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.

For The Secrets and Untellable Stories

"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice," (Mark Twain). 

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon," (Napoleon).

History is written by the winners, we have heard. However, sometimes it is written by the losers, and I mean that in the pejorative. Some history is never written at all, and that can be due to laws meant to protect the innocent from malicious and damaging accusations, but often insulates those with the most resources or leverage. Some stories are never told, as those involved would rather let them die a quiet death. Despite the romantic notions generally taught as fact to the young and still naive, justice can be illusive; the truth can be believable but not provable and thus rendered useless; and sometimes neither justice nor truth are worth the inevitable injury in the brawl. The universe is not always as clever as Hollywood, writing in that eleventh hour twist that saves the day.

"Mommy's Crying Again": Grieving With Young Children

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My five year old son walked in on me doing the ugly cry. That's the heaving snot-fest, if you've been blessed to never experience it, or just didn't recognize the description.

"Why are you sad?"

"Because my mommy died, and I really miss my mommy."

"You really miss your mommy?"

"Yes."

"That is sad."

He left the room, and I heard him tell my husband, "Mommy's crying again." For a second, I smiled, because he knew his dad had this; in his little mind, dad would make it better.

And Then My Mom Was Gone, Too

Three days ago, my mom passed away. She was the last of my family above me in the tree. Really, she was the last of those I didn't choose. I have no parents or grandparents now. I have biological family out there, and I even interacted with them during her final week, but once everything is done regarding my mother, so are we. The relationships are not worth describing because they are not worth having, and some people will just understand that. Don't come at me with inexperienced rose-colored lenses on that one is all I am saying. It is difficult to explain how alone I feel now although, I do have my children and my husband, all of whom I love dearly.

My daughter nicknamed my mom "O.G." for "original gangster." She also said my mother was a warrior, but she was the sweetest. People who made it into my mother's inner circles adored her, and she was kind to those who did not, but one would never cross a line with her and not know it. When I brought someone new to her house, she would offer the niceties (drink, food), but she would also say she would show them where the kitchen was "one time." In other words, I've accepted you. Act accordingly, and get your own drink. She was assertive and she had a way of putting people in their place with few words and class. My daughter and I will never forget the day Mama shut a woman down with one simple but unambiguous "Okay."

What It Is Like To Live With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

The following is a compilation of notes and posts I made while in various states of mind. Therefore references to time shouldn't be read as if this was written in a single day.

Occasionally, I read what other people have to say about living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I love them all, I do- every one of those strangers. I don't know that I can describe it myself because I don't know if people can imagine being both betrayed and so aggressively protected by their own brain.

freedigitalphotos.net

PTSD is a demon that hurts me or snuggles me depending on too many factors to list. While we are snuggling, I have the opportunity to explain some lovely features, because it gets kicked around so much, and it deserves it, the demon, but sometimes it's not all that bad. You see, in an emergency situation, having someone with PTSD in your corner is almost always a good thing. Our brains idle so high when there is nothing going on, that when circumstances rise to the level we are already on, it actually calms us down. I suppose I could say it like this: I'm good in an emergency because I am always ready for it and when that rush of adrenaline and other chemicals throws someone else into shock, I'm still good because that state of being and me-- we're old pals.

Of course, the bad part in all of this is idling high all the time taxes my system (heart, lungs, digestive, immune, etc.), but we're not going down that road today. Today we're snuggling, after a 6 day full-on assault. For 6 days, me and my demon have kicked the living shit out of each other. Now, we are exhausted. We are wayyyy too tired to fight anymore. So, we give in to each other. We snuggle, and the demon throws a veil over me, and suddenly, the circumstances hurting me take on such a surreal feeling (dissociation). So while I am good taking care of my son, and I know he is real, and I'm not a danger to myself or anyone else, I feel a slight high, and the hardest conversation I have ever had, with my mom yesterday, doesn't feel real. My demon and I exchange acknowledgment when I say don't mind me for a while. I'm in an episode.

The Fight To Raise Minimum Wage, The Race To Create More Jobs. Actually, We're Just Broke.

There are two things that bother me in the national conversation about working and getting paid. First is the pushback against raising minimum wage, and second is that our answer is to "create more jobs."

The U.S. Department of Labor put out this information on Minimum Wage Mythbusters which is an interesting read, and there are certainly many other sources for information presented to support one side or the other. I am more interested in understanding truth by observing the world I live in, the reality I share with other people. I have heard people complain that millennials are lazy and entitled and should work every bit as hard as the generation before them to reach independence in whatever life they want to create. "Why should it be easier for you? That's not fair!" It's kind of childish, but okay, I get it. When I was 18, I got a job in fast food. It paid barely (cents) above minimum wage. I got an apartment, and it wasn't fancy by any means. No joke, visitors would toss a pebble up to my second-story window to let me know they were there. (Yes, there was a time of no cellphones. It was as rough as you could imagine.) The outer doors of the building were kept locked, not a well calculated security feature. The quick is this: My place wasn't the best or the worst, but it was mine. I wasn't eating steak-- some days I hardly ate at all. I had to save, save, save for new shoes, and my car-- holy shit! I kid you not, I parked on a hill always because sometimes I had to push it, you know, with my hands, to get it rolling so I could jump in the driver's seat and "pop the clutch" to get it started. This is how Americans get initiated, and hey, it builds character. It also builds muscle when you have to force your car to cooperate like that. So yeah, I get it. The problem is this new generation isn't getting the same opportunity I was given to start out on one's own. They actually can't do what we did.

The Mythical Grief

If you have delicate sensibilities, leave now, because there is nothing gentle about grief and I refuse to pretend there is.

Nearly six years ago, I found myself in a support group for young widows. After learning so many of their stories and frustrations, all the while living my own, one thought kept occurring to me: human beings have dealt with grief for as long as human beings have been human beings. How on earth do we not have this down by now? How is it that so many family members and friends and employers and oft visited grocery store clerks have no idea what to do with or say to someone so shattered by a death?

I don't have that answer, but five days before the sixth anniversary of my late husband's death, a friend of mine was killed under circumstances so similar, any description is beyond words-- even for someone who loves to weave them together in their most effective form. I didn't get to grieve only my friend because his death ripped open a still very tender scar, and so many stored away memories oozed into the center of my focus. When my friend's widow posted a raw response to the well-meaning, I felt her pain, her torment, and I felt again my own. I remembered, why? Why? Why don't people understand this?

Let us look over this Mythical Grief, and let us not flinch.