Just Because I'm Mean...

I wanted to tell you that I have an exciting announcement!

Which I will make on Monday!

Told you that I was mean!

1

Our Story

I know that I have new readers, and maybe some old ones, that don't know our "story." I've had some questions about Darrell, my kids and other things so I thought I would fill in a few details.

In 1996, on March 17th, Darrell and I were married. It was second marriage for both of us. At the time I had my 2 boys, Trace and Ross who were 8 and 5. Darrell had 2 daughters, who were 12 an 7. Darrell and I had our daughter Julia when we had been married 15 months.

We moved around a lot. Darrell and I met and married while we lived in Joplin, Missouri. Five days after Julia was born we moved to Jacksonville, Arkansas while Darrell did a fellowship in Hematopathology at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock. He was already a pathologist but wanted the sub specialty. Hematopathologists help diagnosis blood and bone marrow disorders and cancers, like anemias, leukemia and lymphomas. After his year fellowship (our year in hell) we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

We lived in Tulsa four years. While we were there, I attended school at University of Oklahoma, Tulsa campus, with a major in interior design. I also worked at home drawing for a kitchen designer. There were multiple changes in Darrell's pathology group while he was there and we realized that the best thing for us would be for him to work some where else. We ended back in Little Rock.

Our stay in Little Rock was for 2 1/2 years. While we were there Darrell agreed to adopt from China. When Julia was 6 months old, I had a pregnancy "scare" but I soon realized that I actually wanted another baby, even though we had 5 children already. But Darrell had gotten a vasectomy when Julia was one month old, and he had had a reversal so we could have her. Another vasectomy reversal was not an option so I suffered with my need for another child. It was a very strong "need" and I prayed and prayed for God to take it away. Darrell even offered to try to get another reversal, which I would never put him through again. And then when Julia was 4, I met 2 little girls adopted from China. I immediately went home and told Darrell about them and we looked their agency up but the cost seemed so high Darrell automatically said "no way." But then he added "but I'll pray about it."

God threw many families who had adopted internationally in Darrell's path so he was always "thinking about it." And then when we moved to Little Rock, one of the pathologists he worked with had adopted a daughter from China and was waiting for his second referral. A few months later Darrell sat down with me and asked "Do you still want to adopt from China, because I think I want to adopt too." Within 2 weeks we had an agency and a home study agency. A year and half later we had Jenna Meilin, formerly Lu Chu, a very cute 17 month old who wanted nothing to do with her new daddy. Less than a year later, we found out that Darrell had lost his job and we had to move again.

This time we ended up in Franklin, Tennessee. We finally felt at peace and we both felt like we "belonged" there. We were also thinking about adopting again. One of the families in our travel group to get Jenna had not finalized their adoption with the child they were referred. They were told that the baby had a heart condition. We had seen the child and she was fat, pink and seemed healthy. Darrell was devastated. He was sure that the child was too healthy to have a serious heart condition and a few months after we came home he wanted to try to adopt the baby. I called our agency and found out she had already been adopted. We were relieved but our hearts were now drawn to a heart baby.

Eight months after we moved to Tennessee, Darrell was in a single engine plane crash. He had a plane so he could fly to visit his daughters in Missouri. He was alone in his plane when he crashed although Jenna had wanted to fly with him but I talked him out of taking her so he could enjoy his flight and not have to worry about her. His plane had been in the shop for 3 months and he was eager to fly it. Immediately on take off, he discovered he was having mechanical problems. The flight tower told him to fly to another airport and he crashed about 50 feet short of the runway. He broke his ankle in the crash and cut his forehead but as he was crawling away from the plane, it burst into flames and he was burned. He suffered third degree burns on 60% of his body.

He was life flighted to Vanderbilt University Hospital and admitted to their burn unit. He stayed there for 5 weeks, mostly unconscious, and then he died on March 7, 2006, ten days before our 10th wedding anniversary. That 5 weeks seemed like an eternity. It was a terrifying roller coaster ride-- one minute he would be stable, an hour later he had another infection, or pneumonia or renal failure. In the end, his cause of death was multi system organ failure. His body just couldn't take the stress anymore. He had received skin grafts but they had all failed as well as the site where he donated skin for the grafts now needed grafts.

I wish I could have heard him tell me he loved me one more time. He was on a ventilator his entire hospital stay so he was incapable of speaking, not that he would have been able to anyway. When he was awake he was strung out on pain killers. I would have even settled for holding his hand, but they were burnt and in splints most of the time. I finally held his hand the last hour before he died. He was unconscious, medically sedated, and his body was giving up. Everyone knew this was the end and I wanted him to die somehow knowing I was there. I asked the nurse to remove his hand from the splint so I could hold it. So I held his hand as I watched his heart rate and oxygen saturation rate drop and drop, until it was finally zero. And then I let it go. I lay across his chest and sobbed my heart out, cried my life way, because life as I knew it was gone and the love of my life was gone with it.

I spent the next 6 months trying to make sense of my life. When you lose your husband, you lose your identity too. I was no longer "Darrell's wife." I was no longer married. The person who knew me better than anyone on earth has ever known me was gone and I have never felt so alone in all my life. But I finally found my way out of the pit and I went on to adopt Emma from Vietnam. Her story is in my Vietnam Series. About 6 months after I adopted her I got Ryan's referral. I also moved from Tennessee to Missouri to be with my family.

I'm writing a book about Darrell's accident, his death and how I struggled to survive. God was very much present in all of it and He blessed us more than I deserved. While Darrell was in the hospital God kept showing me verses that said everything was done for "His glory." I thought Darrell would live and we could tell the story about how God healed him. Now I think I'm supposed to tell the story of how God provided and how I still trusted, even after Darrell died. I am not a saint, not even close, and I'm sure I can name a few people who would be first in line to confirm this statement. But the fact that I am not a saint, and yet God was still faithful is a story of comfort and reassurance that many would like to hear.

I'm a different person then I was 3 years ago, and I'm learning to accept that's not such a bad thing.

Defying Physics

So its been a week since I made my 2009 "To Do" list. How am I doing???

1) Organize my paperwork.

Ah, it actually looks worse than it did last week. But I am making progress! Tonight I bought these:

I'm going to start sorting and filing any day now. Hey! I heard you laughing.

3) Fold my laundry and put it away the day it comes out of the dryer.

I did really well with this one for 2 days.

And then it all fell apart. I planned to just leave things in the dryer until I could fold but you can only fit so many loads of laundry in your dryer, even the maximum capacity ones. Maybe the answer is to get more dryers.

The landing looks better, though. I just moved all the laundry to my bedroom.

4) Lose weight and eat better.

Hmmm? Did you say something? I couldn't hear you over the crunching noise. I've decided to just "let myself go." All I need is a caftan and a big fuzzy pair of slippers.

5) Write my book.

I'm finishing my creative writing course, starting my other writing class in a couple of weeks and hope to get back to writing on my book next week.

6) Be a better mommy

To be announced at a later date. Work in progress. But we did eat pizza standing up at a kitchen island. Now that's fun!

2) Keep my house clean and looking beautiful.

What did my house look like today?

{I moved the little and chairs downstairs today to try to keep the babies snacks in the kitchen}

Yeah, well, I tried. But you know I'm fighting a law of physics here. Back when I was a 32 year old pregnant full time college student, I took a physics class. And in this class I learned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that some systems will turn into chaos and then reach a level of equilibrium.

(Now don't I feel incredibly smart, remembering that for a year or two, centuries, eons, over time.)

I firmly believe that my house is one of these systems and that it has not even reached its equilibrium yet. To continue to try to keep my house clean is fighting a law of physics! How crazy would I be to try to disprove a Physics law? What am I, Madame Curie? And besides we all know what happened to her. No thanks. I have no desire to die an excruciating death from radiation poisoning.

So not only am I letting myself go, I'm letting my house go too.

It should be an interesting year.

The Third Day of Christmas

On the Third Day of Christmas, Denise gave to me:

Two books and some Dove chocolate!

The Friday Night Knitting Club in paperback; it's just released sequel-- Knit Two, in hardback; and 2 Dove Chocolate bars, one dark chocolate and one milk chocolate. The chocolate is for when you're lounging around reading you can be completely decadent. I always wanted to be decadent so you can tell me what it's like.

I loved The Friday Night Knitting Club, and as anxious as I am to read the unexpected sequel (to me anyway) I have left it pristine for it's new owner!

You probably know the drill by now but if you don't, to enter you:

-- Leave a comment and get one entry
-- Drink my Koolaid Be a Follower and get another entry-- just let me know in your comment that you've been drinking.

The giveaway is open to comments from Tuesday 12:01 a.m until 9:00 p.m CST. Good luck!

This day is now closed.

My Book Blog

As I write my book certain songs and memories are being brought to the surface. One of the many reasons for my book blog, Denise's Book, is so that I can share these details as I write. I have been updating it every few days. Although I have referenced writing the book, and probably will again in the future, I'll try to not get into too many details about the book here on this blog. So if you are curious be sure to check it out every few days or so. Also, don't forget there's a button at the top of the blog that will take you directly there.

Chariots of Fire

So I've been a little absent the last couple of days. Sorry about that. I've really started writing my book and I've found that its not a switch that I can just shut off for the day. I'm currently writing about "the day"-- the day my world turned upside down. The day of Darrell's plane crash. I kept a journal during that time. Reading my journal brings it all back but writing it, dialogue and all it makes me feel like I'm there again. So I write and I become immersed in the panic and the fear that I felt then and then I have to shake it off and live in the real world. I feel like I'm living in two worlds right now. I have heard that some writers go into seclusion when they write. Now I know why. However I don't have that luxury.

A few months after Darrell died, I began to work out for a variety of reasons. But one of the many benefits was that if I was having a rough day or feeling down, a work out made me feel better. Yesterday I decided that might be the antidote to this as well. Before I worked out at the YMCA. This time I decided to run. I had run in the past, distant past, although my more recent workouts a year ago included some running on a treadmill. I didn't expect to just take off and run a half marathon. I get winded running up the stairs. I decided to take it slow, really slow, and work my way up. And today was the day.

Today was a really intense day of writing but it was very productive and I was happy with the outcome. But I found myself only half here. I needed to run.

At dinner I announced to the kids my intention run within the next hour. This was met with shock and amusement. I started humming the Chariots of Fire music and moving my arms in a circular, pretending to run in slow motion. Ryan found this very entertaining and joined in. Ross was making jokes about my advanced age. Julia was upset that it was beginning to rain and I was still going to run. Emma was busy taking her straw out of her juice box and Jenna wanted to make sure Julia didn't eat her chicken nuggets. Pretty typical dinner at our house.

After dinner (while the kids cleaned up!) I went upstairs and dug out my old workout clothes. Amazingly enough they still fit. Of course, Spandex/Lycra does stretch but I'm sure even its elasticity has a limit. I got my shoes on and opened the front door. It was pouring rain. I don't mind getting wet but I'm not crazy. So I sat around and waited awhile. Checked again. Still pouring rain. This wasn't going well. I was starting to feel antsy. Pretty soon the rain let up and Ross said "If you're really going to run I think that's about as good as its going to get. You better go now." I think I heard some snickering under his breath.

"How long are you going to be gone Mom?" Ross asked as I headed to the door.

"I don't know, not that long, why?"

"I just wanted to know how long I should wait before we need to go out and look for you." More snickering.

"Very funny." I sneered at him and then I turned more serious and half whispered "If I'm not back in 20 minutes..."

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here." He laughed shutting the door on me.

It was all me, alone in the dark and a light rain, ready to star in my own private Nike commercial. I hope Nike doesn't mind that my shoes are New Balance. I started to jog. The Chariots of Fire music was playing in my head. I jogged to the street corner, across the street to down the sidewalk. Now what was my path? I decided to jog around the horseshoe street behind my house and see how it went.

I had run about 200 feet when my right shin began to ache, left knee felt a twinge and my lungs were beginning to complain. The scripture The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak instantly came to mind. I know Jesus was referring to temptation but I found a whole new interpretation.

I pushed myself another 50 feet and then allowed myself to walk as I crossed the street to the horseshoe lane. After about 25 feet I made myself jog again. In my mind I could see myself as an agile runner but I'm sure the reality must have looked more ridiculous. This was not lost on me.

I pushed myself to run jog to the stop sign and then stopped because a car was coming. A brief moment of terror hit me. What if the driver knew me? But I realized that was unlikely. I was in the dark, in the rain, in running clothes and my hair pulled back into a short pony tail. I felt like a superhero's alter ego. I ran like one too.

I ran the short rest of the way home reflecting on my "run:"

I estimated that I had run about a quarter of a mile and I was worn out.
I realized its harder to run when rain drops are hitting you in the eyes.
On the other hand, the rain drops keep you from getting too hot.
That my body ain't what it used to be-- yeah, no kidding!
That I have an overactive imagination.
That I felt better.

But my spandex built in bra is killing me.