A bag of Pretzels

So 10 years ago today my step-mom Jean lost her battle with cancer. It is almost impossible to believe that it's been 10 years. I can remember the details from that day like it was a movie played in slow motion over and over again... the look on my older brother's face walking out of the hospital... the way I froze... the words "she didn't make it".... the days that followed were and still are a blur... and I'm somewhat thankful for that... but I remember that if felt like the entire town came to the funeral & visitation and I was surrounded by people that loved her. I will always be grateful for all the things that friends did to help her when she was sick, the meals, mowing the lawn, sitting with her talking and telling stories. It's really easy to get caught up in being sad or angry over all the stuff she missed like being able to see her kids get married, and holding her grand babies, but she was never the type to dwell on what shoulda, coulda, woulda... and I'm reminded of a card a good friend gave me

Don't cry because it's over.... Smile because it happened

So it's in that spirit that I want to tell you the story of how Jean came to be a part of me...

My Dad, John, had a crush on Jean when they were in high school about a million years ago. My Dad joined the army met my Mom and got married and had two girls. Jean married her high school sweetheart and had 2 boys. If I finished this with 'and they lived happily ever after' then it would end right here, but as it sometimes happens, marriages don't end with happily ever after, and so it is the case here... when my dad moved back to IL somehow he rekindled his romance with Jean and before long they started dating.

I can still remember quite vividly the first time I met Jean and her two boys, Eric & Chad, (I thought Eric was really cute) and we played out back on their swing set. Now having been a kid my sense of time was not all that great, but it seemed like it wasn't too long until my Dad announced that they were getting married. We moved into a 5 bedroom house over Christmas break and they tied the knot on Valentines Day. I was in 2nd grade. I don't ever really remember being upset about them getting married or about getting brothers. Eric & Chad were alot of fun to play with and for the majority of my childhood Chad & I were inseparable.

Now I'm sure if Jean were here she'd have a different take on the situation but I think the transition to Brady bunch-esq family wasn't too bad. I do remember thinking that Jean had ALOT of rules, we were only allowed to eat in the kitchen or dinning room, no shoes in the house, we had to clean our rooms and do our homework at a desk instead of on the floor in front of the TV. We ate dinner together at the table every night and there were ALWAYS vegetables. I'm sure my sister and I seemed like a bunch of rowdy wild animals,(my father was never a stickler for a clean house and didn't have many rules. My sister and I got away with alot of stuff with him.) so I'm sure being me, I didn't take to kindly to all the new rules and was probably quite the stinker about the whole thing.

As most of you, having kids of my own makes me appreciate all the things that she did a whole lot more! how many meals did she cook? or loads of laundry? How many times did she take me to practice or the doctor or to get new shoes? The birthday cakes she baked, the Christmas presents wrapped, all the normal day to day mother stuff that she did, even though I wasn't "HER kid".... I wish I could tell her thank you... to tell her how much her every day tasks that went un-noticed at the time... made ALL the difference in my life. Who knows what I would've turned out like if she hadn't came along. but the thing is, I know she wouldn't want me making a fuss... she did it because she loved me... because I WAS HERS.... I still am her kid!

the mother I am today is because of the mother she was to me. and so my kids are only allowed to eat in the dinning room, they don't wear shoes in the house and the homework is done WITHOUT the TV. We eat dinner together every night and there are vegetables. When I'm upset... I clean....if I feel like it I bake a pan of brownies right before bed and let the kids get out of bed for one. I lay down with my kids at night and play a lullaby CD too and yes there is always a glass of water next to the bed for when they get thirsty. I take lots of pictures and keep them in boxes with the hopes of some day putting them into albums.

There are so many things that I do that are similar to the things she use to do, but perhaps my favorite is that there is ALWAYS a bag of pretzel in the cupboard and the perfect snack for watching a pre-recorded TV show (she use to record shows on a VHS tape, now I DVR it) or for munching on while sitting on the sidelines of a little league game... or while shuffling the kids back and forth...

10 years is a LONG time to be without you, I catch glimpses of your smile in other peoples faces and hear your words in their voices and sometimes catch the hidden messages in a song. Theres just no other way to say it...I miss you Jeanster!!!