I’m here in the deep south, sitting in the shade, sipping sweet tea, watching the crazy jet skis and boats out on the lake. Been swimming at least a couple times already today, will go again this evening before the fireworks. It’s a wonderful life.
Hope you are all enjoying your Fourth…more later…that sweet tea is calling my name…
Deer love day lilies. Of course we didn’t know that when we planted a whole lot of them on the south end of the house. Most years we don’t see many blooms. This year for reasons known only to the deer themselves, they didn’t eat many of the lily plants we’ve never seen bloom, and they DID eat those that in previous years they’ve left alone. Here’s what they didn’t eat:
And an example of many that they did:
Darn deer.
Tomorrow early I fly south for the weekend with my siblings. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend, if you’re in the States. If not, have a great weekend in general! See you when I get back. Everyone stay safe please!
Father’s Day sort of blindsided me this year. For five years I’ve make a conscious effort not to notice things that relate to fathers in an attempt to stem the pain. This year it was more of an unconscious thing that I didn’t notice the day was approaching. Earlier in the month I walked into a department store and was assaulted by all the Father’s Day signs, suggestions, and piles of wares. It surprised me and yet there wasn’t the usual stab of real physical pain right under my ribcage like I’ve felt in years past. It was more like any person might be surprised when they see the Halloween stuff go up in stores in late August. More like, “Yea that’s right, this month has Father’s Day.”
This year, though I truly wish I could still call my Dad and wish him a fabulous day, I am more content to just wish all the fathers out there a great day. I’m happy when I hear someone talk about spending time with their own father without feeling the deep sadness that I can’t do the same.
So Happy Father’s Day to you all! And if you can spend some time with your own Dad, enjoy your day; make some memories, share a laugh, a hug, a thank you. Do it for yourself, do it for your Dad. Maybe even as a favor to me.
Today General Motors filed for bankruptcy. We’ve known this was inevitable for months, but still held out delusional hope. Living with the uncertainty has been rough, trying to figure out all the possibilities, what each might mean to us, which permutation would be better or worse for us.
So now we know for sure that husband’s assembly plant will become idle in September. At least it isn’t being closed outright, but there’s no guarantee that a car will ever again be assembled there. So in reality we’re still in limbo. Should he retire now? Or take unemployment and see what happens next? Will the job he does now continue through September? Or will he be forced to retire in July? When they idle the plant will there be maintenance work for him to do? Or is it best to take the buyout and walk now; leave all that stress behind?
We had planned on having him retire in a couple of years, so this is really just a bit early. So maybe this is the best of times. It’s a major change in our lives and will warrant more discussion, more thought, and a good bit of adjustment for each of us. I’m not working full time and the decision would be easier if I were still working at my previous career. I’m trying not to feel guilty that I left a lucritive career to move into something that pays so little. And that I’m still part-time to boot. Who knew back in 2006 when I made that decision where we’d be today. I’m sure I could go back to that life, but I’m not ready to give up my dream yet.
So. Is this the worst of times? Or the best?
This long weekend is Memorial Day here in the States. It’s when we take time to remember the men and women that gave their lives so that we could be free. It’s also a time where families tend to the grave sites of their loved ones. So yesterday my husband and I took his aunt and uncle around to all his family plots. It was a daylong event, one you might think would be overwhelmingly sad. Instead it was a flower filled day, complete with family stories, laughter and memories. We were glad to be together, happy to remember those who weren’t there with us, to tell familiar tales once again as we watered flowers, planted geraniums and in general just said “Hi!” to each and every one of them. 
Today I went to visit some of my own relatives in their final resting places. I visited my grandparents, and my uncles. I found all the cemeteries peaceful, beautiful places. I read many other headstones as I wandered, figuring out stories, wondering about lives.
It’s good to take the time to remember. And to say thanks. 
I’ve been dreaming, and Dad has been with me in each dream. I can’t remember the details about the first one three nights ago, but the night before last he and I were walking through the empty rooms of the house I grew up in. He and Mom were moving and we were making a last pass through the rooms. I remember a beautiful turqoise color on the walls of their bedroom, the evening sun shining low in the window. I saw the darker shapes of paint on the wall where pictures had hung, the marks in the carpet where furniture had once stood. There were a few things left in the house, Mom’s old bathrobe, a couple of boxes stacked up. Apparently Mom was at work and was going to come by after she got off the job, pick up the last of her things and drive to their new home on her own.
Early this morning I was dreaming again. I was on a tour bus traveling somewhere exotic with a large group of people. Somehow we were also learning computer programing, and a large part of the dream was me trying to learn how to load icons onto a computer. But the icons were three dimensional plastic pieces, like toys out of a cracker jack box, and we loaded them into the computer by using fishing line to tie them into a glass box, sort of like an aquarium. Then I had to paint a background and I was struggling with how to incorporate the background with the appropriate icon. Kathy and Valerie, friends from grad school’s first study group were there, trying to teach me how to do this. They said it was easy, but I didn’t think so.
Then I was back on the bus and the tour was ending. I was writing on a really big laptop a very long, detailed tour evaluation. I was the last person on the bus, aside from the tour director and the bus driver and I was hurrying because Dad was coming to pick me up. Suddenly my evaluation format changed. Instead of words in paragraphs, the words divided up into blocks of random text, each block being incased in clear plastic and turning into refrigerator magnets! I was upset because I didn’t have time to rewrite the evaluation, and I didn’t know what I had done to change the format. I was worried that if the refrigerator magnets got out of order the tour guide wouldn’t be able to read the evaluation.
Then I was outside the bus, standing near my VW mini van which appeared to be loaded with all my possessions, and on a picnic table was the laptop with the troublesome evaluation. I was still trying to get the format corrected when I heard my name being shouted. It was Dad, far off down the curving road. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt and a tie that was flapping in the wind. He waved at me and yelled he was going back to get the car because he had parked at the other end of the road, just beyond the curve. He’d be back to pick me up.
I nodded and went back to my problem on the computer.
Then I woke up.
So. Three dreams, three successive nights, and Dad in each of them. Coming to pick me up. That’s sort of unsettling, but after more thought, it’s sort of comforting too.
The gist of my statement at last Monday’s press conference was to ask for people to go to our new website: http://www.StopBiggerTrucks.org and sign a petition to continue the freeze initiated in 1991 on the size and weight of semi trucks. If you’re interested in this issue, please go to that website, look around, and if you can, sign the petition. Below are some of the comments I made Monday morning to the press:
Good morning. My name is Dawn King and I am here today along with my siblings to honor my father, William H. Badger, who was 75 years young when he was killed two days before Christmas 2004. He was stopped in traffic when a tractor-trailer driver fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into his car.
My dad was a husband, a father, a brother, a friend and a colleague. He was a world traveler and life long learner, he was interested in everything, and shared the things he knew and the stories he lived with us all. He was everyone’s handyman, comfort and support; everyone was his friend. And his friends called him Bill.
Since my family’s tragic loss I have joined CRASH — Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. I am now on it’s Board of Directors and I have been part of our First Response team to assist other grieving truck crash victims.
The American public needs to know that the American Trucking Association is once again pushing Congress to increase the weight and size limits of trucks on our highways and bridges. If the ATA gets its way, the current 80,000 pound limit will increase to 97,000 pounds. That’s a 21% increase. They won’t tell you that history has repeatedly shown that truck size and weight increases do not result in fewer trucks on our highways. They also won’t tell you that the engines needed in these heavier and more dangerous trucks produce more pollution than today’s standard tractor-trailers.
Between 2003 and 2007 alone, 535 people were killed in truck crashes in Michigan. To our elected officials who we entrust with our lives we say, you can change our laws, but you can’t change the laws of physics. We know that bigger and heavier trucks will result in more damage to our roads and bridges and more deaths and devastating injuries to people who attempt to share the roads with these big rigs.
Let’s not forget the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 that killed 13 unsuspecting people, injured an additional 145 people, and horrified our entire nation.
Today, an estimated 162,000 of the nation’s 600,000 bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. As Congress makes a decision on the next federal surface transportation act, they should consider this: Will giving into the truck lobby cause more or less damage to our nation’s network of highways and bridges that we as taxpayers pay to repair? Will bigger trucks mean more or less death and disabling injury?
We all know the answers to these questions. That is why I am here to stand with other daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers who are turning their sorrow to strength to make sure that decisions made by our lawmakers in Washington this year are truly in the public’s interest.
Please visit StopBiggerTrucks.org to sign the petition in support of the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Protection Act – known as SHIPA, to freeze truck size and weight limits at the current level. The SHIPA legislation is endorsed by the truck drivers of the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association and the Teamsters, by environment groups like Environment America, and by safety organizations like CRASH, Parents Against Tired Truckers and the Truck Safety Coalition.
We also know that public opinion is on our side. So, please go to StopBigger Trucks.org and let your voice be heard so that together we can draw a bold line in the pavement against bigger and heavier trucks. Before it’s too late.
Thank you.
It’s raining here in DC. Outside and in our hearts. We’ve attended two days of meetings with other grieving families. We’ve learned a lot about pending trucking legislation. We’ve hugged a lot. We’ve cried a lot.
We’re headed off now to meetings on the Hill. I’m doing a press conference this morning which makes me nervous, but I remember Dad, and he makes me strong.
I’ll tell you all about it when I get back home. It’s sad, it’s empowering, it’s confusing, sometimes it’s overwhelming. Always Dad is in my heart.
I’m in the midst of preparations to attend a Sorrow to Strength conference in Washington DC. The conference, the first weekend in May, is put on by The Truck Safety Coalition (see http://www.trucksafety.org/) and is attended by survivors and families of truck crash victims. We spend a few days together talking about truck safety issues, lobbying on Capital Hill and remembering the people we’ve lost. It’s an oddly fun and sad experience all at the same time, and one that my siblings and I look forward to in a weird sort of way. It’s comforting to be with people that know how we’re feeling and have been through the same wide range of emotions, yet it’s hard to look around a room filled with people all hurting from the same experience. Especially when so many of our losses could have been avoided.
What really gets me the most is listening to the stories on the first evening. We all stand up and tell the short version of what happened to our family, the horrific events that led us to this conference room in a DC hotel. You hear the stories, one after another, and so many of them are exactly the same; someone was struck from behind by a tractor trailer driven by a tired, inattentive, or sometimes drugged driver. Usually a driver who had been on the road more hours than was legal, trying to make a buck, trying to support a family, trying to get by. And now here we are, just a fraction of the 5,000 families affected like this every year, in a room trying not to cry as we each describe “our” crash. Regardless of the details most stories end the same. Someone is gone. Sometimes someone survives, but at such a cost. Always the pain is there. That’s what gets me mad. And sad. And what makes me go to Washington, to talk to Senators and Representatives, to their staff people, to the press. To anyone that will listen. To you. Because so much of what the trucking industry appears to view as “collateral damage” doesn’t have to happen.
I know that I’m just one person. But in that room this year on the first weekend in May will be too many people, too many families, too many broken hearts. For one weekend we stand united; we will have a presence and maybe someone will see us. Maybe someone will listen. Maybe, just maybe, we can begin again to make a difference. We’ve lost family members, but we haven’t lost hope that change is possible. Change can start with one person. Dad believed that and so do I.
This trip is for you Dad. Miss you.
Life just keeps moving on, regardless of our own plans. And sometimes life surprises us and jogs in a new direction when we aren’t quite ready for or expecting such a life altering switch. What can you do but embrace that change and try to see the best in it?
When life jogs, remember how Dad always used to want to see around the next corner in the path. Like him, look ahead with excitement, because you just never know what’s next. The exciting part is in the imagining of what you can do with the next chapter in your life.
Follow your heart. Dad would be proud.
Change Is Hard 