Forever. And EVER.

Motherhood is a forever-and-ever book of advice.  Listening. Giving. Loving. Worrying. 

But most of all, encouragement. 

These seasons that blast by us mean nothing if our children and or grown adult children feel unsettled. 

One of the things I wish I was taught as a young girl was just how fast this life would blaze by.  

The other night in one of my sleepless modes (a mode I'd rather discard but won't let me delete from my files and so....lol) I pondered on how much our bodies endure.  How a beating heart for 50 years is really a gift.  How all that we can handle, take on, and endure during the most painful moments still allows us the chance to make something from that. 

I look at a son who is 4 months shy of celebrating 5 years Cancer free.  Just typing that my eyes fill with tears.  I've backed up more and more from my mentoring those in the fight.  Sadly it's harder than it may seem.  Triggers of those days come right back. 

I look at a daughter who's aching for a career change, making big decisions seem so arrogant and yet, all I can do is encourage.  Why not?  At the tender age of 24, it's my right as a mom to push her to do what makes her happier.  Not happy.  Because we all know that whatever career path we choose they'll be some shit days, but if it makes you happier than the corporate ladder, than do it!

A partner who's moved through many changes this year and still stares me straight in the eyes when he tells me he loves me because he's a man of his word.  A man that worked hard for his family. He's also evolved into a hairdresser and stylist lately for me too.  Hair dye in the back? Check. Hair trim with his big scissors yesterday? Check. 3 inches never felt so good.  

Motherhood. 

Front and center.....

This life. 

Long sleepless nights thinking about those I love.  How I can help. 

How I can make this life better.  When many times I feel like tuning out, to realize as a mother you never will. 

We lean in just a tad bit more. 

Kali, I say keep on pushing.  Don't look back and even when you feel like the jump you did was dramatic and awful, remember this - YOU WOULDN'T JUMP AND MOVE FORWARD IF IT WASN'T MEANT FOR YOU.   You have always made me so proud.  From all your successes in high school and college, up til' now. You have mama/dad in your corner.  And in our laughter we'll always find the glimmer of hope and success.  

You'll knock it to the stars again and again.  It's who you are. 

We've always knew this. 

Don't look back. 

To Kris:  This season is unforgettable. But haven't they all been?

You make mama so proud. The changes you're enduring.  The unfamiliar territory.  The new people. Faces. Roads, and rocks. The heat. The newness.  I see you. We see you.  It's not easy, but such is true in this life. Thank goodness you've found a sweet little country girl partner who decorates like a boss. Loves animals as much as you.  And gives you what your heart deserved. All along, this was meant to be.  And even when you hung up on dad yesterday in frustration trying to install your new dryer and vent, it's because he's patiently allowing YOU to figure it out.  Lessons quietly allowing you to become.  

Become.

 Become. 

YOU are doing it honey! 

Boy have you OVER COME. 

 LOOK. AT. YOU. 

Wishing you all a beautiful weekend.  I'm still trying to figure this year out.  So many changes.  So much anxious feelings, and sleepless nights.  Haven't been able to kick my friend wine out of my life, so the nights get tangled with that too...

To those in the fight, keep fighting, because you will get through it.  Don't buckle by the nay-sayers.  Laugh with those that get you.  Be silly. (Shelley, it's bob)  

Drink lots of water. 

Send a note to your loved one.  

Leave love where it's due. And sometimes even when it's not due, a little note can make that blossom again.  Trust me.  We all need love. 

Smile at a stranger if you have to pull your mask down.  (Ugh) 

Or shoot, get real crazy, pull your pants down. or wait. don't do that. 

Spread those compliments.  

Spread that shit like it's sugar. 

Just don't spread glitter(ew) or confetti, because we can't be friends if you do that. LOL

Love and silly days to you and me. 

This Mama Lisa 

Forgiving herself over and over and over again for all the little things I do and did wrong. 

Grace. 

Incredible.

A couple leaped from the south tower, hand in hand. They reached for each other and their hands met and they jumped.
Jennifer Brickhouse saw them falling, hand in hand.
Many people jumped. Perhaps hundreds. No one knows. They struck the pavement with such force that there was a pink mist in the air.
The mayor reported the mist.
A kindergarten boy who saw people falling in flames told his teacher that the birds were on fire. She ran with him on her shoulders out of the ashes.
Tiffany Keeling saw fireballs falling that she later realized were people. Jennifer Griffin saw people falling and wept as she told the story. Niko Winstral saw people free-falling backwards with their hands out, like they were parachuting. Joe Duncan on his roof on Duane Street looked up and saw people jumping. Henry Weintraub saw people "leaping as they flew out." John Carson saw six people fall, "falling over themselves, falling, they were somersaulting." Steve Miller saw people jumping from a thousand feet in the air. Kirk Kjeldsen saw people flailing on the way down, people lining up and jumping, "too many people falling." Jane Tedder saw people leaping and the sight haunts her at night. Steve Tamas counted fourteen people jumping and then he stopped counting. Stuart DeHann saw one woman's dress billowing as she fell, and he saw a shirtless man falling end over end, and he too saw the couple leaping hand in hand.


Several pedestrians were killed by people falling from the sky. A fireman was killed by a body falling from the sky.
But he reached for her hand and she reached for his hand and they leaped out the window holding hands.
I try to whisper prayers for the sudden dead and the harrowed families of the dead and the screaming souls of the murderers but I keep coming back to his hand and her hand nestled in each other with such extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love.
Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.
No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn't even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped, and fell endlessly into the smoking canyon, at two hundred miles an hour, falling so far and so fast that they would have blacked out before they hit the pavement near Liberty Street so hard that there was a pink mist in the air.
Jennifer Brickhouse saw them holding hands, and Stuart DeHann saw them holding hands, and I hold onto that.

Thirty Day Trial.

 Have you ever signed up for a Thirty Day Trial to give it a try, and deep deep down you kinda know you won't be using it.  Much. 

For me, I am not a movie or TV watcher. It takes alot for me to sit down and turn the TV on, much less watch a movie.  I've been this way since I was a little girl. 

My problem is I would always go so hard, the minute I'd sit still, I'd fall into a deep slumber.  It was a family joke that carried on through my adulthood.  The kids would say, "Mom, if we turn the movie on will you actually watch it and not get up to do chores, etc."

Back when Covid first hit I signed up for a FREE 30 Netflix Trial.  Knowing full well I wasn't going to watch much.  I began asking good friends what shows they really liked and why.  The idea was deep in my head to curl up on the couch next to Bill and get really into a show. 

Never happened.  

I would rather walk a beach, sidewalk, boardwalk, or chores. 

It's just who I am. 

Mid June came with a layout and plan of what our August would look like.  Closing out July with a major surgery to welcome a move-in date for Kris in AZ (Lake Havasu City) by the 20th.  Keys for his rental on August 10th, as he was still working.  So his mom and his auntie would take our 3rd load up (Bill and I took the first load, Bill took the second load.)

That early Friday morning I would scoop my sister up to head to the hottest days in Havasu.  Getting the keys to his rental that we'd never stepped foot inside.  And in Arizona, that town especially, you get what you pay for. 

We came armed with drawer liners, paint, bleach, and anything and everything to nest he and Lexi.

We had a glass of wine at our house first to prime ourselves for the task that lie ahead.  Case in point, I had a weary feeling the standards wouldn't live up to mine. But I digress.

My Hero.  My sister.  She sincerely picked me up off the sorrowful ground many times that trip up. 

Back story : Throughout the years we haven't always seen eye-to-eye.  I guess that happens in families. 

So for us, or for myself I keep looking at all the silver linings in the month of August.  That said, 

this is one. 

Many reasons to be told for Kris' decision (or should I say his parents nudge and push).  For what he can afford, with his dogs, cactus-lol and Patriotism. His parents go back and forth between homes. etc.

There were lots of discussion prior to this move. LOTS of head scratching from his mom, and mostly a very concerned Auntie (Tina-above) worried about his health, the heat, the sun...etc. 

I get it. 

I do too. 

But sometimes you have to look forward.  Think positive and look at his future.  Point being, there were more positives than negatives, and we just went with it. 

The irony is our old neighbors The Parsleys (whom lived directly across the street in Lakewood, remember the angel that fed me every.single.day when Kris was at City Of Hope..?) they moved a mile from Kris in Havasu two months earlier.  WILD.

God answers prayers and God does protect Kris. 

This I know for sure. 

Filthy. 

Let us take for instance, this beautiful CHANDELIER. LOL.  Filthy. The rental agency told me the house is immaculate.  Sure.  This beautiful CHannnndelllierrrr -EWWWW---was covered in grub.  Part of me wanted to yank that shit down and replace it.  Then I thought...no, Lisa. No. 

This is his chance to start from scratch and move on to something better.  In one year. 

From their bedroom looking out.  At a big wash. LOL. 

Coyote land. Scary.  But real. 

Nevermind the cockeyed light bulb...baby steps I'll get there.  haha

Painted the brown wood white.  Whatever.  Lipstick on a pig.  All good!

How the "Immaculate" drawers looked. 

Anyway, you get the picture.  Meanwhile as my sister and I are doing our nesting Mama/Auntie thing, I'm trying to convince her that AZ is the best place for Kris...etc.  

When we get in the car to head back to our house...

As Bill says...Buck Twenty Five"  

Not even worth laughing at.  I was in shock myself.  Burning my fingers as I shut the lid of Bill's truck. 

At this point I am numb. 

Scared.

Anxious. 

But forging forward. 

Isn't that what us mom's do?  We plan. We pray.  We hope. We push. Mostly we plan the best way we can possibly plan. 

With our heart out there first.  

We'd head back out of town on Sunday. I'd pick up a trailer our friend Jerry loaned me in Azusa.  Heading back to Lakewood to fill it with all the appliances, and his bed. 

The next haul up would be the big move. 

When I would come home, I would try to ground myself with Grace to continue my love and care for Bill. Who is still on crutches.  Still can't carry a glass of water, or his coffee cup very gracefully.  Sitting on the couch a tad bit depressed if I'm being honest.  A legacy of hard work left behind.  A family that betrayed him.  Years and years of being a boss.  Working hard for his future.  A major surgery left in the dust, but the remnants still unfolding daily.  His leg getting stronger, but his spirit and mental state quickly deteriorating.  I could see it.  I could feel it. 

And yet, there wasn't a fucking thing I could do.  Just keep pushing forward with a final move the following weekend.  This time I was armed with Kali and Maddie.  

When all of this started to get into rhythm Kali asked me point blank. "Mom, what and how can I help you".  I said the final move.  I need help getting the kitties up there.  I need help setting up those kitties.  I need help feeding family and friends that are helping with this move. 

Boy did they pull through.  BOY DID THEY PULL THROUGH.  Do you know each time I look at these pictures of my sister, my brother in law, my daughter and Maddie I get tears in my eyes.  IT'S HOTTER THAN HOT SNOT there and they all pulled together. 

Kris drove back and forth in the stakebed pulling a trailer 3 times in a 3 days.  My brother in law drove up early Saturday...

Everytime we'd see another UHaul we'd honk - LOL!  Can't be serious all the time!  HAHAHA

My handsome Bucky trying to adjust to his new surroundings.  A very mad Marley kitty.  Foaming mouth, holding on to the cage at times.  Bucky just rolling with the crew. 

Breakfast by Maddie! 

Kali and Hannah.  One of my biggest worries was the kitties driving the 360 miles.  Wasn't easy, but wasn't that bad.  Hannah adjusted well at our house. Marley, not so much. LOL. Under Kris' bed until we moved her one more time to Kris'.  Poor sweet girl. 

This is where Hero's get their trophy.  Every single appliance wouldn't fit.  It's 115 in garage.  Doors have to come off.  Sweat pouring down his face. 

Wayne.  My brother in law never winced. Just got it handled. 

This is where you feel the love and helpful hands from friends and family. 

There were many moments of sheer panic seeping from my body.  There were moments of pride.  Moments of sadness. Moments of what the fuck am I doing.  Moments of how much more can my soul take.  But then I kept telling myself.  Lisa, you've been through worse.  You can do this. He can do this. 

It's August in Havasu. It's gonna be hot.  Two separate neighbors have already come over to introduce themselves to him.  Proclaiming "Ya, this is the hottest August we've had in 20 years" lol. 

What I found most calming was the nature of the people there.  Taking the time to come introduce themselves.  

The moving trip would involve good memories too.  We'd get back home to dip in the pool.  Maddie would make a margarita for me to relax.  I'd have some good laughs with those girls. 

This guy.....

Wayne spent one night.  Headed back with Kris.  

We'd toggle back and forth for weeks.  I'd arrive back home tattered. Not the sweetest spirit to Bill. Something I'm not proud of but my soul was wiped out.

I'd navigate the final clean out of Lakewood.  After almost 20 years in a home you acquire more things than you'd know.  Rafters filled. Cupboards filled with memories. 

I drove away one last time with Kris the following week.  He'd make his 5th trip back to get his car.  We'd fill it the best we could.  More cactus than I'd like to admit, but that's what makes his spirit happy. 

We stood in our living room with tears.  We both looked at one another and said..."This house holds so many memories, good and bad".  

We drove off in separate directions.  I'd pray as I do.  Just before getting on the freeway he'd call. 

His car died at the end of the street. 

Better there than in the middle of nowhere. Seriously...

I turned around, arranged a rental, a friend got him to rental place and by 8:30 that night he was home bound for another week. 

I'd get back over the next morning to get his car towed, pick up his meds for the next month or two and grab his last bit of beloved cactus he grows from seeds. 

I learned a few things during the month of August.  I learned the true family and friends that step up to help.  I learned my strength and patience are harder to come by these days.  I learned that navigating the man I love the most having a major surgery days prior to a journey I had no idea would be so hard. 

I learned when you move ANYONE to another state, hire a moving crew and be done with it. 

I learned that love and family go hand in hand. 

I learned that getting up every single day with a plan to move through it will happen. Just not exactly the way you envisioned. 

I spent several hours the last couple of days with remorse.  For the way I treated Bill during the whole process.  Someone that needed me the most, and yet I pushed back the hardest.  I did my duties of meal planning, cooking, cleaning, laundry, his meds.  But there was this tension and resentment I let filter out of me.  It was all a clusterfuck in looking back. 

Kris is finally back in AZ.  Picked his car up on Monday.  I met him and Skipper for lunch and he was gone again. 

A new reality of change.

Bill left for Havasu.  He said for a couple of reasons, one being I needed a break. 

The last couple of days have still included errands and chores.  Nothing close to the last 30 days. 

I think I am shock of what we all endured. There's still dust and remnants of the change.  There will be for a while.  

I am grateful for this chance. 

For these two. 

Kris and Lexi August 2020

Skipper and Max

Lexi's mama drove up last weekend and they nested even more.  LOVE! 

For this guy for tolerating me.  Me for tolerating him.   You guys.  I've cried til I laughed and I've laughed til I cried. 

August, your 30 Day Trial is done.  Not signing up. 

The people that matter will be the matter of your life for years to come.  To the ones that never really mattered have disappeared forever. 

I have learned that a human is born with core strength in its soul forever.

I've learned that Bill and I have a bond like no other.  And the tests we endure just make us better. 

Better friends. Better family.  Better together. 

If you need a pedicure, just call me.  

Or...maybe not. 

I'm hiding from society.  From text messages and emails. I'm hiding from reality and changes. 

Home isn't a bad place after all....

Thanks for hanging in there with me kids.  

Thanks for the love you've all given Bill. The messages.  The food.  The love delivered to him when I couldn't be present.  The good friends we have that show up when the shit hits the fan.  

My family for the extra boost behind the scenes.  The messages I couldn't or didn't' take the time to reply to. 

The extra cups of coffee.....

And the best margaritas made by Maddie during the toughest summer months in Havasu. 

Now let me go replant my seeds of happiness and love.

Waiver: Don't sign the 30 Day Trial.  It's a hoax and will kick your ass-

And the words "I can do hard things" typed so frequently to my best friends that my phone saved the sentence making it easier every time I was on the brink of losing my shit. 

This Mama Lisa

The mom who spent countless days, hours and minutes researching the best options for her son.

The best surgery healing techniques for her lover.

The best vitamins to help his weary soul.

The weather patterns in September in Havasu to assure the kids won't burn and shrivel up. 

More times than not, I've felt my higher power reach down to me. Grabbing my cheeks, kissing my tears away.  I've laughed at sweaty armpits that smell like onions.  I've stared across the room at the back of Bill's head with regret of how I was treating him.  

I'm not always that gnarly when I feel like the ship is sinking.  

Only during August.  

Of Two Thousand Twenty. 

Better days ahead...That's for sure--

I love you. 

"Love the life you live, live the life you LOVE"