An Open Letter To Internet Bullies via BLUNTmoms
09 Saturday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Author Archives: mbtrevino
An Open Letter To Internet Bullies via BLUNTmoms
08 Friday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
It’s the birthday of the person who wrote this blog. As a way of honoring her and her birthday, I am re blogging. Oh yeah, and she is my kid.
This week I had the pleasure of writing a post for the fabulous website, BLUNTmoms, regarding internet bullying, which has become an issue near and dear to my heart. I’ve included a short sample of the piece, but please do stop by and check it out by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. I’d love to hear your feedback!
Another week, another news story about someone saying something idiotic and having the Internet come down on them like the hammer of Thor. While there are plenty of examples to choose from, my new favorite celebrity turned Internet punching bag is Britt McHenry, the ESPN reporter who verbally bitch-slapped a clerk at an Atlanta towing company last month on camera. It wasn’t that she did it, but rather how she did it, with plenty of bragging about her status, a little weight shaming, and some uncomfortable usage of the phrase…
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The Gift Of Living Simply
05 Tuesday May 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
OK blog world, my daughter wrote THIS!!!
This week is my birthday. For those of you in my neck of the woods, a.k.a. ‘Merica, it is also Mother’s Day, so for my husband, it’s a double whammy of gift-giving expectations. While there is a certain appeal to amassing more things, newer things, better things, to replace my other things, there is something I want even more. Something that is free, and easy, and can never be snatched off the counter by tiny toddler hands and thrown in the toilet. It is something I want to give to myself as much as I want it given to me. Above all else, it’s something I want to give to my daughter, so she never forgets what is truly important in life.
I want to live simply.
This idea came to me this weekend while visiting with family. It was the very best of visits, the kind that end with all of…
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Repeat After Me
21 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in AARP, Aging, Alzheimers, Anti-Aging, Assisted Living, Boomers, Dementia, Elders, livability
For those of us who grew up with vinyl records, we know what it sounds like when a record skips. You hear the same music or lyrics over and over until you move the arm over the scratch. Or you could tape a penny onto the arm to try to create enough pressure for the needle to find it’s way through. You had a favorite song, off a favorite record, by a favorite group. It’s difficult to give it all up.
I hear the same stories over and over when visiting with my step-dad at the Retirement Community for Active Seniors where he resides. I have tried all the hints; validate what they are saying, distract or redirect them to another activity. But within minutes, he repeats the same question, the same story over and over. I have not found a way to tape a penny to the arm that is guiding that needle through the grooves in his mind.
I dearly love this man; he’s the remaining elder of our family. I try to spend time with him regularly. In order to do so, I have learned to set limits. In a typical visit, I hear the same story every 5 minutes. When we sit with his friends, almost all of them do exactly the same thing. I cannot change the course of his life but I try to show up and show some compassion. And, I try to learn from what I am witnessing. I plan to plan for my own inevitable changes.
Repeat after me- Plan on aging. It eventually happens. Normal aging does not condemn you to assisted living, but the majority of the people residing where my step-dad lives have some obvious degree of dementia. Dementia is a broad term and Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia. Alzheimer’s numbers are alarming. An estimated 5.3 million Americans have this disease.
This number continues to grow. In ten years, the number of people 65 + with Alzheimer’s is estimated to reach over 7 million. My friend has a mom that lives in the same Retirement Community as my step-dad. She is moving her mom to another facility, one that can seamlessly transition residents from assisted living to full-time nursing care. Her mom’s health is diminishing. My friend is planning for the next step.
Repeat after me, start thinking about your own future. Repeat after me- plan on aging.
Isn’t She Wonderful
14 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in Aging, Blindness, Grandparenting, Isn't She Wonderful
Gramps had cataracts. He had them removed when one of my daughters was about 6 months old. He’d met her and held her before his surgery but shortly after the cataracts were removed, we visited him again. He held my baby up in the air and examined her. For the first time, he could see her clearly.
She was his first Great-Grandchild. His eyes filled with tears that silently slid down his cheeks, but his smile stretched from ear to ear. He cradled her close to his heart and said to all of us quietly watching, “Isn’t she wonderful.”
His mother had cataracts too but in her day, surgery was not an option and hers were not removed. She eventually lost her vision. Her death certificate actually states that she was blind.
As a child, Gramps would take me to visit with her and most every time, she would ask him to run an errand. She kept her money stashed away in a small wooden box. She only used $5.00 bills so there was no mistake about the amount.
He would try to refuse her money but he learned long ago to comply. It was important to let her go through the steps of opening the box, feeling the thick stack of bills and carefully taking out a few to give to him.
Her independence was vital to her spirit. Once, when Gramps was off running errands, she heard my stomach growl. She had not lost her hearing. In fact, it seemed like she had super-powers.
I followed the unspoken rule and did not try to change her mind. She told me to go out into the backyard to the hen house and gather some eggs. I did. I brought them in and watched in complete amazement as she found her box of matches, lit the burner on her gas stove, slid the cast iron skillet onto that burner and fried us each an egg.
I knew she was totally blind. But she knew her own world and managed to live in it.
She heard the car before I did. When she told me to wipe the egg off my face, I realized that she really wasn’t blind, she just couldn’t see.
I felt sad leaving her. I think all of us were a little sad. She whispered something to Gramps as they hugged goodbye. I saw a tear slide down his cheek and looked and saw that she had wet cheeks too, but they were both smiling.
I waved goodbye as we drove away but then realized she couldn’t see me waving.
Gramps could tell I was sad. He asked me if I understood what she had said. They only spoke Spanish to each other. I spoke Spanglish. That is what we called our blend of English and Spanish.
He said that she told him I was wonderful and then he said to me; “Isn’t she wonderful?”
It’s Your Own Damn Fault
10 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
“If you’re not having fun, it’s your own damn fault” my grandfather proclaimed at his 80th birthday party when he was implored to make the obligatory toast. The large, exuberant crowd quieted, the adults raised their champagne flutes, and the great-grandchildren lifted their punch glasses. Clink, clink; take a drink. It was true. The party had been well-planned by my dad, his only living child and was very well-attended. Gramps was well-loved by many. It was a party for the record books, a true memory maker.
Gramps lived almost another 10 years. For most of his last decade he practiced what he proclaimed, he was having fun. He lived down in the Rio Grande Valley where he’d spent his entire life. There is a stretch of this valley that runs along the Gulf Coast. I had just turned 4 years old when we were riding out Hurricane Deborah together. Late that night, the power went out and by candle- light, he told me his story about surviving a hurricane that happened when he himself had just turned 4 years old.
Look up the 1916 Hurricane season; there it is. It is simply called #6. It’s dates range from Aug 12- Aug 20. Gramps was born on August 2, 1912. The storm made landfall on Padre Island on August 18. The winds were clocked at 135 mph. He and his mom and sister were there. They’d go there regularly with his step-dad to fish and they had fashioned a simple camp to shelter in. To avert disaster, they used a door and made a raft to stay afloat and ride out the storm. His step-dad had been out fishing. They never saw him again, but Gramps, his mom and little sister survived. And we survived that loud, dark night of Hurricane Deborah. We could not evacuate because my mom was in labor. She gave birth to my third brother during that hurricane.
I fondly recall Gramps gently revealing the story of his childhood storm. He recognized the teachable moment. He knew that carefully chosen words could comfort, entertain and inspire. I distinctly remember him giving the whole birthday party crowd his parting words of octogenarian wisdom; “If you’re not having fun, it’s your own damn fault.”
In loving memory of David Trevino Jr; August 2, 1912- April 5, 2002.
9 Clues Becoming A Parent Has Turned You Into A Superhero
08 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
1. You spawned a life. Not to take away from the male, um, contribution, but growing a baby in your stomach, and then surviving their transition to the outside world, seems like pretty convincing street cred supporting your new Superhero status.
2. You can see seconds into the future. You know before anyone else does that your kid is about test the gravitational pull of the earth with their forehead. You are aware of their next move before they are aware of their next move. If you had more time on your hands, you could open up a 1-800 hotline and tell people their (immediate) futures, but let’s be honest. If you had more time on your hands, you’d take a shower and maybe, just maybe, brush your teeth.
I am “knows who Miss Cleo is” years old.
3. You have superhuman reflexes that, when coupled with Superhero power…
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The Thought Process Of A Mom Locked In A Bathroom While Her Toddler Roams Free In The House
02 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Yesterday Baby 1.0 pulled the world’s best/worst April Fools Day prank on me, and locked me in the bathroom while we were alone during the day. How did she manage such a feat, you may ask? Well, it’s a multi-step process that Baby 1.0 mastered in one try. Step 1: Shut bathroom door (preferably. Step 2: Open adjacent laundry room door as wide as it will go. Step 3: Watch person on the other side of the door struggle because the laundry room door is wedged against the bathroom door, thereby preventing it from opening. Step 4: Under no circumstances are you to follow their instructions of “Just shut the door, Baby!” no matter how upset you may become, because then it would be a lame prank.
So what exactly goes through a person’s mind after becoming locked in a bathroom, separated from their toddler, who is free in a house full of…
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Honored Old Memory
27 Friday Mar 2015
Posted in Love
Tags
He was a Rembrandt; a pitcher who could ‘paint the corners.’ He was a living Michelangelo’s David. And he was mine for a dreamy season of time that linked us together. We cooked, surfed, rode bikes, played tennis, sang off-key; every song on the Eagle’s Desperado album. He read Jonathan Livingston Seagull out loud to me. For my birthday he gave me a simple gold cross. For Christmas, a Bentwood rocker. We set a date, ordered invitations; I bought my bleached-muslin wedding dress. But that very night I had a nightmare that was so horrific, it sucked the life out me. I completely panicked, called off the wedding and rushed back to school. He got a steady job at the Grain Elevators. I studied furiously, graduated quickly and kept on running. February of 1978, I heard during a long-distance phone call from my broken-hearted mom that there had been an explosion 40 days earlier. He had been at work that evening. He was only 26. He died; crushed very violently; and hopefully, suddently. It has taken me thirty-seven years to finally read this dreaded Death Certificate. It lists the Cause(s) of Death. It is much too graphic, too painfully horrible to repeat. I still wear my cherished gold cross. I rock in my treasured chair. I never told him why I ran away. I never had to; I know he already knew. He wanted our love to live honored in my heart forever. It does.
Park Etiquette 101: How NOT To Be The Ass Everyone Hates
24 Tuesday Mar 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Oh, the park. How I love thee, and your rolling green hills. Your trees, the only survivors of the unstoppable urban sprawl, provide shade from the hot afternoon, post-nap sun (or the drizzle if you live in the Pac NW). Your sandpit, with it’s lot of broken, discarded, plastic toys, is one of few places I can sit still while Baby 1.0 happily digs, piles and eats sand like she is one of those giant angry worms from Tremors. Your swings bring back the memories of the only way we could get our precious daughter to sleep for the first 7 months of her life. And your constant parade of playmates provide a welcome bit of socialization from what can otherwise be a bit of a lonely existence. But it’s not all sunshine and sidewalk chalk rainbows. Every once in a while, someone comes along and sullies the experience. So…
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maryelizabethtrevino 