LOSSES OF LOVED ONES WHO TRULY CARED

 If  I post too many photos I will end up just getting too emotional and I will cry and my words will not spill out of my broken heart.

Many of you may have seen this photo previously. It is my maternal grandmother with some of her great grands and one grandchild me She was blessed with 12 grand children and I am not sure how many wonderful great grands. I believe 32!! I will say I can not begin to count the great great grands my grandmother had. But she would have felt blessed beyond measure.

My grandmother was so kind. I Lost her in 1967 and miss her everyday like she just went away. She was a kind heart. That faithful little lady who served God first and foremost. She loved children and although she was blind she always kept her little cupboard, under lock and key, filled with Kraft butter mints.  She would pat our head and count out the candy as she was a very fair grandmother. .She was my confidante. she lived through more tragedy than most of us could even imagine. Yet she was strong, self sufficient and simply wonderful. 

In this photo is my great cousin Rosemarie. A wife, a mother and a breast cancer survivor. The baby boy and his big sister in red/white are Frank and LuAnne. He is a police officer and she was widowed very young with young children. The four boys are my nephews, the children of my beautiful sister Pat. She had five boys, Gary, Edward, Charles, Tony  and only Joe was not yet born 

                                                                                 VIVIAN

Phamilies were so different when I was a child. But they may be a story for another time. After losing my grandmother when I was in the 6th grade I blossomed a bit because I was super shy.  I made more  friends at school and some of them are still my friends today. But when I was a young teenager I met Vivian. She was a kind soul, sweet and caring and she was so trusting a few things I never told another living soul and never will, I told to Vivian. In January 2018 she was taken. I was broken. Vivian was just a model girl. So kind, filled with joy and her love of the Lord, oh my goodness, I was tickled when she and her mom Jessie made the trek to Italy and were blessed to have an audience with Pope John Paul II. Vivian was a happy go lucky gal. She worked very hard and was proud of the work she and her mom did together. They worked in the laundry at the Holiday Inn in our hometown. When Vivian died I was broken. No one knew how close she and I had been. She was always full of surprised and she donated her body to science. The girl never ceased to amaze me. But I have days when I say, I;ll call,,,,,wait no, Vivian is gone. She is probably having a grand time in heavenly. Probably entertaining her own parents and mine too. 

When I met Meredith (Miz Mollye) we have a blog connection. We clicked. We became like sisters and truthfully she helped me fill a tiny part of that gapping hole my sister Pat left when she went on to the Lord. Her husband Mike would say, Mollye, your sister is sending you mail! She was so kind and when she became ill so quickly my heart sank.. There was no way I could lose her too. But God, in all HIs wisdom took her away from this world into His. Mollye will always be my third sister. I miss her so much. It seems like you left yesterday but coming up on 8 years since you have been gone. 

Then there is Sharon. It is too hard somedays to talk about her. Other days I say, darn it girl, why'd you go? She would snarky and  reply, "I tried to tell you these damn doctors tried to kill me before. They finally succeeded" Sharon had illness plague her in her early 60's.  But she was incredibly smart having worked in the UCHSC system since she was a girl of 16. The attending doctors adored her. Transplant surgeons, neuro docs, cancer guys. They would hold off putting a patient in a room until Sharon was free. She knew them and their patient needs better than anyone I ever When she left me in May 2021 I sat down and through my tears that fell freely, I wrote  4 letters. One to her mom Naomi and her stepdad Troy. One to little brother Ted and little brother Gary. Baby sister, Tori, well she is my twin, Sharon would say, I think you're Tori's sister because you can be mean like her! We were not exactly mean, just very truthful. Tori spills it out the way it is. People don't like the truth. I loved Tori the first time I met her. But my connection with Sharon was broken when she passed away in recovery from a routine surgery. Sharon was smarter than all those so called "medical experts" and they pumped her up with too many fluids and she never woke up. It's called, read a chart moran! Sharon's words! She was a dialysis patient and had repeatedly warned these young, cocky doctors, not to give her too many fluids after surgery. One of them did not listen and stole her life from her.  When you work in the medical field as long as some of us did, you learn something quick. Doctors are simply people with higher educations .Good ones will tell you that. Arrogant ones will make you think you own them something. You learn fast who to listen to, it is never an arrogant, full of them self physician. 

Now my lone friend Bea remains. She will turn 92 in May. We call each other weekly to make sure we are ok. She understands my pain. She worked in the medical school with me. She taught me that doctors, male or female, wake up every day just like the normal people and they do their morning routine so they are not better or worst than any of us. She's the gal who jumped up, all  5'9" of her and told off a young arrogant doctor who was giving me the business! We laugh about that young fool even all these years later. We are getting older and we repeat ourselves or we forget little details. But we never forget the love and friendship and the special moments that made our friendship so special.. Also she would never give me the thumbs up sign! She knows I find it to be the most offensive way of cutting off a person! I'm a grown up, or in the words of my one lifelong friend since the playpen days Karen, "Hey I have to hang up now, I really have to pee!"