Consider this... "Hallelujah!"

I was surfing YouTube and came across this. I had no idea the impact it would have on me. I've just re-watched it again and as before, I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face.

I don't know if you know this about me, but I sing. I sing well enough at least. I know all of Handel's Messiah in 3 of the parts. I can't manage to sing bass in the proper range but that's all to the good *smiles*. My mom used to play the whole of The Messiah on either piano or organ. That organ you see about 12 seconds into the above video wouldn't have been above my mom's ability when she was in her prime. She played a similar one at Notre Dame for one of my cousin's wedding. She played it beautifully too. She adapted the wedding processional from The Sound of Music working into the traditional "Here Comes The Bride". It was absolutely grand!

Note from the "Hallelujah" vid at the beginning, something I hadn't noticed until this last. The Christmas tree in the store is exactly the Christmas tree my mom always strove for. She went mostly with blue lights, but that's the effect she wanted. But I digress...

The reason I'm sharing all of this is to tell you how wonderful my mom is, what a gifted musician she is/was, and how much I miss that. We were able to get her piano down to my sister's house where mom and dad are staying now. She has that again at least. She gets so upset that she's no longer able to play as well as she once used to. The stroke she had several years back robbed her of some of the coordination it takes. But she still plays well.

She wasn't able to teach me how to play piano. My communication style left her very frustrated with me... well, it did/does with most people. I know the reason why for that now. But, mom tried her best to help me as I diligently taught myself. If I hit the wrong key, she'd call out from wherever she was in the house (usually the kitchen) with the correct one I should be playing. I'd find it and try again. If I still had difficulty, she'd come over and show me by example reaching over my shoulder.

She's the first person to ever "get" me. I know I drove my family nuts because of the problems I had/still have. I saw/still see things at a different angle from the masses. Always have and probably always will. And try as I might, at that age, I couldn't see things from the angle that everyone else were seemingly able to.

Once, when my mom was directing the church choir, she'd asked me to help her with the syncopation of a new song she was teaching the them. I took her at her word and when she wasn't getting it quite right, I tried to teach her like she taught me the piano. I didn't realize that it would embarrass her in front of the choir. I just knew she wanted me to help and I was trying my best.

She yelled at me in front of them. Yelled. Mom didn't yell often and I simply got up and walked out of the sanctuary. I sat on the hallway floor across from the pastor's study and waited for choir to be done. After she'd gotten everything put away, she came out and stood over me. We started to argue and then I said those words that most teens say at one time or other, "You just don't understand me," and I started to cry. That heart-wrenching, tears pouring, cry from your soul type of cry.

Something about that struck a chord with her. She told me to come with her to the car and she started driving out of the parking lot... a straight across the street to the parsonage. She met the pastor at the door, talked for a bit with him, then signaled for me to come inside with her. Pastor listened to both of us. Then he did something that entirely shocked me.

He told my mom that she was wrong, that he'd seen how our family interacts and knew that no one took the time to really "hear" me. She started crying, I started crying, we started crying in each other's arms. That's the night mom learned to understand... when she really started listening... and I found a voice. And... we started becoming friends. She became more than mom, she became "K-wohl" (that's "Carol" with your tongue between your lower lip and lower teeth).

Now that mom and dad aren't here in my home any longer, it's really struck me how much things have changed. While they were here I was so busy learning a new job, keeping the kids as quiet as possible, trying to see to my parent's needs, trying to make things pleasant for them, and just too busy. I'm still too busy, but this week has been a week of reminiscing.

Never again are we all going to sing together as a family around my mom playing the piano. Never again will I have the opportunity to hear her play her rendition of "Shower's of Blessing" or her arrangement of "Every Moment of Every Day" with the "Theme from The Pink Panther" as the intro (boy, did she get looks from the congregation the morning she debuted that *LOL*) or hear her yell to me from the kitchen the correct key from the one I struck in error

I miss my momma... I'm 51 years old, and I miss my K-Wohl...

Consider this... Birthdays

Tomorrow is my 51st birthday. I was born on August 22nd in 1959, at 3:05 pm which makes me a cuspy Leo/Virgo... hence the previous post about that year. If you haven't seen it yet, click 1959.

This has definitely been an eventful year. Last October, I spent a month in Lexington, Kentucky at Saint Joseph Hospital, East. My dad was showing sick back in June during vacation, spent a month at home promising to visit the doctor before he left to spend a month or so with my sister in Florida. I'm still not quite sure if he visited the doctor or not. During vacation with us, he would seem to forget exactly what he was doing. He'd go to sit and seem to get stuck 1/2 way down to the chair and wouldn't move again until someone nudged him verbally or physically. He showed no signs of being ill while at sisters, but on the way home he took ill again. I got a call from my mom worried that he'd had a stroke. She was waffling between taking him home to the doctor's or to the hospital. I had to ask her how she would feel if dad died on the way home to convince her to check him in. His kidneys had failed, he had a MRSA in his blood, and developed pneumonia and blood clots in his arm and legs before they finally got him well enough to return home. The doctor stated that he'd never seen someone as sick as dad was actually leave the hospital under his own power, even if that was a wheel chair.

Next came almost 6 months of mom and dad staying with us here at the house. We had their bed brought from their house, brought dad's lift chair and mom bought herself one, ensconced them in the living room as comfortably as possible, and tried our level best to keep the noise of the children from driving them insane. Dad has never been an easy man and growing up with him and his harshness made me determined to not allow him to visit his wrath on my kids as much as possible. On the reverse side, I slept on the couch in the basement, in my step-son's room, and in the basement's bedroom before my husband was convinced to finally get our bed set up in the basement.

We made it to April. Dad was getting on the kids for every little thing. Even if I were around for which he had explicit instructions to leave them to me then. I had to have left the dinner table at least 6 times the last couple of weeks they were there to just keep the peace. The straw/camel/back thing happened when dad got after my youngest for not having a cold Dr. Pepper in the fridge. I had had it by that time and let me dad know in no uncertain terms (and no uncertain language) that I wasn't standing for it another moment. He could either watch his actions and words or he could leave. He decided to leave at midnight that night and mom decided to go with him... to a house infested with mice.

I was torn between my victory and my guilt for their situation. When my sister went to the pastor of their church for some help for mom/dad in cleaning up their house, she was told by him that "that's the children's job". Forget all the support to the church my mom and dad have given over the years. Forget the fact that all of their children had duties and responsibilities for their own work/families. One of the many reasons I don't go to church now. I'm sick of this behavior with people who assume the name of Christ. They got their house in order, lost all of their furniture because of the infestation, and any food in boxes that the rodents could get into. By the way, dad and I had a discussion where we agreed to disagree but he knows now in no uncertain terms he is not to behave that way towards my kids any longer.

Fast forward... June, dad fell going up the steps and cut his knee a bit. Then, without checking the levels of Coumadin (remember the blood clots?) in his blood, they removed his ureteral stent and sent him home where he promptly began bleeding furiously. Mom got him to the hospital where they ended up giving him 5 units of blood. We only hold 5-6 units folks. So yeah, he almost died again.

Then, I lost my business from the time I had spent in Lexington. It wasn't big but it was starting to grow. I just couldn't recover from the time-loss and money loss. Consequently, my husband and I ended up filing for bankruptcy. It's not something we're well pleased with, but we had no choice. We filed once before when my husband almost died from a mosquito bite (viral encephalitis or equine encephalitis as most people call it). We lost our home that time but this time we're managing to keep it so far.

So, now that should be enough for anyone you'd think, right? Well, you couldn't be as far from the truth than that.

Got a call about a month ago late at night on a Wednesday from my brother that mom had been taken to the Hillsdale Community Health Center for a fall and breaking her nose. She had apparently fallen at church. How he got that information?? He called again early Thursday stating that it wasn't her nose, it was her back, it was broken, and she was being taken emergently to Bronson Hospital Trama Care in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She had a broken vertebra mid-way down her spine. I hot-footed it over to the hospital to find my mom looking like this:

Trust me, I've never seen her looking so bad. They had her doped up even at that point. She has no recollection of those days at Bronson. The first she truly remembers after Hillsdale Hospital is the day after surgery. They had her that way to manage the pain but even then she cried. I don't know if you've ever had to hold your mom's hand when she's in pain, but believe me, it isn't easy. I couldn't deal. I left. I came back the next day, but I left. Not proud of that, but I'd run out of strength. I left... and I cried all the way home. I don't remember that trip and it's an hour's drive. Went back to that hospital every night after work and spent hours with her on my days off. But that isn't all...

The weekend after she fell, my dad collapsed at the hospital. Sister from Indiana took him to the emergency room there at Bronson, but they couldn't find a reason. Brother took him home to his house but the next day, dad couldn't climb the stairs to leave the house. Brother took him to Jackson's Allegiance Hospital where they discovered his MRSA was back. It was caught in time but now I had 2 hospitals to divide my time between. Mom's surgery went well, although she kept seeing mice on the ceiling of her room and the recovery room thanks to wonderful medication. And dad was on one of the strongest antibiotics he could be to drive the infection from his blood.

About 3 weeks ago, mom and dad made it to rehab in Chelsea, Michigan. They're in the same room and both are improving. They're expected to be released in about 2 weeks and will be spending the rest of their recuperation with my sis in Indiana then spending the winter with my sis in Florida. Dad's afraid that if they come to my home that he'll lose me forever. He wouldn't, but I'm not telling him. Let him worry.

This was taken 5 days ago

AND, on top of it all, I also lost one of my dearest friends back when things were getting really interesting. He always said he'd be there for me, that he couldn't imagine his life without me, how much he loved me and how much I'd been a boone for him and he wouldn't be the man he is today without my influence. Apparently, I didn't do as good a job of influencing as I'd thought or he confessed. Apparently when you get a real life girlfriend, any statements made previously are moot. He says it's because he'd grown to depend on me too much (insert laugh here) but ... yeah... not fooling me whatever he says. Thanks a lot and don't let the door bat you on the fanny on your way out... and yes, I mean fanny, stupid Englisher.

So, that was my year...

How was yours?