TheBanyanTree: Back from Vacation

[Sharon Mack]

Yeah!  Vacation..uh, huh!  Two weeks worth....

As you know this year has not been one of the best for our family.  It
actually started in June of 2003 when we lost Paulie to the plague of so
many youths today-drugs!  Then in December, I began to lose my mind and
it seemed like it wasn't going to come back (it did , of course) and
then in February my 25 year old son had two heart attacks and right
behind it my family blew-up.  We seemed to be under the darkest of
attacks from spirits and sources stronger than anything we've ever
experienced before.  It was a horror show.  Not one member was left out
of the tumult.  The black hand stretched from Massachusetts all the way
to Maryland and then up to Michigan where the brother I sought for 50
years and found, cut me off with nary a word or a by-your-leave.  I
still do not have any idea why.

After we began to recover (in very slow, small, baby-step ways) we got
pounded again.  This time it was my Grandson and home to Grandma he
came....lock, stock and barrel.  The circumstances were not very nice
but he's here now, and he's safe.  So far so good!

My youngest son Patrick returned home in August.  He is very much like
me when it come to changes in our lives...we do not do well and not
doing well together has been quite a trial for both of us.

But I went on vacation!

I went on vacation for one week in July when my Grandson returned to
Maryland to see his father.  I thought (hoped) things might
reconcile....they did not.  He walked off the plane and told me he NEVER
would go back....ever again.  I told him he would never have to.

August brought some heat and humidity at last with all the tropical
storms finding their way up the coast (our summer has been pretty cool
until now weather-wise) .....and heat came to our household as well, 
for a bit this month,  as we scrunched and bunched over moving the
entire living structure of my small apartment (which I love dearly as it
is...) and as I watched them tear down all the familiar to rebuild the
unfamiliar, I died a little each day. 

We cleaned out the basement first and reorganized and packed stuff off
to Good Will and threw tons more in the garbage.  Then the attic came
next.  It's a finished room and Patrick needed a place for his
instruments (he's a drummer and plays keyboards, there are three of
them, and guitar and T.C. has a guitar, too) and no other room could
accommodate him.  We decided (because we were all working (or going to
camp....Grandson) that each boy/man would bring down something from the
attic each evening and I would sort through it.  When I finished one
load, they would bring another and so on and so on, until the attic was
empty.  I even got rid of a lot of Christmas decorations I hadn't used
in a million years and didn't even like anymore.  Everything broken
went.  Everything we weren't using went.  The bits we kept to store went
down in the basement.  It took us one whole week between work schedules,
camp, football practice (yes, it has started already) and the dogs. 
Can't forget the dogs.....afterall they're people, too, and require the
right care and consideration.

It was decided that once we got the attic and basement done that
Patrick would take my bedroom and T.C. (the Grandson) was already
ensconced in the small guest room (they're are only two bedrooms...told
you it was small!).  MAJOR changes occurred in these two places because
both rooms held all of my things.  We moved one of my dressers (a tall
thin lingerie dresser) into the upstairs hall, which really didn't look
too bad.  Since I would be sleeping in the living room downstairs we had
to do some major changes down there.  My daughter (T.C.' mother) ordered
me a lovely futon (a Simmons) couch and my landlady gave me some
beautiful rich wooden hutches that fit nicely along the opposite wall
that had lots and lots of storage and shelves for all my displaced
things.  My other dresser went onto the closed-in front porch right off
the living room and the storage bench on that porch went through major
renovation and all the junk removed.  It now serves as more storage for
me.  Ha!  You should see the renovation on the back closed-in
porch...yep, we did that, too.  I mean, this apartment got a major face
lift.  No unused, wasted space!!!  Wow!  I always wanted that.

And then in the middle of all this renovation, moving and shock to our
immovable systems, Philip had another heart attack.  With this one they
kept him in the hospital for three days and had to change his meds once
again.  He has to test his blood daily now because it had thickened so
much over a very short period of time.  He is out now and back to work
but it was a reminder to all of us of how fragile he is.

Patrick and T.C. went to Maryland again last week to see T.C.'s Aunt
and Patrick's older sister, Jennifer (my youngest daughter who wouldn't
speak to me after Phil's first two heart attacks and never would tell me
why).  They went to North Carolina for a beach vacation.  They had a
good time.  I took another week's vacation and put all the final touches
on all of the changes we'd made before they left.  I moved and organized
and stayed up late just to get it exactly the way I wanted it.  It was
therapeutic to say the least.  The last day before T.C. came home, I sat
in my, once again, beautiful, clean, organized little apartment that
finally felt like mine again and had a steak on the grill and a cold,
cold whiskey to celebrate. It was home at last.

T.C. is back and I am back to work.  He starts school tomorrow and
football practice is back in the schedule.  His coach was so glad to see
him (he's a good football player.....BIG! front-line material, ya'
know). Patrick won't be back until the 4th so T.C. and I have a minute
to get ourselves into the groove and then when Pat gets here, he can
slip in nicely, finish his room the way he wants it (all of his stuff is
now located there) and start his own classes here at the college.  Next
on the agenda will be for him to find a part-time job that fits around
his school schedule.  Piece by piece we have set- up our household and
piece by piece I am regaining my lost sanity and it sure feels good!  It
has been a L-O-N-G hard year to say the least, but we are seeing the
light at the end of the tunnel at last!

My therapist will be thrilled!