I want to also tell you about Gordon20024, who showed the love of this community by calling me at the motel on Saturday. It was raining, foggy, and the tears on my pillow were only matched by the flooding outside the room. We stayed in a little motel as the rest of the family was at my sister's and she has only one bathroom. I also wanted to cry and just be away from questions and inquiry from the rest of the family for this horrible horrible event. The phone rang, it was Gordon. He said, " Amanda, I am at the Holiday Inn express across from the funeral home. Gordon lives in Virginia. This was West Ga. I was so shocked as I had not even spoken by phone or message to Gordon since this all happened.
He represented all of you and the kindness the community shows when things like this happen. He showed up and stood with my Vet and little Sierra and me. He drove 8 hours straight to get to us and pay his respects. He hugged us as we looked on our 31 year old grandson's cold body and I was engulfing so much pain and emotion.
Gordon took us across the street for a meal. ( This was not the kind of meetup we all think of) but the kind I think Navajo had in mind for being there for one another. I was a mess. Gordon paid his respects and went right back to Virginia. How do you say thank you to all that? It reminded me of Just Bob who went and picked up my husband years ago when he was stranded in South Carolina. NO I never forgot that.....Daily Kos is not just a blog.. Never think it is. People far and wide need to know the kind of people that vote Democrat. They are the kind who will travel at an instant to hug another Kossack.
As Gordon left we went back inside of the funeral home and I cannot tell you how big a mess I am right now....hanging on to every shred of sanity I can muster and wrenched with pain and just a mess in every way imagined and still trying to be strong and life feeling like it has been zapped. So many questions, so much heartache and feeling so unworthy.
The reality has set in and I had just written a diary about a month ago about how funeral homes make people with their sweet smile and ways of greed prey on emotionally drained loved ones and feeling put on the spot. Our X daughter in law borrowed 11,000 for a funeral before we made it up there and the funeral home was even rude to the family with their strict move it..move it ..move.it.attitude right before they closed the casket. This nearly all but brought out the very worst in my husband and if looks could drop a person, two directors would be laid out in the adjoining parlors.
My son and we will help pay this former daughter in law to help with that outrageous expense. He was ours as well. What in the world was she thinking.. She wasn't thinking I am sure as she was the one who found her child...She was a good mother all of these years. She and my son shared custody over the formative years. They were even there for him when our grandson and his first wife got divorced... Then he recently remarried. We don't know her.
Well, besides flood warning being issued everywhere, I had left my computer at home, could not find my phone charger half the time I was up there and totally exhausted.
Our son headed back to Florida right after the graveside service and his little grandkids were hanging on to him as they did not know and still have not been told how their Daddy died but they knew he was dead.
The first thing that happened was I was sick.. I think it probably nerves but I could not hold anything on my stomach. I was ill. I could not get myself together it seemed after I walked by and saw my first grandchild, and so pretty lying there so cold. I saw his children crying and his other Grandmother and I held each other pretending we were strong, but we weren't. She had recently had a stroke. My son's first wife, the mother and only child they had together stood there hand in hand in tears looking down with tears dropping on his lifeless body. I was ready to scream, when a small voice, tugged at me with a smile of Anthony's and a tear down his face saying, " Grandmother, can you fix my rose". I bent down, as he is only 7 and said, " Sure I can". He said, "My Daddy normally fixes things but ......( long pause) and he dropped his little head. My heart broke.. I was fixing his rose and getting the pin not to stick him and holding back the screams I felt inside as I looked at his and his siblings faces. He was the one who then walked over to the casket and stroked his Daddy's hair and said, " Grandmother fixed my rose.
Our son's car broke down on the way back and I was still 250 miles away. He had a blow out and a spare but no jack.. We had roadside assistance insurance on his car so we gave them a call. I finally got home last night and after all the rain and flooding was actually glad to hit the Florida State Line. I got angry but I have been angry, when I saw the sign Welcome to florida, open for Business.......and thought well, when will all this greed in America stop and then thought of Gordon and you guys and that sweet little boy saying, " Can you fix my rose". I am so torn up, I cannot even express myself very well in this diary but wanted to tell you.. " I am still here". I see this site as a bouquet of roses. We may get pricked now and again but for the most part we are sweet smelling roses. I am broken.. I am hurt.... I am broke...and I am sad.....but I come here to smell the roses in my life. You... You were in my mind as I fixed the little one's rose.. I don't know I will ever be the same again. I love you all.
As Veterans Day approaches, I am more nervous than ever...and I went into that mode of wanting to help vets. babbling, really over lunch, anything to get my mind off this death and as I spoke to Gordon about veterans as this vet our own Gordon came to us in our hour of need to stand guard. He like so many others are still serving. He is a rose. If you are not in a group... Join one... If you don't think these meetups mean something... think again...