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Highland Park & close to home [1]

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Date: 2022-07-04

It’s been awhile since I posted.

Quick & fast diary that I feel I must post.

This weekend my four daughters were down in Highland Park with their mother. For ease of reading just put ‘ex’ in front of her parents. They were supposed to be @ the parade, FIL had something work related come up, MIL wanted to finish some gardening. Our girls are ages 24, 22, 17 & 15. They were going to drive up to the outlet malls by Great America with their mother after the parade. Instead, the 15 yr old, & 22 yr old helped ‘Nana’ in the garden, the oldest helped her mother do laundry, & 17 yr old was reading something for the library reading program in the study/office where her grandpa was working on his laptop. They heard the sirens, lot & lots of sirens. My ex works in the local hospital in the operating rooms, they’ve had disaster drills, mass casualty drills mostly thinking that it would be a train accident from the commuter line, Metra. Everyone had gathered in the kitchen & my ex got a text & call that she was needed ASAP @ the hospital. She rushed off with a ‘go bag’ leaving a worried family. Soon my MIL’s phone started to go crazy, then texts to the kids’ phones, then my FIL got a call from the office asking if he’d heard from a co-worker that was in the parade. Only then did they know what had happened.

I got texts from my daughters; they were very freaked out. Without much info I was able to reassure them that we’d help them get thru this latest trauma in the young lives. My MIL called me, said that my ex had sent a text saying that she’d be in the operating rooms until things settled down. My oldest two kids got a call from family in Lake Geneva asking if they’d like to spend the night there, after talking to their grandparents & texting me they headed out. Our youngest two were so worried that they only wanted to wait for the mother to get home. If I could trust my car, I’d have driven down but my in-laws were great & said that if I talked to the girls whenever they wanted that things were okay.

How close was this? I don’t know, I really don’t. Very near where this started is where the family was going to set up chairs with friends. One of those friends was hurt, a woman next to them was one of the first killed. And a dear friend of my MIL was killed, she was the daughter of Holocaust survivors, her mom from Auschwitz & her dad from Bergen-Belson. I met her several times, sweet lady, always kind, funny, baked pastries for my daughters with stories of her parents pre-war, of balls, concerts, and fun times. What the ever-loving fuck did she do to deserve this? It broke my heart today having my youngest asking if the people were shot because they were like her, like her sisters & mother, like her cousins, her grandparents – were they shot like that lady’s family back in WW2 – because they were Jewish. Honestly, I couldn’t say & that broke me, how do I talk to a 15-year-old girl about that kind of hate? How do I protect her & her sisters from that? Can I? I know I have to try but how? Several uncles of mine fought in Europe, they killed fascist assholes. It haunted them. Was that all for nothing?

My ex got home after a long & horrible day @ the hospital. She said it was like the days of death from COVID, so many very sick people that it tore her heart apart. Kids to grandmas, all in need of caring people to keep them alive. After a shower & some food she climbed into bed & was only able to nap after our two youngest climbed into bed with her, snuggled against her & as her mom left the bedroom door open with the hall light on, like when she was little girl. I held it together as she told me this but after I hung up the phone I cried. She’s a wonderful person & a great mother & she like so many others doing their jobs today she’ll carry the emotional scars for a long time. Our two youngest were stoic like my Swedish family UNTIL they were holding their mother, then they cried. Around 9 our oldest called me, they were still upset & wanted to know what to do about tomorrow, should they got back to Highland Park & stay, come up to Madison but their place is being painted this week so where to stay. Without talking to my ex I told them to go down tomorrow, pick up their little sisters, take them to stay with family in Lake Geneva & for this week enjoy summer @ the family ‘cottage’ with their cousins etc.

My ex is adding to my pressure to finally have a place to live this week & damn I’m trying. She wants our youngest out of the area ASAP to get their minds off of how very close they were to being there. I’ve been looking for a two bedroom just so the girls can stay with me part of the time. FSM, I hope that happens so bad, I want to gather my kids near me, hug them, have my kitties (Cooper & Audrey) with us, have my ex drive up to Madison this weekend & just be together as a family & hope to hell to be safe.

Thanks for letting me unload on all of you!

Give your family some hugs! Because life is short & so very precious.

Regards & Peace

CJ in Madison

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/4/2108477/-Highland-Park-close-to-home

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