When a person gets heartbroken and a lot of things start happening, then it is easy to fall by the wayside. I thought I was a strong woman...I actually thought I was wonderwoman at times but I got a real good dose of reality.
I had so much going on when my daughter and granddaughter landed in ICU at different hospitals and not knowing if either would make it, and the death of my husband's first born 900 miles away, sickness abound and all happening at the end of a hard month. The house started attacking us by way of flooding in basement and all money going to keep our daughter near the baby.
I was downhearted because I felt my church was not there for me but I quickly found out that other people were. People
from all walks of life and people who just knew me from comment or a little writing done here. I left my daughter in the dark about where some of her help was coming before Daily Kos stepped up to the plate. She would just worry even more if she knew I hit my Facebook page and was making calls from Texas to Atlanta trying to find some relief for she and her fiance' and their newborn. We cracked every piggybank we had and was sending relief along with his mother out in Texas. She had no clue how much his Mom and a little unknown church who paid for one night's stay at a motel and how many social services was being approached by his Mom, me and Jack. His mother had exhausted efforts but did manage to get the motel bill at a reduced rate and that was a huge help along with a tiny church in Texas sending one night's motel room. There was one person from the Facebook in Florida who sent another night's motel room. The Shriners gave them assurance they
would keep a room paid for 4 days and gave them a nice meal while they waited with baited breath about the baby's health, while the entire time the mother's health was failing. She is a juvenile diabetic and had already been hospitalized after collapse once for 12 hours watching the baby through glass. I felt so helpless and I was also angry because I was in despair and parents are supposed to be able to step to the plate for their kids and say, "It will be allright". We could not do that. We had taken money that was about to even be deposited on a fixed income trying to keep those kids going during 100 mile one way runs back and forth to the hospital. His Mom was in Texas and had the same problem we had, just enough to get by.
It is funny about youth, they felt that the motel room and about 200.00 was a lot of help and it was a good bit of help but it was not at all the tip of the iceberg of what they were facing. Losing work and making 100 mile trips one way back and forth from home to a pediatric hospital for a few hours work would exhaust all gas before long and that is before you put one bite of food in your mouth.
while I was working on all of the help I could muster in a frantic state, we had more tragedy and expense hit us.
During a septic back up and flooding, I was just writing checks like it was not even real money anymore because and I knew I had three more children at home and a disabled husband. It was on a Wednesday or Thursday, I believe when I got the call about Jack's son being despondent over a divorce and shooting himself and his suicide would leave yet another grandchild of 6 years of age in a bad way not to mention the effect it was going to have on my husband when it all hit him. I then wanted so desprately to have
some hugs and a should to cry on. My one virtual friend was here throughtout the crisis and in tears from disbelief on how easily people, especially those from a church that the friend and we both belonged to could just say We will pray for you...but the truth was, not even in person. I then got a call about our daughter on the same day whose heart stopped beating and was rushed to ICU. My husband stood guard with tears in his eyes as he looked onto this beautiful new mother and sure he was thinking very hard about his dead son in Michigan. We got the news after the funeral.
This is a Christmas I will never forget because it taught me sooooooooooo much. I settled down in between hospital jumps and with the flu and my ears are still stopped up, that I needed to vent and I abandoned FB and headed to my good ole Political blog to just fall apart about how so disappointed I was with how I perceived being a liberal or progressive made you the enemy or non existent. I still feel that way about fundies and wingers. This Christmas I felt it up close and personal. Then a great miracle happened. A Kossack, who lived nearby walked into my home bearing soup and chili and groceries for a family that had totally exhausted all their strength to a hard week. he didn't stay long and smiled as I took another bit of Tussin from the couch and was coughing frantically. He talked with my husband and quitely left because I was on the phone with the hospital and didn't even see him leave but kept thanking him in between coughs. Someone requested Sara make a quilt for us. She had not seen my diary until then and then called me and asked me to tune into Daily Kos last Saturday. I had another Kossack call me and two more reach via email to talk to me. I was overwhelmed. Dixie Dawg from South Ga called and wanted to speak to us and what a delight he was and is. A minister and Kossack. He was delightful in his musings of everyday people and how screwed up basically Georgia was and is. Sara being a great person put up a diary and the tears started flowing from my face. I never saw not just love but help. A help that cannot even be meaured in money.
A help that hugs online and kind words for troubled times made one start questioning everything about how important we as a a community really are and How far we had come in a world of people from everywhere with caring hearts who had pushed for the public option and the closing of GItmo and the repeal of DADT and how we had one common thread. WE CARED about social justice and people. No I had not had an earthquake swallow me up but in my own private Hell it felt that way. How fast are the pretenders ready to politically do the thing that makes them look good by rushing to the aid of people like the lady on life support and taking time up in Congress for what was basically a family issue. They didn't have time for the folks who were losing their homes, their jobs, their families, and suffering through the Gulf Oil and 2 wars mess.
I clung to you folks closeley. I became a bigger progressive that week. For the past two week You became my bridge over troubled waters and allowed me to take some time to rest up from some intense physical and emotional ailments. A dollar here, a few more there, and pretty soon we had enough to pay an overdue light bill, and a Christmas for our three children at home and a little help for our daughter and baby who had gone through the mill.
This is what caring looks like and Wingers do not have a clue unless it comes with a poll and some sort of string attached. Not this site. Not this place of like minded people who came to the rescue of one of their own. It wouldn't have mattered. It would have been the same had a stranger crossed your path and you saw all this happening and for that I am eternally greatful for not just the effort you brought forth but the genuine love. It came through the internet tubes. It taught me that love can be found in places one does not expect. So much for that grat Faith based initiave of Bush's. What exactly do they do again?
I brought you something. I not only brought you an update but I brought you words from my daughter and pictures of that sweet baby that pulled through. I will tell you all again you gave me back hope for the hopeless and so glad to be living online at Bedford Falls rather than knowing we face daily the world of Potter. I love you guys.
When you see the video of my daughter saying, her story, keep in mind, she thought the 200.00 that was provided everyone helping and did not have a clue that two struggling families and one little church in Texas that never met her who sent her a nights stay and the shriners were doing most of the help by ways of gas money and meals. I knew we had reached the end of our rope when I vented to Kos. Happy Holidays..God knows you made mine bearable, and though we are still dealing with the death of Jimmy, Jack's son, we are doing so much better and it is because of you. We feel like George Bailey and we feel like America is worth fighting for because they the conservatives only think they broke the progressives. They just made us angry.
For all who need to see the quilt project...
http://www.dailykos.com/
http://communityquiltproject.com/
Brandys's story and a nam Vet figures how why he was spared in a sensless war.
Brandy was in extreme pain 3 months before delivery...