My little brother Eric is mourning the death of his friend Walter Lee Dolley. Walter was shot the other day randomly as he walked home from the store. I went to the same High School as Walter and I’d seen him around but I’d never really known him. I had no clue that my brother had been friends with him until I began to see the pain and torment that this death has put him through. I think this is my little brother Eric’s first experience with death and I wish I could make it his last. It hurts to see my little brother who acts so tough and independent weeping at the sight of a picture of the young man.

I believe that heaven is a place that welcomes all.

So, Walter Lee Dolley may you rest in the peace and warmth of God’s embrace forever.

Walter Lee Dolley

The hospital

The first thing I’d like to discuss is a conversation I had with my Pastor Matt Johnson. I had asked Matt if tomorrow I could testify in front of my church congregation. Technically it isn’t my congregation because I am not a member…but I have found a family among the members these last few years. Matt and I talked about why I wanted to testify and what is important when thinking about God and a testimony. Many people want to just talk about how God has blessed them but they fail to mention that struggles they are still going to God about. For example: I was blessed with a new job…but I’d like prayer because -I am making less than Minimum wage at my job -I am unhappy not being able to start school like everyone else I know. -I am having trouble communicating with people I love because of my lack of a cellphone, the internet. -how it is hard to be on my own and independent when I only really have my mother and Craig to talk to no consistant friends.

Another event that has happened in my life was my choice to wait to go to Scotland for a couple of months. Putting Scotland off till after the holidays will allow Craig a time to meet and get to know my mother so my mother will trust him to be my main emergency contact if anything happens to me while I’m overseas.

My third event is that yesterday was September 11th, eight years after the towers fell. I was 12 years old when it happened and like many others I remember where I was when the towers were hit. I was sitting in Ms. Wilcek’s sixth grade classroom during quiet reading time when my teacher got a phone call from her fiance now husband. I remember I was sitting across from Derek S. and that we were quietly chatting to each other over our books…my teacher left after the phone call and came back crying. She and other teachers chatted quietly in the corner of the room until they decided to turn on the TV and they all sat watching the news as we children sat reading. We wondered what was going on because my teacher was crying and it finally came on the intercom that America had been attacked earlier in the morning in New York City I remember wondering where New York was and if it was anywhere near us. We were told that we were being sent home early and that our parents would be informed of our early release. When I got home my mom arrived a little later and she explained everything to me…I was really sad because I thought we were under attack in MN. I remember going home and watching as they showed footage of it on every channel…I watched the footage of people committing suicide after deciding that it was either jumping out the window with a plastic bag parachute or burning to death. I remember after 9/11 I went to my church and asked if the people who had commited suicide were going to hell…my youth ministers said no…because it was God’s will.

I’ve moved inside because it is extremely hot so I’m sitting now in the emergency room lobby at HCMC and just a few minutes ago there was a young girl who discovered that her father had died…she started yelling histerically about how her dad was dead…the kind of screams that make your heart skip a beat…like true pain. I was thinking in my heart about what may have happened to the girl and the man…was there a car accident? Was it a heart attack? Had the girl herself commited the crime? and being in the emergency room I’m thinking about what’s going on…I was raised and shown on tv that when you are in the emergency room you should expect the worst. I wanted to go swarm the girl to see what she looks like and comfort her…hug her and sooth her so that she will stop yelling and frightening the babies and making them cry. I’ve decided to stay where I am…because out of sight for me is out of mind. My mother on the other hand has gotten up to investigate. The girl was yelling and was taken back into a different room wondering and asking if anyone could help her dad. It makes me think about what Craig is doing this weekend and what I may have to do with my mother having cancer that is slowly getting worse. Letting go of loved ones is very difficult…but even though my mother says that she has “too much to do” to die…it still scares me to think about losing her. While some people like Craig don’t yell and scream histerically when they learn that they have lost their loved ones …people who stay strong and keep their composure to keep their family strong there are people like this young girl whose live are totally shaken and with them everyone around them are shaken as well. My brother has stopped complaining about his burned wrist…the reason we are at HCMC anyway…he burned it on a pan at work and it looks painful..but not as painful as losing someone you love. It might be a third or forth degree burn but he no longer complains of the pain as he was before the girl was screaming…I wonder if he realizes that it could be worse and that the pain he feels now isn’t so bad. Or maybe his pain reliever kicked in.

Now that the girl has been taken away the heavy heart I am feeling remains…the people who also sit in the lobby with my have continued their lives as soon I will continue mine…I think about Craig and his mother and death. This weekend Craig and his family are releasing his mother’s ashes in Elie Scotland…a beautiful place full of many family memories I can tell. I wonder if I was cremated where they’re place me. Or, if it was my mother…where I’d put her…I would never want to think about anyone I love as ashes or in a wooden box to rot in the ground. I do not pray for a fate like that to befall anyone.

“oh my god! oh my god my dad’s dead…no! OH MY DAD! OH MY GOD…NO i DON’T WANT anything I want my dad”…I can hear the girl in my head ringing still.

I need to get my mind off of death because it depresses me…so on a lighter note: my roommate Louie is allowing me to use his laptop. it is nice because i am sitting in HCMC and they have guest wifi. Before when I was sitting outside in the car I was thinking about how nice it would be to just loiter outside the hospital to get wifi…but then I felt bad about not being able to get on facebook because it is blocked.

In back of me are some giant tropical fish…they are like I’ve never seen before and they have huge eyes. I wonder if these fish could be the last things a person might ever see in the world if they were to die in this hospital as the girls father had.

My brother used sweet corn to cool his burn…it reminds me that I am hungry and I reach into my bag and grab one of the boxes of museli bars I won from the slogan contest…there’s a really loud annoying woman calling people to the counter…

there is a girl here with two boys and I wonder if they are here for a maternity test. They look like they might be.

I wonder what the hospitals will be like in Scotland if or when i ever have a child and need to give birth in one.

I wonder why they are butchering a man’s name over the loud speaker…and when they are going to call for my brother.

Wow it has been 5 hours…

wait, my brother Tyler just arrived with a really high fever…they are going to take them in together, I’m going to call Sean and see if I can get a ride home…laters.

Mom and Tyler waiting for the Doctor in room C5

This blog is not meant to make Craig Cry…if he is dead set on Crying I think he should make an effort not to read this blog because I am trying to get my thoughts straight

My relationship with Craig has caused me physical, physiological and emotional stress, pain and anxiety. I cannot get through my day smoothly without finding out what Craig is up to… I can’t sleep at night when I’m thinking about my life and how everything in my world seemed SO PERFECT when I was in Scotland, free of rules and authority, totally carefree and in an independent state that made me feel truly happy.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through a mental roller coaster with myself trying to find out where I want my life to be going.. . I seemed to have spiraled down to a place where I cry myself to sleep at night (if I even get any sleep at all). I’ve become so depressed with my situation that I’ve thought about suicide and homicide and just plain running away from MN and never returning…turning to the streets to get the money I need to survive because anything and anywhere would be better for me than where I’m currently at.

School isn’t an option for me right now because I can’t afford it and I don’t want to go back home because not only will I feel unloved and hated but I know that when I am home I fall into a deep deep hole of depression that creates thoughts in my life that nothing is worth living for if the people who are supposed to care and support you the most are telling you that you are a failure and worthless and that they hate you and wish that you’d never been born or that you are making mistakes with your life and throwing it away or that you need to find somewhere else to go because you ” can’t stay here”. I feel that every time I come home I just consider disappearing from the planet all together because life is not worth living when all you get from everyone you care about is hate. I feel that suicide is a selfish act and the only thing that is stopping me from committing it is my beliefs in Jesus and my Christianity because I don’t want to go to hell by committing that kind of sin. I’d like to prove my family wrong when they tell me that I’m a stupid bitch and that I should “just die” I want to become successful so I can choose if I want them in my life or not.

But right now at a time where I need vital support and love I can’t get it anywhere in Minnesota. No one here understands the constant ache in my heart that is only released once a week while I sing at church…the ache is only lifted while I’m standing and thinking about what life will be after I die and I have eternal life with Jesus. The only thing that has made me feel loved when I am alone is my belief that Jesus is with me and that God loves me.

When I was younger and going through shit with my father and my family I felt that God sent me a friend that would care for me and my situation and show me love regardless of who I was. The person I thought God was sending to me was my best friend Craig. Craig has been my rock and support for six years now and If he hadn’t been around many times I think I would have simply just jumped out a window or took a knife to my brother’s throats while they were sleeping.

Craig has talked me down from many episodes and he’s been there when I’ve been in the biggest dangers…like when my brother Tyler was attempting to kill me and my only way of defending myself was stabbing him in the side with scissors…at that time though helpless to help I’d been on the phone with Craig and he’d been there to tell me that everything would be okay. I remember thinking ‘if my brother does kill me at least Craig can call the police or testify against Tyler in court’.

I’ve been drawn to Craig because I felt that he was the solution to all my problems. I never asked him to become that kind of person to me…he just became that person when everyday after school I would rush online and talk to him all night about whatever was going on in my life.

I remember being banned from my families computer and trying all I could to get through to Craig so I could have someone I could vent to and cry to.

I used to find myself crying myself to sleep at night. I had bottled up anger and emotional baggage and with Craig’s support I got out of those bad habits. When my brothers would say how stupid, fat and ugly I was I would think about how Craig would call me cool. When my brothers and little sister told me that No one liked me I would think about Craig and how he didn’t only Like me but he even went and told me that he loved me and would consider me his best friend.

My relationship with Craig is a strange bond that I never want to see broken.

Recently though I think I’ve made some choices that have made me a subject of my own crazy emotions. I’ve been stressed and depressed about my lack of a connection with Craig as I used to have. When Craig and I stopped being friends and became lovers I lost a lot in him that I used to have. I would call on Craig when I wanted affirmation that someone in my world loved me because it seemed that everywhere in my real and present world everyone was letting me down.

I feel like many times I’ve put up signs that are like warning signs calling for help to anyone who was willing to listen. Mainly people like Mike Boosalis, Jacob Babcock and Kyle Parsons.

These signs have been witnessed by many people including my youth minister Michael Von Gross who told me that my only way of escaping this kind of depressing fate was to try something new and escape it.

Craig hasn’t been able to help me in my current battles and I’ve realized that his reasoning might be because I’ve put him on a high pedistule thinking that he could be my superman when he  was just another average joe who couldn’t fix my anything.

I feel that I’ve been asking him for a relationship and more love than he could give me and commit to at his age because for me I needed that love that I’ve been missing in the past. While I was in Scotland I was able to physically express myself and show my love for Craig in my actions…but now that I am away I’ve been expecting and wanting and waiting for that kind of love again but since I haven’t had it I’ve been suffering and beating myself and Craig up in order to get it.

Just tonight my mother called me into her room and gave me a speech about how she doesn’t want me to throw my life away. She told me that I am asking Craig for a lot more than he can give me and that I should never have gone to Scotland and done the things I’ve done. She told me that I’m in a position where I am on the edge of a cliff waiting for someone to give me the approval to jump off. She told me that Craig isn’t capable of returning the love I’ve been giving him and that I’m putting forth too much effort on my side for someone who “just isn’t that into you(me)”. She says that if Craig truly loved me he would have sent for me, or made an effort to come and at least meet my family as I did his. She said that he would put me as a priority and respect me like I’ve wanted…she said that a person who really loves you will show it in all that they do. She says that she knew from the start that I was putting all my eggs into one basket with Craig and now that the basket has a hole in it I shouldn’t be disappointed that I am losing all my eggs. She says that we might be better off returning to being just best friends. She says that Craig is not in a position in his life to make the commitment to me that in my mind he’s already made. She says that I am thinking that we are already married when he hasn’t even been brought home to my parents yet. Meaning that I am giving too much of myself to Craig and now that he’s found other things that are more important that I shouldn’t be upset that he’s not crazy pining for me. Craig is distancing himself from me like Scott did right before he broke up with me…and like Jason did when I broke up with him…yet Craig and I are supposed to be “together forever” in my crazy already thought out mixed perception of life.

Craig doesn’t see himself with me forever as i see myself with him…Craig wants to live his life now as it is and not think about the future as I am…Craig doesn’t want to be bothered with having me around this next year in Dundee but is only agreeing to it because I need the reassurance in my life and he doesn’t want to hurt his friend. To Craig everything I’m doing is forcing him into a frenzy with his life so he is avoiding me till he gets everything on his side figured out. Craig thinks that everything with me is going too fast and he wishes that I could slow it down and act like a normal girlfriend with a life outside of him. He wishes that I hadn’t put all my eggs into his basket and he wants me to find something else to fill my time other than him.

I want to go somewhere where I can feel real love, I want to love and be loved in return because my home life is unsatisfying… I just know that Craig will never feel that same way about me as I do him because I don’t see him suffering as I do…mentally, emotionally and physically and am going Crazy because of my relationship.

I am a bit crazy to begin with and I think I need to find something that will make me happy…I need to find myself before I try to ruin someone’s life by being around.

I don’t really know what this realization means… all I know is that my mom might be right about my relationship with Craig… Are we better off friends?

So I just overheard my mother telling my little brother that she is writing out her will. I was kind of shocked at first because that would mean that my mother is contemplating what will happen to her and her estate after she leaves us and dies.

Recently with my mother be diagnosed with Cancer I’ve been trying to avoid the situation by acting like there is nothing wrong except that my mother has patches of her skin missing now because of tests and such…and because my mom is constantly in pain and can only handle little touching…hugging her is even hard now. I’ve been avoiding it because I want to be able to focus on the life that is and to not think of the life that may not be.

Gosh, with this will thing I think it just hit me that my mother has cancer and that I might lose her like Craig lost his mother.

I had a big discussion with Craig the other day in which he told me about how his mother did have a will but how he hasn’t seen it and how he half expected there to be some sort of letter waiting from his mother to give him closure after his mother’s passing. When there was nothing there Craig was disappointed and upset.

Right now my mother is writing her Will and in her will she will probably include a letter to each of us children to comfort and prepare us for life to come…to provide closure, she will also be establishing her estate.

I wonder what kind of position she puts me into in the family in her will for after she leaves. I wonder if she puts me in charge of the kids or gives me the animals. I know she doesn’t have a lot of money to leave behind. I wonder if she thinks well of me and I wonder what she’d say to me if she knew that she would never see me again and that I’d be devastated to see her go.

Gosh…I wonder what she is writing down…I hope I don’t have to read it for MANY MANY YEARS.

Tonight I blame my lack of motivation to sleep on the thoughts of how much I’ve been missing the opportunities to talk to Craig, along with my anxiety about having to go to summer fest for a week. Considering the current circumstances of Sheona McCreath passing I’d say that Craig’s not being available is understandable and very appropriate. I’m thinking about my relationship with Craig and how we act when we are around each other, I’m trying to figure out if I actually can play the role of his best friend and his girlfriend. I found myself longing for the ability to comfort him in the perfect way that a best friend should. I want to have the skills or to be accessible to him enough for him to know that he always have a shoulder to cry on, or an open ear to listen in me. I wish I knew as  much about Craig as he does about me and that I could help him through this hard time.

In my sleepless sulk I find myself wandering to you tube just to be able to see a glimpse of Craig and I as we were when we were both happy together and when life for us was perfect and everything was for us as it should be. I really remember being able to truly laugh and smile while I was around Craig, something that I haven’t naturally done here back in America for a long time.

I watched a lot of videos I’d taken over the past few years and I realized that I take the time to try to capture life when it is good,  so that when it changes it can be remembered. I wonder if after losing his mother Craig will be able to return to the same fun and loving person I’ve known for so many years. I wouldn’t want any dark shadows of sorrow taking away the Craig I know and love from me any more than it currently has.

Four videos in particular cheered me up from my sorrowful and sleepless mood…they actually made me laugh and smile again for the first time since I heard the news about Craig’s mom on my birthday yesterday morning.

three of the videos are by me and one video is by someone with a related topic as one of my videos. I considered simply posting these videos on facebook  for others to enjoy as I do and calling it a night, but I think that it is important especially this quickly during such a depressing and sad time  in Craig’s life that I give an explanation to why I think I should feature these.

When I am with Craig I feel like a kid again, innocent and blissful. I try to play as I think a child plays with a close friend or playmate. As a child I never had any playmates to grow up with and I feel that Craig has given me the opportunity to try to relive those fun years or trying new things and being playful and daring. It interesting that this is happening to me now at a time when I feel that people should start treating me as more of an adult and mature enough to handle things like alcohol, sex and renting out a place to live on my own.

This first video was something that made me smile because it was something that I tried with Craig that she both seemed to enjoy and did out of boredom and that I can remember was true fun.

we decided to take up lip syncing:

or practicing for a Christmas greeting video

When I came across a video of Craig sexy eating it made me think of some of the wonderful small fun moments we had together that I hope will never go away now.

the sexy eating led me to a video that also made me smile

The day where I celebrated my twenty years of life on this planet and

I celebrated that I had survived to this age as many people before me hadn’t.
I was supposed to get attention and respect from everyone around me,

the prospects of anything bad happening today were supposed to be gone.

Sadly Life isn’t what you want it to be.
Today had to be one of the hardest days of my life.

Not only did everything that I wanted for my birthday not happen,

but the worst thing that could have happened did.

My boyfriend Craig’s loving mother Sheona Valley McCreath died this morning.

Last night when I’d been talking to Craig I had known that something was wrong I’d had the strange gut feeling that the situation wasn’t going to get better.

My bad feeling started when Craig initiated a conversation with me. Craig and I have been dating for almost nine months now but we have been friends for A LOT longer. During our years of friendship I have grown to know Craig well enough to know that he is not the type to initiate much due to his social anxiety and his fears of rejection. In our relationship I’ve been known to start a lot. Even though I want to be the follower often and I try to force Craig into positions that cause him to have to make up his mind on decisions I know that it is completely out of his character to try to initiate such a thing as a conversation with me.
Last night was different and I knew it was different because not only did Craig try to reach out to me but he shared his feelings with me without my having to ask for them. He knew he could trust me and confide in me as I’d done millions of times for him before.

Craig filled me in on his mother’s condition as I sat at home on my mom’s terrible wireless I thought to myself…I really hope this isn’t as bad as I think it is…and I really hope Craig is preparing himself for the very worst. In the back of my mind I had many selfish thoughts hoping that this trip to the hospital for the McCreaths would be like any other. Craig’s mom was admitted to the hospital for a few days, she’d heal, and all would be returned to normal. I hoped this because I thought that the worst thing that could happen would be Craig’s mother dying on my very birthday.
I thought that Craig’s mother dying on my birthday would taint the day for Craig for the rest of our lives. I thought that Craig would think of the anniversary of his mother’s death at everyone of my birthdays for the rest of our lives together and get all depressed and upset and angrily frustrated with the unfairness of the world, that one day meant to be used to celebrate life would become a day to wonder why it had to end.

The internet at my mother’s house failed me and all I could do for the rest of the night was to pray and hope that the best thing that could happen (Craig’s mothers healing) would happen in the passing hours of the night. My mom and I sat before we went to bed a prayed together that everything would turn out for the best for the McCreath family.

Sadly everything I hoped would didn’t go as I’d hoped. Tragically a life that had been filled with love and compassion for others was brought to an end.

Being a Christian I was raised to believe that God has a plan for everyone’s life,

that God brings a person into the world for a reason at a certain time. I was raised and taught that God can take a person out of the world when God believes that it is their time.

I wonder why God choose this time in Craig and Claire’s lives to take away their loving mother.

I wonder why God decided that the proper time to take this vital person away in my best friend’s life would be on the day that I myself was celebrating my life.

I wondered what a person does in God’s amazing plan to deserve that their time of final judgment come so early when in the bible men and woman lived for hundreds of years?

Why do good people such as Craig’s mom die, when the scum of the earth like Criminals can live their final days in the luxaries of their jail cells or even roaming the streets commiting even more crimes?

How dare God take away an innocent person’s mother, wife and sister?!

These questions I have been asking myself all day today as I cried and pondered the news that I’d recieved this morning a mere four minutes after waking up.

I sat crying to my mother asking her Why my prayers didn’t work? and Why everything didn’t turn out for the better when I usually get what I want from my religion.

My my mother told me that God gave the answer to these questions that was always meant to be. She said that God made this decision because he needed to and It was always planned, she said that even though we didn’t want it to happen it was out of our control, she told me that Craig’s mother was in a better place and closer to her creator. She told me that she is where she was meant to be. I know many people who aren’t religious but to me to grasp onto the worldly body and to not be thankful about where to soul may be was the wrong thing. That is how I find that I can cope with death and look into it’s face with no fear and feel better about my future. I know that there is hope for those who believe that there is.

I think God was trying to show us that life is short and that it is important for a person to cherish the time they have. I believe that I should live each day like it was the last one I’ll ever have and love like there isn’t a limit. I Believe that a person’s life is like a star shining in the darkness and that for the small time that the star can be seem in the night’s sky that it should try it’s best to shine it’s brightest and most brilliant.

I believe that the important thing about a person’s life is what amazing and incredible lessons and memories they leave behind. A BODY MAY DIE BUT A SOUL WILL LIVE ON FOREVER.

Sheona McCreath raised two brilliant, talented, Loving, intelligent, amazingly beautiful children. She was a friend to all. Even though I only was able to know her for a short amount of time I feel blessed to have been touched by her and able to meet her in my lifetime.

I feel that she left a mark on my heart that will never be replaced. I know she is in a good place right now and I am happy that her time of pain and suffering are over.

I’m happy that in death there is no pain and I believe that a soul finally finds it’s perfect paradise in heaven when it leaves it’s body of flesh and blood.

I have hope that Sheona McCreath is in a better place and happy to be free of a restricting body.

I believe also that the time in heaven is different then the time on earth and that in heaven millions of years can pass in a blink of an eye. I know that those of us who Sheona left behind will feel the pain and hurt of our loss for a long time and that the grieving and mourning process can change a person forever. I know that Ron, Craig and Claire will never be the same after this loss. But I believe that we will live our lives to the fullest and be with Sheona in heaven to what may seem to her as a split second but to us maybe a lifetime.

I’m looking at life in a brand new light now. I want to make the most of the days I have to live.

I am proud that Craig will remember his mother on my birthday for the rest of his life because I wouldn’t want to share that day with anyone else, she is the most worthy of the honor because she holds a great spot in Craig’s life because her life and the spirit she left behind was so great. I believe that my sharing my day is a blessing and that the love that Sheona had for everyone she knows will become the love that people she has touched have for others.

May she rest in peace without pain or worry forever happy in the warmth of my father’s house.