Troubles Abound

My cousin Bobby, who has been in the hospital in Hot Springs, has brain cancer. He is the son of my aunt, Sister. Her husband is recovering from heart surgery. Sigh.

My family seems to have been bitten by the bad health bug. We just lost my uncle to cancer, and now this. Bobby is younger, and a fighter. There is hope, where there simply was none with my Uncle Tom.

I'm not sure how we managed to get on this particular merry-go-round, but I want this one to stop. I want off of this ride.

A Sad Update

I wrote Troubled Times last Thursday, for my regular deadline of noon on Thursday. It appeared as my regular column in the Sunday morning edition of Courier News. My Uncle Tom died Sunday night around 6:30 p.m.

Please keep his family in your prayers.

Troubled Times

They say misery loves company. I’m thinking trouble doesn’t like being lonely either. Trouble has come to my family, and has brought grief and turmoil with it.

Last Monday was a long day for us. We spent part of it at a hospital in Memphis. My Uncle Harold, my mother’s brother-in-law, is there with heart problems. Despite procedures and medications, nothing seems to be working.

My aunt, the woman we have called "Sister" all of our lives, was by his side. But her mind was also on her son, who was in a hospital in Hot Springs. My cousin Bobby was in Intensive Care, from complications after brain surgery. Sister came from the hospital in Hot Springs to the hospital in Memphis when Harold started having chest pains. They are still there, weeks later.

We also spent some time in Tupelo, Mississippi. My dad’s brother-in-law, my Uncle Tom, was in the hospital there. He has cancer. In his liver, his spleen, his spine, his lungs, and his brain. He has eight tumors in his brain. There is no hope.

Three weeks ago, my Uncle Tom and my Aunt Linda were on vacation at the Grand Canyon. All was well, and they had no idea he was sick. Then he spilled his coffee, and his balance seemed a little off. He got lost at the airport. My aunt was mildly concerned, so she scheduled a doctor’s appointment. The bottom of their world simply dropped out from beneath them.

A month ago he was fine, or so we thought. And in a month or so, he will no longer be with us.
We know life has no guarantees. We know people die. Yet it is still a shock, each time. As we drove through Tupelo, we passed the hotel we had stayed in when my grandmother was sick. We went to the same hospital, walked the same halls.

We drove through New Albany, passed the hospital both my grandmother and my grandfather died at. We passed the hotel we stayed in, the restaurant we ate most of our meals at. Although it has been six years since we lost my Mom Decanter and not quite two years since we lost my Pop, the grief was still fresh as we retraced some of those same steps.

Now, here we are again, on the brink of losing another that we love. To that murdering beast that has already stolen part of my family. Cancer. I hate that word. It is the filthiest of words, the vilest of all of the curse words in the human language.

My Aunt Linda is devastated, as you would expect. They have been married more than 45 years. They have three children, two grandchildren; a life built together since she was teenager. She simply does not know how she will function alone when she always had her partner by her side.

We, her family, have and will continue to surround her with love. It won’t be enough, of course, but perhaps it will help as much as anything can help in such horrible circumstances.
If you see my mom, my dad, or me around in the next little while, we might be a little distracted. We might be thinking about my cousin Bobby in Hot Springs; my Uncle Harold in Memphis, or my Uncle Tom in Tupelo.

We are a family, and when one part of us has trouble, we all have trouble. Our hearts are hurting, because we can’t be everywhere we need to be each and every time we need to be there.

My Aunt Linda told me she wished I lived in Mississippi, so I could help her get through this. I will help her, in any way I can. We all will, with each of them. It’s what we do, when trouble comes to family.

Bigfoot Discovered Alive

After years of rumor and speculation and grainy photos, I have proof. Bigfoot is alive. Not only is he alive, he is living in Blytheville. He’s a good bit younger than most experts thought, but he does exist. I know, because he lives with me.

My son’s feet have grown again. At 12, his feet are bigger than his dad’s. We are down to buying him one pair of shoes at a time, because he goes through them so fast that it just doesn’t makes sense to buy more.

Last week, his shoes fit when I dropped him off for school that morning. That afternoon, there was a hole in them. He busted out of that pair in one day, a record for him. It made me think of the Incredible Hulk. At least he didn’t turn green and start throwing things.

I shouldn’t be surprised, because we recently had to go buy all new uniforms for him. He literally outgrew the ones we bought at the start of the year within a week. They fit on Monday. They didn’t fit on Friday. This is getting expensive. At this rate, we are going to have to start a clothing fund along with the college fund.

When he saw his Grandma in Jonesboro a few weeks ago, she looked up at him and said, "you’ve done it again." He had gotten taller on her since she had seen him last. She sees him every few weeks, and he is taller every time she sees him. It’s kind of funny. It’s kind of scary. That’s my little boy, in that body that is taller than I am.

We all have the flu, courtesy of Gary bringing it home from Nucor. He got it at work, brought it home to me, and I gave it to Logan. Thankfully, Logan doesn’t have it as bad as Gary and I do.
I took Logan to the doctor at the first sign of his symptoms, hoping to head off the worst of it. It’s been a while since he has been there. The receptionist did a double-take. So did the nurse. So did the doctor.

They all used to call him "little Logan." because he was so small for so long. Practically every one in the office asked "that’s little Logan?" They wouldn’t have recognized him, this almost teen-ager towering over me.

"He’s not little Logan anymore," is what one of the ladies at the doctor’s office told me. No. Indeed, he is not. He is growing and changing right before our eyes. I don’t really mind it, for though I loved little Logan, it is time for him to be put in the past. It is exciting to see what this Logan is becoming. It’s hard to let go of the boy. But it is going to be easy to embrace the young man.

Not So Super Tuesday

I can hear the buzzing of chainsaws from my office. A crew is next door, getting the tree off the roof of my neighbor’s house. It woke her up Tuesday night as the tree crashed into her home, above the bed she was sleeping in. Talk about a nightmare.

It was a nightmare for others, too. My aunt’s son is a police officer in the outskirts of Memphis. He was out in that chaos trying to help and protect others instead of trying to protect himself. His daughter was in Jackson, Tennessee at a small Christian college, huddled up for safety. My Aunt Ruth was worried both for her son and her granddaughter, and more than worried when she knew Jackson had taken a direct hit.

Mike and Marnie are both okay. Marnie’s college is very much not okay. She’s supposed to graduate in May, but it will be without about 80 percent of her campus looking like it looked Tuesday afternoon before the storms.

It’s horrible, all over. My favorite run away spot is damaged, over near Mountain Home. We love the Bull Shoals /White River area around Gassville and Lake View and Cotter. We camp and fish and canoe over there. If we can’t get that far away from home, we sometimes run over to the Spring River around Hardy and Highland and Ash Flat.

The beauty of the mountains and the rivers may surround them, but their people have been devastated. It’s so sad, every time. There is no rhyme or reason. One home is destroyed, one home is perfect. One life is gone, one life is spared.

At Marnie’s college, dorm rooms were completely torn apart, yet clothes hung neatly in a closet, not touched at all. That closet was now outdoors, but it was in perfect order while rubble was piled up just inches away from it.

It doesn’t make sense. It never has. I guess it never will. One of the things I was grateful for last Tuesday night, other than the fact that our community was mostly spared, was our own hard working men and women of our police and fire departments and emergency squad.

They were out in force with their eyes to the sky. They saw a good bit of rotation, and made sure our community was safe by having the tornado sirens activated when appropriate. Several of them had damage to their vehicles in the course of their duties. They very well could have been harmed while trying to protect us from harm.

It was the thing my Aunt Ruth was the most worried about. Her son might have had a job to do, but more important to her was that he was her son and he was in danger. She didn’t want him to be. She wanted him inside somewhere, safe and sound.

Mike knew his job was outside, so others would be safe and sound. So did our guys and gals of our police departments and sheriff’s office, of our fire departments and emergency squad, our trained spotters and our ham radio operators.

We have emergency services for a reason, and Tuesday night made that very clear to me. Super Tuesday took on a whole new meaning for those of us in Arkansas and Tennessee and other states in the Mid-South. It was more like Super Cell Tuesday.

All in all, I wish that kind of weather never happened. But since it does, I’m glad we have people that are willing to stand for me, to watch for me, to make sure me and mine will be well warned and well protected when the nightmare comes to my house. Being well served by those who have vowed to protect and serve. It’s just one part of being from Around Here.