Fast Foods

Fast Foods, Then and Now As a child growing up in a Filipino home and a military father who was over seas a lot, my mother made home cooked meals. She preferred to cook at home rather then take seven children out for a fast food meal. She was raised in the old ways, so the great portion of the time, my siblings and I ate a lot of Filipino food. My mother loved to cook and she always cooked for an army, although having seven children was pretty much an army for her. So she had to cook meals that would be enough to feed all of my siblings and me, as well as having enough left over for the next day. Fast food was considered as a treat, which my siblings and I received very seldom. Once in awhile my mother felt like having a special family time and she would go to Kentucky Fried Chicken and purchase two bucket of original chicken, biscuits with honey and two large containers of mash potatoes with gravy and some corn on the cob. The whole family would eat dinner in the living room and watch a movie of her choosing. When she would treat us to KFC, it was a very special bonding time for all of us. It is the kind of memories that put a smile on a face and stay for a long time. Now that I am older and my children are grown and have families of their own, my husband and I depend on fast food. My husband and I live with our daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren and our entire schedule are different hours. My husband works from seven to five and me and my daughter and son-in-law attend school. Because of all our busy and odd hours, I help take care of the grandchildren. Being able to cook dinner is not always an option, so we rely on fast food or buy TV dinners. My husband is very picky of what type of food he eats, so we end up eating from El Burrito for a carne asada burrito or we get a hamburger from Carl’s Jr and a kid’s meal for our granddaughter. Our grandson is only one year old so we have to get something that is still soft enough for him to eat and my daughter and son-in-law usually takes care of their meal when they come home. We do try to have a home cook meal as a family at least once or twice a week; I would cook meatloaf or Bar-B-Q a tri-tip. But because everyone’s taste in food is different, like my daughter is on a diet and our schedule to eat are all different times, my husband and I rely on fast food. Cooking for my family use to be a wonderful and normal routine and I would eventually like to get back to cooking at home again, because I miss cooking in the kitchen and financially it would be better.

Significant Changes in Losing Loved Ones

When I here people talk about losing someone they love, it always seem to be awkward and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is I’m sorry for your lost or my condolences.  Growing up I never really thought how it would feel losing a family member, except remembering a feeling of sadness for others, like family friends and distant relatives, when they lose a family member.  Till one day that sadness that I used to sympathize for others, became real and magnified and my life changed in many ways.

When I moved to Florida in November of 1994, due to my ex-husband getting a promotional transfer with his company, I new I was not going to be able to see my family and friends who lived in Oxnard California for a while.  I did try to make an effort to call my mom at least twice a month to see how things were with the rest of the family back home in Oxnard and in my late twenties, time was something I did not think about.  Within the fourteen years of living in Florida, my mom and I had tried to catch up every now and then on how both of us were doing and how my father and my four brothers who still lived in Oxnard.  In 2003 I began to notice the conversation with my mom began to start with her telling me that she was not feeling well lately and I thought it was just the stress of her missing the rest of us who had moved away, so I had advised her to see her doctor.  Three weeks went by and I had not heard from my mom, so I decided to call and see what her doctor had to say.  She told me that the doctor requested lab work and the results stated she had diabetes and high blood pressure, so the doctor put her on medication to help control her diabetes and high blood pressure and told her losing weight is necessary.

In March of 2007 my mother turned seventy-one years old, but she was still not feeling well, she had stated that she had follow the doctors request to lose the weight she needed and to eat right and take her medication, the doctor even gave her a list of foods that she could or could not eat, my mom lost a lot of weight and weighed 100 pounds, but her health was still not doing well.  I had asked her if she spoke to her doctor and she said they order more lab work and that she would let me know in a few weeks.  Through out my childhood years, my mother always had some kind of ailment, but she always ended up fine and growing up I always pictured her to be this very strong and stubborn lady, and my siblings and I use to joke around that our mother would out live us.

A month went by since I had heard from my mother, I had been busy with work and my teenage girls, and I figured my mother would have called me if it was very serious.  I decided to call her, just to see how things are and she answered the phone sounding tired and out of breath.  Joking with her I asked if she had been excising or doing too much around the house, she answered back, no, my body just feels worn down a lot lately.  My mother told me that the results of the lab test did not come back well, the doctor had told her due to her diabetes, both her kidneys were going and one kidney was pretty much gone.  The doctor gave her an option to go on dialysis, but she refused the procedure. 

On May 19^th 2007, I flew into California, so I can talk to her about the dialysis and hope I could convince her to go through it so her life would extend longer.  I knew in my heart that this would be the last time I would see my mother alive, because she did not want to spend a lot time with needles in her arms and I knew would be stubborn about it.  The three weeks I had with my mother was one of the best memories I had of her, because we talked and bonded and she told me how proud she was of me, which my mother never said before. 

I went back to Florida and to my own busy life and two weeks later I get this horrifying phone call early in the morning while I was at work from my youngest brother Jessie, he had called me on his cell phone and he begins to panic.  He said that he and my other brother tried to wake her up to give her medication and she would not wake up, he said she felt cold and her breathing was very week.  I rushed out of the office and told him to call 911 right away, so he started calling on the house phone and I could here him and my other brother from the cell phone and I can here the panic fear in their voices.  My supervisor comes out to find out what is wrong with me and why did I run out with out notifying any superior, but before she can say anything, she had heard the conversation I was having with the other person on the phone and realize it sounded urgent, so she left me be to finish the phone call.  Finally he tells me that the paramedics were arriving and I can here the on the phone asking all kinds of questions towards my brothers and they were just crying and trying to answer their questions.  I can here the paramedics saying she is not breathing and I here them say something about the defibrillator and then my brother gets on his phone and tells me he will call me back and then he hung up the phone. 

My whole experience with just those few minutes with my brother, felt like this was all a bad dream and then I began to feel very numb and spacey.  I did not know my supervisor was behind me all this time and she finally approached me and told me to call someone to pick me up and take me home.  At the time I felt like she was talking gibberish and I began to cry.  I finally snapped out of it and tried to call my brother again and I couldn’t get a hold of him, so I tried the house phone and still no one was answering.  Finally my daughter called me crying and said that her Uncle couldn’t get a hold of me and decided to call her, he told her to give me the message that her grandma, my mother is gone, so on June 19^th 2007 my mother past away.  All I can here is my daughter crying and all I could do was stand there like a statue.  When she realized I wasn’t saying much, she said she was calling her step dad, to come and get me.  That very night I curled up in a ball and waited till my sister arrived the next day to plan our travel to attend our mother’s funeral in Oxnard California. 

During the time of the viewing and the burial, my siblings and I had a conversation on who will help take care of our father and all the bills and legal paperwork, for some reason I was volunteered to do this.

After the funeral, I came back to Florida with my youngest daughter and my husband, and my husband and I began to plan us moving back to Oxnard California and on September 30^th 2007, my husband and I moved back home to California to help take care of my father.  My two younger girls who were fifteen and eighteen at the time, stayed in Florida with their biological father.  My life not only changed in what I experienced in a loss, but I geographically change as well and in my job position.  I had to quit my job in Florida and find another in Oxnard.  Also time seem to matter more now to me and sometimes I find that I spread myself to thin, trying to be there for everyone and still try to think of myself and my future, that is why I am back in school.