Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: family


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Having a Mom moment

I was driving home from doggie school this morning when suddenly I missed my Mom so much.   I don’t know what triggered it; maybe I saw something that unconsciously reminded me of her, or perhaps I heard something on the radio.  I just don’t know.  Do you ever have moments like that out of the blue?

Mom died almost nine years ago and in the beginning I had “Mom moments” like this all the time and just about anywhere I went.  Seemed like everything reminded me of her whether I was at the grocery store or in the back yard.  You could catch me crying at the oddest things and in the strangest places.   As the years passed those overwhelming moments came less frequently and were less painful.  Mostly now I remember things about her that make me smile.

Sometimes it seems Mom gets lost in all the stuff we do for truck safety which centers around Dad and the crash that took him from us.  That work keeps Dad near the front of our minds as we work capital hill or write about truck issues from home.  We’re always describing the crash and Dad and why change is so important.  We don’t have a similar cause for what took Mom but her loss is just as keenly felt.

I remember a couple of years after they both died while having a bad moment I thought I’d just call Mom and ask  how long it took her to recover from Grandma’s death, sort of ask for a road map for parental grief.  It seemed like a good idea and made me feel better to think about talking to her.  For a moment.  Until I remembered again that the time to ask those kinds of questions was gone.

Today, years after she left, I am surprised at the intensity of my Mom moment.   I didn’t mind when it descended on me during the drive, it felt strangely nice and rather familiar to be back in the throes of grief, as if I were giving her due, her share of attention, making sure she is still included in my life.  We’re planning our next trip to Washington, so Dad is right there as usual and maybe this was a reaction to dredging up those memories again.   Or maybe it was just a random thing totally unrelated.

Or maybe, sometimes, a girl just misses her Mom.

Braun and Badger 047


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The press conference

I caught a little bit of the Sandy Hook parents’ press conference today, a month after the horrific deaths of their children.  I was walking through the living room when I saw them on the television, one of them speaking, the spouse holding the picture, the rest of them sitting behind, holding their own child’s photo.  It stopped me cold.  They are us.

I’ve stood right where they are, speaking into the cameras.  I’ve sat behind the podium holding Dad’s photo.  I’ve tried to make America see how important my private pain was, how relevant it was to everyone else.  I know their pain and I know the strength they get from that pain.  I know that every single parent there wants something, no, demands something good to come from that pain.

Their fight is so similar to ours…they are fighting big money of the NRA while we fight the big money of the ATA.  They are individual families just like us, riding the grief roller coaster and fighting a fight so large it seems impossible.  But all they are asking is for dialog.  They recognize that all guns can’t go away just like we realize that all semi trucks won’t and shouldn’t disappear.

All they want is honest dialog from both sides of the discussion.  Honest, nondefensive dialog and some compromise for the good of everyone.  That shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do.  For the kids.  So that the loss of the kids and their wonderful teachers wasn’t just a waste of humanity.  A little honest dialog.  It’s not too much to ask.

David Wheeler, whose son Ben was murdered said “What I have recently come to realize is that I am not done being the best parent I can be for Ben.”  Exactly Mr. Wheeler.  You will always be Ben’s Dad.  Always.

And I am not done being the best daughter I can be for my Dad.  My siblings and I will never be done being Dad and Mom’s kids.  We know we’ve made a difference.  That means a lot to me.

I hope and pray that the Sandy Hook parents find that bit of peace too.  We can give them that if we pressure our legislature to sit down and talk.  Honestly.  Open to change.  Willing to give a little.  And if we can join the dialog too.  Let’s listen to the other side.  Let’s consider each others beliefs.  And lets come to a middle ground for the good of all of us.

And to honor those 26 lives and all the lives lost before.  Let’s honor them all.  We can do this.  We have to do this.

Change is hard.


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The miracle roast

We’ve got a big family gathering here tomorrow afternoon.  Husband’s extended family is heading over for a get together and lots of food is waiting, almost ready!  My biggest worry was that the rib roast I ordered turned out to be too small when I picked it up yesterday.  “Oh well,” I thought, “everyone will just have to eat a lot of other stuff.”   Still.  It bothered me.  Last time we did this we barely had enough meat and the roast was larger.

Today I made the salads and the do ahead mashed potatoes, the sweet potatoes and ambrosia.  During all the preparation I realized I was running out of dish washing liquid.  Really?  I have to go to the store for soap?  I planned this project so well specifically to avoid that last minute dash to the store.  I really didn’t need anything, except that darn dish washing soap – and something for husband and I to eat today.

So I went to the grocery store which sits right next to a Subway sub shop.  The plan was to pick up the soap and then run over to the sub store and pick up dinner for us tonight.  In the grocery store I grabbed a couple things, bananas, stuff to make chili for later in the week…and guess what I found at the meat counter?  ANOTHER rib roast just exactly the right size to add to the one I ordered!  Tomorrow we will have enough meat!  What were the odds that I’d run out of something which would make me go to the store when I didn’t really want to go out and that there would be one roast just the perfect size waiting for me.  I muscled my way in between two women who were considering hamburger or pork and scooped that roast up.

And I sang along with the radio all the way home.   Perfect.  Like it was meant to be.

Which I’m sure it was.

Imported Photos 00037 (Small)


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Can you kill virtual fish?

Husband and I have a large portion of his family coming here to this house next Sunday for dinner.  It’s the family Christmas thing that we do most years.  It’s just that this year we couldn’t find a weekend prior to Christmas when everyone with small kids could come…and that’s the point of it all..that the smallest cousins get to see each other and play together once in a long while.

So anyway.  I have a whole bunch of people coming here.  Next week.  For a meal.  I have stuff to do.  Lots of stuff and if I look around the house I see dust on everything and piles of books and papers and…just…stuff that needs to find permanent homes or the garbage.  Which means I should be up and doing v.s. sitting on sofa and surfing.  If you know what I mean.

But here I am over at a blog of a woman that does full time RVing which you all know is a secret (and not so secret) wish of mine.  And she has these little virtual fish over in her left sidebar.  Now I know that she’s currently not in her RV at all but visiting her kids for the holidays…so I thought I’d feed her fish.  And then I got worried that the green one never seemed to get any food, and the red one was more agressive and I started trying to make sure that the green one got some food and then I just put in a lot of food for everyone and THEN I started to worry if a person could kill a virtual goldfish by feeding it too much.

Which makes me the official master of housecleaning avoidance.

By a long shot.


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Sorrow to Strength – our first chapter

When Dad was killed by a tired trucker in 2004 we didn’t know what to do first.  We knew we needed help but we didn’t know where to turn.  In desperation a family member started searching the internet and found the Truck Safety Coalition.  Their website back then was pretty simple, but it had a phone number and I called the next day.  They provided information and support – and an invitation to a conference called Sorrow to Strength.   I attended with my sister the next fall only 10 months after Dad was killed.    I smile when I remember how young and naive we were then, not in calendar years, but in the ways of politics and Washington DC.  I remember being incredibly hurt and thoroughly confused at that first conference.  We were still reeling from losing Dad, and we couldn’t absorb all the information provided, but we could absorb the love and support.  And we made lifelong friends.

During the first two days we listened to families tell their stories of loss and pain and outrage.  So many of their stories sounded like ours.  Some of the families had been fighting the fight for many years.  We weren’t even sure what the fight was.  But we knew we needed to help fix the problem of tired truckers – for Dad and for all these other people’s family members too.

Sunday night we had a remembrance service with photos of our loved ones.  Those that could speak told stories about the ones lost; sometimes we laughed along, sometimes we cried together.  The important thing was that we could share our folks with others, that they were not forgotten.  It was important that people recognized our loved ones’ lives had been about much more than just the crash that took them.

Shortly after the remembrance ceremony we retired to our rooms to study the material we’d been given during the meetings.  We were emotionally exhausted, but Monday morning we were going to visit our Senators and House of Representatives.  Neither my sister nor I had ever visited a government office before so we were nervous and I don’t think either of us slept well.

But here’s the thing.  I did not know then how easy it is to talk to someone in my Senator’s office about things I know are important.  Who knew that you could just make an appointment and the staff would be gracious and listen?  Who knew you could walk into any Senate or House office building and talk to your representative?  Who knew you and I are just as important as the people we see walking government corridors on TV?  That our voices and our stories are as or more important?  That we can leave an impression, can change things, can fix things.

We met with people in small offices and big conference rooms for two days.  We were exhausted but empowered.  Maybe things didn’t change instantly after those first meetings.  But I can guarantee the people that talked to us, looked at Dad’s picture, even cried with us, were changed.  We left a little bit of our pain with other people in every meeting.  And we gained a bit of strength with each time we told the story.

We left Washington DC after that first conference with hope.  And we left a little bit stronger than when we arrived.  Sure we were still hurting.  But now we had a direction in which to move, a place to put the hurt.  A way to make sure Dad was not forgotten.

That’s the power in Sorrow to Strength.  We know we won’t ever be free of the sadness.  But making our voices heard, saving other lives?  Well.  That’s what makes us stronger.

It’s for you Dad.  And for all the others.  You’ve made us stronger than we ever thought we could be.  It’s all for you.


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Trucks muscle their way back into my life

Trucking issues are once again flooding my mind.  The work to make our highways safer ebbs and flows in my life.  Sometimes I can push it away and fool myself into believing that my life is what it was before 2004.  Sometimes truck issues seem to be everywhere I look.  This week I am overwhelmed with trucks.

Of course some of these feelings may be because Thanksgiving weekend eight years ago was the last time I saw my Dad.  Spending time with family in his home was poignant and brought my awareness of trucks into sharp focus again.  But there’s been more this week to make me focus on the truck issue once again.

A beloved father, whose wife was killed by a tired trucker in much the same way Dad was, and whose two sons were severely injured, is facing his second set of major holidays without her.  The realization of his new normal has begun to hit.  He’s finally got the boys settled and though the constant care of one of them consumes his days, he has just begun his own painful grief process over the loss of his wife and their life together.  I’ve seen his pain emerge this week, and it hurts to watch.  I wish I could make it all better for him.  But I can’t fix it.

Yesterday  my commute to work was extra long due to a tankard truck flipped over on one side of the freeway, and a couple of miles further, a double bottomed gravel hauler that had gone off the road on the other side of the freeway.   The slow snarled traffic gave me lots of time to think about what may have caused these incidents.  Turns out the tankard truck carried something very bad.  Hazard material crews were on the scene when I went by at 7 a.m. and they were still there when I went home again at 6:300 p.m.  Turns out the driver fell asleep while driving this dangerous load at 5:00 a.m.  No one died, but the cleanup is enormous.

This morning I turned on the news and saw the screen glowing with a fire on another local freeway.  A semi hit a Ford Focus, then bounced over the median, breaking apart and bursting into flames.   They say the driver may have fallen asleep.  Luckily no one died, and the semi driver only broke an ankle.

Falling asleep while driving is a problem of huge proportions.  Not just for the drivers of commercial vehicles, but for all of us.  These recent local incidents are just a few of the crashes that are occurring all across the country every single day.   These two didn’t kill anyone but across the country today an average 11 people will die and another 200 will be injured.  This morning my local news is full of the consequences on rush hour traffic, the spectacular fire video as if that were the only effect on the general public.   I am silently screaming at the reporter to wake up and see that the consequences of these crashes are much greater than a closed freeway.  Screaming that this time we were lucky.

This morning a family that owns a Ford Focus is counting themselves lucky.  But more of us should recognize that we’re all lucky every time we make it to our destination safely.  The odds are that sometime somewhere one of us will find ourselves tangled up with a commercial vehicle.  And that we probably won’t be lucky.  Please stay vigilant.  Stay away from these large vehicles that share our road.  Be careful.

Be safe.


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In a land far away

Early morning at the lake.

I am back from four days ‘away’ and it feels like I was gone a week.  That’s a good thing.
It’s hard to describe what it’s like to go from stressful work filled ‘here’ to sunny shiny watered ‘there.’ (Click the photos to see the details.)

Calm

There is always the underlying sadness that very special people are no longer there.  But still it was very good to be South.

Magical

We visited wonderful places, ate wonderful food, played wonderful music and slept until we woke up.

Yum

I couldn’t ask for more.  Except to have Mom and Dad there too.

Missing


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Quiet weekend

We spent the weekend working on projects around the house, taking care of a neighbor’s cat while they were out of town and taking advantage of unseasonably warm weather to put up outdoor Christmas lights.

It was nice.

Early morning peace.

This weekend was the calm before the holiday storm.   Crazy people are camping outside retails stores to be the first shoppers on Black Friday…and some stores are even opening on Thanksgiving night.  As usual I will not be in those lines, nor shopping for things no one needs.  I’ll be spending next weekend with siblings; goofing off, cooking, taking walks up mountains, pictures and naps.

If you’re spending next Friday shopping for stuff….well…enjoy.  To each his own.

And I do appreciate your efforts to turn our economy around.  Yes I do.


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Cab speak

Halls of change.

I took a lot of cabs while I was in DC, and had a couple of interesting conversations with the drivers while dodging other cars and weaving up side streets.

The first cab ride from the airport to Capitol Hill was a none stop monologue from the driver that started as soon as I entered the cab and told him I needed to go to a Senate office building.  “You going to a meeting?”   Yes I told him.  “What do you do?”  I’m a banker.  “Oh…good job for a woman.”  I bit my tongue and told him sometimes it was a crazy stressful job.  “Everyone always want the job they do not have” he said.  “People need to be more optimistic.  People are always so negative.  Not the way to go, people need to be more optimistic.  People here, they don’t know how good they have it.  If they travel around the world like I do they see, when they come back, this is the best country in the world.  Rest of world have nothing like America.  Do you like Obama?  I’m scared that Romney win, this country go to war, lose everything.  I pray it not so.  How many kids you got?  None?  Why not?  You don’t want kids?  I guess OK no kids if you have lots of nieces and nephews? ”  And on and on it went.   As I slipped out of the cab at my destination he said “You have good meeting lady!”

The second conversation I had with a cab driver was more evenly divided between us.  He picked me up in front of a Senate office building and was driving me back to my hotel in Georgetown.  He asked me why I was in Washington and I told him I was working on some trucking fatigue issues.

“Like when they get sleepy and weave all over and then run off the road and kill people?”

“Yes exactly like that.”

“Why do they do that?  Fall asleep like that?”

“Because they get paid by the mile, and the more miles they drive the more money they make.”

“Well that’s stupid.  They should get paid by the hour like everyone else.”

“Yes they should.”

“So why you working on this?”

“Cause my dad was killed by a tired trucker.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry.  So how often do you come to Washington to do this?”

“Maybe once a year, sometimes twice if there’s something important going on in Congress.”

“How are you gonna stop them from driving too long?”

“Well, we got legislation passed last August that requires electronic monitoring of the miles they drive, so they can’t lie in their log books.”

“That’s good.  That’s very good.”

“Yes, it took a long time to get that”

“Everything slow in Washington.”

“And we’re working on a lot of other stuff too, to make the roads safer for everyone.”

“Truck drivers…. they agree with you?”

“Lots of them do.  They die too, you know, in truck crashes.  Everyone on the road is at risk.  Cab drivers too.”

We pull into the hotel parking lot.  As I’m paying the fare he turns around and looks me in the eye.

“I want to say thank you.”

My eyes tear up.

“I want to say thank you, and I wish your group well lady.”

“You’re welcome sir.  You’re very welcome.”