Ain't Life A Crapshoot ??

I am back home, two days back into work...ignoring the unpacked suitcases, stepping over the $300 worth of fireworks that my two "boys" bought in OLE "BAMA"...and have decided to start yet another book. (I read usually 2 to 3 books a week).

It is about a young woman in her thirties (WHEN did I get old enough to call a woman in her thirties...YOUNG)???? Her boyfriend (at this point in the book) has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

At this point in the book , I put it down on the patio table where I was reading... and began to ponder my life and circumstances.

I am 48 years old. I lost my Mother (I always capitalize my parents..they deserve it) when I was seventeen. I lost my Father when I was...umm... thirty twelve.

I always thought that I got a raw deal .

I lost my Mother when I was a complete "bitch"...no other word for it.

I didn't mean to be that way... it was just the "Way to Be" your senior year in high school.

She took it with grace and a grain of salt.

The day she died... she did it exactly the way that ANN LEACH would want it to happen.

It happened in the span of about thirty seconds. She was with me and my sister one minute, picking out and trying on clothes (only for my sister and me) but would pay for our selection of clothes...then she would go to Cloth World, a discount fabric store and buy herself some nice fabric on sale and go home and sew up an outfit for Sunday church service.

Don't get me wrong...She could have worked for Calvin Klein. Her sewing skills were legendary in our parts of the south west part of Atlanta.

As she fell back onto the floor, I knew in my tinny, whinny 17 year old brain that my Mother had just died on the floor in front of me.

It possessed me for years....I had been cheated !!

I gradually (about 15 years down the road) realized that God had smiled down on my Mother.

He knew what a fabulously talented woman and Mother that she was, and decided that she would not be left in a vegetative or impaired state.
He would just take her then...and WE could deal with the consequences.

As it ended up..the "Consequences" were vast and far reaching.

Our family fell completely apart...rebooted , readjusted and soldiered on.

Although it seems likes six months went by, it was almost twenty five years.

My Father at the age of seventy seven, was diagnosed with West Nile Virus. It was a rapid and unforgiving decline. (read my previous post).

He was healthy and vitally alert on day one...and ten days later he was taken off the ventilator.

I have often thought about these two days in my life.

But I realize that I could have been subjected to visiting my Mother in a nursing home, hoping for miracles that may have never happened. Instead, she went to her Heavenly home....so she could sit on my shoulder every day and be with me in my dreams every night.

As far as my Father was concerned..he HAD reached his late seventies..was sharp as a tack and was as happy as a GRANPA without his GRANMA could be.

He had his "lady friend" (was he OLD school or what)..and we all loved her.

His decline was unexpected and extremely rapid...(God once again smiled on our family).

It was tragic, it was horrendous, but it all happened in the span of ten days.

As I read about these cancer victims, Alzheimer's victims, heart patients... It comes to my mind that God has treated me more than fairly.

I am truly blessed with the fact that I had two amazing parents ; and BOTH of them were spared from the Chemotherapy, the nursing home and the rugged road to a decline that neither of them would have wanted for themselves or for us.

Sometimes I just feel like writing about them. Sometimes I just feel like telling you how I once felt cheated by this "crapshoot" we call life.

And sometimes I feel like looking at my life and saying, "THANK YOU, GOD" for not only giving my the most incredible parents in the world, but for taking them when you did...and for them not having to suffer, or make me suffer over their departing.

It has truly been a battle for me , my brother and sister as well...But to know that their suffering was brief is almost a sigh of relief.

To know that they are out of any discomfort , pain or impairment is just a tremendous amount of comfort to me...and knowing my parents as deeply and profoundly as I did...They would be thrilled with God's decision.

As it is, I have to be content with God's decision to take both of my parents, and live up to the standards and expectations that they not only instilled in but showed me every day of their short but very impressive time in my life.

I used to think I got the "SHORT" stick in life.. but in retrospect...I was a pretty lucky gal.

There are so many people in so many lands that have nothing close to the upbringing and inspiration that I had from my Mother and Father. Although it was brief, although I felt it was snatched from me...at least I HAD it.

It wasn't cancer followed by years and years of unanswered questions or prayers.

It wasn't a fall into the abyss of Alzheimer's that they could never climb back from.

It was simply a loss that I had to eventually learn to accept, and finally realize that I had been spared many years of discomfort not only for me but for one of my parents who may had been labeled to suffer and wither away in front of my eyes...and make their last years not pleasant to remember.

Except for each of my parents unexpected and sudden deaths...all my memories of my family unit as a whole are absolutely the BEST experience a child could ever dream or hope for.

Nothing but good memories(even the few not so good memories were always worth the lesson).

But as the years fly by, as my kids grow older I begin to think how truly blessed I have been.

Although my kids didn't personally know my parents...enough stories have been told and retold and retold. They have all three met my parent's life long friends and love each and every one of them. We have boxes and boxes of old pictures, report cards from first grade and even our "Cradle Roll" certificate from when each of us was enrolled at the church nursery on our first day at church service as a newborn. And know that my Diddy had each of us there on the first Sunday when we were brought home from the hospital; and probably didn't miss more than 3 Sundays over the next twenty years.

Our house was always alive with people , chatter and the hum of my Mother's sewing machine.

Our house was like a magnet for every kid that lived within 2 miles of our house. (Didn't you ALWAYS love to be at THAT house when you were a kid)?

Well that was MY house... and kids, adults and neighbors were always there and there could not be a more wonderful place to be... than to be at 2545 Bayard St.

I had the most fantastic parents that any kid on earth could ever have. I had a secure, loving and safe environment to grow up in, and I thank God for it every day.

Sometimes life IS a crapshoot. But my crapshoot of losing my parents early is totally overshadowed and made all the more bearable knowing that I had Frank and Ann Leach as parents, and that I was truly one of the three luckiest kids on the planet.

Every body loved my folks and that is really not much of an exaggeration.

I was blessed in the short years that I had with them, so many times over that I had to quit counting.

It has taken me till the age of 48 to realize that I may have gotten the short end of the stick...but it was the "best" end of the stick and the end that I needed to grow into the person, wife and mother that I feel like I am continually becoming and aspire to be.

So "Thanks" Momma and Diddy....You were the BEST!! I wish you could be here physically...but know that you are both with me and my kids in our heart and constantly on our shoulder. We are grateful for what we "WERE" able to have...You as grandparents, parents and our personal heroes.

"HEY"!! Maybe life isn't a Crapshoot.... Maybe it is just what WE make of it?

Till next time.............COTTON!!!