May 2007 Archives
Well, I decided I can't stay home anymore so on a whim I went to one of the local beauty salons and asked for a job. Funny story, I went in and asked if they needed help and the owner wasn't there, so a women who works there handed me a 2"x2" piece of paper to write down a little information about me, how long I have my license and my experience, so I wrote:
Charlotte Hagelin
my phone number
licensed in 1986 for Cosmetology/ Hairstyling
licensed in 1990 for Cosmetology Teaching
Former owner of Hollywood Looks Hair and Nail Salon
formerly on Hollywood Ave in Fairfield
last job at Hair Stop in West Caldwell
stopped working in 2002 for personal reasons.
The owner called me back the next morning and said "I got your note, when do you want to start"? and it was that easy. She also commented that I had quite a resume and I was more then qualified for the job, but I hadn't even had the chance to present her my resume or even meet her face to face, I told the owner that I'd stop by in the afternoon to meet her and talk.
So I am going back to work and I start on Friday, May 18. I spent that afternoon cleaning and scrubbing my curling irons and brushes and I have my little bag packed with all my equipment and I'm ready to go back into the working world. Well, not entirely, I'm going to work part-time only 2 days a week and an occasional Saturday. I still need some time to deal with things as well as make up time with Christina, I won't consider full time until the fall so I can spend the summer with Christina in the pool. I'm also thinking about school and maybe even hoping to start in January....
So that's that, I'm pretty excited and Roy and Christina are happy for me. The shop is a block away from the cemetery where Jack is so I can stop and see him on my way to work.
Wish me luck!!!
I'm sorry I'm a day late in wishing a Happy Mother's Day to everyone, but the sight was down for me to blog yesterday, so I am writing today.
The evening before Mother's Day I was up in the middle of the night and by the light of Jack's flashlight (miner's headlight) I wrote this:
To all the Mom’s I know,
To all the Mom’s I’ve briefly met,
To all the Mom’s I will one day meet,
To all my friends,
From the time we are little girls to the moment we conceive, as women we start to imagine and envision our child’s life.
We first start with finding the perfect name, that may change several times before the child is even thought of,
Then, we envision what goofy outfit we’re going to bring our new bundle of joy home in from the hospital, for one day the child to say “Why did you dress me in that?”
We envision baptism or other first religious traditions.
We envision the first corny Halloween costume that one day our kids will say “What were you thinking?”
We envision the first day of kindergarten, grade school, little league or ballet, their first date, the prom, college, their life long career, their wedding day.
We wonder who they would one day marry and try to arrange a few.
Our son’s we pray for a wonderful women and our daughter's a wonderful man.
But most of all we pray for a wonderful mother to our grandchildren.
We never envision,
The first cut or scrape,
The first band aid,
The first fever,
The first time they spit up,
The first run to the emergency room,
We never imagine illness, speech delays, learning disabilities or handicaps,
We always envision the “perfect child”, the child next door.
We never imagine the heartache and pain and of course never imagine death.
Whatever disabilities, illness or handicap, our children are still “perfect”.
We, as women, have the strength of a man but we have emotion and finesse,
We endure what life brings to us.
We find strength to care for our children through whatever life hands us.
There are women who have never had children, for whatever reason, who still have that “mother’s intuition” which is the “strength” that we are given and as women through birth of our children or through adoption we take on the title “Mom” and we can conquer the world.
Everyday we hope and pray that we’ve made the right choices for ourselves, our family and our friends.
We are women, all sizes, shapes and colors.
We are Strength.
Happy Mother’s day to all of us,
Mother’s, with or without children,
Women, who Imagine and Envision,
Women of Strength.
Written by, Charlotte Hagelin 5/13/07 at 3:30am when I couldn’t sleep.
Sandra Posted this comment today and I wanted to put it in our blog for everyone to read. Thank you Sandra, for everything you have done for us! See, it only takes one person to make a difference for someone else, please register to be a donor.
Hello,
I am Sandra from germany. My english is not good and I hope you can understand me. I donated for Jack an I wanted to him the chance for a new live to give. I always thought of Jack and always hoped that he well is. He is now a angel and has his peace. I am glad that I may have contact now to Jack´s family.
I hope many people to register and can help other people. The transplantation was a small way for me, but for Jack a very big chance. I´m happy that I could donate for Jack. I would do it again.
Love of greetings from erfurt
Sandra
From May 7 - May 21, you can register to be a bone marrow donor.
The Bone Marrow Registry is having free regsitration and YOU can be like Sandra in Germany and try to save a life.
This is the "Thanks Mom Bone Marrow Drive", so give me a Mother's Day gift and register. Not to mention that this year on Mother's day we will not only be celebrating our Mom's but Roy and I will be celebrating our Wedding Anniversary on the 13th and on that same day it will have marked Jack's 365th day after the second transplant, in other words Jack would have been 1 year out of the successful transplant on May 13th. Please, be a donor you could save someone's life, but more importantly, do this for Jack. He had friends who not only have NEMO, but other life threatening illnesses that are still waiting for a chance at life. It's free, so give someone life!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click on this link to find a place close to your home to register.
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Registry/Join_in_Person/Find_A_Drive/index.html
Charlotte here.......
On March 25 of this year, Jack was one year out of his first transplant. Even though the doctors were not using this date clinically, the National Bone Marrow Registry was. In the beginning of March, I inquired about finding out who his donor was and filled out a paper to allow us to give our information out to the donor. Unfortunately Jack passed 2 days after the year aniversary of his first transplant, but we still wanted to know who the donor is and be able to tell them how thankfull we were that not only did they give once but twice and that by giving Jack those cells he was cured from the NEMO deficiency. We had really hoped that one day Jack and would meet his donor and be able to thank them himself, but we now can thank her ourselves. On Friday April 20, (my birthday), Roy got an email from the German Bone Marrow Registry telling us who Jack's donor was and expressing their condolences to us. I have now been in contact with Jack's donor, she is a beautiful young girl, 27 years old and her name is Sandra. She lives in a small town called Erfurt which is located in central Germany. What a wonderful feeling it is to be able to thank her ourselves. We have a little language barrier, but since my mom is from Germany (she came here in 1950) and taught me and my sisters German as well as having taken German in High School, and of course the aid of a translator website, we have been communicating quite well. She is practicing her English with me and I am practicing my German with her and we're doing pretty good. I'm even surprised at how much German I am remembering.
She has had many questions and was so saddened by Jack's passing, but she has been going through all the pictures on the website. When she went into the hospital to donate the first time she was only told that it was for a 3 year old boy in America. A few weeks later when the registry contacted her to donate again she said that there was no question that she would, of course do it again. After the second transplant she was able to inquire about Jack and they told her that he was doing well but she still had no idea about who the child was or what he looked like. The regsitry told her she was only allowed to inquire once a year on the status of the recipient and she was just getting ready to inquire again when the German registry informed her of the loss of Jack. She still didn't know who the recipient was until I contacted her. In my first email I thanked her for donating and gave her the website. She emailed me back and said how sad she was but now she has a name and a picture of the boy she gave to in America.
Please, consider being a part of the National Bone Marrow Registry and be like Sandra. She said she would do it again to try and save a life. God Bless us all!!!!
www.marrow.org
Allow me to introduce you to Jack's donor....
Sandra from Erfurt, Germany
