Today is Saturday,
September 28th...............yesterday was my Birthday and depending
on how you count – it was either my 54th birthday or my 21st. I
have really wanted to write this entry for a couple of days but I
just didn't know how to put the words down without tears and today it
finally came to me.
In 1982 a VERY special
person came into my life in the form of my best friends first born
son. Josh was supposed to have entered the world in October but in
the wee hours of the morning following my pre-birthday celebration he
decided it was time. Now it was many hours after those pains started
that he entered into the world but he managed to clock in on my
birthday! Over the years we swapped cards, shared a few cakes, and
the rule was always that since he got to use MY birthday date – I
got to use HIS numbers! Well except for when he turned three, that
year he went around telling everyone that he was the BIG 3! and
since I was NOT 30 at the time I didn't chime in because I didn't
want any one to think I was 30!, lol.
I believe Josh was
about 19 at the time of the Bug saga...........
It was after my divorce
and I was working at the local quick stop and had to be at work at
5:30am. Josh's mom is a teacher but she worked at the quick stop on
weekends and she and I were scheduled that morning. I was in the
shower, grabbed the towel and started drying off. Honestly my first
thought was that I had gotten water in my ear. The next thing I knew
my body was being racked with the most horrible intense mind numbing
pain EVER, and I thought – I have ruptured an ear drum!
I will not go in to
details, but I called my friend and she and her daughter came to get
me. We dropped her off at the quick stop and Lacey took me to the
hospital. The pain would come and go and when it hit – OH MY! I
literally squeezed a coke bottle so hard that I POPPED the lid off of
it during one of the pain waves. We were in the ER for a while when
the doctor came in with the LONGEST pair of tweezers I have ever seen
and pulled a tiny black bug out of my ear..............and no more
pain! He said the pain waves were when the bug was trying to crawl
through/around my ear drum.
I must note that during
this time I was reading a lot of Tom Clancy and I had kind of gotten
the attitude that being a spy would be cool. After this I knew that
all they would have to do is threaten to put a bug in my ear and I
would tell them ANYTHING they wanted to know! So I quickly ditched
the spy as a second career idea!
Now Josh was just a
little bit ornery (okay, a WHOLE lot ornery but that is part of the
reason I loved him so much) but he loved me and he tried to react to
the whole “bug in the ear” thing with SOME amount of sympathy but
he was not very successful. He thought it was hysterical and pretty
darn silly that I went to the hospital over the whole
deal................
Well that was until
during the summer he was out in a field, bugs were flying everywhere
and Karma sent one in to his ear. After a great deal of hitting
himself on the side of the head, tears coming to his eyes from the
pain, and telling the guy he was working with that HE might have to
go to the hospital to get the damn thing out.................well it
finally came out and he had a LOT more sympathy for his Aunt Rhonda.
When Josh turned 21 he
was away getting his certification to be a hunting guide. I was so
excited when he got back to town and we exchanged Birthday Hugs and
Congrats. I told him this was the best birthday yet – we were 21!
YAY!
Josh had a wreck
Thanksgiving weekend that year, he never really woke up from the
accident and we lost him right before Christmas.
That was 10 years ago
and I still have a hard time when it comes to my birthday but I put a
smile on my face, I think about bugs in ears, and I remember being
forever 21.
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