As the days are already flying by this year, I find myself becoming more and more excited of what’s to come. Mostly. The “resolutions”, I chose for myself are getting easier, as in I’m actually sticking with them. They were never really resolutions though, more promises that I’ve made to myself and God. That makes it considerably easier to do them, because I can’t lie to either of us. One of them has been to get back in shape, but you can’t really do that without committing to take care of yourself in general. I’ve implemented new practices into my routines like only eating healthy snacks and no eating after 8 PM, and I’m starting to see the rewards of that. I’m currently doing a 30-day butt and leg challenge I found on Pinterest, and it feels like I’m dying most days, but I’m dedicated to staying with it. Never have I ever worked out every day for 30 straight days, and still won’t have when I’m done, because I missed one day on Super Bowl Sunday, BUT, I did workout the next day when I really wanted not to, and I did the previous day’s work out, so I feel like that counts. And the best part?! I can feel myself getting stronger, my butt and legs are showing changes, basically, IT’S working!! That hasn’t made it much easier to get to it every day though. I find myself doing just about anything to avoid it a lot of the time. The other day I reminded myself of Jacob in the Bible when he wrestled all night with God (Genesis 32:22) and his name got changed to Israel. I was running around keeping myself very busy doing chores that I’d long since overlooked. Changing lightbulbs, two were in a light fixture that’s “never worked” since we moved into this house, except it does work and SHAZAM, it’s a whole new room in there! And when the lights were all on, I could see all the cobwebs I couldn’t see before. Have you ever had cobwebs covered in dust? I have, they appeared to have been there since possibly the Clinton administration was in office, but they’re gone now leaving me feeling so accomplished but wait, I still hadn’t worked out. Then I decided that maybe some motivating signs would help me feel inspired. So, I wrote inspirational sayings on pieces of paper and taped them up all over my new workout room that had once been my daughter and niece’s bedroom (possibly another reason it’s hard for me to go in there?!) You get the picture, any and every excuse to avoid the inevitable, but afterward, I did it anyway. Hurdle! Even though I did eventually get it done, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to make it harder by postponing the inevitable. I’m the captain of this ship, I’m the one holding me back by dragging it out. Girl, STOP WRESTLING WITH YOURSELF AND GOD, just do the things, achieve the goals you set for yourself! It’s only me and HIM I’m limiting by doing anything but that….
I’ve progressively begun to realize that life goes on and if I don’t live it, it’s going to keep going with or without me. So here I am, finding new things that bring me joy. The little shop I work at one day a week, has become super inspiring to me. The owner who has become a dear friend to me is so creative and has awoken things in me that I’d forgotten I was good at. One of them is making bold, outside of the box choices in decor and fashion. When our youngest son moved out, we converted his bedroom into a formal dining room, that one was a real passion project for me. I had started to realize how depressed I’d become when he left, every time I walked past his doors. I figured if I didn’t turn it into a space I could love, that feeling would never be resolved. So now it’s a cool Old West vibe with some funky furniture restoration projects and a fun spot for us to enjoy family dinners and holiday meals. These audacious choices I’ve been slowly putting into action, are making me stronger in other ways. Helping me plug-on in the endeavor of getting our story out there…
As I previously stated, things weren’t all bad with my in-laws. We had plenty of good times as a family, which is again I believe why it seems so inconceivable that things turned out the way they did. After years of my oldest sister-in-law spiraling deeper and deeper into her alcoholism, and no one ever able to help her recover, she and her daughter reached a new low. Without anyone to really advocate for her, Alex made an arrangement to move in with her father’s sister and her family. Her greatest fear was finding her mother dead one day, as any thirteen year old would relate to. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to get Denise some help, my in-laws instead sided against Alex, claiming that they couldn’t believe she’d do such a thing to her mother, that she was behaving like a selfish brat, which of course left Denise feeling as if she was doing no wrong, and furthering her obsession with the bottle. She had no real reason to hold back anymore, the only one she cared to pretend for had left, and the family just swept it under the rug even more because anything else would paint an ugly picture of an otherwise “perfect” family. It took me a long time to realize that was what they based it ALL on, being pretty, being perfect. There were so many comments/scenarios, that I can remember now that make me realize how shallow and superficial it really was. If you looked pretty and were successful, that meant you were perfect right? And if anyone (me & Alex, we’re anyone) challenged that, they were wrong, stupid, out of the inner circle. So as Denise continued to drink herself to death, no one in the family did much to stop it. My time spent with them was few and far between at that point, they had each one instigated various arguments with me over the more recent years and it had become too much to subject myself to. The last family gathering that we attended with Denise was one that haunts me now. I was later getting there; I didn’t want to spend hours on end with them and also didn’t expect Ray not to. It was just getting dark, and they were doing fireworks. We all sat and ohh’d and ahh’d, and sipped champagne. Denise was particularly quiet that night and commented about missing Alex, to which they responded not with encouragement to get sober, but instead, poor you, how about a refill of champagne. I cringed at the lack of logic, but kept my mouth shut as was expected of me, because you know, it was none of my business.
I’ll never forget the day we found out she had died. It was a couple of weeks after the fourth of July celebration on a Sunday. I was at church, and we had a luncheon after. I never took my phone into church with me back then, I always figured my people knew where I was and that I’d only be unavailable for a couple of hours. I ran to my car after the service to grab my insulin for my T1 diabetes and checked my phone real quick before I’d go back in for lunch. I had numerous missed calls and a couple of voicemails. The first was from Denise’s “best friend” a guy we called Wickie because that’s what Alex called him when she was little, and it just stuck. When I listened to the message it just said that he’d come over to check on Denise and found her dead. She’d been sick with a stomach bug we thought, and her mother and Wickie had been with her the day before taking care of her needs, but never encouraged her to go the doctor or hospital. As soon as I actually processed what I had just heard, I immediately began to shake uncontrollably. The next message was from Ray and he sounded like a scared little boy saying, ”Please call me back”, and it broke me. I called him back right away and he answered and said he was on his way to Denise’s, and would I please come? After that I heard a message from Alex and when I called her back, she was broken too, in ways that the rest of us couldn’t begin to fathom. She spoke in barely a whisper and asked if I’d come and pick her up so she could go with me. I ran back into the church to tell our youngest son that we needed to leave immediately and then broke the news to him on the drive to pick up Alex. As I neared the turn to their neighborhood, I thought maybe I should double check whether I should bring her with me, so I called my other sister-in-law to feel out the situation. She was obviously distraught and said “hold on” when I asked if I should bring Alex with me. I heard some yelling in the background, and she got back on the phone and said that no, Alex should stay away and would have to live with what she’d done. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that and don’t really remember getting off the phone with her. I called Alex back and told her it was probably best if she didn’t go after all and got the impression, she was relieved by that. By the time I’d broken the news to my other kids and pulled up to Denise’s house, I think I was in complete shock. There on the porch were my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and my husband. I remember the dress I had on, the way my feet felt as if they had 100-pound weights strapped to my ankles, and the feel of my husband’s arms around me when I finally got to him. Devastation feels like a gross understatement. The utter shock I was experiencing was all over their faces, and my heart broke for us all. I never had to say, “I told you so”, because that was on their faces too. I had just missed the coroner picking up her body and for that I was thankful. As we walked inside, the office was to the left and there was my father-in-law, all business going through her paperwork with a fine-tooth comb. My heart went out to him thinking he was just handling the business aspects as the man in her life. As I type those words it now sends a chill through my bones. Was he looking for evidence she may have left behind? A journal or diary that would expose all of the secrets of their past. I guess that’s another question we’ll never know the answer to. Another thing that’ll be in the back of our minds, how far did it all go?
I can now see that entire experience is what propelled me forward in the strength God was setting me up for. Someone had to do it, to move forward in the protection of Alex, to guard the rest of our kids from what was to come. My Ray, I don’t have any other explanation except that God had been preparing him his entire life, for the horrors we had coming. He withstood the test, and so did I, with him holding one hand and HIM holding my other.
Isaiah 40:29 HE gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
