Turtle Sadness Today

UGHHHHHH...........

Seriously, the sadness that overwhelms me on this rainy day is... crazy. It has brought me to tears and a lump remains in my chest and throat.

Yesterday, while driving Abby home from school, I passed a small turtle on the edge of the road. "Oh.... Abby, we need to help that little guy before he gets hit," I say as I cross the median to turn around and save my new little friend (as I often do for animals around the road).

When I approached him, he hadn't moved and I thought to myself, "What am I going to do if he is already dead... now my day is going to be ruined... why can't I just keep driving!" I reached down to pick him up and there were ants all under his belly. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... you poor baby." But as I picked him up, his little legs jutted out and a glimmer of hope surged through me. But then I turned him around and saw that his precious little neck and head was bleeding.

So this is when it hits... a rush of emotion that is not normal. I seriously started crying and was overcome with such grief that this little guy was just sitting here, dying slowly, all by himself. Since my car is in the road (with my flashers on) and my daughter has now climbed into the front seat for better viewing, I gently placed him in the grass and told him how sorry I was that I had not been able to help him, got into the car, and drove away.

Abby can see that I am upset and asks, "Did we crash the turtle Mommy?" "No," I answered, trying to stop crying for mercies sake, "Someone else hit him honey." So I started praying out loud, "God, thank you for the precious animals you have created and for their place in this beautiful world. My heart is saddened deeply for this precious turtle and I ask that you let him die right now and not suffer by the road any longer. Please allow him to come quickly to heaven to play with you and Lodie. Thank you Lord. Amen" Abby chimes in that she wants to call daddy and tell him the turtle died.

So I worry about that turtle all day, every time a pain seriously arises in my gut and throat. I managed to FORGET him until this morning when I was returning from taking Abby to school. As I passed the spot, I looked for him and he wasn't there. Animals must have gotten him last night. Mercy. Please God let him have been dead.... why does my mind do this!!!!!!!!!!

Then... oh yeah... then as I pull into my neighborhood this thought comes crashing into my mind... "Why didn't you take him to your vet Dawn!?!!!" GREAT... now on top of GREAT sadness for this turtle... GUILT... one of my great old friends... GUILT! Why in the world did I have to go there!? My vet is a wonderful man who has a love and compassion for animals that I have always greatly admired. He is wonderful and HE could have done SOMETHING for this precious little guy.

So that's my yesterday afternoon and this morning. Turtle Sadness suffocating any joy I am feeling from feeling better. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I have come to a new understanding just recently why possibly I feel and respond to these situations in such a manner. Of course, I think it comes from my childhood. After my parents divorced, I lived in Alabama on my grandparent's farm. Although there were wonderful things on this farm like baby chickens, apple and cherry trees and weeping willows to play under, it was a dark place to me. Animals were raised and killed there. This tormented me as a child.

We had a chicken house and this is where many of these feelings started seeding themselves in my soul... I think. The big truck would come with thousands (maybe just hundreds... I don't know I was like twelve) of precious, tiny, fuzzy, and yellow baby chickens. They swarmed the freshly cedar lined ground of our very long chicken house and just ran around and chirped. To catch one was easy. Then in my hand, I would hold this tiny, soft, warm and fragile little baby chicken who would look at me and chirp.

The first day, they were all safe. The second day, things changed and they were in danger. I knew what my grandfather was doing as he walked up the road with his large white bucket swinging in his hand. I had seen it before and been horrified to my core. He would open the door to the chicken house, step inside and close it behind him. As I watched him disappear from the my spot in the kitchen window, emotions or anger and disdain would start creeping into my throat as I envisioned his steps.

Walking slowly up and down the length of the chicken house, the baby chicks would scamper away from his feet. If one moved too slowly, limped, or dared not move at all, he'd bend down, pick it up, bang it on the ground to kill it and toss it in the bucket.

I had the terrible job of washing the feeders in the chicken house with ammonia water. The first time I saw him do this, I thought I was going to explode. He was a great authority figure and you didn't talk back to him or even look at him funny. I marched over to my aunt, who washed feeders with me, and asked if she saw what he was doing! "Yes, Dawn," she replied, "He has to do that so any sick chickens don't infect the rest." She was fine with it. My anger surged even more. What was wrong with these people? Who can just pick up a baby chicken and smash it into the ground without even flinching!?

I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed that day as I watched my grandfather add to his bucket. "What if some were just tired," I thought. What if they could get better if just given some time...? I mean it's crowded in here. What if they just weren't afraid of him and that's why they didn't run away!?

Bitter thoughts about my grandfather, paw paw, filled me and I felt he was detached, inhumane, thoughtless, uncaring, and just plane horrible. In addition, I was a child and I was helpless. With all my might I wanted to march up to him and yell at him what I thought, but I could not. So inside it remained... and grew.

When men from the church came to slaughter the hog, these feelings grew. I'll leave out details that made this event even worse. When my grandfather tried to get to me to hack off a chicken's head, these feelings grew. When the large chicken truck came back to get the chickens that we had fed and taken care of and take them to be slaughtered, these feeling grew. I'd cry as they were stuffed into crates and taken down the road, helpless, on the way to the death with no options, no choice, no chance.

So... this is why I HATE hunting and think it is ridiculous that men get a jolly out of tricking animals, tracking them down and killing them... sport... please... go bowling for crying out loud. This is why I let most bugs go out of the house... most. This is why I stop on the side of the road and try to save a turtle, take a bird to a shelter that I have found in a parking lot, and once tried to hide and save a baby chick in the basement of my grandparent's farmhouse. This is why I am saddened so deeply today about this turtle. This is why I am on the verge of becoming vegetarian. And this is why I need some serious counseling!

Our Timing, God's Timing, Life's Timing

Saturday night, just before 8 p.m., we received a call about a baby girl we'd just found out was available the day before. Don had just seen her picture that morning and we'd not really been able to talk about it fully... or pray. After answering the call, we were asked to make a moment's decision to commit to flying out to the West Coast on the first flight in the morning to meet and possibly adopt this child.

Our minds were racing. If we made this commitment, the mother wanted a conference call with us in 15 minutes. The room swirled as there were various issues to discuss. How long would we be there, what would we do with the dog, how long would Abby miss school, could my mom come down and Don and Abby fly back here after a few days while I stayed and finished the legalities and paperwork, was she too young, and yes... can I, should I be traveling when I was still recovering from surgery? Why was it happening so fast? Was it the right decision? This was/is what we have been wanting... why now... why not just five or six days later when I am more healed and when we could have time to talk and pray?

Needless to say, it was horrible. The moment was full of panic and stress and this unseen force of... something... something that didn't seem right. I had asked, pleaded for five minutes with my husband before we made the decision and so I called back to say that we just couldn't do it... not like this... not now... this very moment and hour. It was horrible. Just horrible. And so, I write this to ask for your prayers in our walk, wait, and journey to find and be available to the child God wants us to love for Him, for the child that Abby asks for every day and prays for every night, and for the wisdom and eyes to see when it is HIS leading.

As I sat on my bed that night in tears, I realized that if we had said yes, we'd be scrambling to pack, making arraignments for the dog and getting little sleep before morning came. I thought about her sleeping in her bed at that moment, having no idea how our worlds had just brushed each other so closely... yet not really touched. I prayed for God to raise up the family that could meet that demand and be there for her.

I don't know if someone was found that night. I do believe God has a plan for her and is taking care of her. And I do feel more peace each day in knowing that I could have not traveled that day... or the next... maybe today. But I do know if that situation was truly our situation... it would have waited for a mommy to heal. I find comfort in that and continue to wait for another phone call.

Out of Touch...

Oh where do I begin? I had surgery last week and no, there are no pictures. Actually, at my post-op on Friday, there will be pictures of my insides... that is blog worthy if I ever say so! My husband's eyes still bug out when he tries to tell me about them, as he got to see them while I was knocked out! "It's not dark at all... it's like walking into a fully lit room!" he exclaimed. Don exclaiming anything is exciting. "What!?" I ask... not following. "It's like right there and all lit up and stuff... you wait... you wait until you see," he assures me.

Well, all laughing aside, today is a good day. I am still convinced that they pulled my belly button up over my head while I was under. Either that or a nurse tripped and fell to the floor with half of it in her hands.... if only it were Grey's Anatomy! They found and removed endometriosis and so I am hoping for a much less painful life now! A biopsy of my uterous came back normal too and so there is a small to medium chance that I could have a pregnancy that goes full term. Although this is what I am told... I do not count, wish, hope for it... that would be a bonus... a miracle bonus. Just better health is what I am clinging to... so we'll see. For now... I am just mending.

Homework Girl

As of now, we are excited about homework and are finding a routine that works. We're doing half after she gets home and has a snack and the other half before bed. It's so hard to make her sit down and work after being at school all day. Plus I know her brain is just so tired. So I am hoping this will work for her and us!

Today she had a math sheet and a color key sheet. She worked very hard and I was/am very impressed with the great job coloring she has done and how well she stayed in the lines. This one (post) really is for Abby and Grammy... so hang in there with me!

Even though she wanted to skip the bricks... she got a second wind and finished the sheet! She also did a great job matching the colors to the key!

I had the hardest time getting her to put it back in her folder to go to school tomorrow... she wants to keep it on the fridge. I see the future of my fridge becoming very colorful again... and I love it!! I'm ordering new magnets for her off etsy to hang her new work with!

SIDE NOTE: On a side note... I have the photo editing blues! Don slicked our hard drive this weekend and I lost my photo editing software only to find it's been discontinued! So my pictures look horrible! Oh the difference good software makes! Ughhh... so hopefully after shopping around I can find a new one and get my pics back to looking good.

First Day of First Grade!

What a blessing it is to see our precious one start first grade! She was so excited and a tad nervous. I was more nervous for her this year than before! I followed her schedule at home all day and prayed her through all her activities!

I was sad for her because she had a seizure at 5 a.m. and so she was still a bit droggy and aprehensive when I dropped her off. But when I picked her up she was happy and chipper and thrilled about her first day!

She has a very sweet teacher and we are very excited about the amount of help she is getting this year with her work. We are also hopeful that she will be able to learn better as we are in the process of tapering down her topamax (one of her three seizure meds). We are convinced her very high levels are to blame for her inability to retain and process information. We have researched the side affects online and are saddened to see that adults on 75 mg can't function properly... she's been on 245 mg a day along with THREE OTHERS! MERCY.

It's so hard to balance her quality of life with seizure control and the amount of medication she is on. We want her to be able to learn and develop yet we HAVE to keep the seizures away... so, your prayers, as always, are appreciated as we increase her Keppra levels and decrease her Topamax. She has had several seizures this month already and so we remain on our knees and wait to see what happens.

We'll keep you updated.

Drivin Down the Highway...

In Huntsville earlier this week, I had some good time with David and Cynthia. I really enjoying spending time with them. The air conditioner in my CRV conked out Saturday and so I had to take the convertible on our trip to Sharon's funeral. Of course David and Neener thought that was great and we put the top down and had some fun on the way back to the hotel after dinner one night.

I have made several trips to Huntsville lately and have been so struck with how beautiful the drive is... they don't call her "Alabama the Beautiful" for nothing!

The state has held so many bad memories for me, it's been refreshing to see her in a new and grown up light! The cliffs and mountains and lush green trees are just beautiful.

This has been a year for funerals for my family. I am still kinda in a daze at how much has happened so quickly with my mom loosing two sisters and her mother in less than eight months. Abby was more upset about Sharon's funeral than any of the past two. I think it's because we were just there visiting her. She was really upset about the idea of putting her in the ground. I tried to explain the idea of a soul and it's separation from the body but bless her heart, she just couldn't really grasp it. So we skipped the graveside service on this one to give her more time to understand that Sharon wasn't really being put into the ground.

Life is so precious and can be so very short. It strikes you deep inside how final death is. But there is a wonderful peace that overshadows it all when you know the departed are in heaven with their Father. I couldn't stop smiling on the way there. Just thinking about her in the GLORY of heaven, walking with the Holy Spirit and in the glow of the Son of God and in the very presence of God Himself... I could not be happier for her. What amazing things she has beheld already. What beautiful and unthinkable music she is hearing from the angels. It is hard to really grasp the thought of what heaven truly is like.

Dancing with the Lord Himself!

My aunt Sharon went to dance with the Lord last Saturday, August 2. I am so thankful she did not have to suffer with the brain tumors... it was very quick. She had such a hard life, I can only smile to think of how BLISSFUL happy she has to be right now in the presence of her Lord and King, whom she loved so much.

My continued prayers go out to her daughters, Candi and Jaime... to her precious grandchildren... and to her best and faithful, loving, and precious friend Sandy. And also to my mom and my aunt Cynthia... may the Lord cover you all with peaceful healing and divine comfort.