Right Before Your Eyes

It has been said that when you die, or come close to death, your whole life flashes before your eyes. I'm not sure who started this or how they came to find this out. But I do know that, even though I have never come close to death, I believe this statement is false. When someone dies, their life doesn't flash before their eyes, it flashes before their loved one's eyes.

Maybe we have only known that person for a short while, maybe we have known them their whole life, or maybe it's just an acquaintance. We don't know every detail of their life, but we do remember every moment they were in ours. We remember some moments more clearly than others, perhaps because it was a special occasion, like a wedding or a birth, or perhaps it was a terrible fight that you wish never happened. But as soon as someone passes, as the tears come and clear, and for every moment that strikes without warning, we see flashes of that person and how we remember them.

When I get upset, I cry. I also look for a way to express what I'm feeling. Thankfully I don't chose to take out my feelings and yell, or drink; instead I write. There is something so peaceful in typing what I feel...even if what I feel makes someone upset or angry. Right now my thoughts are all in a jumble and my eyes are watery and I'm upset, so I'm choosing to loosen the heaviness on my heart by writing.

On Saturday night, July 7, 2012, my grandfather passed away. I hate that phrase for so many reasons. I hate saying someone passed away because it sounds so politically correct when that's the very last thing I want to be. I hate saying passed away because the words are so ugly and impersonal. Most of all, I hate saying that someone passed away because it means people are hurting, and in this case, I know many people are hurting, myself included.

When I got that call Saturday night, I cried. Then I picked up a picture of my grandfather, one of him and my grandmother with their arms around each other, a time that they were both here and happy, and in love. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Every Christmas morning we spent together when I was a young girl. The smell of blueberry muffins and White Owl cigars, the smell of Christmas morning breakfast and the cigar smell that always radiated from his clothes (the only cigar smell I can tolerate because it reminded me of him). The rolling green hills that my sister and I rolled down when we vacationed at his house in the summer. Hearing him say, "God damnit" in his gruff voice (something that he said so often it was like his morning greeting). A deck of cards, a pen, and pad of paper (with a hundred flashes of various tables at both of my mom's houses , the house in New York) from all the Rummy 500 games we played. The moments when I would say "I love you Grandpa" a thousands times until I got a response other than "Likewise". Him petting our various family cats growing up with a huge smile on his face. Him pinching my grandma when she begged him to watch movies with us (pretending he was upset about the whole ordeal but with a smile on his face all the same). A laugh that rumbled from his belly when you said something completely off-guard (like the card I sent him for his birthday a few years ago that he kept because it made in fun of how old he was). The way he walked like he had a slight limp (kind of like a penguin walking). The smell of Maxwell coffee. The last Christmas we spent together. The dish he gave to me for my wedding saying he wanted me to have it for happiness in my home because it brought him and my grandma so much happiness in their home. Everything flashed before my eyes. Words. Faces. Smells. Moments caught in time.

Not only did the moments in his life that I shared with him flash before my eyes, but the other things...the last wishes went off in my head. Like how I wish I got the chance to go to New York and visit him more often because he was always driving down here to see me and my family and I never did the same for him. How I wish I could have visited him in the hospital when he got sick these past few months. How I wish that I was there when he passed just so I could say "I love you" one more time. I always had an excuse...I don't have the gas money to get there. I get car sick. It would be so strange going there and knowing grandma wouldn't be there. I had a million excuses. And now I wish I didn't. I wish I could have just a few more moments.

Now, tomorrow I am heading back to New York, for the first time in so long. And not only won't my grandma be there, but my grandpa won't be there either. I will be going back to one of the most beautiful places I've been in my life. To a place that holds so many childhood memories. And it won't be the same. I get to head back with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes to say goodbye to someone who was there for me in my childhood when so many other family members weren't. Him and my grandmother were basically the only family that we had to spend holidays with growing up and now they are gone. Now, I get to visit their home without them. And it hurts. It makes me so sad.

But even through all the tears and the weight that keeps pressing on my chest, I am so thankful and happy for every moment I had with him. Every "I love you" that I received. Every Rummy game won and lost. Every moment I saw his face and heard his laugh. The last Christmas we had together, the one where he brought his new girlfriend to meet us, and the little bit of sparkle in his eyes that had been missing since my grandmother passed. 

Now I know the next few days are going to be incredibly hard, for myself and my family and the extended family that I haven't seen since my childhood summers in New York, but at least I know the saying "When you die, your whole life passes before your eyes" is wrong. The one last gift that we get from the person we love is that we get to see their life pass before our eyes. We get moments to last the rest of our lives. Moments that will sometimes stun us into loud, ugly sobs. Moments that will bring a smile to our face when we need it most. Moments that no one can take away, even though the person that brought them to us is no longer there to give us new memories.

I love and miss you so much grandpa (and grandma) and I hope that you are together...right where you belong.

Wedding Vs. Marriage

First, just let me say this: I am not writing this blog to offend anyone. I am not writing this blog because of something someone said or did. I am not writing this blog because I saw someone and this thought occurred to me. I am writing this because of my own experiences. And because I write when something is on my mind. So, read with a grain of salt. 

I am now 25 years old. I'm not quite sure how this happened. I'm pretty sure yesterday I was living at Lettney Place with my family. I just graduated high school. I was preparing to live and attend college at the University of Hartford. Didn't all that just happen? When did I become a "grown up"? It has now been, gulp, almost seven years since I graduated high school. And let's just say that a lot has happened in that small amount of time. But, that seven years is precisely why I am writing this blog.

On April 28, 2012, I will have been in a relationship with my husband for seven years. Holy cow! This is my longest relationship to date. It has also been my hardest relationship. Not for a bad reason, but these past seven years haven't been easy. But, I wouldn't trade a single one of them for anything. In these seven years I have learned to love another person more than I can even describe. I have given my husband my whole heart and every thought in my head (much to his dismay sometimes...). He has seen me with no makeup on. He has seen me at my highest high. He has seen me at my lowest low. Hell, he even saw me push a baby out of my vagina (Ewww, did she just say that?), which isn't very pretty in any way. We have fought like scoundrels and loved like there was no tomorrow. We have lost and gained jobs. We have lost and gained family members. We are currently going through some shaky times, both financially and emotionally. Most importantly, we have seen our daughter enter this world and grow up in these past three and a half years. If that doesn't bring two people together, I don't know what will. We have been through everything together...

In October, I will have been married for five years. Wow! Even that fact throws me through a loop. My wedding day was more beautiful than I could have imagined. Granted, it was pouring rain for a good part of the day and I freaked out about walking down the aisle as I arrived at my wedding venue, but it was truly something special. I pledged my love for this man who I hadn't known for very long before our closest friends and family. I made a promise to love him through better or for worse. Through sickness and in health. We exchanged rings. Then we danced the night away as a married couple with the aide of a WONDERFUL, LOYAL group of bridesmaids and groomsmen. It was an event to remember for a lifetime.

So many young children, teens, and women think about their wedding day. They picture themselves in the "perfect" white dress with a group of their high school friends surrounding them in the "perfect" bridesmaid dresses. They design their wedding cake in their dreams. They look through the New York Times "Wedding and Celebrations" section to get ideas about what an ideal ceremony would look like. They contemplate what their something borrowed, something blue, something old, and something new would end up being. They join places like The Knot and browse through wedding magazines to learn about venue sites, limo companies, and floral shops. It is supposed to be every little girl's dream to have this lavish wedding ceremony that they have been planning since they were two; besides prom, it's the biggest event for a girl to feel like a princess and have things "her way".

Well, I was never one of those girlie girls in that respect. When I planned my wedding, I was looking at all of this material for the first time. I had no clue what the difference between a princess dress or a mermaid dress was. I didn't know what flowers were in season. Hell, I didn't even realize how expensive weddings were. I just went with the flow and did everything step by step. I made sure my husband-to-be had a say in everything we were doing. I didn't plan my wedding to be the biggest and most important moment in my life. My marriage, the actual ceremony, with me pledging my love to my husband through both good times and bad was what I planned on. To me, that was the most important aspect, everything else was just the "icing on the cake", forgive my pun (or not).

Now a days, I don't think couples realize what a marriage is. They just have a wedding. So many people have "wedding-marriages". They want that "perfect" ceremony with everything done at their beck and call. They rush into things thinking that this will be the most important day of their lives. Then after all the wedding presents are opened, after out of state family has long gone home from the festivities, after the honeymoon is over, and "real life" begins, couples come to one hard time and that's it. Fighting and then a divorce before you can even say husband and wife. Even the couples who don't experience the fighting and just "go with the flow" and give into whatever the other person says or wants to keep the peace are in a "wedding-marriage". Weddings, divorces, and giving in are easy. It's the marriage and the fighting and the arguing to make a stand for the sake of your relationship that's the hard part. People are so quick to divorce now a days. They want the wedding and not the marriage. And that's a shame.

Now, anyone who knows Chris and myself knows that we fight an awful lot. Sometimes the fighting isn't so pretty. Sometimes it just a quick little tiff and then an hour later it's over. We fight. It's a fact. But, us fighting isn't because we hate one another. It's because we love each other enough to fight. We aren't the type of people who are just going to give in to keep the peace (although, sometimes that is what the moment calls for...picking and choosing your battles). We believe in what we are saying. And if we fight it's because we care enough to understand the other person's point of view or to at least recognize it. We fight to keep our marriage and our relationship strong. 

No matter what I've said about my husband in the heat of the moment..."Uhhh, he's such a jerk", "I can't stand him", "Mom, can you come pick me up because Chris and I are fighting"...all the bad times are so minuscule compared to how much good Chris has done for my life. He has not only embraced the fact that my brother is in a wheelchair, but he will go that extra mile and feed my brother food when his arms are just too weak to do it himself. He will literally do anything for my brother (and I won't go into too much detail because it's not my place to blast it on the internet) and that is AMAZING. My brother is my hero and Chris doesn't have to do any thing that he does, but he will without even being asked or blinking an eye. Chris is the type of friend who will give his last penny and break his back to help out a friend in their time of need. He is such a caring father that I cannot believe it. Dads get such a bad rep, but my husband does it all; late night feedings when Amelia was born, changing of the diapers and now potty duties, playing silly games, getting up at 4 am when Amelia is sick, and everything in between. He is the BEST father I have ever met. He acts all tough 99% of the time, but I know how truly romantic and caring he can be. I've seen him when he's hurting and that makes me love him 100 times more. He has seen my family blow outs. He drives me everywhere even though he can't stand the fact that I don't drive. He has so many qualities that overtake those bad moments. Even what we are going through now, I know nine out of ten wives who would leave their husband, but not me. I am in this for better or for worse. And I will stand by my husband no matter what comes along. It's not easy. Not in any way. But I love him, my family, and my marriage too much to let it go.

My rants on here are not about how my relationship is superior to others. Or how couples need to change their marriage to match mine. My marriage isn't perfect in any way. I am also not knocking those people who are divorced. Because sometimes there is no moving forward. My mom and biological father are divorced and I would do the same in her situation. There is no saving a marriage where the man abuses you emotionally or physically, where their is infidelity, or some other unforgivable act. Divorce under those circumstances is completely understandable. People have to do what they have to do. But, a "wedding-marriage" is sham. For both the husband and the wife. Why get married just to have a wedding? Why rush into something that's not worth fighting for? Why become another Kim Kardashian? That is precisely what I am talking about. It's disgusting. Weddings are beautiful, but marriages are so much more memorable and special.

Even though seven years makes me itch a little (wink:wink), I know I am in this for the long haul. These past seven years have been the most beautiful and the hardest of my life. But, I love my husband and the life we have carved out for ourselves more than I can describe. I have a marriage not a wedding. Do you?

Here's to hoping for a thought-provoking evening and thank you for reading,

Jen

Guilt

Every night before I go to bed I wish for just about the same things. I'm not a religious person. I wasn't raised that way. I have gone to church before. I used to attend church youth groups with various friends. But I was never raised with a confirmed religion. Think of that what you may. But just because I don't follow specific passages in a book doesn't make me a heathen. And it certainly doesn't prevent me from asking whoever it is out there for a few favors each night before I lay my head down on the pillow.

I try to keep it simple. I make a wish that everyone I know and love is healthy, safe, and relatively happy. Especially my daughter Amelia Rose because I love her more than words on a page or words spoken aloud can express. I ask for myself to be watched over as well. Sometimes I modify what I have to "ask" for based on a situation... Like watch over my grandfather because he is going into surgery today. Or please make sure my brother's pain goes away from his latest sore. It all depends on what was brought to my attention that day.

But truthfully, it's almost the same routine every night. I don't know who is listening. But I like to think there is someone watching over me and those I hold dear to my heart.

And then there are those "desperate" times. Oh, you know what I'm talking about. Something simple like, "If you cancel school today, then I will study extra hard during that time." Or something vastly complex like, "Please make my sister/brother/mother/best friend get through this terrible thing and I will never swear again. I will live my life with vigor. I will be a nice person."

I do this too. Like when my brother went to the hospital on Christmas Day. All I did was think, "Please, please, please don't let this be the last time I talk to him. He deserves to have such a good life. There are so many experiences he still needs. Please I want more time. I won't fight with him again." Or the time Amelia fell out of the shopping cart and ended up in the ER I thought, "Please don't let my stupid, first time parent mistake cost me more than what I am. She is so young. I will NEVER EVER do that again. Just let her be okay." I don't know who I am asking for help, but I do this a lot too.

These thoughts may seem harmless. Perhaps you are reading this and think, "Oh I do that myself too." "I know who I pray too." "Yup, sounds familiar."

When I make these thoughts/wishes/pleas for help, I feel incredibly guilty.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family and friends and want the best for them. I truly do. I would literally give my life for my daughter. But what right do I have to ask to keep myself well, or for school to be cancelled, or for my husband to not ask me to drive because I'm scared? There are so many people out there who are much more deserving of wishes and thoughts and prayers like this. People who have so much less than I do. And here I am taking up time that could be spent "listening to someone else".

I feel guilty. So guilty.

There are people out there who don't have enough food to fill their bellies and I wish that I didn't have to cook dinner for the uncles every night. There are people who don't have a blanket over their bodies as they sleep or a roof over their head to shield them from a winter storm (I literally saw people living in tents on my recent train trip) and I wish for a place of my own. There are people who don't have jobs due to the economy and are struggling to support their families and I wish for a job that's something more than a cashier when other people would leap at the chance (don't get me wrong, I would TOTALLY accept a cashier job, but it's not my "ideal job"). There are people who have never taken a vacation in their life and I wish for the year to speed up so I can go to Disney that much faster.

So guilty. And so selfish of me.

There are so many people out their with problems so much greater than the ones I face. And all I can think of is myself.

I know it's not wrong to wish the best for your family. In fact, tonight when I go to sleep, I will make all the same wishes again. But, I still feel wrong for asking for all the day-to-day problems to go away. Because I am lucky...even if I don't see it that way all the time.

I have a loving husband. One who drives me crazy. Who doesn't always see eye to eye with me. But, he's there for me no matter what I do. He tolerates all my (hopefully) good and bad qualities. I have a beautiful daughter. One who never ceases to amaze me. Who I say is a little devil but really she is the most well-behaved child I have met in my entire life. And she's so smart too! I have parents (my mom and stepfather) who I fight with on occasion. But who are there for me whenever I need help, whether it be with school, my daughter, or anything in between. I have a sister who is my best friend. I have a brother who is my hero. I have in-laws who accepted me and who I love. I have close family. I have THE BEST friends anyone can ask for. The kind of friends who can be miles apart and are still incredibly close to my heart. Friends who I know will be there through thick and thin. I'm in school. I have a roof over my head. Food in the fridge. I'm lucky.

And yet I still wish for what I don't have. I guess it's the "human nature" in me...the one that's mostly self-absorbed. The one where the "grass is always greener on the other side". How when you were little and you have stick straight hair and all you wanted was curls. Or how you were incredibly tall and awkward and you wanted nothing more than to be shorter and average. I guess I never out grew that. I want my own place. I want my college degree. I want it all. I wish for it all.

But, maybe I should just sit back once in a while and remember what I have. I know I should cherish all this. It could be gone in a second. What I have other people wish for (maybe?). I need to give into my guilt and just remember how lucky I am.

And maybe you should too. Don't stop asking, but maybe tonight include someone else in on your wishes, prayers, ect... Because you are lucky too. Even if you don't see it.