Author: Jen Rios

“Sometimes, It Feels Like It Just Happened”

Today would have been my Dad’s 70th birthday. In August, it will be 15 years since he has been gone. I was recently speaking with a friend whose dad recently died. She couldn’t believe that it was going on 15 years this August for me. She marveled at my strength because we worked together when my Dad died. I kind of chuckled and told her that sometimes, it feels like it just happened! And today, it looks like it’s one of THOSE days!

I listened to my Maroon 5 playlist on my Apple Music last night and it got me thinking about grad school. It was the summer of 2007 when I started my second year of grad school (I only went to school in the summer while I taught in the fall and winter). I was asking my Mom a question about seeing my Abuela’s car being driven by a woman wearing a hat who looked like my Abuela and my Mom was compelled to follow her.

She told me that she KNEW it was NOT my Abuela but she HAD TO follow it and then she added, “Just like you.” To which I nodded and started to cry. I also saw a man in my Dad’s car on my way to school. I KNEW that that was not my Dad (he stopped driving years before he died) but I HAD to follow it. I was still on my way to school and he was going the same place just a little bit ahead of me. But then, the car turned into the same driveway that would lead to my Dad’s dialysis center. The school of education had just procured a new building so I didn’t have to go onto Main campus to take my classes. The entrance to that building was just across the street from the entrance to my Dad’s dialysis center.

When I saw that, I busted out into tears! Like really hard sobs Coming out and tears streaming down my face. I had just been listening to the CD so I changed the song to make it fit:

I have always arrived early for class so I just allowed myself time to have a good cry out! And I still had time to compose myself and make sure that my eyes were not red and then I didn’t look like I was just bawling my eyes out even though that’s what I was doing!

I recently saw this meme and I thought specifically of this moment I’m seeing my Dad‘s car pulling into the dialysis center.

That’s one thing I love about music, it can mean 1 million different things to 1 million different people! This song, meant something to me having just had my Dad die even though that’s not why it was written. That’s why I chose to hear it:




I always heard that as, “I can’T be close.” And then the refrain continues but the song ends with this line:

Happy

So, if you read how I personally interpret these lyrics thus far, you should take the time to listen to the song:

Happy Birthday, Daddy!!! 💜💜💜

“My Spiderman Couch”

Today, Sean stopped by because my Mom had to go to an appointment. He came and hugged me and sat on Leia’s bed. She absolutely loves him and when he sat down, I started to laugh!

I remembered back to 2005 when Sean and I first moved into our apartment and my first year teaching. I’m trying to remember why he drove me to my apartment and I think that we went out to eat and I had totaled my car. He came in and I told him to “Sit on my couch, it’s are so comfortable!

I had to put my leftovers into my refrigerator and as I walked back to my living room to find him sitting on Sean’s little kid “Spiderman couch.”

When I told Sean that he’ sat in Leia’s bed. He told me that he could picture Mr. Wright doing and saying that! I think that we only kept that Spiderman couch in our apartments.

A, “Three-Peat” OR #DirtyHairDontCare

Today is the third day that my body is going through a whole lot! This change in the weather is KILLING me! On the first day, it was, “Tiring” and yesterday I tried to deflect but I couldn’t get ahead of the pain. I checked the weather last night and knew it wasn’t going to be good before I fell asleep but to wake up and FEEL it not being good it’s EXTREMELY difficult!

Sean would always marvel at the fact that I grew up during The Pistons three peat. I was young and I didn’t really think about it back then. But now, as an adult, and seeing how badly destroyed sports are struggling, I should’ve appreciated it. But this, these last three days, are my three peat and it stinks! I was supposed to wash my hair today but that is NOT happening! I don’t feel embarrassed by saying that and it just goes to show that sometimes people with MS just can’t!

Usually, on days when I feel this badly, I will post a song because it doesn’t take a lot of effort. A couple days ago, my MS Music Lovers Group posted this song and I had never seen the video but I remember it coming out and I remember that I liked in a whole lot:

I will hope for better weather tomorrow. I hope it’s “like cinnamon.”

GREAT Music Lasts!

Yesterday, I saw this Tweet and I had to think for a moment how to answer it. I didn’t want to answer it with the obvious answer for me. U2! I know the words to pretty much everyone of their songs! And I also wanted to answer it with an obvious answer. I thought back to when I was a junior in high school. I remember listening to this CD on loop for months! My senior quote was a lyric from, “No Woman, No Cry.” So this was my answer:


But, additionally, I have been seeing a commercial about going to Jamaica. This song plays in the background:

Hearing this song in the commercial reminds me of when I first injured my knee. It was before surgery and before I got my motorized chair. I had a routine back then, Sean would get me out of bed before his ride came to take him to school. By the time he came home from school, I would be sitting in my wheelchair, “Puzzlin’” (I used to sit under the dining room light and work on a puzzle on a card table I’d put up in the living room. I was on leave from work but my surgery was not scheduled as yet. I appreciated the escapism of doing a puzzle. So, I put playlists on my Apple Music Account and I would sit there and l would, “puzzle” for hours.

I had just added a Bob Marley playlist to my phone because that is a GREAT album! I will never forget that I was straight jammin to that album when Sean came home from school. I was singing along and just doing my puzzle. Sean would come in to the house and go into his bedroom to change out of his school clothes.

He would come out of his room changed and would go to the kitchen to get something to eat out of the refrigerator. I still continued to jam to the album and when he sat down on the couch, he got my attention by telling me that it was weird to come home to hear his mom sing to Bob Marley! I started to laugh and I told him about this album being on loop for months in my car when I was in high school. I told him about my friend who really liked Bob Marley and he was the one who turned me onto it.

We started talking about this specific album and I told him my favorite songs and about my senior quote. I told him that Bob Marley was before my time but he was super cool then! GREAT music lasts!

Tiring

Today, as I sat with my hands balled into fists on either side of on my waist and my leg outstretched for my Mom to put the patches on my knee for my tens unit, I mumbled something just barely audible. I was staring off into space and trying to get the strength I needed to continue the day. My Mom asked me to say it again and I did.

I told her that, “It is tiring to live in this body.” I continued staring off into space as she told me, “I know. I am sorry.” I think it was the rain throughout the night that is making me feel awful, but I DO feel awful! I just sigh and hope that tomorrow is better but I already know that is NOT likely.

“HUG DAY!!!” 😍😍😍

Sean spent the first 31 days of his life in the NICU after being born 8 weeks prematurely. When discussing this fact with people, I tell them that, that “Was the longest month of my life!” And I wholeheartedly believed that! That is, until Covid hit.

First, let me explain that leaving the hospital WITHOUT your baby is extremely difficult!!! But the difficulty was lessened a little bit because we could hold Sean for 20 minutes a day. He could not afford to be out of his incubator for longer than that. The only exception was if we (Sean and I) “Kangaroo Kare[d].”

A nurse in the NICU unit explained to to me the major benefits of doing this. She told me to wear a button down shirt to come see him at the hospital. All I had to do was tell them that I wanted to “Kangaroo Kare” with my baby and they would set up the screens to allow me privacy another nurse would get Sean.

I would lay back in the recliner as she put him on my chest in nothing but a diaper. The benefits are the skin to skin contact that I had with my baby. Moments after the nurse placed him on my chest, all of the numbers on the monitor completely stabilized. She told me that it was really good for the baby and me. I could do it as long as I wanted. I can still remember the feel of his little baby hair on my jaw as I felt all of his ribs under my left hand as I would fall asleep.

It has been just over one year since of quarantine in our house. Sean went back to work, I believe it was just before Mother’s Day of last year. I didn’t get to hug him last year and I never thought I would go long periods without hugging Sean ever again in my life!

As the pandemic got worse, Sean wouldn’t even come into our house in hopes of protecting me from this terrible virus. Last summer, we could talk with him sitting on my porch:

I was unable to attend any of his abridged graduation and instead, he came by the house:

This fact was extremely difficult for me having had put him through 12 years of Catholic education. But my Mom told me that there will be many more milestones and celebrations in Sean‘s life that I will be able to be a part of.

As the pandemic continued to rage on, the vaccines came onto the scene and I thought that when it was my turn, I could hug him again. I was fully vaccinated on April 1, 2021. My Mom was fully vaccinated on April 14, 2021. I remember sitting in my house on March 18, when I received my vaccine, and crying because I didn’t need to be afraid of dying anymore.

Sean received his second dose of the vaccine on May 10. So, this morning, he open the door to our house and commented, “ look at us! All maskless and stuff!“. And then this happened:

But before we could take this picture he wouldn’t stop making a face until my mom took a picture of this silliness:

Man, I love that kid!

Okay, So, Let me ‘Splain Ya!”

So, last Wednesday, I wrote a post about three random songs that showed up in my YouTube feed. They were songs that used to break my heart when I was young and dramatic! But, I didn’t cry and that made me happy that perhaps, Big Brother May have lost a step because they didn’t make me cry! Maybe I am on the road to healing! I (TOTALLY don’t see that happening anytime soon especially since I can’t control my emotions anymore!)

So, let me ‘splain ya:

So, my brother read that post and commented;

I have since decided that the 90s was the BEST musical decade! At least for me, I was young, without responsibilities, and was still able bodied! I looked at the playlists and I saw this one popped up in it:

That song is woven into The fabric of Mike youth and for so many reasons! I explained in the blog post I shared last Wednesday hell my brother, Jimmy, told me about a week before my cousins’s quince that his friend and he were going to perform a song that was sung by a female so I had to sing it. He had called me when I had just gotten home from class and I drove over to his house and we jammed. Our comments continued on that blog post:

Since this conversation had taken place, (and Luis lives in Mexico) I searched my blog to find the post where I had written about this song. I couldn’t really remember what I wrote. I searched through 35 pages on my phone in my, “Tines” tab to find it!

Re-posting and subsequently reading what I had written, I DID have a killer dress on (that I no longer can wear because having MS, weight fluctuates a lot and the dress was three sizes too big for me about seven years ago. I don’t know where it is now. Probably in my basement. It has great memories attached to it!

I wrote about holding on to the mic stand as I sang to study me. Retrospectively thinking about this, it was beginning of me completely losing control over my muscles. That kind of makes me sad but I appreciate having chronicles all of these things in my blog so I can go back and think about that specific day. I’m pretty sure I saw family members recording it so, it’s a new one has it, that would be really cool to see!

Having to tell Luis that I am, “Out” in terms of getting the band back together greatly saddens me! I knew it was that I should not have challenged Big Brother but since I did, he got me! Since re-posting this blog post, I have listened to this song multiple times and I have cried!

Hair

The day before yesterday, my Mom asked me if I was going to comb my hair that day and that made me laugh a whole lot! Her question made me laugh at first because she used to ask me that question when Sean was young. She asked me that same question the summer when we first moved into our first apartment.

When Sean was young, I would bathe him at night. I would comb his hair and then he would go to sleep. When he would wake up, his hair was crazy!!! I used to go to my Parent’s house on Saturday mornings for breakfast. My Dad wanted to see Sean because we were no longer living there. When we would get there, my Mom would ask me, “Did you comb this boy’s hair this morning?!

I would laugh and say, “I did not, because it looks so cute!” She would comb his hair before we ate breakfast at her house. I had Sean‘s hair cut short when he was four and began preschool.

So when she asked me this, I laughed because it has been about 16 years since she has asked me that regarding Sean but she has never asked Me that as an adult! But let me explain, back in the day, when I was still working, I would wake up at 4:30 every morning to get ready for work by getting in the shower first thing. I have not been in the habit of combing my hair before I take a shower.

But now, my hair only gets washed every other day. I am not in the habit of combing it on the off days. Today is an “Off” day as it was a couple days ago. When she asked me that on Wednesday, I combed my hair before I ate lunch. Today, I combed my hair after I washed my face.

With the stay at home orders and the pandemic, I grew my hair out and I was most uncomfortable while it grew! I would pull my hair into a knot right after getting out of bed because I couldn’t stand the hair on my neck! Now that I have cut my hair, it’s not a problem to have hair on my neck. As a result, I’m just not in the habit of coming my hair on the days that I do not wash it.

On the days I have to blow dry my hair and before I blow dry my hair, I comb it while it’s wet. So, I haven’t put much thought into combing my hair in years . But now, that it is short again it seems that I have to seriously think about that and do it!

#MyGirlL: From a, “Chunk” to. “Fit”

Leia had her return x-ray yesterday. This is how she looked when she got home from her appointment:

I just

Leia was worn out from the heat! She didn’t even make it to her bed! My Mom was told that her heart and lungs look great! The doctor called her, “Fit” opposed to being a, “Chunk.” I hate to put her on, “Front Street” and one, she lost 2 pounds! I told my Mom that I think she gained the weight because she was not walking as much in the winter. The doctor even said that the third treatment for heartworm may not be necessary! I am so pleased at hearing that because it is expensive so NOT having to do the third step sounds good to me!

I guess we caught it early and my Mom and I have been praying to Saint Francis for help! (We’re Catholic)

Glutton for Punishment?

So, I saw my latest Facebook videos that are popping them and I felt okay with it. But last night, my eyes were hurting so I took my contacts out and while my mom was walking Leia, I am put my James Blunt playlist on shuffle. I wondered if I was a glutton for punishment:

After a while, I heard this song:

I texted that to Sean and he responded with this:

If I recall correctly, it was summertime and I listened to that song A LOT!!! At that point in my life, I was coping by eating 10 packs of Tim Bits! Sean was young and he just accompanied me to Tim Horton’s. It was not far from our apartment complex. I don’t think he knows to this day how broken I was but I like that we can laugh about it now because we made a memory!

This is the lyric that broke my heart:

Back in the day, this song tore me up but now, I just remember going to Tim Horton’s the with my little boy! Donuts are definitely my weakness!!! Sean cannot hear this song without making a joke: