Isaiah’s Birthday was yesterday

Yesterday was our grandson Isaiah’s birthday.  He turned 8 years old.  Early in the morning, I was okay and happy about my baby boy’s birthday.  But the day wore on me, given several circumstances.  September 3, 2010 was the day we found out Nanny had terminal cancer….it’s already been a year ago.  Then, during the day, that awful feeling of grief kicked in again.  Once again, I found myself feeling like my life was being stolen, and I didn’t understand why.  As I cried hysterically, I said to Laurie, "We didn’t do anything wrong.  Nathaneal didn’t do anything wrong!  ISAIAH sure as hell didn’t do anything wrong, but we’re ALL being punished, our whole family!"  

I was very briefly angry at Tiffany, but it went away fast.  I love my daughter, and I know that if it hurt ME so much, it had to have been more crushing for her, because she actually gave birth to those four beautiful children.  

Doesn’t he look like his mother and grandmother?  That’s Mysaiah on the left, with his mother, my daughter Tiffany, on the bottom, and his grandmother, my wife, Laurie/Mikey, on the top.  I have a beautiful family.

I cannot begin to explain how badly I wanted to talk to Isaiah yesterday.  Naturally, SEEING him, meeting with him, would have been the best thing, but we’re so far apart and so unable to travel that that is just not a possibility (which I HATE admitting!!!!!), and originally, I was ONLY a long-distance grandparent.  I only know Nathaneal in person, so one out of five of our grandbabies is all I have been able to hug and say, face to face, "I love you!"  

There has been progress, though.  Isaiah’s got a new caseworker, so now we FINALLY have an address to which we can write letters and send cards or any presents we might be able to get him.  The last caseworker kept telling me over and over again to write to Isaiah, but when I asked for the address, the worker never gave it to me!!!!!!  It was frustrating as hell to be made out to be negligent about that when I repeatedly asked him for an address and he chose not to answer!!!!!!!

We didn’t get to the store in time to get Isaiah’s birthday cards there in time for his actual birthday, but we sent them anyway, hoping he will be okay with having them late.  Without a car (and WITH this heat!), it’s really difficult to get around town sometimes.  You find out just how high up the priority ladder you are when you have nothing to offer anyone, but I’m getting a little less sensitive about that, I guess, except where my mother is concerned.

OMG, speaking of Mama!!!!!  The other day, she was having trouble seeing.  She had a black blob kinda thing in the corner of her field of vision.  When her appointment with the opthamologist rolled around, she indirectly asked me to accompany her to the appointment.  Because she didn’t come right out and ask, I figured out that she was scared and didn’t want to tell me that, so I went with her.  Later, she confirmed that, and it turned out there was plenty good reason to be scared!  

As we sat there, she had several stabbing pains in her left eye, the one with the black blob.  After the doctor examined her, he told her that she was experiencing a retinal tear….her retina was detaching!!!!!!  Naturally, this freaked us out.  One of her brothers had that and is blind in one eye, and one of her sisters lost sight in an eye, too.  Well, turns out, there are a lot more options to help this kind of thing, nowadays.  The doctor told Mama she needed to go to a specialist in Dallas.  That day.  Not even the next day, because by then, the retina could be torn just enough to make it more difficult/maybe impossible to treat.  The catch?  The specialist wouldn’t see my mother unless she had $500 as a down payment for what lay ahead.

This was at the end of August, so we had not paid our house payment yet, and we DID have the money, so I told her to get her ass to Dallas.  She said she had to ask Wayne, her husband, about going that day.  I bit my tongue, but thankfully, Wayne came through with flying colors and agreed to take her right away.  So right away that I couldn’t even withdraw the cash from my card and give it to her!  So I wound up doing a cardholder transfer, since she has an account with the same people, and Mama had the money she needed.

Then I panicked!

How were we going to pay the house payment?!!!!!

Naturally, I didn’t want to let MAMA know I was freaking out about it, because I didn’t want her to feel guilty or anything.  It turns out, God had His eye on us, yet again.  Due to the efforts of my sister (MH), one of my cousins, my sister’s coworkers, and MH’s brother-in-law, we were able to make our house payment, plus have enough left over to take care of the usual monthly odds and ends….gas money for people to run us around, toilet paper, a few groceries, that kind of thing.  

There have been times, lately, when I said I wished I was able to help my mother more.  I didn’t exactly mean at the cost of keeping my wife safe and as comfortable as possible, but it worked out fine, and I WOULD do it again.  The opportunity has already presented itself.  Yesterday, Mama tried to buy a tire for her truck, and both her and Wayne’s bank cards were denied.  She reached me, in a panic, because they let her leave the property, asking if I could help her, but I think she meant did I have IDEAS, not MONEY.  I told her to calm down, because we actually had enough to pay for the tire, so I transferred it to her card, she paid, no theft charges, everything was fine.  

Later in the evening, I was talking to MH again.  I was depressed, for all the reasons mentioned above (especially the missing Isaiah part), and I mentioned that I was hungry but gave away all my money and couldn’t get us anything to eat.  I didn’t tell her I gave it to Mama, because I didn’t want her to know…I can’t exactly explain my reasoning for that.  She surprised me.  She gave me $35 and told me to go to the store and get enough to tide us over for a few days.  I started crying, because I really didn’t expect it.  I thought she was broke, too (now she is), and it really touched me that she was willing to go out on the same limb for me that we have recently gone out on for our mother.

***********will continue later**********

 

Okay, it’s later.  I was interrupted by a fierce call of nature, and then my cousin Lance, who is moving into Nanny’s house across the street, knocked on the door, and it’s been busy since. 

They’ve managed to pull up all the carpet in Nanny’s house….I guess I should stop calling it that…and it looks so different.  It’s so EMPTY right now, and it’s strange (but not&n

bsp; in a bad way, necessarily) knowing that someone is about to live there, and it won’t be my grandmother.  A time of change has begun, and I better get used to it and go with the flow, because it cannot be undone.  Nanny and Memaw are gone, and life is very different now.

The other night, I had a really bad toothache again.  Like the previous three times, it became an abscess of five of my upper teeth at once, which spread OVERNIGHT to my nose and under my eye again.  I woke up looking and feeling really ODD.  Mama talked me into going to the ER, so I arranged for my sister Joyce to take me.  The doc gave me prescriptions for antibiotics, pain meds, and prednisone, because he was concerned about my ragged breathing.  He said, "Smoking is not your friend!" as he listened to my chest and back.  I told him that four letters had already stated that to me: COPD.  I didn’t know I was dianosed with COPD, too.  Oddly enough, my doctor never told me he’d actually put it on my records.  I figured I had it, but he didn’t TELL me!  I found out because our doctor’s office has recently gone online, so we can send med refill requests, questions, and schedule appointments online.  It also has a place where you can see all your diagnoses, and I was surprised to see COPD as one of mine, since he’d never mentioned it to me.

I started back on Chantix last week, but I’ve had to put it off for now, with the abscess (and accompanying nausea) going on.  I will start again, because it was helping a lot this time.  Then I just had to go and get sick!  

A few minutes ago, I got a text from my best friend, saying that half of Corsicana is on fire.  I was across the street, talking to Lance, and he didn’t seem surprised.  I don’t know what’s going on yet, but no fire going on in our neighborhood, so….

It’s an interesting time right now.  We PROBABLY will lose internet service very soon, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to update anytime too soon again.  I’ll try to keep you posted, if I can!

Love to all,

 

Hermy

 

 

 

Herman Forstmann

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