Can't go home again....

I know they say you can't go home again, I just had to come back one last time. Ma'am, I know you don't know me from Adam. But these handprints on the front steps are mine. Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar. And I bet you didn't know that under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard. I thought if I could touch this place or feel it, this BROKENESS inside me might start healing. Out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself....If I could just come in I swear I'll leave won't take nothing but a memory...from the house that build me. (Miranda Lambert-The house that built me)

I just recently went back to Jacksonville, Fl roughly a month ago to visit my older brother Tommy and his beautiful family. I hadn't been back there since 2002. Eight years has past since I last saw the house that built me. I left that house back when I was 17 years old and never even thought to look back. I can still picture that tree forts my brother and our neighborhood friends built. I can still picture us playing a nighttime game of man hunt. I can still hear my mother doing her infamous "wistle" to call us home for dinner. I have so many memories from that house on Candlewyck Lane. Most of the advantageous memories cover the blanket of damaging ones.  There were many laughs shared in that house, there were plenty of tears shed, many  abhorrent words spoken or actually yelled through those walls, up the stairs and even out the door.  I can sit and close my eyes and see my brother and I through our stages in life, in that house. Every time the door swing open Tommy got a little older...headed from first day of Elementary school to his third prom night in one week. I can see myself running in and out of that front door each time wearing different jersey, volleyball, softball, soccer, basketball whatever the season whatever the sport. I can see my father walking out and my mother standing on the other side of the screen door with tear filled eyes wondering if he would be coming back. I can still see my father pulling off, in whatever truck he was currently driving, with smoke burning under the tires and a puff flowing from his driver side window. I can see my mother sitting on the couch just anxiously awaiting human interaction, from her very own family that she yearned so badly for. I see my brother and I growing into our very own personalities and trying to find ourselves amongst the storm of turmoil that was living in that house. I can see myself growing from a young girl who was much a happy content  into a resentful gypsie of a teenager. That house was built on a bed of deceit. I thought if I went back that day it would dry out those feelings of disbelief. I thought that I could take that right from Cobblewood  Road onto Candlewyck Lane and pull up in front of 12065 and see those eyes of my mother standing on the porch or in the driveway waiting for me to come home. I drove that day, down that street that still fill my mind of times past, I pulled up to still very recognizable house that built me. I parked...I stared, I wish I could just walk through that front door and see her sitting there anxiously awaiting but not expecting any visitors and see her face brighten up the moment she saw it was me. She sat in that house and I left, what I would have done to be able to get out of that car that day and swing that door open one last time. Never did she hold a grudge as to why and how I left to begin with but I can't go home again, because that house in not my home anymore...it built me, but when I left I took all the memories with me.

Forty-Nine......Happy birthday mom

1961.....Babyboomer..what was going on back then.....President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps. The Soviet put up a wall dividing East and West Berlin. The first lasers were invented. Ty Cobb dies and the Yankees win the World Series. Barbie doll finally gets a boyfriend, Ken. Movies: West Side Story Songs:Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Blue Moon TV Shows: Bullwinkle, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, Hazel, Dick Van Dyke Show, Top Cat. Ernest Hemmingway dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Electric toothbrushes introduced. So thats what was going on the year Susie was born. Well, thats what was going on in the United States, but she was born in Heidelburg, Germany.
        As I stroll down the isles of Walmart today I was looking for others from the "babyboomer" generation. 49 years old she would have been today......what does 49 look like? Speckles of grey? Wrinkles? As I wondered and people watched, I didn't find anyone that really could compare to what I "think" she would have looked like. Disappointing really! Other than physical features 49 years really have seen a lot in a life time! HALF A CENTURY, all that really stands for is experience and knowledge. Their minds are like books.
     Truth is the image I have in my mind of my mother is her at the age of 43! As the days go by and years soon pass, I approach the age of my mother. See she will never grow old. I can go back and find out significant events that went on during her life span and go through the small box of things I have of her, but she will never get a day old than 43. I can live each year and compare it to the memories I have of my mother when she was my age, but in 16 years we will be the same age. It will be a hard image of myself with a hair full of grey hairs and remembering my mother with her head full of light brown hair. I don't know how she would look now at 49, but I can probably bet she would have been just as beautiful as the day she left this world.
Anthony (my son) and I baked several cookies and a pumpkin cheese cake today! Susie LOVED desert! Happy Birthday! You were definetly thought of and talked about today.

 

OUR HANDS

            Every time I open a door, sign my name, brush my teeth, wave goodbye or simply fold my hands together for my evening prayers I am reminded of her. My mother and I had almost nothing physically in common. She stood no greater than 5 foot 2 inches with short brown hair, just slightly speckled with grey. A bright pair of sparkling chameleon colored eyes that changed from blue to green. Her beautiful smile with perfectly straight pearly white teeth that never required braces. She had broad shoulders, but still a petite frame. She was the only woman in the family that was naturally busty. We often laughed at her skinny thighs and overdeveloped calves.  The one physical trait we shared were our soft to the touch, rarely manicured except with a light coat of gloss, hands.

            My mother was born and raised in Germany where she lived until her late years of high school. She had a passion to work with horses. She enjoyed training and showing them at local horse shows. To this day I still keep all the ribbons she won at all the judged exhibitions where she displayed her talent in several equestrian disciplines. At the age of 19 my mother married my father. Two short years later came the birth of my brother, with me to follow just 12 months after.

            She was more than just a mother to me; she was my inspiration and still is. My mother was left alone to raise my brother and me due to my father being gone a lot for work. She always tried to drive home the point to ensure you can always support yourself and not to rely on someone else. When I was nine years old my mother sat my brother and I down at our wooden kitchen table for what we thought was a routine dinner. Even with a typical meal served before us, something felt a little different that night. My mother inhaled deeply as she attempted to keep her composure. She went on to tell us at her routine doctors appointment that day they had found a brain tumor the size of a small sweet potato. Emergency surgery was required. Much to everyone’s surprise my mother survived the operation, but her life was forever different and so was ours.

            Seven years passed before the next “typical” dinner meal regarding bad news came again. Another tumor this time it was rapidly growing as a very fierce form of Cancer. This tumor was negatively triggering many points in her brain. The doctors performed the second operation, which she again astonished even the most prestigious neurosurgeons with her rapid recovery, and will to survive. Due to the disturbance in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain, my mother had a stroke. She was immediately admitted to the hospitals inpatient therapy ward where she stayed for months. It was there where she had to learn tasks that we consider mundane to everyday life. Things such as how to open a door, sign her name, brush her teeth, wave goodbye or simply fold her hands together for her evening prayers. If it required involvement of the right side of her body she had to learn again how to accomplish it.

            During my first tour to Iraq I was filled with dread when I received the long awaited letter concerning the presence of another tumor. My mother was going on the table yet again for a third operation. The doctors predicted an 80% chance of death, and unfortunately due to operational tempo of the war, I couldn’t be there with her to hold her hand. My mother, the strongest woman who ever lived, survived the surgery again. The doctor’s prognosis this time was worse than ever. What brain mass was left, after the removal of the three tumors, was severally damaged. The cancer was aggressive and spreading.

Upon my retrograde back the United States I ended up back home to find my mother making a fair recovery.  We sat together at the kitchen table where she held my hand close to her as I looked into her blue-green chameleon colored eyes; I was looking through the windows to her soul. I could then see all the pain that she held back for so many years for the sake of me and my brother. While holding my hands she tried to explain to me, with her now limited vocabulary, that she was going to die very soon. She reassured me that she was very proud of my accomplishments to date and for the ones to come that she would not be able to see.

            On September 9^Th, in my arms, holding my hand, my mother died. My mother was there from the moment I took my very first breath and I was there the moment she took her very last. All the days in between were times she taught me some of the most valuable life lessons that I carry with me. Everywhere I go, and through everything I do. It is comforting to know that even though I no longer have my mother, she will help me in everything I do. She is there every time I open a door, sign my name, brush my teeth, wave goodbye or simply fold my hands together for my evening prayers.



JAN 22,1990



2004

SEPT 1993

Tried calling you today!

I have been waiting the past 4 1/2 years to get the news....FINALLY selected for promotion to the rank of Staff Sergeant! WOW! It might not mean much to many but for me it meant, three deployments overseas (one of which I left my infant for 7 months and came back to a potty trained talking little boy) Endless hours of "work" and training, schools, classes and much more....so to finally get looked at and selected for promotion was a proud moment for me. So with the news hot off the press I instantly grabbed my handy IPhone. First number dialed Oma....ring 1...ring 2..3...4 NO ANSWER hmmmm. Next number dialed NO ANSWER. So I decided to send a mass text message out to my closest of friends and family....I received the trickly of CONGRATS! So I posted it on the book of the face (facebook) instant congrats from friends all over. Emails started coming in from former Marines I served with "Congrats"...."There is no more deserving of a Marine"...."I am so proud of you"...... read several subject titles. Still I just didn't quite get that sense of well accomplishment. I still had to pass the good news on, but to whom? I then again sat and scrolled through my IPhone...really could it be...I had nobody to call. I sent the text "everyone" already knew! But then it hit me, HER, I dialed it rang an instantly picked up "I'm Sorry the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service, please hang up or try the number again" I listened to the recording several times through till it HUNG UP on ME! I knew it wouldn't happen. I knew she couldn't answer the phone. Was it habit? No! I mean really, I haven't heard her voice in years. On that day I felt like it just would have made my "accomplishment" well...just that...an accomplishement! So since she couldn't answer, I am writing about it now...Mom, I did it, Promoted, 8+ years active duty Marine, Combat Veteran, now on to my 6th promotion to the rank of  Staff Sergeant, United States Mairne Corps! If i strive for anything in this life it's to make my mother proud, by living up to the expectations that she set out before me. I knew she wouldn't have answered that phone, I sincerly didn't think she would, I just pushed through this life in hopes of hearing the sound of her voice "Stephie you make mommy so proud" but the more I think about it, I didn't even need my stupid IPhone...............she's always with me!