Five years ago I wrote about my parents' journey to get married. It was at the time of their 46th wedding anniversary.
Last year was their 50th anniversary. I'm not sure why I didn't write something then, but I didn't. We had a celebration. A special blessing was given at mass. Gold decorations on the tables at lunch. All of us in awe of the longevity of their marriage.
And here we are, another year in the books.
A couple of days ago, I was walking Jarvis and thinking about their 51 years. So many things to fill all those years. So many things bringing ups and downs.
Those "things" are 5 children. In their 51 years of marriage, only 10 months were childless. My oldest brother was born on New Year's Eve of 1968. My sister came the next December. My next brother came 2 years and 1 month later. I came 3 years and just under 2 months after him. Finally, my little brother came 4 years and 8 days after me. So, yeah, 10 months without any kids.
I can't even imagine what having 5 kids could be like. We were in a house with 1 bathroom. All 5 of us went to Catholic school. We were involved in different activities - a variety of sports and classes at museums. My dad worked an office job, I honestly couldn't tell you what it was, though. It was standard office job hours. My mom worked retail at a fabric store where she could demonstrate her great sewing skills. Dad would get home, Mom would leave if that's what her schedule was. When she worked weekends, my dad would drive her so that he could have the car to take us to whatever places we needed to go.
Around the time I was in 6th grade, the company my dad worked for was closing up shop and moving to Canada and one of the Carolinas (I think). My parents did consider having us move to Canada. We went up for a visit. My brothers' interests were involving hockey and mine was whether or not they had tornadoes. Anyway, the decided against it. My dad had been 16 when he started with the company and he was 50-ish when this was going down. They decided that my dad would commute. He would come home late afternoon on Friday and leave Monday morning. He did that for a year and a half. That's when we got a second car, or at least I associate the second car with this time. By second car, I'm talking beater. It was not going to make it on any road trip.
There it is. A snapshot of their marriage. Just a mere fraction of what has been going on for the last 51 years.
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Kumbaya and all that stuff
About 7 years ago I decided I wanted to get back into a sport that I hadn't participated in for years. With this decision came me joining a women's blog about the sport. It was kind of a "girl power" thing. It was supporting each other on our training logs and through injuries. Cheering on milestones and wins.
At one point, I was at work and in a tremendous amount of pain. I went to the doctor and ended-up in the ER. It ended up being the start of a nightmare that would take a couple years to play out. Anyway, I had a cyst on my ovary. We started playing the wait and see game.
I had one of my follow-up visit with one of the doctors in the same practice where my OB/GYN practices. The way the pain had been, I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with the sport. I just thought of the cyst rupturing. So, talking to the doctor, he said he wasn't sure it was a good idea. He said something like the jostling around might cause a rupture.
I go to the blog. The supportive community of women. I explained what was going on with me. I said what the doctor said. And, BAM!, mockery of the doctor took place. They insinuated the doctor was a chauvinist. There were comments about how women shouldn't play sports because there uteri would fall out. And any other statement along those lines.
The cyst grew. I ended up having surgery. It turned out the cyst was an endometrinoma and it was the size of the bottom of a soda can. I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I was in my 30s and this was news to me. This explained why were not having success getting pregnant.
I went back to the people in charge of the blog and said that I was no longer going to participate. I was focusing on other things in my life.
The response I received from one of them was, "Having a baby won't fix all your problems".
Maybe I should be over this by now. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? I guess it does, to me, I guess it does.
At one point, I was at work and in a tremendous amount of pain. I went to the doctor and ended-up in the ER. It ended up being the start of a nightmare that would take a couple years to play out. Anyway, I had a cyst on my ovary. We started playing the wait and see game.
I had one of my follow-up visit with one of the doctors in the same practice where my OB/GYN practices. The way the pain had been, I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with the sport. I just thought of the cyst rupturing. So, talking to the doctor, he said he wasn't sure it was a good idea. He said something like the jostling around might cause a rupture.
I go to the blog. The supportive community of women. I explained what was going on with me. I said what the doctor said. And, BAM!, mockery of the doctor took place. They insinuated the doctor was a chauvinist. There were comments about how women shouldn't play sports because there uteri would fall out. And any other statement along those lines.
The cyst grew. I ended up having surgery. It turned out the cyst was an endometrinoma and it was the size of the bottom of a soda can. I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I was in my 30s and this was news to me. This explained why were not having success getting pregnant.
I went back to the people in charge of the blog and said that I was no longer going to participate. I was focusing on other things in my life.
The response I received from one of them was, "Having a baby won't fix all your problems".
Maybe I should be over this by now. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? I guess it does, to me, I guess it does.
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