Augusts

I feel I need to write. Will I click "publish post?" I won't know until the end of the ramble.

The month of August.

My mother's birthday is this month. She was born August 4, 1925, and died January 31, 2009.

I don't recall the year of my father's birth, but his birthday is August 18. He died in February, 1996, on a Friday. I think it was in February. I know it was a Friday; I was to attend the first session of The Way's then new foundational class that night. The session was postponed due to a snow storm. My father was around 73(?) when he died. So he must have been born around 1923. He lived as a quadriplegic the last 13 years of his life.

My son's birthday is coming up on August 14. He will be 21 this year.

What was I doing at 21 years old? That would have been August, 1980, the beginning of my interim year of the 10th Way Corps. That August, I worked Children's Camp for Corps Week at The Way College in Indiana. I then went to the Rock of Ages, the 5-day then annual festival of The Way where we welcomed home the Word Over the World (WOW) Ambassadors from the previous year and celebrated the commissioning of the new WOW Ambassadors for the current year; years running from August to August.

I went out WOW that year of 1980. It was my second time going WOW and was my interim year Way Corps assignment. I was a WOW team coordinator and was sent to Torrington, Connecticut. I left "the WOW field" in AWOL fashion in October that same year. The shame of that action haunted me for decades, and still haunts me at times. I broke my vow, a most heinous action, especially for Way Corps.

August, 1981, I found myself in a Way Home in Cleveland, Ohio, starting The Way Corps all over again with my second apprenticeship year. I developed asthma at that time, around September, 1981. My last bout with severe asthma attacks was January, 1999. I still use an inhaler on a somewhat regular basis, but have no severe attacks anymore. I hope I never do again.

August, 2009, is when "Ria" came to our home and ended up staying for seven weeks. I've written very little about that experience. It was a roller coaster ride, and an odd one, culminating in October, 2009, and me leaving my own home shaken with fear due to her final outburst. Previous to that outburst, I had told her she could stay with us awhile. That changed when she broke the dish and had yet another melt down, another one directed at me. At the time, I wondered if she suffered from DID. I had wanted to help; I failed I guess.

As much as I don't want to bring up the not-too-distant past experience with my ex-therapist, the culmination of that experience, happened in August, 2010. As silly as it may sound, not a day goes by as of yet that I don't think about that and still wonder how in god's name it ended up like it did. It's still difficult for me to believe and accept, and I get embarrassed at the impact it has had on me. I wish that weren't the case; I wish I had a switch to turn it off. Eventually it will drift into the memory vault of past "stuff." My typical grief and integration time period after something touches me deeply is two years. August 2 and 3, 2012, will mark two years.

2012, the year 'everyone' is waiting for with the grand date being 12/21/12. My husband's birthday is 12/22. I imagine we will celebrate it like any other birthday.

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Addendum: Dad died February 16, 1996.
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