A Week That Will Live In Infamy

It's taken me a few days to calm down and collect myself from the events of last week. Living a life on the edge has conditioned me to be what I thought fairly "seasoned" when it comes to handling conflict and trauma. I was wrong. Last week was a wave of upset with the departure of our dearest dog and family member Sunny. Sunny was our first child. Bob had always wanted a yellow lab, and I couldn't think of a more perfect wedding present than a lovable pup. She was everything a family dog could ever be and more. She was our baby, a Nana to our children, an honorary "cat" with our cat pack, the neighborhood pet (she had special stops at the neighbors who kept treats for her), a free spirit who loved to run and play. She was always happy. There are posts and posts that could be written for Sunny the Super Sundog. Once I can write them without falling apart, I will. We've never been a family without her, and it's a hard adjustment.

Friday came and I was starting to feel some relief that the week was almost over when the phone call came. The phone call that gave me the news that I have been in fear of for at least 12 years. "Your biopsy results are in, it's malignant melanoma. We need you to come in for surgery first thing Monday morning." Well, there it was.

The millions of thoughts running through my mind between the snores of Friday night to the snores of Sunday morning could fill the remainder of the Internet.

I can't blame anyone but myself.

Chocolate was a color I used to strive for. It made me feel beautiful, it made me feel skinny, it made me feel more comfortable in my own skin. Here I am at 42, scarred, freckled, wearing a big floppy hat and SPF 100. If anyone who is reading this particular post gets anything from it, I hope it's that if you go to a tanning bed, you STOP it right away. Use sunscreen and be smart out in the sun. It CAN kill you.

Monday morning came, a new day for a new week. Surgery was successful (thank you God and Dr. Sammons) and I go back in a few weeks for another scan.

Was God trying to tell me something last week? Of course. Life is short. Make the most of every day and don't have regrets that you carry with you. Pet your dog every chance you get, wear sunscreen when you go outside, pay attention to your body, don't think you're invincible, love the ones you're with and most of all, accept the consequences and yourself.

It was a dark and stormy night...

In my night time world between snores I've witnessed many a weather beater. Snow storms, wind storms, thunderstorms, hail storms, all kinds of storms. It's the kind of night that you know you'll end up having all sorts of company in bed. I've often wondered why bedding companies don't make a "family mattress". I can see the ad now... "Tired of being smashed into 5 inch wide strip on stormy nights? Unable to move your legs when sleeping with 7? Buy the Family Mattress! Twice the Mattress with Four Times the Space!"

Lying awake I count between the snores, then between the lightning and the thunder booms.... 1...2...3... then the pattering of sleepy feet coming down the hall with a quiet scared whisper "Mama? Can I get in bed with you?" I pull the covers back and Elena hops over into the middle. The thunder gets closer. The dog starts to pace. She comes over and is now face to face with me panting with fear. I pat the bottom of the bed and her 13 year old hips get her up and over and to the side. The lightning cracks wickedly close to the house. There is a gallop heard coming down the hall ... Carmen. She runs to my side of the bed and like a mother hen lifting up her feathers, I lift the comforter and pull her up into safety.

There we are, all squeezed together, when the cats decide to muscle in. Radar stretched out along my side and Tom snuggled up with Sunny. Its the kind of night that doesn't happen often, but when it does I try to remember every moment because one day it won't exist anymore, and I'll be back to weathering the storm in a bed of two.

It's quite a sight really. And a sound. Everyone sleeping ... and snoring.

Daffodils and Mayonnaise Jars

Ever since I was a little girl I have loved daffodils. They hold a very sentimental meaning to me for so many reasons. First, being a spring flower, the daffodils seasonally start to bloom right around my birthday. I can remember walking through the field across from 426 Dunkin Avenue in Bridgeport, West Virginia picking what daffodils I could to take home to my mother, excited that she would put them in a big glass mayonnaise jar in the middle of the kitchen table. I wasn't that fond of how daffodils smelled, but I loved the way they looked. Happy, bright, a small trumpet in the middle declaring "Joy to Ye People! Spring has Come!" When I moved from Bridegport to St. Marys, West Virginia, I was in the second grade and as you can imagine, not thrilled that we were moving. We were moving to a big old three story house next to the Baptist Church ... the parsonage. It was massive to an 8 year old girl. I knew no one. I had a huge bedroom all alone. I missed my best friend that I had to leave in Bridgeport, Annie Faris, and I wanted to go back.

Two days into our new life in St. Marys I was sulking in my second floor room and feeling sorry for myself when I kept hearing singing outside my window. I opened the window and propped a stick up to hold it and looked out. I hadn't realized that the house next door was about 3 feet away! I had never had a house so close to mine. The singing continued, and turned into humming. I caught a quick glimpse of white hair shuffling just under the open criss-cross window in the neighboring house. Spontaneously I shouted "Hellooo!". The humming stopped. I said "Hello over there!" Then a window opened on the other side of the criss-cross window room and a friendly elderly woman peered out and shouted back at me "Hello over THERE!" I had just met Mrs. West. We had a nice conversation from our second story windows.


The next morning on the front porch I was surprised with a lovely bunch of daffodils in a jelly jar with a simple note saying "Welcome, from Mrs. West".

Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all.

Spring after spring I watched the daffodils bloom around the churchyard, in the cemetery, in the park up the road and in the playground.

When it was time for me to go to college, I was thrilled to see the hillsides of daffodils in Philippi. On College Hill Road on the way up the hill to the college, there is a hill that blooms daffodils from top to bottom. I imagine they're out right now.


We would pick bundles of daffodils and sneak them off to our rooms to put in whatever empty jars we could find. I had never seen so many in one place.

Now in my 42nd year, I still get excited when its daffodil days. Watching my girls pick them out of the yard makes me smile, and I keep an old mayonnaise jar at the ready.

Nature, Nurture and Noses

In the wee hours of the night I have many perpetual thoughts. One of these thoughts are of my mother and father and how they really had their hands full with me growing up. Now that I have two children (both of which predominantly have my traits and my nose) I never miss an opportunity to thank my parents for their patience and ability to be so amazing even though I was a complete pain to have as a child. Let's face it, when you adopt a child it's a total risk. What will she be like? Is it nature or nurture? Will she grow to look like us? What traits will she have? What are we getting into?

My parents wanted a baby. They wanted a girl. 3 days old and fresh out of the Wheeling Ohio Valley General Hospital my folks lovingly opened their arms and took me to my forever home. Much like a stray getting sprung from the humane society, I had been chosen. Little did I know that I had hit the jackpot.

Being adopted was never a secret, I remember vividly in my eighth year of life the day my mother held me on her lap in the rocking chair and explained to me that I was adopted and just what exactly that meant. I had all the normal reactions. Anger, Sorrow, Wonder, Loneliness, Confusion. As I grew older I realized that I was very blessed to have been matched with such a loving mother and marvelous father. I am who I am today because of them.

I've never given my adoption status a fleeting thought until pondering one morning when I was pregnant with our first born. I had received an ad in the mail for Viacord. Reading through the colorful pamphlets about stem cells, blood banking, cord blood and genetic screening it hit me. Elena would become my only biological link. I would no longer be alone!
There would be two of us in the world together. My blood was her blood and hers, mine. Imagine my delight 5 years later that the doctors' conclusions were wrong, and Carmen June was on the way.

Just in the past year my parents have told me that they have a file about my biological mother and father. She, a very young high school girl who loved music and played the piano. He, a football player. They asked me if I wanted to see it.

I have decided it's best not for now. Body scans, mammograms, health screening and blood tests keep me on the lookout for any genetic surprises. Do I need to see it for health reasons? Not yet. Do I need to see it to curb my curiosity? That still scares me. Do I need to see it to have a biological link? Not any more.

The midnight hours are no longer saturated with thoughts of 'where did I come from?', 'where are they now?', 'what do they look like?'.

I walk tippy-toed into my girls' rooms and look at their angelic sleeping faces and then I know where I come from and where the three of us belong. Right where God put us.

Commando"ing"

Being raised under very strict rule and not permitted to do anything remotely perceived as "bad" growing up, I did what every red-blooded American preacher's kid would do upon fleeing the nest to go to college... rebelled and went wild. My Freshman year at school would prove to be one of many milestones and experiences. The highlight of my first year was to become a sister of Chi Sigma Nu sorority. Never before in my life had I had a sister, and then I had 12!
As I look back on my dorm life with 12 sisters it still makes me smile. There was always someone there to share a laugh, cry on a shoulder, partake in a bitch session, sit with at dinner, walk with to class... and pull the best pranks. "Commandoing" as we called it was our night time joy ride. It was a time for justice, mischief or just plain old orneriness. There would be no snoring that night! The word would spread across the sisters that day during classes that "tonight was the night". An hour would be set to meet, most usually this was 1:00am. Black clothing was mandatory. Faces were to be covered or blackened with makeup. Sometimes pantyhose over the head was necessary. What would be the mission for the night? Turning license plates upside down on the cars at faculty row? Mr. Bubble in the campus fountain? Body surfing on the top of a car? Toilet papering our favorite prof's office? Saran-wrapping all the public toilets? Maxi pads on the license plates of boys who had done one of us wrong? The fun never stopped. Until one night.

The night my father, who had taken a temporary staff position at the college for a professor on sabbatical, made the mistake of letting me borrow his car. The key to my father's car was on a key ring which also held the master key to all of the doors on campus. Now any other group of wild girls could have certainly used this master key to do all kinds of naughtiness. What did we do? We opened the doors of the library and drove Dad's car inside and locked the building back up. Imagine the look on my father's face when he walked out of a staff meeting the next morning to find his car the center of attention at Pickett Library. Imagine the look on MY face when the president of the college was walking right beside him.

COST: 20 hours of community service at Heiner Hall serving banquets
PRICELESS: Dad's big smile behind the wheel :)

Snoring. According to 2010 statistics, there is a 2 to 1 ratio of men to women snorers. I can attest that my entire life I have had someone snoring in it. The late night rattling, the pig whistles, the throat freight train, the nose foghorn, I've heard them all. Don't worry, this blog is not about snoring, but rather what happens "between the snores."

I've come to appreciate the night, it has taken 3 decades to get to that point. Being an insomniac wasn't terribly difficult in college, the late night weekends, all-nighters for studying, working the late shift managing the bar... there were always ways to combat not sleeping. I just had to schedule around it. When I did happen to land in my room, my suitemate's snoring could make Paul Bunyan's wood-cutting skills look like Chinese folk paper art. There was to be no sleep. Between the snores I had a life unlike anyone else that I knew in college. Some of my most precious memories of college were times that no one even knew existed, except me and my maker. Dorsey, the campus security guard, would be my only material witness if there were to be any.

The campus at night was a completely different world. No people, no hustle and bustle, no sounds but the water churning in the fountain, mountain peepers and an occasional rustling in the trees. Each building took on a different feel late at night. What during the day was a place of tortuous classes, became a sanctuary for me at night. Belting out a Prokofiev or Beethoven piece on the Yamaha concert grand piano in the campus chapel at 3:00 in the morning was exhilarating. I imagined the auditorium filled with people and I performing in the spotlight, fingers flying with reckless abandon. There were many nights spent in the chapel. I can still remember the deafening quiet once the sustain pedal was lifted up from the last chord of the piece. The quiet after the storm, rather than before.


Collecting my music books I would sling my backpack on my shoulder and slip out of the chapel just in time to see the sun making it's way up behind the dusky mountain range. My key would just be turning in the suite door in time to catch the awakening snurkling snore of a suitemate as the alarm started our day.