I think I must have slipped down a rabbit hole.
Swear it was just the start of November… now it is nearly the end!
Wish I knew where it all went, but the upside is at least we made it this far.
Traveled to my Dad’s place today after watching the Panther’s defeat the Dolphins (GO PANTHERS!). Soon after I got here and got the crew settled in, yes the pug & all the parrots, Dad was snoozing away in his recliner.
Has been a tough one. Driving in I thought I was really going to lose it. All week I have been dreading being here.
The holidays last year were so different and started Mom’s decline. Keep remembering how it all was. How frail she looked as she waited up to see my reaction at my sister’s news that she was pregnant when I arrived here for Thanksgiving last year. Remember laying in bed beside her watching cheesy holiday movies. How she used to always spend this week stressing over what to buy when & which fridge to store this or that, planning out what would cook in her oven & what would cook across the street. So much I want to talk to her about. Get her opinion on or just to hear her be excited about ideas. Plotting out who would buy what for who was always our thing. We were a great team brainstorming, getting & hiding, then wrapping and popping it under the tree.
Honestly I feel a little like I am going through the motions this year. Just trying to stay in the game but knowing I don’t have a chance. Still hard to grasp in moments like these that she is just gone. A friend, who also lost his mom to cancer several years ago tried to make me feel better by saying how “they are always with us in the traditions”, but I just feel the empty spaces of where she used to be. In time they will fill with new memories and family will grow, but tonight in this cold dark house, I just want to imagine that she is still just in the other room napping before I go and wake her to make sure she gets the next dose of whatever is needed. Almost can still hear her oxygen machine. It almost feels like she is here, but just out of sight no matter how hard I look one step ahead. I just can’t connect with her. Breaks my heart.
I have no idea how Dad is able to sleep here.
BUT… I am trying very hard to focus on the upside of things. Like that he is still living, and living here. He got so excited about us all being together again that he spent most of last week setting half the front lawn ablaze in colorful lights you can see half way down the street. So at least that tradition is still in tact.
I am very thankful I have memories to remember and that my sister and I know the recipes and have done them for years. We may not be able to run back and check on how to do something, but we were able to learn. Unbelievably thankful that we still will need the same number of chairs at the table. We just have to replace her big one for my nephew’s high chair…. which he is starting to use a little!
Also thankful for family, friends and activities to keep me living. Keep me from going completely psychotic from all the thoughts in my head and all the time to think them. Grateful for the phone calls, even the late night midbreak down panic ones, the texts that always end up actually making me lol. The walks and talks – be they beach or by the lake. I should have worn the good shoes & this blister is brutal. Hoping it doesn’t keep me from doing ok in the 5k Saturday. If so thankfully I will have my Dad there to take care of me & help me not be alone in my walk of defeat. (Which will not happen. I am finishing… even if I bleed in my new socks!) I’m even thankful for the friend who is dealing with so much stress and bad news in his life that he has blown me off a couple of times and just been too busy to make time to get together. I know he needs to be with someone and talk, because I have been there, but guys do their own ways. Hate he is dealing with it all, but upside… I see how far I have come in coping. It shows me that reaching out, tough as it is, is so beneficial and by being the one who is trying to be there for him…. I can appreciate how tough it can be when you are unsure of what to say or topics to avoid. Hoping he finds his own way to deal. Not much can be done. He knows I am here if he needs someone. We all have our ways of dealing. I certainly know the push everyone away method well. Hard to come back from.
But there is hope. There are friends all around & family… & tomorrow I get to snuggle the nephew and see what new talents he has developed. Perhaps I will see a replay of his opinion on carrots. Eat a bit then save the spoonfuls til you have enough to spray them all over your mom’s face, glasses, work scrubs…. sounded hilarious! Even got a big wad on her cheek. Talents! He will make me smile. He will be the light in this dark time. For him I will be happy. He deserves to know happy holidays.
Also I have news on adding a little one to my family.
Somehow I didn’t get the same reaction as my sister did, but then again it isn’t the same. Feathered babies just don’t count with her. Mom would have been excited & would have been checking it out before I could get the cage through the door! Grandbirds made her happy, as do the grand dogs.
The rescue group that I work with got a dream to come true & it is WONDERFUL! We are now an actual non-profit 501c3 filed with the state & we can take donations that let people get tax credit for making them. Huge step. Now we can better get in money that we can feel good about knowing they can get something too.
Best news & the one I squealed in getting to visit is the aviary is set up! The first one anyway! For Budgies who need a home for whatever the reason. No bird left behind.
The first residents seems to be in heaven when I visited. They have a box to sleep in, but they don’t, plenty of perches, heated room and another more open screened area to enjoy the day’s weather and the flow of the breezes. Plants are being planned to provide more tasty treats, fun to sit around on and a bit of variety. These birds just moved into the Magic Kingdom for birds!
To get to the box there are a couple of rules for safety. On being you must be able to fly this high in order to play in the box. Flash back to when you were too short to ride the coasters. Thankfully the ones who aren’t ready don’t know what they are missing & seem to be having fun in a big indoor cage together. Most are there due to wings being clipped to the point where they can’t fly & wouldn’t be able to get to the water dish & food. So they wait. Wings grow back & soon they will soar with the others.
Except maybe this one. The birds come from all places – owners who just don’t know what they were doing and their kid no longer cares, too many babies to keep after their two laid eggs and they were fun watching the babies but don’t want a house full. Sometimes it is a petstore that knows a bird will not sell. Enter my playdoh heart.
Perfect? Is any human perfect? no why should the birds be. So when I saw the infant with the displaced wing, my heart just dripped. I certainly can relate to having a visible body part that isn’t quite right & doesn’t work the way it was supposed to. Still it was headed to paradise, I didn’t want to stop that. When concern came up about if they others would pick on it or if it would ever be able to get food with all the others around….. then it was decided. IF anything like that happened, I would be called to take it in happily. Couple hours later I left with the new baby budgie. Just felt right. It seemed a very curious lil one coming to check me out at the cage when others backed up. It deserved a shot at a home life. All else fails I can get it flying as much as it can to see if it can be in the box later.
So… I got Barris a buddie. So far he is estatic! Still the strangest bird I have ever been around in keeping to him self & quiet but he has taken this one under his wing & already they are inseparable!
Since the new baby is so young, we won’t be able to confirm the gender for a few more months. Has to go through the first molt and the cere will change. Then we know he or she.
For now…. Beaker. Not sure why that name seemed to fit. I had a name picked when I planned on getting my parrotlet & could have use that one, but it didn’t seem the same.
Beaker is one of my favorite muppets & lovable as can be, there is something a lil off. Seemed to fit. Beaker it is. A bit different but totally loyal and lovable.
A bit different. Totally loyal. and lovable. – Things I forget I am sometimes, but grateful for family & friends who remind me when I do.
Taste of MoonGoddess 