RIP Tina

An old friend of mine passed away last week.

I met Tina through one of my oldest friends, Michael. He and I were next door neighbors when we were super little- he was still in diapers when we met. Of course, I was already potty-trained and 6 months younger. Go me!

We attended kindergarten together and his mom watched her 3 boys and my sister and I every day after school for years and years. Our moms are still best friends.

Michael is... not smart. He is actually pretty damn stupid, but I love him. Flaws and all.

Tina and Michael met when they were about 20 years old. She was lots of fun to hang out with, but came from a life of being shuffled from foster home to juvenile hall to her completely fucked up mom's house back to foster home. So she was a little bit reckless.

Coupled with Michael's lack of brains and her carelessness, they made a baby. Tina was horribly sick through the entire pregnancy. She had to be on bed rest very early-on and was hooked up to a fluids IV at home. Michael wasn't a big help to her, but his mom let her move in until the baby was born so that she could make sure Tina and her future grand baby were taken care of.

Tina recruited me to help her through the delivery. She was afraid that Michael would bolt from the hospital the second she screamed at him in anger. The day came for her to finally give birth and we all rushed to the hospital at an ungodly early hour in the morning.

She delivered with the assistance of a mid-wife. Michael, surprisingly, made it to the hospital and was not looking terribly uncomfortable until Tina had to start pushing. A nurse held one of Tina's legs back while I held the other. Michael looked like he was going to pass out and mumbled something about needing to get out of the room.

I knew how important is was for Tina to have him there, so I held Michael tightly with my free arm. The baby boy was born and two ecstatic parents cooed over him and both cried with joy.

Unfortunately, the joy didn't last between Michael and Tina in their relationship. He got bored or distracted or forgot he was a baby daddy and went off to start a new relationship with another lady. Tina moved into her own apartment and relied on public assistance for her income. Michael was almost completely uninterested in spending time with their son.

Michael went on to have 2 more children with 2 more ladies in the next few years. Like I said, not so smart. He has neither the resources nor the dedication to be a good father to any of them.

Unfortunately, Tina went back to what she knew- living recklessly. Drugs, stealing, drinking, constant drama. She got tossed in jail a few times, but didn't slow down at all. She couldn't concentrate on ruining her own life while raising her son, so Michael's mom and dad stepped in and he has lived with them since the time he could crawl. Tina didn't see her son for years.

Last year, Tina was thrown in jail for yet another drug charge. Just before she was sentenced, she noticed a lump in her breast. During sentencing, she asked the judge to allow her to suspend her entry into jail so that she could seek medical attention. He assured her that it would be taken care of while she served her time. They would provide her with medical attention during her 6 months in jail.

But they didn't. By the time Tina was released, she was sick with cancer from her head to her toes. It went from something possibly minor to an all-out war against her system. She knew that this was it for her- that she wouldn't survive this attack. Tina went through every kind of cancer treatment possible to extend her time on Earth so that she could try to right some wrongs.

She spent time with her son. She stayed at her father's bedside while he died. She spent more time with her son.

Then, she died. I'm not sure if her son knew her well enough to feel the incredible pain of saying goodbye. But knowing Tina, she felt every last second of every day she didn't spend with him. If she had known that her life was going to be so short, she would have been there. She would have tried harder to be a good mother. I can't imagine the pain she went through- knowing the choices she had made were so thoughtless.

I just hope that she has found peace. That she connected with her son, who desperately needed to feel loved by his mother. And I hope that Michael, at some point, realizes that he needs to put his desires on the back burner and give his son a father.

Forgot the car

My friend Wendy and I worked together at a hardware store and lived together in our tiny little town when we were 19/20. We went out and got wasted one night at a party and somehow made it back home. Neither of us remembered who drove us back, or where we left the car, but we had to be at work by 9am.

While I showered, Wendy called her step-dad to come pick us up and take us to work. We'd find the car later-after the hangovers wore off and we were done with work for the day.

We both got all ready for the day in our matching store shirts and heard Shawn pull up, so we went out to the driveway. And there was Wendy's car. Also in the driveway. Shawn was looking at us like we had three heads each- if we had the car, why did we need a ride?!?!? Oops.

I drove Wendy's car to work and Shawn took Wendy in his truck so that he could lecture her the whole way to the store.

The Velvet Bow

I used to work for a completely insane, drugged up, brilliantly talented dog groomer named Dave.

My friend Billy worked for him first. Then, Billy went to jail for drugs and Dave was without an assistant. Billy knew I had just gotten canned from my job (I was late every day for a year and a half. Oops.) and told Dave that he should ask me if I wanted to replace him.

So there I am, sitting in my living room, smoking the reefer and wondering how I'm going to afford next month's rent when Dave walks in. Just waltzed right into my house and introduced himself.

I knew who he was through Billy, but we had never met.

It was kind of funny to me that he didn't knock or think to at least stop in the doorway for a quick "yoohoo" before strolling in, but it wasn't uncommon. My home was a welcoming place at the time. The door was never locked and I often found friends hanging out at my place when I returned from wherever I was. It's not like I had anything to steal when I was that young, in my first apartment.

Back to Dave- he told me that he needed me to come work for him. He'd train me and I could schedule grooming appointments around MY schedule- he was flexible. Wow, what a great deal! No job search. No filling out applications. No driving to work even- he was a few blocks away.

I ended up working for Dave at the Velvet bow for about 9 months. Over that time, he got more and more strange, but he still paid me and I learned a lot about dogs and grooming, so I didn't mind much. The benefits were great too- he'd leave a pipe full of reefer in the bathroom for me, with instructions to turn the fan on in there to smoke so customers wouldn't smell it. AND he'd always leave a 6-pack of beer in the fridge and encourage me to have some throughout the day.

Things started to fall apart between Dave and his very straight & narrow wife and he started to have trouble with the law- something about the sherrifs getting pissed at Dave for shooting his rifle on his acreage late at night. He liked to do target practice in the dark.

He stopped showing up to work when I had appointments booked for him and I certainly wasn't about to try the super fancy cuts that he did on the dogs I booked for him, so we lost a lot of customers and I wasn't making as much money, and I left. On good terms though, no hard feelings.

I guess he and his wife broke up and he continued to get weirder- he showed up at the bar where my sister worked about a year after I left. He was wearing a bathrobe and was rolling on the floor. They asked him to leave and he did, but not before inquiring about how I was doing. That was an awkward call from my sister for sure.

I drove by the Velvet Bow shop last time I was in town and saw that it's now a massage studio. I was kind of sad to see the old place go.