Listening to: clicking mouses and fingers tapping on keyboards
Wishing for: a boyfriend, an opportunity to write my book
Procrastinating: putting off giving myself a facial
Rene� got some bad news yesterday. His brother has six months to a year to live. His brother has cancer of the liver and it has moved to other organs. I find that to be really saddening.
Rene� has been the sort of person who�s been lucky; lucky enough to not have buried anyone in like, I don�t know, 29 years.
Seems like every time I�m turning around, I�m finding myself wondering if I really HAVE to wear black to a funeral. That� s how familiar it�s become. At my Grandpa�s funeral, I found myself flirting with one of the cute employees there. If it would�ve been anybody but my grandpa the thought would�ve might�ve not crossed my mind. However, my grandfather was a bastard and I hated his guts. I only went to take care of my grandmother.
I see the fear in Rene�s eyes. He�s remembering his Daddy�s funeral, recalling the fact that he�s NEVER been to his father�s grave. He�s considering that people will be depending on him even more. His own mortality? Up in his face. He�s scared.
When he first told me, we were at work. Rene� said, �My brother�s dying� like one I�d say, �Pass the peas�. He was very calm, little expression appearing on his face. At first he was sort of flippant about delivering the news, but as usual, I eventually saw through the fa�ade.
He is really upset. I know this because whatever Mr. Sweatpants doesn�t say, well, you can see it in his eyes. His large brown eyes are saying, �Oh my God. Not my brother�please not my brother. My brother�s not much older than I am. How can this happen?�
I wanted to cry, but I tried to remain calm for his sake. My sister Shenana popped up in my head, and I thought about how I�d feel if I heard the same news about her. I remember threatening her boyfriends with bodily harm if they laid a finger on her. I remember telling her husband he was going to be buried in the backyard next to the dog if he didn�t stop. I remember threatening that pig Terry that I was going to have somebody off him and nobody�d be the wiser.
Rene�s probably remembering cowboys & Indians, tag, kickball, and snow days, cops and robbers and all the other kid stuff. How about the first time they talked about girls together? Taking up for each other against a bully? Kid stuff.
Your sibling grows up but in some ways they�ll always be an invincible kid to you.
You�d fight for your sibling. I know more than once Shenana�s big mouth got my butt kicked by some big kid. I took up for her though, in my head she was just a little kid, not some mouthy little snot who liked to instigate fights. I didn�t see the light for a painfully long time.
I�m sure Rene� and his brothers fought side by side from time to time.
I�m sure they did a lot of things their parents don�t know about either.
I�m sure they even kicked each other�s asses occasionally unbeknownst to the parents. I know I still have some tiny bald spots on my head thanks to Shenana.
As I get older, the fight is slowly going out of me. It�s still there, but it�s not fueled by intense persistent anger anymore. Except when it comes to Shenana and my daughter. I�d lay down my life for those two.
There are a lot of things I need to say to my sis. Rene�s probably dealing with that too. How do you make up for time you may never see together? How do you say sorry for the stupid things you did? The little spats and misunderstandings?
My heart dropped a little when I was talking to Mr. Sweatpants about his brother. My sister Shenana and I have a bond that nobody understands. He�s protective of his family. I am also fiercely protective of my sister because my mind cannot forget the horrible things she has went through, especially when we were little with mama dying and all. She will probably never get over what happened. I�m sad to see it, but the reality is that my sister is heartbroken over all the things that she lost, that she never experienced, that she never will. That the person who would�ve loved her unconditionally died when she was four years old. That she never had a childhood, that she started a family of her own too soon. She�s in mourning for what could�ve been. I�ve been there myself.
I try to point out the good things, the wonderful things she has, but it falls on deaf ears. Sometimes, I think I�m just talking so that I hear myself trying to be positive, however, my hearts not always in it because I KNOW exactly what she�s missing. I missed it too.
Can Rene� soothe his brother? Can he help make it a smoother process? How do you do that with dying anyway? Who�s ever at peace with the idea of dying except Joan Rivers? I mean, she was on Death�s bowling league!
Rene�s thinking of the family he�s never had too. He never had kids because he didn�t want to leave anybody behind. His brother had a wife and two kids. It�s sad but at least his brother knew that happiness.
It�s a cycle; we make up for what we don�t have with our own kids.
I�m trying now to give my daughter the emotional things I never had. Freedom of expression, freedom to learn, freedom to feel and freedom to make her own small choices. I wasn�t even allowed to think on my own, and I had to be what the adults decided I should be.
At home, I watch Jackie play and interact with other kids. That�s something she takes for granted and I�m glad. If you ever watch little kids talking to each other, hands on the hips, the posturing, the blatant bragging, it�s FUNNY! They�re figuring out the social in�s and outs of kid friendships. I was 17 before I had any social skills.
For me, I mean, talking to boys was out of the question from the get go. Boys were bad. No one told me why until I was about 10, and the explanation I got �They�re nasty and dirty� didn�t make any sense. Because after riding my bike and playing in the yard I was nasty and dirty too. What�s the difference, I wondered?
Shenana rarely told on me for talking to the boys.
In a way, your siblings are like your own kids. Rene� really loves his brother. Rene� was the caretaker, even though he was the youngest. He feels guilty for living so far away, but his career led him here. People sometimes make him feel bad for living so far away. I tell him, guilt should not be motivating your decisions and if someone you know wants you to live that way, maybe you should evaluate how close you are to that person. Lots of folks close to him do that, make him feel bad for leaving, then rail on him for not visiting his family more. Morons.
There�s not much else going on. I talked to the lawyer yesterday, Joe Bauer (the one who prosecuted Rodn*ey Linco*ln). I am uneasy about the DNA results, which should be coming out at any time. I called him yesterday to talk about what was going on. I DO NOT want Ro*dney Linc*oln to ever get out of prison. Besides the heinous crime he committed against my family, he killed another man in the park a few years before. He�s a dangerous sociopath. I don�t think he�d come back for me but I know he�d kill again.
Joe Bauer, lawyer extraordinaire, reassured me in the familiar fatherly way. I started out speaking nervously and ended the conversation with my faith in the Justice System restored. He put my fears to rest.
I have an appointment on July 29th with the Circuit Attorney. From what I�ve heard, the DNA evidence will probably come back inconclusive, which will NOT free Rod*ney. It just wasn�t preserved to last this long because in 1982, there was no such thing as DNA testing.
I am hoping that after this I will be able to get on with my projects that I have started. One of them is to get this book written ASAP. Before all my contacts start dying off. Most of them are in the AARP range and I need to record their recollections before they start to dwindle.
2:29 p.m. - 2003-07-22
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
%%older_entries%%
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