This would be my oldest brother, Richard Nichols.  He was my father's oldest son, by his first wife.

 This is William E. Bartholomew who was my fathers second son by his first wife.  Both of them were in World War II and both of them were shell shocked, Richard more so than Gene.  This picture is from an obituary that Sam found on Ancestry.com.  He apparently lived in Seattle, Washington when he died in1973.

I never really knew my step brothers because they were grown and gone when I was old enough to know I had them.  Since Gene was the only one that was not adopted from the orphanage, he tended to check in with dad occasionally.  I do know he had lived for a while with a family named Banks.  It seemed that they were either from Nebraska or close to that area.    An obituary that my son found on Ancestry shows he died in 1973.  So there was a span of about 20 years that he had a life in Washington.  If anyone has any knowledge of him during that time, I would sure like to know.  I hope he had a family that loved him.  Life is strange.

So I guess I will put that brother to bed since I at least know he has been dead for 46 years.  Rest in peace, Gene.

And now I am off to bed.

It has taken me 77 years, but finally I get it.  My greatest failure in life has been the one that I thought was a virtue.  I have failed in 6 marriages and God only knows how many relationships and never had a glimmer that any of those failures were really my fault, but they were.  Today I am closing the door on all of those and adopting a new outlook on life.  I have watched other women walk all over their husbands and lovers and brow beat them into submission.  I have watched jealousy rear it's ugly head in those instances and watched as those same couples celebrated year after year.  And here I set alone.

Today I am closing that door on another relationship that I thought was a friendship that would endure, but that is not happening.  Why?  Because I once more put my heart and soul into something that was not to be.  I thought I was needed, but I wasn't.  I was used.  That is what I do best....I get used.  I ask for nothing, hence I get nothing.  Along with that relationship I am bidding farewell to a family member that no longer needs me.

You see, I am a trusting person.  If you tell me something, I believe it.  My word is my bond, hence, your word I took as your bond.  I help you up and you return the favor.  That works until I need a hand up, or an ear to listen, or a kind word.  I realize I do have friends that are just that, but I keep remembering something mother told me.  "You will have friends in your life, but if you can reach the end of your life and count all your friends on one hand, you are blessed."  Right now, I am not feeling very blessed.  I am feeling used.

The sad part is that the two people who have brought me to this point (realization) in my life will never know what a sad part they played in my decision unless some one draws them a picture.  They do not read this blog.  They do not know that I even have a vulnerable side, nor will they know it.  I guess I was happiest when I volunteered at hospice.  I was eleventh hour and I knew where my clients were in their journey.  I was blessed to take many to  the edge and over.  I became a part of the family and for the most part I could walk back into their homes and I would be welcomed with open arms.  I liked feeling like I had helped, but I do not do that anymore.  My last client was my last and I will not do that again.

It hurts when I pour myself into something and get nothing in return, so I am not taking that chance again.  I am sure I will go on helping people, but what I will not do is let my little heart become attached to any one or anything.  Life is too short for that.  So to my friends out there who have not handed me the short shaft, we are good.  Not to worry, but the two that left me with this hole in my heart, just know that I am done.  No more.  If I see you on the street I will smile, but do not look into my eyes, because all you will see is an empty heart.

Alive and well and wishing otherwise.

I remember back when I was young and starting my life as an adult.  I was filled with hope and joy at the future ahead of me.  I had a wonderful husband who loved me and our life would be complete if we had a child.  Of course it must be a son.  Nothing else would work.  So after a year or so, I finally got pregnant.  And then I had the baby.  It was a girl, heaven forbid so we had to try again right away.  My husband was adamant that the next one be a son.  Whoops!  foiled again.  The third one was also a girl and by this time my loving husband was fed up with me and my failure to give him an heir.  After much begging and pleading, he gave me one last chance.  I was filled with gratitude at this magnanimous man and the kindness he showed me after 3 complete failures.  This time I did it right!  I gave him his son.

Of course that marriage went South like a fart in a whirlwind!  Not even the birth of his son could save it.  But then there was the divorce and then the brief reconciliation.  And then the second divorce which was delayed a bit because I was busy giving birth to my 4th daughter.   All of this is history and is not relevant to much of anything, except facts.  And you do know that the facts as I remember them and how he remembers them are not necessarily the same.  I was 3 years younger than him when we married, but he was 3 years younger then me in his latter years.  Mother always said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the same goes with truth.  One man's truth is another man's fantasy,  much like one man's pleasure is another man's pain.  But I digress.

One thing I have always held dear was life!  I was invincible in my younger years and my zest for life was what kept my head above water when I was sinking in emotional pain.  And I survived.  And here I am today wondering just what in the hell all of that was about.  My kids are grown and gone away and have kids and grandkids of their own.  Mother, father, sisters, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends be damned.  They are all gone.  I try to look up the family tree and see someone above me and it just ain't happening.   And it isn't just the people, every thing is different.  I go to Nickerson and the house is gone.  All the houses on Strong Street have been replaced.  It is still pretty much a ghetto, but it was my ghetto.  I go to Hutchinson, where I spent most of the time with the kids and that house is gone also along with the house next door.

And now I am in Pueblo, Colorado for the last 40 years.  My in-laws are all gone except for one brother in law that I never see.  My husband is gone and has been for almost 20 years.  Where does this all end?  All the pictures on my desk are pictures of the past.  Two old grandma's, a mother and father on their wedding day, a brother as he was frozen in time in the 7th grade.  What do people do when they get too old to be useful any more?  Do they just wither away?  I did the volunteering thing. Now what?  Make cookies?  Water the plants?  How long does that take?

So I lay in my bed at night and go over what I have done and it looks like a pretty pathetic showing in the grand scheme of things.  I remember a dark haired girl and the dreams she had of being a missionary. And I escape to that world.   But then I wake up and I look down at my sleeve and I see, coming out of the sleeve, my mothers hand. 

Lost and lonely little dog update

As it turns out, I in my usual rush to judgement, got it wrong.   As it turns out the little lost dog that I assumed had been dumped, is indeed a very loved little dog and was being looked for by his family.  He lives near the intersection and had some how gotten himself lost.  His family missed him very much and were advertising and searching for him.

Whether my article had any part in him being reunited with his family or not, I do not know, but I do know he is home.  I know he is a he.  And I am very happy.  Last information I had was that he was home.  He was limping.  And he was sleeping with his boy.

All is well here in my corner of the world!  And there is indeed a God that takes care of our furry friends.

Lost and lonely little dog.

A day or so ago I was returning home down 27th Lane and saw a little dog setting in the field on the corner of 27th and County Farm.  I thought that strange.  Today I saw him again in the same place so I pulled around the corner and stopped.  It looked at me hopefully and then turned and ran back up the field.  It was not hard to figure out that someone had dumped it.  I walked a ways into the field and tried to coax it to me.  No way.  I was not the human it wanted.  So I got back in my car and did the only thing I knew to do, I came home.  I loaded up some cat food and water and went back down to the field.  The little dog was back in its regular waiting place, but once more ran away.  I put the food down and poured the water in the container.  The little dog watched me.  I took a step towards it and it ran away.  So I got in my car and left.

I will not sleep tonight.  I will be thinking about that little dog.  I wish I could meet the person who left the poor little animal.  I would ask them if when they tossed it out on that corner, if it tried to chase the car and catch up with them.  Did you even look back?  What did that poor little doggie do to deserve being left in a field?  There are coyotes and foxes out here that will make a meal of that helpless little creature.  Oh, do you think it is going to catch something and eat it to survive?  Or some fool like me will come along and it will jump in my car and I will take it home and it will live happily ever after?  I would, you know, but it is waiting for you.  I will say this, you do not deserve loyalty like that.  God has a special place for people like you.

I do not have a dog.  My little dog died.  It was one just like yours.   I still cry myself to sleep missing my little animals and assholes like you throw them away.  The world is full of stray dogs and cats that were cute little puppies or kitties, but then they grew up and may have actually peed on the floor.  Whose fault was that?  Whose job was it to teach them that was wrong?  Or they might have shed on your couch.  Heaven forbid.  What ever the circumstances that left that little dog out in that field all alone, it is not right.  I am going to pray very hard tonight that God will touch your heart wherever you are and whomever you are and you will get in your car and drive back out to 27th Lane and County Farm and pick your little dog back up.  You do not have to keep it.  You can bring it to my house.  Or call me and I will come pick it up.  I am just too old to chase it through a field when it wants you.  But if you hand it to me, I will take it and give it a very good home.

Just in case...my number is 546-1555.  and my name is Lou.

Beauty is skin deep.

I was never what you call pretty growing up.  Even as a teenager, I was on the scrawny side.  My hair was brown and my front teeth were over sized and stayed that way my whole life through.  I was very sickly and spent lots of time with an ear ache and a pain in my side that was attributed to appendicitis.  However, when I was 12 years old I was rushed in for an emergency tonsillectomy.  Strange as it may seem, I never had a sick day after that.  I did remain skinny, weighing in at 92 pounds when I married my first husband at the age of 19.

I have managed to go my entire life without an inoculation of any kind.  I was always so jealous of the kids who had the small pox vaccination scar on their arm.  Now I do not know how I managed to survive and not get vaccinated for anything, but I did.  Well, about 25 years ago I was trying to fly a kite in the field next door and stepped on a nail.  Kenneth took me to the emergency room and the doctor wanted to "update" my tetanus vaccine.  I told him I had never been vaccinated against anything in my life.  He gave me the tetanus shot and I let him because Kenneth was between me and the door.   I left with instructions to make an appointment in his office for my immunizations.  Never kept that date and the matter was dropped.  So I will say this, I am very healthy and rarely ever get sick.  (There was that time I was laid low by a bad batch of hummus from Sam's, but that was man made misery in a tub.)

So back to the subject.  My sister's were all pretty and actually had a shape.  I remained a stick figure on the horizon and when I would complain, mother would just tell me.  "Beauty is skin deep."  To be honest, that did not help much.  Of course as life goes on, things become more important than beauty.  And something that I learned early was that an abusive husband will prey on your weakness.  I had 3 of them, followed by one that was just a user and then I met Kenneth.  Kenneth never told me I was beautiful. He told me I was smart.  He told me I was a worker.  He told me I was dependable.  He told me I was trustworthy.  He told me he was comfortable with me.  He told me he loved me.  He loved my mind. He loved my compassion.  He loved my zest for life.  He loved my cooking.  He loved everything about me and I began to feel beautiful.

And of course Mother came for regular visits.  One time we were discussing life before Kenny and she was telling him how I had raised the kids alone and many times gone without food so they could eat.  Kenny chimed in at that point with, "Well, you could never tell by looking at her that she ever missed a meal!"   He had a way of putting life in a perspective that made it work.

One time I made the remark that  I had never felt pretty.  And beautiful was a word that was never  used in the same sentence with my name.  He looked at me kind of strangely when I said that.  His answer was all I needed.  He said, "Yes, beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."  And then I understood, that this simple man thought I was beautiful and I have held to that thought through all these years.

I had a man once in my life that saw through my exterior and into my soul.  That only comes around once in a lifetime but it lasts forever.  

It is what it is.

Every morning I wake up to face another day.  Usually it is about 5 AM.  I lay there for a little while thinking about yesterday and wondering about today.  I know there is nothing I can do to change yesterday, but today there is hope.  I think hope is the one thing that keeps me going, but things do not always work out like I had planned.  Sadly, I do not have the ability to control other people.  I know what would make their life work better and bring them happiness, but they have their own ideas.  So I accept that.

I once told a friend of mine "I do not understand why John Doe did what he did.  I thought I knew him better than that."  My friend told me, "You never know a person.  You only know what they let you see."  Of course he was right.  I do not see John Doe any more, but I do see my friend.  Some people become our friends for life, it seems and some are just ships passing in the night.  That makes me sad.

Mother was wise in the ways of the world.  I miss her more than words can convey.  If I was sad, she would tell me "Tomorrow is another day."  It seems my poor little tender heart has been broken so many times that it would  never heal, but losing her was like losing a part of myself.  I have her picture on the top of my desk.  It is a black and white picture.  I have an 8 x 10 that is the last thing I see when I leave the house. It is a colored photograph and I see her gray eyes.  Her and I had the same color eyes.  I assume my father had eyes, but I forget what color they were.  It has been over 50 years since I saw his eyes.

Mother always told me "If you can reach the end of your life and you have 5 true friends that you can count on one hand, you are blessed."  And for many years I did.  But now I am beginning to wonder.  Some of them have gone to a better place (which means they died), some have moved away.  Some have remarried and built new lives.  And some of them just found other interests.  Sad. My 2 best friends are men.  One has been in my life since I came to Colorado in 1973 (?).  The other I met when I married Kenny.  I do not see them often, but we keep in touch.  I guess maybe I do have 5 friends left.  I am hoping they outlive me!

So where was I?  I guess I am just facing my mortality and learning to accept all the death and sorrow that life has to  offer.  The old body may very well be wearing out, but my mind is still sharp and I can still feed myself, so I guess life is good.  One thing is for sure....

It is what it is.