When it rains, it definatly pours!

I would be twenty six years old that January, 1996. My life would totally change within the four months following that birthday. One event after another would steal my confidence,my heart, my hope, and even test my long held faith in the Lord.

My mother would die from Melanoma Cancer.Taking her last breath in my arms! Just hours before I would turn twenty six.Many things would occur over the next two days.Many more life changing events would happen in the months to follow.

The day of my birthday was spent planning my mothers' funeral along with my father, sister, and brother. Arranging the sermon was a pretty big fiasco in itself. My sister got mad at me for mentioning my mother wanted" Psalm 13" read over her as they lowered her in the ground. My sister would have thrown daggers at me had they been available.The final casket chosen was the first one I went to. I stood beside it as the others walked around looking. My father approached me, "I'd like your opinion,too!" I turned and laid my hand atop the yellow roses which adorned the casket I stood beside. I simply said, "I don't have to look any farther!" He agreed. Another silent dagger was thrown, from my sisters' eyes!

A few hours later and a disastrous trip to the mall. A suit for my brother, a dress for my sister,and a suit for me. More daggers were thrown, over shoes I simply stopped to look at, they were thrown at me. The dress I really wanted still hung in the mall. My sister had convinced my father,it was to fancy for me! Instead a gunny sack suit with a white bib was chosen. She even had the nerve, before we left the mall,asking me, "When this is all over can I have that outfit!" I held the tears in all the way home. I no longer cared. My heart bled, my mother was gone!

Around seven that evening my home began to fill with family, my mothers' sisters and brothers had begun to arrive. One by one they entered my drive. Just as things began to settle a phone call would come, "De please come down here!" my father said through obvious tears. I began a list of reasons why I couldn't. He insisted through choked up sobs. I gave in and made a quick run, I needed to borrow a pair of dress shoes from my sister anyway.

My father sat at the table , the tears on his face told me something was really wrong. I sat down beside him, he gathered me in his arms. He wept and pleaded I forgive him, he had forgotten my birthday! He  realized this when he found the card he had purchased six days before on my sisters birthday.He had gone to his truck to get something for my uncle. He couldn't understand why I hadn't spoken up.
I whispered as calm as I could, "It doesn't really matter dad mom isn't here!" In my way of thinking I just wanted to forget.I would never again celebrate the day I was born, it would only bring heartache to a heart that was torn.

I went across the yard to borrow those shoes I spoke of before. Another dagger my sister threw as she brought out a dress,yet to be worn. The same dress my father had chosen for me. My sister went back and bought it for herself.The shoes I held were thrown at her, my brother in law stepped in between us before more damage could be done.

Mom's family would stay with me and my live-in, a total of twenty five people by the end of the night.Only her youngest sister and her family would stay with my sister, the rest would stay with me. I upset many that night. Pictures weren't to be taken.They couldn't understand, but it was a promise I made to my mother!

We went through all the groceries in our house in less than an hour. I called my father, "Dad help, I have twenty five people here,no food and nothing to drink." he had food on every counter and only his brother was there.That is all he wanted there! Though he did offer for my live-in to come spend the night, leave me to deal with my family. My live-in was stubborn,he would not take that offer. Two truck loads of food from the counters were brought down. My uncle, dads brother, would run to wal-mart bringing sodas of all kinds. I was so grateful for his kindness! He said I was being the rock to continue,dad needed me. I steeled myself for the day which stood before me.I prayed all would go well!

The church was packed no standing room left. I was shocked for a woman who felt she had no friends.So many were there to wish her farewell! With in the final moments another dagger my sister would throw.She grabbed my wrist her nails would cut the skin as she spoke,"Don't cross me, don't cross me!" All over the rose I held. I handed this to my aunt for my grandmother ,to remember her daughter. I turned back around, I was ready to swing. My uncle, would step in between.

I remember that moment,so well!

It was pouring rain, the grave was filling with water. We were told it would be hours before she was lowered to her final resting place. My father would go to his mothers, just down the road. I could not ride back in the car with my sister for it would no doubt be the last ride for one of us. Instead my live-in and I ,we rode in back of the van with my mothers' family back to our house.

Pulling away from the cemetery, the only sound in the van would be the radio. A new song I'd never heard was playing, it fit so well. 'Twenty-six cents' it would be the song I would  hear each time I thought of my mother.

Time will heal, they all told me time and again!

The following month ,thirty days later. My grandmother, my mothers' mother. Would pass away in her oldest daughters arms. I would make that four hundred mile trip south, alone for her funeral. Realizing how alone I actually was on that drive.I would run from my grandmothers grave in tears.

I would stop and cry over my mothers grave for hours.My father would find me by chance, driving me home.He said he hadn't known about grandmother dieing even though I'd asked him for a loan to go.My live-in by this time seemed to care very little. I truly felt anyday he would just be gone no word, no warning.

It seemed my heart was turning to ice, the only one to receive my caring was my nineteen year old cat. I was losing him to cancer fast. I'd been syringe feeding him for a month as he could no longer chew. The six months he had been lost,two years before, had taken there toll. He had come back, holding on to life long enough to see me through losing my mother and grandmother.

He would die in my arms. As I held him close on a cold wet March morning. I would carry him down to my fathers.Wrapped in a small quilt I'd made by hand just for him. My father would look up sitting in a kitchen chair, " He's finally gone !" We would bury him out behind the lilacs my mother and I had planted two years before.

My brothers words would hurt the most as he carried the shovel to where we stood. "Stop crying, your crying more over him than you did our mother!" I didn't retort for he had no idea how I'd suffered, he wasn't there.

The end of this torture would occur a month later. April thirteenth, my live-ins' grandmother was turning eighty.We were heading to her birthday party. My little car would be paid off in a week. We decided to stop on the way to look at a new vehicle, a mini van.Ten minutes after leaving the car lot, five minutes from the birthday party, life as I knew it would be gone.My last words being, "I want a pepsi !" CRASH!

A blue mini van much the same as the one I'd just test drove, hit us in the drivers door pushing my car side ways fifty foot then rolling down a ravine. My car with its momentum from the turn would go under the van rolling the van over on its side. I would be unconscious at the scene. It seems dummy me, made a left turn from the right lane. No memory was there so I lost all that night.

Twenty four hours later I would find myself in a hospital bed awaking to an empty room to my own pleading voice. Begging my mother to return,to take me with her! Finding myself tied down. I now had several stitches in the left side of my head, multiple bruises, but no broken bones. My live-in would tell the doctor, "Tie her to that bed, for when she awakes she will lose it. This will be the LAST STRAW!"

I was very lucky in the end. A car can be replaced. My live-in had whiplash but we were alive.The five in the mini van that hit us were all OK.Only one, went to the hospital just to have his hip replacement checked.He would be fine! I would spend a week at home with no balance and no memories.I would return to work the following week.It would be sometime before the basics would be easy again.

My life became a tightrope. I walked with little skill. I was a disaster waiting for a place to happen. I worked hard to regain a semblance of life. Eventually I would become a Certified kennel operator then a veterinarian technician.I would buy a new car.Find a wonderful house to rent in the right location,at the right price.Solve a ten year education loan problem, to cure the bad credit that had plagued my life.

It would take years for me to even begin to deal with the resentment and pain brought to me during those four months.Eventually, I would sit down and write the story of the two years before mothers death and the events following. Releasing a good deal of anger upon the world around me.The truth of my words would tear my relationship with my family apart. No one had known the real torment I carried for I had been the rock, hiding my pain for so long.

When all was said and done. My life would take a different avenue. I would climb to the top of the mountain set before me and shout for all to see. I'd overcome the pitfalls of this life.

Yet,there was so much more to come! Four years later the down pour would come once again. That is another story! The philosophical saying, They come in three's doesn't apply in my life they come in FOURS!

When it rains it pours, but the strong will overcome and rise once again!



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