Believing

 29 May 2014

Today is William's would be/ should be 7th birthday. I am finishing another blog post about some of the things I have learned from his brief life and early death......but in the meantime I want to share with you a song that from the moment I first heard it reminded me of him. My sweet boy that I love so much keeps me BELIEVING. The song was sung on the television show Nashville. It was written by the VERY gifted Kate York. The lyrics are absolute perfection in describing one of the gifts my William gave to me.

Enjoy,

Ginger

"Believing"

I don't remember,

How I got here,

When my rose colored glasses disappeared

Sometimes my fingers,

They can lose touch,

and I start letting go of everything I love

When I get the feeling,

That my prayers have hit the ceiling,

On those darker days,

When my faith has lost all meaning,

You keep me believing

My fears are safe here

Held in your hands

When I'm broken, 

You put me back together again

All that I once was,

All I could be,

When I've forgotten,

Baby you remind me,

When I get the feeling,

That my prayers have hit the ceiling,

On those darker days,

When my faith has lost all meaning,

You keep me believing

If ever your red heart starts beating blue 

All you are to me,

Baby I’ll be that for you

When I get the feeling 

That my prayers have hit the ceiling,

On those darker days 

When my faith has lost all meaning

You keep me believing

Donna Day 2014

So here we are at Donna Day 2014

Never heard of Donna? PLEASE do yourself a favor and read her story here. Her mother, Mary Tyler Mom, chronicled her story a few years back for a September series on childhood cancer. It was HER story that moved me to share my own child’s story~ different in every way except 1~ just like MTM I no longer get to parent one of my children…….that child died.

To those who do not know her~ Donna is just an ordinary girl who developed a rare terminal brain cancer and it killed her. I can assure you Donna IS VERY FAR from ordinary. You need only read her story to know this truth.

Then the real joy and amazement begins….you read about how her mother has parented Donna in the only way she can~ by sharing her story and with it changing the world.  Powerful stuff right there yo. Powerful stuff indeed.

I don’t come at you with a ton of facts and figures. I don’t come t you asking you to do anything you can’t afford.

What I come at you with is one small question…………what would YOU do if it happened to you?

It’s a VERY uncomfortable and painful thing to think about……planning the funeral for your very own child~ believe you me: I KNOW.

For the MILLIONS of children diagnosed every year with cancer the choice to ‘look away’ is snatched from their family and from them. Once you move to Cancerville~ you might change houses~ but you never get to leave the neighborhood. This I learned from Donna.

Today, quite frankly, it would be easier for me to look away. It would be quite easy for me to be swept up in my own life issues~ some more pressing than others. It would be quite easy to say I am too tired, too stressed, too sad, too overwhelmed, too ANYTHING to think about this sensitive and very painful subject.

But there is one reason I cannot look away…..and that reason is Donna.

I don’t LIKE to think about when I planned my own child’s funeral. I cannot even BEGIN to imagine what it was like for the Mary Tyler Family to bear witness to her 31 months of treatment, to accept in the end that Donna would not survive, to even find the strength to carry on……. much less do what they have done.

They have founded a charity in her name (www.donnasgoodthings.org). 

They have teamed with St. Baldrick’s to advocate for and FUND childhood cancer research (http://www.stbaldricks.org/events/mypage/6969/2014). 

THEY have taken the tragedy of beautiful Donna’s death and used it to change the world.

If they can do that  then by gods I will look this fear, emotion, tragedy and triumph RIGHT IN THE FACE.

I will scream from the rooftops that we MUST do better.

I will remember what it is like to plan my child’s funeral.

I will face the fear that comes with knowing at any time one of my living children could be diagnosed.

I will cry.

I will write.

I will share.

I will donate.

BECAUSE WE MUST DO BETTER. THESE CHILDREN DESERVE BETTER.

They print more money everyday…..but there will never, ever be another Donna Quirke-Hornik. Her family will NEVER be the same without her.

So I ask you again: what would YOU do if it happened to YOU?

Please read, share, and donate if you can.

Please lift the Mary Tyler Family up in your thoughts, prayers, meditations……whatever it is you do, please take a moment to think of them.

At the end of the day……..even when we are *celebrating* the children we no longer get to parent, that precious child is still dead. Emotions are on overload.

MTM I love you.

Thank you for sharing Donna with me and for allowing me to share in the beautiful gift of her legacy.

Love and light,

G

The Day After

4 January

the day after

After what you might ask?

And the true answer is that I do not know…………..but I know it’s AFTER.

I meant to write some sort of ‘year in review’ blog sometime in November………and then sometime in December……….but as I usually do~ I got distracted and the pieces and funny things in my head never made their way to the computer. They never formed the story I thought I was going to tell.

Truth is that happens with almost every blog. Since I don’t live on an Island where all of my needs are taken care of and I am free to just wander around thinking charming, witty, hilariously funny or ridiculously sad thoughts and then committing them to print before they flee out of my head forever~~~~I have an idea~ something happens (usually SEVERAL somethings) and POOF the idea is gone. Replaced with whatever ‘somethings’ came up.

I do this with lots of things
housecleaning
laundry
homework
eating
relationships

I start it~ get distracted and then happen upon it later and think “Oh yeah, I wondered where that went” if I even remember that it existed at all……..----cuz sometimes I’m all like “WHO LEFT THIS HERE” and then I get a suspicion it might have been me.

I have A LOT of grand plans and ideas in my head. I’d say about 90% of them don’t happen.

I have A LOT of words in my head. Although people who know me would say that 90% of them come out of my mouth~ they’d actually be wrong. Sure sometimes things fly out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to catch up to the thought and STOP it from being said aloud…..okay okay OKAY it doesn’t just happen “sometimes”…..it happens often. And it is one of the first things about me people notice and it’s usually the thing that has a great deal to do with whether they like me immediately, dislike me immediately, are afraid of me, wonder what the hell is wrong with me, want to be near me, can’t wait to be away from me~ or some amalgamation of all of the above.

Those thoughts I am well known for putting immediately into words. I have a story for almost everything~ and if you’re friends with me you’ve heard a good deal of them.

But THOSE are not the thoughts and stories that need told today.

See what most folks who don’t know me well don’t know~ is that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of OTHER thoughts, ideas and stories in my head. My brain is a veritable whirling dervish of flight of ideas.

There are those that I tell only the people I love and trust the most~ the people I feel will keep them safe.

Then there are those that I tell to people (sometimes people unknown to me) because of some sort of instant connection that bonds us together immediately. These can be some dark ones.

Then there are those that I tell only 1 or 2 people in the whole world. These are my secrets. And believe it or not I have HUGE trust issues~ so I sometimes keep secrets a long time before I trust in someone or something enough to reveal them. And there are secrets that I have kept and will keep for a lifetime.

Then there are those that I tell no one. These are the real scary ones my friends. THIS is where the demons that have haunted me for as long as I can remember live~ and breed~ and strengthen. Once in a while one will surface and it will beg an audience. And it usually terrorizes me until I’ve no choice but to give it and audience or go crazy keeping it inside of my head.

It’s the same with blogging~ get a thought~ it changes~ I lose it……….but the tenacious ones keep coming back. And they keep banging around in my head until the cacophony of noise is too much to bear and I HAVE TO GET IT OUT. And then a blog is born or a story is told~ almost always through a great deal of emotion.

And so here we are 4 January~ the day AFTER.

Last November after several false starts, ideas and failures……The Apocalyptic Ginger Chronicles became a real live THING. Something tangible. A place where I could put the quick thoughts and the ridiculously long stories into words.

A place to set some of the demons free. And in doing so~ I have taken away their power over me~ or at least most of it anyway.

It has morphed into something more~ and two people dear to me have access to the page and share their own stories and ideas. You know them as MAMW and Kumasan. These two keep the PAGE going when I am off side tracked by life.

But the blog…..the blog is different. It is just mine. These stories are my own. Many people IN the stories don’t WANT them to be told……..and sometimes I honor that and gloss over their part……but sometimes I SHOUT THEIR PART OUT LOUD for the world to see~ damn the consequences. For them or me.

Since I started the blog life has continued to whiz by. People have been born. People have died. Anniversaries and birthdays celebrated. Anniversaries and birthdays forgotten and unacknowledged. We have been sick. We have been well. Holidays and family visits have been enjoyed. Holidays and family visits have just been survived. People have come into my life and changed it forever. People have left my life and changed it forever.

 4 January……As I look around my house today it looks like someone came in a ransacked the place. Seriously. It’s bad. There is STUFF everywhere. Very little is clean. Very little is currently in the place where it belongs. Much of it is mixed up and buried in a pile somewhere. Every flat surface is cluttered and covered with crap that needs dealt with. It looks like Christmas came and threw up here~ and like that bad friend at the party who throws up on your shit and just LEAVES it there~ the Christmas vomit is everywhere and needs to be cleaned up. There are piles of laundry, dishes in the sink and a cat box that needs scooped. My house is loud and it’s crazy. I have promised too much. Committed to too many different things and started WAY too many projects that I think are UNDER the piles of crap and Christmas vomit everywhere. There are 15 things scheduled today and only 7 will get done. There are hundreds of things I WANT and NEED to do today~ but only about 3 of those will actually get done.

And at 4 o’clock this morning I realized that the state of my HOUSE at this very moment is the physical manifestation of the state of my LIFE and ALMOST ALL of my interpersonal relationships at this very moment.

It’s been a hell of a year. It’s been a wild ride. There are memories now burned into my brain and scars permanently etched on my body and on my heart. There are treasures that I hope to keep forever and look back and laugh at. And there are parts and memories and fights of EPIC proportions that I’d sooner never, ever think of again.

The fabric of my future stories is being woven even as I type this. The happy parts of my stories are being lived….. some of the demons are being dealt with and some of the demons both new and old are being buried in the hopes they won’t ever resurface.

And just like my house ain’t gonna clean itself~ my life ain’t gonna change unless I begin to make that happen.

And just like my house~ I can’t possible clean up my LIFE in one day. It is going to take time and patience and love and tears and emotion and lord knows some really uncomfortable and awkward situations.

I suppose this is the day after because it marks the end of the week where some very important commitments were shattered into a million tiny pieces………and the week when some commitments have been strengthened and some really important truths have been revealed.

If you’ve been in my life in the last 14 months (or any part of it) and I have not lived up to a commitment I made to you please know that I am sorry. I cannot go back and UNDO anything. I cannot go back and DO things differently.

The absolute best I can hope for is to put things back in order, rearrange some things, let some things go and keep in mind that I can only DO so much today.

If you’ve been in my life and I have lived up to what I promised you~ thank YOU for helping me do that. I promise it will not be forgotten.

And so I move forth~ both out of the cocoon and safety of my bedroom and out of the cocoon of  what my has been my life for a long while now.

My house and my life need some serious work. A major overhaul. Some shit needs to just be thrown out and some shit is going to take a lifetime to repair.

And I will tackle it the best I can.
Loudly and inappropriately sometimes.
With all of the passion in my heart and soul.
With love and grace (I hope).
With the help of others.
 
If you’re still HERE in my life~ buckle up and suck it up buttercup because it sure as fuck ain’t gonna be easy.

But then~ nothing worth having ever really is.

Happy page~anniversary The Apocalyptic Ginger Chronicles.

Now~ bring on the madness and the cleaning~ LET’S DO THIS FUCKING THING!!!!!!!