Light, fresh, new, sun
Roaring, blazing, happy one.
Peace, joy, unhilted dawn
Soaring, roaring, all along.
Halted, stopped, dragged, down
Falling, crawling, hard, ground.
Black, grey, diminished, gone.
Crippled, sagging, stilted, song.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My Soul
Shyla, Indian derivative, meaning Goddess. Yes, that fits perfectly. It took us a year to get pregnant, Chad swore to me he only knew how to make boys and I swore to him that my body would not get pregnant until it was a girl.
From the moment her life began growing inside of me, I knew she would be perfect. I knew she would be my soul mate. I felt a connection to her like no other and we were instantly bonded. About four months after becoming pregnant, I found out that my dad was dieing of pancreatic cancer. He had six months to live. My mother had already passed when I was ten and so my dad was my life line. Taking on not only the mother and father role, but also being one of my soul mates and best friends. As my stomach grew, he grew weaker. I could see the pain in his eyes every time he looked at my ever swelling belly. It was almost unbearable. He would choke the words out in a whisper, "I'll hold on as long as I can". And he did, unfortunately Shyla's birth was still two weeks away. His last promise to me was that she would be delivered safe and sound.
As I stumbled through those two weeks until her arrival, it was her movement and light inside of me that kept me alive, kept me going and kept me sane. My labor for her was exhausting, 16.5 hours and 2.5 of that were pushing. By the time she arrived I had lost all of the weight I gained and I was so strained that I shook like a leaf for at least 24 hours. But true to his word, she was perfect. 8# 3oz of perfection. She had dark tufts of hair all over her body and the most beautiful blue eyes.
For the first year of her life I cried every time I looked at her, smelled her sweet baby smell (a mixture of baby powder and lavender) and every time I heard her cry, giggle or coo. She was my miracle, my light in a dark time. My saving grace.
There was one moment in particular, we were driving in the car, which she hated. For the first two years of her life she screamed like a banshee through every single car ride. This one time in particular she suddenly stopped crying, I turned to look at her and though her eyes were still innocent and blue, I saw my dads sorrowful brown eyes staring back at me, letting me know he was still here with us, watching.
Shyla is now 6 going on 16 and though we fight like sisters at times, she will always have a piece of my soul and she will never truly know what she has meant to me until the day comes that heaven blesses her with the miracle of life.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Where do I start? The beginning...
For me the beginning would have to be when I was three years old. The fourth of July at Walnut Hills, this is the first memory of my life. This is the day our family changed...
We had camped often at Walnut hills. It was 1981, my sister, my dad, my mom and I were enjoying the water and the sun. Up above the lake was a playground, my dad took me and my sister up there so that I could go down the 'Big' slide. My mom called out 'Don't let her go up that slide by herself, Bob". My dad mumbled something under his breathe that I couldn't quite catch.
We made the short walk up the hill to the slide, my dad let me go up by myself with my sister, 6 1/2 years older than me, trailing closely behind. I remember being at the top of the slide and pausing to look back at my big sis, my foot slipped and I slid through the opening between steps, falling head first onto the cement holding the slide in place.
At this point I was unconscious, my father ran to me and began his assesment, running his hands from the top of my head down to my neck. When his right hand got to about the middle of the left side of my skull, his fingers found a deep depression that ran about the length of my head. His heart stopped, and though I can't be sure, the words of my mother must have ran through his head. If only...
I woke up in my dad's sunbird, looking up at my mother as she was gently stroking my cheek, reassuring me that everything would be ok. I remember wondering , what would be ok?
I didn't feel pain or fear, just confusion. Because of where we were at, we had to meet the ambulance.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital bed and having needles in me every hour. I remember having my head shaved and having a huge gauze wrapped around it. I think that the rest of my family remembers more. My sister feeling guilty that she couldn't catch me, my dad feeling guilty for letting me go up there by myself, and mother feeling guilty for letting my dad take me up there without her. I put a rift through my family for many years, estranging my father and sister and my mother and father. I just wish that they could have understood that these things happen, that I came through it alive and well. But neither of them could put their guilt aside long enough to see that.
We had camped often at Walnut hills. It was 1981, my sister, my dad, my mom and I were enjoying the water and the sun. Up above the lake was a playground, my dad took me and my sister up there so that I could go down the 'Big' slide. My mom called out 'Don't let her go up that slide by herself, Bob". My dad mumbled something under his breathe that I couldn't quite catch.
We made the short walk up the hill to the slide, my dad let me go up by myself with my sister, 6 1/2 years older than me, trailing closely behind. I remember being at the top of the slide and pausing to look back at my big sis, my foot slipped and I slid through the opening between steps, falling head first onto the cement holding the slide in place.
At this point I was unconscious, my father ran to me and began his assesment, running his hands from the top of my head down to my neck. When his right hand got to about the middle of the left side of my skull, his fingers found a deep depression that ran about the length of my head. His heart stopped, and though I can't be sure, the words of my mother must have ran through his head. If only...
I woke up in my dad's sunbird, looking up at my mother as she was gently stroking my cheek, reassuring me that everything would be ok. I remember wondering , what would be ok?
I didn't feel pain or fear, just confusion. Because of where we were at, we had to meet the ambulance.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital bed and having needles in me every hour. I remember having my head shaved and having a huge gauze wrapped around it. I think that the rest of my family remembers more. My sister feeling guilty that she couldn't catch me, my dad feeling guilty for letting me go up there by myself, and mother feeling guilty for letting my dad take me up there without her. I put a rift through my family for many years, estranging my father and sister and my mother and father. I just wish that they could have understood that these things happen, that I came through it alive and well. But neither of them could put their guilt aside long enough to see that.
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