Secrets

Today I sat in a hospital room, surrounded by the sterile environment I had learned to hate, to fear. In a not so distant past, a childhood not so far from me, I to was in need of cleansing. This though, is different. This, is my child. The heart of my heart. I wanted to cover him with me. I needed that. Tonight an ambulance drove away with my son. To a sterile place. No curtains no string. No guns, razors or glass. No privacy. Tonight he is without me, but also without the means to take his own life. 

For you my son….

Hello. I’m sure you’re not asleep. I know you’re laying there staring at your hands, wondering if you will ever have the chance to hurt the man, once a child, that raped you…again and again. I know that pain. That loss. My words will never be enough to heal you, no matter how many are here…this time, I just can’t do it alone. I heard you. I know you hate me right now and that’s okay because so do I. I have nightmares of you being chased, and I am unable to save you, to give you warmth and love, safety and peace. I can’t do anything. Much like you, I just don’t know what to do or who to be or even who I am anymore. If I was the kind of person who could take a life it would be his, for you. I was blessed to feel your heart beat next to mine, to smell you and hold you as close as one ever could. And for you I would kill, and right now, I wish I was that kind of human being. 

My sweet son, my love, I’m sorry you’re where you are. That I cannot make you better, make you forget, make you whole, is my failure to own. It was never and will never be yours. You are so brave, beyond and measure you are the courage I need now. For you I am still awake. I am here. I am here for you. 

Please don’t die. I know you want to. I know you’re in there, somewhere, under the pain, waiting to live again. I love you. I miss you. I love you so much my heart is truly, and completely, beating for you. I, will always be here, for you, heart of my heart.

Love, Me.

I am angry. I want to hurt him, make him bleed for what he has done. I want him to feel all the pain, to rip his innocence from him and I want him to be wrapped in my sons shame, rage, and fear. I want….I want this to be over. 
There is no amount of surrender I can give to this. I don’t want to. There is no forgiveness. My family is broken. Now, at least, I suppose, we know when the broken pieces fell for our son and where we can begin a new life…unknown but new. That has to be something right? That’s all I have…I don’t know what to say to my precious child. The child who’s photos are throughout our home. Looking at them, I can see when it started, I can see the pain. I feel the pain. I can hear the screams and it cuts me, bleeds me dry. This new and unknown is what I have. I’ll take it. I’ll take it because it means my son is still here, and I will not sit by and allow him to be a victim a moment longer. 

For a Heart that is sick…

There is a little girl, not quite three, dying of stage four cancer. Her parents are friends of a fellow infantryman my husband is close with. 

Her heart may be ravaged by this terrible disease, but her smile shines bright when the police officers stop by and visit. Her time on this earth is short and her mom would like to make her a gift…a quilt of police badges, blue and bright, to keep her safe on lonely nights.

If you have a spare or know someone who may give a badge to place on this blanket of love, email me at bitslittleblog@gmail.com and I will give you my address. I will then forward it to the family. Thank you friends!

Love, Freedom, Choice

I woke up weeping at 4:03am yesterday.

It was the kind of sadness one feels when there is loss which cannot be measured.

I looked around my room.

Baby, husband…

I wandered my house…all accounted for.

There is a heaviness in my soul for those who will wander their halls looking for their children.

They wake weeping for those they love.

I’m sure they search for answers as they view the empty bed, the deafening quiet.

I mourn with you. I cry for you. 

I was driving home with my husband and our youngest last night.

To the left, was the most vibrant rainbow.

Behind it was the dark and turbulent sky.

I thought of the young woman’s face I saw on television.

She was killed by a man who pledged to take her life.

Taken from this world by a monster.

A monster that craved vengeance above understanding.

I imagined what she would have given to this world.

My eyes filled with tears that burned my eyes.

May her face and all victims of terrorism not be forgotten.

*****

We all know what’s to come. No one is immune to the hatred that follows us, our freedom, our choice. 

A woman on the news begged to know where her son was. She didn’t distinguish life or death, just the need to know something, anything, about her child.

Young men and women carry a wounded friend away from the carnage, away from the death in hopes that he would survive.
The scenario repeated on our own soil is one I see often in the news from (not so) far away lands like Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, etc. They are at war, and it can only make sense to come to an understanding as a country, unified, that WE are at war. 

While people die we watch and hope it gets better. 
While mourners gather, we sit and watch.

I believe that every human being has the right to live a life of freedom, safety, and choice. 

I believe that every human being has the responsibility to do their part to make this world a safe place for those that cannot be free, do not have safety, and aren’t allowed to choose their own path.

I believe that freedom, our freedom, comes at a price. I see it daily. Hourly. The safety so many of us take for granted is being paid for by those who fight behind enemy lines, and ironically give up that same freedom to do it. With this freedom we as Americans have, there will always be those individuals, whether home or abroad, that want what we have or want to take it from us. They choose that. Let us not follow in their foot steps and choose to hate, vilify, and isolate. Let our lights shine brighter, show the victims and their families we are going to do more than just watch and sit idly by. Do something.

Just talking about these things solves absolutely nothing. No matter your views – if you want them to matter, to make change…get up and vote. Protest what you find wrong with this country and support the values you hold dear. If we don’t, we have no one to blame but the person staring back at us in the mirror. ***

Because It’s Good Fun

 

 

I haven’t been posting very much lately and for those that have missed it I do apologize! Life has been going at full ludicrous speed around our house and I’ve been playing catch up myself for weeks!

Tank is walking so I spend most of my days chasing, oohing and aahing, and cleaning up after everyone else so he won’t realize he can reach the table and countertops to make big messes. I had forgotten how much I loved cabinet locks!!

JJ graduates from kindergarten next week and has requested all the festivities of a college grad for ‘his’ party…streamers, costumes, darts, bubbles…and a new bike.

 

 

Birdie will be heading to middle school next year and with that comes the joys of hitting that all important ‘girls only‘ kind of puberty at the most awkward time…and her fifth grade swimming party is TOMORROW!!! *sigh*

Our son Jay has been off and on with his anxiety meds, which if anyone knows anything about any type of medication it’s that one must use it as prescribed. Trying to word things without hurting his anxious feelings about what he’s like without his meds is driving our relationship into a wall – made of steel. The kid is just 14, 6′ tall and 200 lbs of oil and water, grease and fire, bubbles and flower petals. Ugh. It. Sucks. He’s heading off to high school next year and has no desire to do ANYTHING. That at least, is typical of his age – and then there’s girls….calling, texting, never ending. (Enter mama bear stone cold and unamused face here.)

My 18 yr. old son is applying to work at a casino for the summer. No I don’t like it, but he’s 18. He’s 18. I feel old…perhaps this part should be left out? (I mean, I really do only dye my hair because I like to right? There’s no gray…is there?)

Of course there’s the life outside of party planning, having to do laundry and change diapers. There’s more to my life than meeting with teachers, doctors and short-order meal requests at 0100 hours. I’m also a wife. And my husband has been doing a lot around here for us. Bravo has a job and if all goes well he will switch from being a contract position to permanent employee in about 8 weeks. Thank God for regular pay, hours and bill paying. I am so thankful that we can buy pizza on Saturday nights if we want and buy that really soft toilet paper again.

With all this to-do and so on, I forgot to mow our yard, or just the back yard really. Then it rained for a week. Then it was hot and humid, sunny beyond measure…and I kid you not the measurements of grass are a two foot minimum. I’m gonna need a tractor, an old rake and a new mower. Help! (And with two dogs, kids, and a fear of Lyme disease this mama and her hubby have been weed whacking and raking Deadpool style. Cursing, laughing, inappropriately joking and bribing our kiddos to get in on this fun.)

Anyway, I hope the coming new season will be filled with more of my little bit of heaven. Because as bitchy as this blog post sounds…it’s all I’ve ever wanted. And the bits of hope, happiness and love sprinkled about are all I need to know I’m right where I should be.

 

***On a side note, I watched the mo vie  ‘Deadpool’ and it was disgusting – as in disgustingly funny.***

 

 

 

 

For The 22 We Lose

 

For him some days are harder than others. Behind the green eyes I fell in love with is another time and place that I cannot go. Hidden deep within his heart so very broken are the lives that have made him unbreakable. The men whose names are forever etched in his mind and closer still as he paces, smoking…

Some things are best kept between him, God and his infantrymen. A loss that I can never fathom but that I have felt, often, as he sleeps – at times running to those he’s lost, to the one he still searches for. In all these many years there are finally heavy moments which quickly fade…or so he would have me believe. I know it is the silence he fears. That quiet goodnight that allows the demons he fights to strengthen. Still after all this time he wakes to check on his brothers. Like a photograph – he lives in a world paused by the scars he has endured. The body he pushed to save all those beside and behind is now turning on him. His heart beats harder, faster. His new knees buckle. His back aches.

http://www.hdnicewallpapers.com

 

For several years after I met my husband I saw his struggle with the service he chose and the severe PTSD he did not. It is never easy to watch someone we love make an enemy of themselves and as a result…those that love them.

Through it all his ability to laugh at himself and the shit and mire he went through with his brothers was unchanged, and is what I love most about him. Bravo and I have spent many long nights talking about those he has served with, and in many ways still carries the load for. Loyal and tough, my husband has done well hiding his pain from us, but it lingers behind his smile and beautiful eyes.

As with most of the brave men he has served with the desire to remain in the fight ebbs and flows with the tide. The internal conflict between his sense of duty and the resounding effects of being abandoned by the government and civilians whose freedom he chose to fight for does not leave him. There is rarely a night that his battle goes quiet while he sleeps.

My husband decided to write down the angst bottled up over the years a long time ago but his heart had always stopped him, or the symptoms of his PTSD would be just enough to push him from the paper. When he finally dove in I was proud of him. I understood the long sleepless nights ahead would in the long run be healing…even if in the short term I knew the man I love would fight his demons all over again.

It is never easy to stand by while our husbands relive these stories, and writing them, reading them over and over takes its toll. My husband has lost years to his past and his present is once again filled with nights pacing our deck. Tears for those moments he will never share but that play like a broken record in his mind. He keeps going for his fellow men, and for those that can’t tell their own story. He has shared many things with me over the last 17 years, but to read of the life that most nights haunt him, well, truly breaks my heart…but never have I been more honored to be his wife.

I am not sharing this for what I feel is deserved gratitude for my husbands service but for the battles that never left him and for those who’s fight with combat related PTSD has ended needlessly. 22 United States Veterans commit suicide each day. In 24 hours, 22 amazing human beings will have their struggle end and for the people who love them, a new struggle begins. 22 men and women-fathers/sons/brothers, mothers/daughters/sisters die each and every day fighting with the same heart beat as my husbands. Wives like me lose their best friends and children like ours will never again get to hear their fathers laugh. Their deaths are not to be ignored and their lives still stand for those they protected even in such tragic loss. Their sacrifice is not in vain. Their beautiful souls simply couldn’t contain what they felt every moment of every day – saving those who wanted a life of freedom and choice – while seeing the very worst of humanity.

I love you my sweet husband. Do not think I don’t see you struggling tonight. I am here, always. I will never give up on you. Thank you for standing tall, and for showing me what it is to be human.

*Please take the time to watch this. Thank you.*