So the week with my brother was great…. Then I spent a week with my dad doing nothing but watching TV and movie’s… That’s his thing… watching TV…We watched a lot of Westerns like “Johnny guitar” and a few with Audie Murphy and even some with Burt Lancaster…For some reason I enjoyed this….I caught myself asking a lot of questions about the movies like I had when I was a kid…. He never answered when I was a kid and he didn’t this time either…. Ahhhh… It was just wonderful! The only bad part of the trip was when I went to check on my storage that I have been paying on for 2 years… My husband went to put the key in the lock and it fell apart in his hand and dropped to the ground. I reached down and picked it up and looked at it….I was so mad I couldn’t speak for a moment…. Then my husband lifted the door and all my dusty things had been rummaged through! I stood there in shock! The first thing my husband said was….. “Your jewelry box is gone.”….. I then started to cry…. Then it dawned on me that I could use this as an excuse. A few years back I had pawned some of my rings… I got most of them back and even a bracelet but a few of the rings had been put out for sale and couldn’t be recovered… I had been telling my husband for 2 years that those rings were in my storage back in Texas…. Now the box I had said they were in had been stolen…. So now because of some thief…. I have been rescued from my own lies. (To the thief that ripped me off)…Thanks you! You rotten bastard….I owes you one…..Then we stayed for my husband’s mother’s surgery… they cut her neck open and removed something that had been encroaching on her esophagus… As soon as they told us she made it through the surgery my husband stood up and said lets go….So we went…..I then told him on the way back to my Dad’s that a real person doesn’t act like that….A real person would have took their Mom some flowers…. I swear I do most of the thinking between the two of us! You don’t know how tired that can make me…..Anyway….. I got an ear full about my family while I was home…. My sister in Law Rita Joe has been having a problem with her head… The doctors have been giving her shots in the back of her neck in her spine…. My cousin Marie is dieing from Cancer and they gave her a year to live… And my other cousin Connie Ann saw her boyfriend shoot his self in the head on accident and it broke something in her mind…

I went to my mother’s grave and the concrete under her stone I got her is still in tact. My brother and I did it to keep it from sinking into the ground. I visited my Grandmothers grave while I was there too… She died after my mom…. AND she had survived 5 husbands!(and a few boyfriends) They buried her beside the second husband. He had been a white man and they had raised 2 daughters together, my aunts, and they had been strict Protestants. Let’s just say very Christian. My mother on the other hand, their half sister had been raised differently. But I still put her in the ground all though I knew she wouldn’t have wanted that. My brother wanted her to be in the ground and her sisters had wanted it so we did it. My husband on the way back asked me why I had not cried as I stood there looking down at the dirt….. I told him, because my mother was not there…. Only the shell that held her here was. I believe my mother was reborn…. Maybe into the fog or the sun light or the smile of a child…. I told him that her soul and spirit are here with me in my heart and in the wind and reborn as well. He didn’t understand……That’s why I had felt the need to put the note in the balloon the day of her birthday… To hold it up to the wind and let it fly up to the sky…. But I hadn’t had the courage… I still have the balloon… all the helium has escaped and the note inside is still there waiting for her to see…. Maybe next year I can try again…. You know… to refill the balloon and release it….. My dads sparkling green eyes have clouded a bit. He’s 70 now. He has a new girl friend and they play a lot of Bingo together…. She has a great since of humor and it takes one to be around my dad and all his weird ways…. I noticed all my brothers are looking more and more like my dad use to look… before he got the round belly and started wearing suspenders… All accept one of my brothers… I asked my dad if my brother Joe was really his son and he said he had no idea! He has flaming red hair and green eyes and 2 rows of teeth! Nothing like us… well of course not like me and my little brother because we had a different Mom but he still looks nothing like my dad! My dad told me a little about when he was a boy… How he had been on his own since the age of 11. How he had hitch hiked back and forth from Oklahoma and Waco Texas. He told how they had tried to take him and his 2 brothers to the orphanage and he had run away with them… How his Aunt Flossie had took the youngest brother and how he had walked to Texas to find another relative that would take in his other brother…. My heart was breaking for him as he said this matter of fact. I then asked where his mother had been… He said his dad had gone to WW2 and as soon as he left his mother had left too…. I remember I had never liked my dad’s mother… She had long grayish red hair and brown eyes and she was mean as a snake! She was tall and skinny as a rail… My dad’s father on the other hand was a pretty great guy… he returned home from the war missing a leg… No wife to be found…. So he got a quick divorce and married again and they had lived in San Antonio… He went on to have more kids…When my dad’s mom got to old to look after herself she looked them up… They made sure she lived in a half way decent nursing home…. Until she died….I remember standing next to her grave and looking over the preachers shoulder and seeing the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald… I’m not joking… They buried my grand mother in the same cemetery as that ass hole! Stands to reason though…She was almost just as infamous as he had been. I didn’t cry until I looked at my dad… He sat there all alone with no one to comfort him…. Crying…. I had NEVER seen that before! At least if I had I had blocked the horrible scene from my mind!… He didn’t allow crying when I was growing up…My dad would tell you to suck it up quick! And you did if you new what was good for you…. So watching him cry over the death of his mother was something that broke my heart worse than the death of my grand mother… Anyway!!!!! Back to my trip…. Other than being robbed it was uneventful… The ride home was nice because I drove the whole way and my husband slept…. We stopped at the Iron skillet to eat and I have to say they feed you like a truck driver so be prepared to eat a lot when you stop In there… I recommend it to all hungry travelers…I did see my friend Tammy while I was back home… Remember her?… She worked at the Walgreens I was kicked out of. She went to California on her vacation and she rubbed my nose in it… then she told me of her trip to go to Hawaii… THAT BITCH!…. I swear one of these day’s I will rub her nose in something…. If something good ever happens to me!…..