This is Big.... And Frightening... and so very very SAD

This past month, while I was out door-knocking for Trump, I was struck as I walked along a neighborhood using the app that described the voters in each house. So many multi generational families of odd collections of ages in houses with missing roof shingles or shutters askew or paint peeling. Cars needing repair, broken bicycles, torn blinds.

What was the story inside those houses? Unemployment, , elder care, divorce, custody battles, IRS ? It was easy to see a collective loss of hope in a once-thriving town.” I sensed years of neglect and sadness and hopelessness. Something is brewing in our country and it is NOT good!

I recently told a friend that my emotions felt too close to the surface—for months history had been going through me and I felt like a vibrating fork. I had not been laughing at the splintering of a great political party, but mourning it. Something of me had gone into it. Party elites seemed to have no idea why it was shattering, which meant they wouldn’t be able to repair it, whatever happens with Mr. Trump.

I was offended that those curiously quick to write essays about who broke the party were usually those who’d backed the policies that broke it. Lately conservative thinkers and journalists had taken to making clear their disdain for the white working class. I had actually not known they looked down on them; me. I deeply resented it and it pained me. If you’re a writer lucky enough to have thoughts and be occasionally paid to express them and there are Americans on the ground struggling, suffering—some of them making mistakes, some unlucky—you don’t owe them your airy, well-put contempt, you owe them your loyalty. They too have given a portion of their love to this great project, and they are in trouble.

Earlier this month, just prior to the AZ primary, after a long hard work week and most of nights writing on my new book, I woke up that Saturday morning,  got coffee, fired up the lap top and put on cable news. I read an email thread from a group of conservative women—very bright, all ages, all decorous and dignified. But tempers were high, and they were courteously tearing each other apart over Donald Trump and the GOP.

I read the comments , full of notes from people pro- and anti- Trump, but all seemed marked by some kind of grieving. I looked up and saw Hillary Clinton screeching on TV and immediately switched channels. Breaking news, said the crawl. A caravan of Trump supporters driving to an outdoor rally in Fountain Hills, Ariz., had been blocked by demonstrators. The helicopter shot showed a highway backed up for miles; I wondered where our police force was?  No one seemed to be in charge, as is often the case in America. It was like an unmovable force against an unmovable object.

I watched dumbly, tiredly. Then for no reason—this is true, it just doesn’t sound it—I thought of an old Paul Simon song that had been crossing my mind, “The Boy in the Bubble.” I muted the TV, found the song on YouTube, and listened as I stared at the soundless mile of cars and the soundless demonstrators. As the lyrics came—“The way we look to a distant constellation / That’s dying in a corner of the sky / . . . Don’t cry baby / Don’t cry”—my eyes filled with tears. And a sob welled up and I literally put my hands to my face and sobbed, silently.

Because my country is in trouble.

Because I felt anguish at all the estrangements.

Because some things that shouldn’t have changed have changed.

Because too much is being lost. 

You’ll feel better the next day, I promised myself, but you won’t be able to tell yourself that this is history as usual anymore. This is big, what we’re living through.  Big, and frightening and so very very sad.  My grandchildren will NEVER know the America my parents fought for, that their grandfather fought for and that I grew up in. 

Yep... this is big.

What's with Hillary Adoration on the left?

As a lifelong Independent, I will be casting my vote this time for Donald Trump as I see him as the only hope of sending a message that the current administrative powers can understand; " WE THE PEOPLE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF A RIGGED Political SYSTEM AND THE POLITICAL ELITE!!"  I firmly believe, that in order to return this country to the control of the people that we need to vote out every single incumbent and prevent any attorney from getting into office in the future.  Just my humble opinion at the age of 60 and someone who has lived through a great deal of history and has studied it (world and American for more than 45 years)

I have trouble understanding the fuzzy rosy filter through which Hillary fans see their champion. So much must be overlooked or discounted—from Hillary’s compulsive money-lust and her brazen indifference to normal rules to her conspiratorial use of shadowy surrogates and her sociopathic shape-shifting in policy positions for momentary expedience.

Hillary’s breathtaking lack of concrete achievements or even minimal initiatives over her long public career doesn’t faze her admirers a whit. They have a religious conviction of her essential goodness and blame her blank track record on diabolical sexist obstructionists. When at last week’s debate Hillary crassly blamed President Obama (and believe me as most know I am NO fan of Obama) for the disastrous Libyan incursion that she had pushed him into, her acolytes hardly noticed. They don’t give a damn about international affairs—all that matters is transgender bathrooms, instant access to abortion and getting the first female president into office (even if she is a lying, money grabbing, power hungry, witch.)

I’m starting to wonder, given the increasing dysfunction of our democratic institutions, if the Hillary cult isn’t perhaps registering an atavistic longing for monarchy. Or perhaps it’s just a neo-pagan reversion to idolatry, as can be felt in the Little Italy street festival scene of The Godfather, Part II, where devout pedestrians pin money to the statue of San Rocco as it is carried by in procession. There was a strange analogy to that last week, when Sanders supporters satirically showered Hillary’s motorcade with dollar bills as she arrived at George Clooney’s luxe fund-raiser in Los Angeles.

The gushy indulgence around Hillary in the Manhattan media was typified by Vanessa Friedman’s New York Times piece, “Hillary Clinton’s Message in a Jacket,” after last week’s debate. Evidently oblivious to how she was undermining the rote sexism plank in the Clinton campaign platform, Friedman praised Hillary for “playing the clothing card” against Sanders: Hillary’s long white jacket made her look like “New York’s white knight,” riding to the rescue.

Gee, that sure wasn’t my reaction. My first thought was: “Why is Hillary wearing a lab coat?” My second was: “Isn’t this a major gaffe—reminding people of abortion clinics?” My third was: “The big belted look is not recommended for those broad in the beam.” For all the complaints about an alleged higher scrutiny suffered by women candidates, affluent politicians like Hillary can afford glam squads of stylists and an infinite range of clothing choices, hairstyles, and cosmetic aids. Male candidates with their boring cropped hair and sober suits fade into the woodwork when the queen bee flies in.

The protective major media phalanx around Hillary certainly extends to her health issues, which only the Drudge Report has had the courage to flag. In assessing possible future occupants of the White House, the public has an inalienable right to know. I was incredulous at the passive gullibility of the media, including the New York Times, last July, when a woman internist, identified as Hillary’s doctor, released a summary letter about her health that was lacking in the specifics one would normally expect in medical records. Does anyone really think that world-renowned Hillary, whose main residence for years has been in Washington and not Chappaqua, has as her primary physician an obscure young internist in Mount Kisco, New York? It’s ludicrous on the face of it.

And what about that persistent cough? “Allergy season,” the hacking Hillary claimed on a New York radio show this week. (“You all right? Any mouth to mouth CPR?” joked a host.) I’m just someone with a degree in psychology and business administration., but I’ll put my Miss Marple hat on here. Am I the only one who noticed Hillary’s high-wrap collar, pallid, puffy face, and bulging eyes during her choleric New Hampshire primary concession speech in February? (Another unusually high collar followed the next morning.)

My tentative theory (based upon two of my own battles with thyroid cancer)  is that Hillary may have sporadic flare-ups of goiter, worsened under stress. Coughing is a symptom. High collars mask a swollen throat. In serious cases, an operation may be necessary. Is this chronic thyroid condition disqualifying in a presidential candidate? Certainly not in my view, but I don’t like being lied to—by candidates, campaign staffs, or their media sycophants.

Hillary’s road map to the Democratic nomination was written by “Tricky Dick” Nixon, who after his acrimonious defeat in the 1962 California gubernatorial race doggedly restored his standing in the GOP by doing the “rubber-chicken circuit,” building up the grass-roots connections that allowed him to win the White House six years later. Similarly, Hillary has spent the years since her 2008 loss to Obama in deepening and tightening her relationships with state and local Democratic politicians, community leaders, and urban ministers nationwide—for whom she has assets of infinite largesse.

When pro-Hillary media taunt Bernie Sanders about what his campaign has or has not financially contributed to lower-level Democratic races, they are foolishly exposing Hillary’s modus operandi. Nixon’s rubber chicken has turned into one mighty gilded bird.

Yep... like him or not... I am on the Trump Train

*

Open letter to my granddaughter (updated from 2012)

My Dearest Granddaughter

Almost six years ago, I wrote this letter for you.  I repeat it again today as you are nearing your 18th birthday and my thoughts, as always, frequently turn to you and your mom and uncles.

Many things have changed since this letter was last written. I have moved into my own home which I finally managed to save a down payment for and buy. It is very open with three bedrooms (one a huge master with walk in closet and larger Master bath), one I converted into a very nice office, and the other remains a guest bedroom.  I have a large walled in back yard for the dogs to play in and a two car garage, separate laundry room, nice sized living room and a large eat in kitchen with an open area that could be converted to a dining room but for now I like it open as it gives me room to play with the shepherds.  I did not take the job in Cleveland Ohio but did move to another area of the state to work for this company in a better field.  I am very happy that I did.

I have been working hard with the same company for several years now and am happy here although economics are causing problems across the country for businesses so I never count on stability anywhere (except in a government job).  Health is holding and I recently underwent two separate surgeries to save my eye sight.  The last one has worked beautifully and I can again enjoy the beauty of nature, drive my jeep, travel and just enjoy life. I am grateful to God and to Dr Hiatt for being able to create a miracle for me.

I live alone with the fur boys and find myself content and happy.  I joined a writers group in my new home "town", hope to get active in the politics of the community and have great neighbors that I am getting to know.  I bought a total gym so I don't have expensive gym fees any more and can work out at home which is great.  I am working on my first novel which has had to be on the back burner while my eyes were acting up but which is now moving forward...  It is semi fiction and I think will be well received by adults and children alike.

I  left Facebook, again, just recently.  Too much drama on line for me.  I write more letters now though, like I used to before the computers entered our lives and took that talent away.

Tom and I remain friends but he no longer comes to stay with me...  He helps with the illustrations for my books via email and messaging which I greatly appreciate.

Below is the letter I wrote to you just shortly after you turned 12.  Should you ever reach out to me, I have copies of all of my medical documents and more from the few days just before your birthday through three weeks ago.  Everything I have done or said can be proven in black or white... Anyway... I miss you and love you... on to that old letter now.

Dear J.

No matter what you think or have heard... I have not once lied. I am not sure what "stunt" on your birthday you are referring too when you sent me that email five years ago... but I had planned on coming that day when you turned 12, to take you and your mom out to lunch and deliver your bike... What you were left unaware of were the nasty emails and Facebook posts I had received from your Uncle ***** ( which I have saved and shown to others) and which were far to cruel for me to want to be around him at that point. I too have feelings and am no longer going to let myself be abused by ANYONE

 **** (as my heart will always hold so much for him) is back with me often now... and I worry about him still. Your oldest Uncle **** and I exchange emails but I have been told that perhaps I do not wish to see him...) A friend, who is staying with me now, has also seen FACTS, not internet nonsense which, by now, you must know are not always factual and can be manipulated by people out to hurt other people (cowards each and every one)...

I never chose someone over you, your mom, your uncles... or your dad... True, I do care for Tom and will not hurt someone who has been nothing but good to me and who has helped me help others. If you think you know things, just be aware that you do not know what you may think you do and that there have been social workers, attorneys etc involved... I remain here always for all of you and have always been willing to keep all parties apart. However I am tired of someone always telling me... "I won't come over if some one else is there" (and you know that is true from past holidays etc) saying cruel things about other people, and creating non stop drama.  For the first time since my three children were past the age of 6, I am able to celebrate Christmas in love and peace :(
Tthere is no way I can explain how wonderful that is to me or how sad it makes me to know I had not known that peace for so many years.

If everyone dislikes Tom so greatly then they don;t have to be around him, after all, he is only here five months out of the year... although he did come back down as I went through this last bout of surgery... once again battling cancer... which took my remaining thyroid... and two of my parathyroid...  Oh I know your mother, my wonderful daughter, claimed I was not hospitalized back in August of 2010 and told her friends all kinds of crap, but I was there, I have all of the documents and other people were there helping me.  Your oldest uncle actually called me after I had been formally admitted later that morning and said "you really are in the hospital"  Not shit Sherlock.  I have chosen NOT to let any of my children around me in hospitals since before the mastectomy due to the negative impact I feel it has on them and to let me concentrate on healing; and not on others needs.  Hospital records document the problems one of my children in particular has caused for me...  and your Mom has her own life to live.  All I did wrong was to post I was waiting outside the hospital on my Facebook page, Sarah got involved... and because I refused to tell people where I was... I was called a liar.  Then they apparently reported me as a missing person and tried to force the hospital to give them information they were forbidden to give out.   I did NOT even make it through the first triage until after 1:00 am and I was not formally admitted to the hospital until after 9 am.   My neighbors the Greenbergs locked up the house and brought me my phone charger and house keys.  I left BAREFOOT to drive myself to the hospital.  Something I had done before when I bled out after the mastectomy and your mother's response when I asked for her to come and help me was to call an ambulance... I drove myself to the hospital that day too and   that was the beginning of the end for me in trusting anyone to be at my side through any of this...   and I KEEP it that way.

At first they thought it was my heart as the chest pain was intense and the EKG erratic. There even talk of a stent or pace makers.  Not in this lady... no way..   Several months later, however, they learned that cancer had invaded my thyroid and was raising hell with me (from heart problems to rapid weight gain and more). the Thryoid controls a great deal in the body and one of the things is metabolism.   A good doctor got me seen by the Doctors at the Mayo clinic who now follow me for the other health issues. I wish you or my own children could known how afraid I was to know I was going to the Mayo Clinic... it told me how serious things were.

My old friend James Bosworth ( I dated him for a little while long before I met Tom) was at my side through over 10 hours of testing at the Mayo clinic prior tp undergoing surgery.  He held me up as they told me that cancer had once again hit and how serious it was this time.  I initially had it set up to go through the surgery alone... asking a friend to drop me off the morning of the surgery and  James Bosworth to pick me up when I was released.  James, behind my back, contacted Tom who flew down the day before to take care of me.  I was very grateful to all of them. 

Despite the fact I had told the hospital NOT to release any information about me, my youngest son apparently did call the hospital that night to find out how I was... they gave no answer but let me know of the call.

I will never sing again but still have a voice although it goes hoarse quickly.  Tom  is very ill himself now and has been nothing but very kind and loving to me... and wanted to badly to be liked by my children whom I bragged about to him for years. He showed you wonderful times... taught you many things... all for my sake because he knew I loved (and love you so) The only thing he has done to your grandmother... is kept her alive and allowed her to finally know freedom of driving and doing things I have always loved.  Had you remained on Facebook with me.. you could have asked the people who have known me for over 50 years the truth... they know me as I have always been... the politician, the dancer, the hiker, the skier... and so much more that I laid aside well over 30 years ago when I said  "I do" to the man I have love and will always love since I was 14. *** did not change me, your grand papa did.   Our marriage was not perfect and as I have said, there will come a time when people will know how imperfect it was at times... but I love him now as much as I loved him then... and no one will ever come between that.

I do remember you telling me, in front of others who will step forward if required, how much you did not want to go home to your mom or step dad... begging me not to take you back home for various reasons. The last time, you wanted it to be just your mom, you, and me, again.  When I said that could not be because your mom was married and that you would miss your step dad, you said you would not and to please let it be the three of us again.

I worry about you, still.

I spent some time where I spread grand papa's ashes in September of 2011... I left him your Teddy Bear and pictures of you... all of the hateful letters sent to me over the past years as well as the nasty emails sent by your mother and your youngest uncle about other family members (whom they have gotten very close to from what I have learned)... and so many more things... and told him I would leave this in his hands now... I got the feeling he is okay with my sharing some time with Tom.. as I am in safe hands with him and we share so many things in common.

I have showed many friends and neighbors the things that "people" I trusted but who invaded my privacy and never chose to come and speak to me about directly found; but did not see from the years prior as to what set everything in motion... However, once upon a time... back in 2005 I even asked both of my sons to assist me in finding a man who was creating some serious problems for a woman with two sons. Those boys I did manage to eventually have removed from their mothers home in Westchester NY and put safely with the great aunt who had asked for help and who then lived in Connecticut. The oldest child is now more than 20 and doing well from what we have been told...

Later, because others had been encouraging me to do so ( among them Sarah and my own daughter), I wrote a book of erotica (currently published in ebook version  initially under a pseudonym  but now under my own name, and selling fairly well, particularly in the UK).  Sadly people can't seem to discern reality from FICTION but EVERYONE who knows and loves me knows I am run or owned by NO one... my only guilt is caring about others needs above my own; something my own children have taught me was the biggest mistake of my life.

My family has, for some reason, always been at war with someone (generally between themselves)... for now it seems to be me... and I apparently can't change that and if truth be told, I don't want to. But, had direct questions been asked instead of passive aggressive behavior... then truth would win out. There are facts about my life with grand-papa that children and grandchildren have no right to know but sadly someday all of you will... and I love him still... no matter what. There are friends from long ago that know the truth all too well. Too bad your own mother refused to talk to her Godfather who was your grand papas Chief in the Navy and a dear friend.  Mike Harms lost is battle for Cancer almost two years ago but before that he, unlike grand papa, sobered up and got off the drugs and took responsibility for the damage he did.  I am glad I got to spend his last two years of life with him even if over the phone and internet...

To be told by your mom and then your uncles that  almost five years ago,  after we returned from that wonderful trip to Tucson, that I had told you that your mother had run away from home when she was 16 was inconceivable to me? Which, as you will recall, when I asked you about that you said you never did say it to her; and you know I never said because it was not true. I have always told you how much your mom loved you and sacrificed for you and I am proud of my daughter; as I am proud of you.

I will always be here for you, but where I used to send you cards at Christmas and birthdays with small gifts I will no longer do so.  You are old enough to make your own choices and to know right from wrong, truth from deceit.  I will always send you light and love every day. The house is empty without you since you were with me almost every day of your life until you were close to 12... your pictures and scrapbooks are with me always. You were and are always the sunshine of my life... and the only grandchild that grand-papa got to hold... we have shared a special bond that shall never be broken.. at least not by this lady.  I keep the prayer in my heart that one day, you will come to my door again and we will share the laughter and love I always had with you...

I do not care for some of the choices in friends or spouses that some of my family members have selected (even though I respect you step Dad and have stuck up for him and stood by him many a time). but I have NEVER told anyone... I wanted nothing to do with them because of whom they choose to be around or love... I simply asked that they leave me out of that when those people are around. Not hard to do and you and I were already meeting and going places other then our townhouse when Tom was here in deference to your mother...

I have my friends Betty, Marcy, Megan, and my friend James helping me with my doctors and hospital appointments at the Mayo clinic now. ... James and his girlfriend Sandy know Tom very well now and we spend a great deal of time together having cookouts and traveling when we are all together.. otherwise, they include me in things when I can travel. James and Sandy were married last year.  They seem so happy.

Your mom-mom no longer stays up all of the time, I sleep a great deal now due to the cancer and all of the medicines.. actually in bed by around 7:00 at night most nights... I have one of your teddy bears with me... Merriweather, whom I put to sleep over three years ago when she was diagnosed with mammary cancer, still looked for her girl... she went totally deaf  the year before she died bit remained the loving a nanna dog as she always was. I had to put Angel Heart to sleep just before Christmas.  It broke my heart.

As you may recall I adopted a German Shepherd puppy named Ranger the spring following Merriweather's passing and a year ago I adopted another King Shepherd puppy I named Ruger.  They are my hiking companions and Ranger is actually taking a "staring" role in my new book which will be a novel...  hoping to have it completed by this next Christmas and then out on the shelves by February.  Harder to write than poetry, but I am enjoying it.

My newest book, Dancing With The Spirits of Shadowplay which was last in the series did VERY well.  We have sold over 20,000 copies and, although sales have slowed, it is still selling.

I speak about you with my Cancer counselor and doctors as well as my friends and neighbors almost every day... they know you have always given my life purpose... I don't think if you and your mom had not needed me after grandpapa had died that I would have had any reason to keep moving forward. You were my reason...

Never ever cry over your mom mom ( and I suspect you no longer due as you are an independent teenager now), but NEVER think I have stopped loving you or chose another over you. I am an adult and I "vetted" him very carefully when I first met him on line back in 2002. He is not perfect either (no one is) but I have come to know his son very well... his friend  who is an attorney in ******* working for the state's department of Homeland Security... as well as his neighbors, extended family and many others... Despite what may be found "on line" (which is NOT reality but fantasy and for there for reasons some day I hope you understand)... he is an honorable man. He ran cub scouts as I once did ... all the way through Eagle Scouts... and so many other things most do not know. He gave a friend of mine enough money so she could get 10 therapy sessions after being in a horrible car accident... and he always loved buying you little things and teaching you about history, astronomy, and science. I would NEVER be with anyone ever again who would dare raise a hand to me... or cause me sadness... be it male, female, family or friend... I think you know that after all we have shared and been through.

I miss you and your mom greatly and was just starting to enjoy having your step sister for some of our outings...

So... there are no lies little bit... and you have been left journals written years ago, and I have grand papa's records and mine and some of your uncles and mom's (when they were teenagers) and when you are 18 these are to be yours as well... So, in the meantime, if you choose not to talk to me again, the truth will be there for you to sort out... and in the end you will have understanding... and know how very much I loved all of you.

I left Facebook for good a couple of months ago; never to return...  and I may be moving in the future if an opening comes up in Cleveland Ohio with the company I now work for. They had hoped to see an opening come up for me in June but it may be delayed until fall now.  I will hate leaving my desert... but the money will be too good not to take the position. Should that happen, I will not leave a forwarding address but you can always find me via this blog... just leave a comment and how to reach you.  I will... believe me I will.  I miss you so very very much!.  Until then I am enjoying the work, writing, hiking with my dogs, and the peace of no drama in my life.  Doctors appointments are going well and the medicines seem to be working...  except for missing you, I am the happiest I have ever been..

I have no regrets... everything happens for a reason... and I am in God's capable hands as I know you are.

Be well...  I love you.

Happy 40th Birthday to my First Born!

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young.

Today, my oldest son, Douglas Pike, will celebrate his 40th birthday.  I cant quite wrap my head around this distinction. When did he get so much older?  I don’t remember growing older… when did he?  For me this has become a real admission ticket into the world of being considered a senior citizen.

For the first time I feel the impact of the passage of time because of my first born’s birthday.  I think the reason for this feeling is, first, that I so greatly remember the day I told my husband we were expecting.  Both of us still so terribly young, me not yet 20 and Doug had not yet turned 23. We were so excited and scared to death both at the same time. Douglas was my dreamed of start of the family I so longed for and of course Doug REALLY wanted a boy.  We did not do testing at all to know the sex of our children but I knew I was caring a son… our golden child.  How I loved decorating his room and eventually buying a crib set that was the exact replica of the Queen Mary’s Captains quarters.  Such precious days gone by far too quickly.

I also vividly remember being 40.  I remember my thoughts and my dreams.  I remember our family life and what we did and where we were heading (sometime with great sorrow and fear).  I think I remember all of this with such joy because I enjoyed that time of my life so thoroughly.  It was a time of lovely innocence for us all.  So when I reflect back on my son’s 40th birthday, I can’t believe the years have run through my fingers like water when you scoop it for a drink.

My son is 40 today!  Wow!  But the word “Forty” truly is inaccurate because it doesn't stand alone. Forty is 39 and 28 and 24 and 16 and 10 and 4 and 6 months, and 5 minutes old; every age a person was – not simply the sum of its parts but every one of its parts.

Forty is the infant, the child, the teenager, the young adult, the new husband, the dreamer, standing side by side. It's the toddler, the Cub Scout, the high school freshman, army recruit.

But you look in a mirror and, with human eyes, see only what is now. One moment. One person. You don't see, because people aren't like Russian nesting dolls, all the people who are inside the 40-year-old.

But my heart still sees. My heart sees Douglas, in his first blue suit bought her when him when was 1; on an Easter Sunday morning, squinting into the sun;  I see him climbing the school bus in his expensive brown leather boots (Buster Browns) that cost so much his dad and I ate eggs for three weeks to pay for them; hugging his cat, Bandit; walking across the lawn on his first day of high school; storming up the steps because I wouldn't let her do something; dressing for his Junior High Prom (he was voted King that night and actually had helped to put the whole thing on); dressing for his wedding where I was not only mother of the groom but Matron of Honor
Yes, my heart sees then and now and everything in between.

His father's heart saw, too. He saw Douglas on the bike I taught him to ride and behind the wheel of the car he taught Doug to drive. He saw him off to his trip to boot camp and cried all the way home.

Yes, I still see him as child more often than I see him as an adult. Oh no, I am not stunned by my son’s age. I look in the rearview mirror and see all he has been. I look at him now and see all that he is. And I think 40 is good. It has all been good.

You know, I still call him “little Doug” and in my mind he will always be my baby boy.  But then, like it or not, I am his Mom and I am allowed to call him anything I want.  He is still that precious baby boy, inquisitive toddler, and bright/gifted little boy to me. He always will be.

Happy Birthday, “little Doug”!  I love you with all my heart. Your Dad is looking down on your as well today from Heaven and I know he is beaming with joy and love.  You were and will always be so very precious to him and to me.

I love you son… More than you will ever know. 

The Stroll (of Enlightenment)

Although I have known the story behind C.S. Lewis' conversion to Christianity for decared, I thought I would share it with all of you as it not only deals with three of my favorite writers but also with the time of miracles, faith... and yes maybe even magic.  After reading the post below, please pick up the books that have mentioned and read them; some perhaps for the first time and others for the second or third. Read them with new eyes of understanding.

On a warm September night in 1931, three men went for an after-dinner walk on the grounds of Magdalen College, part of Oxford University. They took a stroll on Addison’s Walk, a beautiful tree-shaded path along the River Cherwell, and got into an argument that lasted into the wee hours of the morning — and left a lasting mark on world literature.

At the time, only one of the men had any kind of reputation: Henry Victor Dyson, a bon vivant scholar who had shared tables and bandied words with the likes of T.E. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Bertrand Russell. His two companions were little-known Oxford academics with a shared taste for Icelandic sagas, Anglo-Saxon verse and the austere cultural mystique of “the North.” Few people remember Dyson now, while millions celebrate the names of his companions: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Yet the works that made their reputations — “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” for Tolkien, “The Chronicles of Narnia” for Lewis — were profoundly shaped by that night-long argument and the bond it cemented. It’s possible that Tolkien’s Middle-earth would have remained entirely a private obsession, and quite likely that Lewis would never have found the gateway to Narnia.

“Lovers seek for privacy,” Lewis wrote in “The Four Loves” (1960). “Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not.” Lewis and Tolkien quickly found this cozy solitude after they met in 1926, during a gathering of the English faculty at Merton College. Both men had fought in World War I, and come back scarred by its industrial savagery. They had seen the worst the 20th century had to offer — up to that point, anyway — and took paradoxical comfort in studying blood-soaked Viking Age stories of ambiguous heroes and gods battling monsters and the outer darkness, tales short on the milk of human kindness but long on sardonic humor. (“Broad spears are becoming fashionable nowadays,” a character remarks in “Grettir’s Saga,” just after being pierced with one.)

In the pitiless Old Norse universe, gods and their human allies face inevitable defeat, but there is no thought of surrender or negotiation with the monsters besieging them. The brave and the cowardly all come to the same end — what then must we do? “It is the strength of the northern mythological imagination,” Tolkien explained in his famous 1936 lecture on “Beowulf,” “that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the center, gave them victory but no honor, and found a potent but terrible solution in naked will and courage.” In the struggle against evil, there is no shame in defeat — only in not fighting.

The solution seems to have made a bigger impact on Tolkien’s writing than on Lewis’. There is an unmistakable Icelandic chill in the air when Aragorn, faced with a catastrophic loss in “The Lord of the Rings,” asks what hope is left, then answers his own question: “We must do without hope. At least we may yet be avenged.”

Lewis approached “the North” from the literary side, while Tolkien was a philologist immersed in the sound and history of languages. He could be spiky and opinionated: After their initial meeting, Lewis called him “a smooth, pale fluent little chap — no harm in him: only needs a smack or so.” But by the next year, Tolkien had invited him to join a group known as the Coalbiters, who were devoted to reading the Icelandic sagas in the original Old Norse. (The name was a play on “kolbitars,” an old Icelandic term for tale-swappers who sat so close to the communal fire that they were almost literally biting the coals.)

Every Thursday evening the friends would gather by the fireplace, slippers on their feet and drinks at their elbows, to hear “The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki” or “The Saga of the Volsungs” or whatever epic was under study. The Coalbiters faded in the early 1930s, to be replaced by the Inklings, an informal group that lasted over the next three decades, with Tolkien and Lewis as its key members. (Much more about them can be found in such books as Humphrey Carpenter’s “J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography”and Colin Duriez’s new “Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Story of a Friendship.”)

At the time of their meeting, both men were uneasy about their literary prospects. Tolkien’s curriculum vitae consisted of a 1925 translation of the important Middle English poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” along with a 1929 essay on “Ancrene Wisse,” a 13th century manuscript offering advice for “anchoresses,” or female monks, and “Hali Meidhad,” a medieval tract praising virginity. His mind was awash in anxiety over half-completed and languishing projects; “Leaf by Niggle,” his 1939 tale of a painter who can never find time to complete an ambitious work, is accepted by Tolkien scholars as a byproduct of these worries.

Lewis, for his part, had published two books of the type automatically described as “slim volumes of verse” — no further explanation necessary. He had yet to find his voice as a writer, let alone anything worthwhile to say with it. “From the age of 16 onwards,” he wrote in a letter to his boyhood friend Arthur Greeves, “I had one single ambition, in which I never wavered, in the prosecution of which I spent every ounce I could, on which I really and deliberately staked my whole contentment; and I recognise myself as having unmistakeably failed in it.”

When he got his first look at Tolkien’s fiction — an early run at the love story of Beren and Luthien, a cornerstone of Middle-earth’s invented mythology and and a tale with tremendous personal associations for Tolkien — Lewis recognized a man who could spend long years grinding away at a single story, but who also had his own voice and used many of the pagan source materials Lewis loved. To his lasting credit, Lewis reacted to this discovery not with envy or jealousy, but with spontaneous and generous delight.

On that fateful night in 1931, Lewis was in the midst of a fretful return to religious faith. Raised as an Irish Protestant, he had become an agnostic as a teenager. Though he came back to accepting the idea of a divine presence in 1929, he continued to resist Christianity. It remained for Dyson, a High Anglican, and Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, to push him over the threshold — though it literally took them all night. As they marched back and forth along Addison’s Walk, Tolkien argued for the literal and mythological truth of the Resurrection of Christ.

By all accounts, the key moment came when Lewis declared that myths are lies, albeit “lies breathed through silver.” Tolkien replied, “No, they are not,” and demanded to know why Lewis could accept Icelandic sagas as vehicles of truth while demanding that the Gospels meet some higher standard. Hours past midnight, Tolkien finally went home to bed, leaving Dyson to carry on the campaign. Tolkien’s argument — that the Resurrection was the truest of all stories, with God as its poet — may not sound particularly convincing to nonbelievers (nor indeed to some Christians), but to a man committed to the idea of myth as the only way to express higher truths, it was irresistible. Two weeks later, Lewis told a friend he had once again fully embraced Christianity: “My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a good deal to do with it.”

The effect on Lewis was explosive. Beginning in 1933 with “The Pilgrim’s Regress,” Lewis produced a torrent of books, essays, novels and radio talks, all works of Christian apologetics or stories with obvious spiritual preoccupations. Even as he churned out these works, Lewis prodded Tolkien to pull together and complete his stories of Middle-earth — the private universe that had preoccupied him for most of his life. Thanks to that ceaseless, friendly prodding, Tolkien published “The Hobbit” to great acclaim in 1937. The prodding continued during the long, fitful gestation of its outsized sequel, “The Lord of the Rings,” which finally saw the light of print in the mid-1950s. “The unpayable debt that I owe to [Lewis] was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood but sheer encouragement,” Tolkien recalled. “He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby.”

Today, I wait to watch the new sun that rises for a sleeping world  As I watch the breaking of the dawn, I see that everything speaks to us of passion, everything is alive, everything has spirit and it invites us all to simply -- cherish it.

Years ago, I read a marvelous poem, actually an elegy, written by Thomas Grey titled "Elegy in a Country Courtyard". The poet wrote this particular piece as he wandered through a graveyard back in 1750 at twilight -- very much how as a teenager, I would wander Mount Albion and contemplate on the meaning of life, the toil of those who had achieved and of those who did not. I would think, and still do, of the mockery of ambition, the struggle of both the rich and the impoverished to be happy, and the eventual realization that no matter what our circumstances in life, we all finally rest in some fashion "upon the sweet lap of earth". Gray felt that this was not much as simple joys are forever gone, destiny is obscured;

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn

Or busy housewife ply her evening care... 

the paths of glory lead but to the grave."

However, in my walks through that cemetery, and recently among cemeteries here in Mesa, Apache Junction, Bryce Utah, and the Oak River Creek where I scattered my beloved Doug's ashes... I do not feel that sense of despair. I used to take rubbings of old tombstones (kind of want to do that again in my 60s if I can) and in some ways came to know and love the people long ago laid to rest beneath them. It was there that I often sat and wrote prose or poetry, singing a song of praise for every day that we have remaining... writing an elegy for every day that slipped through my life unnoticed and unappreciated. Thanking the Universe for giving me eyes that can truly see and a heart that can truly feel.

 How many people are aware of their own poet/songwriter inside? Far too often in this surreal techno world we move through our days in a fog or a frenzy -- until we are startled into consciousness by an unforeseen threat to something we hold dear and have been taking for granted for far too long.

I call these opalescent moments "simple epiphanies" because they jar me into a profound awareness of how much we have, and how much we have escaped, and how much there is to be grateful for. My beautiful granddaughter, Jessica, asked me (close to our last wonderful weekend spent together) why I did not seem to be bothered by things. I smiled and told her that it was not that I was not bothered, as I often was, but that I was able to know what was most important to me now... and that is love, and peace and following my own path. I call that GRACE.

Through the mystical alchemy of Grace and daily gratitude, what might have become an elegy to my life, is transformed into appreciation, joy, and exultation. My own recovery or that of a loved one who has been seriously ill, the reconciliation after a painful breach between mother and children, the realization of how very lucky we are if we are doing work we love or, in this current economic climate, if we are working at all, the rejoicing that surrounds us at a long awaited rite of passage, the enormous satisfaction that comes after completing an overwhelming task and, one of the most important to me today, is the serenity that awaits us after a struggle has been abandoned.

The loss of my beloved Doug, Cancer, the anger of children, the absence of a beloved grandchild, the love and support of friends, my doctors, and my job, are my epiphanies and they teach me to cherish everything. Everything speaks to our souls, with great passion, if we are still enough to listen and willing to hear.

Jane Seymour once wrote "You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life so that if it were over tomorrow, you'd be content."

Amen Ms Seymour. Amen.

Although I do have regrets, I know, even more deeply today, that I have given all the very best I had and that I have lived my life in a way in which I am proud. Am I perfect? Hell no. Will I make mistakes in the time God still gives to me? You betcha...

 But I will write a song of thanksgiving for every day that remains....

Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing 365 blank pages. Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from last year. In this New Year, may you have:

a deep understanding of your true value and worth

an absolute faith in your unlimited potential

peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty

the confidence to let go when you need to

acceptance to replace your resistance

gratitude to open your heart

the strength to meet your challenges

forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you

clear sight to see your best and true path

hope to dispel obscurity

the conviction to make your dreams come true

meaningful and rewarding synchronicities

friends who truly know and love you

a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe

the humility to remain teachable

the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is

the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow

the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth

and the courage to learn to be still

May the year ahead bring you peace, happiness, and prosperity.

It is the time of need... and bitter blue...

My wonderful husband died when I was 42 years old (He was one month shy of turning 45). Being widowed this young happens to less than 3% of married people.  Sixteen years is a long time and yet there are days when the loss of him rips through me just as sharply as it did that morning.

Dearest Doug,

On September 2, 1998, God took you from me; such a long time ago. It feels different today than it did 17 years ago. I'm not sure how I feel about the distance that has grown between us -- the distance of years, and time, and experience -- my years of living while you have been dead. I only know the feeling of this dark empty void in my soul -- that no one else can fill.

I used to spend so much time wishing you were still living on this earth, still my husband, still a father for our three children, still here to share a certain life we had made together. I wished that what had happened to you and to us had not happened. I was really very afraid. More than I think you understood at the time, but now probably realize as you look down on all of us here.

I am still afraid sometimes, as I am sure you know, but not nearly as much. I also know that I can't live in a wishful state, wishing for something that will never be. I've worked from the very beginning on acceptance. Acceptance has been my mantra so that I could go on living without you. It has not been easy and at times I still spiral down into the depression of your loss and missing you so greatly.

You feel so far away from me. I've had to make too many decisions without you. I've had to go it alone even though you were once my most trusted, most loved partner and friend. I've had to go it alone.

Sometimes I feel sorry for people who are lost and asleep, who don't realize that they need to live without imagining that there is a better, different, more interesting place to be than right here and right now.

Sometimes I am afraid that I can't keep you alive enough Doug. Whatever I can do, it's not enough. You deserve so much more but you got exactly what you didn't deserve. You got to die.

I'm lying. I do wish you were still here. But there is nowhere to go with that wish. Nowhere to go. It's like wishing for my own immortality and believe me I do NOT want immortality.  I look forward to the day when I finally get to be with you again. I look forward to walking down Brickyard Road with you... hand in hand.

I'm sorry that you aren't with me or your children or your grandchildren anymore. I'm sorry that your story had to be a such a tragic one. I'm glad we chose one another from the moment we met. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for giving me your dreams and your pain and for making three amazing children with me.

We didn't finish our story with a satisfactory ending; far from it!  I hated the ending of our story and some of the middle; but the beginning was wonderful.

I will be with you again, one day soon, my beloved.  Until then, I keep trying to do the very best I know how and to fight to stay alive for you.  When I walk the mountains, the desert, or by a running river or stream, you walk with me. 

You will always walk with me. Wait for me, on Brick yard Road.

For those who wear your shadow's face
we ran along the ocean’s edge
to leave behind those latent tales
of Christmases that tried and failed
to catch a glimpse of those remaining shots,
such pain and thievery

we tried, I know we did
and for a bleak pause at sudden recovery,
the moment stopped
we were done
in one broad flash,
worthy of cinematography
full scale
grandiose,
complete with trumpets and a splash of glee

not to last
not meant to be,
and now I travel light
memories weigh not so much,
though I venture near
the time of need and bitter blue

IT DOES NOT SEEM THAT LONG AGO
YOU AND ME WALKING DOWN THAT ROAD
WE SAW THAT GRAY 55 CHEVY SITTING IN THEIR FRONT YARD
AND VALLERY AND JAMES THEY CAME ALONG
THOSE WERE OUR BEST DAYS
BUT THEY ARE GONE

AND IT HAS BEEN
16 YEARS SINCE YOU WENT DOWN
GOD I LOST MY BEST FRIEND NOW
BUT I CAN STILL SEE YOU SITTING ON
THAT OLD DOCK

NOW I KNOW I CANT BRING BACK
OUR YESTERDAYS
BUT LORD CAN'T YOU HELP ME FIND MY WAY

BACK TO BRICKYARD ROAD
I WILL WALK ON DOWN
BACK ON BRICKYARD ROAD
DOUG YOU ARE WITH ME NOW

I SWEAR I SAW OLD FREE BIRD FLY
NOW YOU RIDE THE WINDS OF A
SOUTHWESTERN SKY
AND WHEN I HEAR A TRAIN WHISTLE BLOW
WELL IT CARRIES ME BACK
I WALK ON BRICKYARD ROAD

NOW LOVER DO YOU
REALIZE JUST WHAT YOU DONE?
YOU JUST THE HEARTS BOY
OF EVERYONE
AND THOUGH YOU DIED TO YOUNG
WELL YOUR SOUL IT LIVES ON

AND I KNOW I CAN'T BRING BACK
OUR YESTERDAY
BUT WE WILL BE BACK TOGETHER
AND ON THAT DAY

WE WILL WALK ON BRICK YARD ROAD
OH WALK ON DOWN
WE WILL WALK ON BRICKYARD ROAD
YOU ARE WITH ME NOW

I SWEAR I SAW OLD FREE BIRD FLY
NOW YOU RIDE THE WINDS OF A
SOUTHWESTERN SKY
AND WHEN I HEAR A TRAIN WHISTLE BLOW
WELL IT CARRIES ME BACK
I AM ON BRICKYARD ROAD

NOW DOUGLAS AND JAMES
THEY WILL MAKE IT ALL RIGHT
MARY SHE IS NOT WITH ME ANY MORE AT NIGHT
JESSIE'S ALL GROWN UP
SHE IS SUCH A PRETTY GIRL

BUT NOTHINGS BEEN THE SAME
SINCE YOU LEFT MY WORLD

AND I WANT TO GO BACK
TO BRICKYARD ROAD

DEAR GOD, PLEASE
LET ME GO HOME
TAKE ME TO BRICKYARD ROAD....

One of the most painful things that a family can go through other than losing a child to death, is for that child to become an adult and then disown and estrange themselves from their parents. They may do this to one parent or both parents. Regardless of whether it is both parents or just one, the results for the estranged parent (parents) is a devastation that is so severe, it affects almost every facet of their lives. Quite often the estranged child does everything in his or her power to ensure that other siblings (if present) also act out in the same manner.

There appears to be an "hidden epidemic" of this phenomena going on today in America and I daresay it is world wide. While it does affect the parent who is estranged no matter what their sex, there is evidence that it is happening to mothers more than fathers. Perhaps this is due to the fact that mothers are the "nurturers" and are usually the primary caretakers of their children during their growing up years. And in the case of domestic violence, drug addiction or emotional abuse, they may also be the "victims" of their abusive husbands at the same time they are trying to raise their children. So for a mother to be nurturing and protecting of her children while she is living in fear and in an explosive environment, is a tall order for any woman to meet. But most of them try anyway.

There are as many reasons why estranged adult children cut off their parents as there are grains of sand in the ocean. The list is endless, some of it is justified and most of it is not. Here are some of the most common reasons that adult children state to justify their actions.

1). The parents divorced and they side with one parent over the other, or they are upset with both parents.

2.) They do not approve of their parents new spouse and are jealous of that spouse and feel abandoned by the parent.

3.) They are used to the parent paying for everything that they want, and when the parent decided that they are grown up now and should pay their own way, they  get furious and disown the parent.

4.)  They have moved away and met new friends who are very disrespectful to their parents as well, and who convince them that "family is not important" and that their "new family is their friends."

5.)  They have met someone who they marry or live with , who does not like their parents and who influences them to cut off their parents from their lives. These types of spouses are usually very controlling, insecure, and jealous of anyone that takes their partners attention off of them. They issue ultimatums that are "either them or me" types of threats.

6.)  Sometimes they are ashamed of the parent/parents because they have married into a  more lucrative family and lifestyle than they grew up in. And materialistic concerns and status are more important to them then being supportive of their parents no matter what their economic status. Figuratively speaking, their values have changed for the worse.

7.)  Some parents have done such a good job of raising their children that they did too much and these adult children have now become narcissists who care only about themselves and who have become cruel and heartless towards the very people that got them where they are today. They have turned into "people we don't know"  or "people we love, but don't like anymore." In fact, many estranged parents feel like their adult children are complete strangers when they used to be very close to them and their "best friend."

Justified reasons why adult children cut off their parents.

8.) Interfering relatives, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, cousins, etc. who actively slander the estranged parent to their adult children because they have issues with them themselves and see this as a form of revenge, and who actively try to be the surrogate best friend, mother, father, etc. of the adult children. Which means the dysfunction in this family was well in place before the adult children were even born.

9.) The adult children have become involved with a religious cult, or friends who tell them they do not need their families and that the cult/friend is their family.

Or the reverse. They have become involved with atheists who actively recruit them to give up their faith in God and thus their ties with their believing, more conservative parents.

Also, they have become so involved with a super conservative church that they think their parents are not Christians and are going to hell.

10.) They have taken something that you said or did, and misinterpreted what you meant or did, and will not listen to any explanation that you have which would clear up their misinterpretation. They will not talk to you, forgive you, or allow for any latitude to mend things. You find yourself between a rock and a hard place.

There are endless reasons, or a combination of reasons for the estrangement, but the bottom line is the estranged parent is shocked, numb, sad, angry, disappointed, dismayed, cannot believe that this has happened to them, depressed to the point of not being able to function, and even suicidal. It feels like your child has died. But you know they are alive and just not available to you anymore. Many times your estranged child will prevent you from seeing of having any contact with your grandchild, so not only are you an estranged parent, you have also become an "estranged grandparent."

How do adult children estrange their parents from their lives?

Estrangement can be a gradual "falling away" that takes place over weeks, months, and sometimes years, or it can be "sudden" and takes you by surprise. It may be "on again off again" and you feel like you are walking on egg shells, not knowing when the next hurtful comment is made, the next abusive email or phone call comes, or the next "slam the door in your face" happens.

They stop emailing you, or answering your emails, they don't call you or accept your phone calls, they block you on Facebook, or block or change their phone numbers, they threaten you with a restraining order if you come near them or their house, they refuse to let you see the grandchildren, they don't invite you to their wedding, their baby shower, their college graduation; pretty much every single "once in a life time event" in their lives you are excluded from.

You are not welcome at births, weddings, funerals, grandkids birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. You are not called on your birthday, or Mother's Day, or on holidays. You have to rely on other people to tell you what your child is doing or even what they look like anymore. Is it any wonder that estranged parents are depressed, confused, and feel hopeless and lost?

Other Questions you may have:

1.) Should I keep trying to contact my adult child or should I wait it out?

2.) What does God think about this ?

3.) How do I handle feeling guilty? Even when I have done nothing wrong?

4.) What resources are out there to help me get through the day?

5.) Should I just show up on their door step or place of work and  confront them?

Estrangement from your adult children is one of the most painful experiences that a parent can go through and it helps to have someone to talk to about it.

If you are at a stage of despair right now and cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, please do not hesitate to contact a counselor or your religious advisor.  Know that you are NOT alone.

God bless.