I try to do the whole Thankful Post thing on Facebook and I'm ok up until the 8th and then......... then I just can't think. I see everybody posting all their thankful things and I am thankful for the same things they are, so I like THEIR statuses but then I can't write my own. Life sucks in November.
This year tho, I felt better on Raina's birthday than I have before. Why? She had her grandpa up there with her. Yes. Let's talk about that one too. My dad physically died on October 22 this year. The thing people don't get tho, is that he died TO ME probably 2-3 years ago. He was NOT the cool guy I grew up with. He turned into a guy who was only the jackass that I knew. He had two sides my whole life. The awesome side and the other side. And listen here, if you didn't KNOW both sides of him, I don't wanna hear it from you. Your opinion is null and void and you know absolutely NOTHING of what I went thru. Got that? Thanks.
Now, moving on... Like I said, the last few years he was only the jerk and the cool guy surfaced so rarely that I didn't even go visit him. I told him several years ago that I WOULD NOT allow my kids to be treated the way I was and so to protect them I didn't bring them to see him. After 6months or a year, I can't remember which it was actually, he straightened out his act and was FUN TO BE AROUND. It was drastic enough of a turn around that the first time we went there and he wasn't crabby Rosie looked at him and said with shock and joy in her voice, "Grandpa!!! You haven't even been crabby at us ONE TIME today!!!" And after that, he never was.
Reece had had a hard time with it all, since he loves me and stuff, and he never wanted to go visit dad. But 2 weeks before he went into the ICU we had dentist appointments in Fergus and went to see him. We were there for 2 or 3 hours!!!!! I was SO happy! I had asked forgiveness for my junk and he had reciprocated a month or two before that and so I'm happy for THAT also. Reece made his peace with dad the week before he died when he had just gotten transferred to Fargo. And even tho dad was in a coma, and when he looked at you it was sort of a blank stare type thing, Reece said his eyes looked happier after he said his piece. I KNOW people can still hear when they are in a coma.
I really loved my dad. It hurt like the dickens the way things were. It did. And I know he loved me. It just somehow got lost on the shuffle of disturbed minds and many many years of hurts. I am just SO happy I got the feeling I did when I was leaving one day in June or July that he was going to die soon so I had to take care of everything. It's why I firmly believe he's in Heaven even after all his failures. I mean come on. Humans fail.
That fact has been revealed to me a lot the last month. I'm human. I have screwed up so badly with Reece that I acted like his mother. That isn't something to be taken lightly. It's HORRIBLE that I did something that could be compared to her. It's completely unacceptable and I hate it. He's been thru enough years of hell that he CERTAINLY shouldn't get it from me!! It has been forgiven and stuff, but that doesn't take away the hurt that *I* acted so badly.
Reece is one of the most forgiving people I know. He really is. I could spend my life trying to live up to his standard of forgiveness and still fall short. I love that guy to infinity and beyond if that's possible. But he's also human and he has struggles. He has years and years and years of defense mechanisms ingrained into him and I just have to keep proving to him that I really do love him no matter what. No matter if he's human. No matter that he stumbles and falls and has to scrape himself up again. I still love him. I love him for himself and there have been very few people in his life that actually have done that. I think that's really hard for him to understand even tho I've been doing it for 8 years. The thing I always have to remember is that he had 26 years of other behavior toward him. And that makes it real hard for me to not hate some people...
We just had us a situation and I was in a funk all day yesterday. Then last night he made a comment in a lost little boy voice and boy. Let me tell YOU. My blood started flowing again REAL fast. I informed him that this ISN'T his fault, and it never HAS BEEN his fault. I pointed something out to him that I don't think he ever realized before and I think it helped him understand things a bit better. I sure hope so anyway! Nobody should have to live under the assumption that they aren't good enough to be loved unconditionally. Especially not my husband. That's bull crap. It's one thing if people treat ME that way. It's an entirely different problem when HE is treated that way.
We have been busy this month setting up boundaries and trying to keep ourselves safe from the stupidity of others. We need safeguards and anybody who says differently obviously doesn't know what they're talking about or what they're defending. It's wrong. It always has been wrong and it will always be wrong. The thing that is needed is repentance, not casting more blame and condemnation and lies.
And then close friends have to go they crap, which makes me REALLY mad. But all I can do is sit there and try to be there for them and try to help them make the right choices and explain what I see... Sheesh. Bring on December already, cause November sucked! And that's life.
I hear you a so much of this stuff. November has been good except our friend Big Hank and this cold/sore throat but July sucks.
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