ANGRY

I’m not angry at God.  Really, I’m not.  I am angry, though.  I have never once blamed God for allowing a drunk driver to hit my dad in 1988, which was the initial reason he passed away 2 weeks later.  I have also never once blamed God for allowing my step-dad to pass away the night I graduated college in 2004.  God gives and takes away, and I am comfortable with that.  I believe that He allows everything to happen for a reason, and I believe that anything and everything can be turned into something good.  However, I am angry that my mom has lost 2 husbands.  Let me preface this by saying that my mom is not a miserable woman.  She is retired but enjoys her Mon-Fri job as a teacher’s aide at a private kindergarten.  My grandmother, sister, and my 2 uncles live w/i a 5-10 mile radius of my mom.  Her closest friends are women she has known since middle school, and they are faithful and loyal and make her laugh and let her cry and couldn’t be any better friends to her.  She has a roof over her head, a slew of animals that roam about her house, a church she loves, food to eat, a safe and reliable mode of transportation, 4 grandchildren that truly adore her, 2 daughters that are oh so grateful for her, and so very very much more.  However, my mother is sad.  She will always be sad.  Even surrounded by family and friends, my mother is lonely.  She sits at home each night, wondering what life would be like with my dad or my step-dad still alive.  She longs for their presence.  She longs to enjoy life with them.  She longs to visit me and John in Florida with them.  She longs to enjoy her grandchildren with them.  She longs, and she always will.  She will tell you herself that she knows she has an abundance to be thankful for, but that doesn’t take away the fact that 2 parts of her are missing… 2 really big parts.

John and I got married June 20, 2010, hence the name of my blog, thesims620.  3 weeks later, he spent a weekend in Gainesville for his MBA.  I had become accustomed to him spending one weekend each month there prior to our wedding, and I always looked forward to his return.  However, his first trip to Gainesville after we were married was completely different.  I didn’t just look forward to his return- I honestly thought I couldn’t wait another minute.  I was excited to see the man who had recently become my husband, but I also couldn’t wait to know that he was home safely.  It started me thinking about what my mom’s daily life must be like.  She’s ok when she has something to get up for in the morning.  She works till about 12:30-1, and then she usually naps and runs errands in the afternoon.  Evenings, however are extremely difficult for her, but I don’t think I realized the extent of it (nor will I ever be able to realize it) till I got married.  Most women are expecting their husbands to walk through the door sometime in the evening, but she doesn’t know what that’s like anymore, and that makes me angry.  It makes me sad, but it makes me angry too.  When John went to Gainesville for the weekend in July, I could not entertain the thought of him not walking back through our door, the door to our home, through the door to his wife who was anxiously awaiting his arrival.  To simply imagine that sucks some of the life out of me, and that’s just imagining.

I informed Mama yesterday that John and I might be planning a trip to Europe this summer with some friends.  I almost dreaded telling her because she’ll never get to plan trips with her husband.  While many women her age are enjoying their grandchildren and post-retirement trips with their husbands, she is not.  That makes me so angry and so sad for her that I can’t stand it.  While I can’t do anything about it, and while yelling wouldn’t change a thing, sometimes I just want to scream at the top of my lungs.  I don’t want to scream words, for there is no one for me to direct them toward.  I don’t even want to scream at the drunk driver that hit my dad.  Whether what he did was right or wrong (although we all know it was definitely wrong,) God allowed it, so why yell at either of them?  Not to mention, I have a great life to live, and I don’t have to spend the rest of my life knowing I killed someone, took away someone’s husband, daddy, son, brother, son-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, friend, co-worker, boss, band member.  I can’t imagine living that life, and so the thought of yelling at him only makes me sadder for him.  Anyway, I know Mama is excited for us and our potential European vacation.  Heck, I know she’s excited for us if we drive the hour and a half to Orlando for a weekend.  Regardless, I know that part of her must be wishing she had a husband to do that kind of stuff with.  In writing this, I honestly don’t know if I’m more angry or more sad or maybe just an equal combination of the 2.