Where are my angels?

Where are my angels?

I’m not asking this to be an ass or a pain or in vain? I mean it with all my heart. Don’t we all grow up thinking that we have a guardian angel hovering just above us making sure things are going the way they are supposed to? I grew up and really believed that I was going to lead a charmed life because well… I had angels. They loved me; they watched over me and protected me.
I realize now that my angels must be on an extended vacation or that I have been such a bad person they left me because NO ONE is watching over me. NO ONE. I'm all alone now. Oh, Heather, that is blasphemy right? I don’t care. I’m having a crisis of faith. My Dad died.. (Yes, we all know that. I’m not talking about that, just mentioning it has been little more than a month.) I’m asking you, where are my angels?

I have been given more that I can bare. MORE than I can bare, get it I'm Not Job from the bible. I don’t know how I can be more broken. I’m literally breaking down. It is hard to lift my eyes they are so tired let alone to walk and accept this proudly. I have spent 4 days now sleeping in my car in the hospital's parking lot. Tonight I’m “styling.” I’m staying in a van versus my little Hyundai. I'm planning on taking enough sleeping pills where I can sleep with my body in the car and my legs sticking out. Gets to a point of exhaustion where it doesn’t matter. It’s all good. I Can’t leave my sister and sleep some where farther away. What if she wakes up? I want to be the second face she sees so if that means I sleep in the parking lot and wash my hair in the labor and delivery bathroom that is what I’ll do. I roll that way. All for family. The Boulanger way.

I have tried hard to be brave for my nieces and nephew. I have tried to be “stoic” and not cry. Think positively everyone. We can do this. I do however recognize this is the hospital where my most beloved sister lays. I’m an orphan and have had my oldest sister, Kim act as a “Mom” figure for me. Let me explain something I don’t really fully understand myself. When I’m scared, stressed, freaked or confused all it takes is for me to hear Kim's voice on the other phone and whatever I have been holding in comes barreling out. Just the sound of her voice on the phone saying “Heddi, what is going on?” comforts me. She is my person. The person you don't decide to be the person. They are the safe place. You hear their voice and know you can surrender all that is in your heart. She will know instinctively/intuitively that stuff is going on and always phones me when I need her the most.

She had cancer some 5 odd years ago. My Double radical mastectomy sister, Kim. She has been so sick since then. Not from a reoccurrence of cancer but infections followed by infections. She complains incessantly about how she hates taking the chemo pills everyday because they make her feel like she has the flu but she has dutifully taken them so she could stay cancer free. Infection free… not so much. We just had a surprise 50th birthday in July for her. Oh man, she had so many fans there at her party. She got more loot than a 50 year old woman should get. LoL. My sister is the corner stone of our whole family. She keeps things rolling along.

What do you do when the cornerstone of your house collapses? You crumble to your knees? You fall down and don’t get up? Why can’t I be that selfish? Let go and leave it to others? Why do I have to always be the grown up? I want to cry and stomp my feet and scream and never stop… WHY>????

She switched chemo pills recently and started feeling better. What did she do when she was finally feeling better? She came down and spent a week with me. She chose to come down and be with me the minute she felt better. I am so blessed to have her in my life. She is my sister, my mother and my friend. She always allies with me, always has my back and is a believer in our most sacred Boulanger heritage. We are a dying breed and we love to talk about what being a Boulanger means to us.

She is the person who holds me together when my husband can’t. When it takes a woman’s hand, someone to kick my butt when I need it. (She would never say “butt” out loud. She is prim and proper and Yes, I’m sure we are the same blood line.) She is everything a girl could aspire to be. She loves her family fiercely. As lady like as she is, she would claw out your eyeballs if you came for one of the family. She is protective. She is the mother looking after her cubs. She is emotional, cries easily and loves everyone. She is my role model; she puts the best foot forward. People either love her or hate her but she is real. If everyone loves you I don't think you are making a difference. You aren't living.

Why all this Kimmie talk? These thoughts should have been expressed here so much earlier. She is “My person.” If you don’t know what I mean I don’t care. My person. She is my person. She is also right now lying in a hospital bed and I believe brain dead. I’ve been sleeping in my car for the past 4 days in the hospital parking lot. No, not looking for sympathy really, just can’t bear to leave the lot. I’m thinking she will wake up right when I leave. I can’t have that. My person needs to see me. I need to see her. I sit in the waiting room day after day waiting for my allotted 15 minute turn at seeing her. It is so discouraging. I started out with such faith that God knew how much I could handle, he knew I just lost my Dad and am walking such a thin line mentally. He and his angels have given up on me. They don’t care about me because I’m at the end of my rope. My sister comes to Kaiser for an infection is up and talking and they find her a half hour later neither breathing or heart beating. We don’t know how long it was between the half hour of being scene last and being found in that state. We have been told that it only took one turn at the paddles and she came back. (They explained this was the good part… Only having to use the paddles once.) Oh, how hopeful. We are Boulanger’s and we beat the odds. We always do. Don’t we?

God he knows. He knows how much I love her. He knows how much we all still need her. He knows how much I’m alone when she dies and yet she hangs on a ventilator and feeding tubes and I can’t stand not to hope. No one will say out loud what we are all thinking. That she is no longer living in the body being held together by a feeding tube and a ventilator. It is too scary a thought. She has three kids and a husband that need her. NEED HER.

Instead we talk quietly around it, afraid if we verbalize what everyone is thinking we might jinx the miracle. The miracle her husband and we so desperately need. But, I don’t believe in miracles. Suppose it has been a long time coming. Who can say they have seen a real miracle? I mean a real miracle? Not even so sure about what I believe about prayer right now. I have lost so much. I suppose it is really conceited for me to wonder what I have done/haven’t done that has made the ones I love around me die. Would God really kill my sister and cause her family to suffer to teach me a lesson? Would he take a mother to teach a sister a lesson? I don’t think that is true yet I can’t shake the feeling I’m supposed to be learning something. I’m desperate for any clue as to why. WHY? Does anyone have an answer? I’ll grasp straws. I’ll roll the dice. At this point I’d just about do anything to make tomorrow not happen. I don’t want to go to the “family meeting.” I want to scream so loud. I want to run away. Today I actually contemplated starting a scene so I could drive away and not look back. I can’t do that because we Boulanger’s, we stick together. Since we are almost instinct, we best keep to our kind. I don’t need any more prayers. God is not listening. He…

Opposums, blah, blah, Deer ticks and my Dad.

Well I’m doing better considering what I have been through. I can’t stop thinking about my Dad. A trip to Costco and walking past the mixed nuts he loved makes me weepy. Then the pork tamales he loved them too. I have been getting a lot of advice lately. Some asked for and some unsolicited. All of it the same, “It will get better.” I know that to be true but it doesn’t exactly help when I’m knee deep in self pity. Poor Heather, she is an orphan, blah blah blah. I don’t care if you understand it, it is how I feel. I’m struggling. Having to drive up to Portland to see Kim's doctor to have her look at Kim's new lumps has put another fear in me. She has been so sick since her bout with breast cancer. I'm freaked I'm going to lose her too. I have done enough crying this year. It is August no more grief for this year. I have already had 2 people die in my house. Not sure but thinking that is sufficient. If the lumps she found have not shrunk by Tuesday they are going to do surgery and remove the lymph nodes and then biopsy them. I'm a Boulanger and that means we always think the worst.

Tonight Colton’s dog Wynne was scratching under the kitchen sink.

<--- Colton and scary Opossum #1

I went out there to investigate and we had opossums crawling into the area around the sink thinking how nice and toasty it was. Wynne started barking, they started hissing like crazy, I nearly peed my pants and then all the dogs started barking. It’s like duh. I’m right here dogs, I see those scary little Satan eyes staring up at me. Barking makes them scared, they hiss louder and then I holler for Colton. We started out with one, than two now we have located 4 so far.

We are relocating them out in the woods. I worry if left by the house they could bite one of my dogs or a dog could eat one and leave it’s stinky carcass some where on the lawn. I mow the lawn, and dead decaying opossum guts fly up at me. Not so much. Relocation is the only answer.

I’m not complaining about living out in the country. On the contrary, I love it. I love the deers, the wild turkeys, I feed all the birds, and the occasional fox. I haven’t seen any bears in a long time. I think that having my dogs all over the property makes them follow our creek to the river instead of going across the grassy knoll. I don’t complain about how I can’t plant much because the deers think of my yard as “the garden of eaten.” I in fact had bought a deer lick. David explained there is a reason that the worst ticks are called “deer ticks” I don’t purposely feed them I don’t want a tick to get on my dog and I’m afraid of Lyme’s disease.

I’m going to try to do one thing a day out of my comfort zone. Today I went to Costco and for the first time I left the house in years I didn’t keep calling the kids to check on Grandpa. I think I should be glad he is in a “better place”. I’m not feeling it yet. Hey, I found the coolest thing to do with Snapfish.com. I uploaded all the pictures I wanted of my Dad and the kids etc and have ordered a real book. It is like a yearbook with those kind of pages. Way cool. I’m also going to start scrap booking with Serina, Brittany, Joy and Mandy once a month. This way I can be with them, they can all meet and we can share the pictures with one another. We can share idea’s and I have WAY too much stuff for one person to use. Like everything else if I do it I always “Go Big”. Go big or go home.

Boulanger language, Canada, crazy accents and the process of grieving.

(Written 4 days ago.)
So I’m on the ferry heading back to Port Angeles. (Three hours early.) Only supposed to be 2 hours early just like at the airport, but David is anal. It is over 99 degrees and way too hot to be in the car. We found a nice little shady area and ate our meat, cheese and crackers. Quite romantic actually. Some fools stayed in their cars. One person was in a wheelchair and she couldn’t get out. I wonder how many cases of heat stroke they face each day? Everyone up here is saying it is “unseasonally” warm up here. I’m like WTH? I was looking forward to to the cool air. Actually I’m smiling as I type this because I actually spent most of my time up here in the excellent room or in the AC car. The rooms are so nice and cool. They do not AC the hallways to the rooms. So it is like going from hell to heaven when you open your room door. I love Canada. I wish we could move here and have a fresh start somewhere. No one holding us back. I love Oregon so much tho. Canada is a lot like Oregon, so I could adjust. I love their coinage too.

I’m afraid to go home. When I’m here it is like “that life” doesn’t exist. Like I’m not the disconsolate orphan that I am. I know I’m a big girl and need to put my “big girl panties” on but I don’t want to. The ferry is moving now and I’m hot as hell. I don’t sweat well. I paid enough that they should have a personal fan for me. Don’t they know I’m a world renowned breeder from the states? I don’t think that they care. I’m sure there are some Doctors on here and I don’t see their personal fans. Luckily for me the ferry is turning around and I’m in the shade. Not much consolation considering I think it is still 90 in the shade. I miss my kids. I miss my chair. I miss the deer, bet no one has fed my wild birds. The deer are mad there has been no extra seed left out for them.

Cody and Erica have been staying at the house since my Dad died. It is nice to have them there as a back up because Colton is in love. I mean in love with a girl who hates his sister and me. Nice huh? We will win her over to our side. We are all that and she will come to know that. I hope she will go to Jennifer’s wedding in Caiti’s place. It would be nice to have a real bit of time with her and let her get to know us how we really are. She was very hurtful to Caiti a few years ago. I said something, Caiti shouldn’t have repeated it. Blah, blah. Let’s forget the fact that I shouldn’t have put my nose where it didn’t belong. She hurt Caiti and as a Mom that hurts me. Everyone grows and changes and she deserves the benefit of the doubt. Colton thinks the sun rises and sets on her so we will see.

I keep thinking I should be thankful for what I do have in my life and quit dwelling on what I don’t have but I’m not there yet. I have such a hole. If I allow myself to think about it for a minute I bawl my eyes out. I find myself saying it a lot too. “My dad died.” Like some how it will sink in better?!! I’m not sure actually. A bead of sweat is actually rolling down my back between my shoulder blades. UGH. I feel grouchy now. Lots of foreigners on this ferry. Speaking all of their different languages.

I may start a language of my own. I have used an Australian/british accent here. It drives David crazy, but I’m having some fun. Crazy is where I come from. My Dad and I had our own fake languages. One of them was the number language. We would go out to restaurants and say random numbers and converse through the whole meal with our fake talk. People would look so strangely at us. Ha. Then we had a fake language we would speak that was gibberish. Sounded like Arabic/Chinese/Spanish/whatever. It was so fun. My kids would never play either of those games with me. My Dad and I did fool them sometimes before they got old enough to understand and wouldn’t play. I still have grandkids planned for in the future. Perhaps they will play the gibberish language with me. I’ll be old then, it will be more acceptable I imagine. The kids can play it off as “crazy old Mom.”