I’m writing this blog on the way down to Texas. So it may be broken up into parts.
Its 9:15 P.M. on Wednesday. We dropped Jace off at his Grandma & Pappy’s around 6:00 P.M. or a little after. I must admit, it has been a horrible day. I tried not to think about leaving him. It didn’t work obviously. I must have cried more than a dozen times today. It wasn’t all because I had to leave Jace. A lot of it had to do with the reason for this trip. I have been reading through my mom’s medical records for the past few days. It hasn’t been an easy thing to do. The first day I got them in the mail; I opened it and only read the first page and broke down. The first thing I seen on the page was “expired.” That was really difficult to look at. May sound weird to some. I realize my mom passed away more than 3 years ago, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see those words. I got to reading more and more. I can’t help but to get so angry while reading it. They made so many mistakes that it is inexcusable. I just don’t get it honestly. How can these “intelligent,” well educated people make such mistakes. I’m no rocket scientist but I knew some of the things they made mistakes on. I would have been able to tell them they were making a mistake. And, now they have the audacity to try to make excuses for their terrible behavior. How can they sit there and lie? Better yet be able to sleep at night?!
We just passed Munfordville, KY a little while ago. We stopped and got gas. I couldn’t help but think about that horrible accident here more than a month ago. It’s sad to think of that many people in one family losing their lives. I was scared to drive on the highway a few weeks after that. I still think about it every time we get on any highway. It goes to show how quickly you could lose your life. I’ve always been a worrier. I get it honest; my mom was the same way. It has gotten worse since Jace has been born. I think about everything I do more in depth now. Steve & I were just talking the other day about how we feel about flying now. We could have chosen to fly to Texas instead of this long drive. We couldn’t bear to think about something happening on our flight and leaving Jace parentless. It’s hard not to think about those kinds of things now. I want to live forever for my son. I know that is unrealistic but I can wish can’t I? I love him to pieces. He is defiantly the miracle I was never supposed to have. And, even better, a blessing in disguise in so many ways. He brought people back together and I’ll be forever grateful for that. I explained to Steve so many times that you only get one set of parents & relatives. People come and go, but family is forever. You may not always like the things they do and vice versa but family is family. I’m glad to have my in-laws in my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way. They technically may not be my in-laws yet but I still think of them that way.
Pappy & Jace watching TV.
Grandma & Jace spending time together outside.
The two of us got to the motel in Jackson, TN around 1:00 A.M. on Thursday. We were both so tired. I checked my facebook, made a few comments, and went to bed. We didn’t sleep long because we still had over 5 hours to drive. We left the motel at 9 A.M. I called Grandma to see how my little Jace Monkey was doing. Jan said he had slept well for her. I was relieved that he didn’t drive her crazy. Lol. We also got her to look up good barbeque places in the Memphis area since we were driving through there. She found Neely’s on the Food Network website. I knew the name sounded familiar but I didn’t totally get it until we stepped into the door. It was the Neely’s from the Food Network show “Down home with the Neely’s.” I was so excited. I watch them quite often. I watched an episode not too long ago where they were making fried pickles. Yum.
He's so silly, but those ribs were good.
Lol. I had the pulled pork.
Steve & I arrived in Texarkana, TX Thursday afternoon around 4. We went straight to the lawyer’s office. They wanted to go over some paperwork with us and give us some printed information to go over for Friday. My sister & brother hadn’t made it yet. We left the lawyers office and went to the motel to wait on my sister & brother. They got there around 6. We had several problems getting them checked in. Apparently the motel did not let our lawyer know that he needed to either A) come in to sign the credit card authorization or B) let them fax it to his office, he’d sign it and then fax it back to them. So, needless to say there was a whole ordeal over that. We eventually had to call the afterhour’s number to get in touch with our lawyer to come straighten that all that. Everything finally got calm an hour or so later. There was a JcPenny right behind the motel so Steve & I decided to walk over and get us a bathing suit. We swam for over 2 hours. Lol. We looked like a couple of dried prunes when we finally got out. It was nice to relax for a while. We knew that the next day was not going to be pleasant. We did not go to bed until well after midnight. My sister slept in the room with us and she snores something awful! Ha. I kept reaching over from our bed and hitting her with my pillow. That stopped working. Then I had to deal with her and Steve snoring! Ahhhh! So I kept making myself cough really loud so they’d stop. Lol. It worked. I was finally able to fall asleep. I didn’t sleep very well though. I kept thinking about Jace and wanting to give him goodnight kisses. I sat my laptop on the motel table with a slideshow of his pictures. I did this every time we were at a motel. I just love him so much.
We had tons of fun swimming together.
My brother & sister-in-law slept in another room right across the hall. We all got up around 6 A.M. on Friday. We had to be at the lawyer’s office at 8:30 A.M. He wanted to meet with his and discuss a few things before the deposition at 10. He explained to us how everything would go and some of the questions they may ask us. They had breakfast for us when we got there. None of us had an appetite. We knew in just a few short minutes we would all have to relive our mom’s death. It is not an easy thing to have to go though again. My two aunts went first. My sister & I sat in everyone else’s deposition. We had to relive the whole situation 5 times. After my Aunt Faye’s was over I walked outside to talk to Steve for a few minutes. I told him I didn’t know if I could go through with this. It was just too hard to go through that again. It is like watching a movie and when it starts to skip; it plays the same thing over and over again and you can’t turn it off. It was hard on all of us. By the time my aunts got finished it was lunch. They ordered McAlister’s in. I still didn’t have an appetite though. After everyone else ate we went back in. It was time for my brother to do his deposition. He did very well. We were all worried about him being able to keep it together. We were all so very proud of him. I asked my sister if I could go next. I wanted to get it over with. I brought pictures and cards with me. I wanted to show them that my mom was someone. She was a great women and mother. She taught us to love everyone, no matter what they’ve done us. She taught us that family comes first and to never put anyone over one another. She wasn’t only a mother to all of us, she was our best friend. We could talk to her about anything and she would never judge us. She would tell us what she thought about certain things but never tried to make decisions for us. It doesn’t matter how much we cry and get angry, we will never get our mother back. We will never get to have a conversation with her. And every month on the 18th I’ll get sad. It has been like that every month since she passed. That is when she went into the hospital. Nothing will ever bring her back to us. But hopefully we can get justice for her and she can finally rest in peace. Hopefully we can have a memorial for her where we can finally bury her ashes.
I hope I never have to go through anything like that again. We got out last night around 6:30 P.M. We drove for a while until we found somewhere we wanted to eat. I was finally able to eat. We finished up and started to head home. Our plan was to drive until we got tired. Well we were both tired and I was mentally drained. We decided to just stop in Little Rock, AR. We watched the finale of American Idol that Steve had downloaded for me and we went to sleep. I slept so good I didn’t even hear my phone go off from a text message. And, I am not usually a hard sleeper. Lol.
It’s now Saturday. We are finally on our way back home. I feel better coming back home than I did going up. I guess that makes sense. I am less stressed and so excited to see my little man. We stopped and got lunch at Church’s Chicken. I got Steve hooked the last time we went down to Mississippi. They don’t have one here though. I noticed it last night right across the street from our Motel. And, as always, it was delicious! We came back up through Memphis, TN again. So we stopped by Neely’s to get some food for tomorrow. We had to get a cooler so it wouldn’t go bad. We got enough to have dinner with Grandma & Pappy tomorrow. We got home around 8:30 P.M. unloaded our luggage, called to let them know we were coming to get Jace, and left. As soon as I walked in the door and seen that precious face my heart melted. He was a little fussy at first because he was hungry. But, we played with him for a minute and he seemed so excited to see us. He looked so different. I’m sure he doesn’t look any different, I guess it’s just because I hadn’t seen him in a few days. We also learned that he had been putting his binky in his mouth by himself if it was close enough. We got to see this while we were getting to leave to come home. I could not believe it. I got a little jealous that I missed it for the first time. But, then at least I got to see it firsthand three times.
It was so nice finally getting home. We spent some time with Jace, changed his diaper, fed him, and all went to bed. Everything is finally peaceful again. He was in a great mood this morning when we woke him up. He’s been playing and “talking” with us. Ah, how great life is.
Finally got to see our little man.
Playing playstation with daddy. Lol.
