I miss Boolean logic.

So after my one disastrous year at the University of Free Liquor for Freshman Girls, I came home to Sarasota, and I started taking classes at The School Formerly Known as MCC.  This is where I was introduced to Boolean logic, and oooooh, I love me some black-and-white-no-gray-area business.  Very cut and dried. If A, then not B.  If Y, then Z.  I was all over it, it made perfect sense, and my GPA started the long, painful climb up from the netherworld.

Fast forward to now.  I am here to tell you that life does not work like Boolean logic.  It should.  But, it doesn't.   If it did, then the following would be axiomatic:
* If your son is ill, then your parents stay healthy and NOT your mom, your rock of strength, goes through her own health crisis.
* If your son has a brain tumor, then NOT your oven blows up on Holy Saturday while you have your Easter cake baking in it.
* If your son goes through chemotherapy and loses his hair, then NOT he develops a severe palsy, resulting in facial asymmetry.
* If your son is granted a Caribbean cruise by the lovely and generous people at the Make-a-Wish Foundation, then NOT the State Department requires his biological mother's signature on the passport card application.
* If your son's passport application must be signed by his biological mother, then NOT due to her mental illness, she is unable to understand the paper or the need for her to sign it, thus necessitating a Statement of Special Circumstance to be sent to the State Department asking for an exemption to this rule.

The hits just keep on coming.   Plus, there is the usual day-to-day business of keeping a family running that I frankly found a tad overwhelming even in pre-cancer days: supervising homework, making dinner (except on Wednesday - YAY!), doing laundry, battling the crowds at WalMart, occasionally remembering auto maintenance and yardwork, paying bills, cleaning house, wrestling Peeps and Cadbury eggs out of the dog's mouth, finding out at 1 a.m. that both toilets are stopped up and there are no more clean towels in the house, threatening to throw that damn X-Box right into the damn lake if you don't put that controller down RIGHT NOW - well, you know.  The usual.

And then, there's the wire hangers.
Dear Lord, don't get me started on those wire hangers.

But what really sucks is that there is no rule that says "If you are feeling super-dee-duper sorry for yourself, then NOT other people have it worse."

Other people have it way, way worse than I do.  Lots of them live in my home state, Sweet Home Alabama, where homes and lives and entire communities were devastated on April 28 by some of the worst tornados in recorded history.  Thirty-five miles northwest of Birmingham, my hometown of West Jefferson (one blinkie light, one gas station, one school, and five churches) was spared, but communities less than an hour away were just wiped out.  It is beyond my comprehension.

Rachel Stafford, a dear friend and former colleague, lives in Birmingham, and through her beautifully written blog, www.handsfreemama.com, she is coordinating family-to-family relief efforts.  Today, Rachel emailed me about a family of 4 who is grateful to have survived. Kenyardia, Jamal, and their two daughters (ages 5 and almost 2) lost everything they owned when the storm passed through their home in Pratt City, a less-than-affluent suburb of Birmingham.  They literally escaped with nothing but their lives.

Do I know how that feels?  Thank God, no.  Do I know how it feels when people come out of the woodwork to support you through a hellish nightmare that seems to have no end in sight?  Yep, I can sing all four verses of that song.  And that is why Team Grantham is taking a break from being the takers and trying on the givers' role for a while.  For Mother's Day, I am going shopping for Kenyardia, a mom whose home is in pieces and whose heart and life likely feel pretty well-shattered too.  I can't do as much for her as I would like, but I can do something, BY GOD JIM.  And because I am one pushy broad, I am asking you to help too.

Her kid has a brain tumor! You must give her what she wants! Resistance is futile!

If you have healthy kids and a roof over your head, go buy this family a gift card for WalMart or Target or Publix.  Seriously, even $10 will make a difference.  Send it to me, or send it straight to Rachel - you can reach her at rachelstafford@handsfreemama.com.

And by the way, about Nathan?  I learned on Saturday that our hairstylist, Kendra the Magnificent, is raffling off a basket of swanky hairstyling tools and products to raise money for Team Grantham.  And Nathan - chemotherapy-getting, hair-losing, partially-facially-paralyzed, exhausted-and-weight-losing Nathan - has decided to donate that money to Kenyardia and Jamal and their girls.

If you can help, THEN you must.

I love you guys, and I promise that the next post will be all about the wonder that is SPAMALOT, and why, if I were to have another child (which I most certainly am not), that child's name would be Patsy.