I’m home-June

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, sibs. I haven't updated in a couple of months
since April and this is June, and I apologize. It's
been a very busy season for me, actually a very
busy year for me. Twenty twenty two has been I
just did not know where I was gonna be. By

(00:21):
June of twenty twenty two, I had no clue, y'all.
I've been wrestling and going through so much stuff, new stuff.
It's not been all bad, or I wouldn't say all
bad or all challenging. It's just been a lot of changes,
and changes means that you have to be flexible and

(00:41):
it kind of wears me out. But I have started
a new job where I am responsible for mental health
consulting over fourteen counties in my state, and I'm just
learning that job. And learning a new job is somewhat

(01:03):
hard for me because I just want to know everything
all at one time, and I can't do that. I
can't And from what I'm understanding with my colleagues now,
they're saying that, you know, it takes a few years
to get to really know your job, so they are
supporting me virtually. Because this job is mainly at home.

(01:26):
I will be going into the office a couple of
times during the week for a few months just to
get acclimated. But mainly it's virtual, and I'm just learning
that whole virtual thing. Every meeting is either on zoom
or on Polycom or something of that nature, on the
phone or something. And it's just different coming from where

(01:48):
I come from four years of service and knowing the
job front and back. I mean, there's certain new things
that my old job that I wasn't really knowledgeable on,
but I mean it wasn't like it was hard to do,
but yeah, it's just different, and you know, different atmosphere

(02:09):
and different schedule and different people to talk to and
all of that stuff. So it's been an adjustment. I
started my new job on May nineteenth, and you guys
know that I ended my other job on May the fifth,
and I took me about thirteen days off, which thirteen
days did not do me justice. I probably should have

(02:31):
taken longer than that because I tried to fit everything
into I've tried to fit everything into those thirteen days.
My mom and I we left Nashville to go head
to Pensacola, Florida, right after I left my job. So
on the sixth, we hit the road and took our

(02:53):
time to get down to Pensacola from Nashville, which if
you're not in this area which is south of me,
to go to Pensacola and go in through Alabama. Now,
if you are a longtime listener of this podcast, you
would know that Alabama is really truly my home from Nashville.

(03:15):
But my dad is from Alabama. He's from what we
call LA which is Lower Alabama. And it just felt
good to be able to drive through Alabama with no schedule,
wasn't rushing to get down there, and we weren't going
on Memorial Day holiday like we did last year. My

(03:38):
mom and I went to Pensacola last year for a
Memorial Day and I'm so glad that we were not
going during that holiday because the traffic last year was horrible.
This year it was pretty good. It was really good,
matter of fact, and the weather was nice. So we
got down to Prattville, OH, which is close to Montgomery,

(04:02):
and I asked my mom if she didn't mind to
go down to Montgomery, down to where my grandmother lives
or she lived. My grandmother, my dear sweet grandmother, my
paternal grandmother, has been gone since nineteen ninety three. I
lost her when I was ten and a half years old.

(04:28):
And she was a beautiful lady. And when I say
people think their grandmothers are just salts of the earth,
and when I say, she was the salt, and she
was the gold, and she was everything. She was truly everything.
And I could not have met a sweeter woman than

(04:52):
meeting her. And I want to take it. I've always
wanted to take examples from her life, the little bit
of time I had with her. Always wanted to take
examples from her because she was always so very thoughtful,
and she loved my brother, myself, my mom. She loved
my mom like that was her baby girl. And her

(05:14):
love just spread so very thick, and you could feel
it as soon as you get down to the city limits,
or even when you get to the state of Alabama,
you can feel like, oh, I'm going home to see
my grandmother. So the last time I rode past my
grandmother's house was in twenty nineteen, before the pandemic. My

(05:36):
aunt had passed away. So right before, I want to say,
right before I got down to my uncle's house, I
wanted to run by for memory's sake. I wanted to
run by my grandmother's house just to just to reminisce
and just be thankful for the time that I had

(05:58):
with her, the time that I had with my aunt
Hunt in Armanti, and then the time that I had
with my brother while we were playing in that yard,
all of that stuff. So if you're my Facebook friend,
I did post that video of me rolling by back
in twenty nineteen, and so fast forward twenty twenty two.

(06:18):
I get a little loss to get to her house
like I did last time, because they changed the name
of the street some years ago. So the street that
my grandmother lived off of was Good Street back in
the day, but now it's like Edgar Nixon or some
street something like that. I always keep forgetting that. I

(06:40):
think it's Edgar Nixon or E. Nixon something street. And
it's in you know, Ridgecrest neighborhood. And I took some
left turns, wrong turns, and then I ended up stopping
at this church that used to be a church that
my uncle went to, but they moved and I got

(07:00):
and the directions was like you want to walk or
do you want to drive? Because apparently I was right
down the street from my from the house and didn't
know it. So end up finding the house and rolling
by the house and I see someone sitting outside. And
I've never have all the times that I have started

(07:21):
driving in my life since I was sixteen years old,
and i've been by the house, I've not seen anybody
sitting outside the house. So I was a bit shocked
that I saw somebody sitting out on the porch at
the house. And my mom was out, and you know,
my mom's with me, and I'm like, Mom, somebody's outside,

(07:42):
and so I rode by. We you know, we wave
at the person. They waved back, because in the country
everybody waves at you and so or in the south.
And so I drive by the house and then I
turn around and I was like, man, you think he'll
let us, like huh, you know, standing around And she
was like just ask him, and I was like, I'm scared.

(08:05):
And so we rode back around to the house and
I didn't drive into the driveway. I didn't want him
to feel any type of way. So I parked right
in front of the driveway and then I get out
of the car and I introduced myself and my mother
and he was like, oh okay, and He was so friendly,

(08:29):
this guy, and he asked me, he was like, because
I used to He said to me that he grew
up in the area and knew that there was a
lady that lived in the house that had a baby,
or is an older lady that was taking care of
a baby in that house. And I started to think

(08:49):
it was either my cousin Jeremy or my cousin Sandy.
It was one of those babies, because one of those
babies was in the house. And I was like, oh,
my gosh, I know that was you know, that was
my great and that was one of my cousins probably,
And we just stood there and we were talking, and
he said, where are you guys from? And I told
him where I was from and told him, like the

(09:11):
history is my grandmother's house. She's been dead since ninety three,
and I just wanted to stop by. And he stood
there and he said, oh, you know, when y'all rode
past the first time, he said, my thought was, I
hope I don't owe him no money. And we started
laughing and whatever. And my mom is a plant lady,

(09:37):
like plants and flowers, that's her thing. And she said
in the house, I mean she said. While we were
in the car before we pulled up, she was like,
I hope he lets me have some plants. I want
some plants. So I said, oh wow, Okay, So we
pull up and have this conversation, and then there was

(09:58):
some air in the conversation and he looked at my
mom and he said, you want some plants. My mom said,
oh my gosh, you read my mind. You read my mind.
And I'm just really panting the picture for you guys
to let you know how enthused I was and how
enthused my mom was, and how this man was very

(10:19):
kind to us. So he goes in the house and
he gets a shovel, or goes to the garage and
gets a shovel, and he gets bags, and he got
a pot, and he digs in the yard. Okay, he
digs in the yard and get these plants. Now, mind you,
we're going to Pensacola. We're not going home. We'll have
five more days till we get to the house. But anyway,

(10:43):
he digs in the yard, in the flower bed, and
he gets my mom some plants. And then next thing
I know it, they're getting even more plants, getting in
more plants. My Mom's like, oh, can I have it?
He's like, hyard, let me. And it's about fifteen minutes
of digging in the yard, walking around the yard, getting
more plants, putting it in bags, putting it in some water,

(11:05):
and putting it in her trunk. And while she's doing that,
I'm walking around. I'm filming. I'm at you know. I
asked him if it was okay, I'm filming, and I
don't feel him per se, and he says to her.
He says to my mom, happy Mother's Day. And she
started crying. And the thought of it just really moved

(11:30):
me because the plants that my mother was digging out
of the yard are my grandmother's. Majority of those were
my grandmother's. There's a couple of them that were his
is that he planted, but the plants that he was
digging up were originally there when my grandmother was there.

(11:51):
And my grandmother was this lady who was a plant
lady too. She took care of her yard. She took
care of all that stuff. Her yard was the best
manicured yard on the block. Her grass was always so green,
her edges were always very tip top shaped. It was green.

(12:14):
I mean, it looked like carpet. That's how great my
grandmother would keep her yard. Then she was sickly. My
grandmother was so sickly. There was never, like really a
time in a year where she wasn't spending some time
in the hospital because she was born with a heart defect.
But in that yard is to me. When I stepped

(12:40):
foot on that yard, I became eight years old or younger,
somewhere between young enough to play out in the yard
to like eleven ten eleven, that's how old I felt.
I'm about to be forty this year. And I could
see my brother and I and my cousin out on

(13:02):
this yard and hear us playing with a really flat basketball.
We played hard in her yard because she had enough
space for us to play kickball dodgeball with a flat basketball.
And I'll never forget that. We were playing kickball with

(13:23):
that basketball and knocked it out and I can't remember
which one of us kicked that ball into the street,
and it knocked in the street and a car was
coming and that thing got ran over. The ball got
ran over by the car and he stopped. The person
that was driving stops really hard, and the ball was

(13:44):
up underneath his car, and we thought we were going
to get in trouble. And the guy just got out
of his car and got on his hands and knees
and knocked that ball from under his car and gave
it to us and kept driving, and then we went

(14:05):
back to playing. Now the ball was flat or flat,
real flat, and it had you know, scuff marks on it.
But we went back to playing and nobody said anything
about anything, and we went on and I will never
that's just one of those memories that's just implanted in
my brain. And we played the way we played, and

(14:26):
I was the only girl. My cousin is boy, my
brother's boy, and my cousin was the only child. And
it felt like whatever I was wrestling with for the
past few months, it felt like it was released. In
that moment. I didn't have no worries, not a worry,

(14:49):
not a care, not anything. In that moment of being
on her property and walking around on her property and
seeing the pri the plants and the trees and all
that stuff that was there when I was a kid
has not been replaced. Now the house doesn't look as
good as it did. It looks really bad. Actually, the

(15:13):
owner said that he will be fixing the house up
now that he has more time, But it just felt
so good and peaceful, and I could just feel the
energy coming from the ground and I could feel everything,
and I was just at peace. I got in the
car with all these plants in the back and was

(15:36):
amazed at what just happened. Was amazed at the fact
that this man read my mother's mind and then said
Happy Mother's Day. And then my mom starts crying and
she's able to take home back with us pieces of
my grandmother that's been gone since ninety three. And when
you take pieces of my grandmother, you're also taking pieces

(15:59):
of the story, our story, the story of her story,
of my brother and family's story, a time when my
parents were together and when we really didn't know death.
We had a string of deaths in the nineties from

(16:20):
my granddad, my dad's dad. He died in ninety two,
and then six months later, my grandmother passed, and then
you know, there's some aunties and their great aunts in
there in between time. And then my brother in ninety seven,
So we had a string of deaths, and it just

(16:43):
reminded me of the time that I did not really
know death like that, and it felt good to feel
like as a thirty nine year old, it felt good
to go back and feel like you were eight again.
And that's what started out my vacation, and God knows

(17:07):
I needed that. God knows I needed that with feeling
tied to people who are no longer here and then
people who are here with me still thank God, but
really feeling tied to the memory and tied to my ancestors.

(17:29):
So we left there and got to Pensacola and had
a really good relaxing time at the beach, and my
mother's side cousins were actually in Destin, so I was
able to see my cousins from my mother's side, uh
there at the beach in Destin. And then we came

(17:53):
back up. And when we came back up, we stopped
at a couple of places that haven't stopped at in
a very long time. I want to say, since i'm
my Gosh High school, maybe if you are familiar with
that area, there are places in Clinton, Alabama called the

(18:14):
Peach Park and Durban Farms. Now, last year, when my
mother and I were coming back up from Pensacola, we
stopped at the Peach Park, but it was during Memorial
Day holiday, so they had peaches available. This is peach season.
This time we were a little early, and the peach
park didn't have much stuff out there, and there wasn't

(18:35):
a lot of people at the peach park. But then
I was like, man, you want to go to Durban Farms,
which is on the same street, just across the interstate.
And we went to Durban Farms and honey, Durban had everything.
And I have not been to Durban Farm since I
probably maybe late middle school, maybe early high school, or

(19:00):
maybe when I got my car when I was sixteen
or fifteen sixteen, somewhere around there. That's the last time
I've been there. So again I'm about to be thirty nine.
So it just felt really good to go there and
spend money and spend a little too much money at
Urban Farms, but it's all good. And then we left
there and went up to the rest stop in Huntsville.

(19:23):
And again if you're not from this area, the rest
stop in Huntsville has a spaceship at the rest stop,
and that used to be our regular rest stop. Again
as kids, my dad would stop there, I guess just
for us to use the bathroom because we were kids
and couldn't hold it and we would stop there and watch,

(19:44):
you know, look at the Space shuttle and all of that,
and have not stopped by there, I know, since elementary school.
And it was just a good feeling to take pictures,
a good feeling to kind of reminisce about the time
that my dad, my mom, my brother, and myself would
be in this Ford Ranger back in the day or

(20:08):
Volvo my mom had a older had a Volvo back
in the day. We would be in that car going
down to Alabama to see our family and we would
stop there for a bathroom break. So it felt good
to be able to stop and then we came right
on up and the plants made it that my mom
had had in her car for five days, they've made it.

(20:31):
We did take the plants out and put them in
the hotel room while we were in Pensacola, so they
were okay. We walked, my mom talked to them and
watered them while we were gone, and once we got
back up to Nashville, my mom put them where they
needed to be, put in her yard in pots and

(20:54):
they are flourishing right now. So it's been a month
now since we've been back. So yeah, about a month
now since we've back, and yeah, y'all, it's just been.
It's been. It's been some few weeks, you know. And
my mom has been Bob the builder at her house
and really loving all her new plants, and it's for me.

(21:18):
I've been cleaning house and you know, taking some things
to the to good will, not good will, but going
to they're smart, taking things that they're smart, and throwing
some things away, kind of clearing out my house, doing
some things that needed to be done. Just a clear space,
clear energy, all of that. I hope you guys are

(21:40):
out there doing well. It's been a lot happening in
our United States of America, some things that happened in
the Ukraine and still happening in the Ukraine versus Russia.
Since the last time we talked to each other, We've
had so many gun violence, mass shootings going on in
the United States. I can't say I'm surprised by it.

(22:02):
I'm not surprised by it, but I'm very sad and unfortunate.
It's unfortunate news to go through. I don't want this
to happen ever again, but the reality of it is
it will happen again, unfortunately. So I'm praying for you
all who have been affected, and praying for you all
to get your needs met, your emotional, spiritual, physical needs met,

(22:27):
whether that's by going to the doctor. Can you use
some therapy, because I'm in therapy and that has been
very helpful for me. Probably should have been in therapy
a little bit earlier than what I am, but it
is what is. I am in therapy now, so I
can't take back the past, but moving forward with a

(22:48):
lot of things. I think last time I talked about
a grief curriculum. Right now that is on hold so
I can get to so I can get to learn
my new job, get to learn like what's happening now.
I think I put a lot of pressure on myself
to get things done, and it's just been exhausting. So

(23:08):
I'm just gonna take my time because I'm working on
private practice stuff for my therapy and doing some looking
at land because I want some land, and then I
want an RV or a camper or something like that
so I can do mobile businesses. And so it's a
lot that I'm thinking about. So I'm trying to take

(23:29):
my time step by step to how and where and
how and what and all of that I'm gonna do
what I have in my mind to do. If you
know anybody who is an investor or a sponsor, give
them a heads up, like, hey know somebody who is

(23:51):
looking into land ownership or camper ownership for therapy or
even for siblings and grief. Let somebody know spread the
word about it. I need some help because I can't.
I realize I can't do everything by myself. And yeah,

(24:12):
I love you guys. It's summertime. I hope you have
summertime plans or at least have some balance in your
life again. It's nice to be able to check in
here and update the podcast. I am late on updating YouTube.

(24:32):
If you are on YouTube or looked at Judy Libson,
I just met her. By the way, I met Judy Libson,
the author of Celebration of Sisters, a couple of weeks ago.
She was here in Nashville for a ice skating event,
dedicating that ice skating event to her sisters because that's
something they used to do when they were kids. So

(24:55):
it was very nice meeting her a couple of weeks
ago for dinner. And then I met Debbie Jenkins Frankle
a couple weeks Ago as well, another surviving sibling and
fellow therapist. It was a blest meeting her. She took
a chance on me when I first started podcasting, and

(25:17):
the audio was horrible between us because I didn't know
what I was doing. But that episode was really, really
good talking about grief, and it has been a blessing
to connect with her. For both of these ladies, I
hugged them. Oh my gosh, I almost forgot. I hugged
these ladies and they hugged me, and it felt like

(25:40):
I was seen, I was heard. I was felt and
relieved at the same time. It was like taking a
deep breath in and letting it flow. That's how beautiful
meeting these ladies were to me. And I will ever

(26:00):
cherish the memory of meeting Judy Lipson and Dabby Jenkins Frinkle,
one from Boston, one from California, and meeting me here
in Nashville, Tennessee. I loved it, enjoyed it. Hopefully I'll
get to meet more siblings. Oh yeah, and I met
my other sibling. Oh my gosh, how can I forgive

(26:21):
at a cookout on Memorial Day or the day before
Memorial Day? My girl Andrea. I met her and her
family and her husband, her little girl, and it was
just a funny thing to meet her. So I met
three siblings this past couple of weeks and that was
beautiful and hugging her, y'all. I posted these pictures on Facebook,

(26:44):
but hugging her also was like a relief. And she
looked at me and she said, I would have thought
you were shorter. No, I am not a short, lady.
I am not. I'm taller than average. I'm not too tall,
but I'm taller than average. I'm five to ten on
a good posture day. And it was so good to

(27:05):
meet her. And I know where you are, I know
you're local here, and I know that we have mutual friends.
So it'll be good to meet with you again in
the future and see your beautiful family. So that has
been the update for the past couple of months. It
has been a lot. Take care of you guys, take
care of you siblings, and just know that I even

(27:28):
though there's times where I don't update once a month, yo,
I'm coming. I am so coming to update, and I
haven't forgot about you. Just an FYI, I have another podcast,
but I'm thinking about retiring that podcast. Just so I
can focus on grief and loss and focus on this

(27:52):
podcast because this is where my heart is. Truly where
my heart is, and being able to put in one
hundred percent is what I'm focused on. And right now
I haven't been given this podcast my one hundred percent,
to be honest, because I've been worn out. I've been

(28:12):
really tired because there's so much happening. So look forward
to being able to go ahead and retire that podcast
sad face, happy face, and then focus on Surviving Sibling
laws to Forgotten Mourners podcast and do that audio only
and on YouTube. So I am going to post my

(28:37):
fellow sibling, Earla don on YouTube. I meant to do
that a month ago. You guys have already heard her
on the audio only, but if you want to see Earla,
that will be posted on the LPC Chris page on
the YouTube or the channel on YouTube. All right, guys,
I'm so happy that you have decided to join me

(28:58):
today for this thirty minutes podcast and I will talk
to you soon. I love you and take care of you, siblings,
And if you want to reach out, you know what
to do. Hit me up on my email. Getneckatherapists at
gmail dot com with the retiring of that podcast in

(29:18):
a couple of months, I probably will change my email address,
so we'll see. I'll keep you updated, okay, love you Bye.