Just Gotta Go There...

Oh friends...I know I have been gone for a bit and I hate to come back with a post like this but I just gotta get this out before my blood pressure causes my brain to explode!!

First off we are all doing well here, just been busy with the kids' activities and all of my *other* obligations! DD has a rodeo this weekend and we are praying for fair weather! Last week there was so much snow on the ground that there was no practice time! So this week we are hitting it hard getting ready for the weekend and of course today it spat ice on us so we are in a bit of a freeze right now with snow coming over night... BOO!!! We were lucky to get the practice done RIGHT before the icy rain started! I just cannot wait for Spring to get here! I just need a pick me up and this Winter weather is doing nothing but kicking me down!

A few months ago I posted here about my dad's widow passing away. In that post I told you about my dad's passing 5 1/2 years ago and the troubles I had with his wife after he died and really truly the whole thing just broke me...I have not ever recovered from the blow of losing my dad at my young age of 27, I know lots of people have lost a parent much younger than I did and my heart breaks for them. I am so glad that I did have my 27 years to be with him but I miss him everyday and it is a constant heartache in my life. I have absolutely been difficult at times and massively depressed at times since losing him. I honestly haven't found much to comfort me and the situation with his wife just made that pain burn even worse and I became a person that I don't even recognize sometimes. I want to be loving and fun and carefree but I seem to just get lost in all of this and feel like I'm grasping at straws just to function partly to mostly normal ;)

Some of the things that I haven't been able to get over were feeling like she had something to do with his death...I don't know why I feel that, well yes I do know partly why I feel that. The morning that he died October 14, 2005 I was traveling with my family to TX to visit my Hubby's niece as she was getting ready to undergo surgery to remove a tumor near her brain and we of course wanted to be with her. So here we are driving in the car and I get that dreadful call that will never leave my mind and we turn around to head back to KS, we were a few hours away and I had a cousin who went to the hospital for me and I was requesting an autopsy because my dad was 50 yrs old and it was a sudden death with no warning signs, to me I just needed that bit of closure to know exactly what caused his death. I told my stepmother that I wanted the autopsy and she did not allow it and had him *processed* and at the funeral home by the time I made it back to the city. I was SO very angry, so hurt because this was my dad and this was something I wanted. Then when it came time to sit down with the funeral director we had to write his obituary and this was very hard for me, especially when my stepmother started telling them what "she" wanted written and the way it came to be printed was all of her kids and grandkids listed then my brother and I and our kids after all of them... What the heck?! Literally I had to search the thing just to find my name! He was my dad, not theirs! Her kids did not always treat my dad right and they were alot of my dads frustration in his last few years (they were married about 9 years). So then within hours of his death they (the kids) were just prancing around my dads house like they owned it, laughing and carrying on having a grand old time while I literally sat on the couch just sobbing and wanting them to leave!! Literally one of my stepbrothers girlfriends said to my stepmother "well looks like now you can finally take down that deer head that you've hated for so long"!! She just laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd ever said...I was shocked and very hurt, he hadn't even been buried yet! I will never understand the frame of mind they were in to be so rude and careless to me and my family. Then came the *dividing* of my dads things, my brother and I got a few small personal things but left the rest of his things out of respect for his wife that she may have the time to grieve and hold those things to give her comfort or whatever they could do to help her through that time. Then came the time for things starting to disappear and not a word was said about any of it. Then after a couple of months came the moving in of my dads childhood best friend (who had through his adult years turned into a real piece of garbage), after he moved in my stepmother would say "I'm just helping him, he had no where to stay"...Soon after that they were a *couple* DISGUSTING!!!

After that happened we quit speaking and I tried, then my brother tried to get back dads things. Things like our family pictures, that deer head that disappeared off the wall, his tools etc...Needless to say everything that belonged to my dad was gone. They had gotten rid of, sold, or stole what was left of his things. I'd begged in letters for the things and got no response, I finally threatened to file a civil suit against her for the stuff and lo-and-behold she filed bankruptcy ASAP. Thus preventing me from filing a suit against her.

After she died her son had contacted me and said he wanted to do the right thing and "give my brother and I what was rightfully ours, the house". Well I figured out soon enough that the other siblings were not on board with this and I talked to an attorney and he told me that I had no *legal* right to anything since my dad died first...So I then decided I would not sink any money into the place and fix it to sell because they couldn't be trusted to not stab me in the back!

Recently I got a phone call from an attorney that the house was in foreclosure and they wanted my address to send me the paperwork...Well I was quite confused because if I had no *rights* to anything why do I have to be drug into a foreclosure! So this bank was opening the house up for any of us kids to come remove anything we wanted on this certain date. I basically decided it was not healthy for me to get involved with this because I was sure there would be conflict and I wouldn't be able to control my hurt and anger so luckily I had a meeting that day and couldn't go. I was contacted by my stepsister saying she had a few things for my brother and I, not sure what it could be as there wasn't anything left of dads that we had seen. Then I find out that this stepsister and her husband are taking things out of the house and selling it on craigslist. I felt upset about that but just let it roll until today, I got a phone call that threw me right back into the whole situation and wanting to scream at all of them.

My aunt is a real estate agent and she called me today and let me know that my dads house is up on the market for sell! I was furious! And so confused, because I thought it was being foreclosed on?! So I messaged my stepsister and she informed me that her and her husband put it on the market and they have until March sometime to sell it or the bank will take possession and she is going to "try and talk her siblings into sharing the profits with my brother and I"...WHAT?! Share?! MY dad paid for the house!!! Yes it has a mortgage now because they got a loan to pay off HER student loans!!! They have the house listed for $25,000 more than what is owed and I am just peeved!! If they get one penny off that house I'm not sure what I will do! It's bad enough to have watched them torment my dad, then deal with his witch of a wife and then watch them take all of dads things and now THEY get a profit off of his house and they *might* give us something UGHH!!!!!!!

I have been so angry all night, my blood pressure is up, I'm dizzy, my head hurts and I just feel like I'm on the edge of a breakdown here! I know hate is a strong word but I hate them! I did message my stepsister back (by the way she and one of her brothers are not biological kids to my stepmother, she raised them from her ex-husbands first marriage) and posed the question to her "do you and your siblings honestly feel entitled to this house because I am SO confused"?!

I would also like to clarify that this stepsister and her husband I believe were the only kids that really truly loved my dad and they did treat him with respect, she even quit speaking to her mom for some years because of what she did after my dad had died. So she is not the one I am angry at...

I have such a hard time with all of this because I very much live my life with the feeling of I would never do something to someone that I know would hurt me so bad if it was done to me and their utter disregard for what's right and wrong in this situation is killing me!

Please pray for me, that I find it in my heart to let go and let God do it all for me. And just to have peace restored in my heart and closure would be an amazing gift..

Feels Like I'm Forever Saying Goodbye...

First off I just want to thank you all for such caring words on my last post! I have not had any more episodes as bad as that one was, just my *normal* increased heart rate and occasional palpitations. My shakiness has been back to normal, no more violent shaking like I had last week. I do intend on going in to the Dr to get a full work up physical done. I realized that I am also having hot flashes ALOT! Now I am way to young for any meno*crap* so I'm not really sure what to think of this, other than maybe high blood pressure causing it?!

WARNING~ Long, tear stained post....

I recently shard with you about my dear friend Terry and well I come with sad news to say that Terry is no longer with us...He passed away this past Friday night. It really is an amazing story that I of course must share, I'd better go grab me some tissues...

Last Thursday we got word from the Dr's that Terry's body was starting to shut down so to expect him to pass before the weekend was over. Friday night of course we had Friday Night Football and it was the Fall Homecoming game and J was stoked! My momma obviously didn't come to the game as she has literally spent almost all of her time outside of work with Terry. So as I got ready to head out for the game Friday night I knew I needed to stock tissues in my purse as I just felt this was going to be the time. I was sitting up in the bleachers watching the team get ready and I got a text from my momma that Terry's oxygen level was down to 44%, I instantly teared up but pushed through just praying for him and watching the team prepare.

The opposing team won the coin toss and chose to receive 2nd half so they started the game kicking the ball to our team. J is always out during the kickoff but is usually blocking as a senior boy is usually the one who catches and runs it. But this night as I watched the ball fly through the air I realized it was heading straight for J and I kind of panicked! My first thought was being worried for him running with that many kids trying to get him down LOL! Not that he doesn't get tackled in other plays but this seems especially harder with them already running full throttle! Then my next thought was OH get the camera up to shoot! So down comes the ball and YES he catches it~!! I got my camera up and started shooting! He caught the ball at the 20 yard line and started running, he almost got tackled but another player did a nice block and J cut back and shot through the gap and took off! He was running SO fast and the crowd was roaring; screaming for him! I was screaming, my MIL and FIL and SIL were all around me screaming (Hubby works the chain gang so he's right down on the side line)! And a kid dives for J but he manages to shake his fingers from his shoulders and keeps running! He ran and ran all the way to the 7 yd line!!! Then he was tackled right at his ankles, barely got him! He almost made a touchdown, but I was jumping up and down screaming and SO excited that my boy just ran that! And it was strange as I was shooting the pictures when he was running past where I was sitting the sun was so bright coming through my viewfinder that I had to put my camera down, then at some point I picked it back up and snapped a shot right after he got back up with the ball. I had tears welling up in my eyes and knew I had to text my momma right away and tell her but I knew in the instant that I had the feeling to send her the message that she would tell me back that Terry was gone...So I sent her the message and she text me back "That is awesome! Sis, Terry just passed, his pain is over"....OH the sadness that hit my heart was like a 2 ton brick...I just broke down in tears, my SIL put her arms around me and covered my face for me and I just cried. I knew in that instant that God was giving me some kind of gift with that run and the light coming through. It was the strangest thing ever! I text my momma back and told her that it seemed Terry had passed at the same time J was making his run, in true Terry style. My momma agreed that it was a gift indeed.

When I got home and went through the pictures I got to the set when he was in front of me and J was literally barely visible through the light that filled the picture, it was blinding. I enhanced the picture so it's more saturated now and J is viewable.

After the tackle!

Saturday night my momma and her friends and I all got together to have some wine and share memories of Terry. Just kind of a grieving time for us all to be together. I went early with my momma and we had dinner and did some shopping and then went to our friend's house. During our time of talking about everything I found out the exact details of Terry's passing which truly left me amazed...

My momma had sent me that message that his oxygen was so low and his breathing became very violent and so sad to watch so her and Terry's daughter and his ex-wife (whom he was still great friends with) all took their turns telling Terry that it was okay to leave now, they wanted him to be free from the pain and they would be okay. His daughter who is 19 yrs old struggled so hard to say those words to her daddy but she did it for him. The nurse was in the room checking his vitals right after his daughter said her goodbye's and he flatlined, the nurse said "that's it, he is gone" then they all started sobbing hysterically and within a minute or so Terry very suddenly gasped for breath and his heart started again...The nurse was SHOCKED, she said she had never seen anything like that, but his breathing was very hard and difficult for him so they knew that he had fought his way back because they were so sad. So they then all took their turns again telling him it was going to be okay, they did not want him hurting anymore and to go meet Jesus, this went on for 10 minutes and he left again for the last time...

At that precise time my J was running the ball and that bright light blinded me, one of our other friends was driving to the hospital to be with Terry and she was blinded by this strangest light, just like I was. She described it to me as I was describing it to her and we both were at a loss and just new it was beautiful and blinding. All of this time that Terry has been sick he and I both believed that he would be healed. When he got the diagnosis back in May of the metastatic disease he told me "this will not kill me, I will beat it". I was so upset and sad that he was not cured, that he was no longer with us! I wanted him healed!!! 

It was told to my momma by the nurse at the hospital that our body does what they call "modeling" when it is shutting down. Which explained his hands being purple Friday morning, see *modeling* is when the heart shuts off blood flow to the "non-important" areas of the body to protect the main organs while your body is shutting down. Even your brain, the last to go is the heart which explains why you seek God with your heart and not your brain because the heart is the strongest. One of our friends said she too was so upset because she too believed he was going to be healed and then another one of our friends said that's what we're missing. God didn't lead us astray in our thinking, he told us Terry would be healed but we just assumed it was healed HERE with us...But it wasn't that way, he was healed through Jesus in Heaven...WOW that was an eye opener!! So while we grieve the loss of our friend we are most thankful that he is HEALED and no longer feels the pain.

Terry a wonderful friend who will always be missed...

Today we buried our friend and he will be terribly missed! It was so funny to hear how many different people said one of their favorite things about Terry was his hugs! We all thought that but didn't know the other thought that LOL! He was a gentle giant, one of a kind that's for sure...

Always Cherish Those We Love...

I had such a great weekend and I couldn't wait to share it with you all! Unfortunately that great weekend is a bit of a memory now after today. Almost a year ago I posted about numerous sad things that were going on and in that post I mentioned my friend Dennie, at the time he had just been diagnosed with cancer but it was unknown what type and stage it was. Shortly after that post it was found that Dennie had a very aggressive cancer that started in his pancreas and had metastasized to his liver. It was a very odd cancer in origin as it wasn't an actual "pancreatic cancer" it had actually died off in the pancreas and had been spreading for many years the Dr's said. It was likely to have been there close to a decade before it moved into the liver and took on a life of it's own.

I should tell you here that this is not the same friend I told you about here, that is a different friend who is currently fighting his terrible battle with cancer...

Let me tell you about Dennie, he was 40 when he was diagnosed and was the husband of my lifelong best friend Shanna. I was the Matron of Honor in their wedding. He was a great Christian man who dedicated his life to God's calling, was he perfect? NO! He fought trials just like us all. Dennie was actually a very good friend of my other life long best friend Trisha and they had met through church. He had a daughter (whom he pretty much raised) and my friend had 2 daughters so they spent alot of time together with their girls. Dennie had a best friend named Mark and he helped get Mark and Trish together who have now been married for 7 years I think. After that they always felt so bad for Dennie because he was single and would make an awesome husband! That's where Shanna comes in, they introduced the two and they pretty much hit it off from the start. They were married within a year, Shanna had 3 kids from her previous marriage and Dennie had the 1 daughter. Then after being married for a year or so they got pregnant and had a son of their own.

Such a handsome man!

Dennie and Shanna shared a somewhat hard life together. Even though they were both awesome people who loved each other dearly they had problems they couldn't get past. After about 5 years of marriage they ended up separated which was around the time that Dennie was diagnosed. Their divorce was actually finalized after he was getting fairly sick...In any case Dennie had a great support system and first tried chemo but then after the Dr's decided that the cancer was not responding to the treatment they gave him an option, they told him that he could have surgery to remove half of his liver and with that scenario he had a 50% chance of dying on the table and there was no promises that it would work. He chose not to do the surgery and decided to try a natural healing clinic in Colorado. I am not sure what the clinic did for him, but I do know that they teach you about taking care of your body and trying to kick start your body to fight the cancer itself. Unfortunately this did not work, so Dennie was then left without any options.

Dennie with his little sidekick ;)

He fought this battle for almost a year, the cancer ravaged his body. He no longer looked like a man in his late 30's, he looked like a very sick man in his 60's. He spent months in so much pain from the cancer spreading and growing massively in his body. So big that he could point to the area that was forming under his skin. His quality of life was not something good it was terrible, the last few months of his life he couldn't even stay awake longer than a few hours a day and needed constant care to do even the simplest of things...I bring this up because there is so much confusion among some people where they think that only chemo treated patients will lose all ability to do anything and lose precious quality life time. It is simply not true...Not that ALL cancer patients will go through what Dennie did, but patients with cancers of that nature will.

Dennie sharing his last Father's Day with his kiddo's

I am so saddened to share that Dennie passed away early Sunday morning with friends and family all around him. They knew he was getting ready to leave them as his system started shutting down Saturday, however they did not expect it to be so quick. Dennie left behind 2 children, 1 daughter who is the same age as my DD of 11, and 1 son who is 3 1/2...He also left 3 children who still considered him their stepdad and my other friends 2 girls that considered him as an uncle. He will be missed deeply but he will never be forgotten.

A smile that will never be forgotten...

So my message today is simply this, treasure those you love and never take a single moment for granted. I think we are all guilty of it, I know I sure am!

Then to just top everything off this Sunday afternoon J's 9 month old Australian Shepherd was struck by a truck and killed...Struck by a truck that was driven by a friend of his! She was never a dog to go in the road so we don't understand what she was doing out there! J's friend had passed our house a few minutes earlier and was not driving fast like people usually do down our dirt road and when he came back down the road he said she just flew out from beside the mailbox that sits on the other side of our road, I was very thankful that this young man at least came to our door and told the Hubby what happened, he felt extremely bad about it...She was a sweet little girl and incredibly loving! She also liked to bark...ALOT...J is very upset over this, I wish I could just take the pain away! What a crappy way to end a previously great weekend...

Chevy at 3 weeks old...I'm sure I have more current pics but I just love this one of her!

Does It Ever Really End?

I wish I was writing to say that I have had a fabulous weekend but I'm not...This has been the strangest most emotionally challenging weekends for me maybe ever. Most of you know that my dad passed away 5 years ago this coming October. I posted a memorial post for him on the 4 year anniversary of his death and told you all about him.

My brother and I a couple of years ago...

But what I did not tell you was about his wife...My mom and dad were married when I was born, but divorced when I was 1 year old. I lived with my mom until I was a teenager then I left and went to my dad's. My whole life my dad stayed single, his whole life revolved around myself and my brother. After I had J he met a woman and married her when I was 17. After they were married and she moved in we had some issues, she did not like the fact that dad was so close to us kids and me especially. So one night she had been drinking and got mad at me cause J (who was 1 1/2 at the time) was watching TV at 10 pm, big deal I said! So she proceeded to bust my door in then came after me trying to attack me. My dad quickly ran and dragged her out into the hall where she tried to reach around him to hit me and he held her back. Ultimately she kicked J and I out that night and we went and stayed with a friend. The next day I came back and the house was destroyed, my dad informed me that she would never come at me again as she has been warned. He was right she never did try again and she seemed to try hard to like me. I left home shortly after that as it was not good for us to be in the same house, for me it was my house and for her I was an intrusion.

I should mention that the house we lived in was paid for by my dad before he ever married her. But after being married to her and putting her through nursing school he mortgaged the house to pay for her student loans. After she graduated school my dad lost his job of 27 years over a mistake of taking off work to go help one of her kids that needed him and he did not clock out when he left. There was a transition going on in the company and no room for mistakes so he was terminated immediately. After that he had a rough time as that was all he had ever done and was devastated to be in that position. Things just got worse and worse to the point where his wife "C" wouldn't even give him money for anything...He was only allowed a gas card to get gas. He came to TX to see me a few times when we lived there and would come with no money as she wouldn't allow it and he would usually leave without even saying where he was going. This is why he had to tell me what was going on because he had no money for food or anything else. He was so ashamed and I was so heartbroken for the greatest guy on earth!

My daddy

So fast forward to his passing away, maybe someday I can share with you what happened to him. Actually I kind of think now I will never know. But after he passed away, about a month and half later his wife moved in his "best friend"!! Into my dad's house! This man was a chronic drug user and my dad always had a soft spot for him as they grew up together (that's why he was even in his life). But his wife C "felt sorry for Marty" and decided that she needed company anyhow...WHAT?! Pretty much shortly after that I wasn't speaking to her anymore. To be honest I was very bitter about the way she treated my dad after everything he had done to support her and now she was living in a house my dad paid for and with his best friend!!!!! I asked her numerous times to please let me have my dad's personal belongings such as photo albums from my child hood but she wouldn't respond. I sent her letter after letter, even certified and they were returned. She soon after that filed bankruptcy, with a debt of around $140,000 which was astounding considering the house was only mortgaged for $40,000 and she didn't get any new vehicles or anything! So after she filed I couldn't file a civil suit against her and I just left it alone.

I knew that in that house there were illegal things going on. There was covering over the garage door windows and I knew he was a drug user so I suspected she might have fallen into it as well. I have a family member across the street who would periodically tell us there were strange things going on over there and he tends to keep a watch out. So Saturday afternoon he called my granny's and spoke to my cousin who then called me to tell me that C had been arrested...They were told she was abusing prescription meds and drinking. So after many calls to the jail we finally found out she was being charged with Domestic Violence Battery and Domestic Violence Assault. So I messaged her daughter and asked what the heck was going on and she informed me that the relationship C had with Marty was out of control and he "beats her all the time" and well she tries to kick him out but he came back with his kid who is very badly behaved and she tried to get him to leave and he refused then something happened and she proceeded to chase the son around the yard and hit him on the back of the head. WOW, this did not surprise me as I have been that kid...However her daughter claimed that she was not taking the meds and drinking and found it very hard to believe her mom attacked that kid or me. I responded that I have a letter from her mom apologizing for that and that she felt like her actions ruined my dad's love for her. All of which she wrote me after his death. So needless to say last night I was MAD! I wanted vengeance on this woman and all of the hell she has caused for me and my brother and especially my dad! I of course did not say that to her daughter I just simply told her that what I said was true and I was glad she never harmed them.

So today (Sunday) early afternoon I get a message that says "well you will never have to worry about C again as she committed suicide last night"?! WHAT?!!! I was shocked! And saddened and angry that now I'll never get the truth about things. My heart breaks for her kids and grand kids, I'm at such a loss for words. After speaking with her son whom I have not spoken to in almost 5 years I learned that she knew the cops were coming to arrest her and so she proceeded to take a whole bottle of aspirin, he other son told the police but she lied and said it wasn't true so they sent her to the jail, she later complained of stomach pains and by the time they got the jail nurse down there she was asleep so they left her alone only to find out she died in her sleep. Again WOW...

Her son called me (which by way she told her kids that my brother and I were harassing her and breaking into the house stealing things...Only today did he finally think that just maybe she lied) because he says he believes that my brother and I should have everything of my dad's that we have been asking for and he also believes the house should go back to us. I told him I have a hard time taking his word as I have been waiting 5 years just to have simple pictures that we now know had been thrown away. Her son confirmed to us tonight that C had in fact been on numerous different drugs including crystal meth, crack, cocaine, heroine and something else...I am not good with drug names..Her daughter also messaged me again today and said "she lied to me last night when she said her mom was clean because she was trying to defend her but she had in fact found out last night that she was on meth". So I guess I am going to be hiring an attorney over the house thing. I'm thinking if she has this huge debt I won't be able to take the house but I'm not sure at this point where all of that stands. I am under the impression she had not been working either. I was informed tonight that the house is FULL of drug paraphernalia; needles, broken needles, syringes, spoons, coffee cans full of needles and such etc etc etc...Her son said he actually had to leave the house as it was about to make him throw up it is so bad. I am really upset by this, my dad took such care of his house and now I hear the whole thing is trashed!

Please pray for me...