I need to think before I speak!

 It was one of those conversations that happen when you are on one subject and your fellow conversee is on another.  Ross was on his way out of town.  It was my job to take care of the cats until he returned.  He has many cats and they all have names, but the two old cats who live inside are named Queenie and Sparky.  They are not to go outside, so they receive special treatment.

The first afternoon he called and I wanted to tell him Queen Elizabeth had passed in case he had not heard.    The following conversation ensued:

"I'm inside the fortress!  Did you know the Queen is dead?"  There was a long pause during which I heard the sounds I could not identify. End of conversation.  

It was not until later when I received the following message in my email, that I realized I might have been misunderstood.

Hey Lou,

sorry not to be as sensitive about the death of the queen when I called. I was confused when you said the queen died cuz I was thinking my cat. And then the gas pump was spewing gas out of the car so it just was a confusing time.

 

OMG!!!!  I am sorry!!!  Although I am snorting coffee out my nose as I write this!!!  

 If one of the critters does not survive till you return, I will break it to you gently. I think a couple escaped to the outside.

 Your Queen is fine, although Sparkie did not greet me yesterday, but I did touch him and he was not cold, just sleeping. 

Just thought it would be fun to share this today since it is cold and dreary outside.

Peace!

An incident.

 Incident is described in my Webster's as 1."an occurence or event.  2."a seemingly minor occurrence that can lead to serious consequences."  And that all sounds so simple.  Something happened and it was of no importance on a normal day, but when a life is lost through something that should not even matter, it is a different story, isn't it?

My son had a friend.  They went to school together, rode bikes together, smoked pot together, drank together and then began to work, date and become responsible adults together.  There was an "incident" and now the friend is dead.  It all began so simply with a cell phone call.  The lady on the phone drifted out of her lane, just a little.  Seemed innocent enough in itself.  But the car in the lane to her left had to swerve to avoid a collision.  He saw the car pull into a drive and followed to tell her what had almost happened because she was on her phone instead of paying attention.  He was in her driveway when her husband looked out and seen a stranger waving his arms and confronting his wife.  He opened the door with a gun in his hand and shot him.  No questions.  No communication at all, just pulled the trigger.  Now, I ask you, who was right?  No one.  Who was wrong?  No one.

The lady who had been on the phone tried to do life sustaining measures to save his life.  His girlfriend watched as his life ebbed away.  The man who pulled the trigger cried.  An incident?  Seems like there should be a word that better fit the circumstance.  Who knows.

Did anyone learn anything from this incident?  I hope so.  I hope the woman on the phone can wait to answer the next call until she is parked.  I hope the man who shot him will take a breathe the next time he has a loaded  gun in his hand.  And I hope his girlfriend can find the help she needs to deal with this incident.  They had been a couple as far back as I can remember.  No doubt she is being told there is help, but finding it is a whole different matter.  

Rest in peace Matt.

His name was Gene.

 It was a long time ago, but it still haunts me.  I had divorced my first husband, and my second when I met him.  I owned a restaurant on Fourth Street in Hutch at the time.  I had dated my soon to be third husband, but discarded him as a lost cause when I met Gene.  He lived in a small town up near Kansas City.  He loved to dance.  He had a sense of humor.  He loved my kids and most importantly, he loved me.  He worked with my sister's husband and that was the downfall.  He and his wife were in the middle of an amicable divorce and I was all set to become Mrs. Happy Wife when fate intervened in the shape of my sister.  

He stopped calling.  He changed his phone number.  Communications back then were not the convenient little texts and stuff that they are now.  So, I gave up on Gene.  I started dating Charlie.  I never for a minute forgot Gene.  My sister told me he had gone back to his wife.  But one night as I was alone after closing the cafe, there was a knock on the window.  There he was.  He came in and I made us coffee.  It was a very strained conversation as he explained that he had gone back and he and his wife, although not happy, were comfortable in a marriage of convenience.  It was then that he explained that my sister had called him and told him that I had married Charlie and we were very happy so he should just move on.  She was married to his friend and co-worker, so why should he doubt her?

Maybe because she had lied?  Now it was too late.  Time had passed and while he still loved me and I him there was his wife to consider.  And Charlie.  He just wanted to see me one more time and tell me that while he was not happy, he and his wife were comfortable in their marriage of convenience.  And of course, there were grandkids now.....   I knew I would never forget him, and I was right.  Here I am 50 years later and I can see him as clearly as that night in Lou's Kitchen on 4th street.

I confronted Josephine and she explained that she did what was best for me.  Water under the bridge.  There is no going back, is there?

I do not think of what might have been, although it does pop into my mind from time to time.  My sister is gone and I am sure he is also.  I came to Colorado and have now been here fifty years.  I do think of the time we spent together and that will probably never stop as long as there is breathe in my body.  I will remember how we danced and laughed.  The last time I danced it was with him.  I woke up in the night last night remembering him and I can not see that ever stopping.

I never really forgave Josephine for her duplicity, but we never spoke of it.  It was a betrayal and a betrayal by any other name is still a betrayal.  

I have had a good life in Colorado.  I spent 20 years with a wonderful man whom I loved and he loved me in return.  I would not give that up for all the dreams I had.  

So rest in peace, my sister.  Rest in peace Gene.  When it is all said and done and the nails pounded in the coffin, it is all just a memory of what happened on our way to our destiny.

Good night sweet prince.

It makes me sad.

 As life goes on, so does my memory, which is actually a good thing until it wakes me up in the middle of the night.  Last night I woke up remembering my oldest sister and, of course, Nickerson, Kansas.  I was 15 years old and my sister, Josephine was pregnant.  She had a little girl who was 3 or 4 as I recall.  Her husband was at work in the oil field.  As I recall his shifts were 24 on and 24 off, but that could be just something that came into my head, because I never really paid much attention.

On this particular day I had been sent to stay with her to keep an eye on her daughter, who shall remain nameless for this story.  I liked the little girl so it was no problem to entertain her.  Josephine was another matter.  She stayed in bed and appeared to be in some sort of distress, but how was I to know what was actually happening?  I had no idea where babies came from and was not interested in learning about the birds and the bees at this point in my life.  I was there to entertain my niece, and that was what I was doing.  But Josephine had other ideas.

She called me into the bedroom and told me to take her daughter, my niece, and go get help because the baby was coming.  I grabbed my niece and ran next door to the preachers house.  He called the grocery store and told his wife, who was a nurse, to come home right now.  He assured me it was all under control and that I should take my niece and go to my house where mother was and send her to Josephine.

It was only 3 blocks, but it seemed like it was miles.  I carried my niece most of the way which was not easy as she was heavy for me.  But we made it.  Mom left on foot because we had no car.  To make a long story short, the baby was stillborn.  It was a little boy.  

The next day, Jack Lamb, the mortician, brought a tiny coffin to the house.  He brought it in and set it on the coffee table.  He opened the lid to show us a very tiny little boy wrapped in a soft blue blanket.  His little hand was positioned to hold the blanket closed and I would have thought he was only sleeping had I not known.  That was so sad and a picture in my mind that will never fade.  

Since that time, I have attended many funerals, but I always see that tiny baby in my mind.  I went to visit the Nickerson cemetery several years back and visited the tiny grave of Baby Boy.  He did not have a name, but he will never be forgotten.  Although he never breathed a breath on this side of the veil, he still lives in my mind and my heart.  65 years later he is still in my mind holding his blanket together under his tiny chin.

Some memories never die.

Happy Anniversary to me!

 40 years ago it was 15 degrees below zero.  I had been living in sin with Kenny Mercer for 1 year.  When we had been dating for a few weeks we decided we would get married.  I told him of my past marriages and that if we could live together for one year without me leaving I would marry him.  So began a life of sin!

That year went by very well with only a few bumps in the road.  We began a trucking business in and life was good.  On December 23, 1983 Kenny and Gene Baugh were putting a drive line in one of the old tandems.  It was 15 degrees below zero!  They went to Pueblo Brake and Clutch to pick the drive line up that had been repaired.  PB&C was closed!  They came home and Gene left.  Over a cup of coffee and a sandwich, Kenny looked at me and said, "Well, it has been a year.  Let's just go get this shittin' mess over with!"  So we did!

We picked up a license and found a retired minister in an assisted living place in Canon City.  He mumbled a few words, had his bed bound wife in the next room sign on the dotted line.  He stepped into the hall and found a befuddled old man to sign on the other line and we left the building as man and wife!  A quick stop at the donut shop for a cup of coffee and a chocolate doughnut and then home to Pueblo.  

Upon our arrival, we found a cheap bottle of wine in the middle of the table.  Apparently Gene had known what the plan was.  The next time Gene showed up we offered to share the wine with him in a celebratory drink.  He declined, saying "If I knew I was going to have to help drink it I would have gotten some good stuff!"

And so began my life as Mrs. Kenneth Mercer, a role I enjoyed until his death in 2003.  We fished, traveled, worked, learned to square dance, played cards, raised 2 of my kids and adopted a grandson.  He retired and I continued to work with my AIDS patients.  He baked cinnamon rolls and made carmel corn.  We joined a church and life was good.  

Do I miss him?  There is not a day that goes by that I do not see those twinkling, beautiful blue eyes.  He is the person who made me realize that I am a worthwhile human being and I should never sell myself short. I have learned to live alone.  He had always said that I should not give up when he was gone.  Life does not end for one just because it ends for the other.   I do date occasionally, but it never ends well. 

He was honest.  He was patient.  He was faithful.  He had an incredible sense of humor.  Trustworthy.  He believed in me.  

I guess mother said it all when she said "When you lose a husband, he immediately takes on sainthood.  Even if he is completely worthless, you will remember only the good in him."

Momma was right!  Momma was always right!

                                                            RIP Kenneth A Mercer  

                                                                    1931-2003

November 21, 2020

One year ago on this  November 21 at 6:38 AM my cell phone pinged.  I was awake and had been for a while.  It was when I saw the message and that it was from Anthony that I was faintly surprised.  "The keys to the house are in the mailbox."  That disturbed me.  So I dressed and headed for town.

My phone rang before I got to his house and it was friends of his from Pueblo West who had been talking to him the night before and were concerned.  They were on their way to his house and just wanted me to know they were concerned. He had been home in isolation for over a week with Covid.

I arrived before they did so I got the house keys and opened the door and went inside.  His car keys and phone were on the kitchen table.  I had never been downstairs except once to check out his new furnace.  Since he was not upstairs, I knew he must be downstairs and he was.  His bedroom was at the far end of the basement and he was in bed covered up.  I told him I was going to call for help and he said "OK."

The rest is history.  Now I have always been a strong woman, but this has been a rollercoaster ride for me.  PTSD is what they call it.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It happens to military in times of battle.  It happens to anyone who has been through trauma of about any kind. It would not happen to me because I would not let it.  As referenced above, I am a strong woman.  Don't let that statement fool you!

Strength has nothing to do with it.  I must equate it with the rides at the carnival.  There are a couple that will have you going very fast forward and then suddenly you are going the other direction.  How you keep your head on your shoulders is beyond me, but it happens.  My life the past year has been just that.  I am normal.  I am driving down the street enjoying the beauty of an Autumn Day and singing my old country music with the CD player and before the next breath I am parked and sobbing on a side street. 

 This is my new normal.  

We were friends.  I thought we were good friends.  I guess what I am dealing with now, a year later is the loss of that friend.  There are steps that should be taken in dealing with death and I have done that, but there are gaps in my mind of that morning and they may never be resolved.  PTSD.   

It was never about love or the lack of it.  It was never personal.  It was not something he did to me or because of me.  I was never a factor in the planning that led to the final act.  I just was.  But by the simple act of "being", I became a means to an end.

So, as I take stock of the situation as it now stands, I know what needs to be done.  Get over it.  Move on.  Give it to God.  The mind is a simple thing, or is it?  Are there maybe things that we encounter on our way to the cross that our minds cannot fathom?  We all have our own concept of reality.  What seems right and normal to me may be ludicrous to you.  What is the answer to how I can finally resolve this in my mind?  

I don't know, but I do know this:  I have friends who care.  I have family who care.  I have a good life.  I still know how to live, love, and laugh.  I just need to do it more.  The answer is not inside these four walls.  I have already said goodbye to Anthony.  I now need to open myself up to a future.  I need to accept love that is all around me and fly high and free!

Peace and Love!

 

Closing of the season.

October is a sad month.  It does not start out as sad, but it ends on a very low note.  1965.  October 30.  Dona Marie turned 1 year old.  Sam was 26 days old.  Duane and I had been married 5 years.  My brother was in a bad car wreck in McPherson, Kansas.  We left the kids with Duane's sister in Jetmore and drove to McPherson hospital arriving about 1:00 AM.  

My mother was alone in the room.  My brother lay swaddled in bandages on a hospital bed that held him in a semi raised postition.  His right leg kicked  constantly.  Mother said they had gone though a stop sign and broadsided a loaded gravel truck.  She thought he was trying to hit the brake, although he was not the driver.  He was incoherent.  Mother was already planning in her mind how she would bring him home and she knew he would be an invalid, but that was her son and she would take care of him.  Jake was her only son.

His name was not Jake, it was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew.  He was born October 5, 1935.  He carried a scar on his right cheek that he got when he was about 9 years old because he snuck up behind a Shetland Pony and "goosed it".  Of course it reacted and kicked him.  What did the silly little shit think would happen?

 

He introduced me to my first husband.  After that we sort of drifted apart.  Distance had a lot to do with that as well as guilt that my husband was not the knight in shining armour that Jake had anticipated for me.  The fact that he fell in love a couple times and now had a son he needed to help raise and another on the way made the distance even greater.

 

I missed Dona's first birthday that year and my sister in law cared for my only son that was 26 days old.  To say I was devastated by his death would be an understatement.  He was so young and vibrant.  He had his whole life ahead of him and I needed him in mine.  But, God had other plans.  

And, that my friends, is what this is all about.  God has a plan for our lives.  I do not know what his plan for me was, and I may never figure it out.  I do know that the little girl above being held up by her sister and brother could have aspired to soaring heights, but fell short of the goal!  I look back and try to see just where I went wrong and it is a mystery to me.  I wanted to be a missionary and when that fell through I just pretty much drifted along with the tide.  So, in all fairness, I think maybe God just put me here in Colorado to kind of shake up the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. 

I have worked to get AIDS awareness to the forefront and what was a killer disease is now a manageable health condition.  

Gays are now accepted as a segment of the population.

I worked the Eleventh Hour in the Hospice program and helped many people smile as they crossed the bar and looked back before leaving this earth in a cloud of fairy dust to meet their saviour.

My children all seem to be successful in one way or another and are responsible citizens.

The important part of all of this is that as I mark this anniversary every year.  I will spend October 30 crying most of the day, but I will do it where no one sees.  I have a shoulder to lean on that even I can not see.  They say "seeing is beleiving," but that is not always true.  I have never seen God, but I do know that without him, I would not be here today. When I am happy he smiles with me.  We have even been known to laugh out loud.  When I cry he holds me.

So rest in peace, my dear brother.  Jake, Josephine, Dorothy, Mary, Mother, Dad, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, friends, lovers, in-laws and outlaws.   click here

Into each life a little rain must fall.

I remember back when I was a kid that life was so simple.  One of the highlights in my memory is crouching in the dirt and watching through the chicken fence as an old brown hen laid an egg.  I recall her looking at me a time or two and wondering if she was ever going to get done.  I do not recall it being any kind of "bonding moment" with the chicken, but in that few moments we were alone in the universe.  After she laid her egg and left the nest, I picked it up and took it into the house to momma.  While she was pleased that I brought her the egg she was upset that I had bothered the chicken it her egg laying business.

So, now to the crux of the matter.  Looking back I can see the folly of my experience.  First, laying face down in the dirt I was subject to all kinds of bugs and spiders.  Not to mention the fact that snakes also slither around chicken houses looking for prey.  And had the chicken not been engrossed in the act of laying an egg, she could have pecked my eye out!

Living on the farm was a constant learning experience.  The chicken experience was mild compared to the life and death struggle that went on constantly.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to pick up our old Shetland Pony, Star.  Dad had gotten Star back when we lived on the Stroh place.  As I recall that was one of Dad's biggest follies.  He had gone into Hutch to join some of his old cronies for "a drink" and returned many days later with Star in a horse trailer.  That was the meanest damned horse that ever crossed the pike!  As Dad was unloading him he was kicking at the sides of the trailer and when he was finally on the ground, he made it clear that no one was going to set on his back! Or pet him! Or brush him! Or do anything but feed him and stay the hell out of his space!

We moved to the Strong Street house about the time I started second grade and Star died about a year later.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to the house and the man taking a wench line out of the back of the wagon and into the barn.  Mother made us go into the house at that time and let us out as the truck left the yard with a horse leg sticking straight up in the air.  The demise of Star was complete.  He would be made into dog food.  I learned that from my school chums.  "Yes!  Dog food.  And his hooves will be made into glue."  Now how in the hell 7 year old kids knew that was beyond me, but it sounded true enough to me that I spent several nights crying myself to sleep, mourning a horse that was meaner than hell and no one could get near. 

There was a big Mulberry tree in the back yard there and under it I started a cemetery.  Donna squeezed a baby rabbit to death and  I buried it under the tree and put a stick to mark the place.  Dead birds were eulogized as well baby chickens that did not survive.  A mouse made it in also. And then I lost interest.  

Jake went off to the Army and I entered high school.  The days of sand and shovels were behind me.  Time to grow up and plan my future.  I would be a missionary.  I read about Africa and how the natives needed saved and brought into the grace of God.  Reverend Barnett gave me books to read.  I  learned that a lot of them were cannibals!  That kind of scared me, but at 15 years of age the world was my oyster!

And then I went to live with Grandma Haas, who was crippled by a stroke, and Great Grandma Hatfield, who was caring for her.  And the rest is history.

Thank God for God!

 I like to wake up early.  Usually around 4 :00 AM or so.  I just lay there enjoying the quiet and contemplating what today will bring.  Yesterday I received word that a family member had passed.  Of course it made me very sad, but then I started thinking about the relationships that I have had over  the years and I realized just how important all of them have been.  He and I had been close many years ago before my life turned in another direction.  I would like to say that we had stayed in touch, but we had not.  I did visit with him a couple years ago, but only briefly.  But death does have a way of making us pause and think.  This one is no different.

Momma always said that every one we meet, every place we go, every experience we go through makes us who we are today.  Now I am here to tell you, I have met a lot of people, been a lot of places and experienced things both good and bad and I think I am pretty well shaped into the person that I will be when the good Lord sends the angels to pick me up and bring me home!

Now I speak of angels as plural.  God is singular.  The angels are women with soft golden hair.  The are in bright white, long dresses.  They have haloes.  There hands are soft and white with long fingers. Guess they need long fingers to play the harps.  They have golden haloes.  The one on the left carries a harp and the one on the right carries the Holy Bible.  They are smiling.  I am not afraid of them and I would follow them any where.  I will not be afraid to leave this world because I know I am safe.  

 I have no face for God.  He has no form.  He just is.  The closest I can come to describing God is a very, very bright light.  There is the essence on a throne, but there is no throne, only the essence of one.  There are golden trumpets over the essence and I can hear the clearest, most beautiful sounds coming from the trumpets.  It makes me happy.  You know how when they play "Taps" at a military service it makes you cry?  These trumpets do the same only these sounds make me happy.

I am not afraid of death.  Life is the part that sure does get tedious some times.  I should not say that because for the most part, my life is good.  It does get a little rocky some times, but it is what it is.  If there were no rough patches I would not know when the good parts came!

So, as I bid yet another link to my past farewell, know that my faith is strong and my hope for the future still intact.  Know that Annie said it best  click here and enjoy!

You never really know someone....

 Mother told me many things long ago.  Of course at the time, they did not apply so they went into the cache deep in my mind and were of course, forgotten.  It is strange how things remain in the deepest recesses of our memory and they seem to be completely forgotten.  Life goes on an even keel and then out of no where, up pops the devil! 

Another thing my mother instilled in me was a very deep grain of honestly.  I find it pretty close to impossible to tell a lie.  The reasoning behind that is that if I lie I have to remember that lie or I will be tripped up when the truth comes out.  So, if I tell the truth I know what to say when asked about an incident.  Usually life goes on with no need to remember anything, but occasionally something really matters.  And there are a few incidences that I have closed the door on something that happened and completely blocked it from my conscious.  But all that is neither here nor there this morning.

This morning is about living and dying and deceit and honesty.  I had a friend.  I thought he was a good friend.  We spoke every day.  We shared time.  We ate together.  Drank coffee together.  We shared past experiences and future hopes.  I was close to his family. I loved them and they loved me in return.  A friendship that would endure, I thought.

He contracted covid.  Of course he went into isolation.  He was a caring man and did the right thing.  So we talked on the phone.  No more Sunday afternoon Scrabble games.  No more cooking a pot of Lima beans.  No more coffee made from special beans.  Just the phone.

He sent me a text at 6:38 AM one Saturday morning.  "The keys to the house are in the mailbox."  Cryptic?  I thought so.  I got dressed and drove over there.  I got the keys and went in.  He was in bed downstairs and I told him I wanted him to see a doctor.  He said alright.  I told him my phone would not work in the basement so I  went upstairs to call.

He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. 

In that split second my whole world changed.  I do not recall hearing a gun shot.  When I went back downstairs I thought he was asleep, so I went back to wait for the ambulance.  And then the coroner.  It has been 8 months.  It has been a lifetime.  

I assume someday I will quit playing the "what if" game.  Coulda', woulda', shoulda'.  It is all water under the bridge.  PTSD or whatever, it is all moot.  Over and done with, move on.  But you know what?

That is a lot easier said then done.

Turn around and she's two, turn around and she's 4.......

turn around she's a young girl, going out of the door.  click here  How fast the years go by!

Seems like when I think back over my life the highlights run together in a blur.  First I was the young girl running out the door with the love of my life and then I was running back through that same door  with 5 kids in tow because my life did not play out as I had envisioned it.

Then I was running out that same door with the new love of my life and heading West to Colorado.  The kids grew up and moved away, but life went on.  Now, as life slowly plays out before my eyes reality is a whole new concept.  When I was young, I grabbed life with both hands and hung on for dear life!  And what a ride it was!  At the age of 30 I had been through 3 husbands and was on my way to life in Colorado with husband number 3 who would also be number 4.  A 2 month stint with husband number 5 and on to number 6.  That was Kenny and when I said "till death do us part" I actually meant it.  We were married in 1983 after one year of living in sin.  He died in 2003.

I have lived here in this house alone since then.  I have male friends, but not any that I would have given up this life for.  My hospice work led me to one man who asked me to marry him because he had no one to leave his worldly goods.  We worked out an agreement whereby I inherited everything and dispersed it all to needy recipients.  That was kind of fun.  

There was one guy I hiked with so I would not have to go alone, but he was a bit of a jerk, so that never went any where.  I am honest and I expect honesty in return.  Compassionate to a fault.

I have been an activist.  I have been a pacifist.    I have helped people cross over in my work with Hospice in the Eleventh Hour program. I have fed the homeless.  I have rescued animals.  But the important part is I have been true to me.

I have loved and lost, but I have survived!  And I will go on surviving, because the German blood that runs through my veins dictates that I survive.  And the blood of my great grandmother makes me take care of people.

And my old mother goose lets me pet her sometimes!  Who can ask for anything more?

40 years and counting!

 I woke up this morning, stretched and began thinking.  I have been in this house at this address for 40 years.  That is half of my life!  How sad that we live our lives one day at a time and then one day realize that what we see in the rear view mirror is our life slipping away!  

What happened to that little skinny girl on Strong Street who wanted to be a missionary?  When did the dreams of working with the natives in Africa and teaching them about taking care of each other and learning about Jesus Christ turn into having a baby every year?  How did I become a mother and grandmother in the twinkling of an eye?  When did I actually set my course on Colorado and watch Kansas recede in my rear view mirror?

There were six of us kids growing up.  Now there is just Donna and I.  I think back to family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins.  I used to have grandmas and all that.  Sadly even my friend list is dwindling.  Slowly, slowly and one by one, my friends are slipping from sight.  Family?  What is family and where is family?  I have 2 kids in Pueblo, 1 in Texas and 3 in Kansas.  Friends?  Probably the friends I had back in Kansas are mostly pushing up daisies!  Evelyn is still there.  Vi moved to Missouri and I never hear from her any more so who knows.  Last time we talked she waved the trump banner in front of my liberal face and laughed.  Fatal mistake.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, the fact that I have spent more years in this house then anywhere else in the whole world!  When mother was alive she used to send me the obituaries of people I had known.  I dutifully dropped them into a desk drawer.  Then I bundled them up and moved them to a bigger drawer.  Then the drawer was emptied into a cardboard box and put on a shelf in the closet.  The pile continues to grow and my memory is beginning to fade.  Names that were at one time so very important to me are now just words on a piece of yellowed paper.  The heart that used to hurt when I thought of my losses is now numb.

Soon I will take Kenneth to Imperial and have him interred under his stone.  Anthony and Annie are resting on my dresser.  Soon I will take them to their new home.  Then I will wait for my turn.  To everything there is a season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up.  A time to laugh and a time to cry.  A time to live and a time to die.  

Right now it is time to let the geese out.  The sun comes up and the sun goes down and I will put one foot in front of the other because that is what we as humans are designed to do.  Sometimes some of God's children get impatient and try to rewrite the rules.  That never would work for me.

Guess I am just old school.

A poem that should be written.

 I woke up this morning with the remnants of a poem in my mind.  I think it has already been written, but I can not find it nor recall the words.  It has been in my mind as long as I can remember, so if it rings a bell with anyone, let me know.  To me it has always been the epitome of the way a perfect relationship should be.  

I do not want to walk ahead of  you, because you may not follow.

I do not want to walk behind you, because I may not follow.

I want to walk beside you,  beneath your arm where I am protected and near your heart  where I am loved.

Country music singers and song writers have been writing the perfect love songs for as long as I can remember.  Garth Brooks and his "The Dance" pretty well sums up the loving and losing.  And then there is this by John Michael Montgomery click here.  Growing up in Nickerson was conducive to wanting a better life.  And along with the better life was always the thought of a perfect husband.  We all know how that went!  A husband should never be a "destination" in life.  I always pictured a husband  as an equal partner.  

When I embarked on my first marriage I was full of hope.  I think he was also, but hope for what I was never sure.  I wanted security and a man to love and fulfill me.  That did not end up well for me, but I chalked it up to a life lesson and moved on.  By the time I reached Colorado my kids were pretty well on the paths they would take and I was pretty well set in my ways.  When Kenny and I married it was clear that we were soon to be entering into the sunset of our lives.  We would grow old, retire and die.  One of us succeeded in that, but one of us did not.

So here I set.  Kenny has been gone 20 years.  I have had a couple male friends, but nothing romantic.  It seems that my place in their lives was to help them cross the bar.  I know I did it right with Sherman, because I saw the look of contentment on his face when he took his final breathe.  The other was different.  I know I held a special place and I was very sad when it was over, but I do so hope that he found the peace he sought.  

So anyway.  This is not a good way to start the day, but it is what it is.  I shall put one foot in front of the other and follow where life leads me.  Maybe it will be a good day.  I can always hope!

Peace and sunshine and if that poem up there strikes a chord and you remember seeing it some where, hit me up!

The last thing at night.

 I see him the last thing every night and the first thing every morning.  He is on my dresser smiling the big smile I loved so much.  He has on his sun glasses because his eyes were sensitive.  He had migraine headaches and they helped him during the daylight hours.    When I wake up I come out to the office and he is smiling that same smile at me from my computer screen.  I speak of him now in the past tense.  There is no present tense when it comes to him.  

I have quit waiting for him to call.  I have quit reaching for the phone to call him.  I do not put 2 cookies in a bag for him.  So much has changed in the last four months and they have been the hardest months of my life.  I have seen and done a lot in my life, but never have I been through anything that has so completely made me question whether life is worth living as this.

This covid crap has not helped.  I have been forced into isolation at a time when four walls are not what I need, but it is my reality.  The one thing this has shown me is that I have friends who love me and care about me.  I have friends I have never met!  Once I received a simple bouquet of flowers from someone I worked with long ago.  There was a phone call from a friend from Garden City that I had forgotten.  A lady brought me some "healing soup" and left it on the porch.  There was a gift of 4 Red Big Chief tablets for me to write my thoughts in.  And so many thoughts coming my way!

Most of my friends have no idea what happened and only know that I am hurting and reach out to let me know they are here for me. They only know that they want to share my pain.  I appreciate everyone of these gestures.  I will survive.  I may not want to, but I will!

My daughter in Longton, Kansas, always said "What don't kill you will make you strong!"  And she is right.  Some day I may need to look some one in the eye and say "I know what you are going through."  When that day comes I will remember what I went through.  I am growing stronger every day .

I am sure of one thing, if the Lord brought me to it; he will bring me through it.  My church was not there for me when I needed it most, but God was.  I could bury my face in the folds of his blood stained robe and he held me when I cried.  

I will be alright.  I make strides every day.  I can say his name without crying.  I can laugh at his little idiosyncrasies that made him so unique.   

And that, my dear friends, is because of all of you!

There used to be two of me!

 Many years ago when I married my first husband I weighed in at 92 pounds.  Five kids later I weighed in at 103.  When Kenneth passed in 2003, I was a hefty 180.  Same bones, same skin, same everything, just more compacted.  He used to say, "You's not fat, you's fluffy." And for a lot of years that is where I stayed, just a fluffy woman who liked to eat. 

Of course I still had Bret at home and had to cook for him, so I pretty much maintained that weight.  Then he fell in love and left me so there went the reason for cooking.  My weight went down to 165 or so and my doctor was pleased that I was finally doing something about my obesity.  Now granted, I was overweight, I still looked good, because I was compact, but as for "doing something about being overweight" he was dead wrong.  I had not been "doing something" about the problem, but I do think my body seeks its own weight.  Happy I eat and gain weight, sad I go the other way.    

It was not until this past year that the scales began to go the other way.  When one lives alone eating is not a high priority.  Before Covid 19 I was eating out occasionally and having friends over occasionally, but, then safety became paramount.  No more meeting for lunch.  No more stopping for takeout.  Life just pretty much became a solitary existence.   Consequently, since eating alone is not a lot of fun, I now top the scales at 139.  According to all the charts I see I am still considered obese.  

So here is the deal: I am going to set here and be obese.  Hell with it.  I am old with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel and something is eventually going to kill me!  I like cookies.  I really like homemade cookies and I just baked up a batch of white chocolate macadamia and there is no one here to eat them except me!  If I get so big that they have to take me out the big window in the front room, I will surely die a happy woman.  At least I will be full of cookies and at my age, that is about the best I can hope for. 

So peace to all and bon a petite!!  I am off to the kitchen to use up some more of those Macadamia nuts and Walnuts that my sweet little Irene sent me!  May even send her a couple!

RIP

My very own Big Chief !

The kindness of my readers will never cease to amaze me!  Yesterday I heard the Fedex knock on the door which sounds much akin to a black limousine speeding past and throwing a body out the back door and into the street!  That has never really happened out here, but you know my imagination.  Those drivers and delivery people do not linger long.

Upon closer investigation I found a package on the milk crate.  Inside it was this:

Inside it was this: 

And for a closer look: There are 4 of those suckers!

Now some of you may remember that I wrote a blog on the Big Chief  tablets that I got for Christmas  back when I was 9 years old and how much I enjoyed the blank pages just waiting for me to fill them with my imagination.  Apparently Linda Kulp way up in Wyoming was listening!

Well, most of you know I have been through a rather rough spot and I want you all to know that the kindness shown by so many of my readers has touched me in a way this old tattered and leathered soul can not even begin to express and in ways I did not know was possible.  Beth Perry sent me a daily devotional that I read every day.  

I have had phone calls and notes from so many people.  Kind words over the phone with a simple "We are here for you" mean so much.  I will survive, but you all need to know this:  knowing that you are all out there and you all read or hear what I say means so much to me.  From California to Florida and Texas to Wyoming, I have the most empathetic and caring people in the world.  

Sometimes you may not agree with the words I write, but through this I do know one thing:  My readers are human and kind hearted people.  You may not be legion in number, but you are callosal in spirit!  Every day I get a little better and while I doubt that I will ever forget this experience, I will come through on the other side a better and stronger person not because of it, but in spite of it.

So thank you to all of you.  Know that I love everyone of you and some day soon, you will tap into this blog and I will make you laugh again, or at least smile.  Or better yet, remember the good old days when I made a trip to the outhouse in the middle of the night and had to wait with the door locked and huddled inside for daylight because I thought something in the dark was waiting to eat me!

I love everyone of you!  I thank God for giving you to me for just a few moments a day!  

I think my daughter said this but I always say, Momma said it best:  "What doesn't kill you will make you strong!"

  

If I had known

 If I had known the last time I held you that it would be the last time, I would not have  let you go.  I would have hugged you tighter and I would have thanked God for letting me.

If I had known that the last time I talked to you on the phone was the last time I would hear your voice I would not have put the receiver back in the cradle.

If I had known that the trip to the Reservoir was the only one we would take I would still be standing on the bluff looking out at the water.

The Scrabble Board is dusty.

The kite remains folded.

The Sand Dunes are still waiting.

The Aspens have lost their leaves.

The sun still sets and the moon still rises.

The stars still twinkle and I am sure some where life goes on, but it is not here.  I look into the abyss that is my life and try to make meaning of it.  I put one foot in front of the other and I say the things I am expected to say, but the world is empty and space but a void.

I must search for a new meaning to life because, after all, I am a survivor.

Life is pretty much a crap shoot.

 Here I set like so many times before, waiting for the sun to come up.  And like so many times before, I am second guessing myself.  What did I miss?  Was there something said that I missed?  Any sign at all?  And after all the soul searching and all the self recriminations, it all comes back to nothing.  Could I have done anything to prevent what happened?  I told her no.  But is that true?

We tried so hard to stay safe.  We did not go to public places.  We wore a mask any time we were out of the truck or the house.  He contracted covid; I did not.  He quarantined in his house and I stayed in mine.  I took him groceries and left them on his porch.  We talked on the phone.  The conversations got shorter.  Staying home alone, day after day begins to wear on you.  People are gregarious by their very nature.  He was no different.

Mother always told me "You never really know anyone.  You only know what they tell you and let you see."  Momma was wiser than most people and had an inner wisdom that gave her an insight like no other.  She could see the good in everyone, even the orneriest old coot in town.  And she could also see the weakness and evil in the hypocrite beating his chest and pointing his finger.  She had the sweetest smile and her hazel eyes twinkled when she looked at me.  She actually made me think I was capable of anything.  But she was wrong.

I have always thought I was put here on this earth for a reason, but I am now questioning that.  If I was, what is the reason?  I have raised the kids.  I have fought the political battles and won a few, but what is that?  If not me, someone else would have carried the banner.  

Life goes on and I look back and just wonder what it was all about.  If I had life to do over, would I?  And if I did, would it change anything?  I think not.  I know I have got to come to terms with some things, but I am not sure I know where to start.    I can not stop the river from running to the sea.  I can not get the toothpaste back in the tube.

In hind sight, there is nothing I would change, because I still would not have known what someone else was thinking.  I can not know what thoughts someone is thinking if they do not say them out loud.  Am I at peace with this?  No.  Can I change anything? No.  Would I like to?  Yes.

All I can do, and the only advice I have at this point is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep hoping and praying for a better day.  I do not want to keep second guessing and I want to remember that I did the best I could with the tools and knowledge I had at the time and if that upsets anyone, so be it.

I think it would be how momma did it. I sure miss my momma and that will never change.

 

Sure am missing Nickerson, Kansas

 Merle Haggard says it best.  https://youtu.be/TuwhpVde6NY The roots of my raising sure do run deep.  Growing up in Nickerson, Kansas was definitely a challenge.  Like all small town there was a right side of town and a wrong side, but it this case it was the whole "outside of town."  We lived "outside of town" only 2 blocks from the high school when I was very small. That was the "wrong side of the tracks."  When I started second grade we moved clear across town out by the cemetery.  That was also the "wrong side of the tracks."  Either place was a place we could listen to that lonesome train whistle blow.

I learned early to love that sound.  It meant the train was going some where and I knew it was far away.  When the train whistle subsided in the distance, the coyotes howled.  Occasionally a wolf would howl.  Coyotes made more of a yipping sound, but wolves had a mournful howl.  It was like they were trying to call the moon from the sky above.  Either one scared hell out of us kids and we waited for the howling to subside before we could sleep.

But as poor as we were, we knew we were safe in our beds.  To my recollection, I never knew my dad to own a gun.  He was in the Army in World War 1.  He was what I thought was a big man, but in actuality he was only 5'8".  It was not an unusual height back in those days.  I do not know why, but I am assuming it had something to do with what they ate back then.  The emphasis in those days was not so much on vitamins and minerals as it was on survival.  A cow was easier to raise than a head of lettuce.  But all of that is irrelevant.

I remember the first time we got linoleum in our house.  My God!  You would have thought we had died and gone to heaven!  We could walk across the floor  barefooted and not get a "sliver".  Slivers were little pieces of the wood flooring and could only be removed by a pair of tweezers and a needle held in the hand of our dear mother.

Closing the house up at night entailed closing the front and back inside doors.  There were no locks.  There was usually a hook and eye on the screen door, but they were used to hold the door closed when the wind blew.  Bad people did not exist in Nickerson.  I recall once coming home from school and there was a dog walking on my street.  It scared me to death.  I actually climbed up on the icebox so the dog could not "eat me".  Nothing ever changed in Nickerson and that dog did not belong on my street.

Occasionally someone would pass away (We never referred to it as dying.) and the hearse would have to pass the end of our street on the way to the cemetery.  Nine chances out of 10, we knew the body that was being transported because Nickerson might have had a population of 1,000 people if everyone was gathered in one place.  Needless to say, we had to stand quietly with our hand over our heart until the hearse had passed.  This picture was taken from the cemetery side, thus the words are backwards.

For whatever reason I keep retreating to my childhood I know it was my safe place.  One would think that at this late stage in life I could accept who I am, but I don't.  I love to hard, trust too easily, and my biggest weakness is that I am ever the eternal optimist.  But I forget the most important thing momma told me:

"You never know anybody.  You only know OF them.  You know what they let you see."

Thanks, momma, now I remember.

I was happy then, wasn't I?

 Pandemic.  Such an evil word.  There was talk before about the possibility of a "pandemic."  What would we do?  All the people in power had simple solutions.  It was easy back then, wasn't it?  Medical was ready.  Hospitals were ready.  Every thing was in place to handle a health crisis.  What went wrong?

The flu kills people every year, doesn't it?  Sure.  People got their flu shots.  But my mind kept going back to the little red man in the diagram flying over here in a shiny plane.  The diagram showed him getting off the plane on the west coast.  Washington I think.  Then he got back on the plane and flew to Florida.  Such a simple little diagram, but then all the best laid plans of mice and men, as was inevitable, went to hell in a hand basket.  Little red dots began showing up all over the map.  OMG!  The impossible had happened.  We were smack in the middle of a pandemic which covered the whole world.

Even back then it was fascinating to watch.  They could trace it.  They could see it move across the country.  They could see people dying, but the little red dots meant nothing until they chose my world to come into.  We have lost a complete year out of our lives.  Our kids have adapted to online learning, but where is interaction with other people and kids occurring?  Online?  There is no electronic device that can replace the touch of a human hand; the sound of laughter.  Even a cup of coffee with a friend at Starbucks is a thing of the past.

My car rarely leaves the car port.  A quick trip to Lagreese is about the best I can do.  I still mail a few orders out from the neighborhood drug store, but my zest for life is gone.  The library where I used to spend so much time, is now off limits.  The AIDS quilt was not hung this year.  It is deserted and a time limit is imposed.  Church is closed and shuttered.  I can still walk down on the levee, but even that is a lonely undertaking.

My Sunday afternoon Scrabble in no more.  I fear I could slip into the doldrums and just wither away.  The sad part is that I am pretty sure I am not alone in this.  I met a friend at Starbucks last Saturday and we drank coffee in her car.  When our visit was over she walked to my side of the car and she hugged me.  She hugged me for probably a full minute and it felt so good.  We are not supposed to do that you know, but sometimes you just gotta' go with your gut and to hell with the outcome.

Someday this will all be over, but it will never be forgotten.  People are gone from my life like they were never there.  But they were there!  They were warm, caring, kind people!  Some of them were funny and made me laugh.  Some were super intelligent and challenged my mind.  One was special in every way.  I have a picture on my screen and I see him every day, all day long.  But he doesn't smile.  I still feel special, but it is an empty specialness and it leaves me cold.

Maybe some day I can smile again, but not today.  Maybe some day when my friends stop dying, and my church is open and I can see the rose window, I can smile.  But not today.  The pain is too fresh and the wound too deep.

Enjoy what you have, while you have it, because life is fleeting and love an illusion.