Melody Kool's Blog

This journey is not one I planned or expected but it is here. We had our first Texans home game (Sep 11) with the season passes. I took Chris (my son) and our nephew and niece, Jesse and Nat White. We honored and celebrated Bobby with tequila shots, beer and food. It was a hard and wonderful day. Texans games were his passion, he loved to go and support his team no matter how they did. Even when I pushed his wheel chair all the way to our section and helped him to our seats, he was happy to be there. It was hard sitting in his seat but I did it, only had one break down that I remember lol (a little too much alcohol). It was good for all of us.

It has turned into a very busy couple of months. I had a NSO clinic and scrimmage in Conroe with my Yellow Rose Derby Girls and then the Twins and I had a Hocus Pocus watch-a-thon. That was so much fun. Getting together with my family is the best thing for my sadness. The second home game was Oct 2nd and I thought I might have to go alone as my nephew and wife were in out of the country. My bestie stepped in and went with me since I was having a panic about going alone. Although Chris would go with me also, I didn’t want to make him feel like he had to go. It was a first I was not prepared to have yet. It has been hard to find people to go to the games since COVID and they aren’t playing so well either. Bobby would be so sad for that but I am working to keep up the tradition of going to the games as much as I can. Everything is so strange and different and I am not looking forward to the holidays.

We had our only Roller Derby game for this year and I played and had an absolute blast. I was tired for 3 days but it was so worth it. Bobby is up there telling me “I told you so”, cuz I thought I would stay retired but I need this in my life right now. With working winding down and having to go on a job hunt soon is sad and I just don’t know what God has planned for me going forward from all this. I am keeping the faith though because otherwise I would be a basket case.

I went to dinner and shopping with my bestie and spent money I probably shouldn’t have but I had such a good time it was worth it. My friends and family know how to keep me hopping. We have a Halloween party this Saturday and I am so excited about it. Theo may have to stay home alone so I am not real happy about that but he does so well now and I just feel guilty leaving him alone. He is so good for me. I try to take him on walks twice a day and to the park on one day of the weekend but sometimes we don’t make it.

We went to the cemetery for the first time Oct 15 and had everyone over to hang out for awhile and just enjoy each others company. We are going to be working on getting his marker done as soon as we can because it was not fun trying to remember where he was since they don’t leave any kind of marker for you.

Well as October wound down and Halloween was a blast with a party on Sat with my family and friends and dressing up was fun! I went with the grands and their friends walking their neighborhood on Halloween night. They had so much fun, and I remember all the times we (Bobby and I) would come and walk with them. It was a good night.

November came fast and we all worked to get ready for the Thanksgiving day festivities. I learned that my last day of work would be 12/31/2022. I also discovered that I could retire and be fine. It took me a while to wrap my head around that idea as I was so set on working until I was 65. It didn’t take too long to figure out how much I would love retiring. I am so happy with this decision and so is the family. This has been along time coming and although it was supposed to be me and husband, now it is me and Theo. With work winding down it is giving me a glimpse into what it will be like to be retired.

And then the Astos won the world series. It was awesome for them to do that and we were all very happy and excited. I did not go to the parade as I had to work (no vacation for me) and crowds like that make me anxious. But I did buy a shirt that I still haven’t gotten yet. Anyway, it has been a full month of things to do. After Thanksgiving we went on Saturday and ordered the grave marker for Bobby. I am very pleased with what we picked out and can’t wait to see it. That will be awhile and that is perfectly ok. Most of the rest of the big firsts will be in December. I will navigate that as well as I can with love and grace.

Have a blessed Holiday season.

Gina AKA Kool

The clock started on May 17th, 2022. It will be the year of all the firsts without my beloved Bobby. The first month is a blur of arrangements, tasks, dealing with money, meetings with strangers. It went by so very fast and so very slow. Ended up in the Hospital for 4 days with COPD flare, probably triggered by stress and grief. The second month was getting back to work, back to a routine that was completely foreign to me. All my time was spent working around Bobby’s dialysis and transplant schedule. I had very little time to think about anything else. I was consumed with just getting through each day, each week, each appointment, what to about food, how to keep up with Theo. I had time for little else. I spent evenings just reading some books to relax before bed. Taking Theo for walks and trying to make him comfortable with us.

What do I do with all the time? I have Theo but I don’t have appointments and driving back and forth to dialysis 3 times a week. I only have to feed myself. This is an ongoing adjustment. Sometimes I just sit and do nothing as I can’t figure out what I want to do. I couldn’t read, or watch tv really, I just left it on reruns of shows I watched the past few years working from with COVID going on. I did start cooking, eating out was old and expensive and suddenly I have extra bills and not the income that was paying for them. I was not prepared for this. How do you even prepare for something like this. You don’t. It is not possible, you cannot even fathom what it is like until you live through it.

I have slowly begun to get into a new routine, it is much harder than you realize. Work helps but still so much more time to do something with. Thankfully my kids all pitched in and helped me clean out my house. Still some things to do but it is so much better and has brought me much peace. It has been a summer of project after project with the help of friends, neighbors and family. Being busy is best, it helps.

And then you discover Netflix, oh my goodness. I have joined the millions of people binge watching shows. Yikes, then I find out one series is going off of Netflix and here I am double binge watching! At least it has pulled me out of the sitting and staring at reruns.

September is around the corner and it will bring with it the trading in of my cars to get just one that works for me, the first Texans games that I will attend without him. Parting with his Expedition Max is hard, way harder than I thought it would be. But that is because it was his, we may have shared it but it was his ride. The last couple of years I was the one that drove it with him in it but I still considered it his. The dealer I go to is working up a deal to help me get this part of the things out of the way and clear up some debt that I hope will bring up my credit score.

In a few short hours I will turn 60 years young. It is a milestone birthday that has brought so many memories flooding back to me over the past month. I don’t feel 60. I don’t know how that should even feel. This has been one of the hardest past years that I remember. I have been trying to declutter my house and a while back I found a birthday card from my mom. She wished I could spend my birthday with her so she could bake me the heart shaped strawberry cake she would do for me every year. I cried so hard. I wish I had gone home on my birthday a few times but I never did, plus it was always during work closings and it was hard for me to take off work, a word of advice, never ever put work over family. All those years, 32 to be exact got me no where but laid off.

I am taking vacation for the second time ever on my birthday tomorrow. The first was when I turned 40. It will be a day of quiet reflection, doing some things for myself and getting a few things done I have been working on for almost 2 years now.

I miss my mom and dad. I miss getting together with my family here and back home. I wish I could go and meet my new found sisters. I wish I could give my kidney to my husband now. I wish COVID had never happened. But wishes are not reality and I know that I can only do what I can do.

The thing is, I have had this awesome life that I had no idea would come to me. I have gotten to do things that not everyone has been lucky enough to do. I can say I would not change a thing about the life I have had, it has been such a blessing with so much goodness and mercy and I would not trade it for anything. Oh make no mistake, I have been through the fire and struggled and didn’t know how I was going to feed my children at times but God watched over us and always provided. I spent about a year having popcorn and a Coke for lunch at work to have money for dinner that night. We had a lot of frozen pizza and kids meals but we survived. If not for the trials, I would not have the empathy I possess today.

I was blessed to have the absolute best family that chose me. And now I have even more extended family that I have been blessed with and cherish more than anything in this world. I choose not to regret the mistakes I have made as they are forever a part of me. They are what has helped me to grow. I still have a lot more growing to do as we never are complete until God takes us Home.

I have always been driven to try to do as much as I can to move through my career and be able to get what we want as much as what we need and I have been blessed to be able to do this. We focused on the children first, then ourselves and now it is all about the grand kids! They are the most awesome thing to experience! Funny thing was I planned to be a career woman and not necessarily a mom. God had other plans and I am so glad that he did.

I have lived to see a black man become US President and a woman of color become Vice President. I hope that this will bring the real changes needed for our country. I cannot wait to see what other history will be made in my time!

Thanks for reading this and following me as blog my life.

Kool!!

AKA Gina

I remember in January starting off a new year with new hope and new ambitions and a change in my life due to retiring from competition roller derby. I was going to still help out with the games as an NSO and still on the BOD for one more year and I planned to skate mostly recreational with my league. I just love skating!

Fast forward to March, suddenly there is this virus that we have been hearing about in China. Then it quickly started spreading to other countries. Totally getting a little worried about this as a virus can be really bad for me and my husband. He is more vulnerable than I am. Now fast forward to September. I have been working from home except for 4 days in June, since March 22.

Everything has been cancelled, and I have not skated since maybe February. I am trying to start skating outdoors but man it is too hot right now. Hoping it cools off a little after this holiday weekend so I can virtually skate to the capital! Wish me luck as I am a lazy butt these days.

The good news is I started a new lash business and have connected with some of the most awesome people ever! Who knew lashes would become my thing!! But it got me out of the funk and back to actually getting dressed and putting on makeup which makes me feel so good about myself. Now I just want to share this with everyone I can. Life is so different right now and I don’t see it getting much better very soon.

I pray daily for all the people suffering from COVID-19 and their family and friends because so many are not making it through this. I pray for my family and friends and for all those that are not my friends to be blessed and to do the right thing no matter what anyone else does. I pray for the end to all the violence from every issue. I am doing what I can to support the marginalized people.

This was written the first year of our home teams and never published. I’m publishing it now as this was before I found out about my COPD.

A new season begins for my roller derby league and we are experincing a lot of growth and I am excited to be a part of this. I started training with a personal trainer that I love working with and I have seen progress in my personal fitness. I will get play for a home team the Clutch City Crushers this year but I won’t be playing on the All Stars. I am obviously disappointed in my performance not being up to that challenge but happy that I will at least get to play. This will be a new experience for our league but I love my new team mates and think we can do well. I will be ramping up the training and working this recovery.

I got to go to our hosted bootcamp with Coach Spanx and it was an awesome training session. I have lots of personal goals and actual things to work on to improve my agility. This has been something I have not been good at but have not had a good regimine to work on for this. I got that this weekend and I am so going to work on it like crazy.

Being an athelete and a part of team was something that I never thought I would do. When I was 5 I lost hearing in my left ear from inner ear bone damage. That means that hearing aids are useless and it is considered a handicap. I got help with college tuition because of this but other than that is has always been a hinderance to me and part of my insecurity growing up. I can compensate pretty well most of the time. I tried playing difference sports for fun such as softball, basket ball and tennis and raquet ball. I had bad experinces with the team sports because of my inablility to hear well especially when there is a lot of background noise. After being introduced to roller derby, it took me 4 months to work up the courage to actual go and give it a try. I fell in love with it because I had always loved to skate. I am also very competitive. I was terrified of not being able to hear and how that would hinder me from being a part of this sport.

All of this made me hesitant to even tell people that I had this handicap. Why? Because some people do not want someone with a handicap playing on their team and they do not know how to adjust to interact with them during games because the hearing world is so dependant on hearing. I learn more and better by watching than by hearing and I discovered that other people learned this way and more people than I ever knew had the handicap I did.

Today, I tell people and remind people constantly. I wear a sticker on the left side of my helmet that is the universal sign for hearing impaired. It is a part of me in all things and I have learned to own it and embrace it. So I started my roller derby journey at 49 in September of 2010 and here I am still working to stay a part of it!