Happy Birthday, Godson Mike

It is Michael’s 19th birthday.  Time is going by too fast!

So yesterday, we went to the doctor, for the first time in months.  Laurie was prescribed morphine, in place of oxycontin.  I hid it, and I’m doling it out one pill at a time.  So far, so good.  But it’s only been ONE dose, so far.  Every twelve hours, it says.

I wasn’t entirely surprised by the outcome of MY appointment, though I am a little scared and unhappy about it.  When I described my symptoms to him, he told me it sounds like I have Stage I emphysema.  He’s referring me to a lung specialist, and he told me, "Be sure you don’t miss this appointment!  Bring your machine (the sleep apnea machine) and tell him the things you’ve told me."

So yeah, looks like Laurie and I both may have emphysema.  As I said, it doesn’t really surprise me, but it’s scary, nonetheless.  It’s not confirmed yet, for me, but it has been confirmed for Laurie. 

So what’s next?  I don’t know, except I’ve already started on Chantix again.  I don’t CARE if it makes me a monster.  I’d rather be a temporary LIVING monster (who will stop being one once the med is gone bye-bye) than a dead person.  Even though life is really confusing me nowadays.

I’ve had two nights in a row where I dreamed about Nathaneal.  This last one had Blanche in it, too.  Blanche is Laurie’s aunt, who adopted our grandson…which makes our grandson our cousin, but we all still say he’s our grandson, Blanche included.  I don’t know why I’ve been dreaming about him, but they’re some of the nicest dreams I’ve had in a long time.  I think you can see in our picture up in the left that we have a good, strong bond…maybe I am alone in seeing that, because I know it already.  Anyway, it’s like he’s my SON, rather than my grandson.  Lord knows, we’d be the right ages for that.  I’m 37 and he’s 13.  

I finally realized last night that Bug may never have realized who I was, throughout all our talks on the phone.  He told me he loved me, and when I asked him if he missed me as much as I missed him, he said yes, and he missed being at my house.  That says to me that he’s confusing me with his other Grandpa, Benny’s Dad.  I told him I’m his Mommy’s Daddy.  He talked so much like a miniature adult.  He’ll be four this month, and I feel so much like we’re missing out on his life developing.  I want to be around him, but I can’t figure out a way to achieve that!  And I have been trying.

Our house will be paid for in a few months, and we’re thinking really hard about putting it into Elisabeth’s name, though I’m unsure if we CAN.  Would she have to sign a deed or anything?  Can they do that via fax?  Anyway, I want so much to have something to leave my girls, if I should die, and we’re SO close to the house being paid for…November is the last month.  

I know I focus too much on death.  I guess it’s just a by-product of losing so many people I’ve loved; especially my Uncle Ray, who died when he was 29, and Daddy, who died when he was 43.  I’m between those ages, and I know anything can happen.  I could live another hundred years, or just another 100 minutes.  Life is scaring the shit out of me, right now.  Will that ease with time?  Will I ever make peace with life…and death?

Why now so much?  I’m getting closer to 40 every day…why did it wait so long to become so REAL to me?  I really think it’s because I finally got the chance to be a father and grandfather.  I never thought I would be blessed with children, much less grandchildren.  Maybe that’s what is making this insane fear of life happen…but I’ve been a Dad for seven years!  Why NOW?  Because I’m trying to pull my life together?

There is that fear that I will die before I CAN make something of myself.  I am terrified that I will die a loser, someone my kids can’t look up to.  I have a deep appreciation for the absurdities in life, and that would be the biggest one.  Just like what happened to Daddy.  He was trying to obtain his citizenship of this country, which, for some reason I don’t understand, he loved so so much…but he died before it happened.

I need my Mama.  Damn Wayne for keeping us apart so much.  I see her more now than I did last year, but still not enough.  We live in the same freakin’ TOWN!  We should be able to see each other as often as we want.  Laurie loves my mother, thank GOD, and my mother loves Laurie.  It’s so not a "typical" in-law relationship.  Not that I would know from personal experience.  I don’t have parents-in-law.  They both died way before I came into the picture.

Well, there IS Laurie’s stepmother, Carol.  I’d like to get to know her.  I’d LIKE to do so many things that, right now, seem so impossible.  *sigh*  Will I EVER pull it together?

Jack