Facebook...

It is interesting how Facebook can bring people back into your life.  I received a FB message from a very old friend from High School and College yesterday. The message was totally unexpected and out of the blue.  The message was short and breezy and it brought back the most vivid memory I had of this old friend.

We became friends when I was Junior in High School and we ended up going to the same culinary school.  She started school in July but I waited to start until September.  She quickly became accustomed to the college life and she started dating a guy right away.  When I started school things quickly went downhill for her.  She suspected that she was pregnant and I took her to a clinic for a free pregnancy test.   To her relief they ended up telling her she was not pregnant.  A few weeks later she made a regular doctor appointment and her suspicions were confirmed.  She was pregnant at 18. 

I think the first clinic was a bit suspicious.  They asked her several questions including whether or not she was considering an abortion.  She answered yes to the abortion question and the test results were negative.  When we left they handed us several pieces of literature that was anti-abortion.  I always believed that this "free" clinic had an anti-abortion agenda and gave her a false answer to the pregnancy test.

She lived her life normally after she found out.  She didn't make any changes to her diet or lifestyle.  She just behaved as if it had never happened and she didn't tell the guy.  She stopped going home for visits when the pregnancy began to show and she made excuses to her parents for her absence. 

There were several of us who were worried for her.  She wasn't caring for her body or the baby and she was in complete denial.  She wouldn't listen to reason or change her behavior.  When I went home for Christmas I was over at a mutual friends house and we were discussing the problem.  We knew she was never going to tell her parents and she was going to be surprised one day when she went into labor.  So...we decided to write an anonymous letter to her parents to fill them in on the situation.

I felt awful about that.  I felt that it was necessary but I still felt that I jumped way over our friendship boundaries.  She asked me several times if I was the person who wrote the letter but I always denied it.  I think she always knew I had a hand it, but as I remember she was never really mad at me for taking that step.  Perhaps she was happy that I told her parents for her but I just don't know.  

After her parents got the letter they immediately made the trek to the college and helped get her back on track.  They got her a regular doctor and made sure she had nutritious food to eat.

All of the feelings of guilt came back to me when I got her FB message.  It made me feel like those events happened yesterday.  I still don't know if I made the right decision but since I cannot change the past I will not dwell upon my actions.

I responded to her message on FB telling her a bit about my life today.  I don't know what will come of this correspondence and I never imagined talking to her again after I lost touch with her when I left college.  Life sure has some interesting twists and turns.  Thanks to Facebook for making this communication possible.

Parental Memories are Alive

This past weekend I went to Bloomington to see a John Mellencamp concert with a friend (KG) and her parents. Woo Hoo the concert was super super AWESOME!! Bloomington is about two hours from my house so KG parents invited us (me) to stay the night at their wonderful house in the country. This isn’t really part of my story but I would like to add that the view from the guest room was spectacular. Three of the walls were windows and none of them had curtains or shades. So the sun was very bright about 9am and it glistened off of the trees and the leaves on the ground. Later in the morning there was also several deer spotted in the yard.

Spending so much time with KG parents made me think of my deceased parents and feel a bit sad that they are both gone. I don't often think of my parents or the fun times spent with them but that has been on the forefront of my mind since I have come home. Because my parents have been gone for so long I am used to life without them and I often forget the “normal” things that parents do for the adult children they love.

Dad and his little brother Jim when they were young men.

There were several small things that happened that made me wish they were still here. One of them happened on Sunday morning. I was sitting on the couch watching a pre-football TV show and discussing football with KG dad. Honestly, I have just a tiny bit of football knowledge in my head and it was a short discussion. But it made me remember how much my dad LOVED football and how he would have relished sitting on the couch talking about that with me. He would have enjoyed seeing me take an interest in something that he liked as well as explaining the mundane details to me.

Doesn't he look fierce!

Another simple example was on Saturday night before the concert. We all went out to eat and the dad insisted on paying for my meal. I tried to pay but he wouldn’t have it. That is such a parent thing to do and it was nice to have someone pay for my meal as that rarely happens (I said rarely Lou…I am very thankful you took me out to the Melting Pot for my birthday).

Typical Mom with the permed hair and striped polo.  Yikes...do I dress like her?

I think some of these feeling started about a month ago when I stayed with Ems parents for the Great Pumpkin Metric weekend. One of the evenings we were there all of us sat around the kitchen table and played Mexican Train Domino's. I never played Domino's with my parents but some of the best memories of my parents included my mom, dad and I playing cards for hours. Apparently, my social life was much slower then and we spent many many evenings eating wings and playing Spades. Those are the memories that make me happy.

I liked seeing how each set of parents try to still take care of their respective daughters in small ways. They are grown women and treated as such but you can see how the parents love their daughters and want the best for them. These “normal” family times gave me many warm and fuzzies.

I spent about an hour going through many old photo albums and I couldn’t find one single picture of my mom, dad and I playing cards. I am sad that activity was never immortalized. However, I have included one of my favorite pictures of my dad, brother and I when I was a "sweet" little girl.

Look look....I am wearing a dress.

 ***I worked on this post on three separate occasions and each time there may have been liquid leaking out of my eyes.