Main Stream Media ==> Better Late Than Never...

The World Health Organization (WHO) finally did a comprehensive report on suicide and my local paper picked it up. Thank God!

I have been seeing headlines every day for the last month or two claiming that traffic deaths, police shootings, domestic violence, and all have all been decided to be suicides or murder/suicides. This doesn't even cover all of the lost and lonely souls that take their own lives quietly in a way that doesn't bother people during their commute or disrupt their work day.

Having lost my husband of 18 years to suicide in 1994 and my baby boy, my grown little man of 21 years to suicide in 2008, my son's best friend, my pseudo son to suicide this past month I can say with all confidence that this report, these facts and figures give you the shocking reality of the sheer numbers of suicide but cannot even scratch on the surface of the emotionally tossed and ravaged sea the survivors are afloat in.

We need your help! We need your attention! We need caring and giving, NOT shame and scorn and fear. Suicide is not contagious but it is often seen as a solution for other's that might be suffering and are afraid to make their issues known and see no other way out. We need to give them other solutions. We need to be available and open, not turning our backs on those that need it most. We need to have safe, clean well staffed places where people can go and get the help they need instead of leaving them sitting alone in their rooms or looking for answers and peace on the streets with drugs and guns. We need to be able to express our grief at the loss of these loved ones without feeling like we have to lie, to prevaricate, to mumble something, anything acceptable to the general public.

If you are thinking about suicide or are afraid that you might attempt or commit suicide, you can call the national hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) and/or find other sources for help HERE

If you have lost a loved one or friend, co-worker, student, neighbor, ANYONE to suicide you can start getting help HERE

If you think you may have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD (a major cause of and a reaction to suicide of a loved one) you can get information on the disorder and suggestions for dealing with it HERE

Many county health departments and state agencies also have help available, you need to search, or ask a loved one to search them out. Many of these offer low to no cost help including counseling and in and outpatient groups and settings as well as referrals to even more organizations that exist to make suicide a thing of the past.

If you feel that SOMETHING, ANYTHING needs to be done but you are not sure what you alone can do you can donate to the American Foundation  for Suicide Prevention through my team (named after my son), TEAM HENRY ROGER GRAMME HERE or donate directly to the Foundation at afsp.org

For too long I have felt like I was in a pitch black room, banging on locked doors trying to make people hear, to care just a teeny bit. This is the first glimmer of light.

More Than 38,000 People Commit Suicide in America Every Year

This is a shocking statistic. Men and women of all ages, races, creeds and political belief take their own life every year. People don't discuss it, yet it is as prevalent as breast cancer. There are no inspiring commercials for 3 day walks, no special medical facilities advertising on cable TV, no miracle cures, no breakthroughs in medication. It is a plague that is cloaked in silence and shame. THIS MUST CHANGE.

In 1994 my first husband, William Yves Gramme Sr., took his own life. He was Bi-Polar and had been battling the condition for years when he finally just got too tired of the struggle and ended his life. He left behind four children who loved him and a wife who would have done anything to keep him around roiling about in a sea of confusion and despair.

In 2008, my son, Henry Roger Gramme, succumbed to the same ailment. After fighting for almost six years he found himself in a place he did not think he could escape and also took his own life. He left behind a devastated mother, step-father and 3 siblings who loved him dearly.

William Y. Gramme Sr. and Henry R. Gramme, 1987

Both of these incidents tore my family to shreds, leaving lasting scars and issues which will never be resolved. We know we shouldn't but it is hard not to dwell on the Why's of it all, to not blame ourselves for not being able to stop either one of them. We are not alone. 

Bring this out of the darkness, talk, share, open up. if you have lost someone to suicide respect and honor their memory and struggle by telling people about it. Share your stories, it encourages other people to share their's.

Team Henry Roger Gramme will be joining with thousands of people nationwide to walk in the Atlanta Walk, benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and we would appreciate any support that you give for this worthwhile cause.

You can donate to Team Henry Roger Gramme here, or find walks, outreach programs and information and tools for coping at www.AFSP.org

At Grandmother’s House

I grew up in a military family. My dad received orders to move us, lock, stock and barrel, every three years like clockwork. Before we moved we made a trek from wherever we were to Louisiana and to Georgia to see our grandparents. These visits were so vastly different, one place and one family and one lifestyle to another that it always made the trip interesting even for a kid that was furious she was leaving her friends (hard won, I am not a social butterfly)  and her school (which I always loved, no matter where it was) and her home (incredibly important, that sense of home) yet again.

We would go to southern Louisiana and eat crawfish, play with deadly animals, listen to good music, smoke Picayune cigarettes down by the river under cover of massive live oaks dripping with moss and generally run free and wild with our cousins. My grandparent’s house was tiny, the cousins were too many to count and the spaces outdoors so inviting and untamed as to make staying indoors a ridiculous notion. We were wild Indians, little heathens, crazy animals and every other thing people called roving bands of dirty, smiling kids and we loved it.

From there we went to Georgia, to a house not much bigger, also out in the country but so ridiculously different as to slam our headlong rush of gaiety and abandon into a massive stone wall (quarried and built by my father and grandfather’s hands).

While my Louisiana grandfather still worked a bit, my Georgia grandfather had retired literally from his job onto his back porch with his bourbon and Fresca and the Braves on the radio. His goal was to keep us quiet so we didn't bother my grandmother. 

My grandmother liked the concept of children, of having a family who adored her, but the reality of it was too much for her to deal with. Kids were dirty, noisy, always wanting something and in general a pain in the patooty, especially 8 of them at one time. Her furniture was covered in plastic. For me that summed her house up, sterile, stiff, unwelcoming. We stayed outside there; playing in the woods, riding the horses which the grands had ‘liberated’ from a neighbor whom they felt didn't care for them correctly. This fact, that they stole horses, was the only thing that gave me hope that they were more than they seemed which was a cranky inebriated couple of unwilling old folks, doing what societal dictates told them they had to do.

My mother somehow grew into a glorious grandmother. She was always welcoming, inviting, open-minded, loving. Not a single grandchild, and she has a ton of them, would say a bad word about her.  She didn’t cater to them. She certainly knew the word ‘No’, but she loved them. They were always interesting to her. She could talk to them, play with them, and feed them with love. The candy jars were full, the Disney movies beckoned, the badminton net was set up close to the big swing in the yard where she would sit with her children, their parents, and watch the kids be fun and free and wild and happy. She and my father ended up in the cold stone house in Georgia but while they were there it brimmed with emotions, with people, with family history being retold and made anew.

Now that I am a grandmother (Many times over, number 13 is due this fall) I find myself trying to emulate her. I have a candy bowl, which is the first thing the kids and their parents hit when they come over. The Disney movies stand piled haphazardly on the cabinet holding the TV and the video games. Yes, I WILL do Wii dance with them, and try to kick their butt at bowling too! We bought a house with a pool and huge porches out in the country. We both like to swim but our first thought on seeing this place was family memories that last forever can be made here. We encourage the kids to play outside, to run in the woods, to find deer tracks and worms under rocks and bird’s nests in the trees. They can use our computers and read our books and nap in the guest room if they want. These little people mean the world to me.

I can’t help but think how sad it is that my own grandparents didn't get to know my brothers and sisters and I. We were cool kids. Kids are funny and smart and loving and beautiful in form and mind.

The Worst Thing For A Person To Do...

The Worst Thing For A Person To Do... is (apparently) watch daytime TV. 

If you want to feel terrible about your homemaking skills, your appearance, your decor, your friends or your family just tune into any one of the shows composed of women speaking to women supposedly in solidarity. Ouch! Makes me wish I was a man and seriously this is new because I pretty much love being a mom and a wife and a career woman.

I was watching (and this is so painful to admit I am hanging my head) the Wendy Williams show yesterday because I was bored with reading, cooking, cleaning and gardening. I was so shocked and offended by just two segments I had to write a letter, something I have NEVER done before and hopefully I will never have to do again as I am once again vowing to never watch day time TV.

Since I felt a bit better after writing it, but still not clean again I decided to post it up here and see what YOU think! Let me know if you agree with me or not. I can take it, I am tough. Enjoy!.

Dear Wendy or Wendy's minion sorting through e-mails,

I am a newly retired individual who tends to avoid daytime TV but was suckered in yesterday when I saw your show was on. I haven't watched it often but I do like it so I settled in with a cup of coffee for what I hoped would be a nice bit of entertainment.

I tuned in right at the beginning of your talk about Amal Alamuddin's appearance, laughingly chatting about how you went through 'hundreds' of photos and the one you had on air was the only normal or decent one. I found this incredibly cruel and catty, and your only justification for this derision seemed to be that she was now engaged to a famous and handsome man. Talk about stabbing a fellow woman in the back, and letting the entire world know that contrary to everything we push on teenagers, appearance really does matter more than anything and people can be demeaned and humiliated if they don't fit the mold. I was surprised, I was ashamed to be a fellow woman just listening to the whole thing. Appalling!

The fact that you followed it up by vilifying a man who is a terrible racist, judging people solely by their physical appearance made it even weirder. At least his rant and cruel remarks were supposedly in the privacy of his personal communications and not on a syndicated TV show.

Honestly in 54 years of life I have never written to a show but damn, this was just too cruel and such an obvious juxtaposition of messages and images that it has stayed in the forefront of my mind and this is the only way to deal with it constructively and banish it to where it belongs, forgotten (hopefully) and a ghost file in my deleted items folder..

Because when you are proud of a kid...

I am going to do something utterly and completely grandmother-ish. 

How many times have we all posted something we regret? Even I, a stellar human being of high morals and character (those of you that know me, please put your fingers in your ears and quit making gagging noises) and exemplary behavior have, on a rare occasion, posted something that I  wish I had not. 

For me it is grammatical errors or perhaps a misspelled word slides by, quietly into the mystical land where nothing ever dies, forever haunting me, taunting me. HOWEVER; I know that many of you have posted worse, much worse.... really much much much worse. Backpeddle is the app for you then:

Because some images you can't take back

Oh yes, the star, the absolute Oscar worthy actor in this little youTube commercial is my grandson. 

The Percussive Nature of Aging

My fingers sound like castanets, my toes they follow suit.

My hips, each step a metronome, keeping time for creaky bone.

My ears they ring, my teeth they grind

And my knees are kettle and snare.

On occasion the music startles me, 

Who left  that duck call there?

What's That Growing In Your Head?

For various reason, none of them having to do with common sense or regular health care checks I went to a neuro-ophthalmologist so that I could get an official letter which says in short "She really, really, really can't see worth a damn. She has not been faking for 54 years so cut her a break."

I HATE going to the eye doctor. I have a rare genetic condition so they always get all excited, put me through a multitude of test to prove yet again that my vision is laughable, charge me an arm and a leg, demand follow-ups and gleefully rub their hands together in a Simon Legree sort of way while they say "Whoa Nelly, your eyes are horrible and there is no fix. Sucks to be you!" If I hadn't needed the letter for work I would have happily gone on, staying in familiar places and firmly holding on to my seeing eye people for the next forty or so years.

I arrived begrudgingly, agreed to a test that maps one's vision with a curt nod, sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair with my chin in a cup and my head in their machine and waited for tiny lights to start zooming around, clicker in hand. When you see a light, you click the button. This is simple.

The woman helping me was sweet and quiet for a minute and then asked did I not see any at all. 

"What? What? You started?"
"Just click the button when you see the light flash."

Crap. No lights, I stare straight ahead willing the little points of light to appear. As if by magic three or four bright flashes appear in a row, top left, click click click. Then, nothing.... 

Quick! three or four bright flashes appear in a row, bottom right! Click click click.... I do an extra click just in case I miss counted.

Nothing! I can't cheat since I do not really know where or when the flashes will appear, but I would, if I could. Test over. The lady is now smiling at me with a touch of pity. 

"You did real well."

Liar! I want to beg to do it again. I stare balefully at the machine, sitting there like a piece of modern sculpture, taunting me. I want to cry.

The last time I did this test the map it made of my eyes looked like a target, circles of no vision radiating out like waves from the center. This time it looks like a butterfly, with the wings and body having no vision at all. It looked bad, and dark and absolutely terrifying to me.

My vision sort of resembles this Rorschach ink blot

The doctor, wasting no time, not being gleeful and not rubbing his hands together says, "Yep, you definitely have  genetic neuro-scatomatas. HOWEVER..." 

I feel myself shrinking.

"Usually when we see this 'tubing' it is caused by something pressing against the optic nerves"

I shrink more. I feel like I am six.

"Usually an enlargement of the Pituitary glad. Maybe surgery is an option. We can't fix the genetic defect (No shit Sherlock) but sometimes reducing the pressure can help to return the vision to it's pre-swelling state."

I feel like a toddler walking out, lost and alone, looking for my sister who has driven me here. Everybody in the waiting room is acting like nothing has changed. Everybody in the waiting room is reading, toe tapping, finger drumming, waiting to get their new prescription and get in their cars and drive off into their normal life. 

The right side of my brain is saying "This is bad, this is serious, this is NOT GOOD" The left side of my brain is saying "Oh look! A butterfly! (Here the left brain shrieks and makes an about face. I suddenly do not like the looks of butterflies) I want a cookie, maybe a couple of dozen. Isn't the sun nice! What shall we cook for dinner? I like red, it is such a pretty color. That machine has a nice rhythm. Doodly doo doo doo doo doo."

By the time I got home my right brain was speaking in a much firmer tone of voice... "THIS IS BAD, THIS IS SERIOUS, THIS IS NOT GOOD!" and the left side had retreated into a corner, fingers in ears saying "LA LA LA LA I can't hear you" but had given up the good fight. I turned to Dr. Google and looked up swelling in the pituitary.

I read a lot of articles, spending roughly three hours on different sites but the end result was always the same. TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR. Oh crap and eff me.

The good news? Tumors in the pituitary are self contained, not malignant. Bad news they can only be treated by radiation or surgery, and the underlying cause can be treated, sometimes, depending on what it is. I was not a happy camper.

I am having two MRIs this Monday, one with contrast, one without. I am hoping (Yes, with my left brain) that this has all been a giant scare and that the next time I take the test from hell I will once again have lovely targets of blindness and the evil tubing will be gone. Wish me luck!