Cupcakes

Today I ate a cupcake and it doesn't seem important but to me it was everything.

First things first my grandma, the woman who raised me and puts up with me even still, my best friend who I tell everything to had stomach surgery to repair a hole and at 85 years old .. it's rough on the body..

Sunday around 12:30 pm my aunt calls me and she tells me that grams coded out and they were able to get her back but only to put her on a ventilator.. I panicked and my car broke down twice and it took me two hours but I made it there in time to hear the doctor talk.. he said she had 48 that they would keep her on the tube but her body was weak and it appeared as if everything was shutting down .. 48 hours .. get everyone here . . Say goodbye .. that's basically it..

So we did "Lutheran last rights" as I call them. I sat and I cried and I thought of the last conversation we had. I thought of how I was going to tell my soon to be three year old that her favorite person in the world wasn't going to come home and you always have those selfish thoughts. I talk to her about everything. Who was I going to run to? Who was going to listen to me now?

I brought peace within myself that night going back home. I was going to sleep tonight and stay with her tomorrow night. I thought of my grandpa he was her true love and soulmate and they had been apart for so long and I knew how hard it was on her. I thought at least she would finally be happy again.

What I did not expect is what happened the next day her kidneys were working again and she was trying to breathe on her own, so with my scared hesitation they pulled the tube and we went in and she looking at us and trying to say something . She was trying to tell me I needed my coat. My grandmother who was on deaths door trying to meet Jesus wakes up to tell me I need to put a coat on and if nothing describes our relationship better then that.

I would like to thank everyone that prayed for me or on behalf of me I should say. I like to think that I have a strong faith but in times like these and especially this weekend I know I don't. My whole life it seems has been a long line of unfortunate events with little room for miracles but let me tell you, on Monday a miracle happened, the doctors said so themselves.

So I stayed with her all night Monday and I got 2 whole whopping hours of sleep in the ICU waiting room and I went home and I ran 2.5 miles and did my regular workout just in awe of what happened. It was so close to losing everything it makes you feel alive somehow and renewed somehow in myself as well. It really healed a little piece of my faith that I didn't even know was missing. This day could have been so different, I could have had to say goodbye to my biggest fan and my support system but instead I got a happy day so I ate the cupcake and I smiled and I could care less how many damn calories were in it.

So I challenge you two things, pray or wish if you don't pray for something extraordinary that you didn't think would happen because you honestly never know. Have some faith and trust. Also I challenge you to eat the cupcake and smile, maybe not everyday, but when you need it and deserve it.

If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com

God Bless

-          Adriene Song

Life Lessons Not Learned in School

There are a lot of things that makes a person who they are. I do a lot of things for many reasons, I do not know if I am more broken than most but at 23, I have been through more than most. I have had to totally rebuild my life and start over more times than I could possibly count, before I was an adult even. While going through a box of my things, school paper work and such, I found two old report cards, and I think they were put in the envelope together to show me something, a tragedy in my life, but a lesson, I have yet to recover from.

I was a good student in school my entire life, things like that just came natural to me. I didn’t have to study, but I always did my homework, I realized later that I just didn’t want to let anyone down, it wasn’t about the attention, which I got because of all the awards I got in elementary school and middle school. I was on a fast track and the world was at my feet, at the beginning junior year of high school, I was going to a member of the National Honor Society, graduate with honors, get a lot of scholarships and maybe even become the Valedictorian, those were the goals I had. That was not the results I got, however, sitting in my seat at Senior graduation, I was only walking, I had not in fact graduated (which made me last in the class I suppose) , I had only one scholarship, and I had zero honors. What changed in a year and a half? Everything.

My grade cards I sat the other night and stared at the end of my sophomore year with a 3.7 and the first half of my junior year with a 3.1 and it only dropped from there. I saw them and threw them in disgust. The next morning on my time travel app my Facebook reminded me WHY those changes happened and I have to ask after I say it, why I almost didn’t graduate, what would you choose?

Around this time, 6 years ago, I made a huge choice. I left high school for two weeks, it was not a long time, but it was enough to fail me in two classes because it put me so far behind, and I barely passed the others.

My Grandfather was dying.

The man that raised me, I looked up to him for everything, I was his sunshine, If I ever wanted anything, I knew if he could, he would get it for me, he wanted me to have everything he could afford or give me any experience I wanted. We were so a like in so many ways, and I get a lot of my traits from him, my love of history and camping, my ability to tell a story, my temper, that’s all him.

When I was sixteen he was diagnosed with cancer, it started with a patch of skin cancer on his back and in two years was everywhere. My sophomore year of high school was filled with nothing but doctors’ appointments, various doctors, almost every day. I watched this man that had been so strong and stubborn go through chemo and radiation, become so weak he could barely walk, was afraid to do the things he loved, he went in and out of the hospital all the time. I spent most of that summer at summer camp because I didn’t know how to handle it, I hated seeing him like that, and there was nothing I could do to help it.

The last time I saw my grandfather going into a hospital was in late August 2008 as he was being wheeled on a bed he cried and said he didn’t want to go back, he didn’t want to do it anymore.

 I was going to school and driving to the hospital at night to spend the night at my grandfather’s side because each night they weren’t sure, it could have been his last. I finally broke down, I was tired of not sleeping right, going to school and every time they came on the PA system I prayed they didn’t call me down to the office to tell me that my grandfather was gone , so I asked my grandma, “What do I do?”, I had missed so much school as it was and she just looked at me and shook her head, “What you think you need to.” It was one of the first times she had treated me as an adult, I was only sixteen.

I chose to be by grandpa’s side.  Even after he couldn’t remember anyone, he remembered me, he couldn’t remember the love of his life, but he remembered his granddaughter. He even remembered to tell me ‘Happy Birthday’ and that was one of the last things he ever said to me.

Four days later, he took his last breath and the cancer took him from us.

My grades never recovered. I was lost in grief for a long time, and maybe I still am, I still cry as I write this. I lost myself so badly, I did many things to try and get rid of that pain.

I like to think I found out an important lesson, one that I may need to “unlearn” if I ever want to be a good student again, but I learned that sometimes, what you think is important in life, is not. There was something more than school. My life had been all about it until that time, school came first, but in this time it didn’t. I cared more about my grandfather, I may not have known at the time all I was giving up, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but I knew it would be worth it. Every birthday I imagine him smiling and telling me ‘Happy Birthday Seetheart’ (it’s what he always called me), that memory alone was worth it.

Ever since that time in my life my outlook has been jaded. I thought being with my friends was more important than an A on a test or quiz , and going out was more important than finishing a paper. Maybe I was wrong, but am I? An education is important but so is friendship and being happy. Someday, I will finish my education, and I do hope to get good grades but I will never lose sight of that lesson, that you need to make memories and be happy and it comes down to some tough decisions. So what will you choose?

 If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com
God Bless
-          Adriene Song

For Robin

Rarely ever does the news affect me and never have I wrote a blog about what is going on in Hollywood but I feel like this is necessary for me today, I just feel called tonight to write this and it was kind of prompted by my tattoo artist as well from his statement he made. I am tired of people talking about suicide by calling it selfish because this is just not the case, not in the mind of someone who is battling depression to the point of taking their life.

                I have been there. It is something that I battle often, depression, and only talk about sometimes, but I’ve battled it in many forms throughout the past 6 or so years of my life. It’s more than likely not just a thought someone has just once, sometimes you fully recover, and sometimes you always have that thought in the back of your mind.

                Everyone else is rarely what you are thinking of, it’s you but it’s not selfish. When you are down in that hole of your life, all you want is a way out, something to make you feel better, and sometimes the only way is up, and by that I mean to a better place. Mine was my family and friends. I had lost a lot of people in my life and I was tired of missing everyone, I just wanted to be with them. Heaven.

                Did I not care what everyone else would think if I were to kill myself? Of course I did, but I thought that either they would understand, not miss me, get over it, or mostly be happy that I was finally ok and with the people I loved, where I wanted to be most. I thought that they would be ok without me, now I know that was not true, I was destined for so much more, to be a mother and for whatever my life has in store for me, but at that time I could not imagine such a future. I thought I was stuck, with nowhere to go, nothing else for me. I was in college, not sure what to do with my life.

                So what does it look like? How do we find the hurting? Unfortunately sometimes, you can’t tell. You don’t know ever know how much someone can be hurting inside. This is why I challenge people to be nice to people always, you never know what someone else is going through. On the outside I looked great. I was in a fraternity with a lot of friends, my grades were good, I had a boyfriend, and had a pending job offer. But inside, the hurt was so intense it was tearing me apart. I’m not even sure anyone knew. I shocked my best friend who had practically known me my entire life, to take me to the hospital, I needed help before it was too late. I am blessed to say that even though I still battle depression, I no longer have had another thought of suicide.

                I was one of the fortunate ones, I asked for help, I knew I needed it. Some, aren’t that lucky. I don’t think it’s fair to put down someone for an illness, no matter what the circumstances. That’s what depression is an illness and sometimes suicide is the end result.  BE KIND ALWAYS and watch what you say, just because you have never felt it, doesn’t make it real for someone else.

                If you need help PLEASE seek it, I have been helped through therapy and medication! THERE IS HOPE FOR YOU TOO! 1- 800-784-2433 if you have no one else you feel you can talk to call the suicide hotline!

If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com

God Bless

-          Adriene Song

Thoughts on Love

What is true love, and how do you find it, and if you think you have found it, how do you know it’s real? How do you know he is really the one you are looking for?

I have written a couple times about how I met my ex, my again, current boyfriend as I should say now. It was all by chance, what if I had never went to the bar that night. In reality I should not have gone, I had left my “date” early and decided to meet my best friend for a drink, yes the date was in fact that bad, but I never should have even been there that night at all. Can you call it coincidence? Would you call it fate?

I now look back as a young adult on my younger years and wonder what my life would have been like if he were in it with me, after all we did go to the same school. I look back and realize that he was very close my whole life and I never really noticed, was it planned like that? I used to go to sleepovers at my friend’s house and his best friend lived across the street and he was older so we used to go over and try and spy on them (I had forgotten all about these times until I took a walk recently in that old neighborhood), He ran cross country and I had always wanted to join but never had the nerve too, we had very close mutual friends, so close in fact we just discovered we were in the same group going to homecoming when I was a freshman. I wonder if we would have connected this way back then, like it was planned for us.

There is no use in wondering about the past but I do, but more often I wonder about the future. I can’t describe what I feel for him. How do you describe colors to a blind man, it’s something you just know, and experience in your own heart. Why do we try and explain feelings, because I don’t think they are supposed to have words, they just ARE. Our relationship is so strong because of the fact that we don’t get to see each other, all we have are conversations and to get to know each other, physical relationship die because they miss this piece, but we have all the time to communicate and hardly any physical time.

We do have a child together, as you have read about. This was a big part in our journey, he was gone from our lives my entire pregnancy until she was three months old. He was deployed but he could have still had a part, this took a very long time to forgive but ultimately I did because the whole time he was gone, he was all I could think about, he is all I ever think about. I have experienced life without him and I know that I hate it. I never want to be without him again, just hearing his voice is enough for me, not that I don’t dream of the times we could fall asleep together, times I dream to come again soon.

But Forever is such a scary word. F o r e v e r, I don’t know that anyone was in my life all that time, that I can fathom wanting to have someone in my life that long other than my daughter. These are thoughts that plague me day in and out. Why do we feel the need to figure it all out anyway? Why do we rush life? We have our entire lives to decide and we think that in just a year or two we need to decide our entire life out. So I guess I will just sit and wait for this thing to sort itself out and enjoy the ride as I go.

But haven’t we all thought like this? And how many times have we loved and then looked back and wondered how we ever could have thought that way in the first place, how do you really ever know? Just some thoughts and hopefully a more lighthearted post than what you are all used to from me

If you feel like you would like to share your experience with me or have something you would like me to talk about in the blog email me at: a_song4hope1123@yahoo.com
God Bless
-          Adriene Song