This might be a mistake

This is gonna be kind of a year in review entry.. Likely the final entry of this year.. Anyway, remember back in August when we got all that crappy windy weather??  That wind that destroyed my dads memorial tree.. Well the tree returned by some miracle.. And I vowed to water it at least once a month..

From the day my mom pointed out that the tree was coming up out there it has been my mission to try to keep it alive and that did mean watering it once  a month.. So every month i have watered it.. October was easy, I was still watering the lawn periodically, November I watered it a week before Thanksgiving, it turned off cold and I thought I'd have to water by watering canteen in December and I did do that.. I'm getting ahead of myself here.. In late October the leaves finally fell and I put a big pile on the tree, as well as have four other "mulch" areas.. I tried to keep these areas wet and in December, about two weeks before Christmas it was 70 degrees here .. Hard to believe now that the month is about over and we won't see 32 degrees until the first part of January. But I kept the leaves pile on the tree wet.. There were three days in that span in early December that we had 60 to 70 degrees and I watered that pile two of the days, one day by watering canteen the other by the hose, yes I chanced it and unrolled the hose.. The initial idea was to leave three watering sprinkler, spot watering sprinklers, in the three places (the pumpkin patch, the ally planter and the tree in front there) keeping them in place for the season (winter) unless it was forecast to get very cold or snow.. We had gotten winter storm watches and warnings through the earlier parts of the late fall there but nothing delivered, so why did I make a strong effort to get the hoses rolled up after the third strike out by the weather service??  Because eventually they are right, and this time was it.. We got SNOW.. About nine inches there abouts and we got buried.. When I shoveled the sidewalk I placed a lot of the snow on the tree out there.. covering the tree and leaves in about a foot of extra snow.. That should keep me from having to water for a while.. Then Christmas day we got more snow..  Three or four more inches but who could tell with the wind.. Clearing the sidewalk I again piled even more snow on the tree.. This might be a mistake, I'm not sure.. But the leaf pile was wet before we got snow.. How wet the leaves were is anyones guess, I stuck my finger in there and it was good and wet on that Friday before we got that snow storm the next Monday/Tuesday.. So I think it was wet, froze as the snow fell, froze good then got the first piling on, and then the second piling on later..

The amount of snow on there now is over three feet as I tossed snow from the driveway as well.. As I said this is an experiment that started in September with seeing the tree reemerge from the trunk.. Hopefully it won't kill the tree..  I've never done this before.. Yes I do put as much snow on the grass as I can.. but that is way different than this tree thing.. The other mulch areas are looking fantastic with snow covering the leaves.. Should make good growing areas again this year, as this is the first growing season that will have the leaves covering that I could deliver, all years previous had what I raked up, this year was the first with the mower with the grass catcher..  These areas were watered the same as with the tree, watering canteen and then the sprinkler, with the sun going down so quickly and I couldn't start watering before noon until the hose was warm enough to use.. You really notice how fast the sun sets when you really only have three hours to water then drain the hose then roll it up.. 

This year started ominously with mom falling on the very first day.. Her knee bruising up from that and it went downhill from there.. I started a campaign to flush twice.. Let's give 2015 a great sendoff..  

A special little video for the year that has been total crapola.. For various reasons.. Most of which was the losing of a niece.. That was tougher than anything..   So please flush twice this Thursday.. Send 2015 on it's merry way.. 

So Christmas came and went.. And this little little event happened.. About a week after Tabitha's funeral mom comes and tells me "you remember that trip we took to Sterling" ( a town we had been wanting to trek to for a month but never really got to it until..) we went towards the very end of September, I was needing a pair of new shoes and so we went down there.. We had stopped at the usual haunts and the last being Wallgreens and we did some Christmas looking, as we were prone to doing, yeah even the end of September.. 

Mom had had  a tiff with Tabitha just prior to us going down there and this shows you what kind of person my mom is, while she was still upset with her she still thought of her when we were there as she saw this stuffed toy, an owl, and thought to get it for her as a Christmas present.. Mom was only  a little upset, but even though she was she still thought about her.. And so the week after her funeral she reminded me of that trip and this owl that she got for her.. 

One of the greatest gifts that mom received for Christmas was a blanket.. I had tried to get her a blanket from Walmart and was all set to get her one when they had sold out of the one I wanted to get her.. Likely this was a good thing.. My brother and his wife got mom a blanket for Christmas and as she pulled it out of the box it was in I looked and didn't think much about it.. She just felt it, and it was nice.. After my little brother and his family left, I went out and shoveled the walk, just in case my older brother and his family would stop later.. Turns out they did shortly after I got done.. I went into the house and grabbed that box with the blanket in it.. Pulled the blanket out and started to unfold it.. Turns out the side that was showing was the back side, the white side, the side that would be touching her, the other side was pictures of the twins.. I saw that and couldn't believe it..  I can be such a girl.. just the emotion of that was just amazing.. So cool and really beyond description.. Which brings me to the final bit here..

I started writing about Tabitha and trying to wrap my head around the entirety of everything that has happened since she passed away.. Even trying to start as far back as her early life (grade school) but every time I tried I stopped and couldn't continue.. From the week after her funeral to a week before Thanksgiving I tried to write and just couldn't.. There was too much conjecture, too much made up and guessing and filling in the blanks with what I can only call educated and uneducated guesses.. Tabitha was very smart, extremely so and that worked for her a little and against her a lot.. She over thinked things to the point as my brother said to the point where she would think it to death.. and not get anything accomplished.. She would use Google to her advantage and would find things about a symptom one of the girls had and then beat it to death.. Until proven wrong, or right, or just exhausting that avenue before going down another.. She died pretty much the way she lived with questions dangling over her.. There was no proven reason that she dies, which is to say her health was bad, she had pancreatitis which is extreme abdominal pain and was on pain killers (very potent) and that was part of the reason of her death.. She medicated herself, and with these pills you can only get away with that for so long and it finally caught up with her.. That fateful Sunday/Monday.. Her vital organs were shutting down, they were in serious shape from being in that kind of pain and taking that kind of medication.. I remember my older brother saying he wouldn't be surprised if she died by her 25th birthday.. She was 29..  

Writing about her from that day back to when the twins were born and then forward beyond her death there were so many open spaces about literally everything that I couldn't write about it.. I couldn't even guess even remotely.. It is sad to say that but we weren't that close to her, and the problem really is that not even her parents could say they were very close.. She kept many secrets. She kept things secret and lied about other things..  Sadly that might be as well a contributor to her demise.. No one is an open book.. No one is fully transparent, no matter what they say everyone has a secret or two or twenty.. 

Well anyway the big events in the year are always the ones we wish never happened.. This year was a horrible year and truth be told this is probably just the start of horrible times.. It can get worse??  Sadly yes it can.. With Tabitha dying it has opened up a whole new can of worms that are just starting to be worked out and sadly could end up where her twins are no longer being taken care of by the people who have been taking care of them from the beginning of their lives.. What is really sad and I have told mom this.. If this guy gets them, we likely will never get to see them in person ever again.. This is not exaggeration, the (baby daddy) (sperm donor) father lives five hours away and the likelihood that he will let my brother and his wife see them very regularly could be very unlikely, he doesn't have to.. And the chances of them being up here are very low.. And the truth is.. i hate to say this.. It might be better if we don't see them again.. Not at least until they are older.. Ten to twelve years old.. Maybe even longer.. It will be tough on all who are involved mostly my brother and his wife..  I think if I were in their shoes what I would do.. The guy (the SD) has no reason to want these girls, no emotional attachment so he really is trying to get money from the government.. Quite the wrong reason to want kids because these girls are special needs kids, and every penny that Tabitha got from the government was spent on these girls care.. And then some as my brother and his wife would spend money of theirs on them as well..   Will this guy care for them the same way they are supposed to??  Highly unlikely.. I hate to think of the outcome on that reasoning.. Really not very good if you ask me but then.. Who knows.. He might be a good guy, responsible ..  Not the villainest douche that we were lead to think of him..    Naw he's a P.O.S. very little doubt.. But you never know.. 

Badge Henry

(P.S. I'm really to the point right now.. today being the 4th of January, that I want the snow to fuck off.. not melt  all together, just not be so much out there.. I worry about the tree in the front.. I piled it on there and am a little nervous that it will not be good for it.. I've never piled the snow on to anything like a tree before.. Had the tree developed enough to stick up out of there I wouldn't feel so bad.. I really piled it on the little guy, hope it survives..) 

(P.P.S. here it is the 25th of January.. A month plus having the snow covering the tree out there, although it has started to melt a little. I figure it might be March before the snow is completely gone from that tree.. It had been 50 degrees on Saturday, and that melted the snow down to where we had about 50% of the entire yard covered.. There on the tree is under three feet covered.. It was really covered, three plus feet on it back when this entry was written.. And I didn't pack it, I just tossed the snow on there.. Hopefully this doesn't ruin the tree completely.. I was talking to mom about a replacement for that tree before she saw it was coming back.. Then last week I started talking about a memorial tree for Tabitha.. What should that be??  The tree that we got for dads memorial was  a red maple, kinda like the one at the dialysis  center there in Fort Collins, I think dad was impressed with it like I was..  What would be great for Tab.. Well.. Sadly the tree mom got for her when she was born is quite healthy, and grown quite tall in the back, the pine tree closest to the ally.. And I say sad because while most trees can out live the person they were planted for, this tree is still thirty or more years away from being very tall at all.  It might be half as tall as it will ever get.. She never had much of a chance.. The memorial tree should be ..  interesting.. Something really cool.. Musical.. free spirit.. )