May flowers

Tomorrow is a new month. The Month of May. The month Elle will be baptized, Mother's Day and our 6 year anniversary. Wow, 6 years. Where has the time gone? 3 states, new jobs, new houses, new friends, and a new baby. We've done a lot in 6 years and I'm very proud of where we're both at personally and professionally. 

I'm heading back to Michigan this weekend for a bridal shower. Elle and I have dinner plans tomorrow night with a good friend, Saturday I'll get to catch up with my college girlfriends and celebrate the upcoming marriage of my friend Megan. Elle will get to see her grandparents, her Auntie Christina and her cousin Aydan and possibly other family and friends. You never know who else I will see while I'm home. 

But, the truth is, as much as I love seeing my friends and family, I hate going home now. Because, this weekend, I want nothing more then to walk through the doors of my parents house, plop my stuff down anywhere, give my Mom a big hug, my Dad his usual quick-yet loving hug, grab a glass of wine, put my feet up on the couch and shoot the shit with my parents. My parents. The most laid back, loving, fun, supportive, non-judgemental, always up for anything kind of people-I can say what I want and be myself, be a kid again, be my Mom and Dad's daughter.... 

Although I'm thankful I spent a lot of time with them, it's not enough. I of course wish I would have spent so much more.....I know I can never take back the past but I feel guilty. I want to redo it all....hug them more, tell them I love them more, well I know I couldn't have called anymore as I did that, but just have spent more time........time is all we have and that is why I do spend a lot of my time with friends and family-always have but I do it as much as possible now. I live for visitors and thankfully, we get a lot of them and I now cherish time even more with my family and my wonderful friends. They're all I have left. 

I can't wait to see everyone over Mother's Day weekend for Elle's baptism. But I again will be wishing my parents were there.......but I am thankful for the strong family we have become. 

Goodbye April

Happy 28th Birthday, Justin.

And Happy Birthday to his Godmother, my wonderful Aunt Diann.

April has been a tough month.......the month my parents were killed. The month we had their funeral last year. It represents the worst month ever. But in a sense it also is a month of celebration and birthdays for a lot of special people. My Mother was born in April and her and my Aunt loved having April birthdays. "Diamonds are a girls best friend", they would say.

I am happy to say good-bye to April though, and I am hopeful that April Showers will bring May flowers. (less tears and more happiness)

Mother's Day is next. The commercials are already coming, the cards are up, and I continually get emails on sending flowers for Mothers Day. How insensitive of them-right? ha ha. But in all seriousness, I am blessed that this Mother's Day I will not only get to honor my own Mother's life, I get to celebrate that I am now a Mother myself. I owe all I have become to my Mom as she was the best example of a Mother that I could ever imagine. I didn't tell her enough, who does, but I pray she hears me now.

Goodbye April.

a birthday card

Picking out a birthday card for your brother should be easy right? Yeah, well, it used to be easy when I didn't have a brother who ended my parents life. It took me an hour today at CVS trying to find not the "perfect card", just "a" card at best, that I could send to my brother.

The first one I picked up had just a simple bird on the front and the inside read, "happy birthday-I'm so glad you were born". How could I send that? Maybe if he wasn't born, Mom and Dad would still be alive. Then I picked up others that said how special the person was or that were way too mushy or referenced cake and candles. My brother certainly will not be getting a cake or blowing out any candles, so I didn't want to send anything to depress him even more.

I stood there for a few minutes and thought to myself, if I could create a card to say exactly what I wanted to tell him, what would it say. It would say something like this:

Happy Birthday Brother,
I know this continues to be tough for you but I pray and hope you get closer to peace and a level of acceptance of your new life. Your new life without your parents and essentially, your entire family. We know you were sick and are sick but we cannot get past what has happened. Things will never be the same, I'm sorry for that. I understand medically that you did not want to do this and I blame 80% of this tragedy on the medication and what it did to your mind but I'm telling you, not everyone in the family understands and I hope one day you understand this. See, I believe everyone is accountable for their own actions, but in your case you were not. That's hard for me to swallow and for others too. You took away the two most important people to me, Christina, Aydan and yourself included. I don't think anyone will ever be able to "forgive" you per say but more so understand medically that it wasn't you. I don't know. Dealing with the loss of Mom and Dad is my main struggle but some often forget, I also lost you in this devastating tragedy as well. I've always cared about your well being. I hope you know that and I beat myself up that I could have helped prevent this, but our beautiful Mother loved and accepted you and trusted you to know end. Mom and Dad loved you very much. I know Christina, Aydan and I took the spotlight but you were always given the same opportunity. I begged you to get your GED, you were so smart and I truly believed one day you could be working a real job and talking more in public and be who we all knew you could be. You were a beautiful child growing up and you gave Mom and Dad a lot of joy in your early years. I'm certain you gave Dad a tremendous amount of joy when you were born. "his first son". But it's sad to report you and Dad never had that Father/Son relationship as you became an adult because of your condition. I think that is why Dad enjoyed Ted so much. He wanted that bond. Dad always loved you, defended you and made you dinner each and every night. Yeah, I miss his cooking too. I'll always be angry with you as you have changed our lives forever and have caused so much pain in my life, so many lives, but on April 29th, I will wish you a happy birthday and be thinking that you are doing okay. I'll always be wishing and hoping that you are okay.

So needed less to say, I didn't find a card that said all that. But I did manage to find your basic, funny, but not overly funny card that I felt was appropriate. It would make him quickly smile I had hoped as I made my purchase. Of course I didn't write anything I said in the above in the card. I don't want to upset him. I don't want to bring up Mom and Dad. It would make me feel worse knowing he was sad. I honestly would rather him move on, accept this, and adjust to his new life in this medical facility. Let us deal with the pain. I'd love to tell him that he took away my loving parents that were everything to me and how lonely and devastated I am. But I won't. I know my Sister has had these conversations with him but my take is, what good will it do?? Because at the end of the day, they are never coming back.

Christina is now going through the angry stage with Justin without him being aware of that. That's the tricky part of visiting and communicating with him. You don't want to give him false hope but you also want him to know we still care about him. We really do. This is just very complicated and very difficult. I need my Mom and Dad to tell me what to do. Christina and I do not know what to do......he is the reason for our nightmares, but he is our brother...

a packed weekend

85 and sunny all weekend and another one filled with dinners and friends. I also received a very special package in the mail on Friday-Elle's christening gown that my Aunt worked very hard to refurbish. This dress not only was worn by my siblings and I, some of my cousins, Aunts and Uncles were baptized in it too. I can't help but think how happy this would make my Mom. She would be so proud and for that I am very thankful to my Aunt for her hard work and dedication to keeping this dress in the family. She also made a beautiful blanket with all of the names of who wore the dress. It was sad to see Justin Jerome Olszowy on there. But like all of us, he was baptized and loved. 

Ted volunteered this weekend at the MS walk as the official event "photographer". Elle and I did the walk. It was a gorgeous day and as I was walking I was thinking how I wish I had my Mom to walk with me. She was always up for stuff like that. Anything to benefit a good cause, she'd be there if I asked her to be. It's everything I do now, I wish they were here. oh Dad would love this or oh, my Mom loved that. I feel like I'll be saying those words forever. 

We also had the pleasure of having our good friend from Michigan pay us a visit. He was in the area for Soccer and came by for dinner. He recently took over the head coach position for the Men's Soccer team at Oakland University and he brought along his new assistant for dinner. 

We ate outside in the square and little Miss Elle was a good girl as usual. We are lucky that we can take her to nice restaurants. At least for now. From what my friends tell me, once they can crawl and especially walk-you're done. 

Last night we made dinner for our recently engaged friends Todd and Sarah. We drank wine and then enjoyed the best chocolate cake that Sarah brought over. Elle fell asleep in Sarah's arms for pretty much the entire night. It's nice to have girls around that are really good with babies. She just picks Elle up the second she walks in, changes her if needed, fed her a bottle (still working on her bottle feedings....she doesn't love bottles) and covered her legs when it got chilly after the sun went down. 

Elle has one more week with the nanny at my girlfriends house and then it's time for Gramma Close to move in! She'll be here for a month and I hope this is a month both of them will never forget. I pray and hope I'm alive and can do the same for Elle's children one day. I want to be involved for every step of the way. I worry because of what I've been through that I'm going to be totally overbearing, an even worse worrier then I already am and super protective. But hopefully in time, she'll just understand. Sorry,  I learned the hard and really sad way that your life could end so quickly and I just cannot take any more chances. 

Missing you always Mom and Dad. I still have to pinch myself every so often because I will be like, are they really gone? I sometimes like to pretend you're still alive and that I just haven't seen you in a while with living out of State. It's such a crappy feeling when I then realize the truth. You're gone and it still sucks. But we continue to smile and do fun things that make us happy. We really have no choice right? But I do know not everyone that suffers a tragedy is this strong. And I understand, it's difficult every day and yes, the easy way out would be to let this lead us deep into a depressed life but I think my Mom and especially my Dad would be devastated if this ruined our lives. But like I've said before, it's easier said then done. You just do your best. No one can prepare themselves for something like this. And no one can tell me how I should be handling this as I continue to do just the best that I can do. I still have really shitty days but then some days I laugh so hard I'll go a whole hour or two without even thinking about the loss. Hey, that's progress to me. 

a day at keeneland

Today our Sales team spent the day in Lexington, KY at Keeneland horse race tracks. (think sea biscuit). 

It was a gorgeous day. We bet on horses (mine all lost) and enjoyed the sun. I never have been into horse racing but it was really fun especially when your betting! I end up feeling bad for the horses though. 

We have a great team and I work with some really wonderful people. I almost felt guilty attending the team function, since I have been off for the last 3 months.........

Looking forward to seeing our friend Eric tomorrow night who is in town for Soccer from MI. Saturday, Elle and I are walking for the MS Society while Ted volunteers as the photographer.

My Grandmother suffered and ultimately died from MS. She was in a wheelchair ever since I was born or can remember. I walk for you Gramma.  Snickers come to mind whenever I think of my Dad's Mother. My Grandpa and Gramma would stock the fridge drawer with Snickers and the second we walked into their house, we ran toward the fridge. But, we got scolded by Dad as we had to first walk up to Gramma and ask her if it was okay if we had a Snickers.  She of course always said yes....as long as we grabbed her one too. 

I so miss all of my loved ones that I have lost. I'm so sad that all of my woman are gone.......

I pray they are all reunited now........Dad's up there with all of the ladies.....

Happy 52nd Birthday Mommy-4/22

Tomorrow my Mother would have turned 52 years old. She was so young and it saddens me to think someone who enjoyed life so much died so young this way. She died with her husband whom she was married to for 30 years. I love and miss my Mother so very much and I'd do anything to see her again, hug her again, talk to her again and mostly, laugh with her again. I'd tell her over and over what a great Mom she was and what a wonderful person she was. 

Dear Mommy, 

Tomorrow will mark the second birthday that I have not been able to celebrate with you. Life is strange without you. It's quieter and lonelier and your laughter, humor and smile is missed so terribly. You had such a big heart and you were there for your friends and family. You listened to them, we could rely on you and we could cry on your shoulder. I'm just sorry I didn't let you cry on my shoulder much. You always listened to me. I wish I would have spent more time listening to you and telling you how much you were appreciated by so many. You were a woman of many things. But your true love was your husband, being with friends and goofing around with  your family. Nothing made you more happy then having Christmas Day at your house with all of the family or going on vacation with friends or family or having everyone up at the lake. You loved that stuff. You were one of those individuals that so many strive to be- an individual that was loved by so many. I never pictured my life without you. I guess I didn't think I had to. I miss our daily phone calls and I really miss leaving messages on the answering machine. You said I called too much. I loved bugging you and Dad. At least I don't have to say I didn't call you enough when you were alive, but there are still some regrets. I have regrets of not knowing enough about Justin's condition, giving my opinion to you as if I knew what was best. You did your very best and you loved and cared for your Son just as you did for Christina and I. You never saw this coming, no one did. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have saw signs to stop this from happening. I have nightmares, really scary ones lately. Dad was alive and you were at the hospital dying. Dad was devastated and I think to myself as much as I wish at least ONE of you would have made it, I cannot imagine what life would be like for either of you without each other. I think we could have made it through. Christina and I would have helped you and or Dad. But I pray that dream I was told was truly what happened and that Dad was there to walk you through the doors of heaven and that you are enjoying eternal life even more then you did on Earth. 

I'll never forget you, I'll never stop loving you, I'll never stop crying for you, and I'll never stop honoring you and the life you have given me. I am here because of you and I am who I am today, because of you and the way I was raised. I am most sad you never got to see me take all that I have learned from you and becoming a Mother myself. I know you'd be proud of Ted and I. But it's hard when I look at Elle and to think, wow-you guys are missing this.  I need you. And it's really, really hard to not have you in my life. I hope I continue to live the life you would want me to have and I hope one day I will be at peace in knowing you are okay and that I must move on but always, always carrying your spirit along. 

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mommy, on her 52nd birthday. I will bake you a cake tomorrow in your spring foam pans and I will wear your ring of your Mothers that you never took off. 

I miss and love you every day, 

Your oldest daughter Melissa 

sun, baby, wine, and friends

These are the kind of weekends you never want to end. A weekend that is stress free filled with good friends, good weather, good food, good wine oh and a very, very good baby. 

All of  the SCJ girls that have since left Cincinnati and some even left SC Johnson, came back for a little reunion/girls weekend. It was such an awesome weekend. Friday night Ted stayed in with Elle. He made it with her alone till about 11pm but for the last feeding a bottle wasn't cutting it so I had to end my night a little early but dinner was over so it was good timing. The girls and I had a great dinner at one my favorite restaurants NADA. Saturday we started our morning off with a Starbucks, oh and before 10 am I made Giada's (food network chef) Chocolate Almond Honey Tart for our dinner later that evening. It was a bit of a challenge making her crust without a food processor but I somehow pulled this off. My Mommy would be so proud. I even used her spring foam pan. I actually did it. Us girls then took a nice walk throughout Hyde Park and ended in the square for a fun lunch outside. Elle never made a peep and really was just such a wonderful baby. I feel so lucky to have a laid back baby that you can take places (for now at least). We then went grocery shopping, made a yummy meal and had my favorite White haven Sauvingnon Blanc  (thanks Fry guy!). It was so much fun having the girls all over, laughing....Juls ran the grill, I watched the potatoes, Jess cut up the veggies......and it was really nice to just talk girl stuff. We had quite the diverse group- I was the only Mother, we had one expectant Mother, 3 of the 5 were married, one engaged and two are single but in the dating scene. So it was definitely fun to all talk about our lives-babies, weddings, dating..... I of course always "mention" my parents but this time it wasn't about their death, I was able to simply talk about them when something came up in conversation. Julie and I talked about it a lot on our walk but for once, I didn't want to talk a lot about their death.  I know my friends feel sad for me and sometimes there are just no words to say. And I actually understand and am okay with that. I do not expect them to really ever understand but it's nice to know all of my friends out there care. I think they understand I will be dealing with this sadness for the rest of my life no matter how happy I am at any given moment. 

I will admit though, it's so very strange to live without parents. Whenever the word "Dad" or "Mom" or "Parents" is said, it instantly reminds, wow- I don't have them. The two people you love the most, you rely so heavily on are gone. I never want my friends to stop talking about their parents to me just because mine are gone, as their my friends and I want to know about their lives but it's hard because I miss having parents so much. It really is the loneliest feeling and I feel sad for anyone that lost both of their parents at the same time at a young age. One is hard enough but the fact that they're both gone is unimaginable. 

Thanks to my friends for making Elle and I smile this weekend.