The frog's skeleton came out of the closet

You know that story (or rather, it's a "moral") about the frog that's in a pot of water when it's cold and when you heat up the water gradually, the frog never realizes the difference and is boiled to death? Well, this isn't one of those stories. Here, I'll start at the beginning:

I've been home (home being the house where I spent my entire childhood until I left for college) for a couple days now. My two brothers and my two sisters and I came together to be with my father while he's been very ill. We've done a lot of sitting around and talking together.

Amidst all the conferring, a little piece of truth came out yesterday, much to my horror. It was about my frog. It was a little African clawed frog I bought from the pet store when I was in high school. His name was Oscar. I probably paid a couple bucks for him. You've probably seen one of these frogs yourself; it was a swimming frog you see a lot in with the fish. They just swim back and forth in the tank and if you buy one, they usually die in the first week or two. Well, I got the exceptional frog.

He lived so long and grew so big that he shocked everyone, including me. I moved out of the house to leave for college and my parents kept Oscar and fed him and took care of him. My dad was so attached to him. He would stick a little net into the fish tank and Oscar would float up to the top and my dad would scratch his back and his tummy with the net. It was really quite amazing. And they cleaned out his tank once a week.

On Oscar's last living day, my parents were cleaning out his tank. They usually filled up the sink with water, put Oscar in while they cleaned the tank, then transferred him back to his fresh and recently cleaned tank. This particular time, the sink was inadvertantly filled with steaming, boiling hot water. My mom said when they put Oscar into the sink, he hopped up a bit. A little different from normal, but my mom didn't think anything of it. She went over to clean the tank. When she came back to get Oscar, he was belly up. Completely boiled.

They never told me the truth. They said he died of old age, which I totally believed because he really had lived nearly six or seven years. My sister let it slip.

I then asked my mom what really happened to my childhood pet, my bunny rabbit Butterscotch. Had he really gone to that happy farm where they needed a rabbit? No, it turns out they had given him to a family friend who butchered him and ate him.

I wonder what else I'll learn in the next several weeks . . .

Always there

I can't sit still. I feel like I need to be doing something. Packing a suitcase for a trip that's still three days away. Making arrangements. Cancelling appointments.

If I don't stay busy, I'll probably lose it. I understand why my mom used staying busy as a way to mentally work through problems. It helps--for a while anyway. Until there's nothing left to do but sit down and rest and think about my dad who I'm not sure I'll even recognize when I arrive at the airport on Saturday.

I'm scared he won't know my name, remember I just had his granddaughter, know why I'm there.

But I want to be there. I have to be there. This is my father. Last week, at the hospital, he made a comment about "waiting for his children." Was he lucid when he made the comment? I'm not sure, but I'm going to be there nonetheless.

When I've gone back to look through pictures of my youth, I've found so many photos of me doing long jump or running and in the background, my dad is there--watching. He was always there. Never missed a track meet. He'd drive to O'Fallon or Sparta or wherever. Always made time for it. For us.

I can't believe it was just last year that dad and I were jogging together at the Columbia park. Now, he needs help just walking to the bathroom.

I know this is going to be a challenge. Because I live far away, I've been able to distance myself from the reality of what's happening to him. The deterioration of his body. I'm scared when I see him that I won't recognize him, his frail body that used to run marathons. That could always beat me in a race, even when he was over sixty.

I know I've been through a lot, but I hope I'm strong enough to get through this too.

A new camera

I missed a lot of photo ops this weekend. The first was Bianca singing a solo at the ward talent show Friday night. She was awesome, and I didn't even get one still shot. Then Saturday afternoon, Bianca scored her first goal at her soccer game. It wasn't so much the goal that I missed, but after she scored the goal, she ran across the field in lightning speed—with the most genuinely happy smile I've ever seen on her face—to hug Eric. I'm not sure if it was the dollar I promised her if she ever scored a goal or the actual goal, but in a picture, it doesn't matter. Does it?

Of course I didn't have my camera. I've been sick over misplacing my camera for the last several days. I've taken ever spare moment to look for it. Over and over, the same places I know I already looked. But I don't know what else to do. Last time I saw it, it was in my diaper bag, about two weeks ago.

A lot of things have happened since then. I had my cleaning ladies come in while I took Portia to her first pediatrician appointment. I hate to even suggest that they may have taken it.

I've left my garage door opened for several hours so Bianca could get her scooter while I did other things. Someone easily could have wandered by, opened the door right into my kitchen where I normally keep my camera.

Could I have left my diaper bag in the car and forgotten to lock it while I ran into Smith's for five minutes?

It could have been any number of things. But worst of all is the idea that I probably left it somewhere or lost it.

I have an article assignment for Monday, and I had to have a camera by then. So, I pushed through the nauseating idea of spending $300 on a new camera and bought one yesterday. It's fine. It's actually a little nicer, and I think I'll end up liking it more than my other camera, but it just makes me sick.

I hate losing things.

I never thought I'd say this . . .

but I'm tired of wearing comfortable pajamas and sweats. What I wouldn't give to just wear my normal clothes again. It's been three weeks and I still can't get back into them. I'm dying! Each day, as I watch all the swelling go down and things start looking back to the way they should, I optimistically try on my regular jeans and I always end up disappointed. Why is it that they put the incision from the C-section right where the top of the jeans hit?

I've started walking at nights again--thanks to my friend Dani. I'm so eager to look like I did about 10 months ago. But nothing's changing. I'm still stuck in pajamas and work-out clothes and I don't feel like I can go anywhere because I can't dress like that.

On Thursday I have a work meeting. I'm hoping that in the next two days, I'll optimistically put on my jeans and find that they fit. I don't know if my editor will appreciate me showing up in my pajama bottoms and my "I survived finals week at BYU 1994" t-shirt.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Another boring old star

I had an epiphany the other day--I'm not a teenager anymore. It happened while I was trying to get through another day. I pulled out the DVDs of "My So-Called Life" that I obsessed over in college. Maybe it's something about feeling old that made me want to travel back there, where life was less complicated but we thought it was as complicated as life could get.

I'm coming to a close of my self-determined child-bearing years. But I guess in the back of my mind, I always felt like I was still a kid. You know, when the entire world was at your fingertips. So many chances to get it right, so many decisions to make.

But I know that most of my decisions are made now. There really aren't many left. Now, I have to sit back and let the rest of life happen to me, instead of choosing my own paths. And it doesn't help that I look in the mirror and I'm amazed to find that youth is gone from my face and my body.

There's something about that coming-of-age time of your life. I want it back, but I'm so beyond it. It took me over ten years to realize how beyond it I've become. Now I'm the mom left at home as my daughter goes off to school. I'm the one waiting until she returns. The one behind the closed door. I'm the one that will probably embarrass my daughter in a couple years, the way my mom used to embarrass me. I'm the one she'll be begging to "stop singing" or "could you just walk a couple feet in front of me?"

I'm ashamed to admit when I was in fifth/sixth grade, my mom used to drive this enormous brown van. I refused to walk into the store with my mom to pick up a few groceries, because I had seen two boys in my grade riding their bikes on main street. So when she went into the store, I fell to the floor of the van, lying in fetal position, just trying to avoid being seen by anybody, but especially the two boys. I remember the feel of the bumpy vinyl floor on my cheek and I especially remember how I felt when I heard knocking from the window of the van and looked up to see the two boys looking down at me on the floor. Wow—I just know that I've got it coming back to me.

I guess I get to watch it happen now to my daughters. They get to have their most alive time now. I guess this is the way life works. We don't get to stay kids forever. It's such a short time but its impact is lifelong. Like the difference between a shooting star—so radiant and fleeting, and so amazing—and just another stagnant star in the sky. Barely noticeable when you look up among all the rest.