One More Rant and then...........

Thank you all so much for your support--you cannot imagine how much it means to me--you really can't.  If my Freddy was still here, he would be hearing the rants and he would calm me and make it all better, but...he doesn't communicate real well with me lately--you guys are all I've got.  Honestly!!!
====================

Karen called me earlier wanting to know if we could get together for lunch on Mother's Day.  She would call Pam and "J".  I told her not to call "J" as she wouldn't want to join us.  When she asked why, I said, "Apparently I have done something to--as she said, defame her character, and now she wants no contact with me."  Karen replied in her caring manner as she always does, "Oh, Mom.  I am so sorry.  I didn't know.  Well, you know..............she gets that way sometimes.  It will be all right.  I will pray for reconciliation."  I wish I had 10 daughter's like Karen in my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
===================================

Wondering and pondering and remembering......September 2011, just before her 4th was born.  I was at her home--some of her friends were there and she introduced us.  One asked, "Are you from around here?"

I told the lady where I lived and then (gasp) went on to say, "We are originally from Byron."

"Oh--I've heard of that.  Isn't it a small town north of here?"

"Yes.  We lived about four miles west of town on a farm."

A day later I got a nasty e-mail.  She did not want any of her friends to know that she came from a small town high school and certainly not that she grew up on a farm.  She didn't even want them to know she went to Michigan State instead of University of Michigan (the snob college in our state.)  I had embarrassed her in front of her friends.  She went on a no speaking to me campaign that lasted about three weeks.

I told my oldest daughter Pam about this and she replied, "Well I'm proud I live on the farm and I am damn well never leaving!"

I later told my youngest that she should be proud of her background.  Look at all she had accomplished--coming from a small high school, a small town.  Her heritage was built near that farm we lived on.  In fact when she was recruited and hired by the law firm in Boston, she asked her mentor why her.  Why not the diplomats daughter who had gone to Vassar.  Why not the rich man's daughter who had graduated from Harvard.  Her mentor told her, "Because you are down to earth.  You come from a strong mid-west pioneer heritage.  You are honest.  Our clients will believe anything you tell them because of those attributes."
=======================

One time to me, she referred to Pam as a "red neck hillbilly" and I told her that wasn't a nice thing to say about her sister.  Yet, (as was pointed out to me by a friend last night) this red neck hillbilly is the one basically raising my youngest kids.  But--to my youngest, this shows her charity--her generosity.  Her oldest sister had no job so she hired her and "made her life better."  All about the image.

When I visited my step-mother with my youngest, in the hospital, my other daughter Karen had just left.  My youngest stood in the family room and said to my step-sisters, "Oh I suppose Karen was in there saying her Catholic prayers over Gram."  The step-sisters didn't react because that is the kind of remark they would have heard their mother say, so...............  I was so flummoxed, I didn't know what to say.  Then the step-sister's husband said, "At a time like this---we can use prayers of all kinds--from every one who wants to pray."  Then I said, "Maybe I could go find a Rabbi so we would touch all bases?" and everyone laughed.

My youngest used to be a Catholic.  Now she is a Lutheran and apparently being a Catholic is no longer cool?  Well--I have told you of my Catholic daughter Karen's family and her children and what a wonderful, deeply, loving, giving, nice family they are.  It would serve my youngest well if she had stayed Catholic--no--wait--probably it wouldn't matter.  She has a high presence in her church and the school--it is all about image-remember.

One more thing,  she said, in her e-mail, that she had spoken with her pastor and other church members and told them what I did and they told her, "Honor thy Mother doesn't come in to play in this kind of situation."  Can you honestly believe that any religious person would say something like that--especially a pastor?  Any time I attended her church--all during Lent--every sermon had forgiveness in it--loving people--even flawed people.  "Hate the sin, love the sinner. " I think she's lying to make me feel bad and never show my face in her church again--actually she has forbidden that and I can't go into the kids school either--not even in the parking lot because I might embarrass them  (Oh yes, that's right.  I have a 15 year old Dodge Stratus--she has a Mercedes or is it a BMW--I don't know--it's some big assed black SUV--who gives a rip).  I know my church would never tell someone that.  My pastor would tell her to sit down and talk out your differences, show respect and love and come together.

I am still puzzled about what she saw on my blog.  Didn't you all see the "nice" obituary I posted about my step-mom and said how well she had taken care of my Daddy, how she was so admired and respected by the community.  Do you all know I practically vomited writing that post about the nasty, snarky woman--but wondering at the time, if there was a "spy"--something told me.

WHATEVER.
=========================

I could go on and on, but that would be too much for me and bore you to tears.  So--anyway

When I think of what I went through to bring that kid into this world...........Oy Vey!

I had a 14, 12 and 10 year old.  I was done having kids, as far as I knew.

I had been on the "pill" for ten years and the doc wanted me to go off them for awhile.  Husband said he would get a vasectomy--had the appointment--chickened out.  Made another appointment the next month--chickened out.  By the third month, I was pregnant.

He was livid!!

I know, nowadays women have their first babies at 32, but not back then.  Most of my friends had all their kids by the time we were twenty-five.  Even my very best friend thought I was nuts!

I went to the doctor, he did a urine test and said I wasn't pregnant.  I knew I was.  I had a urine test every three weeks for four months--it was only when I started feeling "life" that the doctor said, "Well, either you're pregnant or that is the fastest growing tumor I have ever seen."  No sonograms back in those days.

I was actually very happy.  I love babies.  The only time I ever felt loved in my life--that little, dependent baby who grows up (for a few years) thinking Momma is the best thing ever invented.  Husband, on the other hand, demanded I go to New York State and have an abortion--the only state it was legal in, in 1971.  I refused.  He said he would divorce me if I didn't.  I refused.  I am so glad that abortion wasn't legal back then--he probably would have forced me into it some way.

My Dad called me a fool and my step-mother said, "Why are you going through with this.  Aren't three enough for you?  Go out and work in the garden--that's how I got rid of the ones I didn't want."  (Oh yes--what a wonderful woman.)

Husband claimed it wasn't his.  Couldn't be his.  Demanded to know who the father was--who I was having an affair with.  He left for six weeks.

So--he came back.  The kids were excited, but when Dad was home, we didn't say anything about babies--only when he was gone.

Then, I got Toxemia.  The doc said it was very serious.  I could lose the baby or if I went full term, I could die during or after delivery.  They put me on a water pill and I went to bed for several days--laying on my left side.  The blood pressure went down, the headache went away.  I got back up and went back to mothering.

The baby was due November 17th--it was deer hunting time here in Michigan.  He always went deer hunting with a bunch of his buddies--this year he certainly wasn't going to stay home just because a baby was due.

She was late--thank goodness, but, I could have had her all alone--he never really wanted any children so he never took any great interest when the others were born.

I had a name picked out--Matthew.  She arrived twelve minutes after midnight on December 3rd.  A hard, eighteen hour labor--I took no drugs--I refused the gas mask they offered in the delivery room--I wasn't taking any chances.  Two nurses delivered her, as the doctor was at a movie.  She looked exactly like her father--my husband.  She was born " in the caul" over her forehead.  That is suppose to mean she would have special intuitive powers, good luck and destined for greatness.  .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caul

I let the other kids pick out her name, just so she had my mother's name as her middle one.  Of course, they picked out the most popular name for 1971.

I didn't die and neither did she and she was beautiful and grew into a wonderful little, strong willed girl with an IQ of over 150 by age seven.  She skipped fifth grade, graduated Valedictorian and top in her senior class at Michigan State--was a Phi Beta Kappa and could have studied abroad at Oxford.  She worked and got scholarships and grants to go to college because Daddy decided he didn't want to help.

Then she went to live a year in Spain where she knew no one and got a job teaching English to elementary school kids, came back and moved to Boston, where she knew no one, to go to North Eastern Law school, where she graduated with the highest honors.  (She wanted to go to Harvard--had been accepted, but couldn't afford the price.)  She worked and put herself through Law School and received her JD PhD three years later.

Was recruited and hired by the biggest and most prestigious law firm in Boston.  Had a disastrous marriage that ended five months after the wedding and cost her $20K to get out of.  The day of the wedding Pam tried to persuade her to leave the church--we all knew it was not going to work, but she was worried about what people would say.

She then met a wonderful man, in a story book romance sort of way, married again, has four beautiful, very smart children and makes 6 figures a year salary. (No one in his family nor her children know she was married before).  Could I do a lot of damage with that secret!!  Would I?  Of course not!!!

She has worked very hard.  She lives in a million dollar mansion, which they recently added on to.  She is one lucky woman--very "A" type personality and at times, I think she may be bi-polar.

I have never told her that her father didn't want her.  I have never told her of how her step-grandmother lied about me to her and the way she was manipulated or the snarky things her step-grandmother said to me about her.  Although apparently, in the last four years her step-gram has said to her, "You don't have to visit me anymore.  We aren't related anymore you know.  Your grandpa died--so we aren't related."  which hurt my youngest, but she went to the Hospice every day and was with her step-gram when she died.  Apparently her step-gram didn't hurt her enough to break contact with HER!!

I would never be so vindictive to her as she has been to me.  I would never tell her children anything bad about her.

I love her.  I am proud of her.  And this is all I'm going to post about my youngest.

Now--I am going to take a Melatonin and go to bed.  I will pray for reconciliation too.  So we will have Catholic prayers going up and Protestant prayers going up.  If I could just find a Rabbi--I'd be all set!!

-----------------------

Oh yeah--husband did get the vasectomy--when she was a year old.  In about 6 months, he started having impotency problems, hee hee.

One last question--WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER???