it take to adjust to consuming human flesh?

Authors note:
I have always had questions about the night. like were does it begin and where does it end. Is night just darkness and if so is it night when we close our eyes? I feel a circle coming round, destiny arching forcing time and space to connect with events set into play years before. A circle...a line which forms empty space into a hole. Create a hole and SOMETHING will fill it. This patterned into us from birth, a basic knowledge we are born with. Pucker little lips into a pink bow on chubby cheeks, then open wide and wail your hunger into the air. Mama plugs in a warm nipple. The void you created has been filled.

Our rescuer brought us breakfast and Sargent Tiomo. He laughs cruely as if he enjoys the irony of the situation. As I stare into his face I see the echo of his image pearing out from behind her mothers skirt. " Are we having a bad day gentlemen?"

Johan drops his head onto the table and sobs noisely.

Tiomo...his face stamped from an ancient mold, non-descipt, no distingishing characturistics. Even staring at him you could not descibe him, his image left no impression on your retina. A living vampire, visually void of reflection.

Tiomo...Tiomo...Why do I feel the need to prove myself to you? Prove I can be a rough son of a bitch and take your crap. You can not take my mind away I will not let you...I"ll rebel I''ll...oh my god...father? is that you?
"Dean god damn it!" Tiomo bellows " When I'm talking you are to listen! You fools think you know it all! Wipe that smug look off you face, I know what you all are! Just god damned lost little boys! Your fathers being killed in Vietnam created a hole and you were raised by stepfathers...a generation lost...WHO is raising YOUR sons while you are here killing my sons?" He rocked back and laughed like some b-rated actor trying to sound insane.

He rocked back and laughed "You know I'm gonna be right about this boy...I'm always right its the law of nature" My fathers theory, a challenge between us for a life time. My goal to prove him wrong, his to always be right. "If you create a hole SOMETHING will fill it. I'll say it a thousand times boy, because its true."

 "crazy old man" I mutter under my breath.

Sargent Tiomo's hands break open the scabs around my neck as he chokes me to my senses. "You will learn respect! Or you will not leave my country alive!"

Authors note:
I am spinning endless three-sixties in my mind. I cannot write today, mind disengaged from hand. My soul a tumbler filed with snatches of nothing, empty promises, like dryer lint, collecting together to form some strange fabric...oh shit is this sanity? Where has mother madness gone? She has left me here on the sandy shores of sanity to bloat and wither like seaweed. I put The Field Jacket away. It is nothing but jumbled scraps of paper with fleeting images on it like the quick scenes one views in the seconds of illumination after lighting flashes. The madness has been lulled to sleep by the rolling waves of depression. I bid it goodnight. 


Sargent Tiomo let go of my neck and shoved me to the floor. I layed there playing dead. I heard him slap Johan, ordering him to shut up. When I saw him reach for his pistol I scrambled to my feet and brought my fist down on his arm. The deceptively soft "Pop" of the gun was followed by the screeching wail of Johan. I stood and watched the blood rythmically well and spill from the single hole in his neck. The fear in his eyes clutched me and pulled me towards him. Weakly his arms flailed with the coordination of a new baby. His head rolled down and covered the hidious hole.

"Damn it  stick yer finger in there!" Father hollered "She'll bleed out before the vet gits here!" Father knelt on her head while I inserted my finger into the bloody fountain spewing from my bay mares neck. She would die anyway. The day he buried her I ran away. I wasn't going to stand there over her grave and have him lean over and whisper "See son, create a hole..." I wouldn't give that crazy bastard the satisfaction. 


Authors note:
...where have I gone?
The story fizzles out, spent. The rough draft pages lay in crumpled heaps around my feet like spent cartridges. At last the monster is apeased. All the staps on my straight jacket are cinched up snuggly. I can sleep. I know the end of the story. I wrote it first. I know what will fill the hole in Dean's feild jacket... FUCK! 
Frantically I scroll the curser upwards, my eyes flashing left right, oh please be there, be there, be there, be there...the windsheild wipers on the ambulance keep time with my head as it rolls to and fro, NO! do not lose your train of thought, stay focused, if it is not there you will have to go back, and put it in, you'll have to go back and put it in, oh god! I'll have to create a hole in the story to put it in, what if it doesn't fill the hole completely? 



******************

So what do you all think? Want to hear more? This is the big project I want to do this September when the kids return/go to school. I will have a couple of hours to sit and gel and find that inner voice again and create the void within that summons up this delicious mental madness. To climb back inside the field jacket and wrestle it from my mind and in-prison it on paper.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Looking for a fight

(I am pissed and venting and quite mad so use caution if you are not safe)

My blog will probably be quiet for a while as I work through all this car accident stuff.

No "stuff" is the wrong word (DELETED) is what I want to say. "Stuff" makes it sound all fluffy and nice.

Having someone run a red light and smash your vehicle and injure you is not fluffy - stuff.

Its boiling oil  tossed over the castle wall on you, when you were minding your own business.

I am trying to be patient and civil, but I am nearing the "UNLEASH THE HOUNDS!!!" thresh hold for my good nature.

I am not nice when I get backed into a corner and forced to fight.

I was the victim in the accident....so why am I having to FIGHT the ()&^%$@#$%^&*& insurance company to get my truck repaired. SHE HIT ME. SHE WAS TICKETED. WHAT THE FLIPPING HELL IS THE PROBLEM?!!

Its been a month and 3 days. I am tired of calling and asking to be called back and ignored.

I NEED MY ()&^%$#$%^&*()*&^%$ TRUCK TO WORK AND HELP SUPPORT MY FAMILY.
I NEED MY #$%^&*&^%$^&*(&^^&* BLEEPING ELBOW TO WORK CAUSE MY HANDS ARE ALL I GOT LEFT TO USE TO WORK WITH.

I take my truck in to get the repair estimate and it was all about the cosmetic damage. I was stunned.

I DON'T CARE THAT ITS GOING TO COST 4600 TO MAKE MY TRUCK PRETTY AGAIN - I WANT TO KNOW IF ITS SAFE TO DRIVE AND THAT I AM NOT ENDANGERING MY LIFE, MY KIDS LIVES, OTHER DRIVERS LIVES BY DRIVING IT.

IS THE FRAME BENT?...IS THE TOW PACKAGE SOUND?....DID THE IMPACT DAMAGE THE 700+ BREAK JOB WE JUST HAD DONE THE PREVIOUS WEEK? AM I DOING MORE DAMAGE TO IT DRIVING IT RIGHT NOW?

When they sold me the truck the sales man started telling me all about the stereo and then he showed me the cup holders. I looked him square in the eyes and told him. "Show me one more girly-girl thing and you will loose this sale. I don't care it can hold two cups, I want to know that the kids I will be hauling around are safe. Start with the brakes and convince me this is a good vehicle."

PRETEND THESE D-CUPS ARE TESTICLES I WEAR ON MY CHEST AND TREAT ME AS SUCH.

I have 8 brothers. I was raised by wolves. I have an older sister who forged me into the ultimate weapon. I am nobody you want tracking you as you are fleeing the prison camp. And that is me on a good day.

Car insurance people. you will not will this war of wills.

I have fought bigger enemies than you.

If your looking for a fight, I say bring it on. Your client injured my sword arm, silly her....you have to KILL P's to silence them.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

I am in an abusive relationship....

.....with the printer at my work.


No its not the one on the left, its the little one on the right hiding...waiting to unleash it cruel games on anyone who tries to print off it. That flip down tray that is open will no longer close. It hangs open like a pervert's fly.

I tell you that machine just loves to PISS ME OFF and once it pushed me the edge and I scream at it or burst into tears THEN it will play nice and print.

Holy water has no effect on this hell beast.

I have to print all the medication / treatment / flow sheets for the nursing facility I work at at the end of the month. It takes roughly 4 hours to do this, if I can get that bleeping (deleted) to print for me.


I work remotely on the weekends which means the nursing staff has to change the colored paper for me. My office is an old smoke room, narrow and filled with lots of hot computers. In the summer with no A/C on my office is roughly the temperature of the SUN.

The printer loves to cook those poor nurses who have to change the paper for me. It will act up and be bad till there in serious danger of heatstroke. I tell you this printer is evil.


Some of the tortures it has inflicted on me include:

 printing 3 pages a min vs it usual PPM.

Refusing to print from my computer, but it would from co-workers.

Loves to fold origami with the paper before it puts it to rest in the printed bin.

Running out of ink and not informing me. I discover 400 pages later its empty and when I replace the ink cartridge with a brand new one it says ...."LOW INK"

and my all time favorite that it LOVES to do is spit every 12th page up and over the paper guard and sending it sailing to the floor. Meaning I have to stand there and babysit it as it prints. If I look away it will send a flurry of pages flying.

I work pm/nights so I am alone with this monstrosity. It knows it can be as mean as it wants to me and I have to take it. There is no battered-by-printers support group for women I can call to get out of this abusive relationship.

The Pm shift is used to hearing me talking to it. They probably think I am nuts.

P: Alright you ...be nice nice tonight and print for me.

printer:

P: I am NOT going to let you win this fight. DO your job and print. You have paper, you have ink, and I have sent the print job.

printer:

P: AAAUUGH!!

Co-worker wandering in: want me to kick it?

P: that is what it wants. If I talk to dirty to it, it will print. Or cry it loves to makes people cry.

Co-worker patting printer: common little printer, you can do it print.

printer:

P shutting office door and the addressing printer: LISTEN YOU ()(&*^%$##$%^* PRINT WHAT I SENT YOU!!!

printer: hums happily and begins printing.

Co-worker laughing: Oh you like it rough you little bad printer.

Coworker shakes their head and leaves, I follow them to the hallway and grab a bag of chips from the machine and return to office. There is one piece of paper in the tray and the rest of my print job is folded into paper air planes and is all over the floor.

P: Are you kidding me??!! I want out of this relationship!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Paja on Prednisone



This is EXACTLY how I felt on prednisone.

My messed up brain and body are sensitive to medications. I can get stoned off a touching the cotton that come out the baby aspirin bottle.  Licking a tylenol does this to me...



Put me on high dose prednisone burst for 7 days and by day two of the high dose I was a freaked out mess.

I am not kidding.



While the prednisone didn't help my elbow, it DID cure what ever mysterious malady was affecting my eyes. So in some weird way it was worth it? eh?

No it wasn't, that was a hellish 6 days. Those were common side effects. COMMON side effects that almost landed me in the ER in 5 point restraints with 50 cc of Haldol in my arse. Never again!

Oh that is Bill by the way...one of my turkies. And why yes that is a turkey net I am wearing in those pictures.

My next blog post I will be introducing you to my older sister. The woman who dressed me up in that turkey net. My sister is an intriguing blend of  Dr Evil, Dr Horrible and Elvira all rolled into one. I think the internet needs to know about her.


Here she is birthing a 20 pound butterball turkey.

(and my family considers me the crazy one?! Just sayin')

Plus if I blog nice stuff about her maybe she will leave me stuff in her will...cause right now I think all she is leaving me is.......

"and to my beloved sister P I bequeath my collection of turkey nets and 80's purple lipstick tubes, and the coconut monkey"

I wonder what turkey nets are going for on eBay?



I sold tons of Bill's feathers on eBay. I sold my childhood on eBay to pay off my truck! I have sold human bones on eBay!!!!! Bwahahahahaa! but that is another blog topic.

I will leave you with that last turkey picture. Its my favorite for all the extra elements in it....didja notice how many arms that Bill has?

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Runaways




I waited 35 years to have JUR. He was the child my body and soul cried for most of my life. He was so wanted. So INCREDIBLY wanted. The baby I thought I would never have. He was with me 24/7 except those 4 days in the NICU when the hospital tried to kill him. When I got him back I couldn't breath unless I knew where he was and what he was doing. He came with me to work full time. Logging 29400+ commuter miles before he turned 1 1/2 and was weaned.

He was a champ on the drives, no trouble at work, he was a good golden haired child who made my heart sing. I loved watching Coremind learn to be a father to our son. I was living the never life I had always dreamed of and thought I would never get. Life was perfect. I wanted to live in that moment forever.

When JUR was 1 1/2 an interesting thing happened.



He was pushing his truck on the front side walk and the older neighborhood boys (5, 7, 8 and 10) met up on the side walk near him with their bikes. He edged closer to them as if he was gleaning "boy" lessons from them. I watched with a happy smile on my face, loving that he wanted to be with other kids.

Deciding that he might be ready for a walk around the block and a visit to the flat store I ducked in side and walked to get some change off the microwave to buy snacks.

Straight back outside I went. Less than 10 seconds was all it took.

When I stepped back outside. All the boys were gone. ALL the boys, including mine.



My reaction?

OH THANK GOD HE'S GONE.

Oh thank God he is gone? whaaa? where the hell did that come from? For a moment I wanted to go back inside and shut the door. To just runaway and just rewind time to before he was born. Never realized the enormous pressure of 24/7 parenting until that moment...to fully realize just how hard it is to be responsible for another's life/well being was.

Eons before that day when me and the farm kids had gone to see Jumanji, one of them disappeared from my sight. Unable to find him I was on the phone to 911 in less than a min. (embarrassed the farm kids something fierce, but  I took there safety that seriously. Their dad had been threatening to kidnap them and we had,  just the week before, found a torch that had been tossed on the deck that thankfully had burned only a small portion of the carpet before going out.)

My own son disappears and my reaction is: OH THANK GOD HE'S GONE?

Quick run to the neighbors to see if the boys had gone inside, nope. Then I ran down the block figuring they were heading to the flat store. Rounded the corner to see them bringing JUR back. They were surprised how fast he was and that he could keep up with them on foot.

We walked around the block as I contemplated my reaction.  Wondering if I should even be a mother if that is going to be my first reaction. Fully realizing again that, there is no turning back from this. I was a parent and I would be responsible for this life I created forever.

Women are designed to want to be mothers...not parents...mothers, to insure the survival of the species. I finished my walk realizing I had to grow and change and evolve. I had to find it in me to grow more as a human. I needed to grow into being a parent.

Thank God he came back and gave me another chance.