War.. What is it Good for?

I hate war. War creates unspeakable horrors.  A humanitarian war cannot be waged. "Humanitarian" and "war" are an oxymoron. But, as much as I hate war and the ensuing horrors, I am pragmatic enough to realize that sometimes war is necessary to protect ourselves from those who see the world THEIR way and will stop at nothing to impose THEIR way on others.

Human beings have a supreme, honed talent for killing the innocent in their quest to impose THEIR way. I see photos and read historical accounts of the starving Jews in the WW II concentration camps, the napalm burned children of Vietnam, the stacked skulls of the victims of the Khmer Rogue, the almost three million people killed by Stalin in his quest for "greatness", the decimation of the American Indian populations, the Assyrian genocide that Turkey committed during WW I, and the still shots of people plummeting out of the raging infernos of the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 and I have little hope that humans will ever change. No nation possesses hands that are free from the stain of human blood.

But I also know, as much as I hate war, if I were ever attacked I would put my loved ones as far out of harm's way as possible and then I would pick up a weapon and protect myself. I expect my country to do the same. I want to live and let live, but I know this isn't always possible. With the advent of a modern Global Economy most countries just want to be left alone to live in peace and prosper. We are more interconnected than we have ever been, and maybe that's the problem.  It is religious extremist organizations who freely filter back and forth over myriad borders who have become the bane of 21st century man's existence.

And what do THEY want? Mostly for others to believe in THEIR god and to live according the THEIR religious laws of control. These are the most dangerous types of human beings that exist. Their ignorance, their lack of education, their blind faith, their unresolved fears of their eternal existence (no matter their verbal assertions, they all have that quiet voice inside that says that maybe this life is all there is. Most humans possess an ego that can't even fathom the possibility of non-existence after death).  All wars, and the horrors and atrocities that accompany them, have their roots in this one basic fear of non-existence after death. THEY draw comfort from converting, by force if needed,  massive numbers of people who believe they way THEY do because numbers give more weight and validity to the beliefs.  If nine million people believe the same thing then that belief has to be more correct than if only a hundred people believe, right?

Until we can change the basic nature of mankind and ease the fears, war will be with us. The faces and the players may change, but the atrocities will stay the same. But can we change the basic nature of mankind? Can we ease mankind's fears and make people impervious to extremism? History proves we cannot. If nothing else, history has taught us that a zealot belief in a god can be very bad for one's life expectancy and the condition of peace. But the beat goes on and the children keep dying and the answers grow more tangled. Which sides are merely protecting themselves and which are attempting invasions? Which god will save us and which will condemn us?  Does it even matter? I think that, in itself, is the answer.

Out of Step in Time (or How I Discovered That Humans are Pretty Stupid, But I Have to be One Anyway).

The world I grew up in has quickly slipped away and I almost feel like a visitor to this era.  An out of place alien who doesn't quite know the rules and who doesn't recognize the landscape of politics, religion, values, the lack of common sense, or other people's views on right vs wrong. Then again I am currently in the middle of teaching Lord of the Flies, quite possibly the most hopeless literary P.O.V on the human condition that exists. (Except Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.. That is some REAL messed up stuff. That evil dude going around in the brightly decorated cart kidnapping children that he throws into a dungeon. Gives me chills even thinking about it).

This is called back story:
After work I had to go Rite Aid to get some Mucinex DM, and thanks to meth manufacturers I had to give my DOB before I could even buy it. AND the clerk told me that they have started hiding the batteries behind the counter because teens are stealing them. Seems they are taking something out of the batteries that they can mix with something else to get high. Who even thought of this crap? Yeah, I was a stupid teen once upon a time but even I wouldn't have taken apart a battery and thought, "Gee, I wonder if something in this battery can get me high?". I mean, WTF??

Then I come home and read the news headlines and I start thinking about all the headlines over the past two years. Some definite horror movie stuff.  I mean, 60s horror flicks vastly underrated the true state of possibilities. We are almost Soylent Green times six here, except that, if it came down to it, we couldn't even eat people because the bodies would be too poisoned with toxic environmental crap for us to ingest (and if you don't know what Soylent Green is, then you're part of the problem).

Russia is invading the Ukraine (are my grandkids going to have to live through another Cold War?); the minimum wage hasn't been raised in three years; food prices have increased exponentially; Monsato is poisoning our food; Detroit is a ghost town; industrial companies are poisoning our water supply; teachers have been made the scapegoat for the sorry state of education in this country; we have a government that rushed/passed a health care mandate that is too full of holes and vastly questionable, but that will, in the bloody end, effect millions of people who are the middle class (the very ones who support this country by the sweat of their brow and the bloody blood in their veins); and the two political parties in this country can't even get along with one another long enough to do what is BEST for this country. They're too caught up in their images, the vast network of lobbyists, and their political careers. They're all a bunch of self serving assholes, as far as I'm concerned.

And what about America's obsession with reality television and our penchant for gullible ignorance and cell phone "selfies" ( I can't believe I even typed that word..)?  And then there's this Simon guy from American Idol. I totally don't get him. Or Justin Bieber. My brain fucking locks up when I even read his name in print.
          On a more serious note, cancer is hitting way too many people that I know and love (a side benefit of  poisoning our environment, our food, and our water!) and Alzheimer's cases are increasing at a rate that medical science and our health care system can't even keep pace with.

 I am out of step. I don't get it. I don't understand.  I didn't think I would feel this way until at least age seventy. But here I am at the grand old age of fifty-two thanking my lucky stars that in about thirty years (on the outside) I will be dead and won't have to think about this crap. I will be worm food and I can leave all of this to the living (bless their hearts). They can worry, fret, attempt to sort out the unmanageable shit, and try and solve the myriad ills of society.
          Sadly, my generation is to blame for a lot of the FUBAR state of affairs and we are doing nothing about it except making bigger messes out the already made messes. To future generations: I apologize for our actions and/or inactions...  but the next generation AND the one following that one aren't looking so hot either. You are all sooooooo screwed for about the next eighty years, at least.

Just keeping it real. The beat goes on....

 And this is what started all of this:

The Soundtrack of My Life

As with everyone who has ever lived, there have been defining moments that have turned me like wet clay and then fired hot in life's kiln to create who I am and how I look at life. A myriad of experiences: the birth of my brother when I was almost four; my father leaving for Vietnam when I was six; kissing a boy on my thirteenth birthday and reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle a few months later; smoking pot when I was fourteen (highly overrated); reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens when I was fifteen, giving birth to my first child at age twenty-three; starting college when I was thirty-four; my divorce at age thirty-eight; deciding to become a teacher during my final year of my B.A; marrying for all the right reasons at age forty-seven, watching my father die at the age of fifty-one. All little bits and pieces.

These important and altering events are mirrored by a soundtrack  of music. A few are not merely songs, but entire albums. Opuses that encompass where I have been in this life. The albums of my life, so to speak. Thus far, the soundtrack is as follows:

Get your Wings by Aerosmith: I was thirteen years old, walking down my short neighborhood street of Stonehouse in San Antonio. An older, cute, Camaro owning boy lived a few doors down from me.  It must have been spring. The Camaro was black, the day was warm. The boy had his eight track stereo blaring from the car’s speakers while he meticulously waxed the car. "Train Kept ‘a Rolling" began to play.

Well on a train, I met a dame
She rather handsome
We kinda look the same
She was pretty
From New York City
I'm walkin' down that old fair lane
I'm in heat, I'm in love.

But I just couldn't tell her so.

I stopped dead cold, riveted. Somehow I got the nerve to yell over the blare of the music, “Who is that? The boy screamed back, “Aerosmith”. The hard driving blues/rock sound seeped into my bones. The next week I started lining up babysitting jobs. I had to have the new Toys in the Attic album by Aerosmith. Three weeks later it was mine. I still have that album. The cover is badly worn, the record scratched beyond imagining.  It took me another month to buy Get Your Wings, the album that contained the song, "Train Kept a Rolling."

          A love affair had begun. One with music. My music, the music that spoke to me.

Let There Be Rock by AC/DC: July 27, 1977. I was fifteen. Riding in a beat up Toyota heading to a mall in downtown San Antonio. There were only three of us. The boy driving lit up a joint.  He said we were going to meet AC/DC; they were signing copies of their new album that day pre-concert opening. The stoner driver pushed an AC/DC eight track in. I heard Bon Scott singing, “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll)”, a song title that would later become my mantra whenever life threw me curve balls.

             I remember getting to the mall. I remember going inside,  I remember seeing Angus Young and Bon Scott seated on folding chairs at a card table piled high with their latest album. They were just outside the entrance of a record store, surrounded by teen fans. I also remember being much more interested in the people weaving in and out through the corridors of the mall. They looked very strange: midgets, skinny giants, huge eyes, lopping oversized ears. Must of been the pot.  I glanced at AC/DC and then immediately become reabsorbed into the task of people watching. I never even approached AC/DC, much to my eternal shame,

            The next night I rode with my friend, Bill Ogle, to see with my own two eyes and hear with my own two ears what AC/DC could do live. I ended up eleven rows from the stage watching Angus Young prancing, running, dodging and ducking in his school boy attire, attacking the guitar until it screamed. His wet hair plastered to his skull. Fingers flying over the chords. Grinning, daring the audience to push him farther, faster, louder. Bon Scott, strutting like a caged lion, hitting ear splitting vocals that punched the auditory senses like hot dripping honey.

            AC/DC opened for Moxy that night, but there was no way in hell Moxy was going to get that show back after AC/DC walked off the stage.  Out of all the concerts I have ever been to, and I have been to quite a few, I think seeing AC/DC that night way back in 1977 was one of the most ethereal musical experiences I have ever had. Two and half years later Bon Scott was dead.

            But for the record I think the two greatest albums AC/DC ever made were High Voltage and Highway to Hell. Angus, Malcolm, and Bon forever enshrined. Timeless..

            And yes, it’s still A Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock and Roll.

War Child by Jethro Tull: The first lyrics I ever listened to that had double meanings and begged to be interpreted were from Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull.  The lyrics became my gateway to a later hobby and academic pursuit of interpreting poetry, short stories, and novels. The concept of double entendre slapping me in the face like a Flora-Bama mackerel began with War Child and lyrics like:

So as you push off from the shore,
won't you turn your head once more --- and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
will live just one more day ---
to do the things they should have done.
And as you cross the wilderness, spinning in your emptiness:
you feel you have to pray.
Looking for a sign
that the Universal Mind (!) has written you into the Passion Play.

At fifteen the heavy meaning of those words and how they apply to life sunk in and I was a goner for all time. If not for the very pressing need to actually work towards a paying profession after I graduated college I might have become a philosopher, and the ensuing poverty would have been Ian Anderson’s fault.

Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette: Divorcing at age thirty-eight while still in the midst of earning a college degree AND raising three kids at the same time was not the most fun thing I have ever attempted.  To get through something like that you need energy. Energy that comes from determined simmering anger. It doesn’t even matter if that anger is misdirected, you just sometimes need it. You think I can’t do this? You motherfucker, I’ll show you. Three years later I had that degree and the name TERI F COLEY was written on it. MY maiden name. So....

I don't wanna be the filler if the void is solely yours
I don't wanna be your glass of single malt whiskey
Hidden in the bottom drawer and
I don't want to be a bandage if the wound is not mine
Lend me some fresh air, ah

Heroes by Willie Nelson: The last Father’s Day I spent with Dad was in 2012. He was still home and  was able to walk, go places with Mom, but he couldn’t be left alone. He was slipping away a little more each day, but he still loved music.  I bought the new Willie Nelson CD Heroes for my father.  I had never even heard the CD, but had read that Ray Price performed on it and that it was heavy on steel guitar; the artist that my dad had loved and the instrument my dad had played. He was at my house about a week before Father’s Day and I played him one of the title tracks, “My Home in San Antone.” Dad always said he should have retired in San Antonio. He might have been a Georgia boy by birth, but he was Texan by heart and the music in his blood.  I played him the San Antone song. His eyes lit up, his right thumb started keeping time with the melody. He and I stood in my dining room and listened to the entire track, When it was over he said, “That was good.” 

            The next week I gave him the CD, then burned a copy onto my laptop. But when I listened to the CD by myself it wasn’t the San Antonio song with its steel chords and its upbeat Bob Wills-like tune that drew me in, but a song called “Hero”.

And where is our hero today?
Can we just tag along, we'll stay out his way.
Does he still write the sad songs and can he still play
Where is our hero today?

After Dad was admitted to the V.A I couldn’t play the CD for him anymore because he would cry. I guess Mom still has it somewhere.  Where is my hero today?

There are other songs, perhaps a million that come to mind that will forever remind me of a time, a place, a love, a heartbreak, a kiss, a smile.  But they're songs, not entire albums. They're scattered scraps, not entire completed pieces like the albums.

            .

What speaks for me and will continue to do so long after I’m gone? The music, my dear. The music.

Another Auld Lang Syne

Another year come and gone. I am not sentimental about New Year’s. I never have been, although, I admit, I have tried.  I have tried to summon misty tears as the old year melts away into the new. I have tried to make New Year’s Eve kisses touch my heart in a romantic fiction quality way. I have tried to allow confetti and a room full of drunks to scratch the pragmatic soul I carry inside. To no avail.

            Years ago I realized I was a failure at New Year’s sentimentality and I gave up, to the good of myself and others.  New Year’s invokes no feelings of Auld Lang Syne, tearful declarations of love, or nostalgia in my heart. Thus, I have no grand resolutions for 2014, no mind-blowing notions on suddenly recreating myself or the world. Hell, it’s enough merely trying to keep my own little corner of the world status quo. I’m not about to start rocking the proverbial boat. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it just because the calendar happens to flip over another day. So, enough about the New Year. What about the old one?

            For me it was a year of many changes; mentally, physically, and spiritually. This time last year I had just returned from the UAE and was trying to comprehend that my dad was probably not going to see the end of 2013. He didn’t.  He passed away August 15th, fighting until the very end.  I thought the sense of loss and grief had reached a zenith with his passing, but in the past two weeks there have been moments when the grief has welled up anew inside of me from beyond the peripheral, and blindsided me with its force.  Something about the holidays takes recent grief and tailspins it into a fresh place where tears come unbidden at the most inconvenient times.  I am learning to go with it. To just let it wash and roll over me.  In the past few days when I have found myself sobbing, I have also found myself critically analyzing the moment. My self steps back a little and observes “So this is how grief feels as time passes? Interesting”.  One detaches, I suppose, in order to come out the other side. Each day from now until August 15th will be a year anniversary of something without my dad. I have learned to expect and accept the inevitability of that.

            This time last year: I was jobless having decided not to go back to the UAE after Christmas. I decided instead to stay in Georgia and try to help my mother deal with a difficult and heart ripping situation.  My being jobless was a choice, and one I do not regret, as it gave me time to be with my dad. Precious time. I knew when the opportunity arose I would find another job. I trusted in my instincts, but still I had no notion that a teaching job would open up that would not only fulfill me, but challenge me as a teacher.  One in which I would feel valued, appreciated, and respected. One in which my students would be entertaining, good, kind, and funny as hell. I really can’t believe that I am actually paid to hang out with ‘my” kids, but don’t tell the school board that.

            However, there is a price to everything, even the good things in life, so I have had to split myself in two between the home I have with my husband and my work home. So here I am, maintaining ties to my REAL home and my work apartment home, traveling up and down highway 129 on an every other week basis, trying to remember which kitchen has salt and which needs it, in which dresser drawer my red socks are residing, in which house I left the new Klosterman book. It can be confusing and yes, lonely at times. Other times it's liberating in that after work I can sprawl decadently across the entire bed at night, listen to Leonard Cohen sing the same song over and over, be alone with the voices in my head that suggest new short stories, and write all night long if I want to without having to consider the needs of anyone else.  And highway 129 leads quickly and easily back to my family, my flower garden, my study. Being 6900 miles closer to all that is familiar and loved makes the difference between my old teaching job in the UAE and my new teaching job. That and I can now understand what my principal is saying when he speaks to me. The things we take for granted never cease to amaze me. The mental, physical, and spiritual journey of 2013 is behind me.  Behind you too. Now we have new ones, many as of yet undreamed, unplanned, unseen.

            My birthday is just eighteen days after the New Year, and every year on January 1st I am pushed toward the acceptance of my own aging self. I will turn fifty-two soon. The thought of turning fifty-two rocks me to the tips of my toes for some reason. I am beginning to feel old finally.  Just the first whisperings, but it is there. Milestone birthdays coupled with witnessing the death of someone you love will start you thinking about your own mortality, your place in the world, and what you are leaving behind to stand as a witness for the life you lived.  

            I am past the halfway mark of my life, unless I live to be one hundred and four, and I think that is highly doubtful. There’s not much time left to do all the things I  want to do.  I think I can ditch the ballet dancer dream and the bass player in a rock band fantasy. Also the five foot six inches height goal has pretty much flown by the wayside, In fact, I seem to be shrinking. No one ever said that life didn’t have a sense of humor.

            Being past life’s halfway mark means that more and more I contemplate what my life has become and is becoming, what I have become and am becoming.  And I am cushioned in the dawning self-universal thought that in a hundred years I probably won’t even be remembered. My existence will fade into a forgotten footnote. But nevertheless, what I do daily does impact others and my own perceptions about myself. That in itself is enough reason to get out of bed every day and try to be a better person than I was the day before. This one simple self philosophy took years to develop. Slow and almost unnoticeable like morning fog burning out over a lake. I have never been one for epiphanies. I do not matter, but I do matter. Life is a paradox in that way.

            Each day takes me one day away from the person I was, and one day toward the person I am to become. And if I keep that in mind, if I wake up everyday expecting just a little more of myself, if I am kind to just one more person than I was kind to yesterday, if I help one more person in one small way, won’t that add up?  And if I die tomorrow, having paid close attention to my day-to-day life and my interactions, doesn’t that mean that I will indeed leave something of myself behind, consciously remembered or not?  The answer, of course, is yes. Now that, my friends, is a real resolution. To allow myself to become me. A better me.

            I am older, but so is everyone else.  So is the world. A year older. This blue planet we live on keeps spinning on its axis, I keep learning, I keep loving, I keep trying.  I struggle to remember that no one day is ever promised and that no hug should go unappreciated. Maybe I am a little sentimental, after all..

Happy New Year.

This is How the Heart Begins to Heal..

My dad hasn't even been gone three months yet, and my heart is still fresh and raw from the loss.

 I am slowly pushing the almost nightmare last year of his life aside and reaching, searching, sifting for the memories of the good times. 

My dad had the prettiest smile I have ever seen.  He was dark complected, black haired and brown eyed. When we lived in Texas everyone thought he was of Mexican descent, and when we lived in Crete they thought he was Greek. He would laugh about it, especially when they tried to speak Spanish or Greek to him and then not understand when he tried to explain to them that he didn't understand. The situation created a comedy of errors at times.

 He was an accomplished steel guitarist and songwriter. I have an entire folder of songs that he wrote.. One day when I was fourteen we sat down together and wrote a song about the 50's; die hanging on the rear view mirror of a '57 Chevy and rock and roll music. I helped him with most of the lyrics. Sadly, that is the one song I can't find, but the memory of us writing it together is seared into my heart.

 I loved him more than I think I have ever loved a man. He loved me back in the same fierce way. He was my protector, I was his only little girl. He was loving, kind, solid, dependable, funny, and calm. He took care of his family always, through the ups and downs, though the valleys and the mountain tops. He took his responsibilities seriously. Even in the end, while the Alzheimer's quickly ravaged him, he was worried if Mom and I had money, if we had eaten, When I fed him at the V.A Center he would want me to reassure him that I had eaten before he would even take a bite of his food.

He was not showy or overly verbal, but he made sure he hugged me and my brother as often as he could, through our teen years and well into our adult years. At the end of a hug he would whisper, "I love you" into my ear.  He wasn't perfect; he was in all ways human and he taught me how to be human. He taught me how to make mistakes, how to fall down, then how to get back up, learn and move on. This has served me well. I am largely what and who I am due to his love and his role in being every inch a "Dad" to me and my brother.

I'm still working it out, still cry myself to sleep some nights, often find tears slipping and rolling down my face at unexpected times and places. I know this is grief and that it has to be felt, no matter how much it bloodies and tears my gut apart. No matter how much it feels as if razor wire has curled up in the deepest recesses of my chest and is slicing me into tiny slivers. I know the pain will lessen, I know I have a life to live, things to do and places to see, music to hear, books to read, words to write. That is what Dad would have wanted. I will honor him by living my life in the best way I know how. I will be forever changed by this experience. But isn't that what love does anyway?


Goodnight, Daddy, I love you..

More TERI'S LIFE RULES To Ponder

In my vast wisdom that comes with age, as well as having royally screwed up, or as I like to call it “experienced life” a time or two, I can offer the following pieces of advice without hesitation.

 DISCLAIMER:: There is no money back guarantee. You aren't spending any money reading this, except maybe your internet bill, and I am not responsible for that shit. If the following advice proves faulty do not hire a fancy sue-happy attorney thinking you will win some stone-cold easy cash. 

I am a teacher. You will get nothing.

BLOW UP MONKEYS

1. After my five-year-old granddaughter got all pouty because some kid wrote on her blow up plastic toy monkey with a marker, I told her, "Miley, you are going to find that a whole lot of people are going to write on your monkey in this life. You just gotta let it go".  

 So if someone is writing on your monkey, let it go.

ROCKS

2. And those rocks? You know the ones you keep picking up throughout the day that in no way belong to you? Stop picking them up. They aren’t yours, and after you have picked up about six and seven good sized ones and placed them in your pockets those bastards can become quite heavy. They ain’t your rocks. Don’t pick them up.

HAIR

3. It doesn’t matter if you have a bad hair day.  It’s just freaking hair. Don’t let the state of a bunch of keratin ruin an entire day. It's KERATIN, people. Google it. Kinda gross, so prepare yourself.

MARRIAGE

4. Don’t even THINK about marrying someone that you known for less than one year. And by “known” I mean that the lust has cooled to an even 50 degrees F , you have experienced a bad stomach virus or food poisoning together, and you have seen one another mindlessly clipping toenails while watching television. Then, and only then, can you even begin to consider spending the rest of your lives with one another. Not before. Trust me on this. 

Plus, I read on the news the other day that 90% of all dust that we inhale consists of the dead skin of our family members. Marry someone you don't mind inhaling into your body on a regular basis.

MAKING PEOPLE INVISIBLE

5. Everyone makes stupid remarks that can hurt your feelings. If it only happens once in a while it means that person is human. Forgive them. If it happens on a regular basis it means that person is an asshole and you should cut them out of your life permanently. You don’t have to trash talk them. You don’t have to hate them.  You don’t even have to tell them you are cutting them out of your life or why. Just relegate them to the “Don’t think about it” portion of your brain. You know, that part of the brain where you have tucked away the memories of all those past medical gynecological exams? Then after you have tucked that person far away in your subconscious, get on with your life.  You will be happier. They will be confused for a bit. It’s a personal win/win.

HEART FRIENDS

6. I know you get busy. So do I. Work, errands, family, it all gets in the way sometimes, as real life tends to do. But you must phone or write your closest friends at least every two months and say “I love you”. Do it just because you can.

INEXPENSIVE ENTERTAINMENT

7.  People watching is a highly undervalued and enjoyable pastime. Especially when enjoying said activity in a shopping mall or water park, and especially when you are “people watching” those under the age of twenty-five or over the age of eighty, and especially while sipping on a Coke Slurpee. Think of those nameless strangers as human cat toys. And it’s mostly free to people watch. The Slupree will cost under $3.00. What a deal.

PARENTING 101

8. Everyone else’s child is a brat except yours. You will always know instinctively how to parent other people’s children better than your own.  And you will voice that fact loudly. It’s a parent rule. You are not an exception.

POLITICIANS

9. For well over two hundred years United States career politicians have been greedy, power-hungry, and had their hot little hands jammed deep in the pockets of corporate America and lobbyists. Again, it’s a rule. A politician rule. There are no exceptions.

 

 LISTS

10. Creating written itemized lists is a perfectly valid way to pass the time.

PACIFISM

11. Sometimes I am smart as hell. 

And, contrary to popular belief, I am not a pacifist. There is a time and a place to kick ass and take names. You just have to be intelligent enough to know when to kick ass, and when to say "fuck it" and go plant a shrubbery.

The Voices In My Head Are Back

The below, "Chapter Nine", is a long overdue chapter to my little novella, "No One Gets Out of Here Alive".  The last time I wrote a chapter was back in April of this past year. In May I got a new job, started the process of moving and settling into a new school, and around the same time dad's Alzheimer's and Parkinston's took a sudden downward spiral..

When dad died on August 15 I found that all desire to write was gone. I didn't know where the stories went. I could no longer hear my story telling voice. All was silent in my head. The fictional voices were gone.

One friend kept messaging me, asking me for another chapter. I kept promising, but when I would sit down to write, the characters would refuse to talk to me. I kept telling myself, "Tomorrow I will write". As the days spread themselves like fog, I still couldn't hear the stories. The voices had gone completely silent.

"Tomorrow" became more and more elusive.  My sleep suffered. I was spending every spare moment at work trying not to think about dad, about the weight like rocks inside of my chest, about writing.  Thinking I could ignore it all if I completely exhausted myself at work, I'd work eleven and twelve hours, long after all the other teachers had left the school. Even so, I still spent two or three hours trying to fall asleep at night. My thoughts were becoming tangled from sleep deprivation. Every time my brain started recalling dad's smile or the sound of his voice I'd push the memory aside. I'd berate myself not to cry, not to think- just work, work, work.  And the voices inside grew fainter and fainter.

A week ago my persistent friend again messaged asking when I was going to write more of Matthew's story. Again I promised her, "This weekend". Two nights ago as I was trying to fall asleep I heard a voice, clear as a silver bell, in my head. Behind my closed eyelids in the dark of the night I saw the words appear fresh and crisp against a bright white background. I  heard and saw the beginnings of, "Matthew is my big brother..". 
Last night I wrote.

I have found the voices again, or they have found me. They are jostling for attention, crowding my brain, speaking to me every second. They are joyous and they are back. Hell, yeah, they are back.

I owe you a debt, Jo.  You were the swift kick that wouldn't let the voices just die.
Thank you.

The Kettle is Almost Boiling.

What with all the Chicken Littles running around D.C at the moment, I should be entertained, but I'm not..

Just for the record I am not a Republican or a Democrat.
 I am PRO choice, PRO legalization of marijuana, PRO Gay Rights, and ANTI Federal Department of Education and so called "Federal education standardized tests" that attempt to corral all children in one little homogeneous box (I am, after all, a teacher).

 I am also PRO universal health care in America WHEN a viable one can be found (I don't think the ACA as written is workable or will set out to do what it was meant to do: provide affordable healthcare for every American).

I am ANTI 1% (big Corporations and and Banking) who are just getting richer richer while the rest of Americans are simply struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. And the struggle is becoming harder and harder with each passing year, and that 1% just keeps fatter than a pig before slaughter time.

I am that ever growing segment of Americans who doesn't fit into either party's rhetoric or political platform.

 Right now Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Cruz, Reid, Chambliss & Ikason (two Republican senators from my state of Georgia) and all the rest of the Senators and State Representatives are pissing me off.  And I don't think I am the only one who feels this way.

THEY shut down the government, but their paychecks aren't affected? They furlough federal workers without even a nod of sympathy or empathy? They put the nation at risk of defaulting on loans due to their unwillingness to approve a budget? (Don't even get me started on the debt ceiling issue; we're screwed if we do, we're screwed if we don't).

THEY pass a health care law that they don't have to be a part of, but the rest of Americans do? And eventually we all will (except our lawmakers). My employer will not continue to insure me if they can get me into an exchange and save themselves money. But I will have to pay higher premiums and my deductibles will also increase. I will be approved even though I have a pre-existing condition, but how will that help me if I can't afford the premiums or the deductibles?

Most Americans are like me: not well versed in the ways of Constitutional law, but I'll bet you a  dime to a dollar we can smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. We don't have to pry the tinfoil off the bowl on the top shelf of the fridge and actually view the green mold to know that something is decaying.
Well, Washington stinks, folks.
Smells like rotten eggs and forgotten cantalopes left to fester in the July heat . Oh, the sky is going to fall, all right, but not in the way the D.C Chicken Littles are cluckling about.

It won't end with a bang, but a whimper.

We're all frogs sitting in a kettle full of water on a lit stove while we allow our elected officials, big corporations and their share holders (Wal Mart, Apple, Procter Gamble, Coca Cola, General Electric, etc), banks (J P Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Wells Fargo, etc); special interest groups (real estate, retired, banking, oil and gas, pharmacy. etc); lobbyists (Cory Alexander, United Health Group; Bryan Anderson, Southern Company; Sid Ashworth, Northrop Grumann; Abigail Blunt, Kraft Food; etc); and pork barrel spending (old energy sources continuing to profit as opposed to new energy sources, corporations profiting from unnecessary Defense spending as opposed to necessary ones) to turn the heat up slowly and cook us alive. We won't even notice until it's too late.

Stupid us for siding with the Republicans or the Democrats over OUR nation. They divide and conquer. We allow it. And other nations are watching. They see us growing weak with division. Not exactly a good time for us to appear weak on the international front.

Do something. Write your Congressman, write your President.
 http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml 

Write editorials for your local and state newspapers for publication.  Blast BOTH sides of this insanity. Raise a little hell. Climb out of the kettle of water while you still can. And next election vote every last one of them OUT who participated in this circus. Let's rename it the EJECTIONS and eject them all out of office.


Either that or shut up and allow it all to happen.

September 11th- Twelve Years After...

I sat down tonight and watched a few clips of 9-11-01 video from that fateful day. The horror I felt was just as sharp, just as clear, just as heart shattering as it was twelve years ago. Can it really have been twelve years?  Has that much time actually passed in the seeming blink of an eye?  Can we really be that far removed from that nightmare day?

My new students this year, the senior class of 2017, have no memory of the planes crashing, the people jumping, the towers falling, the Pentagon in flames... To the Class of 2017, September 11, 2001 is merely another footnote in history. They live in a world that was made that day. They know no other world. And I cry because of that.

But I remember. And those who lived through that day- who shed rivers of tears while riveted to  television sets anxious for any information, who knew that the world had set itself on a different spin, a different trajectory- when they (I) are gone and turned to dust will that day have any meaning other than a line or two in some history book?

As long as I live my heart will hurt and ache every September 11th. I know this as well as I know that something changed that day that can never be undone.

MSgt Jimmy A Coley: A Good and Decent Man

I was called home last Tuesday morning from Nashville, Ga where I am now teaching. The doctors at the V.A told Mom that Dad wouldn't last much longer. I arrived at the V.A hospital around 2 p.m Tuesday. My mom's brother and his wife came in from Arkansas.

Tuesday night I slept in a chair in the hospital family/visitor’s room. On Wednesday night my brother and his family arrived from Atlanta (my brother had to fly in from Chicago where he was working). We couldn't get Mom to leave Dad's room, so my brother stayed in the room with them both all night Wednesday. I slept on the floor in the aforementioned visitor’s room, along with my sister-in-law, my aunt and uncle, and my husband. Dad was semi-conscious Tuesday and I talked to him, but I don't think he could really understand much at that point, other than that he was surrounded by love. My dad's mother came to say goodbye and she was able to spend a few private moments alone with Dad. Mom and Dad’s pastor arrived, and over the next two days he was right there alongside my family to offer comfort and friendship.

 By Wednesday morning Dad was no longer conscious at all. By then it had been seven days since he had eaten any food and four days since he last had any water (his swallowing reflex had disappeared). His breathing was labored and deep. I hugged him, told him how much I loved him, played music for him. Mom held Dad and showered him with kisses and whispered remembrances of their life together. My daughter, Lara, climbed in bed beside her “Papa” and hummed songs to him.
 Dad passed away Thursday, August 15 around 5:30 p.m. He fought it until the very end. My mom, Aunt Dorothy, and I stayed by Dad's side until he was gone. I can't even begin to describe what it's like to watch your dad leave this life...

 After Dad passed, those in the family who wanted one last time with him were given the opportunity to say their final goodbyes. My aunt and uncle took my mom home, then my husband, brother, sister-in-law, and I packed Dad's belongings. I left the hospital at 8:35 p.m on Thursday night, a good 55 hours after I had arrived.  I walked out of those hospital doors a completely changed person.

The funeral service was Sunday at Faith Baptist Church in Cochran. I was overwhelmed and humbled by all the people who came to honor my father. My brother and I both spoke about Dad, and then Mom and Dad's pastor spoke. Pastor Robbie's eulogy was indicative of the relationship that he and my dad shared. We played “For the Good Times”  by Ray Price and, per Dad’s request a few years ago, Brad Paisley’s “When I Get to Where I’m Going”.

Monday at noon we held a full military service at Andersonville National Cemetery for my father. It was by the far the most intense emotional experience of my life. Prior to the service, waiting for the honor guard to make their appearance, my father’s flag draped casket standing like a lone sentinel, I sat quiet and still between my mother and husband. The memories of my father sharpened and dulled in and out of focus. I looked up and saw a blue/black butterfly the size of a teacup flitter into the pavilion. I watched it flutter and land on one of the red flowers of the wreath my mom, brother and I had placed near Dad’s casket.  The butterfly then flew in and out of the pavilion between the columns before coming to rest on the far end of the flag draped casket.  

Amid the silence and the peace, surrounded by the white markers of men and women who had served their country, I paid silent tribute to my father in my splintered heart.

After the pastor spoke and offered a prayer, my Uncle Dan, who served with my father in Vietnam, stood up and gave an impromptu speech at the behest of my brother. My husband recounts the speech better than I can:

 Jimmy and Dan enlisted, one in the Air Force, the other in the Army, after getting caught stealing a boat, a judge "recommended" they join the service. Both served full careers and retired.  Jimmy was in the communications field, listening to foreign radio traffic in morse code. Dan was a grunt, later a helo pilot in the Army. They both were in Vietnam together.  In Vietnam, Jimmy was a radio/crewman on EC-47s, listening to NVA radio traffic. 

Dan was an infantry platoon leader. Dan had a couple of days off, and decided to visit Jimmy at his airbase at Pleiku. When it came time to leave and return to his platoon, where he was to report for a security mission on a small hill top near the Laotian border. Dan mentioned that his platoon was not full strength. He asked Jimmy if he could find him some air transportation for him. When Jimmy did, he also showed up with his bag packed and said he was going along, since his plane was down for a couple of days for maintenance. Dan now had 37 in a platoon that should have had 42. Dan found Jimmy an M-16 and .45. Remember, Jimmy was a "flyboy" and not trained as a grunt. When Jimmy met the platoon, in the normal custom, they all kidded him about being a flyboy, clean living, and now he would have to get dirty. 

That night, the hill top came under a heavy ground assault. Jimmy jumped in the bunker with Dan, and they fought side by side. The next morning, when the attack was over, everyone in the platoon had a new respect for Jimmy; he was now called "Sgt Coley," and they all shook his hand and showed their respect and appreciation for what he had done.  When med-evac birds arrived, many WIAs were flown to the hospital. There were many others “that were sent to a different place."  Jimmy rode the med-evac with the wounded, he wanted to make sure they made it to the hospital.
In the couple of days prior to the funeral, I was going through Jimmy's military belongings, getting pictures to display, collecting his medals, and awards. In addition to two Air Force Good Conduct medals, there was an Army Good Conduct Medal. This did not make sense to me. I figured it must have been a souvenir he collected somewhere. There was no mention of an Army Good Conduct Medal in his service records. It was not in a box- just folded up.  Later, after hearing Dan's story, I began to wonder about the medal. I told Dan about it. Turns out that when Jimmy left the hilltop, the soldiers gave him a box filled with various items. In the box was an Army Good Conduct Medal.

At Andersonville, the flag covering Dad’s casket was folded, taps was played and rifles fired. The flag, along with the rifle shell casings, was handed reverently to Mom.  It was then that I finally allowed my grief to surface. A pent up dam of the past few years' sadness and sorrow was unleashed and I cried so deeply that I missed seeing my Marine Corps uniformed youngest son walk over to Dad’s casket, snap to attention, and salute his grandfather.  I cried from the sheer ache of wanting nothing more in the world than for Daddy to wrap his arms around me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. But that will never ever happen again. I am fifty-one years old and I feel like a scared six-year old little girl.
I still want my daddy..

But I am proud of the goodbye that we gave Dad. My heart sings with the knowledge that Dad, in his last days and years, was gathered in a cocoon of love and care when he could no longer care for himself in the shattering face of Alzheimer's. Mom, who cared for my father tenderly and lovingly for so many years, is understandably adrift. When the Alzheimer's journey started no one in my family understood the price it would exact from all of us, or the toll it would ultimately take as it robbed us of a husband and a father, and even stole Dad away from himself. In the end, as I look back over my life, I realize how much Dad taught my mother, my brother, and I about the meaning of family. I will honor his teachings for as long as I draw a breath.

As my brother said as he looked down upon my dad's casket in the church, "Here is a good and decent man". No other eulogy other than that is needed.