It's Been A Long Time Comin'

 

By Harry Patrick

This time in my life is one of remembrance and pondering questions and filled with depression and dark, long nights and sleepless nights.

April has been a month of coming to terms with my aging process and my mortality. That has been a long time comin' and I knew eventually it would have to happen.

There are certain things I can do on a daily basis, but I can't make long-term plans for obvious reasons, but I can still lend my voice wherever I can for things I believe in, like the abuse of God's creature.

April is the Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month and I have seen a lot of cruelty to animals in the past several years and it still sickens me physically when I see the product of someone who has abandoned an animal and left it to starve and probably die, especially after the Easter holiday.

Parents who buy their child a bunny as a "gift" should have to have a license saying their child is a responsible child and they are responsible adults. But, there are a lot of ignorant people in this world and their stupidity is not fixable.

I'm going to be jumping around in this blog, because I don't know how to make this particular one flow properly. A lot on my mind lately, so I'm going to write it down as it comes in my head, so good luck following it.

Today, April 27, my brother Sonny wold have been 76 years old. He died on October 16, 2011 and I miss him terribly. We had just begun to work out our differences, saying "I love you" to each other as we parted ways.

The last time I saw him alive was in September of 2011 at our family reunion. Because of a back problem, I helped him to his truck after dinner was over. He couldn't drive, but he really missed that freedom that driving used to give him. He said, "Come see me soon". I said I would, but did not and that is one regret I will carry with me until I breathe my last breath. His death was posted on Facebook by one of his stepdaughters who said they loved him, but I doubted it from the start of his marriage to their mother. Thank God, I didn't see it on Facebook, someone in the family finally got hold of me. The stepdaughters and my widowed sister-in-law are no longer on my Facebook Friends list.

I have been crying lately and I don't know if it's just "good old" depression or the reality of my life. I believe it is the reality.

I will look at one of my babies and start crying, thinking what a miracle they all are and if I go first, how lonely and heartbroken they will be. I am determined to be the last one to go, out of the ten of us. I want their last image to be of me. I don't want a stranger to step in and take over. That might happen, but I don't want it to happen. The crying, at these times, will sometimes last for an hour or two. The sadness and pain and grief at this time devour me until I am a broken shell of a man.

There is a new show on ABC called The Black Box = I think it's on Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. It is about a woman with bi-polar disorder who is herself a therapist. Her therapist is played by the remarkable Vanessa Redgrave. The main character portrays what has happened in my life and for anyone who thinks this mental illness is something to be dismissed, because after all, "you look so good on the outside" = you couldn't possibly be sick. It is  not something to be dismissed, but it's very hard to explain it to other people. My ex-wife accused me of faking it all those years we were married. She also accused me of faking my sexuality.

Even though I was up front with her when we became engaged in October 1965, she said later she didn't know what homosexuality really meant. I didn't believe her when she said that, because I think she took me on as a "project" to see if she could change me, you know, make me straight. Her second marriage to a younger man was also a "project" of hers, to make him socially acceptable. She met him on a vacation in April 1989 when she went to Charleston, S.C. with a friend of hers. She had unprotected sex with him and one of his friends in a tent they had on the beach. He was homeless, suffering from schizophrenia, but she moved him to Marietta into the house I used to live in and she married him, stayed with him all these years, so I guess that particular "project" worked. He has been riding a "gravy train" all these years, not working, drawing disability, so I guess when he decided to marry her, he knew he would never have an opportunity like this again. Even though abuse happened, she stuck with him. She didn't want her latest "project" to fail.

I was involved with someone else in the summer of  1965, but between her and  my mother, I was psychologically beat into the ground, because my mother didn't want people making fun of me. So, I finally relented and have regretted it ever since, even though the marriage lasted from 1966 to 1989. The divorce was one of the best decisions I ever made.

I've found a measure of happiness and peace this last year, because I don't think anybody ever has complete happiness and peace in their lives. I'll take that measure, but one of my neighbors and his family, out in this neck of the woods, are obnoxious, loud people who need to live on another planet or on a deserted island, with no other people around.  They are non-educated rednecks who think nothing of target practice at midnight. All of a sudden, there is this loud sound and you know that the neighbor or one of the family members, has "let loose". Wish I had a remote control that I could press "Mute" on whenever they raised their voice to a roar, which is anytime they are outside. The children are following in their parents' footsteps, if you know what I mean.

I'm glad we didn't have any children, because the baggage from both our lives would have spelled disaster for the kids, but now I wonder if that was a mistake, because I believe I would have made a "great" grandfather. I wondered if I would have made the same mistake a lot of parents make with their kids, thinking they owe them something, even after they are grown. They don't owe them anything, it should be the other way around, the kids owe their parents respect and love and should step up to the plate when there is need for a caretaker.

I can't think of anything else to put in here, so this is my blog for April.

Until next time, this is the "last word".