The fire.

 It can be exhausting, to be the one to smile 

all the time.

It can be breaking, to be the one that tries to save everyone

but myself.

Oh, the world is caving in, crumbling beneath us all. 

what to do.

Keeping it together in the fire of chaos, washing away hope

what do we do now

Carry the weight just for a little a while, its dust covered

by the years.

I've hung around for a while now, to try to see through the dirt

people of all colors ages and sizes crying stained by the hurt

where we all preach of better world but whose doing the part

to create a balance of dynamic where we can live in harmony

rather than in petty angry blinding us that we're enemies

believe in what you will but act in kindness

be a devil in your mind but stop contributing to this madness.

I never use to be afraid, to leave my front step

but people are killing each other.

I use to pray for the future, where would I go

now I wonder if there's tomorrow

The fire we started is growing out of hand

its out of reach and at our children's stand

We must do better

We need to better.

we can do better. 

2020

The rustle of the trees can sound like the waves

of a tropical beach too far away. 

The sky can turn turquoise after a storm
a slit through the hungry heat after chaos is born

The world may keep moving, unseen and unread

When I'm standing here with angels crying in my head

Its too much to experience, its too hard to accept

That we're all going to hell in a basket instead.

We find reasons to hate, when love is the better answer

with a little kindness we can fix this much faster

We rage we fire we destroy, all that we have created

screaming its for the cause but the lines are much faded

The sting in my eyes I can't see through it all. 

Lessons need to be learned we need to rise not fall

Our country was built on hopes and dreams

Now back to race wars and innocent people screams

There's a bigger picture but no one wants to uncover

Their morals and dignity so our communities must suffer.

Smoke in the sky stretching cities long
Trendy people forget what's right and whats wrong. 

My life matters and so does yours. we must drop the labels

and live as people. we're all people.

fight hate with love, and we can get much farther

fight blindly with destruction and hell will feel closer.

This is more than  a chapter in history books

we must be an example we have generations that will look

at our behaviors and stem from that role

we must be more than a character, we need to be so much more.

Quarantined

It's been over a month since we have been in quarantine. I never thought in my lifetime something this crazy would ever happen. But, do we ever really predict everything? Do we sit back one day and wonder...hmm... I wonder if I'll ever live through a crazy illness that spreads like wildfire and we will all have to be locked up at home. No. I hate how ugly people are and how quickly they are to blame. I'm only buying American products, like America is so great. *insert eyeroll* We're like any other country. We have good things, and we have bad things. Plenty of bad. Especially the POTUS. Oy Vey there's not a eyeroll big enough for that topic.
Of course, when your country is ran by a bully and his little bully posse its not surprise that people are openly assholes because monkey see monkey do. 

I work from home as it is. I'm use to being home most of the time and doing my work from home. Thankfully my life hasn't feel too different in that aspect. My kids are young and safe. It's the mind set that I'm worried about. My head like usual spins out of control and I'm left chasing it trying to manage what sanity I have left. But that's also like any other moment in life. I worry so much about how easily germs are spread that when this is done and over I'll still be in a panic. I worry so much for my children. Where are they safe, and I doing enough to protect them for it. Erik is an essential worker and goes to work everyday and he does all the errand running. I try to make sure things are safe but I'm lazy and I need to just be more focused on keeping my children healthy. I feel I don't sanitize enough or maybe I do too much. It's this havoc in my head that knaws at me every moment I'm awake. Even in slumber. When will things be back to normal. I crave to have life back to what normal was. I can't even go into kwik trip or a drive thru without a surge of panic. Will this be the one contact that will being COVID into my home. Although, I'm quite convinced Erik already had the corona virus. The illness he has would linger and continue to get worse by day and no medicine would ease of help in any relief. The sore throat, body chills, fever, headache, and the cough and his chest hurt to breath. It lasted 2 weeks and he's never looked so miserable. I was convinced it was the flu nope he tested negative. Tested negative for strep. Just a virus they told him, of course they didn't have testing for it then and it was just a rumor as of them. It spreads like wildfire and people are dying. It hits people so differently. Some people say its a bad cold while some people say its the closet they've felt to death. Isolation is hard but thankfully we have social media to connect and to support but with the human race these days supporting one another is not as common as one would like to hope. 

This will change the world forever. Here's to month 2. Stay safe and keep your heads in gear. Let it out. 

As the world melts.

There is so much going on in the world. So much going on within myself that I feel completely overwhelmed. I'm 30 years old, and I feel life has given more heaviness in the past 4 months than my entire life. Blow after blow after blow.

On top of losing great men in my life, I had an emergency surgery, that I'm completely recovered from but due to the bullshit in America's healthcare system I know I will be paying even more thousands of dollars for that surgery even though we thousands of dollars in insurance. Now, this pandemic that is spread across the globe.


The corona virus ( COVID-19) came in like a wrecking ball. It seem that if your are healthy you will fight it fine. But there are so many people in this world with issues that could really make it hard for them to fight this off. Stores are running low of supplies. It makes me anxious when we start running low of something because I'm not sure if there will be more when I need go get some. I hate being in public because so many people who don't care about others are about. I do not want my children to be impacted by this. It terrifies me. I often think that I will never get over this. I'm so much more aware than I before that I think of off the germs that we can touch in a day. We have no idea what we are touching just pumping gas! Its scary to me.


Instead of coming together we continue to be divided. We should be looking out for one another. Love is always brighter than hate. Looking out for one another. When did people become this way or has this always been the way it has been. As a child I feel I remember more unity. But I was nothing of  a sweet girl and the innocence of childhood blocks darkness and evil in most circumstances.


Too often tears feel my cheeks as this weight just sits heavy on my shoulders. I'm sad. I'm worried. I'm confused. I think about everything too deeply and then I spin out of control and I'm lost in this state where everything feels like  dream. What is real and what is not. Do we all just float until its our time to fade.

Will the world survive this pandemic? When you have an asshate of a president like America its terrifying to think he's making the call. To open everything up in 2 weeks with the cases continuing to double, triple with the light lock down that we have? ARE YOU INSANE. People only care about money.

I would never want to be rich. I only want enough to take care of some debt, buy a house and life comfortably.  That's all. If I had way more than I knew what to do with I'd try to find something good. Something that  could change the life of another. There is so much you can do to help. Pay for some school lunches. Pay of some hospital bills. Even student loans. Just helping in those little areas can create so much for a person to grow.
There are families who have nothing while some have more than they need. Yes, you get what you earn and I know way too many people who abuse the system but there are good hard working people who are hungry and that is not right. and those who choose not to work who sit and smoke their drugs in front of their kids all day who get the governments money just like that.



NOTHING make sense and we are sheep just allowing it to happen. I'm guilty of that too. I talk to my grandpas often. How I miss them so much. The sting of losing them still as strong as the day they left. The ache only growing worse. I want them here with me. I wish they would send me sign that there is a "life": after death....but...I'm not so sure anymore.


I hope this pandemic is clear soon. I want life back to normal even though normal  is a word I greatly dislike.
Some peace is needed not only for myself but for the world.


Stay safe stay healthy everyone. 

Hey Joe whaddaya know. Joseph James Martin

" Hey Joe, whaddaya know." I can remember my father saying that to my grandfather Joe every time we visited then. My grandfather would drum on his chest. His right hand over his hard with a little tap and reply "Ohh, not too much."

Something so small and trivial, yet it is something that I remember so deeply. I can see it. As the year flash in my memory. When everything began to change, as I grew and my siblings grew. The world allow the years press by... that greeting always remained the same.
Like the theme song of an outdated television show. It was familiar and it was welcomed.


Hey Joe, whaddaya know?.....Oh...not too much.

Grandpa Joe, 93 years. The things he's seen. He watch the world evolve. He watched so much happen to our world. To this country.


March 19, 1926- February 8, 2020. Almost a whole century. It's unbelievable. I wanted him to meet 100. Only because my whole life Grandpa Joe was always solid. He was hard working and never made a single complaint to the hard work. He did was he loved. Farmer Joe. Always up to trouble and worked up until just a year ago. He wanted nothing more than to be back outside. Roaming the fields, fixing fences, gathering cattle. I learned as a farmer grows, the farmer never changes. They want nothing more than to be on their land. I'm so thankful that I listened to some of his stories. Now when I walk around the farm, I will see him. Everywhere. I'll see Grandpa as a young kid running from his teacher over the hills. I'll see him splashing in the watering hold down the hill by the bridge. I'll imagine life in the 30's 40's the model ts rolling over the piece that was once a bridge and try to imagine a house just a little over there. I'll see Grandpa rolling around in his tractor, feeding the hounds. Or helping me ride his horse. Trudy....they were all Trudy. I'll appreciate it the farm a little more. Knowing how much of the family's history really lays in that land. The love, the hardship, the laughs that all lay in that land. The good years and the bad years and how in the end how everything survived. I'll love the farm a little hard because it was so special to you. I'll bring my own children out there as much as I can to run and play just as you did with your brothers and sister. I'll teach them to love the soil and we can use it to grow such wonderful and tasty things. I hate that in death is when we really learn all the things we should of in life. Why is it now that my eyes are open to everything when I should of been more alert and grateful in your life. In honesty, it is because in my head I never saw you or anyone every leaving. Death was never an option and I'm learning quite hard that it is. That you don't get to stay with me forever. Only in my heart and memories. Even though, it was the hardest thing I ever had to watch, I'm glad I spent the last week with you. Holding your hand, watching you sleep and breathe. Talking to you unsure if you could hear me but I know somehow somewhere you could. I'm so glad I spend the last day you were able to talk with you. In between our naps I'd ask for a story and you gladly told some the best you could. The ones that were my favorite and I'd ask like I never heard the story before. You're free now and I'm so thankful for that. I'm going to miss you. We all are. I wish I could find the words. Losing Grandpa B just nearly 2 months ago has my heart still so numb and vulnerable. I'm so lost, and sad. I still cry looking at his picture and now I have you both gone and it feels like a blow to the stomach. I just feel like screaming but I know this is the circle of life whether I feel like its fair or not. 

I bought a new dress for the services. I just want to make you both proud. Proud to have my as your granddaughter because most days its hard to be proud of myself. I just miss you both so much. It's so much heartbreak at such a little time. Instead of healing, I just feel like the cracks are deeper. It all still doesn't feel real....

I'll remember how strong you were your entire life. How full of life and adventure you were. 93 years on this Earth and you impacted all of the 30 years we had together. You've known me my whole life but you've had so much life before me that I'll never know.....I asked you before you left this world. To give me sign if it was real.....If there really is something. I'll be waiting for a sign Grandpa, whenever you're ready.....I love you and miss you forever.

Joseph James Martin March 19, 1926- February 8th, 2020

Give Grandpa Blask a big hug for me.
Love you and miss you both more than you'll ever know.

Ronal Ray.

It's only been a little over a month. It still hurts to think about. It still hurts to believe. I still choke up when I think about you or even look at your picture. I don't want to believe it. But the pain in my chest, the ache in my lungs trying to get some air back into them. The hot stinging tears that slide down my face as I can't do anything but stand still in a world that is whizzing by me. You are gone and it was the biggest surprise of my life. 

As I sit here, trying to understand death and why it must be, how to cope. I've learned only one thing. It hurts. More than anything in the world.

I was trying to prepare myself for the death of Grandpa Joe. Who is still going strong, who is still fighting for everything. These past months with all the doctors telling us one thing after another. I've been focused on him, and how it will be when he leaves. Begging for more time. Even though he has been on this great Earth for 93 years. I keep thinking. Let's shoot for 100. We're this close why not?.....


When I got the call saying it was YOU.....Everything stopped. Every single breeze. Every single noise was muffled out. Nothing but a dead silence ringing through my ears as I felt my heart pulse through my chest in a swift panic. Nothing in that moment felt real. I didn't feel it was me in my body. I was watching it from someone else perspective. This isn't my life. This isn't real. It's only a dream. ITS A FUCKING DREAM. Wake up. I'm still in that nightmare searching for something of you. I want you back and its so frustrating and devastating that I will NEVER get you back. I'm angry about it. I'm so beside myself with this reality that I only continue to push it away. It's only real if I believe it to be...right?


Where are you? Why did you leave? I know it was no choice of yours but only the dark realm of time that we all try to avoid the thought. One day we we all leave one another. Left in the ache of heart break and confusion. I want to believe more than anything, Grandpa. That there is something after. The thought of you being nothing is more heartbreaking than I can even begin to think about. 

I want you to be happy. I want you to be free. I want you here with me. I never imagined my life without you until December 10th, 2019. I sometimes forget, as crazy as that seems. My mind refuses to acknowledge all of it this and it makes up this story so I can make it through the day. You're just home, in your room. Reading. I'm here living my life and I will see you soon. But I won't. I can't come to terms to know I will never hear your voice again. I will never hug you again. I will never hear you say, Love ya, Kid. again. And that is one of the only things I want. I want to hear you. I want you to know so many things. I want to say so much to you and I want to say nothing at all. I'm spinning around in this ride and I can't get off. I can't breathe. I'm so dizzy. Nothing feels real to me anymore. All of this is temporary. All of it. How fragile it all is, How quickly a moment can change our lives. How quickly a moment can fly by. Leaving us tangled in a web of darkness. Shattered by the simple three seconds it took to swipe us off our feet. When I stop and take a moment to absorb the world around me like I've always done. It hurts to see a new day that you never will. Already so much as happened in the world since you've left it....I want you back. I will say it until my lips are blue and chapped.

I know my heart will never be the same. My life will never be the same. The aching miss I have for you will haunt me for the rest of my life. I will try to push on. Be the best possible version of myself for my life, for my children. for my family. I will be the greatest, and I will do it for you. I miss you, Grandpa. I hope you knew how much I loved you. How much you meant to me, how much you STILL mean to me. I'm proud to be your granddaughter and I will miss you for the rest of my life. 
Rest in peace. Ronal Ray. 1939-2019. Love ya, Kid.