Bella

Bella \b(el)-la\ is pronounced BELL-ah. It is of Italian and Latin origin, and the meaning of Bella is "beautiful".

 

She was supposed to be Earl's dog.  Christmas Eve, 2008- the kids and he brought her home. She was adorable.  I was not really a dog person. I like them all ok and we always had them because Earl loved dogs so much, but I much preferred an independent cat that curled up to me when they wanted to and ignored me when I wanted them to also.   But once Jenna took her fat cat to college with her, I was ok without a cat too.  Earl fell in love with his nephew's dog, a Boxer he had rescued, and when his nephew decided to breed his Boxer he promised his uncle first pick. And that is who he picked and named, Bella. He brought her home when she was 5 weeks old. She was supposed to be named after Disney's Belle- but Bella she became, so everyone always asks now are we Twilight fans. Umm...no not really... Earl had never seen the movie and he sure never read the book :) It's just who she became.  She was learning tricks by the time she was 8 weeks old. She could sit, lie down, roll over. He worked constantly with her. Taught her to dance, taught her to stay.  She is smarter than any dog I had ever seen, and my husband loved her so much, he came home every day at lunch to make sure she was ok, fed, watered, needed love. She was supposed to be his dog. But she loved me.  I didn't do a lot of training, I petted, hugged, took her on walks.  But I never thought of her as my dog, that is until we lost her. We had a family reunion in June of 2009, and took her with us. It was just over to Earl's brothers who lived in the same town as we did, and she'd been there before. They had her litter mate, Duke and Bella loved to run and be crazy with him, plus her Mama was there too. We thought it would be fine.  But I left to go to the store with my sister in law, and Earl was in the pool and there was so many people and she couldn't find us. When I got back, I asked where she was, everyone thought she was in the house with the other dogs, but she wasn't.  We searched the yard, and the surrounding woods. Earl and I walked down the road, his brothers and brother in law went out on the motorcycle, and their cars, and we searched, and yelled her name. For hours. Earl and I went up and down the interstate hoping to see her, yet hoping not to see her on the side of the road. The reunion was spent trying to find our dog.  Where could she have gone? Why had we taken our eyes off her? My heart was breaking, worried she was hurt, or stolen, or God forbid dead. I couldn't imagine what the pain would be to lose a child, if I was almost paralyzed with fear for our puppy.  We couldn't enjoy anything. We were numb. We couldn't eat, I felt bad for everyone else who sympatized with us.  It was getting later, four hours later and we were back at his brothers house, just barely functioning really. I sat by the fire pit, staring into the fire and Earl was standing by the pool fence trying to have conversations with his family.  Justin was sitting with me when suddenly he jumped up, looking behind us and off to the right. He hunched down and then took off running, "There she is!" He cried, she was at the edge of the woods. She had come back, and Justin ran to her calling her name, she came bounding to him, panting and jumping. OH Thank you God, I thought, and everything is right in the world again.  Earl and I both ran to her, hugging her between us, scolding her, and she just licked our faces like "what's the matter with you two?"  Earl finally ate then, and I put her leash on her and kept her by me the rest of the night. So she sort of became my dog that day. But once I lost my job and was home every day, especially after we brought Mom home, she became my shadow. It's like she senses I may need her at any moment.  When I'm doing something for Mom, she sits at the foot of the bed and waits for me to be done. Sometimes I take her for rides with me when I go on errands in the car, even if I'm just getting groceries out of the car, and then driving the car down our steep driveway, she jumps in and rides down the driveway with me.  After Mom's stroke, one day, I was exhausted, no one was home, and I just broke down and cried by myself. It's easier to cry alone sometimes, then you make no one feel bad, or feel like they need to comfort you, when honestly sometimes there is just no comfort to be had. I was sitting there, my head in my hands, when I felt a cold nose against my leg, and I looked down and there was Bella her head laid across my knees and her big brown eyes just looking at me with all the sympathy a dog can muster. I got down on the floor and wrapped my arms around her, laid my head on her head and kept crying. She never moved. She stayed that way, still as could be until I was done.  Then she licked my face.  Yes, that beautiful Bella, she's my dog.

Strength

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

-Ernest Hemingway


I have forgotten to mention that in October of 2009 I also lost my job. The company I worked for was making a lot of cuts and I became one of those cuts. At the time I was not happy, but later I realized that the Lord was in that too. What if I had been working when this happened with Mom? I might have gotten fired because I spent every single day of December by her side. This way I had been given some severance and was able to draw my unemployment.  Sure there are things that happen we will never understand, but God knows, we just have to trust him.

The first week at the hospital the doctor assigned to Mom's case, the head neurologist was not optimistic. She had had a massive stroke.  For two days we had no response, and when she did open her eyes, she could not speak and seemed confused. He pushed us to make a decision- she couldn't eat, there wasn't much to do unless we put a feeding tube in her stomach, but he didn't recommend that.  Why? I asked.  He did not really clarify but he wasn't giving her any hope.  I found out later that the doctors didn't think she'd make it past that first week, but there was a younger doctor there, fresh faced, and red headed.  He was concerned that I wasn't getting the whole truth, and he had more faith in Mom.  One day he stood by her bed, and then looked at me.  "Mary, look at your daughter." He said sharply clearly, her eyes went directly to me. He smiled at me. "She knows what's going on. I believe it." He told me quietly.  We had the feeding tube put in. If the Lord wanted to take Mom, he could, but it was not going to be because we starved her to death.

After a week she was released to come back to our home town to a nursing home. She still hadn't spoken, or moved her right side, but her vitals was good. She was not happy to be at the nursing home. When they wheeled her into the room where I was already waiting, she looked at me and sighed. I knew that look. Frustration. She couldn't tell me what she needed, but she didn't like this.  "It's just for recovery, and rehab." I told her, but she pursed her lips and turned her head away from me.  I still had hopes that maybe she would completely recover.  I knew that she didn't like strangers, would not enjoy seeing new faces all the time, but we didn't have much choice at that point. I went home and cried myself to sleep.  Everyone tried to comfort me, my kids and my husband, but I felt like a failure leaving her there. I got up the next morning and went back to the nursing home, which was less than three minutes from my house.  I spent the next month there and most days she would just sleep.  She wouldn't wear her glasses, they thought that her vision had changed. I brought her teeth, she wouldn't put them in.   She refused to do rehab most of the time. It was so hard watching her struggle and feel hurt.  I hated seeing her so tired and unhappy, but mostly I missed her voice. I would talk, and talk, and talk, until I grew tired of hearing myself.  It wasn't the same, sure I had done a lot of talking when we had our conversations before, but it was her voice I longed to hear, her voice that reassured me and her laughter, I missed that too. I was wearing myself out emotionally and physically. The doctors and nurses kept telling me I had to take care of myself too. I now had two weddings to help plan. I had a family at home. She would be ok if you missed one day. But I thought of the time I broke my leg in 2007, and how when I was still in the ER I called my Mom to tell her, she said tell Earl to come get me. My husband and my son were already at my side, but she didn't say "Ok honey, let me know later how you are. After you have surgery maybe I'll come up and see you." No she  said tell Earl to come get me, and I said "Please hurry, go get my mother." I wasn't going anywhere.

Vicki

November 2008. I received a card in the mail, it was a pretty card, said I am thinking of you and it was signed Vicki. Nothing else. Just Vicki.  The return address on the envelope was unfamiliar to me as was the last name. I didn't know many Vicki's, a friend's mother  was named Vickie and one other possiblity..could it have been..my sister? We weren't raised together. Like I've said before my aunt got me as a five month old baby, then adopted me. I had a few memories of her when we were little. Once when I was about 4 I remember she was over and we hid under the bed because she didn't want to leave and I didn't want her to. They found us though. And another time we were living in a Orange Stucco house then, and she was there out in the back yard, maybe I was 7, she was 3 years older. I remember her picking up a dandelion and rubbing it over my hand and then hers, she grasped my hand and said "You are my sister."  When I graduated High School she came down from Michigan and stayed with my aunt and came to our house. It was a quiet visit, nothing much was said, we were strangers to each other, I didn't know about her life, she didn't know about mine.  After I married she sent me a beautiful white bed spread I kept on my bed for many many years, until kids and time turned it a yellowish and stained.  But the last time I saw Vicki it was 1987, my grandmother's funeral and I was pregnant with Jenna.  I was worried about my Mom and distracted and we barely spoke, maybe hi. And then the years just passed.  So now here I had a card in my hand with the name  Vicki signed on it and I had no idea what it meant? Did she want to get in touch with me? Why did she only sign her name?   It took me a week to find a card to send back, I wanted it to be as non assuming as her card was. But i did write in it, gave her my email address, asked if we could talk, if this was my sister. And a few days later I got an email and yes indeed it was my sister. We talked on email for a week or two, catching up, telling each other about our lives, I had two nephews and they were almost the same age as Justin. In fact she was pregnant when I was pregnant with Justin. I thought why didn't I know that?  She gave me her phone number, and I kept it for a few days. Nervous, worried I would call and we would have nothing to say. Email is different than phone, I was a writer, I could wax eloquent on an email or text, but in a phone call? Well, I finally got up my nerve one night when everyone was gone and I placed the call. We talked for three hours. About everything. I loved her  northern accent, loved that she laughed so much, that she was sarcastic like me. I loved that it felt like she was my sister even though we hadn't spoken in over twenty years.  We talked for a few months, trying to make plans to see one another, but yet still a little nervous about it.  I had told Mom right away about finding her again, she said oh that's good. But had little else to say, and I started feeling worried. Would this hurt Mom? She had been through so much lately, losing Dad. I was going to go up to my nephews high school graduation, but got cold feet, afraid of meeting all in her family at once, and Mom was starting to have memory lapses, and not feeling good. I think I hurt Vicki through that, I kind of withdrew, not feeling pressure from anyone but my own self, this is summer of 2009 and all things were starting to weigh on me. But Vicki was patient and understanding and caring and those last months of 2009, and when Mom had her stroke, she was supportive. She helped me through it too.  And finally, in April 2010 after we had already moved Mom in with us, my sister came to visit. I thought it might be awkward at first, but the minute I saw her face, and we hugged it was ok. We spent many nights that week up til 2 or 3 in the morning just talking. Getting to know one another face to face. And back up early the next morning spending the day just talking, talking, talking.  We had missed a childhood together, missed all those sibling moments when she or I would have probably been on each other's last nerve, now we were just grown up sisters, with a lifetime behind us, and though we might not have a lot of memories from the past, we had started making memories together that we would cherish forever.

Girlfriends

Friends never stand in your way, unless you are going down- Arthur Glasgow
A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out. ~Grace Pulpit
A good friend is cheaper than therapy. ~Author Unknown

Women need women.  Face it, accept it, rely on it.  Yes you put some women together and they can be catty and mean. They can backstab and gossip, but they can also be your very life saver.  I've been so blessed my entire life with a wonderful mother who was my very best friend, my support, my champion.  Then my daughter was attached to my hip and became another very close friend, and now that she's married there is even more we can share.  But I also have some other very wonderful ladies who love me no matter what, and became close confidents of my life and thiers, who held me up through this tough mess that was my life the last few months and who without their prayer, support and humor I would have just laid down and gave up.  Be prepared ladies I'm going to name you.  There's Cathy,Tami, Laurie, Becky, Leigh, Kelly, Amy, Missy, Faye, Bevvy, Janice and Angie. There's long time far away friends who send me supportive messages on face book, Suzy, Bonnie, Dee. There are my three awesome sister in laws who through 27 years of being a family feel more like sisters than inlaws, Susie, Judy and Diana. I have two aunts that check on me periodically though they live in another state, Judy and Joy. There is my awesome niece Crystal who inspires me and makes me smile she's so beautiful inside and out.  I even have a friend I've never met in person, but we starting talking on a writing website a few years ago and have kept in touch since then, Nadia she is a tremendous blessing.  They range from 23 to 65. They each touch me in so many ways, encourage me, make fun of me, laugh with me, and  tell me when I'm being irrational.  They send me cards, and call me on the phone, take me out to lunch, go shopping with me and let me cry.  And I thank you all. I love you all! But God didn't think I had enough girlfriends, he blessed me once again, he gave me back my sister. Her name is Vicki.

Justin

There is a little wooden heart plaque that I've had since Justin was a baby that still hangs in his room and says "Boy- a noise with some dirt on it." That is our baby. I often told people when he was smaller that if Justin had been born first he would have been an only child. He wore me out. I had been decieved into thinking that all children were sweet and obediant and calm most times. Jamie was energy, jenna could be shrill but Justin was a tornado that met a hurricane and left me lying on the floor in it's wake. I was blindsided for sure. He never stopped, from the time he could crawl at five months I was chasing after him.  Grabbing him off the counter, yelling at him to get down from the tree, daring him if he tried to slide down that bannister one more time he would be banished to a chair. I thought for sure if I had to call poison control one more time they would come and take him away from me.  Mom told me God gave me Justin so I would know how most people lived.  I'd had it too easy, she said, time to pay the piper. And pay I did. Now please don't get me wrong, Justin was a loving kid and very honest. If you hollared up the stairs and said, "What are you doing up there Justin?!!" He'd say "Just hanging the cat out the window, I want to see if he can fly!" And you'd have to calm his sister down because she was trying to get the cat from him, tears streaming down her little face and a look of pure glee on his.   Or he'd have all her little friends screaming and running because he was chasing them buck naked telling them he was going to pee on them. Jenna had a tramatic childhood with her little brother.  And as a teenager when every time she was still he'd try and put her in a half nelson or a sleeper hold. "Ugh get off me!" She'd yell "MOM!" Justin was and is a Daddy's boy.  He is cute too which makes it hard to stay upset with him. He was picked out of all of kindergarten at his school to be one of Apple Festival Princes. He is outgoing and smart. By first grade we let him play on the football little league, he had so much energy he had to burn some of it off. So the rest of our school lives were spent at football fields in the rain and the snow, but we wouldn't have missed it for the world. In sixth grade he joined the wrestling team. He made varsity every year, and I cringed even when he was a senior and I had to watch him wrestle.  I wanted to stand up and yell "Let go of my baby!"  I never did it, but sometimes I'd look at Earl and say "I wish they wouldn't do that to my baby." And he'd smile, and say "He's fine."

  He graduated High School in 2009- we were hoping he might go to a school here in Indiana, but my kids have this thing for Springfield Missouri.  He was accepted to Evangel University with an amazing scholarship, and that was all she wrote. I know when they are little and you dedicate them to God, he tends to take them, so I accepted that he was going to be 8 hours away from me and Earl and I were for the first time in 25 years going to have an empty nest.  So that fall he left for college. It was tough at first and we missed him. By that time Jenna was engaged and Jamie was falling in love, so we had other things to occupy our minds.  But sometimes I would look at that plaque on the wall and think does poison control miss my calls?

Earl

Meaning Earl- Noble Man

That he always has been. I can't continue my life stories without telling you about my husband. For the sake of this blog he will be Earl- but his full name is Earl Lester and all his family  and me have always called him Lester, but everyone else he works with and our friends call him Earl. He never cared - he never liked either name. I often wondered how his mother looked at that cute baby and put that name on him but Earl suits him- he is Noble.  We were going to the same High School when we met. I like that quote from the Notebook older Allie says "It was real, wasn't it? You and me. Such a long time ago, we were just a couple of kids. But we really loved each other, didn't we?"  It's magical when you're young- those crazy feelings of love. When you think you would just die if you don't get to see him in the next minute.  There was nothing going to stop me from marrying him as soon as I possibly could. I didn't want to be anything but his wife. Only 18 and he went to schoool at night to graduate early so we could be married. I had graduated the spring before but by December we were married, back in 1983.  My parents adored him. He made me happy. He did everything he could to make me happy, and to take care of me. He joined the service and we went to Germany.  Then life and reality sink in. Oh those feelings of love were still there but add to that a new baby, his long hours spent away from me, a foreign country and not a friend to my name. I was ready to pack it back to the states within a couple of months.  He came home one night and said there was a woman's meeting on Base- I needed to go make a friend, and he was watching Jamie.  So I did and I did make a few good friends, things got a little easier.  We stuck it out through those first years in the military, when we were broke, and I was tired with the baby and Earl slept all the time because he worked morning to night. I remember our first real christmas together, the first clock I got to buy him, the first night we slept under our very own christmas tree, snuggled together looking at the lights, jamie between us. Seeing the fireworks on January first out of our bedroom window in Germany. Oktoberfest. Lots of very good memories there where we first became a family. Then we moved home and had our little girl. He got a pretty good job and we moved away again. Only an hour this time. Far enough but not too far.  We had lean years, and another beautiful child, then things picked up. He went to school. We worked different shifts so we wouldn't have to have a babysitter.  He is the best father that ever lived. I remember one of his friends asked him once, "What are you doing tonight, do you have to babysit?" and my awesome husband says "I don't babysit. Those are my children. I take care of my children."  And he supported his children through everything, concerts and ball games, and even Jenna's cheering for basketball which he never cared for, he sat through every game just to see her cheer. He made us first priority and I adore him for that. I trust him with my life. He is my backbone. Heart disease runs in his family but we were shocked to our very core when he had a heart attack at age 36.  It hit me for the first time that it was possible to lose him. That the very extension of myself could be cut off.  Thankfully surgery went well and he has been in good health for the last 8 years, but that fear never really leaves me.  And throughout Dad's sickness and passing, and now Mom's I always have that small thought what if I lose earl too? But I push it away and try to keep him eating healthy, and love on him as much as I can.  And he holds me up. He rubs my neck and tells me he loves me. am I ok, what do I need? He never hesitated when I asked him if it was alright to move Mom in with us? yes, of course. He loved my parents as his very own. But mostly he loves me, and I know it. and I am blessed.

Mom

She lost her father at age 16 in a coal mining accident. She was the oldest daughter with 4 younger brothers and sisters and she told me she promised to take care of her little sisters while she sat there at the casket.  She did that. She raised everyone- even her mother at times- they lived with Mom. She married my Dad when she was 18- she told me she married him because she couldn't get rid of him,  but I never saw a love so strong as the one between my Mom and Dad.  He took care of her and she took care of him. She cooked every single day. We always came home to a hot meal. All holidays were at our house, with Mom cooking. The large family gathered there and she took care of them.  When she was 22 she had a tubal pregnancy and almost died. They took both tubes out and her hopes for children of her own were blown away. She said Dad never said a word. She always felt a little sad about not being able to give him his own blood child, but he didn't care. I have you, he would tell her, that is enough. When she was 29 and Dad 33 I was born to her brother- there were too many kids, and too little money and Mom said she went to see me one day and just brought me home and I became theirs. A few months later my birth parents agreed Mom and Dad could have me  and once I was older at age 6 I was adopted. They were all I knew and I was loved.  Mom loved her family, she didn't have a lot of friends other than family because family was her life. She said where she grew up was a lot of gossips and people who made up things, so she never went out of her way to make friends outside of her family.  Her sisters, her sister in laws, and me we were her girls. The ones she talked to - shared things with, advised.  She would listen to me for hours, just listen, let me jabber on and on about all things. She would give me advice, she would encourage me. And we would shop. Mom never drove a car, but once I got my license we became big time shoppers- :) When I went away to Germany with my husband, I called her constantly and got my phone cut off the bill was so huge. Then I wrote letters and came home twice. Once we moved back I saw her every day, until my husband got a job in another town an hour away and we had to move. I then would pack up the kids and go stay the weekend with her and Dad once or twice a month. And we talked on the phone, until once again my phone got cut off- :O) and I'd get it turned back on and it would get cut off again. Way before cell phones and free long distance.  I just couldn't stop talking once I got her on the line.  She is my very best friend.  When Dad got sick and they moved into the town where I lived, again I could see her every day.  Most of those two years were spent at doctors and hospitals, but I remember sitting there beside her at yet another hospital, worry etched on her face, but she would pat my hand, we'll figure this out. Once Dad passed away we both were lost. It was too hard on her, she couldn't believe we had lost him, it shouldn't have happened.  She was sadder than I'd ever seen her, and I couldn't cheer her up because I was sad too. She moved along a few years, getting through holidays, his first birthday without him, anniversaries, but it felt as if we were still in a mire, barely moving, the grieving would not leave us.  I tried to get her to have help, I tried talking to the doctors and see if they would prescribe her something, but she refused it all.  I tried to take something to help me- because I thought if I could be better I could get MOM better, but it made me sick to my stomach and I couldn't take it. So I prayed and made sure she got out of the house, and took her shopping and to church.  She got to where she didn't want to celebrate holidays and became upset when we tried to insist that she do it.   So we stopped insisting. The last time I took her to the doctor I was concerned about her memory loss, but Mom shrugged it off and the doctor pretty much did too.  That was in september of 2009.  Mom got to meet Jamie's and Jenna's fiances at Thanksgiving that year. The next day we were heading out early to go wedding dress shopping with my daughter. Mom told me thanksgiving day she just didn't feel like going, that she would pass.  When I called her that evening the next day, she asked me why I hadn't picked her up. "I said Mom, you told me not to, don't you remember?" "Oh yes, yes I do. Sorry, I was just kidding." But she wasn't and I was very concerned. On Sunday after church she wasn't feeling well, didn't want to go out and eat just wanted to go home.  So I took her home, I had two funerals the next day- a dear friends stepfather and father in law had passed away within two days, so I told Mom I wouldn't be over on Monday, but I would see her on Tuesday. "Call me if you need me Mom."  On tuesday morning I called early- no answer. I waited a few more minutes thinking maybe she was vacuuming or out checking the mail. Still no answer. I got in my van and drove over, I knew something was wrong, I felt it before I parked in the driveway and let myself in the house.  It was silent. The coffee pot was pulled out like she was getting ready to make coffee, her glasses were on the kitchen table.  I called out, "Mom!" no answer. I was never so scared to walk down that hall, physically I had to force myself put one leg in front of the other. I hesitated before peeking into her room, what would I see? Have a lost my Mom too? I did it, and she lay on the floor, arm caught in the bed frame and she was looking at me with wide eyes, but she couldn't speak. I rushed to her, got her arm untangled from the bed and called 911.  It was december 1st, last month of 2009. What more in this crazy year were we going to endure?