a blended life

The social media version: “A new burger place in Park Slope— pretty good but girls still love Black Tap better. I love the exposed brick and VW van counter.” The reality: We were supposed to go to burgers last night to remember Dad on the 3rd anniversary of his death. I was very sick this weekend. Leah had a fever of 105— I’m gonna day that again— 105 and Lucy was being picked up by her clown father. No one was ok. We somehow made it out of the house today but we could hardly talk about Dad/Grandpa. Hannah regrets that she doesn’t remember much. Leah is deeply grieving a very special connection they had. She cries silently. I am physically wasted with a chest cold, anxious about how Lucy is doing at her dad’s house and too broken to help anyone. Our world went dark three years ago and the light hasn’t come back on.  The social media version: I can’t even write it because it’s not in my nature to sound so fake.  The reality:  Her clown father took her to a party for the g...

New Year’s Eve 2009: Mapleton, UT I left Brian  in Logan and took the girls down to visit my parents for the new year. I felt bad and I felt relieved. I needed a break from him. We didn’t have money for food. He spiraled and never climbed out.  New Years Eve 2014: Mapleton, UT I went to Utah with my girls and left Jacob in Miami. He could have come but made up an excuse about studying and visiting his dad instead. Always talked about visiting his dad—alone— when I talked about a family visit. New Year’s Eve consisted of me, my parents and Stephen and laurel. There might have been some others that left earlier. I took no pictures. The new year rang in and felt so alone and empty. Did Jacob even care?  New Years Eve 2015: Vancouver, WA Pregnant with Lucy, unable to work, Jacob had just failed the most important test that would allow him into residency, I decided to wait out the remainder of the pregnancy at my parent’s new house. This move was one of the most humiliating ex...

Dear Mom, When I found out you passed away in your sleep, I felt a very odd relief. I had been carrying two large bags of grief--one for dad and one for you because you lost dad. Your sadness was palpable. It was stage 4 grief cancer and when you died, I knew the suffering was gone. But I'm still carrying two large bags--one for losing you and one for losing dad. The empath in me doesn't feel all of your sadness anymore. I just feel my own. Hannah fell on the side of her foot this week. It immediately became misshapen and she couldn't put any weight on it. Sounds broken, right? Nope, just a serious sprain. She is in so much and missed three days of school. Remember when she broke her foot at your house in 3rd grade? And how mad she was because the shoe they gave her was super ugly? Lucy has been so sick for a whole month. I finally took her in to have bloodwork and a STOOL SAMPLE (so gross) and turns out she is fighting two different stomach viruses. She had three h...

Dear Mom, You left 4 months ago. You clearly didn't mean to leave when you did, with your shoes sitting by the door and your unfinished paper boxes of chocolates for Relief Society. No one else wants to hear how the girls are doing. No one else has lived with us for so long and understands them and the dynamics of my family like you do. I've retreated into my own silence and my own world, desperately trying to survive each day--sometimes each hour--knowing that although so many friends and family care (and I couldn't survive without their support), there is really no one left that has experienced firsthand the horror story I'm starring in. We had parent teacher conferences last night at Leah and Hannah's school. We had to bring Lucy, who wet her pants twice and cried to go home. Here's a summary of teacher comments: HANNAH: *a natural leader *most well-liked student *grades range from 85 (one class) to 93-99 (every other class) *no missing assignment...

Help usually comes in small pieces, especially with scripture reading. Which I am a big fan of and don’t talk about much.  Here’s something I just found from Marvin J Ashton (old white guy from a long time ago but still said some true, valid things): … Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved. … I’m going to remember this tomorrow when I know my beautiful, orange firecracker daughter will be a birthday party that should never be and while my tween is begging me to go to Times Square to see the new Hershey World, but really I just want to stay in bed and feel hysterical that I’m in this situation and don’t even have a job yet. 

I already don’t want to blog tomorrow but I feel like August 25 should be acknowledged. I’m doing this post in bullet points because everyone is talking me out of using real bullets, though I think we all agree that the impact of this day felt like a death.  • It’s the day Jacob first took me to court for custody—except I didn’t think he was actually trying to get custody because his claim was so far fetched and ridiculous.  • He lies to the judge and said I’d been served but refused to accept the papers. I challenged him and the judge set a new date for the hearing, requiring him to produce evidence that he served the papers.  • We were supposed to have another hearing that afternoon for child support. He went to the judge and asked to be excused.  • He texted me after running out of the courthouse saying he couldn’t make the support hearing (how convenient) and that he was at the birth of his twins.  • I thought he was talking about some patient he was working...

The last leg of our big, scary exodus back into the Big Apple happened on Tuesday when the Relocube* showed up.  *Relocube: very handy 6X7 pod that fit every thing I love dearly, like a steam mop and Instant Pot.  The bishop arranged for two guys to help unload. It was another example of me thinking I can handle it on my own but in the end being very grateful for the extra hands, especially since my back was a tad wobbly toward the end.        Side note— one of the guys kept making unintentionally funny comments like “The Wells (family in our ward) are so brave for living by the cemetery since their apartment is probably haunted.” And “I can take the heavy boxes. I’m Mexican.”  Are we happy to have our stuff? Extremely. I’ve had to accept help from ward members, family and even anonymous givers to get this place looking like a family could live here. And guess what? We LOVE it.  It’s ours. It’s home.  It’s the first time in my WHOLE LIFE that...