When you left…. image by: google.com/images When you left
When you left
I couldn’t breath
I had to take one step at a time to make myself believe
The pain ran through my veins
My heart skipped a beat
And every time I thought of you
I lied there in disbelief.
When you left
My world fell apart
Everything around me disappeared from the start
I didn’t think I could move
But I kept everything inside
Without you, my world can’t comply.
I sit there staring at the sky
Wishing you could hear me
Wishing you were here
Why did you have to leave me, when everything about us was real?
Death comes in different forms
But yours was very slow
I got to hold on
But it wasn’t you anymore
I try to think of you when the days were warm
When we loved like there was no tomorrow
You showed me there was love
You showed me there was hope
And I will always love you
I will always miss you
I will always remember you
Because even though you see me walking
Inside a part of me died with you
I’ll never get that back until I see you again
Every day I think of you my heart skips a beat
Deep down inside you will always be with me
Until the day I see you again my love
You will forever remain in my heart.
Dedicated to all those who have lost someone. Two friends of mine lost their step father recently to cancer, and I cannot imagine the pain they have to go through. The pain their mother is going through. I started writing this because I was thinking about the people I have lost in my life, and I started thinking about them and what they had to endure throughout his sickness. My prayers and thoughts are with them and to all those who have lost a loved one.
In life we don’t know how we will die, or when we will die, but for others we are prepared and given no choice but to be taken from our family. Cancer is something not many people plan for, it isn’t something we can every truly understand, and no matter how hard we fight, sometimes Cancer defeats us, and with that God has taken a man that has touched so many. I only met Luis about two times, and in those two times you can tell he was an incredible man. This man meant so much to so many people. He walked into the life of my friends mom, she finally found the love her life and it saddens me to know she has lost him to the battle of cancer.
A man who touched so many lives was lost yesterday, he has left behind a wife, and children and step children, grandchildren, family and friends. Luis had a journal in which he wrote how he felt, his last entry was on Father’s Day of 2012. You can see his journal entries here: http://lceballos61.livejournal.com/. If you truly want to meet a strong man, I recommend you read his journal. He is an inspiration to us all.
Whenever you feel like your life isn’t going the way you expected, stop and be grateful for what you do have in your life. Luis taught us to stop and smell the flowers no matter how hard life hits you. He taught many never to give up and to live life to the fullest. I only hope that his family can take on his strength and that they will one day feel peace in their hearts. Today we mourn a man who was strong, a man who thought more about his own family than any other man I have ever met, and today I give thanks for knowing him, even if it was only for a short time. I give thanks to god for letting his wife and my friends have them in their lives and to love such a wonderful man. I am sorry they had to lose him to cancer and I will pray that they will get through this hard time.
I love you all and my prayers are with you. Today God took not only an incredible man, but an angel. Rest In Peace Luis, we will all miss you.
Let's Talk About Sex – image by: google.com/images
Today we have discovered that sex is not just a commitment or a unity you have between you and your partner but something most of us do just for the pleasure of it, or for fun, or even just to fit in. Sex has become a big part in today’s society, and we need to sit down with our children, talk about sex, talk about our bodies, and talk about the consequences that come with having sexual intercourse at such a young age. The subject of sex tends to scare off not only the parents of the teenagers, but the teenagers themselves. It is very important to keep communication open with your teenagers so that when they are faced with the issues of teen sex they feel they can come and talk to you about it. It is better for our teenagers to be able to talk to us about it then to get pregnant or catch a disease. “In 2009, 46% of high school students had sexual intercourse and 13.8% had four or more sex partners during their life. Prior to the sexual activity, 21.6% drank alcohol or used drugs and only 38.9% used a condom”.
The Guttmacher Institute reports that the United States has the highest levels of teen pregnancy among developed nations. About 75% percent of teenagers have sexual intercourse before they turn 20, and only 15% report that they are still virgins until the age of 21. The Institute reports that teenagers before the age of 15 are having sexual intercourse and are reported to have more than one partner in a year. As a young child we tend to learn to express our affections and sensual feelings through activities such as kissing and hugging. These actions can have a strong influence on “the manner in which he or she expresses sexuality in later years”. (Crooks, 2010).
Growing up my parents never really spoke about sexuality or anything of the sort. It was understood that this was an awkward subject to touch on. When I was young, I had to help take care of my sister, I was 11 when she was born, and this in time became my birth control. I saw, and I experienced how hard it was to have to take care of a child, and I only had to help take care of her, I did not need to wake up in the early mornings with her or late at night, and yet this was a constant reminder to always be protected when the time would come. My older brother did have the talk about sex and not only with my dad but with my mom as well. She spoke to him about the consequences of getting a young girl pregnant and the transmitted diseases you can get with having unprotected sex. My brother was given condoms and had the “sex” conversation. I on the other hand had to learn about my body changing and sexual intercourse through books, and through friends, and through school.
The media shows us that sex is natural, that being sexual and being sexy are things of the world. We look at this and we find that young teens want to look like models; young boys want to be strong and fit. We do not look behind the camera and we do not show our children that behind the scenes most of these people are just like you and me, that being you is okay and discovering your body when you are ready is a life time of experiences. I took a sexual education class in my sophomore year in high school, I live in Texas and it was a requirement, we learned a lot about our bodies, how to treat ourselves with how society portrays us. We learned how to eat healthy and not become anorexic or eat too much and become obese because of depression. Understanding our bodies was important, and then we learned about sexual intercourse, the consequences of teen pregnancy and the actions you might have to face if discovering you had unprotected sex and now carry a disease that may or may not kill you.
“Masturbation is one of the most common and natural forms of sexual expression during the childhood years”. (Crooks, 2010). This is true and yet as a young child learning about your body, this is why it is so important that as parents you speak to your children. As a young teenager, growing into puberty and learning about their bodies, they sometimes do not understand what is going on with their bodies, the sensations they feel, the excitement and when they discover masturbation, they may not know if it is okay to do it or not. HIV/Aids era has showed us that using protection when having sexual relations with a partner is very important. Although we learn that not only sexual intercourse is the reason behind these diseases “behaviors that put young people at risk for HIV infection include engaging in intercourse without condoms; using alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs that impair judgment, reduce impulse control, and thus increase the likelihood of hazardous sexual activity”. (Crooks, 2010). Teenagers aged 13-24 make up around 17% of those who received diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in 2008. Many teenagers do not understand the consequences that derive in acting as an adult, and that is why it is important that we talk to our teens at a young age.
Sexuality and sexual issues never derived in my family. Double standard as Crooks also talks about is true. As a girl, sexual talk or conduct of any sort was unacceptable, and we did not talk about it. For my brother, they were proud he used his condoms and they not only discussed sexual activities with him but they also gave him condoms to protect himself. I was told that I better not come home pregnant; this defense mechanism parents use because they are scared to talk about sexual acts with their children is what scare children off. I know a lot of girls who got abortions because they felt they could not come home and tell their parents they were pregnant, they did not have time to think, they did not have the choice to make of whether or not they wanted to keep the child and they did not use protection because it was never frowned upon to ever talk about in the household. Lucky for me, I had my baby sister to keep me sane, or should I say scared out of mind that I didn’t want the chance to get pregnant, because I knew from an early age that using protection was the key to healthy and sexual relationship in the future.
References
Crooks, R. (2010). Our Sexuality: Cengage Learning
Guttmacher Institute (1996-2011). From http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html
SADD Statistics, (2011). from http://www.sadd.org/stats.htm
You had replied to one of my posts in Yahoo. Well…here we go again. My daughter has been doing really good, sports are going good, friends are good however I do notice that she tends to be a loner at times. I know some of her friends are doing things that she is not ready for (sex) which I’m so proud of her. The only thing that worries me is that I notice that she has this pattern with guys that she dates. She has never “made out” with a boy and I’ve told her never to do anything she is not ready for. However, she will like a boy a lot and text them all the time and when they eventually start dating, she pulls herself away. After a couple weeks she will get annoyed with them, say they text too much and want to be around her too much etc. Well once she breaks up with them, she loves being single again hanging with her friends etc but then starts to want a boyfriend again. However it starts all over again. Once they become really close she pulls away. I hate the way she treats these boys and I’ve told her that she needs to stop treating them like that because she will be labeled as a tease. I think she is afraid they will want to make out so she pulls away. And I told her that is perfectly fine but she needs to let him know she’s not ready so they don’t get upset because of her pulling farther and farther apart. This boy she is currently dating is so sweet to her. He cares about her feelings and has no intentions to do the things she is not ready for. but she is starting to pull away again. I feel like I’m in the middle because I have him texting me asking me if she’s ok and her telling me she likes him but is annoying etc. I told her that she always does this and then regrets it later and want them back. Same old routine. My question is, how do I just stay out of it. I told her if she breaks up with him because of that then she will not date until she is 16. Am I wrong for that? My husband thinks I get too involved and I’m sure I do, but I just want her to treat others the way she wants to be treated. It literally drives me in sane. I wish I could just stay out of it, but like you said 2 years ago, maybe I am trying to live my life through hers. How do I change it and just be a mom?
Thank you, Mommy II
My Response:
Dear Mommy II;
I am going to jump to the point on this one. At first I started thinking why your daughter may be acting like this with her boyfriends but once I read your entire question I realized that this is sometimes normal in teenage girls. I used to know a lot of girls who would have boyfriends for a week or two and then break up with them. I definitely would let her know that she should not do anything she is not comfortable with but I also agree that she should not tease them because what you say can be true, they can later start portraying her as the girl who teases the boys. Sometimes kids can be cruel, and she needs to know the consequences that come with that. If the boyfriend is texting you, I would just tell him that you are sorry your daughter is pushing him away but that you really do not know what is going on in her head. Try not to get involved by having boyfriends text you or always trying to tell her not to tease them, maybe she doesn’t know how to really express herself to you. It sounds to me that either she just truly gets bored with the boys (which in time this will pass), or she is scared to kiss the boy and the boy judge her on her kissing, since she has never kissed anyone before. Ask her nicely if she is scared to kiss boys because she is scared of what they will think, and explain to her that there is nothing to be worried or scared about. In the meantime enjoy the fact that she doesn’t want to kiss boys yet, because once she starts you will be worrying about all the other stuff that comes with kissing boys. I know it’s hard to stay out of it, as a mother you want to protect her, but sometimes we need to let them make their own mistakes. I am not a mother so I am not going to try and understand what you are going through, but I have a mother who goes through similar feelings with my sister and I am always there to help and give advice. It’s hard to see your child make mistakes, but making mistakes is what helps us grow. Think back to when you were a teenager, sure we wish certain things turned out differently but in the end, we wouldn’t be who we are or where we are if we didn’t go through what we went through growing up. Be there for her when she needs you to be, but try to not get too involved in telling her what to do. Sometimes teenagers think parents don’t know anything, and so she might be ignoring your advice, not on purpose but just as normal teenagers do.
Remember that teenagers aren’t the easiest to talk to, but also remember that even though you think she may not be listening, she is… so don’t ever stop worrying about your daughter and don’t ever stop giving her advice, just remember there is a limit to giving advice. There is only so much advice you can give her, in the end she needs to make her own choices and she needs to learn that teasing the boys is not good on her reputation nor is it good for herself esteem. Try to talk to her where you aren’t trying to pry into her business, but where you are just a little concerned for the boys she is dating. She needs to know that she needs to treat others as she would like to be treated. Hopefully this is just a phase, and you will later be worrying about if she is going to have sex or not with her boyfriend haha 😉
When you left I put you in a box
wrapped you up and left you in the back of my head
Every now and then you pop up in my mind
leave me alone
it just isn’t our time
You left me so sudden
it all just went away
I didn’t have time to cry for you
so I walked away.
Everyone leaves one day
but it just wasn’t your time
that day in the hospital
a part of me died.
Every time someone left a part of me left too
it’s a wonder I’m still here
standing here
writing this to you.
With tears held back
I shiver in fear
because I don’t know who I’ll lose next
and drown out my tears
The world is so big
yet oh so small
why can’t you just leave when you leave
why do you linger in my dreams?
Letting go of pain
is the hardest thing I’ve had to do
Living in this world of mine
I do what I have to do
Today is another day
Today I continue to walk
Today I live my life
with you in that little black box.
Did you ever stop and think of me
Or did you just pretend I never existed?
Closed that door
made a lie about how you never loved me anymore
Left me standing there with my heart on my sleeve
wondering what I did wrong
Wondering how I can fix something that didn’t exist.
I wrote you a letter you never wrote back
later i found out you held it in your sack. Why didn’t you say anything to me
why did you hide who you were
don’t you know i would have loved you anyway
Standing there all alone
I cried
Wondering why you couldn’t love me
And with tears in my eyes I pulled out that paper and pen
started to write all the things you didn’t want to feel
But I told you the truth
and the truth always hurts
look in the mirror and see who you are
stop hiding I’m right here.
No words can express the pain you caused me
I think that’s when I started shutting people out
I started to hide behind a wall because behind the wall no one can see
all the pain you truly caused me.
I pulled out that paper and pen
started to write all the things you didn’t want to hear
But I told you the truth
and the truth always hurts
look in the mirror and see who you are
stop hiding
I’m right here.
Now it’s too late
you’re already gone
Why couldn’t you see the truth
that no matter who you were
I would always love you.
Why couldn’t you stop hiding?
I was right here…
~ This was written about someone that used to be in my life. They passed away without ever being able to talk things out. Life is too short, when you feel something let the person you love know because you never know when they’ll be gone. If I haven’t said it enough, I love you!~
Are you stupid, blind or just naive,
Can’t you see what you are doing
is going to change everything?
This isn’t a game,
There’s people involved
You can’t pretend it didn’t happen
You can’t turn back…
In the midst of light
I see you
when I look at you
I thought I knew you
Now I look at you
and I see a stranger
A person who lies
A person who schemes
A person in which today I see
but tomorrow I flee
When the world seemed to crumble down
you shut us out
When you shed tears of sadness
You cried alone
When your heart falls apart
no one will be around
because in every moment of sadness you
pushed the people you loved away.
Today I open my eyes
and I SEE that nothing is ever really meant to be
But with every hope inside
I come to realize
that illusions of the heart
make you blind
It is not that you are stupid
blind or naive,
its that you are a child who just can’t see…
Have you ever had a best friend in your life? A friend that isn’t just your friend but your mom? That’s how I feel about my mom…. If I have a problem with anything I know I can always count on her, I can only hope to be a great mother one day, the way she has been to me and my brother and sister.
I want to dedicate this poem to my mom… Happy Birthday Mom, I hope you are having a wonderful day; today and many more years to come.
Today Is your Day…
Today is the day I thank God
Not only for making you my mother
But for making you my Best Friend.
Today is the day I thank God
For having you in my life.
When I needed you the most you were always there for me.
When I thought my heart was breaking you cried with me.
When I thought I wasn’t good enough, you encouraged me.
When I thought life was too hard, you showed me the way.
Without you in my life I would be lost
You showed me to be me, you love me for me and you accept every part of me.
You are not only my best friend, but my mother
And I am the luckiest daughter in the world to have a mother like you in my life.
Today I thank God
Because without you I would be lost.
Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!
xo,
kristin nicole
“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.” –Washington Irving
Andrea Torres writes for the Miami Herald. I was talking with my best friend when she told me about Andrea, she is an old friend of her husbands and Andrea just found out that she has breast cancer. I tried to process this thought, and although I don’t know Andrea personally her story touched me. Cancer makes you think, it makes you wonder things you didn’t wonder about before. As I read stories on line and get to know people online, I see Cancer everywhere. It’s sad and it’s confusing to most. We wonder why such a horrible disease can reach such good people. I read Andrea’s story and I wanted to know more, I told my friend that I felt her story was incomplete, I felt like I wanted to get to know her better so I thought I would share her story with you.
At age 33, I’m dealing with breast cancer:
By Andrea Torres
atorres@miamiherald.com
The nightmare began when I found a lump in my left breast. I first felt it when I turned in bed. I woke up the next morning and rode four miles on my bicycle. I was in good health, and was convinced it would go away after my period.
It didn’t.
“It’s a thick fibrous mass with a cottage cheese texture. It seems to be expanding,” I said to an ultrasound technician at the Diagnosis Center for Women in South Miami. I was there for my first mammogram.
The technician moved a roller connected to a sonogram back and forth over my breast. She was staring at black-and-gray deformed spheres on a screen. Her silence was painful.
“I am so sorry. I will be right back,” she said.
I thought about death. My maternal grandparents had just died at the end of last year. My poor mom, I thought: How was I going to tell her?
The technician returned to the room with the center’s director of breast imaging, Dr. Carrie Horst. They both stared at the screen. This time, Horst was holding the roller.
“I am not going to sugarcoat this. I think this is breast cancer,” Horst said. “We need to schedule a biopsy.”
The ultrasound technician tried to comfort me when Horst left the room. “These are the days when I hate my job,” she said, while she hugged me goodbye. I didn’t tell my mom I knew it was cancer. I told her it was a possibility. She still cried.
Horst called me a few days later after the biopsy confirmed her suspicion. I learned that at 33, I was not too young for breast cancer.
Horst sent me to Mercy Hospital to meet Dr. Tihesha Wilson, a surgical oncologist. She explained that the pathology report revealed I had infiltrating ductal carcinoma. There were two tumors and “several smaller masses present in a satellite configuration” — about 3.5 inches in total.
“It’s going to be a tough year,” Wilson said. “You have to stay positive, and know that you are going to survive this. Many women have.”
She explained the course of treatment. It would feel like torture in a remote prison. She handed me a tissue box. I didn’t cry. I was numb. She gave me a hug.
After a PET-CT scan and an MRI, I visited Baptist Hospital’s Dr. Robert DerHagopian for a second opinion. He said a lymph node, which tested positive for metastatic carcinoma, would place my case at a stage 3a. The highest stage (4) compromises other organs.
“You’re going to be OK,’’ he said, as he hugged me goodbye.
I knew what cancer patients looked like. My long black hair was going to fall out, so I decided to get it cut. It was nearly down to my waist. It was the prettiest it had ever been — thick, beautiful and shiny. The thought that it would make a good wig for a little girl or a teen after I donated it to Locks of Love gave me strength, even though I knew that the organization sells some of the donated hair to cover costs.
A friend cut off my ponytail, before Carolyn Duffy, of Nue Studios in Wynwood, sculpted a cut that made me feel like I had been made for short hair.
“I can’t hide behind my hair anymore,” I said, as I left the hair salon looking like Tinkerbell.
“There is no reason for you to hide,” said Duffy, who gave me a hug.
It wasn’t until I was seated in the passenger seat of my brother’s car at a South Beach stoplight that reality hit. It had usually been shoes that caught my eye, but now I was staring at an aqua-and-black fedora. The woman wearing it waved and smiled. I didn’t want to be rude, so I waved back thinking she had mistaken me for somebody else.
What followed was painful. I heard her say, as she crossed the dark street, “I thought it was a guy.” Her friends laughed at her.
No one had ever questioned my femininity. Women had stared at me, because they liked my shoes, or my clothes caught their attention. Never because they thought I was a man. I got out of the car and speed-walked toward the beach.
I crossed streets recklessly, tears rolling down my face. On Collins Avenue, I stopped a woman with a shaved head. I explained my situation and asked her about hers.
“I shave it for fun. It’s my look,” said Muriel Amisodar, 40, who hails from Canada. “Without hair, my face is always glowing.”
She exuded confidence.
“You be proud of your beauty when the hair falls,” Amisodar said, before hugging me goodbye.
A person who can write about her disease is a strong person, I have faith that Andrea will get through this. In life we sometimes don’t understand why things happen to us, we can only surpass it and keep living and moving forward.
My prayers are with you Andrea, stay strong and keep writing.
I have fallen out of love with my husband. I’m no really in love with him. He just kinda … became a bore to me and I’m getting sick of him. Also he has gained a lot of weight over the past few years and I’m not very attracted to him anymore.
I just don’t feel the same anymore as I used to. I’m ready to move on into the next chapter in my life. How do I tell the man that I want a divorce?
My Response:
Dear Divorce;
Sometimes we fall out of love and that’s okay, it just wasn’t meant to be, but we usually fall out of love because of reasons other than he just gained some weight over the years, because weight can be changed. However, if you really are ready to move on and you are not happy, it is not healthy to stay in this relationship and it is better for the both of you that you move your separate ways. It is not going to be easy, but no one can really tell you how to tell your husband you want a divorce. You can either do it in the comfort of your home or you can pick a public place to tell him (just in case you think he might make a scene). Be honest with him and tell him how you have been feeling and that you want a divorce. (I would leave the weight part out, but that’s just me). There really is no easy way to do this, so you made the decision to move on, make that decision to get up and tell him how you feel. Good luck
