Yesterday, our front door opened and Sam walked into the house. I asked him what he was doing here.

“I was in Albany.” I immediately knew he tested to become a certified fight nurse. This test only has a 50% pass rate the first time you take the test.

Since Sam finished his coursework online and in-person classes, he has been studying.

When I say studying, I mean serious studying in all of his free time. Marty and I have no idea where that came from, not us.

When Sam came here in October for the EMS conference he and Marty went to, he brought his flash cards.

It was thick stack of flash cards that he made and laminated. This is how he studies. Marty quizzed him in their spare time.

I am so glad to report he passed his test! Sam will take the certified flight paramedic test in the next week or so.

He wants to take it while everything is fresh in his mind however, he still will be studying until then.

I don’t write about my kids much but when something like this happens, I need to share the news.

A psychic friend told me when the kids were young that Sam will accomplish anything he puts his mind to. My friend was right.

Sam isn’t the type to blow his own horn, like everything in his life he is a very private person.

There are only 5,000 certified flight nurses in the country. Now there are 5001. I think that is a huge accomplishment for a 23-year-old.

To be hired as a certified flight nurse is easier said than done and is no small feat. It is also extremely competitive.

There are many steps to even be considered.

Applications are studied and scrutinized. If you are chosen there is more testing for the agency you are applying to.

Next, you must go before a panel of experienced emergency medicine experts and answer a a battery of questions.

They give the applicant several medical scenarios for them to explain everything that must be done.

Emergency flight work is a serious, adrenaline-pumping, complicated job that takes a certain kind of person.

If you are hired, there is more learning and training that can take months before you are part of a flight crew.

When the fight crew goes on a mission they must get the patient stabilized before take off.

Once the plane or helicopter takes off, that is the flight crew’s main focus: safety.

As a mom, it makes me a nervous wreck but this is something Sam has been striving for: for years.

For now, he will remain a nurse in the very busy emergency department at UVM where traumas come through the door constantly.

There are many learning opportunities at UVM. Sam wants to get as much experience and knowledge while he continues his education.

Down the road, when the time is right he will then go through the grueling process of being hired by an agency.

Sam left this morning to go back to Burlington. We may not see him until Christmas so I made sure I got a lot of hugs in. ☺️

You can see more orbs in the distance.
I took screenshots from the video and enlarged the image so you see the orbs better.

In 2006, my gastroenterologist found a large tumor on my right or ascending colon and my appendix. It was scary. When I went to the surgeon, I freaked out; this was a big deal.

Within five days, I found myself in the hospital having surgery to remove the benign tumor. I spent three days in the hospital, making sure the colon reattachment worked.

I can never sleep in the hospital like most people. The night of my surgery, I lay there on my back, listening to the activity at the nurse’s station in our dimly lit room.

My roommate was an elderly woman who barely spoke. The curtain between us was pulled so we couldn’t see each other.

As I lay there, I began seeing a hundred little white circles fluttering fast on our ceiling. It was bizarre; I thought I was seeing things from the meds I was given.

More and more little lights kept showing up on the ceiling. I watched them in awe, thinking, what the fuck is going on?

With that, all the doors to the patient’s rooms automatically slammed shut. I didn’t know there was a code on our floor that made all the doors close. 

As I watched the little lights on the ceiling, the woman in the bed next to me said, “They are coming for him.” I asked her if she could see the lights, too, and she said yes, she saw them multiple times in the hospital. I thought I was not seeing things.

Suddenly, all the little lights were exiting our room and going down the hallway. I could see them on the hallway ceiling, too. My delayed response was, “They are?” She didn’t answer me; she probably fell asleep after all the excitement.

Half an hour later, the staff members opened everyone’s door. I asked if someone just died when the nurse walked into our room. She hesitated, then replied and said yes. Holy shit! The woman in the next bed was correct. 

I lay there for the rest of the night, thinking about what happened. I worried that I saw the little lights like the old woman. I kept wondering why.

It was strange but beautiful knowing all those orbs that filled the hospital rooms came to help or greet the newly deceased person cross over to the other side.

Ever since then, I see orbs in videos that I take or sometimes with my own eyes fluttering around. I find them comforting. They aren’t in a hurry like they were that night in the hospital.

Orbs are the spirits of ancestors, friends, and family members that peacefully crossed over to the other side, but their energy is still all around us. It is a beautiful thing to see and feel.

Believe what I am saying or not. I plan to take more nighttime videos to see if any are still out there.

Happy Friday, folks! 

Photo image Bethany Webster

My mother, Eileen, passed away two years ago today. All I felt was relief and freedom, and I vowed not to go through this again with her through all bands of time.

The photo I chose came from an article written by Bethany Webster. I wasn’t sure what image I would use for this post, but then I saw this one.

For the last two years, I’ve worked through a lot of emotional shit my mother put me through. I am still working hard at it. 

I haven’t been able to forgive the 50 years of constant emotional, psychological, and sometimes physical abuse. This shit has fucked me up big time.

There were too many mean attacks to remember or write about. I learned to always be on guard early because I never knew one would come out of nowhere. 

Now that she is gone, I still cannot fathom, as a mother, how she could have behaved toward me the way she did. 

When I see nine-year-olds, it’s unbelievable how anyone could turn on a child or treat them like Cinderella. How? Where did her anger and punishments come from?

I know my mother was whacked as fuck and conveniently forgot how she really treated me, or so she made it seem. Meryl Streep had nothing on my mother, who could act up a storm.

The photo with the mother holding the umbrella for the little girl struck a nerve. My mother appeared to take care of me, watch out for me, and love me.

However, in the shadows, only close family members knew differently but never came to my rescue or said anything. This I learned from my Godmother before she died; the greatest gift I ever received was finding out it was her and not me.

The photo reminded me of what my mother told me; she always sang “You Are My Sunshine” when I was little anytime we heard it. I don’t remember that ever happening; I remember things from 3 to 4 years old. 

She called me “love” as an adult, which turned my stomach; she called me “you stupid son of a bitch” on an almost daily basis growing up. I cringe, still thinking about it.

The photo’s shadows remind me how I never told anyone about my life. My friends knew I couldn’t stand my mother, and I was often sick with ulcerative colitis. That’s all I let on. No one could stand their mother at times; this was different.

I think about why I never spoke with anyone about her. First, I didn’t trust anyone to tell for fear it would worsen things. I had no one to talk to. I still get angry with my father since he never once helped me. Why? I thought I was “daddy’s little girl.”

While cleaning the production kitchen this morning, I spoke to my mother directly. In a nutshell, I told her I wasn’t over the monster she was. I may never be.

I didn’t thank her for the abuse that made me a better, stronger person. A person who never gave her the satisfaction she was always looking for. She would stare at my face to see my reaction. She didn’t deserve it. Call me Poker Face.

I tried as hard as possible to summon a good memory, which there was, but I couldn’t. I can’t smile when I think about her or miss her.  That’s how she left me, raw.

I know it’s all me that still tortures myself by her actions, so I try to push anything to do with her out of my head. I’m getting better at it.

I did think of her today because it’s the day she died. That’s it.