So it's been a long time since i blogged..still trying to figure out if i want to continue with the grief blog part...as i said before it was alot harder then i expected. So that being said, this weekend the family and i went camping. This was Bronsons 2nd  camping trip and we had a great time. Monica's boss Endo even came to stay one night with us. On saturday Harley's step sister Jami got married Monica, Bronson and myself left the campground to go to the wedding, which brings me to this post. I look on my facebook yesterday and this is what i found..oh, the tears started to fall, hard and fast, been a long time since i cried that hard and missed Harley that much. It touched my heart that on Jami and jason's special day, she thought of Harley and how she should have been there to share the occasion with us all.. i didn't know that Jami had done this so you could imagine my surprise when i saw them so here are the pics that she posted..hope you enjoy.

this is jami placing what would have been Harley bouquet to carry in her wedding if she would have been here with us.

jami standing at Harley's grave

Jami putting a bow from her wedding on the post at Harley's grave.

Jami and Jason Walking to Harley's grave site..Don't they look great walking in the cemetery.. still in full wedding attire 

The back side of Harley's headstone..inscribed in a quote she had written.

Jami and jason having a little talk with harley before placing her bouquet on her site....I love you baby girl!!!

A long time

(Me and Monica on vacation 2009)

So it has been a while since i have written on my blog. But i had talk to my dear friend Julie today and she shared with me how she had read my blog and cried..I told her that i didnt realize how hard it would be blogging about my Grief Process. I just thought it would be a good healing process until i started and then realized just how hard it was to relive those days. I promised her that i was gonna continue with the blog and finish it someday...may take me a while but i know that this is a good healing process and i told Julie that if she cried too then i didnt feel as if i was carrying the burden alone...she could cry with me. So in the near future i will gather some of my journals back up, pull some of those ugly, nasty feelings and emotions that i went through back up and i will continue my blogging and my grief journal.

"Words that forever change your life"

Today  I overheard my daughter Monica talking to a counselor at a new college she is wanting to start.  The counselor was asking her general questions about what she was wanting to go to college for, the classes and credits that she already has from Cleveland State and then she was talking about her family and I overhear Monica say "when my sister died, well she didn't actually die, she was killed"....Those words are the same words I have heard myself speak so many someone dies, they die of natural causes, old age, cancer, premature birth, and the list goes on and on. But when is "killed", their life is cut short by something or someone else, a car accident, shooting, beaten, head injuries, anything but a natural cause. When someone you love is killed, you feel so cheated of the time that you thought you should have had with them. You don't understand why their life was cut short. Even "why did God choose to take them like this". I also believe that the grief process is so much different. Most of the time when someone is Killed there are no answers on why or how it has happened. Many times we are left without answers, without closure, and most of all we are left without the person we love while the person who took their life goes on with theirs. When someone is killed and instantly snatched from your life you are left angry and bitter. You don't know how you are supposed to go on without this person.

I guess what i am saying is the next time you hear someone say "so,and so died or so and so was killed" please think of the difference between the two and how it has affected this person and their family. There is a BIG difference between the two and you may never understand for yourself until you experience it yourself..

Mother and Child

Just wanted to share a few pictures of Daughter Monica and Mr.Bronson...I love them both more then i can ever say and he has brought so much happiness to our life in just 7 wks..

How peaceful is this!!!

Monica and Bronson!!!

This was made for her Sister...it shows her "in Loving memory" tattoo

I feel like a new person!!!

After a week and one day of fighting Staph and Cellulitis in my nose I feel like a new person.  Thank You Dr. Delaney..you're the best!!!! This all started last saturday when i woke up an swore that Donnie punched me in the nose in my sleep.  It was so sore that i couldn't even touch the skin it was so tender. So then i think, "ok, maybe i am getting a sinus infection, but 2 days later still no cold and my nose is swollen HUGE and I mean HUGE!! Kinda felt like Marcia Brady when she got hit with the football. So not wanting to go to the doctor and sound stupid saying "can you help me, my nose hurts". I called my niece who is a nurse and ask her. She said yes there can be many things wrong ,you could have MRSA and some other things, so i decided to go to the doctor and sure enough by then it was REALLY bad so i had to be put on Septra DS for the staph and keflex for the cellulitis and said that if i didn't see a change or continued to get worse by friday come back. so the next day i was back because now my left eye was swollen too :( Well that doctor didn't do anything, if i knew his name i would sure put it in here but let's see at Physicians plus there  Dr. Maza, Dr Delaney and That other nasty, mean disrepectful man. Any way, he treated me like a piece of garbage that he could care less whether i lived or died and really shouldn't be doctor, but that's another story. if i find out his name i will blog about the experience my daughter and myself have had with him. Any way's i go home not getting any better on Thursday. On Friday i go back because once again i am much worse on this day. This is the day my lifesaver came. I saw Dr. Delaney and she was absolutely wonderful. She was caring, she listened to everything i had to say, she ask me many questions. and she didn't pinch my nose and say "does this hurt" like Dr. Disrespectful did ( and then said well don't touch it). When all was said and done she was gonna give me a shot and change one of my meds and put me on another .. now i am on Septra DS 2x's a day, Clindamycin (2caps.3x's a day) and prednisone (2 tab. 1x a day) . so she really doubled and triples my meds plus put me on alot stronger ones and when i woke up saturday, i had a left eye.....yippy!!!! Now it is sunday and i have a nose back...I mean a real shape with a bridge, nostrals and everything!!! Thank you Dr. Delany and all the wonderful people at the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy (just a little free advertising Endo...lol) Seriously though, Endo, Amanda, Ashley, Angie, and my wonderful daughter (even though she is on maturnity leave, she call the boss to tell him we were on our way and not to close because I needed my meds asap). I still have 5 to 7 days on the meds and i am taking them all just as directed and hopefully, no more staph or cellulitis for me!!!!

p.s. if you ever wake up and your nose hurts like heck. please go to the doctor...this could be you!!!

Donnie's Bribe

 

Ok...i am posting this picture not because i like it but because it shows just how out of shape that i am..I have gained about 50 in 9 years (really less then that ..it all started after a thyroid surgery). Anyway this is what it all boils down too....The other night i walked into our bedroom and said " ok, we are gonna have a wedding(actually a 10 year renewal of our vowels). Monica is gonna be my maid of honor, Nick is your best man, Lane and Lauren are gonna be our flower and ring bearer and we will let Bronson (aka MR.MAN) be the honorary ring bearer or something...so i had it all figured out. Donnie said all i needed was a groom......hum...wonder who that would be??? Donnie never said anything else, but oddly enough i overhear him talking to Tim (our co-worker) about "my" plans of "our"wedding. Yes, all of this comes back to me constantly complaining that i am fat !!! So today, out of nowhere, we are at work and he says to me "ok, i have some incentive for you to loose weight. I said "ok". He said "are you gonna agree"?  "sure" i replied. He continues to tell me "you said you wanted to have a wedding right?? well here it is....you set a date before our anniversary and loose 40 lbs and then he would agree to have the wedding!!! So here i am wondering how can i loose 40 lbs...someone please help me!!!! I want my fairytale wedding. We were gonna have it on our 5yr anniversary and that was the year Harley was killed so needless to say, i had no interest in a wedding or anything else as far as that goes. Now 4 years later i want to do it next year for our 10 year anniversary. So this is the beginning of a new blog entry on my weight loss or lack of weight loss...we will see what comes of this!!! On a lighter note. our co-worker Tim and his Wife Darlene are at the hospital with their daughter Courtney fixing to welcome another baby boy into the world!!! It will be their 1st grandchild. I will let you know when he gets here.

Homcoming 2009 -our family pictures at church

Today was homecoming at church and it was extra special this year because we had Bronson  and also my sister Donna and her husband Steve were in from Texas. So we took some family pictures after church which was a few and far between photo opt with all 5 of us kids here... so here are a few of the pics that were taken today

                                                              

     Back row:   Steve (Donna's Husband),  Donnie (My husband),

John (#4), cindy(Ken's wife), ken(#3), brenda(#1),

jimmy(John& Mousies son),Selena((#5)me),

Ben(Donna and Steve's son),

Mousie(John's wife), Mom, Donna(#2),

Monica(mine and Donnie's daughter)

and Bronson(Monica's son)

This is mom and her 5 children: Front Row, Mom and Brenda(#5)

Middle row : Selena (me) and Donna                      

Back Row: John and Ken

                                            Me showing a little love to "Brother Love" as you can see the rest of them were laughing at me !!!!

Once again making them laugh.....strike a pose!!

Brother laughing cause the bench in sinking in the mud!!

The 5 of us kids:

Brenda, Selena(me), Donna

John and ken

Me, Monica and Bronson

Life is wonderful and it is not very often that our family is together as a whole.. we don't take it for granted any more, one minute we were taking pictures with Harley and the next she was gone, then there was Jeff , he was in our pictures , then he was gone. We cherish our family and every minute that we are together.

Ok, just had to sneak this one in..it was not took today at homecoming but a couple of days ago here at home...I love my baby Bronson

Bronson

this is what i came home to today.. Bronson was asleep in his sweet peace swing and Monica had cleaned the kitchen and  livingroom for me !!!! Bronson is 2wks and 4 days old today.

why i say "life goes on" part 5

The investigation into Harley accident took almost a year. I knew we were doomed right off the bat. We were called to the accident sight one afternoon by Travis Green who was doing the investigation on the scene. Just shortly after we arrived we were going over some of the details of the accident that night and there were a couple of things that didn't make any since to me. First of all my Jonathon Martins(the boy who hit her own admittings he was going 52 mph on a road posted 35mph so i ask Travis if he was at least going to get a speeding ticket and he said no, he was only going 7 mph over the speed limit and i said no he was going 17mph over the the limit. Travis continued to tell me that the speed limit on that road was 45 and not 35 (all speed limit signs are posted 35mph and below) .Then he said words that will forever be stuck in my head, he said "one teenagers life has already been ruined, why ruin another one"? I knew we were in trouble. Also by Jonathons own admittings  he said he stopped because he had to pick his mirror up out of the road because when "hit the dog it broke his mirror".....ok call me crazy if you want too, but has anyone ever hit a dog that knocked off their drivers side mirror???? He said he didn't even know he hit her until Boz (harley's friend) came to see what the loud noise was (the sound of the collision) and realized harley's shoe was on the side of the road..he knew she had been hit and starting screaming "where is she, where is Harley"? Then Boz jumped off the side of the road into cudzo and searched for her.  How do you hit someone one not once, but twice and knock your drivers side mirror off your truck and not even know you hit them???? This was the craziness that we were faced with.  Anyway , when Travis said "one teenagers life has already been ruined, why ruin another one" I like to have went postal on him. I knew nothing would ever be done to Jonathon. I looked at Donnie and told him to get the car and get me out of there before i killed him(travis). I couldn't believe this was the way the police were thinking, and at the same time, i knew that if it had been me driving that night and would have killed someone, I would be under the jail. Would they be thinking this way if it was their daughter???  Back to the speed limit signs. To show you how dumb out justice system really is. On the police report the speed limit was said to be 45 on that road (even though as i said before it was posted 35 and below) I had to go to the road dept. and have a statement signed saying the speed limit was 35 and not 45. (The report never changed). These are the officers that we have working for us. Travis was later fired for unrelated reasons but rehired about 1yr later. There were facts that we went far out of our way to prove right or to prove them wrong during this investigation, but nothing was ever done about it. It is really sad that a grieving mother was having to do her own investigating on he death of her own daughter because the law would not do their job in fear of "ruining " a teenagers life.

Life is Good (Great)

I'm sitting here just absorbing all the marvels around me....Life is great. As i am blogging my 2 dogs (Flash and Dangersome) are on their bed, Bronson is laying beside me in his boppy sleeping so peacfully and Monica is laying at the other end of the sectional sleeping. We didn't go to church this morning (just wanted to keep Bronson home) so we all slept in. I has just been Monica, Bronson and myself at home this weekend because Donnie went to Phenix City to a race with his son Nick, my brother and a bunch of other guys from the track. This has been the first time he has ever went anywhere in 9 years by himself. He deserves it so much. So why they are having a guys weekend, Monica and I are having a girls (and one very small guy) weekend . We rented movies, ordered Pizza and just hung out in our P.J's. Monica could even breastfeed without being covered or worried about someone walking in (i'm sure she enjoyed that). Just to sit here and watch them is so peaceful and so heartwarming!!! Bronson has filled a little space in my heart that was left empty and broken by the loss of Harley. How could you not just eat all of this up and Thank God for his wonderful blessings of mercy and Healing and just how good he is to us even when we think we don't deserve it. Praise you God for all your wonderful Blessings!!!

first entry in my grief journal

July 1,2005...12 days after your death

This is really the first time I've been able to write. Oh, i miss you so. Baby girl that was the hardest night of my life. I don't know if we will ever know the truth about your death or if we will just have to live with what we are told. That knock on the door will never leave my head.Looking out the window & seeing that cop car I was thinking "oh God, what has she done now" I think I even said that out loud to Donnie. When I opened the door & saw pastor Sears standing there I already knew that you were gone-all that was left was "Why, where and When". My body went numb, my heart was gone, i had never felt so much pain in my life. I screamed to the heavens "no, no, no" but you weren't coming back....I was dead inside. You were my flesh and blood, you were my baby girl and now you were gone. Someone please wake me up from this nightmare. It can't be true-Donnie had just seen you at wal-mart. You couldn't be gone- my mind is racing and yet it was in slow motion. you can't really be dead, you are too young, you just graduated, you were going to college, you were going to beauty school, who will do my hair??? Baby girl that was the longest week of my life...actually that night seemed to go on forever and ever. I wanted to see you and they wouldn't let me. I had to see you, i had to hold you and kiss you bye, i had to tell you i Loved you so much, I had to say I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you.....

Love you, hugs and kisses, Mom

July 7,2005 (continuation of July 1st entry)
Sorry i didn't get to finish, now all that keeps me going is hate and anger. I needed to see you , they couldn't just take my baby away and not let me see you. I wanted to hold you,touch you, Finally around 3pm Donnie finally got the funeral Home (Ralph Buckner) to release your body for us to see. I remember waling in the funeral Home & Jimmy Caywood was there waiting for us.I wanted to go in first. i wanted to see you by myself-also if you were really hurt and i bad shape, i didn't want my family to see you in that shape. I didn't want to embarrass you or take away your dignaty. I love you so very much. I walked in and ther you lay, my beautiful baby girl. I couldn't believe you were so beautiful. You looked like you were sleeping, so sweet and so innocent, just sleeping.Your hair had just been washed and it was damp and wavy, your face was flawless-my angel face!!! You were so pretty and your face, all clean with that wonderful shinny complexion- those freckles on your nose, and a smile on you face- you looked like you were in such peace. you lay motionless on that stainless steel examining table with a white sheet and red cover over your body. I was breathless. You were so beautiful - i had peace at last. I let jimmy call in the family, Donnie, Monica, Boz, Mom, Mandy, Erin,.I can't remember who else was there but everyone thought the same thing "you were so peaceful" . My baby was really gone. Rality was there. I now had to figure out how to go on without you in my life on a daily basis. What was i going to do without my daughter, my friend, my little mother hen??? Monica has lost her sister, her best friend, her nurse, her counselour, her idol, what about her???? What do i do to help her??? She always listened to you befor me, I have told everyone "if Harley didn't say it---it wasn't so" I can't take your place. She needs you. I looked at here there in the funeral home-lost- heatbroken - empty....just like me. All these times I had said "you better love your family , it's all you have" She now realized you are gon and she has no sister anymore, you were her on and only sister, ther isn't another on to replace you. "OH MY GOD...HELP ME...this sorrow floods my soul" it is unbearable at times. On Tuesday july 5th I stopped by your grave, and i cried and cried and cried some more then i drove down the road that you were killed on (Rabbit Valley). All the other times that i have passed or went there to sit, i just felt lonely, and sad, I've felt empty and alone etc. But today when I drove down, I had pure RAGE-DOWN RIGHT HATRIED!!!! I yelled at God I demaned to know why, i had to know why such a great person as you had to die in such a nasty- dark- lonely -ugly-cold place. why this horrible cudzu grave???? Why there, why that way??? I found myself screaming into the heavans again, demanding answers tht only God knows...I don't know when or if he will ever reveal them to me...I keep saying when i get to heaven I will ask you ....Donnie says when I get to heaven it won't matter!!!!!!


(blogging my journal entries has brought back many emotions that i thought were gone so please pray for me as I continue this healing process in a different way "blogging".)

Why i say "life goes on" part 4

(the picture above was Monica & Timmy on Prom night. She had to include her sister and show her how beautiful they looked)

June 24, 2005
The Funeral is over an we are left to sort through the flowers, cards and etc. I am lost, my house now has the horrid smell of a funeral home (because of all the flowers) and i hate that smell...I have since i was 10 when my dad died. That smell is forever burnt into my brain.. I come home to nothing, an empty house, yet is full of people. Anyone who has lost a child, husband, wife or anyone close in the same household knows exactly what i mean. Emptiness feels the air and i can't breath. I go into her room ...the pillows and blankets are still in the floor where her and Monica had been watching movies a couple of days before, her clothes, her shoes, her smell, this is what i have left, i fall to the floor and cry so uncontrollably, shaking so violently that i don't know if i will ever catch my breath again. There were a few of Harley's friends that ask to see her room, just as i wanted to feel her presence they also longed for one last glimpse one last smell, anything to hold onto...after that her door was locked and not entered into for 3yrs (that's another story). I couldn't stand being in there, knowing she would never ever walk threw those doors again. The weekend was spent answering the phone, but my wonderful, understand husband took most of the calls and politely told everyone that i wasn't able to talk. On monday I went back to work..i had too. I couldn't stay in this house by myself, i had to get out I had to do something to get my mind off of everything....this wasn't a good idea but i had to do it...Thank God I worked for my brother otherwise i know i would have gotten fired the first day back to work. Grief has a mind of it's own, a life of it's own, you are no longer in control of your thoughts, words, or actions. I would answer the phone and the first thing I would hear is "I am so sorry" followed by "if there is anything I can do"... I was sick of hearing this...they were empty words being spoke by people who didn't really mean what they were saying (i am not speaking of everyone but 90% of them where just trying to be nice...not really concerned). I didn't want to hear these words from one more person...i might just scream....too late the phone just rang again and it is the same old same ole' . It is crazy but you can tell right off the bat when people say something to you if they are truly concerned about you or if they are just words... some were concerned about me and my family, most were just being nosey and wanted the detail of her death...that is when i would go out of control as never before...i would say some of the nastiest, ugliest hateful words ever spoken by me. I didn't want to tell them these personal things and I was very angry that they even had the nerve to ask. Needless to say, the days were long and sad and by the time i got home i was mental exhausted from all the questions and the "trying" to work and put on a happy face for my customers...it didn't work. I would come home and crawl into bed and just cry , cry, and cry some more until i was asleep...that never lasted long. The sounds and the words from the night the police and preacher showed up on my doorstep forever interrupted my sleep. Sleep didn't come easy nor did it come often. I would constantly wake up, crying and screaming. Many of times my husband would actually wake me up to bring me out of the nightmares i was having..Sleeping pills became my bestfriend, but just like friends, they let me down. Nothing would help the sleep come and keep the nightmares out. Every morning and every night and alot of times in between i would pray to God and tell him how thankful i was for the 17 years that he gave me with Harley because i know he didn't have to. I was thankful..very, very thankful!!!

Bronson has arrived

On my last blog entry i said that Monica maybe going into labor...well she was. AT abouth 10:45pm we left to go to the hospital..around 11:30pm she was finally sent to the room to be monitored. she was still only dilated 1-2 cm. They called linda to see what she wanted Monica to do and Linda said "walk for 1hr and be rechecked. That didn't work too well because her contractions were so close together (3-4mins apart) and they were pretty hard. So they gave her til 1am and examined her again. She was still just dilated 1-2 but her contractions were still close together and hard so they called Linda again and she said to admitted her. so she was admitted at 1am and put in a labor and delivery room. She was checked again at 4am and dilated to 4cm.. Around 5am she decided that she needed an epidural (which she did not want to get but come to find out was probable an intervention from God). After the epidural she wasn't checked again until 6am..she was dilated 6cm. The nurse estimated that it would take her until around 9am to dilate to 10cm.but they came in at 8:30 and checked her and she was dilated to 10 and ready to push so the nurses prepped Monica and Linda went to put on her scrubs. From that time it took 40 minutes for Bronson to arrive..just before his arrival, Linda said he was having a hard time moving under her pubic bone and was trying to help his head to go under it (here is the intervention from God). In the process of her trying to help his head under Monica's pubic bone Linda noticed that Bronson's umbilical cord was wrapped around Bronson's neck. Every time monica would have a contraction Bronson heart rate and oxygen level would drop. They gave Monica oxygen but that didn't help. Linda said "i'm gonna have to cut her" we said "do what you have to do" we could also overhear the nurses trying to get a doctor paged because they thought he would be born lifeless (Monica was oblivious to all of this but me and my sister were listening to everything) so linda gave her a pretty good size Episiotomy.. I truley believe that if she did not get the epidural that she would have had to have and emergency c-section to save Bronson, but because she was numb linda just made him a way out (thanks linda to your good work). Bronson Eli was born at 9:10 am weighing 7 lbs 14 ozs and was 21 in. long. Both Monica and Bronson are doing wonderful. He is so alert and has taken to the breastfeeding very well... I will get some pictures posted but I haven't had time to upload them yet...(still trying to recover from being up almost 40hrs with no sleep)

maybe a baby!!!

I'm blogging and I'm supposed to be timing!!!! We just came home from church and Monica realized she may be leaking water!!!! yippy...maybe we are getting somewhere...after she realized that she started having contractions and they are anywhere from 5min to 3 mins apart....I hope she goes into natural labor instead of them having to induce her on Monday. She has been very concerned about being induced. She said "we don't do our animals this way so why should they do me" I'm just gonna wait...so she has been thinking of calling Linda tomorrow to see if it will hurt her to wait a little while longer instead of being induce...Maybe God has answered my prayer and she is going into labor on her own...I can't wait!!