Up Dated Resume

3/07- Present APRIA HEALTHCARE
responsibilities Include: supervising assets, procurement, distribution, inventory and equipment utilization.

12/06-2/07 Mr. MOM
Stay at home dad, bonding with three year old son, making breakfast-lunch and dinner, taking baths, coloring and going on various adventures to other planets, other times and becoming pirates or cowboys with him. Watching Dora, Scooby Doo and Sponge Bob. Also attended my other children’s baseball games, basketball games and classes for various story times. Most fulfilling position ever held.

10/04-12/06 QUEST HEALTHCARE

Yep! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, mom's and dad's, it's time to return to the work force. After having the last three months off due to the incompetent upper management of my previous employer (just a bit of sarcasm there!) I will begin employment with Apria Healthcare. Still in the same field, doing what I seem to know best, with some of the people I have worked with in the past.
It's funny because Apria is the one company I always said I wouldn't work for. They have a bad reputation for poor service in Fresno and I had bad luck with them when they serviced my late wife. BUT that's one of the things I hope to fix. Having met with some of the upper management, I feel that they are going in the right direction.

So with a very heavy heart, I'll be leaving my three year old with my sister in law and starting Monday. I will so miss watching Clayton play and color and just be a cute kid. I'll miss the baths, light saber fights, and making "reetos" for him.

I know hindsight is 20-20. It's kind of funny to look back over the last three months and think about all the emotions I went through. Anger, Worthlessness, Anxiety,...then about three weeks ago I had a dream. I couldn't remember what happened in it when I woke up, but I did remember having L J H I written on my knuckles of my left hand and in the palm of the same hand.

It stands for "Let Jesus Handle It".

So I did.

And He did.

And I'm back working again!

The BIG Day

Today is the day! My oldest son, Archie, has his first real date tonight. Just where the heck did the time go? Shouldn't I still be teaching him to ride a bike, or tucking him in at night?
Tonight he and a young lady will be attending the ROTC Military Ball. I will be the chauffeur for the evening and I bet I'm more nervous than either of them. Just another step in his growing up. Next thing I know, he'll be moving out! That's the day I will say "WHOOOOHOOOOOOO!!! ONLY FIVE MORE TO GO!!"

I'll have some photos this weekend, y'all come back now, ya hear?

UPDATE!!!
received a call from Archie saying that the girls mother wants to take them and pick them up. She told me "I just don't want her to get in a car with a 17 year old driver" I guess she was talking about another kid driving as Archie is only 15, but I like her already! Here is a parent that cares about what her kid is doing!!

The Late Night Call

Night before last, the phone rang at 3:30 am. In my sleep induced stupor I reached for the phone but in a split second I said to Yvette, "You get it". It was her step-dad. Yvette's mother has been having health problems for the last few years and had passed out while in the bathroom. He had revived her but I guess he didn't know what to do. Yvette told her father to call 911 and she then tried to call her brother, but only his answer machine answered. She then jumped in the car and went to pick up her step-father and they followed the ambulance to the hospital. After many, many tests she was admitted into the hospital for "observation" and is still there. She seems to be doing ok now (I think she just wanted some attention!) and our hopes are that she will be able to come home soon.
The reason that I didn't answer the phone is because I have received that phone call twice in the past six years. The "you need to come here now, she isn't going to make it through the night" call. Nothing scares me more than that late night phone call. I simply cowered out of answering it this time. I fear that's it's about my mom, she will be 78 this summer. I fear it's my other sister, who seems to be having more and more health problems or maybe it's her husband, or even my in-laws. The fear that rockets through me when that phone rings at that time of night brings back such bad memories, that I really can't explain it.
Yvette spend about eleven hours at the hospital yesterday. I remember those times like they were this morning. Sitting there while Debbie was totally out of it, or while Suzie drifted from knowing me to being a complete stranger. Your mind begins to run. Run with the "what ifs" and the "how come's". I would start to wonder what they might be feeling, if they knew I was even there. I would drive to Stanford for Debbie and spend the whole day there, returning home at about 10 PM and all the while, she would never regain consciousness. Did she even know I was there? Was I just doing it for myself? I once asked her if she remembered me being there and she told me no, she didn't remember much of that time, but there were times I would talk to her and she would squeeze my hand ever so slightly. So, I don't know. She died with me holding her hand and telling her I loved her and it was ok to go, she had fought a terrific fight. Suzie was much the same. I kissed her head, told her I loved her, carresed her hair for a while, then she was gone.
I don't know why these things seem to always start at night, but they always seem to. That may be one of the questions that I ask the Big Cowboy in the sky when I get there. I have a few to ask Him.
And as for that late night phone call, well I hope it never comes my way again!