I don’t want to think about it!!

There is a song that Frank Sinatra sang:

Blue, blue, my world is blue
Blue is my world now I'm without you
Gray, gray, my life is gray
Cold is my heart since you went away
Red, red, my eyes are red
Crying for you alone in my bed

It is running through my head now.  I don’t want to think about what I heard today…. “Out of the mouth of Babes”….

My grandson called me today to have me pick him up to spend the weekend with me.  My youngest son had the car, so I told my grandson, if he didn’t mind walking, I’d come get him.  It’s about 2 miles one way to his house from mine….no big deal, I have walked it both ways before. He had to do the dishes before he came over so as he started them, I grabbed the dog leash, snapped it on my Shih-Tzu (going ballistic now seeing his leash for the first time this spring!!) and off we go.

Now mind you, this dog weighs about 20 pounds if that. He’s not even a foot high standing on all fours. How does one little dog have enough of anything inside him to stop at every pole, bush, tree, fence post, building corner and stray smell he finds on a 2 mile trip to either squat or lift his leg is way beyond me! But he was patient and sat down at each corner waiting for the walk light…and he even stopped at a few mud puddles to take a taste of them, too!

We reach our destination about half a block from my daughter’s house where we find my middle grandson (12 years old) walking towards us.  Not 10 steps into our walk he hits me with this…. “I don’t know if Mom wants you to know this or not, but we may be moving to either Fort Walton Beach, Florida or Santa Rosa Beach, Florida at the end of this school year.”

My heart sank.

Tears welled up in my eyes as he proceeded with mild excitement to tell me that his mother has been putting in applications for hospital jobs in various states around the country.  The Hospital in Florida had called her back.

Don’t get me wrong, if she is moving there to get a better job with better pay and benefits, I am happy for her.  But it has been 289 days since she told me that she does not want me in her life; and stopped talking to me. (unless you count October 11 when she sent me text saying “Stay the Hell away from my Children!”)

I have had the pleasure of watching my grandchildren play football, wrestle, play soccer, run track and play basketball from the time they were born. I was with them when they took their first breath in this world, watched them roll over for the first time, crawl, take their first steps, hear their first words, go off to school for the first time, watched 1 graduate and join the army….I was there to cut his cord when he was born…Since October, have had to watch them from a distance and not talk to the 2 youngest…Until the middle son revolted and said he wanted to see me. The oldest grandson flat out told his mother he wanted me in his life and she wasn’t about to keep him from me.

It felt good when he came to me to have me sew his Airborne patch on his Beret. He didn’t have to hug me, or say he loved me for me to know it. But he did anyway.

So forgive me if I am wrong in thinking this is just another way for her to make sure I am completely cut off from my grandchildren. These 2 cities are 880 miles from my current home. Now if I can’t make it 583 miles to my hometown in Virginia to see my 87 year old mother, How am I ever going to make it to some place in Florida; and then maybe have to hope that one of my grandchildren will send me the address? I don’t have a job.  I can’t find one here.   can’t afford to move.  My car is falling apart and in need of an entire new exhaust system…and I have no way to pay for that….let alone gasoline to go that far at $3.60 a gallon in this state! (let  alone what it might cost the further south I get!)

How can I begin a summer without going to their football practices and games, taking photos of them and watching them grow? My grand-daughter will graduate in 2012….How can I not be there to witness that?

I can’t let the depression set in yet. I have to live day to day and try to not think about it….I have to keep from crying. 

I have to be able to spend what little time I may have with them as cheerful as possible. And hope that I will get one more season with them, one more sport, one more banquet.

This has happened once before, but at the time we were still on speaking terms. When she graduated from Surgical Tech school here, she applied for jobs all over the country. She had a favorable response from a hospital in our hometown in Virginia.  They told her to let them know when she moved down there, and she packed everyone up and left….The job fell through and never came about.  But she stayed there because she couldn’t afford to move back right away. I was able to visit them for the year they were gone.Then they returned here and we have been no more than the 2 miles apart since….until now.

My middle grandson assured me that if they did move away from me, he would write me everyday, text me, send me e-mails and call when he could….That he would make sure he could come spend time with me during the summer or vacations….and he’d send me lots of photos.

I can’t think about that now….Not without crying….

Hugs and Love to all reading….I need each of you now more than ever….You are my one light in this dark time.