Wood floors run far far far
Out into the distance 
The color of pine 
and cinnamon 
and dreams 
The ceilings are untouchable 
Almost out of sight, completely out of reach
the walls so white you don’t want to cough or sneeze or breathe
the master bedroom embodies the character of royalty
wrap up in the curtains silk and sleek 
as a good night’s sleep 
I shall be his queen 
Lavender gently beckons and tugs the stress out of your body
The tub hangs onto the floor with its claws, it never wants to leave
No curtain adores these quarters 
A sight your eyes lust to see 
The balcony hangs above greenery that feeds 
Spiced up with flavor 
flourish 
and destiny 
The flowery garden blessed by the bees and their good deeds 
The scent carried up to the washroom by a kind and generous breeze
The abandoned swing sits amidst and swings and swings and swings

I'm single like a rose 
They don’t grow on their own
And solitaire on a table
Their beauty will last but a day
Until
All evidence of life begins to fade away
He is my soil
He feeds my soul when I falsely believe I have been uprooted
When the sun goes down and its time to rest
By the moons light I reflect
On the richness of how my roots reached deeper when it was him
Holding them in place
 
I am single
Like power with no knowledge
Winging big time decisions
Hoping and wishing
That the fate of man does not decimate in my hands
And grateful that I never have to know
Because where I am he is never far behind
And I know that trouble may last for a night
But like psalms 30:5
He is the joy
That cometh
In the morning
 
Im single like
There is one sun that lights up the sky
Every morning bringing the night to an end
And giving the world light and warmth to no end
But he...
He is the earth
That makes it all worth it
Any work I do -- I have not one doubt that he deserves it
They say
There will come a day
When the sun will burn out
They teach it, they preach it, they sing It as truth
And then there is him
Who fills me with hope
And assures me the light within me will never die
He believe in me and I believe in myself
And I need him to believe if I can light up the sky
He is a major reason why
 
Single like the index finger when you throw up the peace sign
Consistently teaming
As one without the other diminishes meaning
 
 
 
 

Im not just beginning
Im beginning again
That’s growth 
to know every end aint an end
I stare at the screen terrified 
No charger in sight
20 percent battery when more than half of me has not a half an idea
Of what we gonna write
But 
I knew I needed these keys underneath the pads of my fingers
Like a baby seeks out her binky when uncertainty lingers
Its like a trigger
Overwhelmed, overstimulated pull up a blank doc
Pop a squat tune the world out and shoot your shot
Ideas bouncing around like a rubber band ball on cement walls christened with honey
Paint that blank doc with ideas that pour over and out
Like waterfalls rushing
Scurrying to
Catch the lightening bug at the head before his end goes dim
And disappear into where uncaptured stories go
To be with lost literary friends
Leaving ideas that are missing critical components
And out of order like Mickey D’s ice cream machine is
Defeated
The next thoughts that visit
Tell you give up! a doppelgänger to the end
You don’t think your choosing to listen 
You feel it 
Like 
When the wind cuts to your bones on a December night
This is when faced with fight or flight you must fight
Your words, your lyrics, your story, your vision
Every word, every line, every page, every piece of constructive criticism
Everything that grasps you, nails sharpened with self doubt, puling you to the battlefield of no wins
Pen and paper, voice memos, by a vowel, phone a friend
find that charger
so you can begin
to begin again
 

Even as a little girl my imagination was huge and ever-changing. I walked most places I went, creating stories, bits and pieces along the way. Though early on, I never wrote them down, I was lucky to remember most of them when I got home after walking for hours. But I enjoyed the “what next” process I would play as I walked along the sidewalks, careful to stay out of the grass and just as careful to place my main characters in impossible situations. I was gifted. 

What I did write down was my poetry. Something about that rhythm, those feelings, the word choice… something about it screamed: “capture me!” My poetry in its young stages believed in its own greatness but like many of us, as it matured, this somehow leaked out. The finished product would meekly sigh. “Bury me with the other trash,” it would say, and I would blindly obey. It felt good to write but I imagined it would ache to be criticized. So I became notorious for killing my work before it could take its first breath. In hindsight, I wish I would have been more nurturing, more charismatic and positive. Instead, spineless, I folded over and over again giving in to its request, my tiny trash can overfilled with my dying dreams. The agony of its slow death lingering in the air like smog. Sound sad, I assure you it was. 

This didn’t slow the current of ideas coming in. This didn’t stop life from gently reminding me around every corner I would bend, that I had the spirit of a writer. And, it most definitely didn’t dull or diminish the therapeutic effect a nicely placed word or scene could have on me. 

As time would pass I would become more critical of what I would let in. I befriended constructive criticism and hung out with negativity less and less as it often brought uninvited guests to the party. Powerlessness, self-doubt, small-mindedness, and lack of adventure all tried to catch a free ride on my fragile ego taking advantage of my need to please those around me. I decided to make a concietous effort to no longer make it so easy. 

Something beautiful happens when you don’t give up on that unique little piece of you that has always been there. Something organic and quite critical happens when you water the seed, when the people you surround yourself with help you to nurture the seed, and encourage you to speak life into it. Something supernatural transpires when you put the seed in sunlight and give it ample room careful to never stifle its growth with your prenotions of how big it will get. This is me putting what has sprouted from my seed into the sun. This is me putting my seed out in the field giving it a chance to outgrow what I ever thought possible. 

I am a different person now. I have children and a place I go to trade my time for money five days a week. Things have changed. All the things I am interested in writing are not all made up anymore. I am extremely proud of the family I have created with my husband, the individual ones we both came out of and the friends we’ve chosen to join us on our wacky adventures along the way. I like to write of these adventures, I love to relive them. But my passion is writing fiction. A good old realistic story I conjured up myself. That type of art takes my breath away. Having someone else enjoy it would make the months of frustration born to the unwed union of writer’s block and life’s ease of stealing time with inconveniences and clocks that don’t fit my lifestyle, worth it. 

Please see the menu headings at the top of this page to peer into my personal happenings which I will place under Motivated Mommy in a Marriage. My marriage is a shoo-in for the term his, mine and ours. We each entered this marriage with two of our own children from previous journeys. Those four would become five when I decided that my life wasn’t challenging enough. My husband was so good at being a daddy why not try and kill him by giving him another daughter. Click the heading if you want to see if he is still surviving. I will say this, here and now. I am unsure about a lot of things, but I am certain about this — we (the entire family, extended included) needed this baby and we have been enjoying her ever since she graced this earth nearly two years ago. I will also say, despite this “terrible two’s” is a real phenomenon. 

There is also a menu heading entitled Creative Space. I am trying this one out. Back home, in a small city outside of Cleveland, Ohio, I would enjoy writing at a peaceful sushi bar. I would sip my warm saki and ride the waves to wherever my keystrokes would take me. Now that I am in Atlanta, I have to find new corners or creative spaces. I am looking forward to it. I will post those pictures, and at times descriptions, there.

My short stories, poems, and brief scenes will be placed under extraordinary pebbles like the gems that they are! I hope writers that visit my page get a spark of excitement, more than a tinge of encouragement and an overabundance of inspiration under that tab…

Tony Morrison said that she wrote her first book because she wanted to read it. I have a lot of stories that I am dying to read. Join me…I’ll be in the sun. 

• 

What Pebbles are in your jar

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

8:56 PM

My mantra of 2019 is level up. Whatever it is that I am doing, what is the next level? At my job, what is the next level? In my life, what is the next level? Parenting, What is the next level?

My biggest goal, my biggest level up is to finish a manuscript. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be published it just needs to be finished. That in itself is a huge level up from anything I have ever done before. If you revisit the home page you will revisit the fact that writing is my first love but sometimes, it scares the shit out of me! I mean what comes next after I finish the book? I obviously cannot go back to living the way I did before because I have leveled up right? So then what’s next — what is the next level.

As if this wasn’t challenging or daunting enough you throw the uniquely varied plethora of common struggles in the mix. Five kids, sleep deprivation, poor time management, self-doubt as big as the Atlantic and anxiety that would make me want to disappear in the waves, if I wasn’t also afraid of water. I know some of you are like ok. Preaching. Choir. Next.

Well, what’s next is I don’t get to cop out like I have done in years past. Right, my mantra… (see paragraph 1 regarding level up). So if I am going to do this I have to accept the challenges and arm myself to be able to bulldoze through them. Did I mention they were mountains. Did I mention I was raised to believe that my God could move mountains? So yes, one of the pebbles in my jar on my mantle is prayer. Good old classic close the bathroom door, turn the shower on and let it get really, really hot and dial in, Dear God, it’s me, Dionne. We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately.

Amongst my challenges I made some back to back monumental shifts in my life. It may not have been the healthiest way to go into things but it definitely goes with my theme.

In September (2018) I packed up my house of three years and put all of my belongings in storage. I had yet to find a new home for my family. In October I informed my boss I would be leaving a job that I had just begun to feel at home at, even though I didn’t have a job lined up. I was actually in the midst of working a plan to level up at this company but there were other things brewing for my life. As if on cue with the randomness in my world my oldest bonus son revealed to us that he wanted to go live with his biological mother… in a different state. So my full time mommy status went from five to four and I had to define what a long distant mother was. I hope your taking notes because this is the way to lose 50 pounds in 30 days. November came and I packed my van to the brim and drove over 700 miles away from a place I’ve lived my entire life. A place where I never had to drive for more than ten minutes and I would be at another loved one’s home. This was hard for both obvious and not so obvious reasons. I have normal insecurities like not thinking people will like me when they meet me or not thinking I look as good as the next person. Not thinking my clothes are as nice as the next persons. And then I have completely irrational fears like thinking that if someone is too close to me in traffic they may just want to take out a gun and shoot me. I’m guessing that last part isn’t exactly normal, unless you live in my head. Most days ignoring this is easy and may not even occur but during these changes it was difficult to even start the car.

The decisions leading up to these changes were very difficult. I also made some not so difficult decisions. As I mentioned earlier I am going to level up in everything I do and I am going to chase after that dream of being a writer — this time I will not allow it to out run me. That  decision was easy, it is the implementation that I know is going to be the hard part. If I did not address this I would be, again, setting myself up to fail. So I had to attack this in a different manner. I had to use different armor, what I had used before obviously had not worked.

I refer to these as the pebbles in my jar which is something new also created to keep me on my path. These pebbles, they are not uniform in size or shape and they will not all hit the boulder in the same ways. Some will cause small changes over time while others will be felt ‘round my world. Used strategically I will be able to obliterate it. What’s in my jar may not work for you so it is important that you know what weapons you need and begin designing them. It is going to take time. You will not wake up one day and have a solid plan and when you do I assure you — it will change. And that’s ok. Change is good as long as it still promotes forward movement. We are not fighting the same battle and we are not after the same exact things. But we can all learn from one another borrowing best practices along the way. One of my pebbles is positivity and the want, need and follow through of immersing myself in it. If I am using this right it means that the majority of my time will be around forward thinking positive people. Another pebble is consistency. If I am using this right then at the end of this quarter, when I look back over how well my plan has worked for me, I will be able to see that I wrote more days than I didn’t and that I stuck to my goals. As you can see I have a lot of pebbles in my jar because time has shown me that if I am tackling something huge I must plan for it and I better not show up ill equipped. One of the last pebbles I will mention is this. I plan on incorporating my goal into everything that I am. I will no longer back down because I feel my dreams and goals sound silly when spoken aloud. If I am going to be a writer I must allow myself to be a writer. It will not be one of the hobby’s I do when I have time — it will be something I make sure to make time for. If you know me, If you are around me, if you pass me in cyberspace, you will know that I am a writer and I love to create shit.

Dionne

Have you found that extra something in you that makes you special? I am sure we all have it… some of us don’t know what it is and some of us know but it’s buried so deep that we don’t know how to bring it to the surface. I mean there are a lot of obstacles along the way right? Included in there is self-doubt, greater obligations, curveballs thrown by life, by family, by circumstances. Just a plethora of irritants in our way from bringing out that which sets us apart. 

I was born in the midst of a lot of people. Really, my mother has seven children, my father has seven, and I am the only one they share. We are not all back to back and tend to be gappier then most siblings when it comes to the number of years in between us. By the time I graced this earth most of my siblings already had children and one of them even had grandchildren! All this to bring forward that some of these relationships were closer to those of uncles and aunts than they were to the types shared by siblings.

 I have always loved to read, learning very young that adults would smile bigger and think that I was somehow “better” because of my advanced reading. All these different worlds that the mind could come up with that didn’t include chores, younger siblings or responsibilities. At first, reading was my thing. Soon I would begin to play with words. When I found that I could tickle my own eardrum and pull on my own heartstrings with alliterations and assonances just seeming to find their own place in my thoughts and in the worlds that I created — that was magical! Not big league, run and tell anyone magical, just secretive, in my room, behind closed doors magical. 

We didn’t journey to a lot of places when I was younger and the vast majority of my childhood life was spent at home.  My two younger sister’s and I often, as most kids did, had to find a way to entertain ourselves. I loved playing with Barbies. I would pull my sisters and my niece, who spent who spent so much time with us she was just like another sister, into the laundry room that doubled as a playroom. We would create whole storylines, the take charge person inside of me often telling them what to say or do next. No, I was not bossy with it if you ask me, but I am sure they would have a different response to that question. Often our stories would go on for days leaving the dolls frozen in space as we were called away to do dishes, or eat, or sleep.

As punishment my mother would forbid me from playing barbies and often times take away my choice of books as well. I was allowed to read our encyclepedia set but I better not think of getting a new book from the library. This of course was only a problem during the summer because there was no way I was skipping library at school. Some days I was convinced I was Nancy Drew’s sidekick, solving mysteries and living life with her. I always felt a sadness when the series I was reading came to the last book and I was left to wait or find another series to switch to.

In these absences of Barbie’s and made up worlds I began to write. I could fill a page fast with my thoughts switching from fiction to real life. My real life always presented itself in a sing-song fashion in-between the lines. I literally loved words! At one of our family bar-b-que’s I wrote a poem, I have no idea today what it was about. I recited it to my oldest brother, he is about twenty years older than me, and when I was finished he praised me thoroughly and asked to keep my poem. I am sure he didn’t know it at the time, how could either of us really know, but he had planted a seed. The message he sent was clear, “You are important and what you have to say is important.”  As a child you looked at adults as being all-knowing, it would be a few years before I found out the truth which was that you don’t cross over into perfection at midnight on your 18th birthday. When an adult shows interest it does something special to the creativity of a child. It challenges them to stretch it, to keep that stream of positivity going. 

That became my something special. To have adults say they could not do something that they then commended me for, something that came so organically for me told me that this was something to cherish. It was small but it was special, unique. That was my extraordinary pebble. I was made up of a lot of things which would continue to grow. I would become a great daughter, a devoted wife, a mother with great intentions and goals for her children and dare I say that I may become a great writer as well? So many of these traits seemed to take shape on their own. I was there to become a mother and wife but they weren’t something I was working towards. They just kind of happened. Because those roles are important towards me I had to work harder to become better versions of the former, redefining what great was every day. But what about my something special? That something that was always in me that could make me feel like that accomplished kid on a pedestal again, what about that? 

My quest for extraordinary pebbles is about reclaiming that early dream, redefining what a great story is to me or what it means to me to be a great author. But I am a whole person with other dreams, goals and responsibilities now too. I don’t go brick by brick because sometimes my contributions towards my end game seem small but we know that small steps could lead towards big things so pebble by pebble I am on my way to incorporate writing into the many hats that I love and wear most. Motherhood. Partnership in marriage. Cultivating creativity and getting back to greatness. This is my quest for extraordinary pebbles.

2:44pm

12/25/18 2:45 PM 

Wished for you 
prayed for you 
tithed the ten percent 
rate
always, well 
maybe missed a Sunday or two 
but never missed a chance to wish upon a star
or 
throw a penny in the tank, fingers 
crossed
together... one atop the other...
 
face swollen, feet swollen, hands swollen, belly
tight 
too much weight on my heels 
too much weight on my behind
too much pressure 
too many trimesters 
the wait way worse than any gift should take 
we wanna hold our baby
 
Happy birthday precious
welcome welcome welcome 
you’re here
Our hearts are so full
and you're a beautiful
nightmare
never had so many sleepless nights
never had so many stained clothes
I have never bore witness 
to sooo much throw up 
me and daddy never disagreed 
on so so many things
or everything 
your lucky your so cute
 
the bills start pouring in 
why are you so expensive!
the headaches come and go 
but mainly come 
between you and daddys yelling 
I wish for death
I mean 
to be deaf 
I tell you this but you couldn’t care less
the milk doesn’t come quick enough for you 
the pajamas are either too warm or 
not warm enough 
for you
who knew you'd be so picky 
 
this isn't what I wished for 
this is all all wrong 
one more night in this hospital 
and Im sure sanity will flee my body 
quickly 
quicker than kwanza when she seen that squirrel 
quicker than that squirrel when she noticed kwanza 
quicker than daddy picked up and left 
sigh 
come here baby 
let’s put these hospital booties back on your feet 
before you slip and they'll never let you leave 
 
rent is 
due 
electric is 
due 
water and gas are 
overdue 
as is everything else 
no one to talk to 
all I hear is 
you should of thought of this
before you made the decision to become 
a single parent 

I looked everywhere 
Everywhere 
For this decision 
That I made 
To become a single 
Parent 
but only came across 
places that it wasn't

It wasn't amongst the 
Nice and naughty notice
To not return to work
It wasn't amongst the tuition default
It wasn’t enclosed in the envelope 
With my glamorous dress up date for 
Divorce court 
And 
It wasn't in the disposable bag
That carries similac and sangria 
But mostly 
Sangria 

I looked at the hideous wall covered in paint. That must be the equivalent to a loud sound. So many bright colors clashing and overlapping like they were all in competition with each other and fighting over space. I knew how that felt.  I imagined girls, a little younger than me, perhaps eighteen, fighting over white space to throw their interestingly odd color choices, marking their territory describing why they were brought into life. It was almost over stimulating yet my eyes would not take in anything else. They were fixed like magnets and for a second I was drowning in it. I entered and searched within this picture for some distant form of hope. Maybe someone left something for me behind and my only duty left in life was to find it.  I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and an older gentleman with grey at his temples and a young woman with yards of legs was signing to me that the show was about to begin. With a smile he and his destiny walked ahead and I parkinglotted my thoughts to go off and view the magic. 

Sitting in my seat waiting for the show to begin it was so quiet you could hear hair blowing, but I couldn’t and I missed that. If my hearing were to ever find its way back to me I would cherish it like a mother cherishes their child and hold on to it tightly and never let it out of my sight. I imagine to be deaf is one thing but to have heard and lost that gift is torture. Instead of wallow in self-pity, a stage I had already conquered, I am now at the stage of acceptance. That is what lead me to exhale, put on decent clothes and come down to share space and time with other people in a desperate attempt to feel human again. Poetry always made me feel more real, more human, and more useful.

I used to love to perform my poetry at open mic night on campus. Lisa Gertrude, a famous deaf performer, is going to be signing one of her pieces today. It’s been a long time since I was excited about something. 

Someone tapped me on my shoulder and signed to me… something. Still yet in the early stages of learning to sign I had no idea what she was trying to get across to me and I couldn’t be any worse at lip reading. I took out my notebook with the Eiffel tower etched across the front and scribbled her a purplish message complete with a smiley face, a forced friendly gesture.  I had lost a lot of friends recently I was done shutting people out. 

She jumped over the row, her puffy flower dress parasailing briefly over her head as she landed next to me. The Aquatic and cedar notes in her perfume was a welcomed change from the overstimulating cheap stuff my therapist wore. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen the rambunctious girl’s underwear. She was just a big ole ball of energy. If her energy were an instrument it would be a drum and that drum would be playing a really hyper beat that was difficult to end. Like an unfinished story. Like mine. Like hers. Like life.

We exchanged names and interests, all on my pad and I realized I had a lot in common with Shayla, the overly hyper gymnast who could once hear as well. Both searching for something to define who we now were, both searching for some sort of normalcy in a world that wasn’t normal to us. When the room fell dark she still had my notebook and I was anxious to see what she had written back. I reached for the notebook and Lisa’s overly exaggerated frown and low slanted eyes demanded my attention on stage. 

Suddenly it was just her and I in the room. When her hands reached out open palms she was asking me what I was really afraid of. When she wagged that stance finger, her mouth in a perfectly red painted, o shape she called out my ungratefulness. Her message was clear, be thankful for life or be done with it. Tears stung my eyes, the conversation was too real yet right on time. By the end, her over-amplified frown had transformed into a smile that warmed my entire being. It was a sad pieces and though I didn’t know the words the pain was present, real. Undeniable. Felt like she was telling my story. I cried like a baby applauding her. Shayla gave her a standing ovation.  

When the lights came back on I felt like the tornado had dropped Dorothy back off into Kansas only to find that Oz felt safer, Oz is where I now  belonged. I felt cheated. As people rushed past me I couldn’t break my gaze. I stared down at that brown wooden stage from six rows up in a daze while Shayla scribbled sporadic notes in my journal. Her smile reached the corner of her eyes and all I could think of was how I was on the wrong end of the story. I realized that should be me and Lisa should be here sitting with one of her friends as I told my own story. 

With huge hand gestures and exaggerated leaps across a stage, I could transfer this beast of rage out of my psyche and into the universe and free myself. I could see it. I could see myself up on that stage altering the moods of the audience. Pumping music through the speakers so my audience could see how good music could feel. Signing to some lost girl that in the absence of my hearing I could taste and see my world in new ways. Reaching my palms out to her, lending my smiles out to her, signing to her how lights are brighter and warning signs are still loud. Nodding with eyelashes painted in thick black mascara, letting her know that she has to build the will to overcome, she too can see music, and she too can smell adventure. With twists and flips and eye contact, I could empathize with her. I could see myself telling her that my world too is forever changed but we no longer have to feel captured by our circumstances. With the silence that surrounds us as she watches me on stage, I could let her down gently. I would tell her that clicking her heels together would never ever take her back to the world she once knew and to move forward she would have to accept that as truth. But there would be, could be new friends in Oz. 

Cruise Control 

“Mrs. Shears I know this is difficult but due to the circumstances I am sure you understand why this decision has to be made within the next fifteen minutes. I am sorry.”

Nodding was all this tired body had the strength to do. With one more tissue I followed the family liaison back into room four. We passed at least one other doctor and a slew of nurses that avoided eye contact with me.  The nice skinny paramedic was long gone. There was an IV in my husband’s arm providing him with comfort as his heart-beat would soon until it was free from pumping blood through his body. That is how the thief steals your happiness, through your husband’s heart because he knows you value that more than your own. He knows that if he goes for your heart you’ll soon know nothing but if he goes for your husband’s heart you’ll soon know the feeling of every grief known to man. He was stealing a husband, father, and friend forever. I dropped my head in prayer once more. Though there seemed to be a block between my cries and God’s eyes and ears because every time someone came in here they were giving more bad news and more bad news to the point that I knew that without a miracle I was going to say goodbye to my husband in this strange town on the lake. 

Everything always happened quickly for us. I liked that. I was a busy body, always moving, always had something to do. That wouldn’t be the case this time where at most we had a day. Twenty four hours in a time where we made plans more than a year in advance.  In the early planning phases of this trip, we were going to fly but that was so typical of us and Dan wanted something different. Our plan was to pick up Anne and Jacob and hit the road at dawn. The first day would be all travel time but we were good friends and so we were okay with that. It had been a long time since Ann and I were able to laugh at the men to their faces so this should be good for us. Daniel and I were hitting twenty-three years of marriage and we were going to take Chicago by storm in a weekend full of celebration. We ached to see if we were still the life of the party, to see what the next chapter would hold. 

Our story began in the Philippines, Dan and mine, right down Friendship Boulevard. He was smaller back then, he was more handsom now; we were both dangerously crazy. I was just a supervisor, back then, at a local call center taking the brink of a customer’s frustrations for them not being able to talk to anyone who spoke English. “Yes sir I understand,” I would respond while surrounded by some of the most intelligent multilingual people I had ever known judged solely on their accents. 

He met me at what I would describe as being one the weakest, most vulnerable moments of my life up until now. He was definitely a rebound guy turned husband. In the fall of 2000, I just so happened to be one of five supervisors chosen to travel overseas to help retrain our management team at a sister site in Pampanga. I cared less about the goals of the company and more about what this would mean for my family goals. The added bonus of a paid for passport and covered travel arrangements made this trip hard to decline. Add to that when I was finished with my assignment I would be eligible to apply for a manager position, I packed quickly. 

 It already wasn’t easy leaving my three-year-old baby in the care of my fiancé Drew but it seemed like what we needed to do at the time to propel our family forward. I, as always, had a plan. After returning to the states and moving into my new managerial position we could be married within the year. We set a date. Drew was my high school sweetheart and at the time I couldn’t wait to spend forever with him. I know it doesn’t sound like great parenting to leave a child so young but again, I had a plan.  In my head, the pros outweighed the cons. So all signs pointed to go. 

It was four months into my six-month trip and I couldn’t bare it any longer. I flew home and spent what seemed to be a great week with my fiancé and daughter. Leaving her the second time would prove harder than the first. After my 24 hour flight back to the Philippines I called to let everyone know I was safely back in the land of Tagalog and rice. Drew used this time to bring forth a confession that would change the course of our future. There was a girl. There wasn’t supposed to be another girl yet there she was all prim and proper, popping the balloon that was my happily ever after. In hindsight, I am thankful, at that time I was raging. 

She was pregnant. 

I thought I was pro-life until I asked him to pay for the demise of an innocent, unborn human being. I had never thought lower of myself than I did every time I remembered that I had spoken those words once upon a time. They made no difference. That’s not to say that those words were harmless just that they made no difference. She was eight months pregnant. There would be a baby. Drew suggested putting the wedding off and that’s exactly what we did, we put the wedding off. Forever. Drew became a washed-up character of a past chapter. My story had to go on. 

At that time Dan was in his fifth year in the Marines. I think he was ready to get out but he says it was me and had always been me that shifted his future from a military career to that of a civilian. His grandmother was Japanese, said he had always had the want to travel to Asia; being stationed in Okinawa was a dream come true for him. Said he loved the sexy slant of a Japanese girl’s eyes and they loved his dimpled chin. I recalled literally laughing out loud when he told me this. That dimple was the most unattractive thing on my husband’s face. Even now thinking about it makes me smile, something my inner spirit needed, and I reach down to gently stroke his beard. Time was passing and my love was slipping farther and farther away from me. 

The slight slant in his eyes was the only things he had inherited from his grandmother, that left one was my personal favorite. I could catch that wink from across the room and I would smile so big, my light brown cheeks flushing, betraying me every single time. He always had this tony the tiger roughness, gentleness, dichotomy thing going on. Today I really needed that strength to pull through for us. I was doing phenomenal job posing as someone with this unbelievable strength, but I actually felt pretty afraid and drained. I was becoming really discouraged. My grandmother always told me to just pray. She followed that up with if you pray why worry, and if you’re going to worry why pray? My grandfather was still alive and well so there is no way she could know what I was carrying on my shoulders right now.  

Remembering our beginning still brought those happy tears to my eyes. I leaned over the bed rail to give him a kiss as a tear sashayed simply and delicately out of my eye and leaked onto his cheek. The night my ex broke my heart I went out looking for him. Not Dan, specifically, but any him. Some him that wanted to buy me drinks, and dance, and sing compliments into my ear all night. Someone who could make me forget my reality. Perhaps, someone to take my reality away. I didn’t anticipate finding someone that would change it. Clearly, I was not thinking clear. 

I just thank God I didn’t make it far alone or this could have been quite a problematic night. I first stopped at the bar in the hotel where Dan and his comrades were throwing back shots of fire Dr. Peppers and just lighting all kind of drinks on fire. It was actually his friend Jimmy that asked me to join them but three drinks in I was having a much better time with Dan. The party continued at the casino where in his drunken stupor he proceeded to allow me to lose about ten thousand pesos before he reclaimed possession of his wallet. To this day he will not allow me into a casino. We vowed that we would go back to the Philippines. We would go back and visit the silly hat club where in the land of really petite women there was this thicker girl with all the greatest dance moves. We would revisit the bar with all the pretty girls dressed in little pink dresses in hopes that the one we previously purchased was still there. We didn’t believe in prostitution but we thought it would be nice to buy a girl and set her up in the hotel by herself so she could have a paid night off. The next day she went into town with us and helped us barter. When I left I had a new outlook on life, a handful of new friends, a soulmate, and luggage full of new purses. 

Interrupting my thoughts Dr. Sechel returned to the room to ask if I have made my decision. I am emotionally bankrupt but I don’t show it.  He says that they have checked the weather and they are clear to fly should I choose to go that route, the hopeful route. 

“Where would he be flying to?” I asked as if it mattered. 

“Metro hospital in Cleveland. It’s just about forty to fifty minutes east of here. I wish we were better equipped to deal with these situations so that we did not have to put you and your family through this. You still have about five more minutes to decide if you want me to come back.” 

“And if we don’t fly?” came a voice from beyond the door.

Dr. turned his back to me or he would’ve seen that my face never changed. Tears would come and go but my face remained set in stone. 

“I’m sorry are you related?” Dr. Sechel addressed Anne who was now making her way into the room, Jacob in close tow. She looked like she had been up ten days. She looked like her husband was in the hospital bed instead of standing behind her stroking her shoulders and avoiding eye contact with me. 

“I will handle it Dr. Thank you. We…. We….” I couldn’t find my words. Suddenly I was angry at myself.  I knew I loved my husband but even I was surprised at this moment how deep that love ran. We know from the moment we are young that everything has an expiration date, milk, flowers, pets but to know how vastly unpredictable that date is for other people is the hardest of all. The expiration date on the ones we love cave our hearts, cloud our judgement, and leave a locked hollow space that remains forever. That space is bigger when the loved one is your soul mate.

Taking a moment I breathed in through my nose, real deep, and out through my mouth. I spoke to Dr. Sechel but I looked Ann in the eyes and gave my decision. 

“Palliative care.” It exited like helium leaving a balloon. In my head, I believed I looked like Olivia Pope after giving her definitive answer difficult in nature. In reality, I knew I just looked like crap. I was as empty as my husband’s corpse would be in the next few hours. But unlike the empty balloon, I would not fall to the floor while everyone was watching me. I would stand tall like my husband would.

Anne, on the other hand, fell to her knees, defeated. My face never changed, the roles had been reversed and I was his soldier now. I looked away. 

The doctor started his, “I know its hard speech” but I wasn’t listening. I was ready to just spend the last moments with my husband wishing we had more time. 

Anne got herself together the best she could. Over the hours in our wait small talk snuck upon us. We talked about what a lovely road trip we had had until this. We talked about deviating from the route to see more of the scenery that lakeside living had to offer. I bet to these people, these buckeyes, lakeside living was the norm. I noticed every beautifully made home and the breeze coming off of the lake felt divine. I loved the feeling that I felt while riding along the path of the lake, windows down, taking it all in. I noticed all this and never once noticed that my husband had been unresponsive since before we even entered the state of Ohio. He works a lot; he could have been tired, right? No, a wife should know.

Apparently, there were some downsides to being in this part of the Midwest. There weren’t any nice hotels so Anne and Jacob settled on a motel close by to get some sleep once Dan and I were transferred to Hospice care. I never left Dan’s bedside. From the time we first entered the hospital Dan had lost all control of his right side. What we originally thought to be a simple stroke, if you could use such a word to describe such a horrific unpredictable phenomenon, was a full-on intracerebral hemorrhage whose pressure was forcing my husband’s wonderfully exercised, beautiful mind, into the left side of his head. 

Now in hospice care in Ohio instead of the windy city we planned to venture to I watched as this powerful man lost control of his bladder and his bowels and I witnessed him go into respiratory distress. I took it all in and never looked away not once. I prayed that he would gain enough function to just to tell me he loved me one more time, enough function to wink at me with that left eye. I prayed most of all that he was not in any pain as he passed from one world into the next. 

It happened and I nodded. It was done. Three A.M on October 5^thmy husband made me the luckiest widow alive to have been able to share in his existence and he, in mine. 

We made preparations to have my Mr. Shears transported back to Charlotte, North Carolina where this journey originated. I thought long and hard about having him cremated so that I could finish this journey we had started in Chicago. Perhaps take him back to the silly hat club, maybe turn his ashes into a diamond-like some of those crazy old ladies do to their parents. 

After cleaning up and writing thank you letters to everyone for their patience, help and kind words during this difficult time we prepared for our travels home. 

Anne asked me “Emily, are you ready for this long ride home?”

I knew I wasn’t ready to think about any more long rides. I liked when things went quickly. I don’t like prolonged rides or prolonged pains. I decided to fly. 

I’ve been known to say  Take me back.

I wish to delve in the deep valleys and peaks of my mind Stretching like my arms were made from rubber bands Wishing I had multiple hands to manipulate the many manila folders our memories are folded up in And the ability to time travel as I strap my seatbelt on and get ready to brave our roller coaster ride again  

Yes take me back…

Wednesday, January 9, 2019