My Mom Is Still Gone

I am on the horse. My mom is leading it.

Just a few days short of six weeks since my mother passed, I still feel this is the strangest grief I have ever experienced. I was widowed at 36. Three years later, I lost my stepfather of 30 years. Then I lost my grandfather. Then I lost a good friend who was far too young to die. 20 days after that, my mom was gone, and just like that. When my husband died, many people disappeared from my life. There is a saying that widowhood rewrites your address book, and that happens because... reasons. Still, the people who stayed with me never expected anything from me, but they did understand I was still grieving months later. A precious one or two who have never lost a spouse understand my grief, while far less intense, will never go away.

Why I Am Voting Against Trump

I do not believe a third party candidate will win this election. I hadn't heard of Gary Johnson until supporters started the hashtag, "Feel the Johnson," and that stuck in my memory because I am a child, I freely admit it. In my mind, he is the "Hey, Touch My Dick" guy, and I will need a few minutes to recover from my childish giggles. Hold on.

Really?

So, let me otherwise start this by telling you why my vote is not for Hillary Clinton, (but against Trump). All conspiracy theories aside, Clinton seems to be an extremely divisive candidate. Some people seem to actually hate her just because they do. Republicans have, for decades, attempted to bring down both Clintons. Although they have yet to find the smoking gun which brings them success, they keep coming at them, no matter the funding and time desperately needed elsewhere. I lost count of how many taxpayer funded investigations were conducted for her email scandal alone.

A Message About Combating Your Prejudices

Turn off the news and get to know people.

That is a message I can't stress enough, and is something I wish everybody would do. I hear people say things, and I read about incidents involving racial and religious hatred, and I feel so bad for people-- not just victims, but aggressors as well (sometimes). The media are perpetuating a very skewed reality, and the only way to inoculate yourself against hate and the kind of prejudices that cause harm is to get to know people. The only way to understand just how different people living right next to each other experience different worlds is to engage with families who are not made up of your own skin color and do not follow the same religion and include members of various sexual orientations and gender identities. I am grateful that I have had these experiences for almost as long as I can remember because I know people are people first, and I know that skin color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender identity make people different, *and that is okay.* I know that we are all in this together, and I know that a powerful few benefit from our failure to realize that.

Wingless Vultures Ride The Current of Death

I smell vulnerability.

My stories are neither new nor uncommon. I know this because between support groups and happenstance, I have heard too many variations of them to say anything but they are all too common.

When someone dies, the wingless vultures, sensing the current, come swooping in to scavenge whatever they can. These people act like they are at some sort of end-of garage sale give-away. The practice, and all that it implies, all the nastiness that comes with it, disgusts me on a visceral level. I have taken the high road on this particular avenue, not because I am some kind of saint, but because I am exhausted; because I know the best thing given to me by those I have lost cannot be taken from me -- the love and memories, the legacy of people themselves. However, when I know the deceased had wishes to be carried out, do not get in my way as I see to exactly that.

When my late husband died, a couple of his out-of-state family members showed up at my house. I had never met them, and that was intentional, as my late husband didn't really want to cut them out of his life completely, but he didn't want them around his wife and children, either. Just to say how close he was with them, my late husband had an entire previous marriage of which they had no knowledge. He traveled for a living, and when he ended up in their area, sometimes he would visit. He always had his dog with him, so these family members knew her, and just as everyone did, loved her. My late husband was killed on his motorcycle when a driver made a left turn directly in front him. I don't think I will ever forget the call I got from one of those family members, pissed that she had not been able to obtain many of his belongings, "If you really loved him, why weren't you with him that day?"

Picked Dry.

 And, as if she had no understanding of the immediate legally binding contract of marriage, "You're living in his house, using his truck, and keeping his dog."

It turned out, they were after his truck and his dog. My late husband had spent years building that truck with a stepson from a previous marriage, one he was still in contact with up until his death. He wanted the stepson to have the truck, and so that is where it went. As for the dog, she came with the man when I married him, and then she quickly became family.