After all this, in February, Big Bubba Brett proposed and I moved into one of life's giddiest stages. Brett later admitted that all of my family members "dropping like flies" disrupted his proposal plans. I started my happy scheming at the same time that my Lux Spring season started, so I was paying extra attention to the little things about each wedding, picking out things I definitely did not want for my own. Towards the end of the month, Ellen and Dad ventured off to Burma for a few weeks and I invited Aunt Melody to help me for a doozie of a wedding. While Mom and I really could use the extra hands, we also wanted to get her out of the house, busy with something besides thinking about Russell. It's no surprise that Aunt Melody whipped things into shape, tying perfect bows and making wonderful quick fixes. She probably should just take over my job altogether. So she jumped on as a new member of the Lux & U team and has been slaving away for me at just about every wedding I booked for the year.
The doozie wedding.
In March I moved into my little cottage and the giddiness levels were at an all time high - which made me feel guilty somehow. Look at what I get to have and where I get to live and what I do for a "job". I haven't earned any of it and I keep wondering what I'll wind up doing to even pay God back a cent. My guilty phase lined up perfectly with an Ellen downswing. She's had a rough go since all that with "Buttface" (that's her nickname for Mr. Villard) and she started to get a little hopeless and negative which is a hard thing to watch.
We had a Merlefest adventure with my Happy Hon's and Dad started big house renovations against Mom and my wishes. I can admit now that Dad was right. We love it and like he promised, it was done in time for the wedding. We took a trip to the Keys for some family time, cousin antics, and iguana love time. The fun times continued with a trip to the lake with The Crew and then a big Scandinavian adventure with my family -the giggliest family trip the four of us have taken, I think.
Throughout all of this time Mom, Carolyn, and Georgia had been tending to Bob and Ruth. Grandma Ruth was on a steady decline which was hard to watch but worse, led to lots of tough thoughts and questions. Mom was not happy this summer and I missed her a lot. I missed my friend. Ellen also started to avoid us (a lady of grand mysteries) which hurt Dad's feelings and left me feeling lonely on the family front and extra thankful for EisenEars' steady and warm presence.
As the Fall rolled in, I jumped into lending a hand for Ari and Nate's wedding which pushed my Mama Bear happiness levels way up again. I started working alongside funny Margie at Dad's office, I was spoiled by my friends for a bachelorette day and then, the first weekend of October, I had the funnest dern day of my life. It's all any of us talked about for days.
Two weeks after that my cousin Chelsea gave birth to a little baby boy.
Three weeks after that, one of the great loves of my life married the greatest love of hers.
A few days before Ari's wedding, my grandma Ruth died and I've got post coming just for her. The day after Ari's wedding, just hours after Grandma's funeral, I got a phone call from Aussie Dan, a friend from my first restaurant job when I was seventeen. Mike, another friend we worked with back then got into a car accident and wasn't waking up. The decision had been made to take him off of life support so Dan planned an ICU waiting room party for everyone that Mike loved, and that included the Union girls.
Ellen and I signed into the hospital, took the elevator up four levels, and found a pale, tired looking Dan folded up in a chair. Hospitals give me the heebeegeebees. I know you don't know Mike Thomas but I'll tell you that he was a boisterous and bossy fella. He had a loud, fiendish laugh that actually was a bit frightening. Lots of people knew and loved him but he was selective about who he graced with full and loyal love. He took me under his wing when I started at the restaurant because I looked frightened and unsure. Ellen worked there too and Mike loved that we were sisters and he wouldn't let any customers be rude to us.
Mike was big and animated and haphazard and one time, at a beach outing, he picked me up and threw me into the ocean so hard that he bruised my ribs and I had to go to the doctor. I couldn't laugh or exhale without pain for two months. He did not apologize and only laughed at my situation but somehow he did that endearingly and I didn't feel the need for him to apologize. I knew he felt guilty. Ever met a mean person so sweet that they can get away with anything?
I'm probably making him sound obnoxious but he wasn't. Mike was really a teddy bear and he had a daughter who was the highlight of his life. He talked about her constantly. She's seventeen now and I instantly recognized her in the ICU waiting room from pictures I've seen posted to Facebook anytime Mike took her out on an adventure. Being Mike's daughter, we shouldn't have been surprised to see her holding up better than everyone else in the waiting room. He made sure she'd be tough. No daughter of Mike's would be a ninny.
Mike just had a way of making people feel like they always had a home with him. It's a shame to loose someone who gave so much to other people.
Here's an unflattering but perfect picture to describe Mike Thomas.
I left Mike's sad sack departure and jaunted off for an exhausting two weeks of Portuguese Honeymoon fun, came home to some of the most exciting news about cousin Margie, Brett and my first Christmas tree together, a breakfast date with the newlywed Ari and Nate, and any day now, the welcoming of cousin Alex's baby girl, appropriately named after Grandma Sadie.
So you see, it's been a lot in every direction. A very full year with a pendulum of happy to sad, giddy to guilty. I want to look at the year and claim it as my happiest so far but that does a disservice to the loss and hurt. I want to look at the year and claim it as the worst I've seen but that does a disservice to the parts in there that are what make life worth grieving for in the first place.
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