She's Sherrie

Christmas 1965 The Christmas Song Years This time of year, the mind starts to wander and reflect on Christmases that we have been a party to.  Old friends, family members, in-laws, ex-husbands, co-workers, bosses, they are all brought to mind.  Good times, bad times. Every memory is scanned by the brain, mine.  That can be a blessing and a curse, as I seem to have an overly active recall. That's right, I remember it all except for maybe my first two or three Christmases.  I remember a pair of red and white flannel pajamas that made me look like a  peppermint stick with red hair.  But I loved those pajamas.  That gift was received during my "good" Christmas years.  When we received lots of suitable presents, we had plenty of food to eat and a nice warm place to live.  Our apartment was filled with family and the wonderful smell of pies and cakes.  My favorite person in the whole world was there, my Uncle Jerry.  He always gave me the best stuff, but that wasn't

Today on my Facebook page, a friend of a friend posted a rant about taking the Christ out of Christmas.  It made me see red, not Christmas red, angry red.  The "taking the Christ out of Christmas" concept was pushed and still is to my knowledge by Fox "News."  This began a few years ago, and I see it hasn't died the death it deserves yet.  I did not want to block my friend, and Facebook wouldn't let me delete the post, so I stuck to the original poster.  I posted the following response on my page. FACT: Not all religions celebrate December 25 as Christmas. FACT: The term "Happy Holidays" has been used for years and years and years. (There is even a song Happy Holidays) If you are one of those folks that froth at the mouth because someone says Happy Holidays, your good Christian upbringing and nature should guide you to be tolerant. Nobody is taking Christ out of Christmas for those who celebrate it. YOU might be taking it out a littl

The Front Porch The last Halloween that we lived in Dallas, all 3 kids came home sick on Halloween and couldn't go out.  I painted my face to look like a skeleton and wore a hood and monk's robes. My face painting was AWESOME, I couldn't believe how well it turned out.  And as good as it looked inside the house, it was even scarier outside. I sat on the front porch on a planter right next to the door.  You couldn't ignore me. Groups of kids and their adults would walk up the walk, see me and then slow down.  They encouraged the kids to go ahead and knock on the door while they stood sideways looking at me.  They would tell the kids that it was okay that I wasn't real and don't be scared.  But they were.  I sat motionlessly.  One kid told the mom I was staring at him.  She laughed it off and touched my skeletal made up a hand.  I could have scared the crap out of her but chose to maintain my cover.  Everyone was scared.  Finally, many kids with a bunc

I thought that I would be able to write about the events leading up to my son's death from cancer before the anniversary date of September 29, well before that time arrived.  I found that writing about it has been so emotional that it reignites the horror show in my brain.  The sounds and the scenes burned forever in my mind, click themselves to the on position and play over and over. This day, my birthday, is particularly emotional for me.  It is the anniversary of the day that the hospice nurse told me that my son would probably die.  I wasn't even thinking about my birthday; I was consumed with the declining state of my son's life. When she told me, it hit me like a brick even though I had tried to prepare myself for it.  It was a reality, and it was crushing.  I remember looking at Jeff when she told me that his pale, thin body lay motionless in the hospital bed.  All of the days of torturous pain for him were almost over.  He did not deserve to die from this horr

After Jeff's surgery, I spent the morning calling everyone that I was required to call officially and keep peace in the family.  My son's manager, where he worked, was the most upset of anyone I talked to.  He was also a young guy like Jeff's doctor, and the impact of death at 34 from cancer was unbelievable to him.  He offered help to me for anything that I might need.  As usual, my ex Mike had his answering machine, which angered me because he knew I would call about Jeff.  If he could be cold, so could I; I left a message about the diagnosis and prognosis.  My mom showed no emotion at all; she didn't gasp, she didn't cry, she was very detached, and so was my brother.  My boss pissed me off with her Suzy Sunshine imagination of how he "might" get better.  I ended my phone calls after that one.  I had to go to the hospital. There was a nurse in Jeff's room when I got there.  She told me that he had been restless all night and in a lot of pain.  The

Jeff was in surgery for about four hours.  I paced the room, walked outside, turned the TV on and off, and finally just sat in a chair and did nothing but wait and worry.  A nurse came in and told me he was out of recovery, and they would be taking him back to his room.  She said he was heavily sedated and would be that way for one or two days.  She asked me to follow her to talk to Jeff's doctor. The air was thick in the room when I walked in.  I was in a tiny room with a bed and a chair; maybe it was a room for the physicians to sleep in.  I don't remember his doctor's name, but I do recall that he and Jeff were the same age.  I could tell by the look on his face that I was going to get bad news.  A nurse was standing behind me; I recognized her as one of the nurses assigned to Jeff.  She was also very young in her twenties.  The conversation began with, "we removed 18 inches of your son's colon."  That was the good news.  It was all downhill from ther

Happier days. Jeff was awake when I walked into his room, but he was very groggy.  He had an IV with a morphine drip for his pain and to keep him calm.  Keep him calm?  If he knew everything that I knew, he would be freaking out.  He was so medicated that he was not totally in touch with reality. That was a good thing.   He tried to tell me what was going on, but it was all mixed up.  I patted his face and said to him that I knew what was going on, which seemed to satisfy him.  He went to sleep. I sat in a chair next to his bed.  Nurses were in and out.  They would wake him up to ask him questions, and then he would go back to sleep.  Nobody called his room to check on him, not his dad, his grandmother, or any of his friends at work.  It was just him and me.  It would be that way for most of his illness. Sitting in that room in the dark next to him, the only thing I could do was think.  I had a multitude of thoughts scrambling around in my brain, none of them good.  I was doin