We would like to welcome all visitors to this blog -- and we literally
have visitors from around the world.  Some folks have questioned
whether or not they were free to comment because they felt that they
might be intruding into a private family space.  We intend this
blog to be open to all, primarily to give access to our friends and
family around the world to news about us and, specifically, Lorena, but
also to give hope to others who might be suffering as we are.  As
well, though, maybe we can give you a grin now and then or a tidbit to
think about or, if nothing else, a glimpse into our own little private
bedlam...  So, welcome, all of you.  May you, somehow, be
blessed by stopping here...

Michael in Stephenville.  We are in a quandary
here.  We have had a couple of wonderful/tragic calls to and from
Lorena lately.  I have three teenage girls, and apparently I
make Lucille Fay LeSueur look like Agnes Gonxha
Bojaxhiu.  [In the vernacular, I make Joan Crawford look like
Mother Teresa.]  Fortunately, I have no hang-ups with this. 
[Unfortunately, the reason I don't have any hang-ups is that I
have broken all my wire coat hangers correcting my little lambs..]

Anyway, we had a major meltdown over, among various
other things, an 11:00 p.m. curfew, a defunct romance, accusations
and recriminations and a flood of tears that spilled over into a
phone call with Mommy.  Mommy ended up singing lead
in our lachrymal chorus to the consternation of her nurse -- who
called Lorena's family members who apparently called a War Council
which called us.  The neat thing about this whole ordeal was that
Lorena ended up spelling for the nurse who called us back a couple of
time in true COMMUNICATION to tell us exactly what Lorena was
thinking -- and we all ended up laughing and hugging, physically here
in Texas and psychically in Mexico and pledging our love for one
another anew.  The bad thing is that some of the family there in
Mexico apparently think that we are trying to destroy Lorena with
worry.  We will get through this though... 

This sort of ordeal, specifically the loss of a
parent, not to death, but to a purgatory of being alive but in many
ways inaccessible, of being psychologically debilitating because we
love her, we miss her, we are painfully aware of her condition, we
wonder if there was anything we could have done to prevent her stroke,
we constantly rue things we did and things we didn't
do, and we are reminded of all of this constantly and
consistently through everything we do, everything we say, everyone we
meet, and in the very essence of our lives.

Lorena's sister Angie called yesterday evening
wanting an explanation of what happened the night before, but that is
really between the girls and Lorena, so I let them handle it.  She
also said that Lorena has stipulated that she wants the girls down
there for at least a month.  The girls are aghast at the
idea.  They want to visit Mommy, but their grandparents are not
there anymore and, unfortunately, they have major problems with
several of their aunts and uncles.     Also,
of course, they have plans here with friends and family, they have work
obligations, and they have other obligations involving such
trivialities as orthodontics.  Lorena said if the girls do not
come for a month, she doesn't want us to go at all because it will not
justify the expense.  To top it off, school is slated to begin in
early August.  [When the girls mentioned this to Lorena and Angie,
Angie's response was to ask which was more important:  school or
Mommy?]  I am really caught in a quandary here.  Pray for us.

Rainey is running around preparing explosions of
floral displays to see folks into the afterlife.  It seems
strangely ironic that all her life we  would bring flowers and
plants home to our botanical torture chamber to slowly (and
all too often not slowly at all) kill them in all sorts of exotic
ways.  Water is the crucial ingredient of life, and we seemed to
have a fetish for using water in bizarre and ingeniously
creative ways to murder plants, usually by drowning them or by
desiccating them.  Most often, we actually would starve them to
the point of actually being able to hear their pitiful little floral
voices pleading for water, at which point we would submerge them and
listen to those same little voices, now gurgling
piteously, pleading for carbon dioxide...

Now Rainey is actually preparing (to her immense
enjoyment) floral arrangements used primarily for funeral
arrangements.  I find it touching and poignant that we use
the beauty of flowers to send our loved ones away on that final
journey -- just as ancient burial sites show that our ancestors have
done for thousands of years.  Beauty both for the deceased and for
the bereaved.  I find myself thinking about such things a lot
lately.  I guess this is just more of our
chlorophyllosophizing...  Rainey really does like the floral
business, though. 

Stephi is still reporting for babysitting duty at
times ranging from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. -- and she LOVES it
(not!)  The couple is going through a divorce, so she is caught in
the middle.  The young children are apparently brats, but she
feels sorry for them because of the way they have to live.  The
parents appear to be very self absorbed, and Stephi complains that
there is no food in the house for the kids.  (These are not poor
folks.)  She just told me over the telephone that the two oldest
boys (4 and 6 or so) have just cut each other's hair.  Little
Stephi is just about at the end of her rope -- and I am ecstatic about
this.  She is probably learning much more at the University of
Babysitting than she learned all year at school.  Before I hung
the phone up a moment ago, she very ruefully told me, "You don't have
to EVER have to worry about me, Daddy.  After babysitting these
kids, I will NEVER have sex, even if I get married."  I may have a
little nun in the making... 

Life is full of privations, and ours are so much
less than others.  As woeful as our situation may seem, millions
of people would trade places with us -- including Lorena --
immediately.  On our American side of the family, some of our
ancestral lines arrived in America on the Mayflower while
other ancestral lines were already living here in the
Americas.   We know very little about our American Indian
ancestors, so I can only imagine what heartaches and privations they
suffered.  One of my great-great-however-many-grandfathers-ago
and two of his sons arrived on the Mayflower, only
to die that first horrible winter as did so many of their
shipmates.  Even in my worst nightmares, I cannot imagine what
suffering such privations must have entailed -- and that is just one
little footnote in one little sliver of history, a footnote of minimal
importance and minor number.  It is dwarfed by millions of people
beloved by others who suffered unimaginably from violence, disease,
pestilence, and other privations, most often ignored by or unknown to
history. 

We had relatives who fought in the French and Indian
War, the American Revolution, every war that we have been involved
in.  Jean Gilliam, a cousin of mine who now lives in Louisiana,
recently sent me a letter from an ancestor who lived near present day
Rogers, Arkansas.  She was describing how Federal troops occupied
their plantation and forced her father to hide out in the woods for
weeks before they pulled out after torching the family home.  The
family came to Texas, having lost absolutely everything in the
War.  She [the letter writing ancestor, not Jean] ended the account by bitterly saying how the family always detested
Yankees and Northerners. 

I will never forget my reaction, as a freshman
signing up in a religious university here in central Texas in 1973, to
an incident I witnessed.  The girl registering us made a comment
to the student in front of me to the effect of, "Oh, so you are from
Indiana?" to which the guy responded "Yes, I am one of those
Yankees."  The girl may have been teasing him, or she may have
simply blundered unintentionally trying to be cute, but I know by his
(and my) reaction that BOTH of us thought she was completely sincere
when she said, without a hint of a smile, "You left off the first word
of that, you know."   I certainly knew to what she alluded,
and, judging by his reaction, I am sure the damned Yankee did, too.

Yet, my family consists of just about every shade
and creed represented in America, all of whom have experienced horrific
sadness and heavenly blessings.  We are no different, and we will
make it. 

Lorena's parents would talk about Tepic back at the
turn of the century when they were young.  Yaquis would raid the
towns -- where the townspeople would shutter their homes and cower
inside as the Indians killed and cooked donkeys and mules in the
streets, stole women and girls to help propagate the tribe, and
generally intimidated the populace.  Even worse, one revolutionary
force after another would sweep through the area, taking what they
wanted or needed, pressing males into their service, and, generally,
intimidating the populace.  To put down the chronic rebellions, to
keep their military ranks populated, and to finance those endeavors as
well as funding all of the governmental service (primarily that of
making the politicians rich and maintaining their power), federal
forces would then sweep through the area, making examples of anyone who
might have aided or sympathized with the revolutionaries, pressing
males into military service, exacting "taxes" from the inhabitants
while living off their largess (whether or not that largess was
voluntary), and, in general, intimidating the populace.

Well, my tribulations continue.  I must go
watch Sierra play T-ball.  Yesterday, the concession stand was
kept cool by the swarms of honey bees fanning the air and clouding
the building,
exulting at the wealth of snow cone syrup available.  I was
uncharacteristically silent because I had to keep my mouth shut lest I
aspirate a bee.  It was quite amusing watching concession stand
workers as well as clients doing intricate dances with swarms of honey
bees.  As artistically choreographed as any mating dance, these
had just the opposite intention, as they were dances of
avoidance.  I only hoped that no
one involved had an anaphylactically shocking  reason to be
avoiding the bees... [One of the little T-ballers suffered the
ignominy of getting a bee in her glove.  She definitely did not do
it silently...]  Then we got to sit
outside as we baked to a lovely golden brown while fire ants kept
us dancing a frantic jig of preservation.  (And I must smile here
so that everyone will know that this "privation" is one that I exult in
because I get to watch a beautiful niece and nephew grow up, I get to
visit with Dena and Craig, and I get to see tons of friends whom I
normally don't have an opportunity to see.  Last game, I got to
get a beautiful, luscious hug from Heather Haile.  I reminded her
once again that I want them to buy the Bealls store.  I think I
would really enjoy shopping at Haile's Bealls...)

Lorena would love it.  I only wish she
were here so she could!!!  However, her miracle continues. 
To God be the glory!!!  Thank you all!!!

Michael in Stephenville.  I apologize profusely to all of you,
especially to Kate in Australia.  Several of you have informed me
that you would like to get in touch with Kate, but I did not post her
link or xanga name, so you would have had to have gone to my comments
to get her I.D.  Anyway, it is

luv_always_kate

Hi. Im from Australia and my mum had a stroke yesterday. Im 17 yrs old...

6/6/2006 3:11 AM

Again, she can be reached at www.xanga.com/luv_always_kate.  I
will try to get some more information from Kate so we will better know
what is going on.  I just know that she and her family will need
our prayers and support.

I have to go to school to work, but I will post some more later...  We love you all...

Michael here in Stephenville.  Last Sunday, Dena, Sierra, Cody,
Marly, and I drove down to Holder together to go fishing.  This
was the first time in over a year that we had gone specifically to see
the Smiths, and that hurts so much.  They literally are an
immediate part of our family (whether they will admit it or not!), and
Lorena will cry when I tell her we got to go.  She loves them
dearly.

It really was a wonderful visit.  Marly is still being introduced
to Texas, so we fed her white mulberries and purple mulberries. 
(She really liked the white ones, but I thought her face was going to
turn inside out when she ate the purple ones.  She obviously is
not fond of tart -- although I thought they were excellent.) 
After she had eaten a few mulberries, I had her look closely at the
next one -- just to notice the ubiquitous little white bugs that always
run around on mulberries, pointing out to her that the mulberries she
had been eating were protein enriched.  She did not seem to be
favorably impressed, but I think she is becoming a little more
accepting of our little insect friends.  She even ate some more
protein enriched mulberries.

We showed her a boll weevil the other day, and she is getting a lesson
on wasps, yellow jackets, dirt dobbers, doodlebugs, hummingbirds, and
all sorts of snakes.  A little toy snake was left at her elbow the
other day as she was sitting at the table.  It was obviously
a magical toy snake because when she saw it she levitated completely off her chair
and made sounds that human vocal cords could not possibly make.  I
was impressed!!!

Anyway, Ruth put on one of her typical, spectacular spreads.  Keep
count now!  There were only the five of us, Jerome and Ruth, and
Barbara and Bill Hudgins.  To the best of my mathematical
abilities, that totals nine people.  Ruth then proceeded to load
the table with enough victuals to feed a small nation.  (Gina,
Diane, Christy, Steve, and all the rest of you, eat your hearts
out.)  For those of you who have never encountered Ruth's cooking,
it would put the finest restaurants to shame.  There are not
enough stars to rate it. 

Folks, this was an old-time Texas Sunday spread featuring both a
brisket and a ham.  [Lya, she had made a pot of her famous mashed
potatoes -- and you missed them!!!]  There was a garden salad,
fresh green beans, fresh cut cantaloupe, corn, biscuits, broccoli with
cheese, seventy-five different kinds of pickles, half of which featured
jalapeños to varying degrees of forehead wiping goodness, and several
other dishes that I cannot recall.  I might add that not only had
Ruth made her lighter-than-air biscuits, but we had butter, honey,
sorghum syrup, and molasses to go with them!!!  Yee haw!!! 
(I ate so much that my brain
was squeezed to the point that several old memories were actually
forced out of my brain -- and few new ones could be made...)  All
of this food, of course, was washed down with her superb iced tea.

When we had all reached the point of sluggishness comparable to that of
a boa constrictor that has just swallowed a 600 pound wild boar AND a
large steer, Ruth (who has a sadistic streak the size of the Milky Way)
pulled out a huge chocolate cake, a couple of pecan-and-ancho-pepper
pies laced with bourbon, and a big fresh pot of coffee.  I will
not admit that I succumbed to the sin of gluttony, but afterwards, even
as a Baptist, I said a couple dozen Hail Mary's...  (I would
have flagellated myself, but I could no longer raise my arms...) 
[Jerome is just as sadistic as Ruth is.  Not only would he not rub
my tummy afterwards, but he would only laugh at me when I would beg him
to...]  I will not have to eat for another couple of months...

For supper, we had lunch leftovers supplemented with Supaporn's
jackfruit and durian fruit.  My middle still closely resembles the
middle of that boa constrictor after it swallowed the boar and the
steer -- and they were both BIG ones!!!

Afterwards, we sat around and visited, looked at old pictures,
reminisced, and Dena, Marly, and Bobby sang their way page by page
through a Broadman Hymnal while I tortured the piano.  (I have a
sadistic streak, too, you know...)  The next thing we knew, it was
11:30 p.m. -- and far past time to say goodbye. 

The ride home was not anticlimactic at all.  We cut through
Blanket to the gap in the mountains on 377 outside Comanche -- and
there were deer everywhere.  I actually stopped several times so
the kids (all of us!) could watch the herds of deer mill around until
they decided it was time to panic, at which point they would
effortlessly bound over the fences in a most impressive manner. 
(Their leaps were especially impressive since I was still so full that
the basic motions of operating the gas pedal and the brake and turning
the steering wheel was testing the limits of my physical
abilities...)  We also were treated to the sight of a huge horned
owl sitting on a game fence.  We actually turned around, came
back, and stopped before he soared out over us and away.

We missed you, Lorena.  The trip brought back so many memories,
and it would have been perfect if you and the girls had been with
us.  I tried to tell you about it last night, but you were in
therapy again when I called.  I will try again tonight.  We
love you.

By the way, I felt compelled to check this blog this morning -- to find a greeting from Katie in Australia who said,

Hi.

I'm from Australia and my mum had a stroke yesterday. I'm 17 yrs old
and this is very hard for me. Your story is a inspiration for me. I
would like to thank you for making this site.

Hello, Katie.  Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your
family.  Please let us know how your mother is doing, and welcome
to our family.  Please post comments on here to tell us about you
and your situation.  You have tapped into an incredible support
group.  Folks, please contact Katie and let her know  that
she is not alone in this.

(By the way, Have I told you all lately that Lorraine is
brilliant!)  Darling Rainey just came in and added that touching
sentiment...  It seems that she is the reigning champion on the
Battle of the Sexes on one of our radio stations.  Woo
hoo!!!  Not that she has let it go to her head...  Lorena
will be soooooo impressed...

Take care.  We love you all, and we couldn't make it without
you.  Lorena's miracle continues, and hopefully we will get to
talk to her again tonight.

[Oh, yes; I forgot to mention that we never made it down to the tanks to go fishing...]

I am here at school cleaning up my chaos as I prepare to change rooms.  In the course of organizing and cleaning, I found the following poem that Stephanie had written for Lorena.  Have I mentioned lately how incredible the women in my life are???  Lorena, you are loved and missed...

ABC’s Tribute to Mom

By Stephanie Thomas

 

A is for the AWESOME way you were a mom to me.

B is for all the BEAUTIFUL days we had at the Botanical Gardens.

C is for how you never liked CATS.

D is for how you DIDN’T ever give up on me.

E is for EVERY talk we had.

F is for the FIGHTS that got us mad.

G is for GOING shopping at the mall.

H is for making our HOUSE a HOME.

I is for how I never could mean “hate” – and how sorry I am.

J is for all the laughing and JOKING.

K is for bringing me plenty of KLEENEX when I was sick.

L is for I LOVE you!!!

M is for how I couldn’t ask for another MOM.

N is for how you never took NO for and an answer when it came to chores.

O is for OPENING my eyes to how grateful I should be and how beautiful I am.

P is for your huge PURSE you always had.

Q is for not QUITTING or giving up hope for me – and for you.

R is for how REALITY hit us so hard.

S is for Love and Loyalty, aka STEPHANIE.

T is for TALKING to you in the hospital -- when I knew you heard but couldn’t respond.

U is for the big UMBRELLA you loved to take to our soccer games.

V is for how you loved V-necked shirts and always wore them.

W is for WINNING the fight you are fighting now.

X is for X-treme you are now under – and the X-treme love I feel for you.

Y is for how YOU are the one who owns my heart.

Z is for all your ZEAL you haven’t lost.

Keep fighting, Lorena.  Keep fighting and winning.  We love you.

Michael here in Stephenville.  Today was my third birthday that
Lorena has missed -- but the girls and some friends really made it up
to me.  Yeppers, today I passed the half-century mark, and I feel
twice as old as I am (which would be about ten times as old as I
look!!!)  I am such a hunk, if I have to say so myself. 
(And, of course, I do...)  I can already hear Lorena laughing even
though I haven't told her that yet...

Yesterday, Rainey, Stephi, Lya, Marly, and Alisha decided to pull out
all the stops to make my birthday memorable.  In a pathetic
display of disregard for the separation of church and state, they made
me fire up the grill.  Anywhere around a barbecue grill, I operate
in a state of confusion, so I was actually in that state when
they  made me make a burnt offering of parts of a dead cow, an
assortment of garden vegetables, and one unlucky pineapple.  They
had prepared shish-kebabs and steaks, squash, corn on the cob, and a
cornucopia of other doomed victuals destined for the flames of the
Galumphing Gourmet.  [Craig and Dena invited us over for dinner
tonight, and Smart Aleck Craig was explaining how to prepare blackened
tilapia.  I told him that yesterday I prepared blackened bell
pepper, blackened tomato, blackened onion, blackened squash, blackened
corn on blackened cob, and blackened steak.  There is absolutely
no challenge in preparing blackened ANYTHING.  In fact, I suspect
I could even prepare blackened water...]

The aforementioned group of sadistic masochists were joined by Jeremy
(known by Rainey as "Sweet Thang"), and, a little later, Supaporn
Netremanee and Gaurav Gupta.  Thus it was that we all, smiling
idiotically at each other and declaring how delicious it was, ate
charcoal as if we had ingested copious amounts of some deadly
poison.  Next time I am going to save us all an incredible amount
of time and money [spent on buying, preparing, and burning the "food"]
by simply serving the charcoal briquettes.  The presentation will be
much more uniform, and I am sure it will taste better, as well, than
the things I cremate..

Earlier, the girls and Jeremy had gone out close to Dublin where they
picked approximately fifty gallons of blackberries of which one pint
survived to be made into my birthday pie which was served with
homemade vanilla ice-cream.  [Fortunately, the womenfolk prepared
it, or it would probably have been blackened as well.]  It was a
wonderful evening.  Marly is well versed in Islam, and with
Supaporn a Buddhist and Gaurav a Hindu, we had a wonderful evening of
discussion of religion, food, holidays, climates, etc.  Our
invitations to New Delhi and Bangkok were renewed, and a special food
delivery was promised us.  [Supaporn and Gaurav, ironically, just
made their special delivery.  We eat fresh jack fruit in Mexico,
but most of the folks here have never eaten it, so Supaporn gave us a
can of her special Thai jack fruit.  More importantly, I had asked
her earlier about durian (the King of fruits) -- and she has just
delivered us a durian.  For those of you who do not know about
durian, it is DELICIOUS.  However, it is usually not allowed in
tourist hotels because its odor is quite strong.  In fact, when
Westerners smell it, their most common response is to ask anxiously how
quickly the sewer will be repaired.  This is an incredibly special
treat for us -- but please understand if you detect a certain pungency
about us that it is merely our durian and not our hygiene...]

Today, we went to Dena and Craig's for jambalaya and blackened tilapia
(which was delicious.)  We were going from there to the
Stephenville Opry where Rainey was performing tonight.  Sierra dug
out her little set of fingernail polishes and cosmetics and insisted on
painting my fingernails and toenails (each a different color) and
applying Passionate Purple lipstick to yours truly.  Wonderful
uncle that I am, I submitted to her ministrations.  Shortly before
Rainey was to perform, I went in to put on my nice pants and nice shirt
and SOCKS and SHOES.  The shirt and pants went on without
incident, but when I bent over to put my sock on, my pants ripped from
stem to stern in a manner that would make the Titanic envious and that
gave my posterior more exposure than Michael Jackson's nose has ever
received.  Thus it was that I attended Rainey's Opry performance
tonight in short pants, shirt, sandals -- and a striking assortment of
colorful toenails and fingernails and purple lips.  Hopefully,
everyone who saw me but doesn't know me will merely think I am an aging
shock rocker...  Those who do know me will understand.  They
will still shake their heads, of course, but they will understand.

I had a wonderful conversation with Lorena tonight.  We had a lot
of laughs.  Oh, yes, I am being horribly remiss, and we had one
very long, hard cry together.  My heart has hurt all day, and I
have tried to push this latest family tragedy out of my mind and
memory.  Jonathon and Katy Lillejedahl Thomas were expecting a son
shortly.  I have mentioned them many times on here -- along with
my pride at Jon's service in the navy.  Yesterday Katy had a
miscarriage.  To compound the situation, doctors discovered a mass
in her abdomen that they fear might be cancerous, so they were
operating on her today.  We have not heard anything further, but
our thoughts and prayers are with them.  Julie has already flown
to Pearl Harbor, and Steve and Zac will go shortly.  Lorena cried
very hard when I told her, and I hate for her to cry alone, so I shed
some more tears with her for all of us...  I pray God's mercy and
grace on them.

Lorena's miracle continues, though.  To God be the glory. 
Thank you all for your prayers and support.  We love you.

We called Lorena again tonight, desperate to talk to her, only to be told that she is in therapy and will not be out for another hour and twenty minutes.  It was 10:55 p.m. here (9:55 p.m. there) so that will give you an idea of her therapy hours and why it is so difficult for us to get to talk to her.  Stephanie has been going to baby sit at times ranging from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., so we are all just about to drop around here.  Then, on top of that, it doesn't matter when we call, Lorena is usually in therapy.  We all desperately want to talk to her, but she is unavailable.

And here I am complaining.  If we had kept her here in the States, she would not be in therapy.  Ever.  She would be dead.  She is in therapy, and she is getting better.  I am complaining, and I am an idiot.  I just need to talk to her.  I need to hear her voice.  I need to hear her laugh.  We all do.  We just need her...