Getting It Off My Chest

Update on our son for 4/12/09

Oh, and just in case you didn't realize this: his eyes are open in the photo of him after the beating.
I chatted with him last night and his voice was stronger but his headache will not subside. He now has vertigo (dizziness) and just can't stop the room from spinning. But he's getting better slowly. He neglected to tell me that the attackers punched his mouth and destroyed some front teeth so he now has 4 temporary caps in there until the permanent ones can be put in. Each day I learn something else that happened. I'll see him this coming week. I thank each and everyone of you who prayed for him and for your remarks. I know prayers work and especially those of a mother for her children. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I just cannot thank you all in person but if I could I would. I also thank those who wanted to send him a personal note at his home. He'll get a kick out of that.
~*~

Update on our son for 4/10/09

I am so ready for this season to bloom, aren't you?! A fresh awakening of mother nature. Ahhhh............... I don't think I could post without a picture of eye candy or glorious beauty even as it was singing its swan song last summer.

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(Imagine my voice very soft and lovingly saying these following words as that is how it is meant and not harshly stated.) *Smile*

First of all I need to say something in response to Anonymous about her comments and I only wish she would have revealed herself so I could "sympathize" with her (and please, my fellow bloggers don't pick on her because I know she meant no harm or ill will and I certainly have taken none): You are absolutely correct and I apologize. There are absolutely, unequivocally good and bad in every race in this world and absolutely race has nothing to do with it. You would have to know me to know I am no racist and neither is my son. This is not said as a need to defend my beliefs or myself; it's just a simple statement of fact. I never said what ethnic or diverse group they were at all. To assume I meant the group you are mentioning is a great leap because there really is no hint as to which one it is. California is such a mix of different/diverse groups of people it could have been any number of them. As a matter of fact, we are part Mexican and Spanish through some great-grandparents. My grandsons are part Asian. I know it doesn't show in our appearance but it is absolutely there, just the Dutch side appears more prevalent. In my church, you will NEVER EVER hear a word about hate!!! It is all about love for our other brothers and sisters. Always!

You are right: as a people and a nation we are becoming divided. I feel profoundly sad at this. You have no idea how many days and nights hubs and I have talked about this as a family and what we can do on our part to help others come to this realization or the tears shed on pillows as we see these things take place in our beloved and wonderful country. It will not get any better however until there is a turn towards God and we learn to have love in our hearts. No amount of "legislation" can force us to love one another or treat one another equally. It has to come from the heart. This can only happen when we turn to the Almighty Superior Being. Do not argue with me because what I espouse is truth. Have you seen or heard any politician introduce any kind of legislation that makes us love one another more? No! It comes from the heart. No one can have any clue how many conversations, tears and stress this has brought to this family's life or how many pillows have been wet from tears or how many have rolled down my cheeks and dropped onto my shirt on how this glorious and wonderful country is being torn apart from this. Again, it will only get worse. But through all of it I'm persevering on being happy, funny, witty and humorous by following the teachings of my church in that regard.

I cringe when I hear the "apologists" apologize for being "American" or FOR America! Not this woman! This is a God given country to us from God. He is MY leader! Never apologize for ME for being American. I'm proud of the United States of America. All people are proud of their country and I am no different. It's the greatest country in the world I believe. I know people die trying to get into this country and my daughter-in-law was one of them who surmounted great odds to come here and she has a degree in business from her birth country's university. She's an educated, intelligent, bright and literate woman. Her family tells me that in the country she came from, there are hardly any of them that wouldn't give their lives to come here!! I speak from experience on this one so do NOT doubt me!!! I follow His teachings. I obey the laws of the land as instructed by the dictates of my church. I, for one silly little American woman, am PROUD to be American!! I don't love "races/groups"; I love people. Always have and always will. I look to their hearts. If I don't like you, it isn't because of your color or race or culture; it's because I don't like "you", trust me on this. Love for you? Yes, but not someone whom I might not find much to admire. The spewing of hate we are subject to from the articles I read turn my stomach and sicken me.

Now, since the education is woefully inadequate in this country (no disrespect to teachers at all here), let me clarify one thing: there are only 3 races in the world—caucasoid, negroid and mongoloid. That's it; there aren't any more. You would have to go back to anthropology books about 50 years ago to fully check it out. Mexicans are caucasoid and not negroid/black. This certainly isn't meant to belittle anyone; it's a fact. These "races" are NOT determined by skin color, well, not only and that's the last determination; it is determined by cranial measurements of the skull: forehead, nose and bone. There are "diverse" cultures and ethnic groups within each race. I think we should all be proud of what we are and who we are. Mostly we are all children of God. Be proud of whatever your heritage is. Enough said about this. Be proud to be born OR naturalized as an American citizen!!
~*~

Now for the actual update on son. He doesn't need any surgery on face. Just many fractures in the face bones. We're happy for that. Of course, as his mother, I don't see how they could improve on that gorgeous face, which looks surprisingly like mine! But he can talk a bit better and ate some spaghetti, chocolate pudding and some donuts! He is, after all, his mother's son! (I keep my sense of humor through everything, chicks.) He also told his dad, Love Bunny, "they really whupped me, Dad." Still has his sense of humor.

Now I want to copy for you a letter I sent recently to Shelia at Note Songs blog and it is truly my own words and thoughts to her:

Actually, I feel peace at the moment about not hating. It's a very strange feeling because as a mother we all worry about our children and what we would do if someone hurt them. Well, I've been given the test and I think I've survived it well. We watched our church's General Conference this past weekend (it's always the first weekend in April and same in October) and there are always talks about forgiveness. But during this conference it must have settled into my heart silently and eagerly, honey. I can truly and honestly state that I felt not one moment of hate. Anger, yes, a tiny, tiny fraction, but it went away so fast it was almost unnoticeable! It's all very strange to me especially after looking at my baby's face and seeing it so brutalized and hearing him groaning over the phone and all of that. I can't explain it. One would have to experience it to feel it. But I'm at peace just knowing that [son] is alive.
~*~

I'll leave you today with this statement in a sweet and loving email from Pat at Mille Fiori Favoriti:

We sometimes can only do small things, but we can do them with great love.
~*~


Update on our son for 4/7/09 6:30 AM

Last night my daughter-in-law called and said the police got the surveillance tape and were able to identify 3 of those men who attacked our son and also got the license plate of the car. I'm very pleased.

Son will go to doctor today to see if he is going to need surgery on his face. Not sure why but we'll see. He is still not eating and nauseous even after getting medication for it. I think after an ordeal like that the body just wants to go into "sleep mode" to heal itself and he's doing that almost exclusively! He cannot talk or eat but is sipping water through a straw.

I still want to tell you that I'm feeling no hate for those men. I say this in all honesty. Yes, I cry—A LOT! I didn't know a face could hurt this bad from crying or eyes could be so tender also. But I still feel a little anger. Why not hate and only a little bit of anger when my baby's face and body is so beaten? I think the Lord has stepped in on this one, trust me. We are taught in our church to love every single person and to not hold grudges. I'm not perfect at this, believe me! But if I hold the hate and anger I'm the lower one. This has truly opened my eyes and heart beyond anything I can comprehend. But I tell you this with all the honesty I can muster at this point. I have feelings for their mothers who raised them. I truly want to hate these men but I just simply cannot do it. I sit here typing this with tears rolling down my eyes onto my chest knowing my son wouldn't want this either. We're a strongly LDS family and try to live by my church's teaching no matter how hard it is for the "natural man/woman" in me. l can only weep for those men also. I say these things not to sound "above the fray" but because this are truly and absolutely what is in my heart at the moment.

I want to thank all of you who have prayed for my baby and for your sweet kind words. I have a better insight into these things that happen now and maybe the lesson is for me and me only. I'll try and respond to each of you as soon as I can. Thank you, thank you; I know prayers work because my son is alive!
~*~


Update Monday 4/6/09 11:15 am

My daughter and I were skyping today and she's been in touch with my DIL. We were both just sobbing on the video cam talking about this. My son had an MRI last night and there is absolutely no bleeding on his brain so that's an answer to our prayers last night. He is back home but cannot talk. They have a doctor's appointment to talk about surgery on his face. He is on so much pain killers at this point that I hope they are able to make it. My DIL is a very strong woman but her voice was so stressed out last night and I don't want all of us calling her so we're doing it in shifts. She needs to take care of her family at the moment. So we don't want to bombard her with too many calls.

The cops were at the hospital again last night and told them that 2 witnesses stood by and watched this and are willing to testify. (Let me say here I do NOT condemn them in anyway. This would have been terribly frightening if 5 guys were doing this to one man. No anger at those standing by at all.) The girl was terrified, but the others are certainly willing to talk. There were 2 cars and the first car had 5 "diverse/ethnic" men in it. They all jumped out to pound on my child. Witnesses say that he was knocked out for about half a minute and they went over and helped him up to his car. The manager of the convenience store/gas station was off for the weekend but when he comes in today they are going to get the tapes from him to view them and see if they can get some help that way.

My 20 year old grandson had a friend come over to stay with them and protect his mom, other grandmother and his 11 1/2 year old brother. The friend came with a gun because of the threats to our son's family. These are very mature trustworthy young men. My grandson is in college studying to be a pharmacist and is just a super young man. All my grandsons are actually! But when you get threatened in California you cannot depend on the police to protect you every minute. I love and adore any policeman but there is no way they can protect one small family. We've already scheduled to go down there next week and will wait until then unless there is a change in our son. But we have to go down there then so we'll see what happens this week. He's resting now and he needs that and said he doesn't want any visitors. I'm respecting that at the moment but reserving my rights as his mother to change at any given moment.

If you are interested you can look back as I'll be updating regularly as we know more. Thank all of you for your sweet prayers and comments. This has "ALMOST" devastated this family, but, as I said, we are strong!! And we'll NOT be beaten down. Sad for a season but NOT down and out. I've read the "Book" and know how it ends. The good people will persevere!!!!!!
~*~

Update at 9 pm 4/5/09

This is his face tonight. I apologize if this offends anyone but this is my baby. I gave birth to him 46 years ago saturday 4/3. How can a mother stand this? His hands are bruised from trying to defend himself last night. Wife called about 6 pm pacific time and said ambulance had come to take him back to hospital. He's in pain: head, cheeks, eyes, ribs, arms and legs. We haven't heard anything for 2 hours now so I'll keep posting when I get updates. We certainly could use prayers. I've been praying my insides out all day. I can't seem to stop crying. I just keep crying and praying for him. When they hurt your baby it hurts you no matter how old they are. It's strange but I can't feel hate for those men, just anger. Is that close to hate? I don't know. Right now it's just an intense sadness welling up in my chest.

When talking to him today, which was difficult because he can hardly move his jaw and can't eat much less hardly talk, he said he's not even sure how many, maybe even 6 jumped out of those cars and that's all he remembers. Not sure if they hit him with something or their hands punched him at first. His memory is still foggy. They just kept kicking and beating him. He remembers them telling him that if he said anything about this they'd kill him and his family since they got his wallet and knew where he lived. His family is living in fear at this moment. My 2 grandsons, daughter-in-law and her mom also. This is just beyond our belief at the moment. Fortunately, all was caught on a surveillance tape at the gas station. Am I rambling and repeating myself? If so, it's understandable. I need sleep now.

We got a phone call last night that almost rocked our world. My son was beaten by 5 gang members while at a gas station in the California town he lives in. He was gassing up so he could meet his family at a restaurant for dinner–his birthday. My daughter-in-law finally called because he was so late and was told he was in the ER and she and the boys rushed to the hospital.

He was trying to defend a woman they were picking on and told the "men" (using this term loosely here for this trash because "real men" don't do this sort of thing) to leave her alone. Now, my son was on crutches from a knee operation last month, but these 5 wimps ganged up on him. Son is a former Marine and could have handled at least 2 of them if not on crutches but they seemed to think it took 5 of them to beat up a defenseless man on crutches. He has a broken nose, 2 black eyes, fractured cheek plus the numerous other aches and pains from being beaten up by 5 hoodlums. I hope their mothers are proud of them. What in the world is happening to our country today when things like this happen???? I'm proud of my son for trying to defend a woman! They also saw fit to steal his wallet. Wasn't that just super of them?? The police are on top of it. I'm just hoping they got a good look at them from the surveillance tape at the gas station.

Had to vent. I want our country to be safe but when we stop living a moral and Godly life this is what happens to our cities, states and country. I think I'll have to pray for those punks also. I don't want to but I think they probably need prayer more than my son at this point. Until we get some moral people in to make moral and Godly decisions this will not get better; it will get worse. Is this what you want our country to become - a place where thugs rule?