A Broken Heart

Tonight, I'm thinking about a friend of mine who is incredibly hurting.  I wish I could make all the pain go away, and help in some sort of physical fashion, but I can't.  What I can do is pray for you, which I will.  I will pray that God upholds you with His right arm and gives you peace.

I know what it's like to have a broken heart.  Mine has been broken many times.  Love is truly and absolutely blind, but then when we get side-smacked with a bit of reality, the hurt seems to burn like fire.  My "heart" or whatever that place is where we feel emotions, has felt that fire more than one time.  It sears through, taking your breath away and feels like you must be dying.  And you think that dying would be easier than bearing this pain.  And in some ways it would be, I think.  But you're not going to die, not yet, and eventually you'll get up and press on as we all do.  Each heartache, each pain, makes us that much stronger in the end.  Our pain is what helps us have compassion for others.

Being brokenhearted is not romantic nor poetic, although I've written many poems through my brokenness.  Those poems were written in despair and depression and are a precise description of how I felt every time.  Being brokenhearted is being broken - completely.  And not understanding why this has happened.  It breaks a person down to the very core of your being and you are left with a smoldering fire.  But it's still smoldering.  It flickers.  There's still hope when you feel the most hopeless.  Not hope for the thing that broke you.  But hope because tomorrow is a new day, and little by little, that hope grows.  Because the only thing that heals a broken heart is time.

I wrote this many years ago, but this is for you now, my friend:

I can't believe the pain I feel

            and hurt that seers my heart,
                        it seems my breath is almost gone,
                                    my life all torn apart.

You say you understand my grief
            and feel my pain indeed,
                        but you are nowhere near me
                                    when I cry myself to sleep.

There's only One Who truly understands

            my loss of hope;
                        He's ever-present in a crowd
                                    and stays when all have gone.

 He sees my tears and feels my pain

            and wraps His loving arms
                        around my badly shattered heart
                                    to shield me from more harm.

 Jesus is the only One who mends

            what has been torn,
                        by love so great
                                    that's been in place
                                                the moment I was born.

Back to Folly

My trip to Madison felt like a whirlwind as I tried to cram a lot of stuff into one week.  Unfortunately, I only saw Donovan and Jade for about 15 minutes.  I couldn't connect with Jason, so Naleen, his ex-wife, brought the kids to see me at Leah's.  I really appreciated her doing that, because otherwise I wouldn't have seen them at all. 

It was a good time.  I saw some friends, got to my doctor appointments and spent time with Leah, Parris and Ashanti.  Leah and I bought a blow-up mattress which Shanti and I slept on.  It was a lot more comfortable than the couch.  Except when I had to get up in the morning.  That was an ordeal.  I had to roll over onto the floor and get on my knees, then hold onto something sturdy and pull myself up.  I felt like an elephant trying to get to a standing position. I'm sure it was a sight to behold.

The flights to and from Milwaukee were smooth and comfortable, and except for the people sitting in back of me, was enjoyable.  I'm not one to talk to another person on the plane - I just want to go to sleep as it makes the flight shorter, and frankly, I don't feel socialable after downing Dramimine and my other drugs.  But the flight going there, I had the most obnoxious people sitting in back of me.  They talked so loud that I heard their whole conversation.  I kept rolling my eyes and sighing and it was all I could handle as they expounded on every issue of life.  Finally I fell asleep and blocked the rest of it out, but I kept waking up and falling back to sleep to the sound of their New York accents.  I don't have anything against New Yorkers, but sometimes their accent is a little too much for me to take.  For me, it's like a fingernail scratch on a blackboard.  Very irritating and obnoxious.  And they probably feel the same way about my Chicago accent.  Da Bears.

Anyway, I got back safely home and noticed that there was very little food in the house.  I had prepared a lot of food for them for when I was gone and the refrigerator was just about empty.  So it was off to the grocery store with my mother in tow.  First we had to stop at the pharmacy for our drugs.  Then we went to Panera bread where they have the best bagels in town.  Then we went to the grocery store and we each got an electric cart to drive.  My mother still has a difficult time driving the thing.  She crashes into displays and goes real slow - unrealistically slow - and I had to keep waiting for her to catch up to me.  Finally we were done and I was in line to pay for the groceries when I couldn't believe my eyes.  I looked up and my mother, with the help of a store employee, was getting out of the cart to step on the huge scale at the front of the store.  I said, "Mom, what are you doing?" and she said, "Don't worry honey," and proceeded to get on the scale to weigh herself.  I honestly couldn't believe she was doing that.  We threw out the scale she had at home because when she fell the last time, it was because she was trying to step up on the scale.  Then she yelled out to me, and to the whole store, "I weigh 117 pounds," with glee in her voice and a smile on her face.  My mother is a freak about weight.  Hers, mine and everyone else's in the world.  I call her the "Weight Nazi."

My father fell the day I left and refused all week to go to the doctor or the hospital.  He said, " I'll wait for Sharon to take me."  Why?  I don't know.  I must have magical powers others don't have.  In any event, I have to take my mom to her follow-up appointment with the surgeon tomorrow and my dad will come along with us, in hopes that this doctor will look at him too.  He's had a whole week to do this, but wanted to wait until I returned.  In the meantime, he's barely walking and his wrist is swollen.  I'm just praying that he didn't break his hip.  He will refuse to go to rehab, which means I'll have to deal with it, and that may put me over the edge. 

It's really good to be back in Florida, with all the lunacy and absurd incidents that happen here.  My parents are an unending resource for writing this blog.

Fun and Games

So my dad had an appointment yesterday for minor surgery on his eye.  We woke up late, about 6:30 and the appointment was at 7:00.  I raced trying to get dressed and hurried him along as much as I could.  We didn't get out of the house until 6:50 and I tried to speed, but the speed limit all around here is 30 or 35, and my dad is always reminding me that "This street is always patrolled," even though I've only seen a cop once or twice the whole time I've been here.  So we finally get to the building where he told me it was at and I dropped my dad off first because we were late.  I parked the car and went in after him, and saw him coming from the "Cardiac Department" ( he was told he was in the wrong area and there is this huge sign saying it was the "Cardiac" department), as he was taking the elevator to the second floor.  I came up after him and I noticed that all the offices were dark and no one was around.  He walked down the hall and thought he knew where he was going, but I sat down and called the number on the sheet he was given.  We were in the wrong building and she told me that they were just "next door." 

We drove "next door" and my dad got out and went in and I stayed in the car to see if it was the right building.  It was, but it was the wrong door.  So my dad got back in the car and we drove around this building and I dropped him off and I went to park.  We got there around 7:35.  There was a room full of people and we waited about 20 minutes when he was called in.  The procedure took all of 5 minutes and we were on our way home.  Never believe an old person when they tell you they "know where they're going."  Politely say, "That's good," and do a Google search anyway.

I made a huge mistake and now I'm feeling really guilty, especially leaving so soon.  My dad can't reach the trunk to close it so he always asks me to do it, and I totally spaced it last night.  He was just in the garage and he turned the garage door opener on to get the garbage cans, but he was looking down and he smacked right into the garage door.  It didn't go up because it got stuck from the trunk door.  He was just shouting to me from the garage and I went out there and he was on the cement.  He said he got knocked down from the door.  I tried to pick him up but he wouldn't let me and he struggled for several minutes to hold on to a wheel chair to help himself up.  He finally pulled himself up to a stand, holding onto the chair and I brought the garbage cans in.  He's sitting in his chair now and he says his hand and hip hurts, as he fell on his butt.  He said, "Wouldn't that be funny if I broke my hip too?"  I said, "NO, not at all." 

So now I am ready to go see my kids and grandkids and my dad will probably be pretty bruised up and hurting for several days.  I only pray he didn't break anything.  That would do us both in.  And I feel guilty because I didn't close the trunk.  What a parting gift. 

So I need to just take a deep breath and keep on going.  I'll be back all too soon and will resume the fun and games in Florida.  I never knew how entertaining my parents could be.  They weren't this fun when I was a kid.  But then, neither was I...

A Grandma Who is Loved

I woke up the other day to the noise of what sounded like banging on a table. I asked what was going on and my mom said dad was trying to open the relish jar. I called in the other room and told my dad to just give me the jar and I would try to open it. My dad handed it to my mom and my mom handed it to me and I saw that the plastic was still wrapped around the top. They couldn't get it open because the plastic was sealed around the top.


It's this kind of frolic and games that we play in the Schwartz household. Except they're not playing. I have to laugh, but I do so quietly, because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  Sometimes I roll my eyes, sometimes I just shake my head and sometimes I sigh really big.  I do a lot of sighing.


Tonight, we needed more napkins at the table.  You wouldn't believe how many napkins are used in this house.  My dad goes through about 10 at each meal.  He has to wipe his face several times and then he has to blow his nose a few times.  He ends up with a little, neat pile of napkins next to his plate, that get thrown in "his" garbage basket at the end of the meal.  Somehow, Kita got ahold of one of those napkins and chewed it to pieces, while my dad sat swearing at her because she made a mess.  I just left the room with my dog and closed my door.  I figured he could clean it up. 


I can tell I need a vacation from all of this craziness.  It's way overdue, but I'm going "home" in two days and I can't wait.  I miss my kids and my grandkids terribly and I need to talk with people who can hear me and not have to repeat myself over and over.  When I get back, I'm going to find a hearing doctor and make an appointment for both of them.  I'm sure they both need hearing aids.


My suitcase is packed and sitting on my bed.  The last minute stuff I have to pack I will do on Friday, because my flight is in the evening.  I will be waiting patiently for Danny, who will be taking me to the airport and we'll probably laugh the whole way there, talking about the antics that go on in this household.  He is the only one who truly understands what I write about, as he "lived" it too. 


My parents have graciously agreed to watch Kita while I'm gone.  I'll only be gone a week, but I would rather have her here with them, then with strangers I don't know.  I hope she behaves for them.  She whines and watches the door when I leave and is very distracted until I get home.  I hope she settles in for them, or I will hear it from my father when I get home.  I'll probably hear it anyway.  He likes to complain, just to complain.


Which brings me to Sunday.  The pastor preached an excellent message on being positive and keeping negativity out of your life.  I tend to be a negative person and I hate that.  Seriously, I wish I was more positive and looked at things with more optimism.  I tend to blame the way I was raised on my personality, but that can't be all of it.  True, my father is Mr. Negative of the Year, but my mom has always been Ms. Optimism of the Year.  They are truly two exact opposite individuals.  My brothers and I take more after my dad than my mom, which is unfortunate.  My dad has some awesome qualities, like his sense of humor, his laugh and his business sense.  But it's my mom who is gentle, quiet and generally positive.  She never liked quarreling and it used to drive me crazy when I was young, because she would never stand up to my dad.  But that's just not in her makeup.


As much as I point out my parents' weird idiosyncracies (I have no idea if I spelled that right or not), and all of the craziness that goes on in this household, I really do love them very much.  Unfortunately, it always wasn't that way for me and I regret that now.  I wasted a lot of time being angry with them and resenting the way I was raised, which now I find so silly.  As a parent, we all do what we think is right, one way or the other, and it's usually Russian ruolette.  I can read a million books on parenting, and that will never help me be a parent.  You have to live it and make mistakes and learn and love and even ask your kids to forgive you every now and then.  Just because I'm the mom, doesn't always make me right.  I learned that early on, and although it was hard to do, I have had to apologize to my kids more than one time.  The bottom line, is you do the best you can with what you have and lean on God for the rest.  He always makes up the difference.


And now I am a grandmother and I absolutely love it.  It's the best.  I asked Shanti if she was going to sleep next to me when I am there, and she said, "Of course."  There was no thinking about it on her part.  And the thing is, she will have to sleep on the floor because I will be sleeping on the couch.  But she will get her little blankets and pillow and camp out right next to grandma because she loves me.  Love that is pure.  Love that doesn't have to think about the answer to the question because it's never a question.  And when I see Donovan and Jade, they will come running to me like I never left.  Like I'm this soft, cuddly person who they can hug and I'll hug back. And of course give lots of kisses to until they giggle over and over and over. 


I love being a grandma who is loved.

Kita

My dog, Kita, has a fetish for dirty tissues.  She will grab them when you turn the other way, out of the garbage can or if they are neglectfully left on a side table.  She chews them apart before you can count to one and digests some of it.  I see pink and white in her poop all the time.  I don't know why she loves this so much, but it drives me crazy.  All the garbage cans in the house have to sit up on counters or on chairs, even the ones with lids.  She will knock a can over to get inside and she will chew on the ends of garbage bags so those have to be put out right away.  I bought her a new, cute little collar with a charm on it today, very feminine, hoping she would act that way too.  Alas, she has not. 

She will stand, in all her glory, looking at me and bark her head off.  I don't know what she wants so I tell her to shut up.  But when she won't, I get up and walk with her and she is trying to tell me she's out of food or water.  She's a very intelligent dog, with an unintelligent owner.  So I fill her dishes with food and water and go back to my room.  Last night, I told her it was time for bed, so we prepared to go to bed.  When I finally laid down, I stretched out and she stood up on the bed and barked at me.  I angrily yelled at her to shut up, and because she wasn't lacking in anything and because she knew momma was mad, she laid down next to me and went to sleep. 

Now when I was raising my kids and they went to the Christian School, they got demerits for saying "Shut up."  It was like cursing, I guess, but that's how I was raised.  My father told us to "shut up" all the time, so I never thought of it being wrong.  But then he also told us we were "idiots" all the time too.  "Shut up, you idiot" was a common sentence when we were growing up.  I actually never thought I was an idiot, but I never thought of myself as being smart either.  I was about C average my whole life, except for some subjects which I hated and then I got D's and even F's.  I hated school.  The only part I liked about it was art class and hanging out with my friends.  Other than that, I barely made it through.

I took my whole junior year in the hospital, and cheated the whole way through it.  The staff made it very easy to cheat because they would always leave the room when we had tests, and I would go to the teacher's desk and copy the answers down from his answer sheet.  I, in fact learned nothing my whole junior year.  That was the year I had to learn about government and politics and all of that.  I hated politics then and I still hate it, so really it was no loss. 

When I got out of the hospital, my parents put me in a school for "emotionally-problem children" and I took my whole senior year there.  That was a breeze because I got to pick the subjects and I picked art, of course, and English.  As I remember, there were only two subjects the whole year.  I received my high school diploma from this school and I learned very little there as well, although I loved art class and I learned how to write better in English.  And of course I got to hang out with all of the other emotionally-problem children there who became my friends.  The school was a cool, old mansion in Chicago near the lake and the little yellow school bus would pick me up every day.  Yeah, I was one of the mentals on the little yellow school bus.  For some reason, though, I was never embarrassed about it.  My attitude was if you didn't like it, let's fight about it.  I had so much pent up anger inside of me, I never really hurt anyone, but I was very capable of it.

Now Kita is eating.  She takes one morsel of food and runs to the carpeting, sits down and munches on the one morsel.  She likes to eat in comfort.  She does this until all her food is gone.  She's a very strange dog.  In a few minutes, she will stand in front of me and bark because she will want to jump up on my lap.  She's quite demanding.  But I can't hold her and type at the same time, so she will just have to wait.  Or I have to hurry.  Probably the latter because she wasn't born with a lot of patience.  But then, neither was I...

A Wounded Animal

I got into a pretty heated argument with my dad tonight.  A neighbor came over and was telling us that she will never forgive her daughter, even if her daughter goes to her and apologizes.  She re-wrote her will and she and her husband have written her out of their lives.  When she left, I said I couldn't believe that they would do that.  Nothing my kids ever do could cause me to write them off and disown them.  I can't even wrap my mind around that, it's so utterly selfish.

My father proceeded to say that he was going to do that with me when I had Jason.  I told him that I know, because he's prejudice and he had a hard time with his father being black. But that's not how it went at all.  I'm the one who told my parents when Jason was only a few months old, that if they showed him any attitude at all, then I would have nothing to do with them anymore - and I meant it.  I kept telling them that it wasn't my baby's fault and they weren't going to take it out on him.  My father disagreed and said he was the one who was going to disown me, and I just let it go because that's not what we argued about. 

Somehow our conversation got around to bitterness and unforgiveness and I said that our neighbor is only hurting herself by not forgiving her daughter.  My dad proceeded to tell me about a business that he had many years ago and about a partner who shoved him out of his own business and how he hates him still.  He said if he saw him on the street, he would kill him.  And then he listed all the people he hated, calling them names and saying things about them, including killing my children's father if he ever saw him.  He has hate and bitterness so deep down inside that he can't see the forest for the trees.

I tried to tell my dad that I learned when you hold bitterness and hatred inside, it only makes the one who's holding it, sick and unhappy.  I couldn't talk about the fact that God couldn't forgive him if he didn't forgive others, because he doesn't believe in God like that.  I did tell him my old pastor preached a lot about bitterness and unforgiveness because people are always holding grudges and not letting things go, and not forgiving one another, and how detrimental that is - physically, emotionally and spiritually.  His response to all of this was that he's fine just the way he is and he will never change, in a very angry and bitter tone.  It was a very uncomfortable conversation/argument and I didn't get anywhere at all because he's made his mind up and he refuses to let it go.

What does bitterness and hatred prove?  Who does it hurt?  It certainly does not hurt the one who it's directed toward.  That person is most likely going merrily on their way.  But it most definitely does hurt the one who holds the bitterness and hatred.  How is that productive?  How does that help any situation?  He didn't care.  He was going to stay stubbornly angry and bitter and not ever forgive anyone who has ever wronged him.  He acts as though he is the only one who has ever been hurt and I told him so.  I also told him that "the world does not revolve around you and you're not the only one who has ever been hurt."  That, of course, infuriated him.  Sometimes, I need to know the right time to stop, but I was already on a roll and I kept going.

I told him he was sick and mean and ornery because he is an angry, bitter and unforgiving person.  I thought he was going to jump up and smack me, but of course he can't go that fast.  I could even outrun him at this point.  My mom just sat there as she always does, never getting into the mix.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but it used to aggravate me as a kid because she never stuck up for us.  She was probably too scared to say anything, although my dad would never hurt her.  He verbally lashes out but I've never seen him hit my mom or us kids.  The only thing he used to do to me was to grab me by my collar and scream in my face until I cried.  It must have been really hard for him to have that much self control that he never hit me.  Lord knows I deserved it.

This happened before dinner, and then we ate and acted like nothing happened.  Such weirdness.  We all blow up and let out our feelings (except my mom), then we go on to the next meal or next thing we have to do.  Jews are explosive that way.  At least in my family they are.  But at least you know where my dad stands.  He's racist and sexist and an angry, bitter man, but he admits this.  He has that going for him - he's not a hypocrit.

He also loves me.  He loves his family, and that says a lot for my dad.  Even though it's sometimes hard to vision, he does all he can for his family.  In his eyes, taking care of your family is the paramount responsibility of the father/husband, and I'm thankful he did.  I was never in want for anything.  And all those lean years where I struggled being a single parent, my father "lent" me more money than I could ever repay, and helped me in more ways than one. 

So this is what a wounded animal is like.  He was probably fun-loving and witty at some point in his life, but then hurts came.  Rejection and betrayal came on all sides.  Those he trusted lied and cheated and did him wrong.  Those he loved did things that hurt him and he could never understand.  He began to withdraw, distrust and resent.  He became bitter and hateful and mean.  And no one feels comfortable around him because he's always ready to attack.  And this is what a wounded animal is like.