Twice Baked Blogging

I already blogged today, yes. But...it's my blog and I can blog twice in one day if I want to. It will be long so you don't need to read it if you don't want to. This blog is for me anyways.

I remember when I was younger (think ages 3-6), my brothers would get into trouble a lot. I never would...I'm an angel, remember? A lot of that "trouble" would mean they would end up fighting. Nate scratched Ty, then they would kick... and wrestle...and so on. Mom used to make them sit at opposite sides of the long couch and stare at each other. Within a couple minutes, the glares would melt and they would start laughing. Mom would then release them and they would be on their way. I remember being on one side of that couch (obviously my mom was mistaken because I, of course, was not at fault). I still laugh thinking about it. That's probably why whenever J is getting on my nerves, I start to laugh.

I remember we would go for bike rides ALL the time. We only had one car and Dad would take it to work, so Mom would either walk with us, or ride bikes with us everywhere. I remember one particular outing we went and saw some horses that were along side one of the roads we were riding down. I had never been taught how to properly feed a horse, so I proceeded to feed this gigantic, white horse the completely wrong way. Mom said, "I remember looking over not a minute later and your entire arm was in the horse's mouth." I don't remember freaking out...but maybe I did. (That was strike one with me and horses, by the way.)

I remember playing Batman all the time. Ty was always Batman, Nate was always Robin, and I was either Catwoman or Batgirl. Mom used to cut up old black sweatshirts to make our face masks out of. Then we'd throw on towels or blankets and chase each other around the yard. I still have an urge sometimes to throw on an old face mask and run around. We also used those masks to play Ninja Turtles. I always wanted to be Michelangelo because he was the funny one, but Nate was always Michelangelo and Ty was always Leonardo. They always made me play Donatello because he was the purple one and purple, of course, is a girl color.

I remember feeling that Fall was magical. Something in the air always changed and I felt like anything could happen. Fall was my favorite time of year. School started (this is back when school was fun) which meant school supply shopping, Halloween was just around the corner, which meant Christmas was on its way, and there was pretty much nothing but cloudy days in sight for the rest of the year. I was definitely raised in the right state. I could give a hoot for sunny days, but you throw me a cloudy day and I feel like a new person. (I live in the totally wrong state now.) I think second grade was my favorite...ever. It even topped kindergarten.

Speaking of kindergarten, I remember walking to the bus stop one day in the fall and I slipped on a patch of ice. I landed right on my nose onto the loose little bits of gravel. I walked home crying not only because it hurt, but mainly because I was so concerned that I had little bits of gravel permanently embedded into my nose. Mom let me stay home for a little bit, then drove me to school. I felt so self-conscious. I knew for sure all the kids were going to tease me. And, I still remember coming home, eating some macaroni and cheese with a side of carrots, and telling my mom, "And Mom, not one kid made fun of me! They didn't even know!"

One year for Halloween, my mom thought it would be fun for me to dress up as a bunch of grapes. I readily agreed thinking, "How original!" (In a 6-year-old's language, of course.) I remember when she got done doing my face paint all purple, I looked in the mirror and thought, "I look like those weird orange guys on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." (Nevermind that orange is totally not the color purple.) And I started to cry. Why couldn't I be dressed up like a pretty princess?? My little 6-year-old heart was broken. So even after all the hard work of blowing up and attaching all those purple balloons to my little body, my mom took a couple pictures, then took all the balloons off and let me go to the carnival just dressed in purple. If I could, I would go back in time and tell my 6-year-old self to quit wanting to be like everyone else and stay dressed up as a bunch of grapes (with more tact...I was a sensitive little thing) . That was the cutest costume ever.

When we were homeschooled with my cousins when I was 8, all 6 (three cousins, two brothers) of us would ride our bikes everywhere. We used to ride to the closest grocery store where they had 10 cent Shastas, then we would go to the library, and the park, and just ride up and down the whole town. We owned that place. After school, we would work on our tree fort we were building--it was a three story tree house that was the coolest thing since peanut butter and jelly to our young, adventurous eyes. Also among our favorite activities was going up to my great-grandparent's ranch and roaming around the land. We'd play with the horses and the cats and the dogs. We'd climb up to the hayloft and play in there. We'd come up with all kinds of secret games and clubs. We were excellent spies. I remember we would be playing in our neighborhood and we wandered over to the far side and found this little trail leading to this secret place that no one knew about (or so we thought). We might as well have stuck a flag there because as far as we were concerned, it was our country.

I remember Dad coming home from work to Nate and I while Mom was at the hospital with Ty doing his MRI and tests. He brought Nate and I into my room, sat on my bed, told us that they found a tumor in Ty's brain, and started sobbing. My 9 year old brain couldn't process the severity of it. All I knew was that my Dad, who never cries, was crying on my bed. I looked awkwardly at Nate, and kind of smiled a weird, "What do we do?" When Mom and Ty got home, I was so nervous because I didn't know how to act. Then, I gave Ty a hug and everything was normal again. This was just my brother. He was just sick. We went to Utah the next afternoon. "Childhood Ty" went into surgery and never came out again. He was still there...in some ways, i guess...but he was different. No more Leonardo or Batman. No more pogs. No more bike rides and crazy adventures.

"Childhood Ty" was gone, but Ty was still there. The same sweet, caring, protective older brother of my younger youth was always manifesting himself. I was I think in 8th grade one day when I got sick. I remember Ty came over to me and threw his favorite blanket on me (which was my favorite blanket...so big and soft...totally coveted that blanket) and proceeded to tuck the sides in completely so I was in a cocoon. I remember thinking that it wasn't very comfortable, but I was too touched to move and undo the work he had done. He still had double vision, couldn't walk straight, and was so swelled up, but he didn't even think about himself. He just took care of me. Asked if there was anything I wanted. Gave me the remote. Let me pick what we watched. Pretty sure I've never met a more Christ-like person than him. He was always doing things like that.

A lot of the time, Nate and I would be by ourselves. Mom and Ty would be in Utah doing more Chemo and Radiation and Dad would have to work so we'd be left to our own devices. I remember cooking a lot of instant mashed potatoes. I loved those things. We also watched a lot of Johnny Quest and Scooby-Doo. Nate and I quickly adapted our play time from the 3-person game of Batman, Robin, and Batgirl/Catwoman, to Johnny Quest (He was Johnny, and I was Jessie). His old trunk was our jeep. One day we got really bored, so we decided to use the recliner our grandpa gave us for Ty to use as a catapult/sea-saw device. We would kick out the leg rest and push the back of it almost parallel with the floor. One of us would be balanced on one end while the other would jump onto the opposite end which resulted in someone flying off into the living room. We played that until Nate got his hand smashed in the footrest when it closed on accident.

When Mom and Ty were gone, and we would be with Dad, he would cook steak and ravioli (Chef Boyardee) pretty much every night for dinner. He went through his pro-wrestling phase then. Monday Night Wrestling and Thursday Night Thunder. That's when I first saw the preview to the movie Chucky...that freaky doll. I still get scared of that thing.

I remember standing in the front yard talking with our friend Marianne when I was 14. Her husband ran out of the house with each of his daughters under his arms like they were footballs and said, "Marianne. We gotta go." Marianne started to cry and gave me a really quick hug and said, "I love you, Jess." She then ran away and my grandpa came outside and said, "Jessie. You need to come inside." I was oblivious. Seriously confused. Until I followed my grandpa into Ty's room and saw Dad kneeling beside the bed, his body wracked with sobs. It set in. Ty was gone. He had left. We knew it was coming. He'd been on a morphine drip all week long. Completely out of it. He waited for my aunt and cousin to come into town before he left...I'm sure of it. They lived in Utah and we were with them all the time when we were there. My cousin is one of my best friends. Mom told Aunt Cori how bad Ty was getting and she said, "We're on our way." We thought he was going to go a few days before that but he held on. It was probably about 3 hours after they got here and got to say good-bye that he left. That was a whirlwind. I remember everything...almost every detail; but, at the same time, it feels like a blur. That was 7 years ago.

I'm very reminiscent today. It's weird to think about my life then. Sometimes, it feels like a dream. Most of the time, I feel like I've always been in my 20s and have never been a kid. It's good to remember all of this.

It's also weird to think that someone who was so apart of my life...was so apart of me...isn't part of my life now. My husband doesn't know him. My children won't know him. I often think about what Ty would be like now if he hadn't gotten sick. He was so handsome. He would've broken a whole lot of ladies' hearts. He'd probably be married now (to my best friend...he was so in love with her). He'd probably have children. My child would not have been my parent's first grandchild. What would I be like? What would any of us be like? I start thinking down that road and I know that was never an option. We signed on for this. We always knew it would be like this...would end this way. And that makes me happy. And it makes me love my brother more for accepting the plan that Heavenly Father had for him. He took on the pain and sorrow of his physical body so we could all learn from that experience and become who we are today.

I'm surprised if anyone got this far. This was a lot to write and therefore, a lot to read, but I did it for me. I hope if anyone has read this, they don't think I wrote this to get sympathy or anything. That's always been my biggest concern when I tell people about Ty. I don't want the sympathetic looks. I definitely don't want to hear the, "I'm so sorry"s or "You poor thing"s. I just wanted to write about my childhood, and this event was obviously a big part of it. So there you have it. My reminiscent ramblings.