life situations

it is what it is

Hope… A Powerful Word

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One!

“What’s the use?  I can’t get a good job.”  “Yes, you can; you just need to stay clean and dependable.”

Two!

“I just want to die.”  “I’ve seen you happy before, and you can be happy again.”

Three!

“I don’t remember what it feels like.” 

Four!

“You’re just down for the count right now.  Things will get better.”

Five!

“No.  I can hear the final count. “

Six!

Seven!

“Never give up.”

In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  Romans 8:37

The count can stop.  There is hope.



The Agony of Defeat

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Today… I admit defeat.  It’s painful.  I can’t get out of bed nor can I get awake.  The monster has kicked my a-double.  Saturday I could feel myself lose my footing, stumbled, took some major punches to the gut.  Sunday, the pummeling continued to the point I was numb, could only sit and stare.

Today… I admit defeat.  I am just too tired to go on, so went to bed and went to sleep as though drugged.  Which reminds me… I need to get my prescription filled again.  Sometimes, a therapist once told me, a person just needs a little help getting over the hump.  My hump is here right smack dab in the middle of my pathway.  There is no getting around it, and I sure can’t get over it.  I need just a little help.

Today… I admit defeat.  Every day I get up, look the monster in the face, and proclaim victory.  I may be bloodied and bruised by the end of the day, but I stand victorious, the winner.

Today…  I admit defeat.  The fight was too hard, or maybe I took the hit too intensely.  The life in me is barely there; the nothingness wanting to take over; the black hole pulling like gravity.

Tomorrow… I proclaim victory.  I know it will be tough.  I know the monster will be strong.  I also know I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.  Phillipians 4:13

Playing in the Rain

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When I was a child, we had a ditch, not deep, in the front of our house that ran down the hill.  If we had a big rain in the summer, we couldn’t wait to get out there in it to play.  Nothing on but panties.  It was the next thing to a swimming hole, however transient it may have been.  No one had pools, at least not my friends, even the small, plastic ones like we have today.  So rainy days were great days!

Then, when it got blistering hot and the blacktopped roads were starting to melt enough to stick to your bare feet — we never even considered wearing shoes, just hopped off onto the side of the road if we couldn’t take the pain any longer — our mom might, just might if we begged hard and long enough, let us get in the water hose and spray each other for a bit.  Our mom never wasted anything, I mean anything, so that was a great sacrifice on her part to let us do that.   I have a picture of all the girl cousins outside on the concrete patio; the basketball goal at one end; the house at the other.  Posting it wouldn’t have been a very good idea because my cousins would string me up if they caught wind of it; some of those cousins should not have been out there playing in the water wearing only panties.

That was back before the days of internet child porn when people could look at half-naked children playing and think good thoughts, children having fun.  Not that those sick-minded people weren’t out there because they were I found out after I was grown, but we were sheltered from all of it.

Just innocent children playing in the water on a hot summer day.

Past the Princess Stage

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Not so deep, and rather silly, thoughts by a Gigi playing princess with two little princesses on the sleepover:

Once upon a time, there was a Gigi past her prime.

princess

Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and Snow White

Made Gigi aware of her pitiful plight.

Cinderella’s fairy godmother got Cindy’s transformation right;

But Gigi’s fairy godmother somehow turned her’s into a fright.

Where once was the smooth, lovely skin of Snow White,

Now crinkled and sagged the skin once tight.

The lush and beautiful locks so much like Beauty’s fair,

Need colored now to resemble pre-Gigi hair.

The ability, as Belle, to charm the Beast in man

Has given way to hot flashes and a fan.

old woman

From Princess to the Ugly Witch,

Gigi transforms without a hitch!

Boo!  Hiss!

Strange Occurrences

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Today I have been totally freaked out all day.  Since the last week or so in March, I have been looking everywhere for the cable to my new writer.  I thought it was in the case when I went to Florida only to find out when we got there that it wasn’t in the case.  The plan was to be ready to write with it and practice up for the big test I’m taking next Friday while I was down there, no rushing, nothing else to occupy my mind.  No dice.  The Dork Queen succeeded in dorking that up.

So when I came home, I looked again.  Cleaned the office.  Looked in the basement that’s full of “stuff.”  Looked through the girls’ toys.  Nada.  So I relented, got on line, and ordered another one, thinking I had accidentally thrown it away.  (Yeah, it gets pretty junky around here sometimes.)  That was Monday night.

Wednesday afternoon the guy delivered it!  Woohoo!  Fast service.  Great.  So this morning was take-it-to-work day.  I get the case with the writer in it from the office; go to the kitchen to pick up the new cable.  When I went to put the new cable in the case, there was my original cable and the cloth to clean my screen (also lost) in the case.  Now, the inside pockets in that case are big; there is no way you could not see that cable in there.  And, besides, I had practically turned it upside down and shaken it when I was in Florida.  The cable and cloth packet were not in there.

So how did that happen?  I am deciding to believe that Kate found it in her toys as she played in here yesterday afternoon, and put them back in my case for me.  How she would know they would go there, I haven’t a clue.  Or why she would even bother putting them in there since she has an allergic reaction to and an aversion for picking up anything is also beyond me.  But that is what I am choosing to believe.  I just wish the ghost Kate had put them in there before I ordered the new cable.

At least I know what the loud noise was I heard a minute ago:  my eggs that I was planning to use to make egg salad boiling dry and exploding.  Jeez!  What a day.

The Boy Who Lived With Monsters

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(This is my last post on the events of 2001.  It has been a cathartic experience, perhaps necessary.  One I hope has enlightened you as well as enveloped you with memories of James.)

Jarred had the most loving heart of any child I’ve ever known.  Many times when I went to pick him up from grade school, he would be standing in front of a child bigger than he was, protecting that child from an apparent bully.  I’ve seen him run across the street to help little women with groceries or pick up something they dropped.  Even small children, toddlers, who weren’t friendly with people loved Jarred, would climb all over him; even as he began exhibiting signs in his teenage years of odd behavior.  Could they still detect his sweet heart in there?

But, also, as a child, Jarred was always “different.”  He would have staring episodes as if in a trance.  Petit mal seizures?  He would grab his ears and complain of the loud water.  At first I thought there was some slight autism although I really didn’t know much about that particular devastating illness at the time; however, he was doing okay in school, maybe he would just grow out of whatever childhood oddity he had.

monster

I didn’t realize, when I would find the little guy sitting at night in the dark all alone in our living room, that he was living with monsters.  I’ve since learned that’s what people with schizophrenia do.  They stay up to protect their families; some sit at the kitchen table all night, vigilant.

I’ve since learned that what a child with a mental illness can hold together in grade school falls apart when that child begins changing classes.  No longer is there the same desk to hold on to, the same room with the same students to bring some sort of stability to the chaotic mind.  And it did fall apart.  The childhood oddities gave way to serious problems with drugs and activities that were just inexplicable.  There’s just too much to tell.

hell birds

“You can’t tell me you don’t see those!  They’re right by the window.” Jarred would hide practically in the floorboard, afraid to look but afraid not to lest a hell bird made it’s way into the car.  I don’t know what they looked like; he tried to describe them, not believing us when we said they weren’t there.

“There’s a zombie standing right behind me.  I can see it in the

mirror.” This was when he was at one of the half-way houses.

He ran into my room and jumped in my bed, scared to death, and as he lay in a fetal position, he said, “I’ve been so scared I couldn’t breathe.”

All he wanted, at 18, when he first really realized something was wrong, was to get well.  “What’s wrong with me?”

And then, as time passed, he would cry and say, “I just want to die.  Why doesn’t God just let me die?”

The big question I have asked God as well.  “Why?”

Part of His answer is in Job 38 – 42. 


The Devastating Destroyer

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The earthquake in Japan has burdened my heart and filled me with sorrow.  Watching the tsunami waters carry off entire towns is sickening… but I can’t quit watching.  I feel I owe them the courtesy and honor of watching their plight, as one goes to the funeral home to honor the loved one of a friend.  The constant worry and threat of possible explosions in the nuclear plant worries me for them.  I will decide in the near future how I will help them.  Monetarily, I’m sure, however small my portion may be.

But what does all this have to do with my writing about James this week?  It has to do with empathy.  I understand the feeling of being powerless to stop a raging, devastating destroyer.  How brave those people were who took videos as the water surged at their feet, tearing their homes and businesses apart, their very life being destroyed as they stood watching.

That’s the way it was to watch schizophrenia take my son.  Powerless.  Even as I took him from doctor to doctor, from hospital to hospital, he slipped under the murky, dark water of this devastating illness.

James and Jarred.  Those two names will forever be etched deep in my heart where sorrow lives.  Two good-hearted men whose lives were stolen by the devastating destroyer schizophrenia.

An acquaintance said when their daughter was diagnosed with schizophrenia that they told the doctor they thought she was on drugs.  The doctor sadly said, “I only wish she were.”  Although using drugs is something one with a mental illness does to try to self-medicate, it is not the cause of schizophrenia.

And my James understood this better than I ever could.  When I was at my wit’s end trying to understand the behaviors of my son, James would explain it to me.  “He can’t tell what’s real and what’s not real.”  Schizophrenia doesn’t take away one’s intelligence; it alters his/her perception of the world.

Jarred’s world was altered from a safe, loving environment to one filled with monsters and hell birds and zombies; a life filled with fear.  A life stolen and destroyed.

“I Was Born to Take Care of You”

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James worked three jobs: driving a truck, driving a bus for the school, and being the youth leader at church.  He also began college again, having quit in his younger days, standing up in class and speaking out for his beliefs.  He wasn’t afraid to tackle a difficult situation, conversation, or project… or relationship.  James was a busy man.  But his No. 1 job was to take care of me.  And anyone that knows me knows that is a full-time job.  He would get my Bible and my treats for my Sunday School children all ready (he was always on time and had it together) and stand in the bathroom doorway, leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, watching me finish with make-up.  I would say, “I’m hurrying,” and he would reply, “Just take your time; I like watching you.”  He was the husband the Bible talks about when it tries to teach us how to interact as husband and wife.  If he told me once, he told me a thousand times, “I was born to take care of you.”

Beauty and the Beast

He did take care of me.  He was a neat, orderly person; everything had a place and it should be kept there.  I am a slob and drove him nuts, so he taught me and encouraged me and showed me how to be orderly and how good it feels to be orderly.  He took care of the yard, the pool, the vehicles, cooked, washed clothes, cleaned.  Anything I could do, quite literally, he could do just as well or better.

James and Brenda

He didn’t need me.  He loved me.

And he loved my children.  Even though they were older, he still felt a responsibility toward them and had concern about their lives.  My youngest son was no exception, my youngest son who had finally been diagnosed with schizophrenia, my youngest son whose behavior became more and more absurd, my youngest son who would eventually take the life of the man who understood him the most.

studying

James had done research about schizophrenia for his college classes and would call and talk to the doctors concerning my son’s illness, the medications, the subsequent hospitalizations, doing what he could to get the help needed, the help that never came, the help that could have saved his life.

Yes, I am still angry.

A Man Of God

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(This week the header picture will be one James took; he loved shooting animals and landscapes.)

Jimmie Joe, JJ, (James to me because that’s what he liked to be called) had the most infectious smile that lit up his whole face and the space around him.  He was such a stinker until the day God grabbed his heart and changed him forever.

what a cutie

I have always loved God, loved my relationship with Jesus the Christ, and loved the fact that the Spirit can move me with the His quiet presence.  Some of my favorite radio stations are the ones that play contemporary Christian music: 104.5 around these parts is one.  I had been telling James he should listen to it because it played great music, had great stuff on there.

One day, he came home and said he had been listening to that station all day, and I don’t think he ever turned the radio dial away from it after that, calling in and winning contests; books, CD’s.  Nor did he turn back from the path he had embarked on with God as his guide.  He began to lead the youth in our church, play his trombone in worship, and love the things of God.

His love for the youth of our church, as well as the whole county, was obvious to anybody that was around him.  He had a deep conviction to show these youth there was a better, greater, more exciting way than drugs or alcohol.  He was filled with the joy of the Lord and wanted them to experience that too.  He worked diligently to teach them, to make things interesting, to give them opportunities that showed them who Jesus really is.

with the youth at Agape

He took them to the Agape music festival at Greenville College, had lock-ins, had cook-outs at our home, and just generally was there, present, in case they needed him.  Those kids still, ten years later, have him in their hearts.

cooking for the kids

He loved music and encouraged those of us who could play a musical instrument in church to get together and practice to play during worship.  And we did:  keyboard, drums, trombone, clarinet, guitars, whatever we could play.  He also worked at getting the sound system just right, good for recording the music and the church services.  My sister and I have always sang together and wanted to make our mother a recording of songs for her birthday.  James went with us to the church to record the music.  At one point in the evening I noticed him leaning back in the chair with his eyes closed.  Thinking he was getting bored and tired of listening and relistening to us, I told him we would hurry.  He sat up, tears on his face, and said, “No, I’m enjoying this.”

Joe, his grandfather, would come to the house, and we would all three watch the Gaithers on television.  I mean, I love the Gaithers, but contemporary Christian was more our style, and yet James would sit there and loved watching this.  His grandpa loved it, too.

He would call me outside of an evening to look at a particularly beautiful sunset and say, “I stand amazed in the Presence.”  And although that beautiful senset was, of course, amazing, it was not nearly as amazing as the transformation that took place in James’ life.

An amazing man of God.

A LOVE STORY

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March 12 , 2001, was the day schizophrenia finally won the battle within the mind of my son, and the day my husband died as a result of that lost battle.

I purposefully waited until after that date to write this tribute to my late husband because that is also the day his sister tries to celebrate her birthday.  A hard thing to do, I’m sure, as she has lost her entire family unit (grandpa, grandma, great-aunt, great-uncle, mother, father, and brother) with whom she spent her childhood years until she moved away to college and then marriage.  Thankfully, God has given her a great second family although this year she has also lost a member of that as well:  a wonderful, loving, caring father-in-law.

It has been ten years since my husband died.  It seems like yesterday.  I will write about him this week because he deserves to have things written about him, and I know others miss him as much as I do and are taking note, as I do, of the passing years without him.

James Joseph “Jimmie Joe” was younger than I was; someone I wouldn’t in a million and one years have ever dreamed I would one day marry.  I suppose God had a different plan, or maybe He just took the circumstances James and I started and created something good, as only God can do.

James lived down the street from me.  He was between girlfriends, I suppose, and I was going through a divorce.  He would call and talk for a brief moment or stop and talk if he saw me out, and one day even knocked on my door.  And tell you the truth, I’m still not sure how I finally said I would go out with him.  But those first encounters eventually led to an actual date a few months later… and a marriage a couple of years later.  It was a scandalous affair!  We were the talk of our little town, and didn’t give a rip.  The only thing I cared about and he cared about were our families and how they would handle it, what they would think.  And I have to say, they were great sports even though I’m sure it was difficult to understand.  After all, James and I were polar opposites.

What a beautiful smile!

He loved that hat!

Can you see why anyone could not resist that smile?

Being polar opposites wasn’t enough to stand in the way of fate.  At least that’s what James always said, “You may as well accept it; it’s fate.”  There were lots of things he said, good things from a good man.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about that good man some more.