So here I am, at 3:30 in the morning, writing about it.

Though it has nothing to do with why I’m still up at 3:30am.  I’m not sure why I’m still up.  Maybe because I like to be up late at night, when everyone else is sleeping.  This is MY time and I like it. :)

Anyways, back to what I am really here to write about.

I’m thinking back, trying to remember when it all started and I honestly can’t.  I probably should’ve written it down.  Maybe I even wrote it in a blog, but I’m too lazy to search. I’m guessing it’s been almost a year now, if not a year.

No, wait, oh my god, it HAS been a year.  Jeezus, poor kid.  Ok, so, a year ago….  Well, technically I guess we could go back 7 years ago in April Ashley was having trouble breathing.  She was sick, and we thought it was just a cold but she wasn’t getting any better and we could see that she was having real difficulty breathing, so we took her to the hospital.  We thought she’d be given some antibiotics and sent on her way.  Long story short, she spent 3 days in the hospital.  She wasn’t terribly sick or anything, really.  They had no idea what was wrong with her exactly, but treated her for “Asthma-like symptoms” and kept her on oxygen.  Once her oxygen levels were back up to normal she was sent home.

Many years passed…well, 6 years, I guess, and although she sometimes had trouble breathing, it was never like it was that time and it was always when she had a cold, which was to be expected.  Then last year, now that I think about it more it must’ve been early December, she was sick.  Had trouble breathing. Then she got whooping cough also known as Pertussis.  Boy was that a trip! lol  I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was pretty scary.  She would cough and make a crazy whooping sound (hence the name) and then hack up some horrible looking white pasty looking stuff.  It was pretty awful to watch.  I can’t remember now why or how we got the idea but I ended up Googling it and pretty much knew she had whooping cough but took her to a doctor anyway.  It was confirmed, she was given antibiotics and eventually got better.  But a regular cough remained.  We had her referred to an asthma specialist.  She was put on 2 different inhalers, one being a steroid.  She was on that steroid for months and months!  One side effect is weight gain, and she did gain some weight and wasn’t happy about it.  It’s not easy being an 11 year old these days.

So, after many months of these inhalers and many trips to the asthma specialist, nothing changed.  We finally decided to take her off the steroid inhaler, against the specialist’s judgement.  This was in June.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, she got better!  For the summer months she was better anyways.  And she’s lost weight since then and is now so happy with the way she looks.  Well, besides the usual things like not liking her teeth, or her cheeks when she smiles, or her chin or… well, the list goes on.  But at least she’s thinner and feeling good about that.

The summer came and went and then, around the beginning of September, she got another cold and the cough came back.  The poor kid has been coughing and coughing all day and all through the night ever since.  She was still taking the one inhaler once in a while to try to get some relief, and she says it worked.

We were just recently thinking maybe there is something in this house that is causing this… Oh yeah, we also had an allergy test done.  She’s allergic to the usual things, cats, dogs, mold… So we got to thinking, maybe we’ve got mold in this house somewhere that we’re not aware of and it’s hurting our poor girl.  We decided that once we were done with this Christmas business we’d set to work cleaning out the downstairs and giving the house a real good once over and see if we could find and eliminate the problem.

This got me thinking, and so I Googled chronic coughing and did some reading up about it.  There are many factors, one of which being mold allergies.  I read something about Benedryl being the allergy medication of choice for such things.  I just happen to have some left over from my summer with hives (I took those things like candy!) and decided that I would give her one and see if that helped.  I gave her one Christmas Eve about 10pm.  She was passed out on the couch by 11pm. lol  I remember those things made me pretty drowsy at first.

Just after 11 that night I got her up and to her bed, where she fell back to sleep, while watching tv, about half an hour later… and slept for hours cough-free!!  She woke up at 4am coughing and says she couldn’t get back to sleep.  She was in our bedroom at 6am, and we all got up for Christmas morning activities at 7am.

But she didn’t cough much all that day.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

We went to Jimmy and Ellen’s for dinner.  They have 2 dogs, a cat and a degu.  All things that should have and would normally have set Ashley off.  I don’t recall her coughing once the whole time we were there, and we were there a good 6 hours!

We came home, she went to bed and slept all through the night without coughing.

She did that again the next night.  And last night.  And right now she’s in bed, she’s been there almost 2 hours, and I haven’t heard a peep.

I am very VERY happy my baby girl is no longer coughing her face off every night… but I’m also very puzzled by all of this.

She still breathes a little heavier than she should.  Sometimes you can really hear her and we have to remind her that she’s doing it and she stops, I think she just gets lazy or something. lol  My brother used to sound just like that, I remember, and he has asthma.  So, she isn’t completely cured as far as breathing goes, and we have no idea exactly why she breathes the way she does.  She did have an asthma test done but I think she was kind of nervous about it and screwed it up.  But the good news is, for now, she’s getting a good night’s sleep with no coughing.

I’d just really like to know why or how this has happened, so we can keep doing whatever it is so we can keep her this way.

Now that it’s over, it wasn’t so bad.

For just a brief moment, about 10:30 this morning, I looked at the clock and thought “Oh, better call Mom”, but the thought quickly passed, and without tears.  That’s an improvement.

I had plenty to distract myself with though, so that’s good.

The day started with Sean crawling in to bed beside me at 6am.  “I know it’s too early but I can’t get back to sleep”.  haha Poor kid.  I told him he could lay there with me until 7am. Half an hour later, we’re both still awake.  Pretty sure Scott was awake the whole time too but he wasn’t saying anything.  Then Ashley comes and crawls in bed beside Sean.  We all toss and turn and finally get out of bed at 7am.  We come out, check out all the gifts under the tree, the new electronic toys on the coffee table (iPad, Galaxy tab) then the kids go through their stocking stuff.  Candy and chocolate, yum!

We make coffee, Ashley calls Lorna at 7:20, just as her alarm goes off.  Nice timing, that.

Lorna and Brandon show up about an hour later, we all open gifts.

Spent the rest of the morning/afternoon playing with our new toys.

Went to Jimmy and Ellen’s about 5pm for dinner, got home about 11pm.

I got some new books that I’m pretty excited about.  Didn’t get some of the things I was hoping for.  That still feels kinda weird, I gotta say.  Scott has always been so good at getting me great things, things I want, things I didn’t know I wanted…  Oh well, there’s always my birthday in less than a month! lol

Oh, can’t forget to mention, Ashley got a Blackberry, Sean an iPod Touch.  Both are very happy with their gifts from us.  Ashley says she almost cried. She was on that damn phone all day!  And Sean spent a lot of time on his iPod, as predicted.

It’s going on 3am, everyone is asleep.  I just finished some TF2 and now I’m just sitting here with that ‘not quite right’ feeling.

Something is missing.  My Mom is missing.  I want so badly to be able to call her up and talk to her.  Tell her all the things that have happened over the past year or so.  Mostly, I’d just really like to hear her voice again.

The problem is, my life isn’t all the exciting, and while I want to write stuff down here so I’ll be able to look back at it later on, I still struggle with that little voice in my head that says “This is dumb.  No one cares. Keep it to yourself.”  But, I guess just one person telling me they read it is enough to get me here again. haha!

So lets see…  I woke up, had coffee…  lol  Kidding!  (Hi again, friend!)

Yesterday Scott and I went out to the newly renovated Wal-Mart on Upper James.  It’s one of them fancy Supercenters now, so it’s huge and a huge improvement over what it was.  Way back when I worked at Wal-Mart at Eastgate Square, this particular Wal-Mart was kind of known as the “loser” Wal-Mart.  They never had anything in stock, it was small and kinda shitty looking.  Well, not anymore!  Apparently we headed up there for a particular reason but Scott couldn’t remember what when we got there.  Old age strikes again!

We did end up with a few things though.  On our way to the check-out I got slightly sidetracked in the clothing area.  Scott thought I was behind him, but I showed up about a minute later.  By this time, a woman was already behind him.  He actually started talking to her but as he turned around he realized she wasn’t me.  So, I show up and get in line with him.  Some dude then joins her in line and this is how it went:

Me: Sorry, got distracted.

Woman: Are you in line?

Me and Scott: Uh yeah, sorry… (or something like that), before we could finish,

Woman: Oh, it’s ok.

Dude: You got rooked by another couple.

Woman: What?

Dude: You got rooked by another couple.

Woman: Oh yeah, well…

(At this point I’m tempted to say something but keep quiet and listen…)

Dude: You go get in line honey and I’ll just go grab a few things.

Woman: *laughs a little*

(At this point I’m all “on no you don’t! And turn around…)

Me: Yeah, sorry, that was my fault. I was supposed to be right behind him, got sidetracked a little.

Woman: It’s ok, no problem.

Scott: Yeah, I actually thought you were her, that’s why I turned around and started talking to you.

Woman: *laughs* Hey, no problem.

Scott: You can go ahead of us, we’re not in any rush.

Woman: Oh, we’re not in any rush either, it’s ok.

So yeah, she was ok, but the dude… I just wanted to punch him in the face for being a dick.  We had 4 items, no big deal.  I could see if I had a huge cart of stuff… but whatever.   I just immediately wanted to punch that guy when I heard him talk.  Then Scott says to me “That guy kinda reminded me of your brother, he had that face…” *makes the face my brother makes*  BINGO!  That’s why I wanted to punch him, even though I never actually looked at “that face”.  I could sense “that face”.  I’ve wanted to punch “that face” many times over the years.  Pretty sure I sometimes make that face too, though. haha!

We ended up waiting forever in line. Not sure why.  Cashier girl was way too happy to be there, probably new, Christmas help.

After that we went to the grocery store (after stopping at Tim Horton’s for coffee, where I waited forever for some girl who looked like she was on quaaludes to give me two coffees.  Ugh.), picked up a few things, then waited in line forever AGAIN for some old dude to first find his debit card, and then to figure out how to actually use the damn thing.

But through it all, even though I was bitching, I stuck to my “new attitude”.  Yeah, that’s right, I’ve got a new attitude.  Being miserable sucks.  Shit pissing me off sucks.  So, no more!  Well, I still get pissed off, and bitch about stuff, but I don’t let it get to me.  “It’s not gonna ruin my day!” is what I keep saying.  lol

And it didn’t, so that’s good.  I guess.

After he told me about this, though, he then told me that he was trying all day to think of how to say sorry to me, but his thoughts kept getting jumbled up in his head.  Awww.  This kid breaks my heart sometimes.  So we discussed our morning, I told him I was sorry things happened that way, and that I could’ve handled it better.  He said “I could’ve handled it better too” and I was all “wow!”  He has gone from a kid who almost always blames everyone and everything else for all of his problems in life to someone who’s willing to take some responsibility for his actions.  I’m impressed!

He really has improved his behaviour a lot.  And at the beginning of the month he brought home a short note from his teacher, kind of a monthly progress report where she says just a little bit about how your kid is doing.  Usually these things say basically the same thing “he’s a good kid but…”  and then the list what’s “wrong” with him.

I nearly cried when I read this (alright, I’ll be honest, there were tears haha):

I would like to begin by noting some very positive changes I have noticed in Sean within the last 2 weeks.

Sure, doesn’t sound like much to anyone reading this, I’m sure, but you don’t know my boy! haha!

Anyways, he’s improved in many ways over the past couple of months, and because of that, I decided not to really punish him in any way for his behaviour.  I wouldn’t take away the video games, or the guns, but instead he’s to go to bed a little earlier each night.  I explained that some people need more sleep, and he’s one of them, so I don’t wanna hear any complaints that his sister gets to stay up later!

I know it was just one morning, but this morning was so good!  He woke up without any problems at all, in fact, when I went to wake him up he was already awake!  He was all ready to go with over half an hour to spare, so I let him use the computer…

Unfortunately I was cold and laid down under a blanket on the couch to warm up, and sort of dozed off a little.  He may have been late for school.  Oops!  lol

We were doing so well.. HE was doing so well.  Even though he was getting to bed kinda late, he was still (with some prodding and poking) getting up fairly easily every morning.  At least easily for Sean.  He has never been a morning person, never easy to wake up.  He’s much like me that way.  I hate waking up in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I got out of bed without first hitting snooze at least twice.  I use my cell phone as my alarm, I’ve been doing this for years because I don’t hear regular alarm clocks, but I hear the ringing of a phone…  well, my current phone doesn’t ring when the alarm goes off, but it does make an annoying sound that’s enough to wake me, at least for a few seconds, until I turn it off and fall immediately back to sleep.  lol

Anyways, Sean is like me that way.  Takes some time to get him out of bed.  Time, patience, a little joking around… he does NOT respond well to being yelled at first thing in the morning.  I don’t respond well to being told “no”, or ignored first thing in the morning.  Perhaps you can see where this is going?

So we fight.  I threaten to take away all the things he loves the most – his iPod, his DS, PS3, Xbox/360, Wii, PC…  it wasn’t until I got to his Nerf guns that he got really upset. haha  The kid loves his guns!

Long story short, he eventually got up and got dressed with 10 minutes to go before he had to leave for school.  It doesn’t take him long so I wasn’t worried.  He ate his breakfast, brushed his teeth.  His friend Blake came to the door.  He waited while Sean finished getting ready, then off they went.

I got a kiss and hug.  I told the boy I love him.  He seemed sad.  It made me feel sad.

A few minutes later I realized that, on good days, he’s too busy talking to Blake, or telling me about something he’s dreamed up in his head, to give me the kind of hug and kiss I got this morning.  The hug and kiss I got this morning was the same one I get when we’ve gotten into it over something and he calls me names, then feels bad.  I think if Blake wasn’t here Sean would’ve cried before leaving.  This is why I have that uneasy feeling.  I sent my boy off to school feeling sad. I don’t like doing that.

He’s probably forgotten all about it by now.  I’m sure he cheered up some when he got to school and saw his other friends, and the girl he’s had a crush on for ages now.

Not me.  I’ll sit here drinking coffee and playing Cafe World on Facebook (yeah, don’t judge me!) and feel uneasy.  This feeling will stay with me all day, I know it will.  I’ve been here before.  I’ll try to do a number of things to help get my mind off it, but it won’t work.  Then he’ll come home and, hopefully, be in a great mood (he usually is when he gets home from school) and that’s when I’ll feel better.  I’ll give him a big hug and kiss, tell him I love him and I’ll feel much better.

Until bedtime, where the possibility of more fighting and uneasy feelings is huge!  *sigh*

Though I like the song, it’s not one of my favourites.   This next one IS one of my favourites, though:

We used to listen to these guys all the time.  I still throw them on every now and then, but it’s all old stuff… I don’t even know if there IS new stuff.  :S

Anyways, this blog isn’t about Suicidal Tendencies.  I got the urge to write something, I’m sitting here with a cold, all snotty and stuffed up and sounding awful – aka feeling like shit, and that song title popped into my head as a good blog title.  I almost always have trouble with the blog titles.

When I logged on here a couple weeks ago I was surprised to see there had been visits to my blog recently.  And then just now when I logged in again I found MORE visits.  What’s up with that?  Who are these people visiting a blog I frequently abandon?  lol

The 2nd to last blog I posted was pretty emotional.  For me, anyways.  I typed it all out, hit publish and forgot all about it.  I wrote my last blog quick-like, just to sort of wrap things up, then went away again, as I so often do.  I’m just not a very dedicated blogger.

Since that 2nd to last blog, I’ve gotten much better.  It’s like I passed over some invisible line, with the one year anniversary of my Mom’s death.

Scott and I went out to the chapel and paid her a visit that day. I cried more than I expected to.  I thought I was mostly all cried out and could handle it just fine, be the tough girl my Mom raised me to be. There have been many deaths in my family over the years, and thinking about it now, I never saw my Mom shed one tear for any of them.  Not her Dad, not her Mom.  She was a tough lady, my Mom, and I miss her terribly.

It’ll be 1 year and 2 months tomorrow.  When that 1 year mark was hit, I felt better… the farther away we get from it, the more I can feel myself slipping back into that awful state of…  whatever it was.  Disbelief?  Denial?  I dunno, but I find myself once again being kind of caught off guard when the thought hits me that I’ll never speak to my Mom again.  It’s still crazy to me.  But, it makes sense, I suppose.  For 35 years, my Mom was there.  We fought, we weren’t always speaking to each other during those 35 years (and I really don’t remember the first 5 years haha), but she was always there nonetheless.   And now, she’s not.

It sucks, but that’s life.  Moving on…

The kids have been back to school for a month now and everything is going good so far.  Both kids have nice teachers.  We had Sean’s Meet the Teacher night 2 weeks ago, and Ashley’s tonight.  I already know Sean’s teacher, from all the time spent at his school for various reasons, and he had some dealings with her last year when he was on the track team.  Ashley’s teacher, haven’t a clue about her except what Ashley tells me.  Same goes for her school pretty much.  I’m just not in touch with that part of her life as I used to be… and next year, the same will be said for Sean.  I’m mostly ok with that, it’s just weird.

Steve Jobs died today.  :(  I’m no fan girl or anything but I’m aware of his contribution to the world.  And I love my iPhone.  :)

Scott is completely back to work now.  Doing his old job, before the broken leg, getting his old pay.  It’s a good feeling.  Feels like everything is getting back on track.

So….  yeah.  There is no point to this blog.  Just felt like throwing some stuff out there.  Especially since people are checking in!  lol  (Who ARE you crazy people?  Seriously!)

Before I’m done, I can’t resist one more Suicidal song:

:D

Scott’s 41st birthday.

Woke up feeling blah. Didn’t get out of bed until 3pm! lol  I can’t with all confidence say it was a hangover, I wake up feeling like shit a lot.  :(

I took some Tylenol and went back to bed. About a half hour later Sharkey and Maria showed up with coffee, so I got back up to see them.

They didn’t stay long, and about an hour after they left we headed over to Jimmy’s. The kids went swimming.  Scott and I went prepared for swimming but neither of us felt like it.

A few hours later we headed back home, found some food to eat, then sat around watching tv or doing our computer things.

And now, I think I will end these daily vacation blogs! lol  Seriously, I’m just not very good at blogging every single day.  I’ve fallen behind… and grown tired of it.  I’ll just go back to blogging when something happens…  or I find something interesting to blog about. :)

It hurts just as much today as it did a year ago. Maybe more.

A year ago today I woke up to horrible news. I realize now that I was numb for the first few days, so I think perhaps it hurts more today then it did a year ago today.

I’ve only typed a handful of sentences, but already my eyes are full of tears. I’m still very sad. I can’t help it.

A year ago today.

I woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating.  That in itself is odd. I’m a very sound sleeper, that sound almost never wakes me up. Part of me thinks perhaps I sensed something…you know, with that “sense” that people sometimes talk about.  But then part of me thinks, I’d been sleeping about 9 hours, it was just time I got my ass out of bed!

I don’t remember the exact time, I just know it was a little before 9:30am.

The alert was for a message sent to me on Facebook by my cousin Andee. It said I needed to call her Grandma ASAP. Her Grandma being my Aunt Sue.  Mom’s sister. My second Mom during my childhood.

I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to pee, as most do first thing in the morning. I remember feeling a little panicky, unsure of what to do. I mean, I knew what I would do. What I had to do. Of course I was going to call Aunt Sue. I didn’t want to though. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I didn’t want to ruin our day in Niagara Falls. I knew it was bad news. Maybe I knew, in the back of my mind that it was the worst news, but I refused to admit it.

I woke Scott up and, with tears already in my eyes, I told him about the message. I remember saying “It says I need to call Aunt Sue right away, but I don’t want to.” and then I laughed a little.  It sounded funny to me, saying that, because of course I was going to call her… but for a brief moment, I thought maybe it could wait.

I dialed her number while refusing to think the worst.

I really don’t remember what was said. Not exactly. I remember bits and pieces. I remember Aunt Sue starting from the beginning. Mom had gotten worse. She fell out of bed Monday and couldn’t get up. She refused to be taken to the hospital. Aunt Sue said if she wasn’t better the next day she was going, like it or not. Tuesday came, Mom wasn’t better. Aunt Sue had her taken to the hospital. At some point her blood pressure spiked. They got it under control. She spent the night Tuesday. And again Wednesday. On Thursday they put the scope down her throat to see what the problem was, the one thing Mom had refused to do for the past 6 months, she finally agreed to have done. Why? I don’t know. She must’ve known it was a little too late.

Before the procedure, they had my mom sign a DNR – Do Not Resuscitate. Aunt Sue was there for this. She says my Mom couldn’t sign it fast enough! She said to her “Diana, are you sure?” “Yes I’m sure!” she said, without batting an eye. No second thoughts. Do NOT resuscitate. Aunt Sue told me that she’d asked my Mom a couple times if she wanted her to call me. Mom said no.

I don’t know the reason for this, but I have my guesses. I’m sure the biggest reason is that Mom didn’t want me to see her that way. She didn’t want me to see her dying. Suffering, and I’m told there was suffering. She was in a lot of pain. Especially after the scope down the throat business.  But I wonder if also, maybe…   Maybe she just didn’t want to see me?  Maybe she didn’t want to watch me freak out, as I’m sure I would have? Maybe she didn’t want to listen to me try to talk her out of the DNR, which I most certainly would have tried to do.

She kept so much from me during her 6 months of illness.  She lied. A lot. She told me lies flat out, and she omitted many truths.

I honestly believe she did all this because she no longer wanted to live. She was done with this world that had kicked her around so many times over the years.

I flip-flop between understanding and extreme anger.   I have screamed at her.  She’s not here to hear it, but I feel she is all around me, and so I scream.  In my bedroom, alone, surrounded by her things, I scream. I yell. I shove my face in my pillow and I scream some more. Don’t want the neighbours to think I’m crazy!  Then I calm down, and remind myself that she was alone, unhappy. Depressed, sad, not wanting to live anymore.  She got what she wanted. I’m happy for her.  But what about me? I’m not happy without her. What she did was pretty selfish. If she had’ve thought about me, maybe she’d still be here… but then, I know my Mom.  I’m sure she did think about me, and I think she thought how she raised me to be tough enough to handle this. I’m not a kid anymore, I haven’t really needed my Mom for a long time. Not in a motherly way, anyways.  But I still needed her… just to be here. To be alive.

But now I’m babbling. Ok, so I’m dealing with anger. A lot of it. Moving on…

Where was I?  Oh yes, talking on the phone with Aunt Sue. She explained that they did the procedure. Mom was in a lot of pain. My cousin Andee works at the hospital where Mom was. At about 10pm, as her shift was ending Andee looked in on my Mom and said good night to her. My Mom said “Good bye”.  That sticks with me… why good bye and not good night? Did she know? I think maybe she did.  Anyways, I remember Aunt Sue saying to me “I’m sorry to have to tell you this…”  but I don’t remember her actually saying my Mom had died.  Weird how the memory works, I suppose.

I remember I was leaning against a wall while talking on the phone.  I remember sort of sliding down the wall, ending in a crouching sort of position, still on my feet.  I remember tears, crying but not blubbering.  No screaming, no hysterics. I remember saying “OK” a lot. I remember feeling so bad for Aunt Sue, having to be the one to tell me. Having just lost her sister.  They were very close.

Some time afterwards Scott told me that I sounded surprised when I heard the news.  I don’t remember feeling surprised, but I know I was hoping for something less serious than that so… maybe I was surprised. Or shocked.

When I got off the phone, I saw the kids looking upset, but also kind of confused.  I don’t remember telling them anything. Scott must have filled them in while I was on the phone.

It was quickly decided that we would go down and have our complimentary continental breakfast before it was too late. Then we’d figure out what we were going to do that day.

I wasn’t very hungry.  I had some coffee and most of a bagel with cream cheese because I knew I should eat, even if I didn’t want to.

We had originally planned to spend the whole day in Niagara Falls, seeing the fireworks over the falls at 10pm, then heading home.  Of course that was before.  Everything was different now.

After breakfast we headed back to our room, packed up, checked out. Put our stuff in the van, then wandered around Niagara Falls. The kids did some touristy things. I tried not to think about anything. It was a nice day. Sunny, warm. I tried to focus on the nice weather, my kids having fun. I tried not to spoil the mood. I think I did a pretty good job.

Aunt Sue wanted to see me at some point, that night or the next day. About mid-afternoon I suddenly got the feeling that I wanted to go home.  I wanted to leave this place full of fun, noise and flashy lights. I wanted to see my Aunt Sue and get to whatever business was waiting for me.  It was probably 4 or 5pm when we got in the van and headed home.

I remember listening to Mariannas Trench’s Masterpiece Theater album the whole way home.  I cried. A lot. That made the kids upset, especially Ashley, so I tried my best not to, but I couldn’t help it. I really had no control over my tears that day.  I loved that album at one time. I haven’t listened to it much since.  There was lots of traffic. It felt like it took forever to get home. It only took an extra half hour, maybe.

Got home, showered, called Aunt Sue, told her we were coming up. Made arrangements with Jimmy to watch the kids, dropped them off at his place.  I tried to keep it together, tried to be a “big girl” about it all, but as soon as I saw Aunt Sue, I lost it. Again.

Shortly after we got there my Uncle Anthony showed up.  My Mom’s youngest sibling and only brother.  They weren’t close, I don’t know him well, but you could see he was sad. It was good to see him again. He looks so much like Grandpa, who’d been gone… 22 years at that time.  It was weird, talking to him, looking at him. The resemblance. Crazy.

Aunt Sue pretty much went through the whole story of what happened with Mom again, except this time she was able to add the cause of death. She had talked to the coroner sometime during the day.

A perforation in the lower intestine.

Horrible pain, vomiting every time she ate.  Next to nothing stayed down. 60lbs lost in 6 months.

My mother basically starved to death.

A perforation in the lower intestine? How does one get that?  I have no idea, still.  I haven’t bothered to look it up. I haven’t really cared, to be honest. What difference does it make now?

A perforation in the lower intestine. Completely treatable. Fixable. Non-life threatening if dealt with properly, in a timely manner.

Que the anger.

We’d been home a few days, having returned from a week-long camping trip to various campsites, the farthest one being Kilarney, Ontario, a 6 hour drive from home.  That’s where we lost our expensive camera (plus 4 AA batteries and a 2GB memory card inside it…with countless pictures. *sigh*), Scott’s Roots shirt that he loved, his towel and his set of keys for the house and van. It was a shitty end to our trip.

The previous few days, after we got home, I thought about my Mom.  Thought I should maybe call her up and fill her in on our trip.  But then I thought nah, I’ll wait until the whole 2 weeks are over, when Scott is back at work, then I’ll give her a call and tell her all about our adventure of the past 2 weeks….

If only things had worked out that way.

I had no idea she was already in the hospital. Had been in the hospital for the past 2 days. Dying.

Mid-afternoon, a year ago today, Scott and I packed up some stuff, grabbed the kids and off we headed to Niagara Falls on a spur-of-the-moment trip.  Woohoo!  A night in Niagara Falls! Escape the heat and hang out in a hotel for the night, sounds good to me! lol

We stayed at the Comfort Inn, just like we have a few times before, but this time a few floors up. Our room had a balcony, which was pretty cool.  Ya know, for smoking. haha  A bit of a walk to the pool though, but that was ok. Had an awesome view of the ferris wheel, right outside our window. Looked really cool that night, with the wheel’s lights all lit up.

That night we played in the pool until close to closing, which was 11pm.  I remember just laughing and acting silly… one phrase that was repeated over and over “Pee your pants and get over it!”  I first said that the night before, while at home, watching Signs with the kids.  They were scared of the aliens, I told that the movie isn’t that scary, just pee your pants and get over it already. lol  And so, the phrase for the following day was “Pee your pants and get over it”…  It just kept coming out of our mouths, over and over.  Someone would get splashed in the face and complain, and someone else would say “Oh, pee your pants and get over it!”  :S

After leaving the pool, we headed back to our room.  We opened a bag of Smart Food popcorn and chowed down.  I think there was another bag of chips or something, but all I remember is the Smart Food.

We were all pretty worn out so we got ourselves ready and climbed into bed around midnight, falling asleep to America’s Funniest Home Videos.

A year ago tonight, I went to sleep feeling pretty happy and full of snacks. I was looking forward to the next day and all the fun we would have in Niagara Falls.

Jimmy’s 43th birthday. Old bugger. Haha

Went to Ellen and Jimmy’s about 3pm. It was pretty hot out and we were all looking forward to swimming. We walked (only about 6 blocks away), Scott saw a drunk night ahead and didn’t want to have to leave the van there and go back to get it the next day.

Ellen’s son Adam was there when we got there. I’d heard about him but that was the first time we met. Nice guy.

About an hour after we got there Ellen’s parents showed up. We’ve met them a few times, the last time being a year ago at last year’s birthday BBQ. lol They’re a nice Scottish couple. Very friendly. Gotta listen closely and pay attention though, sometimes the accent is pretty thick!

Brandon and Lorna showed up, with tons of beer, around 5pm, and Ellen came home shortly after that. She had to work until 5. :(

Adam had to work so he left not long after that, he pretty much just hung around to say hi to his mom, I think.

At some point Brian, Tanya and Meaghan showed up, they just got back from Meaghan’s lacross game. I didn’t really hear what happened with that, other than it was really hot out. haha

Scott, the kids and myself spent quite a bit of time in the pool.. only getting out when Jimmy came out of the house with snacks. lol

We sat around chit chatting a while, then had dinner about 7-ish I guess.

While we were in the pool Scott mentioned how he’d bought me some alcoholic beverages. I thought that was kinda weird because A) He doesn’t normally give a fuck what I want and 2) I don’t drink alcoholic beverages!  lol  But, I told him I’d try one anyways.

It was before dinner when someone opened up one of these drinks, a Vex Strawberry Smooothie (yes, with 3 o’s :P). I had a sip, then another.  Was pretty yummy.  Someone opened the tangerine one and it was not so yummy.  I knew I couldn’t drink any though because I hadn’t eaten a thing all day.  7% alcohol and I would be smashed after one bottle! lol  No lie! So I went back to drinking Pepsi.

After dinner I still had to wait a few hours because I’m such a light weight, I seriously would’ve been hammered very quickly if I wasn’t careful.

About 8pm Ellen’s friend and her daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend stopped by.  Nice enough people.  Stephanie, the friend, brought some booze of her own and I thought, what the hell, now seems like a good time to get drunk! lol

To make a long story short, I had 2 Vex Strawberry Smooothies and 2 French Vanilla Mudshakes.  Both vodka, one 7% and one 5% (I think) alcohol.  Both very delicious and OMG! I was pretty drunk. lol  The kids were there, Sean seemed worried, sweet boy that he is, and Ashley kept making fun of me. lol She was very happy to see me drunk, for some strange reason.  I’m told I was very amusing, which is unlike the drunk me that I know…  well, it’s unlike me to drink at all so I guess people change.  I’m looking forward to my next drunk night, honestly.  lol  I hope it happens soon! :)