Technically, it's not unemploy since I am still on the payroll to wrap up lose ends. But, there was nothing left for me to do there. I took a job and a situation that totally demeaned experience & the hard work I've done over 20+ years in selling stuff.
I ran into a former superior at my previous job with my now ex boss. I was so intimidated by her known brand of superiority, dishonesty that I messed up the intros. I knew it was the start of my demise at this lil' start up
I was acting on stress & fear, especially after my last weird departure from a job.
I was shut out from the process and couldn't prospect enough business.
Ugh, now I have to find another job. And I am in a fog all around this time around. Unlike the clarity I had the last time in leaving, with experience and relevant contacts.
There are people fighting so many harder battles but job loss sucks. I am praying for those who are profoundly devastated in TX.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Monday, June 12, 2017
Dad
You died last year. On February 23rd. You were a small but strong man. I know you cared about people very much. I think you were neglected as a kid, not by design, just by Catholic baby boomer family on a small town dairy farm standards. You were the oldest. You had to run that place with your Dad while going to school and he sold insurance. You had 7 younger siblings who you also cared and looked out for. You had an awesome, classy, academic and life skills talented sister just behind you. You both got college degrees in the 60s which not everyone did. Especially when you had to do it on your own as the eldest farm children from Lomira.
You had old work shirts with a "Standard" logo that you wore to take care of the three acre plot we lived . You worked in the 50-60s era service stations and knew how to fix the classic autos. You went to Detroit to learn drafting, but then decided you wanted to apply the math and science so you went to sweet MSOE where they train the best engineers a corporation could ever hire. Grandma says you lived down there in a campus apartment that had cockroaches that ran across the floor when the lights went off. It was totally ghetto but you were from the old school non entitled days. You worked every angle in any environment. I remember when Todd and I used to look through the piles of mail for the Catholic Appeals fund that you chaired when you had a house full of kid and a full time job and a farm full of beef steers or steer. I like steers. Every minute of every daylight hour was spent working. Sometimes you took a 45 minute nap on the couch, even though you had screaming kids in the house and chaos on the farm.
You lived on a farm before silo unloaders, manure spreaders, barn cleaners, automated milking machines...and tractors that required more maintenance than output. You were taxed in a manner that my entitled Gen X self could never appreciate, until I started reading historical fiction more. None of your little siblings had to deal with any of that as you were on the cusp of the industrial farming revolution. Despite all that work, you taught us all to love Wisconsin and its farming roots, not to mention its sports and political ones...you watched the Packers every Sunday in the 70s when they sucked and you knew Bob Betts and got Packers to speak at events and even stalked Al McGuire once to his car until he caved to host your fund raiser, per your pal/BOL, JG.
I probably wasn't your favorite kid other than the fact that I was the first girl *yay* or likely the most rebellious and limit pushing kid any parent could ever not wish on their worst enemy. Your favor was consumed by concern and energy sucked making sure none of the other four strayed so far off the beaten path. I am sorry. I am glad you now know that it was never at the level your 80s media consuming parent mind would think of a child who got home at 2 and slept all day until I had to go work at the gas station, where I gave my friends free food when they visited. I still have never done the cocaine you told the school counselor you suspected me of doing. I was a Miller Light gal. Now I like wine. Thank you for being conservative, sometimes micromanaging, when other 80s parents were permissive. I am certain as a 40-something that you and mom knew intuitively that is what I needed and I never said, thank you, Dad, for not taking the path of least resistance, especially when I was a surly brat.
I am not sure what any one of the many people you knew in life saw but what I saw was you always still tried, even when I or others who should have had your back became so completely detached from everything that you had to deal with. All the stress that I cannot even imagine. I think most of it came from being a people pleasing community builder. You did make many friends. You had a creative and good business mind but really, you were an engineer. I think you and Grandpa Schill are conferring on that now because he told you that too.
It is admirable that you had farming in your heart, or wanted to be your own boss, or a combination of both that drew you to farm the land. I remember you on the Ford tractors sold at West Bend Implement, down the road from Puppyland, where we usually got our farm dogs. I remember that red and yellow combine. I remember your gold Mustang you had when MC was born.
When I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with TM in the late '90s, we both agreed that you would like that place. You were an agricultural engineer as well as an industrial one. Even in the drought of '88.
I am so sorry that you were so stressed and I never stepped up to help as much as I could have or should have. Your live was amazingly busy and you liked it that way. Lance remembers you gold Cadillac and your tan leather car coat type jacket back in the 80s. You liked your car and your smokes. I am glad you didn't have to suffer for too long without your life and your community. You went away for three months in a maze of interventions before you died. You tried so hard to live.
Thank you for everything you taught me. I heard and knew you even when I didn't acknowledge it. You raised us all to have solid values and traditional character that is sometimes lost in the world. Your whole family misses you and cannot wait to see you again.
You had old work shirts with a "Standard" logo that you wore to take care of the three acre plot we lived . You worked in the 50-60s era service stations and knew how to fix the classic autos. You went to Detroit to learn drafting, but then decided you wanted to apply the math and science so you went to sweet MSOE where they train the best engineers a corporation could ever hire. Grandma says you lived down there in a campus apartment that had cockroaches that ran across the floor when the lights went off. It was totally ghetto but you were from the old school non entitled days. You worked every angle in any environment. I remember when Todd and I used to look through the piles of mail for the Catholic Appeals fund that you chaired when you had a house full of kid and a full time job and a farm full of beef steers or steer. I like steers. Every minute of every daylight hour was spent working. Sometimes you took a 45 minute nap on the couch, even though you had screaming kids in the house and chaos on the farm.
You lived on a farm before silo unloaders, manure spreaders, barn cleaners, automated milking machines...and tractors that required more maintenance than output. You were taxed in a manner that my entitled Gen X self could never appreciate, until I started reading historical fiction more. None of your little siblings had to deal with any of that as you were on the cusp of the industrial farming revolution. Despite all that work, you taught us all to love Wisconsin and its farming roots, not to mention its sports and political ones...you watched the Packers every Sunday in the 70s when they sucked and you knew Bob Betts and got Packers to speak at events and even stalked Al McGuire once to his car until he caved to host your fund raiser, per your pal/BOL, JG.
I probably wasn't your favorite kid other than the fact that I was the first girl *yay* or likely the most rebellious and limit pushing kid any parent could ever not wish on their worst enemy. Your favor was consumed by concern and energy sucked making sure none of the other four strayed so far off the beaten path. I am sorry. I am glad you now know that it was never at the level your 80s media consuming parent mind would think of a child who got home at 2 and slept all day until I had to go work at the gas station, where I gave my friends free food when they visited. I still have never done the cocaine you told the school counselor you suspected me of doing. I was a Miller Light gal. Now I like wine. Thank you for being conservative, sometimes micromanaging, when other 80s parents were permissive. I am certain as a 40-something that you and mom knew intuitively that is what I needed and I never said, thank you, Dad, for not taking the path of least resistance, especially when I was a surly brat.
I am not sure what any one of the many people you knew in life saw but what I saw was you always still tried, even when I or others who should have had your back became so completely detached from everything that you had to deal with. All the stress that I cannot even imagine. I think most of it came from being a people pleasing community builder. You did make many friends. You had a creative and good business mind but really, you were an engineer. I think you and Grandpa Schill are conferring on that now because he told you that too.
It is admirable that you had farming in your heart, or wanted to be your own boss, or a combination of both that drew you to farm the land. I remember you on the Ford tractors sold at West Bend Implement, down the road from Puppyland, where we usually got our farm dogs. I remember that red and yellow combine. I remember your gold Mustang you had when MC was born.
When I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with TM in the late '90s, we both agreed that you would like that place. You were an agricultural engineer as well as an industrial one. Even in the drought of '88.
I am so sorry that you were so stressed and I never stepped up to help as much as I could have or should have. Your live was amazingly busy and you liked it that way. Lance remembers you gold Cadillac and your tan leather car coat type jacket back in the 80s. You liked your car and your smokes. I am glad you didn't have to suffer for too long without your life and your community. You went away for three months in a maze of interventions before you died. You tried so hard to live.
Thank you for everything you taught me. I heard and knew you even when I didn't acknowledge it. You raised us all to have solid values and traditional character that is sometimes lost in the world. Your whole family misses you and cannot wait to see you again.
Friday, June 2, 2017
'Sup
I have a new job as a SOM for a start up. It's pretty interesting. I am definitely learning as I go with Excel, which is cool. Back when I took Adobe PageMaker through expensive courses my employer covered, you couldn't find all the instructions on line. My boss lives in Chicago so I rarely see him. I had a 6th floor private office in a huge complex we had rented from. But, last week we moved to this nice building in a wooded lot within the corporate complex wasteland. It has an atrium and desks and booths which is great. Because I am now in a non window office with three programmers, the CEO, and my boss when he comes up. So, many of us will utilize the vast atrium space for work. My office is portable...I am using it right now. It's a good gig and hopefully, we can launch this nice little start up.
Natalie graduated from 8th grade. They wore cardinal red cap & gown and she got an honor cord to wear and everything. She is such an awesome kid. She will do great things because she cares, and she works hard in school and her athletic pursuits as well. We exposed both kids to a lot but so did everyone else in their sports obsessed town and school. Natalie shined all on her own. I can't put into words how much I love her. She is really still very close to me and knows I more than have her back. But she is 14 and going off to a big high school next year. She will be exposed to all kinds of people and opportunities so our conversations will change a lot. I have to let go and hopefully she will stay close. She is so intuitive and has always been part of showing me the way through the unknown.
It's nice to have a graduation ceremony as meaningful as she did. 50 kids, lots of memories good and bad but what I remember most about Natalie's days were her steadfastness and hope and hard work.
Four more years. Presence.
Charlotte worked up the nerve to transfer to public school. She transferred at semester so she could hang with the elementary crowd before going off to middle school, which will be quite a different experience. It can be great. Middle school is hard everywhere, I'm told. She will be 11 in 7 days. I don't know how to slow down this fast moving train. She has four more days of CCES. It was a great semester and I am so proud of her. She is so sweet and kind and she has learned a lot about people that she hadn't learned in Catholic school.
I have gotten into reading James Altucher and am trying to improve my business skills. The seven months of freelancer salary really knocked us down fiscally. Things are slowly getting back on track but with the rental going down in a freak explosion, it was an interesting year. I am so glad I left my old job. I think back on how much I started to lose my mind with the travel. It was totally unmanageable and I am surprised we made it through those last few years. I haven't traveled in over a year. It's odd and freeing yet I got pretty good at it so I miss the adventure.
It's the beginning of June. I am going to use this month as a foundation for my growth plan.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
I've been a bad, bad girl
I have finally ended a private, personal, sustained drama. It was so off base and threw me for three years. It was like a necessary combustion that went on longer than anyone should be able to stand because of my life at the time and what brought me there. But the combustion lasted three years. I put it all on myself. It was so, so wrong and cruel.
It was unnecessary.
I am finally FREE.😊😂😊😂
It was unnecessary.
I am finally FREE.😊😂😊😂
Siblings, Forthcoming Holidays, 180 degrees from warm TV commercial genre
I love Christmas. My favorite contemporary songs are:
Blue Christmas, Elvis
Joy to the World, Jewel
Silent Night, my kids and the rest of the children at SMG on Christmas Eve
Natalie is a Christmas related name, I guess. Someone also told me it's Jewish. The nurse at the hospital told me it was so beautiful it made her shiver. 😇
When I grew up, we all had Christmas with an aunt or uncle or grandparent. I am not sure how it went down when I left the house because I was usually going back and forth from my family's home to Lance's home and I thought it would always be that way. I thought it was like a tradition.
Fast forward to my raising young children in the family tradition of Christmas. Suddenly, no one could go to my parent's house because my sister's kid had asthma and my dad, try as he might with every smoking cessation option on the planet, could not quit smoking and did so in the house.
Sister had kids and we started spending all the time at her house. Typically with her in laws who lived down the street. We lived two hours away and they always let us know it, we didn't fit. Sisters new family ruled the roost in that brash, small minded sort of way. Belittled our kids. It kind of sucked and wasn't very welcoming.
Brothers got married and same pattern of migration to the shiny, new family occurred. Traditionally, this is to be expected and we were raised traditionally. So, I get that. My brother and his wife even tried to make it all the way to Madison a couple times but no one else did.
My mom usually worked her nursing home job where she is always needed and made a meal for my dad who probably was just glad to have the day off from his stress-filled life.
Things change. No aunts, uncles, games, stories, memories for my kids on the holidays. I tried to address it with them but was dismissed as negative and crazy. How do you even fight that? Why do I even have to have the conversation in the first place when I feel it should just be, at least with my family.
Try as he might, Lance cannot get anyone in his family to like each other. It has been a long 85+ years for his mom. She is now in her nursing home, as was her life plan using her inheritance. All his older siblings are 1-2 generations older and have grandkids almost as old as Lance, grandkids WAY older than ours, drug and mental health issues, etc. No one gets along so no holiday parties anymore.
Trying to come up with my own thing here. Maybe I can get some friends to stop in for the kids. On their way to or from their own family events.
Blue Christmas, Elvis
Joy to the World, Jewel
Silent Night, my kids and the rest of the children at SMG on Christmas Eve
Natalie is a Christmas related name, I guess. Someone also told me it's Jewish. The nurse at the hospital told me it was so beautiful it made her shiver. 😇
When I grew up, we all had Christmas with an aunt or uncle or grandparent. I am not sure how it went down when I left the house because I was usually going back and forth from my family's home to Lance's home and I thought it would always be that way. I thought it was like a tradition.
Fast forward to my raising young children in the family tradition of Christmas. Suddenly, no one could go to my parent's house because my sister's kid had asthma and my dad, try as he might with every smoking cessation option on the planet, could not quit smoking and did so in the house.
Sister had kids and we started spending all the time at her house. Typically with her in laws who lived down the street. We lived two hours away and they always let us know it, we didn't fit. Sisters new family ruled the roost in that brash, small minded sort of way. Belittled our kids. It kind of sucked and wasn't very welcoming.
Brothers got married and same pattern of migration to the shiny, new family occurred. Traditionally, this is to be expected and we were raised traditionally. So, I get that. My brother and his wife even tried to make it all the way to Madison a couple times but no one else did.
My mom usually worked her nursing home job where she is always needed and made a meal for my dad who probably was just glad to have the day off from his stress-filled life.
Things change. No aunts, uncles, games, stories, memories for my kids on the holidays. I tried to address it with them but was dismissed as negative and crazy. How do you even fight that? Why do I even have to have the conversation in the first place when I feel it should just be, at least with my family.
Try as he might, Lance cannot get anyone in his family to like each other. It has been a long 85+ years for his mom. She is now in her nursing home, as was her life plan using her inheritance. All his older siblings are 1-2 generations older and have grandkids almost as old as Lance, grandkids WAY older than ours, drug and mental health issues, etc. No one gets along so no holiday parties anymore.
Trying to come up with my own thing here. Maybe I can get some friends to stop in for the kids. On their way to or from their own family events.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
The A
The first year of off campus housing and a 25 minute trek was about to end. Five girls in one 800 SF flat with one bathroom and one porch converted to a bedroom. That last slumlord undercompensation was a problem in January when the tiny radiator started working. I was lucky that I had a regulation bedroom, with a roommate who stayed at her boyfriend's.
College was fun. It was the best time of my life. There were weird social groups and tangents but it was fun. I think I needed more attention than I got as a child.
I am not sure how it happened but I knew when it did. I wasn't telling the truth with anyone at that time, really. It came out easily with most of my friends and associates but this big secret only came out at inappropriate times with people who didn't have my back. I was really desperate to talk with anyone beside the well-meaning clinician. It still hasn't left me, that decision. It was the most painful of my life and I have given myself a lifetime of penance when I read about strong women in literature or even when I have the fortune to be witness to someone's experience or story.
I woke up during Wednesday of final exam week. I had to run to our tiny kitchen compartment that was a separate room from our actual apartment. I stood, hunched over, eating saltines. I grabbed one of the five country crock spread containers and tried to eat face to face against the mid century cabinetry. I knew that I had an appointment to make the following week. It was surreal. It was my choice.
I finished my exams and went to Milwaukee. We went in the next week. There was no other options laid out but probably because I wasn't looking for any. My nurse was very pro choice. Very anti stepford rule of womanhood. She was confident and I was wrecked. Everything happened kind of quickly. I looked at the medical devices around me and felt, like my body, I couldn't identify what any of it did, or was doing to me. It was very early. And I had my boyfriend's apartment to stay at and sleep for a day afterward. A lot of women don't have any of that.
Living life by comparison, fear and guilt has wrecked me for a long time. I am grateful for the profound experiences and they way I look at mine now.
College was fun. It was the best time of my life. There were weird social groups and tangents but it was fun. I think I needed more attention than I got as a child.
I am not sure how it happened but I knew when it did. I wasn't telling the truth with anyone at that time, really. It came out easily with most of my friends and associates but this big secret only came out at inappropriate times with people who didn't have my back. I was really desperate to talk with anyone beside the well-meaning clinician. It still hasn't left me, that decision. It was the most painful of my life and I have given myself a lifetime of penance when I read about strong women in literature or even when I have the fortune to be witness to someone's experience or story.
I woke up during Wednesday of final exam week. I had to run to our tiny kitchen compartment that was a separate room from our actual apartment. I stood, hunched over, eating saltines. I grabbed one of the five country crock spread containers and tried to eat face to face against the mid century cabinetry. I knew that I had an appointment to make the following week. It was surreal. It was my choice.
I finished my exams and went to Milwaukee. We went in the next week. There was no other options laid out but probably because I wasn't looking for any. My nurse was very pro choice. Very anti stepford rule of womanhood. She was confident and I was wrecked. Everything happened kind of quickly. I looked at the medical devices around me and felt, like my body, I couldn't identify what any of it did, or was doing to me. It was very early. And I had my boyfriend's apartment to stay at and sleep for a day afterward. A lot of women don't have any of that.
Living life by comparison, fear and guilt has wrecked me for a long time. I am grateful for the profound experiences and they way I look at mine now.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Goodbye for now, Dad
It is two days before your earthly 75th birthday and 5 1/2 months since you said goodbye to us here on earth. I did not think you were going to go, even though I knew you had to.
I was finishing up my job at SI when you got sick. I was on my way out, partially forced, partially by my own maneuvering, but in the end, was definitely the right move. I'd worked there for 16 years. You were never really on board with my sales job. You asked me when I first started if they are a manufacturer's rep but I assured you that they had an engineering group and a couple patents with more on the way. That job sucked my soul at times. One Friday in February, two weeks before your last weekend, I was on my way to MKE from Richmond, VA. I was going to head down to Kenosha to stay with my little fam for N's volleyball tournament and come up Saturday morning and spend the morning with you. RIC is a small regional and my 6pm flight that I booked it from UVA to make was cancelled due to mechanical problems. I thought I was going to lay out the young, free traveling lady who was blabbing with the agent for updates. I finally got my hotel voucher for the Richmond outdoor corridor Motel to stay until my 6am reschedule the next morning. By the time I got to my luggage, I was looking like a raging hag. I wanted to go home and I knew this was my last trip with many plans waiting at home. There were two German businessmen also collecting their luggage who had the presence of mind to sweet talk the agent to the full service Radisson hotel with a bar. They saw me and brought me in on the deal without me even saying a word. It was a little traveling guardian angel moment that came few and far between during my 16 years of travel. It is a stupid first world problem, I know. We sat at the bar, they asked me if my education was in quantum physics due to my product line. They sell chocolate manufacturing calibration equipment and travel 75% and had family complications I couldn't begin to manage so I was humbled. It was time for me to leave my job though and that was my last trip. I got into MKE at 9am and went up to see you in your room at Froedtert. I hung out all morning and you talked about your career, your job at Simplicity and how you and your team once pulled an all-nighter but got the project done. You talked about how your employer Gehl "hired Jimmy right out of college." You didn't even take credit for the being the who you know in that networking equation. You had a really nice nurse who grew up in Green Bay and her parents ran a bar. You always got the nurses talking folksy and at Froedtert, they were the best. You were so skinny and your veins were so weak that they couldn't complete a painful draw they tried to complete in your hand. You had been intubated twice and the second time you pulled out the tube when the doctors and nurses were talking with Mom, Missy and Tim about the ramifications on your ribs and bones if they try to jump start your heart, or intubate again. You pulled the tube out and said, "I want you to start my heart." You wanted to live and you had spent 13 years with lungs so compromised that many would have given up on the discomfort many years ago. You didn't like the effects of pain killers, ever. You worked hard to sell your business when you were really sick so we didn't have quite as much to deal with when you knew it was your time.
The Friday before you died you were on a liquid diet due to recurring pneumonia and very weak swallowing muscles from having been intubated for multiple days, twice. We were having a conversation with the hospice support team about moving you to a facility where you wouldn't need to be tested and poked and tubed and monitored to the point where your body couldn't even produce any markers. You heard some of it. I had brought you some of your favorite PB sandwich cookies from C's girl scout sales and you wanted to eat. You rallied and ate that whole box, and had a root beer and a coke and sirloin tips and gravy over mashed potatoes and saw your mom and brothers before you left on Monday.
You traveled from Froedtert to Sharon S. Richardson Hospice in Sheyboygan Falls on Monday night, February 22. Troy and Dr. Lipchik were with you when you left. You asked your pulmonologist of 13 years if there was any other hospital, any other place he could send you. He told you they would just say the same thing. Dr. L told us the Friday before that he would not put you through another intubation that would combat what was now an overflow of CO-2 that was going through your lungs and body. On the way to hospice, you drove through all your counties, Milwaukee, Washington and Sheboygan. You met Mom and Missy and chatted and were happy. They gave you a little oxygen and an almost clinically irrelevant amount of morphine to help you sleep when they left. You woke up the next morning and said you would take pancakes and then went to sleep for the day. When I got there mid-day, Tim was still there and he was suppose to have left to come back the next day. We were all asked to stay. You slept all day. I didn't talk to you very much even though they said your hearing would be the "last to go." I just looked at you sleeping and one of your eyes stayed partially opened so I thought you were looking at me too. I prayed for forgiveness and told you silently I was sorry for being such an awful kid sometimes. I am sorry. I know that you gave so much to the world around you and I was too self absorbed to appreciate, or even know the depth of, your struggles as a human being. You aren't any different from any of us and I am sorry I ever drew a line.
I know you are in Heaven. I hope you will watch over us and help us with our struggles. I pray for you and 2016 was so profoundly sad and moving. I am grateful that you helped give me life and I promise to make the most of it, instead of living in analysis paralysis. Thank you for life and joy. We miss you but will always be inspired and hope we can make a spiritual mark on this earth like you did. I hope to be a better person in your honor.
I was finishing up my job at SI when you got sick. I was on my way out, partially forced, partially by my own maneuvering, but in the end, was definitely the right move. I'd worked there for 16 years. You were never really on board with my sales job. You asked me when I first started if they are a manufacturer's rep but I assured you that they had an engineering group and a couple patents with more on the way. That job sucked my soul at times. One Friday in February, two weeks before your last weekend, I was on my way to MKE from Richmond, VA. I was going to head down to Kenosha to stay with my little fam for N's volleyball tournament and come up Saturday morning and spend the morning with you. RIC is a small regional and my 6pm flight that I booked it from UVA to make was cancelled due to mechanical problems. I thought I was going to lay out the young, free traveling lady who was blabbing with the agent for updates. I finally got my hotel voucher for the Richmond outdoor corridor Motel to stay until my 6am reschedule the next morning. By the time I got to my luggage, I was looking like a raging hag. I wanted to go home and I knew this was my last trip with many plans waiting at home. There were two German businessmen also collecting their luggage who had the presence of mind to sweet talk the agent to the full service Radisson hotel with a bar. They saw me and brought me in on the deal without me even saying a word. It was a little traveling guardian angel moment that came few and far between during my 16 years of travel. It is a stupid first world problem, I know. We sat at the bar, they asked me if my education was in quantum physics due to my product line. They sell chocolate manufacturing calibration equipment and travel 75% and had family complications I couldn't begin to manage so I was humbled. It was time for me to leave my job though and that was my last trip. I got into MKE at 9am and went up to see you in your room at Froedtert. I hung out all morning and you talked about your career, your job at Simplicity and how you and your team once pulled an all-nighter but got the project done. You talked about how your employer Gehl "hired Jimmy right out of college." You didn't even take credit for the being the who you know in that networking equation. You had a really nice nurse who grew up in Green Bay and her parents ran a bar. You always got the nurses talking folksy and at Froedtert, they were the best. You were so skinny and your veins were so weak that they couldn't complete a painful draw they tried to complete in your hand. You had been intubated twice and the second time you pulled out the tube when the doctors and nurses were talking with Mom, Missy and Tim about the ramifications on your ribs and bones if they try to jump start your heart, or intubate again. You pulled the tube out and said, "I want you to start my heart." You wanted to live and you had spent 13 years with lungs so compromised that many would have given up on the discomfort many years ago. You didn't like the effects of pain killers, ever. You worked hard to sell your business when you were really sick so we didn't have quite as much to deal with when you knew it was your time.
The Friday before you died you were on a liquid diet due to recurring pneumonia and very weak swallowing muscles from having been intubated for multiple days, twice. We were having a conversation with the hospice support team about moving you to a facility where you wouldn't need to be tested and poked and tubed and monitored to the point where your body couldn't even produce any markers. You heard some of it. I had brought you some of your favorite PB sandwich cookies from C's girl scout sales and you wanted to eat. You rallied and ate that whole box, and had a root beer and a coke and sirloin tips and gravy over mashed potatoes and saw your mom and brothers before you left on Monday.
You traveled from Froedtert to Sharon S. Richardson Hospice in Sheyboygan Falls on Monday night, February 22. Troy and Dr. Lipchik were with you when you left. You asked your pulmonologist of 13 years if there was any other hospital, any other place he could send you. He told you they would just say the same thing. Dr. L told us the Friday before that he would not put you through another intubation that would combat what was now an overflow of CO-2 that was going through your lungs and body. On the way to hospice, you drove through all your counties, Milwaukee, Washington and Sheboygan. You met Mom and Missy and chatted and were happy. They gave you a little oxygen and an almost clinically irrelevant amount of morphine to help you sleep when they left. You woke up the next morning and said you would take pancakes and then went to sleep for the day. When I got there mid-day, Tim was still there and he was suppose to have left to come back the next day. We were all asked to stay. You slept all day. I didn't talk to you very much even though they said your hearing would be the "last to go." I just looked at you sleeping and one of your eyes stayed partially opened so I thought you were looking at me too. I prayed for forgiveness and told you silently I was sorry for being such an awful kid sometimes. I am sorry. I know that you gave so much to the world around you and I was too self absorbed to appreciate, or even know the depth of, your struggles as a human being. You aren't any different from any of us and I am sorry I ever drew a line.
I know you are in Heaven. I hope you will watch over us and help us with our struggles. I pray for you and 2016 was so profoundly sad and moving. I am grateful that you helped give me life and I promise to make the most of it, instead of living in analysis paralysis. Thank you for life and joy. We miss you but will always be inspired and hope we can make a spiritual mark on this earth like you did. I hope to be a better person in your honor.
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