Angelia's Birthday

Friday, March 20, was Angelia's birthday. It was a very rough day, so I have not posted this until now. Happy Birthday, Sassy! We love you and miss you always!


In the rising of the sun and in its going down,
we remember.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter,
we remember.

In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring,
we remember.

In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer,
we remember.

In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn,
we remember.

In the beginning of the year and when it ends,
we remember.

When we are weary and in need of strength,
we remember.

When we are lost and sick at heart,
we remember.

When we have joys we yearn to share,
we remember.

So long as we live, she too shall live,
for she is now a part of us,
and we will always remember.

by Roland B. Gittelsohn

Remembering Angelia, Part III

Approximately three weeks after Angelia’s death, we got a call from Adrian, Angelia’s youngest daughter. She wanted to come live with us. We agreed, as emotional is it would be, that it would be for the best. Perhaps it would help us to heal the loss of Angelia, and we certainly hoped we could offer a home and a life of love, caring, support, strength and encouragement to Adrian, a young woman so recently left motherless. We needed to make it legal, though, so that we could properly care for Adrian, so we hired an attorney and her father signed over to us legal custody and guardianship of his youngest child. The day we had to meet him to sign the papers was a day we’ll never forget. We had arranged to meet at the house where his mother was staying. It was now about 6 weeks after Angelia’s death. We got there on time. Ricky, however, was running late. Sitting there in Angelia’s mother-in-law’s house was the urn containing Angel’s ashes, as well as many, many pictures of her, everywhere. We heard a truck pull up and out hopped Ricky. Behind Ricky....no, oh my God, who is that? It.....can’t.....be! Who is that? It looked exactly like Angelia. What? Who? Huh? It was Ricky’s new girlfriend. Teresa. They had met about two weeks ago, when he passed her broken down in her car on the side of the road. He stopped to help her, and they hooked up and immediately began living together. And he brought her with him to his mother’s house, the house where, 6 weeks ago, he had been living with his late wife. To sign over custody papers of his youngest daughter to his father-in-law and me. He also brought along with him and his new girlfriend, pictures of his wife’s memorial service, to share and look through, with his father-in-law and daughter and his mother......and his new girlfriend. With his wife’s pictures and her ashes, sitting right there. Hubby had that same hollow, sick, sunken look about him that had come over him that day in the hospital, the day when Angel died. He was looking at Angelia’s twin sister. Needless to say, another numb spell came over us and our time at that house did not last long. We left as quickly as we could, and no one said a word on the way home. Adrian was mortified, hubby was sick, and I was mad as hell. Ricky’s mother later told me that after we left, and she was there with Ricky and the new girlfriend by herself, that the 8 x 10 picture of Angel that was on the end table, right beside where they were sitting, out of the blue, fell over to the ground and shattered. No knock, no nudge, no sharp gust of wind coming through the window, no sudden movement on their part. Just Angelia, falling to the floor. I believe her.

Over the summer, we began attending Compassionate Friends, which is a support group for bereaved parents. We also quickly fell into a feeling of family and familiarity with Adrian. She was a poor, lost child in a great deal of pain. We all helped each other to begin to look at life again. It was rough, but over time, life simply had to go on....we now had a teenage girl in the house, and if nothing else, the place began to become loud and lively again.

Our dreams really came back to life, however, of all times, during a hurricane. It was Labor Day weekend and Hurricane Ivan was raging through Florida. The same Labor Day weekend as our family reunion. It was the first family reunion of my mother’s side of the family in many, many years. We had family members in town that we had not seen in 30 or 40 years. And while both my house and my mother’s house were lucky enough to not sustain any real damage, both our homes were without electricity for over a week. While riding out a hurricane is a dangerous and anxious time, I will always look back fondly on those dark, stormy days, for it was then and there that my hopes of dreams of motherhood came back to life. My teenage cousin, Tabatha, from Alabama, was there with her parents for the reunion. I had not seen her in about 4 years, and she had grown and changed a lot, as do most all teenagers over the course of time. I thought she looked a lot bigger than I remembered, and hubby said she looks pregnant, but I thought to myself, “no, I would certainly have heard about it through the family grapevine if she were”. So the weekend and the hurricane party continued.

As happens during gathering and in large groups, people tend to pair off into small groups and begin chatting and talking. Tabatha went off with all the teenagers in the house, and I sat with my Aunt Chris to chat a bit. I mentioned for humor that hubby had thought Tab was pregnant and then kind of laughed it off with Aunt Chris. Then Aunt Chris floored me, with a statement that would forever change my life. She said, “Well, actually, she is. And she is thinking about asking you to adopt her baby”. The thunder and lightning outside of Hurricane Ivan could not compare with the thunder in my heart and the light in my eyes when she said that. “What”, I croaked. “She what”? Aunt Chris said she wasn’t going to say anything just yet, but since the cat was out of the bag, here it is. Tab’s pregnant, and she is not really ready or able to raise a baby on her own, and she knew of our previous plans to adopt, so she’s considering asking us to adopt her baby. Aunt Chris advised me, however, that she had strenuously advised Tab to not even consider asking us if there was even one iota of a chance that she would change her mind after the baby was born. Aunt Chris warned she would come after Tabatha herself if that happened, because that kind of pain, after the year we’d been through with losing Angelia, well, she was afraid we’d never survive. And she was right.My legs felt week. My chest felt tight. I was dizzy. I had to sit down.

Aunt Chris left me alone to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. I went after hubby. I took him outside with me. I sat him down. I shared the news. If there are two moments in my life I’ll never forget, one was the moment of looking at hubby when he learned his daughter had died. The other was the moment I told him, that we were finally, at long, long last, going to be parents to a baby of our own. The light, the LIFE, came back into his eyes. A smile returned, to his face and his heart. Life began again. It was months later when I realized the significance of all these dates.....losing Angelia, days after Easter, the Christian holiday memorializing the death and resurrection of Jesus, and 9 months later, Alex’s birth, days after the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I also recalled a dream I had had, not long after Angel’s death. It was a dream about Angel and she was giving me the hand of a small child. When Adrian came to live with us, that dream seemed to make sense...that Angelia was trusting us to finish raising Adrian. And while that still may be true, it also makes a lot of sense, that somewhere, up there, she met in Heaven the little baby brother she would never get to meet on Earth....that she was handing him to us, straight from God’s hand, to hers, to Tab’s, to ours. As so it was with renewed hope and belief and happiness in the goodness of LIFE, that we began to prepare for the arrival of our son. It was time to start living again.

Remembering Angelia, Part II

That first night at home is eerie in my memory. Dark, overcast, too quiet. It’s like the day, the environment, the atmosphere knew what was in our souls, knew we were missing an integral part of ourselves. We had walked back in the house early that evening, came in through the kitchen door, and there, on the floor, right where hubby had left it, was the old garbage disposal torn out, his tools, a big mess, and the new garbage disposal, still in the box. That was what he had been working on late that morning when we got the call and left. It was bizarre, weird, odd, to walk in our house and see something so normal, so ordinary, so task-minded....when our whole world, our lives, had just been blown apart. It seemed just so wrong to me, to see something so average, so every-day, sitting there spread out on our kitchen floor, waiting on us, as if hubby would just pick up where he left off and continue to replace the garbage disposal. Later that night, hubby was on the couch, sitting in the dark, not crying, not talking, doing nothing....well, because.....at this point, what is there to do? I walked in the family room and asked him, stupidly, of course, I know, “are you OK?” I felt like an idiot before the words were out of my mouth. Then, my mother walked in....and I looked at her, I really looked at her....and her sadness, her grief, her loss (because she had known and truly loved Angelia as well) had weighted her down, and my poor mother looked so little and tiny and sad and lost. The three of us sat, quietly, for the longest time and said nothing. Then the words began, the senseless, changes-nothing words began. And the phone calls began. People wanting to ask, to inquire, to help. The next few days were a blur.....cremation arrangements, memorial services arrangements, talking to the medical examiner’s office, talking to Jessica and Ricky, trying to piece together exactly what had lead to her death. The first indications were that the fever of 108 had killed her, had basically cooked her brain. But there was more to it, for she had been covered with bruises on the lower part of her body when she died, and that would call for an autopsy.

It’s funny what you go through when a close family member dies...the things that creep up, the things that irritate you. I remember vividly having my head down and crying at one point while we were making cremation and memorial service arrangements, and a neighbor of Angelia’s took center stage and held practically a press conference to discuss the amount of her recent income tax refund and what she spent the money on. Sitting, head down on my folded arms, across my knees, I listed to this woman brag on for nearly half an hour about her new kitchen cabinets and flooring, etc., etc., etc. I mean, how obnoxious! How insensitive! How arrogant! And then, when it came time to actually talk about the details of Angelia’s cremation, this woman did not want me talking about it too loudly or too graphically, because her two young daughters were there, and she didn’t want them to get upset! This is the point where I lost it! I told her in no uncertain terms that if she did not want her daughters to hear anything about death, dying, cremation or burial, then this was not the place for her to be, because this is a house where someone has died, and we needed to proceed with the business of death. Sorry if it’s an unpleasant topic, but it ain’t any better for us, thank you very much. And the last thing I needed was to be worried about tip-toeing around the sensitivities of this broad and her kids! If she didn’t want to hear it, she could damn well leave the house!

Eventually, we got the arrangements made, and Ricky pulled it together enough to take Jessica and Adrian with him to look for an appropriate cremation urn. Somewhat to my surprise, he picked out something not only decent, but actually quite beautiful. He also put together, with help from the girls, of course, a huge, framed photographic display of Angelia’s life. It was surprising and even moving to see his loving and final efforts to make something nice for Angelia. The day of the memorial service arrived, to be held at the cemetary where hubby’s parents are buried. Everything was arranged very nicely, lots of people, and in addition to the framed photo montage made by Ricky and the girls, there were lots of momentoes and favorite objects of Angelia’s on display....some plants from her garden, a ceramic dish she made in school as a small girl with her name in it, a picture of a deer her little brother Matthew made for her when he was a young boy, and family photos and flowers and bouquets everywhere. It was all nice, as nice as a service can be when it’s your daughter you’re saying good-bye to. The service began. Hubby held it together pretty well, stoic, stone-cold numb, in pain. The one who really lost it, after days of holding it together, was Ashley, my step-daughter. She had been very calm, very collected in the hospital the day of Angel's death, and in the immediate days afterwards. She finally broke down, though, at the service, and sobbed like there was to end to her anguish. I felt so, so bad for her, for Angelia had been something of a second mother to Ashley. The oldest daughter and the youngest daughter, one gone, one to life the rest of her life without her beloved big sister. I knew Ashley's life was forever changed, as all of ours had been.

After the service, we all went back to my brother-in-law’s house, which used to be my mother-and-father-in-law’s house when they were living. The whole family was there, and it began to take on a party atmosphere. Food, kids swimming, talking....someone brought out the 4-wheelers and all the young kids began riding around on those. It was foreign, how can all this family togetherness be taking place; us, my inlaws, the cousins, nieces, nephews, my parents, the kids, the grandkids, all without Angelia being here in the middle of it? Where is she? Why is she not here? How can everyone be talking and living and go on, without Angelia here to join us? It was the oddest sensation and recognition of my entire life, so far. I could tell it was getting to hubby, too. We left, quickly and abruptly, we simply had to get out of there. In spite of the house being on a 5-acre lot, we were both getting claustrophobic there....couldn’t breath, couldn’t sit still.

Once at home again, the visits and phone calls continued over the next week or so. Hubby held up pretty well....considering. I went back to work, hubby went back to his various activities, life went on in some fashion. When Angelia died, we were two weeks away from our final home visit by our adoption social worker. After a year of preparation and waiting, we had come so close. However, the raw, searing pain of Angelia’s death caused us to put our plans on hold for a while, to give us time to grieve. We planned to resume our homestudy at some point, but we deliberately left things open, knowing our hearts would tell us when to move forward. Good thing we didn’t try to plan things too much, because Our Heavenly Father above had some significant changes in mind for us.

Remembering Angelia, Part I

It was a very tough day. A very, very tough couple of days....three weeks, actually. Sunday, March 20, 2005. Angelia’s birthday. Angelia was my husband’s first born daughter. His beloved “Sassy”. The year before, on her birthday in 2004, we did not get to see her. She and her husband had been separated the year before, and had recently gotten back together, so they were doing something just themselves for her birthday. But, we did send her a card and gift for her birthday, for which I am eternally grateful, since it was the last birthday she’d ever have. For it was just three weeks later, on Tuesday, April 13, 2004, just two days after Easter, that she left us.

We did not see her at Easter that year, either. She and her husband had gone camping. We had our usual family Easter celebration at my sister-in-law’s house. Almost everyone else was there, except Angelia. After leaving my sister-in-law’s house, we drove by Angelia and Ricky’s place to leave her an Easter card. Angelia was a constant worry to everyone, mostly because of her husband’s troubles. But, she was a big girl, and we, the entire family, were powerless to stop her from her determination to keep her marriage together. We knew she was depressed and exhausted and anxious, and we all worried about her constantly.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. Tuesday, April 13, 2004. 11:48 A.M. I was at work, hubby was at home putting in a new garbage disposal. I answered the phone at my desk. It was Jessica, Angelia’s oldest daughter. Jess was crying and nearly hysterical. I managed to get out of her that Angelia had been sick for the last few days and Jess had to call 911 to bring Angelia to the hospital. Now, my first thought was that Angelia maybe had a bad sinus or respitory infection, possibly even pneumonia. In other words, something fixable, something curable. Then, Jess said something about “Mama was blue.....fever of 108.....eyes rolled back in her head”. I tried to get Jess to calm down and see if someone else could get on the phone and tell me what was going on. But she said all the doctors would tell her is, “they’re doing the best they can”. Whatever was going on, Jess did not need to be there alone with her mom. Ricky was at work, I assumed, and Adrian was in school. I found out what hospital, and told Jessica we’d be there as quickly as possible. I went home to get Pete and we left immediately for the hospital. It was about a 30 mile drive. I remember being on the phone with various family members the whole way down to the hospital. I spoke to my husband’s oldest son, who was at the time a medic in the Air Force, and he said that fever of 108 does not sound good. My mom, a nurse, said the same thing when I had talked to her. Mom was quite hesitant, not wanting to tell me what she knew would be the truth, so she only said, “well, she could suffer some brain damage from a fever that high”. When I relayed that to my hubby, his immediate reply was that we (he and I) would simply bring her home to our house and rehabilitate her there with us. I wholeheartedly agreed.

I remember arriving at the hospital and parking. As we began to get out of the car, I grabbed hubby’s hand and asked if we could pray for Angelia. We took each other’s hand, and he lead us in a deep and meaningful prayer for Angelia’s recovery. As we both said, “Amen”, and our eyes opened, my eyes landed on the dashboard clock. It was 1:23 P.M.

We left the car and made our way into the hospital. We were eventually led to a waiting room and were told someone would be with us shortly. Opening the door to the room, there was Ricky, with Jessica on one side, and Adrian on the other. All three, hugging and sobbing. Hysterically sobbing. I reached down and touched Adrian on the shoulder to let them know we were there. Adrian looked up, and for some strange reason, I remember vividly noticing the new color on her braces: neon green. I remember thinking that was an odd color to have in your mouth. So it took a moment for it to sink in, what she said: “Momma’s gone”. What? Huh? Gone? Gone where? To another hospital? What do you mean? But gone she was. I found out weeks later after receiving her death certificate that her time of death was 1:23 PM. The exact time her father and I had said, “Amen” to our prayer for her recovery.

I grabbed hubby’s hand and was astounded by the hollow, sinking look in his eyes. Denial, no, it can’t be. He could not speak. Could not find his voice. I don’t think he breathed. I roughly pulled him to me, to try to jolt him out of not breathing. I held him. The tears began. I cried. Hubby was just repeating, “no, no, no, no....not Sassy, no, no, no”. Over and over and over again. The little he moved, to hug and hold his granddaughters, he moved very stiffly, very woodenly. He was pale yellow. His eyes, sunken. I remember his beard stubble looked very black against his yellow face. His hazel eyes were tiny and red. His voice, rasping, over and over again. “No, no, no”. Next: confusion sets in more. People arrive, the phone in the family waiting room starts ringing. Ashley arrives and starts making calls. I remember thinking how brave, how "take-charge" she was being for such a young woman. A counselor comes to talk to us. A doctor comes to explain what happened.

Staphalcocus aureus septisemia.

Eventually, we went to say our good-byes. Angelia, laying there on the bed. A vent tube still in her mouth. Her hair was oily and stiff. Her skin, pale and waxy and lifeless. The tube made everything very unnatural. Her whole body looked very small and tiny. I held her hand, talked to her, kissed her. Told her how very much she was loved. This is not real, this can’t be real. She is not gone. They have to help her, have to fix her, have to make her better. I cannot say good-bye. After some time, I left the room. I remember feeling like a horrible person for leaving her in that room, alone. To go through what lay ahead of her, by herself. Surely, there must be some mistake. The rest of the family, most of them anyways, was gathering. Phone calls, decisions, tears. I lot of this is a blur. Hubby had to get out of there. Ricky had disappeared with the girls. We went outside to our car, and saw them, the three of them, sitting on a concrete parking wall. Huddled, sobbing, hugging. The three of them. Angelia’s little family. As much as the family had problems with Ricky, it was hard to not feel sorry for him now, left alone with his two daughters, without his beloved Angelia, the sweetest, gentlest, kindest, most loving person you could ever want to meet. I remember just standing there, looking at them, and my heart began to break, never to be whole again.

We got in our car, and headed to my sister-in-law’s house. A lot of the family gathered there, and again, while most of it is a blur, I do remember a verbal argument going on between several of my in-law’s, along the lines of, “I thought I would be the next to go”, “no, it’s probably me”, “naw, I figured I was next in line”, etc., etc., etc., with everyone listing out their various ailments, aches, pains and illnesses. Just absurd. It really irritated me. I started looking around, and everyone was just sitting there, ignoring my hubby, who was a zombie, a wooden statute by now. Numb. A big block of pain and nothingness. No one was comforting him, paying attention to him, helping him. Everyone was so self-involved and worrying about their own miseries. It just made me so mad, and hubby and I looked at each other, and almost simultaneously, we got up and left. No one protested much. I guess they figured we needed to be alone. But it’s like we both knew we had to get out of there, before one of us blew a fuse.