Easter woes

I know you would think Easter would be a beautiful holiday for a bereaved mom, but it isn't for me. I have struggled with it since losing Rhiannon 24 years ago. I know that Christ's resurrection is a wonderful promise but it feels as if it is a carrot dangled just far enough in front of me as just to tease and make me keep working toward it, but sometimes I am so tired.I feel like I cannot make it one more day without my babies with me.  I want it now. Now Now Now . I want my kids back with me. I am not good with patience or the thought that they are in a better place until then. How can any place be better without their moms. Everyone needs their mom.

Control Freak

I can almost read your mind.....We have little if any control on this Earth. I know that and yet I still believe I should have control over what happens to the ones I love. Harlen, Cyrus, and True all went Ocean fishing today. I was fine when they planned it. I was fine while they traveled across the state. I was even fine when Harlen called me as they waited to head out. Then all of the sudden like a tidal wave, the anxiety engulfed me. The worry was all consuming. I just kept thinking three of the men I love most in this life on one boat. A boat on the Oregon Coast. The water is much to cold to survive. I am suppose to trust God to protect them? Can you hear me humph. How many times did I say prayers to keep us safe as we traveled to school? I couldn't count the number  I prayed to Him to keep my baby safe, to protect them all. Why would He listen now? Anyway I hope there is some power out there that will bring them home in one piece.


*Update: I am crazy, well that isn't new but the guys are home safe. They had a great time, caught tons of fish. The captain said it was the calmest day in years, maybe someone was listening, almost to calm to have a good fishing day.

Great Good Fair Pass

Great is a word I don't use often. I am not great at many things. In fact, I can't think of a one. I might be good or fair or I could earn a passing grade on many things but great, that is not me. It isn't for trying, I think I try hard. I am a good mom, a fair wife. I might earn a passing grade as a cook, but I fail completely on keeping a neat and tidy house. I don't know why this is stuck in my brain these last couple of days. Is passing good enough to make it through the pearly gates? For I know there are people all around watching and judging me, judging my family and now even my kids.

We don't seem to fit the Mormon mold. I am sure you can imagine what I am talking about, church on Sunday, mutual on Wednesday, Seminary every school day, happy, bearing testimonies, crying, giving youth talks, attending an LDS college Once again we are pulling a strong "C" on a good day. I haven't been participating much lately in my classes at church. I really feel dumbfounded just listening to the comments around me. Last Sunday the lesson was on Emma Smith. She lost so many children, I think 7, plus losing her husband in a horrible murder.  I heard a lady make an off handed remark about how God SAVED those children. I guess because she left the church, she was a good mom and those children wouldn't have made it to heaven????? WHAT???????

I would never want to be in a place to judge a woman that has been through so much. I look at my life and I have failed miserably at these trials. What are they saying when I leave the room? It seems a lonely place to be such an only adequate Saint in this world. God will be my only judge and only He knows my heart.

Spring Break

The Break has started for both schools, but the problem is there is really no break. Cyrus is going to the coast to fish with the Priest Quorum. True is going to State FFA to compete in the Parliamentary Procedure competition. Maya, Giles and Lea have plans to spend with friends. Harlen might sneak away with Cyrus to the coast, but probably he will be stuck in some pickup delivering bulls or on a tractor working away and I will be stuck at home doing book work. I hate book work. So if you think I am feeling sorry for myself, I am. I am taken back to a time when Spring Break meant Break. Oh yah I married a farmer and there has never been such a time.(OK maybe once or twice) I digress......Sometimes I just want to complain about book work. GAG YUCK and just think when I started school, I thought I wanted to do other people's books! I must have been nuts then too!

What Priceless looks like......

This is what Priceless looks like.....This is my family in the Summer of 2008 before we lost Loughlin. This is really how my family was, most of the time. We enjoyed each other, we loved spending as much time as we could together, look at the smiles, if only you could hear the laughter. This is a gift that will remain as priceless as I have ever received. I ordered prints for all of our families. I want everyone to remember this moment, not the moments that followed, but this one incredible moment that has been branded in my mind and heart and soul. I love it! My cousin took these pictures when we were in Utah in my parents' back yard. And the more memories I can have the better, the more smiles on his face and laughter in his eyes the better this grief becomes, the less the guilt because it helps me believe he was happy here and I was an ok mom to him. I miss this family.........

The lil' Red Heifer that stole my heart....

Harlen is gone delivering bulls to somewhere down in the middle of Nevada, no phone coverage. I have some hired guys but they are hard to get a hold of and I don't speak very good Spanish. Two days ago, our first calves arrived out of my bull( I picked him out), twins but there mom must have lost 3 quarters over the winter when it was cold and wasn't able to feed them. So the kids started them on a bottle. The first day was great but then li' Red lost interest. When I went out yesterday afternoon we couldn't find her. We looked everywhere and finally found her flat on the cement by the chute. She was so cold and her navel was swollen indicating a naval infection. I was feeling on the verge of brave, at times I get that way. She wouldn't suck and I knew if I didn't get her some nourishment soon, she would die.Lea went and got the tuber and I proceeded to put that long steel tube down her throat and feel her belly with the milk. She was still so cold that my boys carried her in the house for me and we put her in the tub, sticking a heater next to her. Then I gave her 2 shots in the naval of tetracycline .( Should have been Penicillin) but I didn't have any. When I finally went to bed she seemed better, warmer, breathing better. I dreamed dreams of better days, of my baby, my Grandma and Loughlin, happy times..At 4:30 am when I awoke to check her she was gone, cold. I know you might all think I am crazy but she had those eyes that seemed to plead with me to help her and this morning I feel I have failed, and I am sad. I raise cattle for a living and I am rarely emotionally attached  but this time is different, this time I really feel I failed her. Her coat was that  of a rusty crimson, so beautiful and fluffy. Lea had pans to show her at the fair. Tomorrow soon will come and there wil be a hundred more like her but not like her.

Random Thoughts and Musing from the last week

1) Seeing the tire off your dually pick-up roll the opposite way the truck is can signal a real problem.

2)Finding something to talk to an Idaho State Policeman for 4 hrs can be extremely mind boggling.

3) Wanting to ever drive that rig again, is a trial in itself.

4) Chicken at Carl's Jr. can be a seriously bad idea, if they forgot to cook it correctly or left it out the night before. (Poor Lea & Maya)

5) Pop tent Casino's don't stay that way for long

6) The nicest building in town almost always belongs to the government. ( Or in random cases an Indian Casino)

7)Tom Petty is never appealing even when you have been driving for 12 hrs. straight.

8) Don't buy mystery flavored gum. It never turns out well. If it was good they could sell it without the mystery.

9) When you are lost at 11:30 at night and you stop for help, because you are in the middle of nowhere with no coverage  on the phone, there is a round broom leaning against the door and a very large fat black cat rubbing up against your legs, tell your girls to run, run as fast as you can back to the pick- up.

10) A waving experiment coming home from Riggins Idaho even though so much fun is far from scientific.

11) My girls can always find fun despite the predicament. Love ya Girls! Can you hear Les Schwab in the background?? Talent? I would say absolutely!

No other place to go......

I find I turn to my blog when there is no other place to go. This is sometime my only consolation, my only solace, my only only. Sometimes I feel I am at a breaking point and there really is no other place in my mind I can escape. I really truly believe that everyone around me wants me to be and do something that I am not capable of doing. Somehow now after losing two kids, I should be happy all of the time, that I should think life is one giant slumber party and there is as much coke as you can drink at all times, and that somehow because I don't believe that way I am not what I should be. Do you think I sit around all day crying and feeling sorry for myself? I think my kids would disagree. I can find joy in the moment, finding joy in the future is what is so difficult. You know even before losing Rhiannon I was not that way. I always had a keen sense that life was not like that and never would be.

 I know you are saying maybe it was some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, if I only had that much power over my life. Some think I am a psychopath that I don't feel bad about anything, that I am far from humble, that I am angry,  unapologetic. Then on the other side I have those who think I need to get past the guilt, I know what guilt, that I wallow in self pity, that the guilt is ruining my other 5 kids' life,( nothing like piling on that guilt), that I need to get past Loughlin's death,(no mention of Rhiannon's) but hey they were nice enough to tell me I can bring his memory with me. I know you jest but I don't. In the world of peacocks and lemon drops I see no finish line in fact my line has moved and let the defense in, my protectors no longer exist but I dare say I don't think they ever did.
When will I gain enough courage to be myself and tell the ones around me who would like to tell me who to be, to get the Hell out of the way, out of my mind, and if necessary out of my life?

Just to let all you helpful naysayers out, I am happy. I have said it so many times. I am happy and grateful for so many things, but  to expect me to be happy and grateful about 2 of my babies dying is what I would call a funny kind of deranged!