How Steemit, Internet searching, and ADD Brought me to Face-to-Face with My Grandmother's Life-Changing Event that is Now Affecting Five Generations (ADD Episode #4)

This story and process is so long and evolving that I am just going to start with my thesis statement: Events change us. Our body chemistry changes. Our DNA changes. Our actions change. Our choices change. Who we are changes. We create change in the lives of people around us. We create children while our DNA is changed. We change our children through our actions. We are making choices that change their DNA further after they are born.

We owe it to ourselves and our present and future families to make the best possible choices.

Thursday, July 20th, 10pm: As I've started to admit that I really do have ADD and I really do have to deal because it really is limiting me and it really does matter ... As I've started to process all that, I've had in the back of my mind some stuff. Stuff that I've discussed a few times on Steemit with other Steemians. And then, still other Steemians quite innocently (and unknown to them to this date) smacked me right into the middle of this Shi-stuff!

We're going to start with the second set of Steemians first. I've decided to leave them un-named. We don't always need to know when we cause someone to face ... ... you'll see why ...

I started to write this post on Friday, July 14, 2017. I don't know if I had been less distracted by other things, if I would have written it faster. I made notes in the post, as I went along, about how I've tried and what I've tried in order to sit down and write. I think they've weighed down the story to the point that the story and the point that it will lead to is at risk of being buried under the tale of the process. So. Largely, I'm moving those notes out.

But we're going to start Friday the 14th and the story of how I came face to face with The Event.

Friday, July 14 near Noon: I'm feeling super raw and blindsided. So far I have opened 3 different editor apps and started out twice with openings that go nowhere near The Story.

This morning is the 3rd morning that @mitchmiester left very early in the morning to work in a city 2 hours away. He's coming home late. I've been going to bed even later because I don't usually sleep when he's gone and by the time he's home, "the second wind" has definitely kicked in. I'm exhausted.

I was reading Steemit in bed this morning. I was snoozing every alarm and reminder as fast as they came across my screen.

Some way or another I landed in a blog wherein the Steemian was going on about something and I started to recommend an option but when I started to write the link, I hesitated, "Is it singular or plural? Pretty sure plural. Oh good grief just ask the search already."

I did the search .... and I ended up in yet another Steemian's post. No, I didn't need to actually click the link to the post to find out that the resource name is plural. I had to click the link to the post that had nothing to do with the answer I needed ... because the post had an intriguing title!

In a total non-sequencer to the post title, the Steemian's opening words were, "I just left {That Town Your Grandmother Grew Up In}, Texas ...."

THAT TOWN, TEXAS! I started to leave a comment, "My great-grandparents helped found That Town." BUT No. Wait. Were they part of the early founders or like second wave? Childhood memories are fuzzy. There use to be a family history online ... And I started looking around.

This is where I fell into blindsided sobbing and all comments were forgotten.

On the 14th this was mostly as far as I got with writing. I did collect some needed links. I did make art (included in this post). I did go to bed when @mitchmiester came home (not later than). So, this next section has taken from then to now to be able to write. A full week. ... And ... so ... we continue ...

This is where I came "face to face" with the family secret. That thing no one wants to remember to tell you about. That thing with a falling tree, a crushed open-air touring car, crushed bodies, crushed skull, blood dripping into the street ...

I came face to face with a newspaper article that barely gives a description and yet is so so so much more than I had ever been able to comprehend ...

... the event that changed my grandmother's life because she was riding in the car behind this car, the car that arrived to the scene just minutes later ... and the people lost were her favorite uncle and cousin.

... and my memories swirled around me ... no trees near the house, not even in the yard. Not allowed to leave her sight to go play, but then the yard was always hot and barren in the Texas sun. No shade. No breeze from God's ceiling fans. No real place to play anyway. A Swing-set ... there was a swing-set we didn't get to use. The dry ground couldn't keep the anchors in place.

... I remember getting ready to go stay at my grandmothers to be babysat for a few hours. I remember my mother's hot tears falling on my little hands while I'm asking, "What's wrong, Mama?"

She replied, not angry, not trying to make me feel guilty, "I'm crying because ya'll don't like going to my mother's house as much as ya'll like going to your daddy's mother's house."

She was so sad. I hugged her. I told her about the trees and the dry grass and how different it was at my daddy's mother who had trees and shade and lots of soft grass and she let us go outside and run around and play. (My daddy's mom's place was at the edge of a woods and the woods pretty much got to stay in place.)

My mother gave me a hug and said, "I know." and that was that. It was just the way it was because that's just the way my grandmothers were.

... I remember so many many things ... some of the things I will tell you after I tell you about the first Steemians whom I talked with about this story. And I will tell you ... how this ties to ADD and to the thesis.

But tonight is late. Tonight I want to go to bed as soon as @mitchmiester walks through the door. There's a few things I have to do first.

I do want to add that I thought about including all the fine details in this post. But somethings are just not "need to know." I have learned that when I write about myself, it is possible to let go of clues to the lives of others ... clues they may not want released.

And just in case someone should start to wonder, my great-grandparents were easily the third wave (not generation) of people to move into That Town, Texas. I know that one of my grandmother's aunts married the son of one of the first families. Woah! Hmmph, interesting what can take a bit to click. That son was my grandmother's uncle killed in this incident.

Well, it's midnight. My dinner is arriving home. I mean my husband. The love of my life :) Don't be surprised if I don't post more until Tuesday. Monday is a vacation day. I think most of the next part is ready to roll for tomorrow ... but ... the deep dives into the what if's and the researching to find the links to find the bits ...

I will say, I better understand why I was taught to say good bye each day as if it could be the last good bye. And it is part of why I tend to close with ...

Enjoy, have fun!
Which in my head means "Look for the Joy, Have fun." It's just long to write. But maybe I should write it that way.