Benjamin
December 25, 1980 = November 12, 1997

WHEN A LIGHT GOES OUT

Benjamin was a special friend, he was the last of four dogs my wife and I shared, but she always left it up to me to make the final decision to put them to sleep. I did this with Ben and the others.

Ben was almost 17 when I said my final Good-Bye to him, one of the hardest days that still haunts me to this day, 18 years later. Because it had to be my decision, I asked the vet for his opinion and he agreed it was time to do it. Ben couldn't walk anymore, I carried him up and down the stairs of my Lexington apartment and I held him up while he used the bathroom. I could tell by the look on his face, it was time for him to go. It was in his eyes.

I was just going to post this on my wall today, but I felt Ben deserved his own story, because he was his own dog, had his own personality, different from the other three who had come before him. He got to share part of his life with two of them before they were put to sleep.

I moved to Lexington from Georgia on the spur of the moment and to this day, I can't tell you a logical reason why I did this. But I did and I brought Ben with me. I could tell his age was catching up to him and I did not want to leave him behind. He was loving and gentle and kind, he didn't seem to mind anything, as long as he was with me. When the divorce happened in  1989, Ben was nine years old and both my wife and I had rescued him at her sister's house in Owingsville on Christmas Day 1980. He was kept outside and it was freezing cold that day, sleet and rain mixed and I kept hearing this sound outside the window. I went outside and found Ben. The person who owned him said she couldn't take care of him, so I put him in the back seat of my car on a quilt and took him to Georgia. He was very sick, but the vet treated him and we took him home.

Over the years, he was as much a part of the household as anybody we knew, He became somebody I needed to take care of. I was miserable in my marriage, trying to live the life of a straight married man and it was destroying me, so when the divorce was final and I moved eight years later, I knew I had to take Ben with me.

He rode in the backseat of my little blue four-door car on the same quilt he rode on to Georgia, completing the cycle, if you will. I moved to Lexington in May 1997 to an upstairs apartment and I was content for the first time in my life. I had my own life and Ben had me, just me. I remember the times we shared custody of him and his going back and forth between the homes was wearing on him. I didn't want the new husband to take him from me like he had taken everything else.

Ben had been on a special diet for a while because of problems with his digestion, but the last week he was with me, I treated him to whatever he wanted = he would eat like there was no tomorrow and he threw up a couple of times because he ate so fast. When I made the final decision, I zoned out of my feelings and just went through the motions of existing. I held him in my arms when the vet came to the apartment and shaved his leg where the needle was to go in. I watched him do it and I held Ben as if I could will this not to happen, but I loved him too much, I wanted him to go to the Rainbow Bridge with his dignity intact. When it was over, I wrapped him in the old quilt, carried him downstairs and put him in the back seat of the vet's car. It had started to snow, the vet drove off and I screamed out loud until I couldn't scream anymore. The pain was unbelievable. I felt like I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move, grief swept over me like a physical being that invaded my heart and soul. Even though I had loved the other three pets I had before Ben = Nikki, Nugget, Chocks = there was something about Ben that stole my heart and soul from the moment I saw him.

A light went out of my life that day and my living has been in a dim world ever since. I fell into the rabbit hole that day and never completely crawled out. Eighteen years later, the grief and the tears and the sorrow and the longing for him is still raw and palpable.  Time doesn't heal a loss = you put the grief in a place in your heart and soul where you can take it out every now and then to cry and grieve and long for him all over again and I don't apologize for those feelings today.

I had saved the ashes of his older brother Nugget and I took them and Ben's ashes and drove to Jekyll Island, Georgia and scattered them into the ocean. I had never take Ben or Nugget to the beach before and with the ashes, they both became a part of the endless cycle of the universe, forever in the tides that come and go on that particular beach.

When people think of me now as the person with "all the cats", they don't realize I had to rescue them, had to save them, just like I saved Ben. You see, saving their lives brings me peace, regardless of how the inevitable end is going to play out. The greater the love, the greater the grief.

So, as my years wind down and tomorrow is never promised to me, I know that I love my babies now and I loved my four babies back them. I have lost Beanie, Maggie and Topper in the past six years but I will never forget any of them. Death ends the life you had with them, but death cannot erase the love I shared with them while they were with me. My one prayer is that when I go to the Other Side, that God will grant me the right to go across the Bridge to be with my babies who wait for me there.

The light that went out of my life when each one of them passed away, will once again be bright and I will be with them for Eternity.

Benjamin, my beloved baby, one day I will see you again and once again we can walk by the Chattahoochee River like we used to and sit by the riverside and listen to the water as it laps up against the river bank, never to be parted again.

The Chattahoochee River, behind my 

Atlanta apartment, 

where Ben and I used to walk.

Jekyll Island, the ocean where 

I scattered Ben and Nugget's ashes.

THE PEOPLE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

It seems like I have always been one of "the people by the side of the road". 

I know when I speak of my childhood and teenage years, people tell me I wasn't poor because I had a roof over my head and food on the table, but it always seemed that way to me. Poor people seemed to be "the forgotten people", just like today at the age of 70, the elderly seem to be the forgotten people, pushed to the side of the road by some members of a society that cannot tolerate us.

I have a full life, don't get me wrong, but it was a fight from the word "go". I have often been told also that my mother was a wonderful person and I realize that now, but living among a dysfunctional family changed me, made me an outsider, always trying to be one of the "regular people". I never made it to that status.

Now, I literally live by the side of the road in a doublewide trailer up a "holler", and at first it was very hard for me, adjusting to living in a trailer, because I had always lived in a house, but the two people who stepped forward when I was on the edge of being evicted from my house, Tom and Judy Byron, saved me and my babies at the last minute and for that I was eternally grateful. I have adjusted to where I live now, creating separate "nests" that are just for me, no one else would understand.

I am not the world's best housekeeper, if you come to my place, you would see a lot of clutter and a carpet that is way past being cleaned, but I live here as do my 9 babies and we really don't want anybody coming in to see us if they go out and broadcast to the world what they have seen. If I sense they will do that, then they are not invited in.

In general, I don't trust people, never have, probably never will. It's just the way it is, just the way I think.

Being mentally ill puts me in a position of always explaining to people why I am not  "consistent" in the way I think, the way I talk, the way I do things, the way I shop, the way I drive, ad infinitum. Well, you see, I'm never sure who I will be when I get up in the morning. What seems plausible to me at night when the world is dark and my living room is illuminated by the TV, the light over the sink and the light in the bathroom is that the world is a good place. It is my way of "being Blanche" from A Streetcar Named Desire = you know, putting colored scarves over the lamps in her room, to give her the illusion that all is right with the world.

But, when daylight breaks, I still feel like one of the people by the side of the road.

The people of privilege who dispense advice to the people who are not of privilege, are a dime a dozen, giving you a scenario you should live by when they know you can't afford to get to that level. But, I don't aspire to have material things = they clutter up the house and they clutter up my mind. I'm not sentimental about the past like a lot of people, I'm emotional in the present day, but old pictures that people pass around and show me doesn't effect me one way or the other = I can't relate to those people, even though I know who they are, I don't relate to them, our lives were and are so totally different.

Just my babies and me, enjoying what gets us through a day, whether it's a long nap for all of us or a treat for them and a treat for me.

Toot who likes to drink from the tap, rather than the water bowl = Darby Doodle who talks to me all the time, trying desperately to tell me something, but it usually is just for a head rub and for me to open the door that leads to the porch = Baby-Do (Boo) who curls up in the crook of my arm and goes to sleep and talks to me before he dozes off = Emma, the social eater, who loves to get close to her siblings during meal time = Pete who greets me every morning in the bathroom at the most inconvenient time and begs for me to reach down and acknowledge her, which I do and she trots off on her little legs with the white feet and is satisfied = Lucy Belle, who curls up on my chest as I cradle her in my arms and talk to her = Linus, who loves for me to hold him, purring wildly but when he's through with it, he's through = and Charlie (Brown) who loves to be stroked but will not let you touch her head, but she has learned to trust me and loves Darby endlessly.

We are the souls by the side of the road, who sit on the screened-in porch with the huge shade tree giving us comfort from the sun and who gather around the 9 paper plates on the kitchen floor when it is time for them to eat supper. We are satisfied that we have each other, content in the knowledge that we are not just the people by the side of the road in the doublewide, we are living, breathing souls who love each other when the darkest of days threatens to take the scarves off the lamps and expose the world to us for what it is. But, when the sun goes down, the TV goes on, the light over the kitchen sink is turned on, the  bathroom light is turned on and another day has passed. 

God has given us a chance to see tomorrow, whatever it may bring.

TURN, TURN, TURN

The only good thing about getting old is you can pretty much write your own ticket to what you want to do, provided you have the money, the health and the motivation. I don't have a lot of money, my health is in a precarious state of mind and I don't have much motivation except experiencing the simpler things in life, like watching my favorite TV programs and playing games on Facebook and taking care of my nine rescue babies.

There is also a time for reflection on the past, not a good thing to do, in my case, too many things happened that weren't good for me and the losses of souls I have loved over the past 70 years is sometimes unbearable to think about. The grief never goes away, the sadness lingers in ways I can't explain and the loss is put away in a safe place in my heart to take out at times and just cry until I can't cry no more. And I have been doing a lot of crying lately.

My losses have been of friends, acquaintances, relatives, family and pets. That is not in any particular order, by the way. It's just the way it came to me. The losses have been of old age, natural causes, murder, suicide, euthanasia, car wrecks and a variety of diseases. It seems to me or rather, it feels to me, that people have "sort of" dismissed my losses and my pain and my grief, it seems like a lot of people have done that and I don't know why. I don't think some people view me as a person who seems to have a lot going on upstairs, but in reality, behind the physical facade and my attempt at a normal life when I go out in public and talk to people on the phone, the truth of the matter is I am in a constant state of distress from one thing or another.

Some people have suggested I turn all my problems over to God = well, I've done that and He does carry the burden for me, but I don't believe God can help me with everything.

I've got to deal with logic and reason and the truth = I have said prayers for people I don't even know, because I believe prayers help the family and the person suffering, but I don't think prayers can save lives, I just don't. I have said many prayers for many lives to be saved and it has never happened, but it made me feel better and it made the people of the person in distress, feel better and maybe that's all that counts.

My time on this Earth has been a strange journey, filled with many triumphs and many tragedies, many ups and many downs, like an elevator going to each floor and stopping and starting and stopping and starting, like going to the top of the Empire State Building and riding the elevator to the Observation Deck.

As the years passed after the divorce, one day I was 52 years old and living in Lexington, Kentucky, renting my own apartment with my beloved dog Benjamin, who was almost 17 years old. I loved him with all my heart and when he died on November 12, 1997, my losses were continuing to happen and there was nothing I could do to stop then from happening. I wanted the clock to stop, for time to stand still, for Benjamin to live forever and keep me company, but I knew logically that was not going to happen and I made the decision to put him to sleep. That day is seared in my memory and in my nightmares and that has been 18 years ago. I can't let go of it. And I can't let go of any of the losses I've encountered in the 70 years I've been on this earth. Before I left Atlanta to move back to Lexington, I lost 2 of my co-workers to murder.

It was at that time I spiraled out of control and never fully recovered. To this day, I've not recovered from many, many things and those two murders and Benjamin's death were 3 deaths I will forever have nightmares about.

For those of you who question my faith, my sexuality, the way I live my life, my love for animals, my weaknesses and my emotions, read the following words from this song and see if you can or want to, understand my existence.

 "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

To everything - turn, turn, turn

There is a season - turn, turn, turn

And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together

A time of love, a time of hate

A time of war, a time of peace

A time you may embrace

A time to refrain from embracing

A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time for love, a time for hate

A time for peace, I swear it's not too late!

To everything there is a season= 

turn, turn, turn

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

While some people deal with changes with no problem, I do not.

It takes me awhile to adjust to change, especially if it alters the quality of my life and the quality of my life has been altered dramatically. Quality of life, not quantity of life, because I don't know and nobody knows, how and when we will make the journey to the Other Side.

That's one big reason I was let go from my job in 1991, it took me awhile to adjust to some major changes within the department and I made all the wrong decisions at the wrong time = was psychologically pressured to leave the job, couldn't take it any more and I left.

But I can't leave behind what is happening to me now = still in the fight of my life against multiple sclerosis = I know it's not going to kill me anytime soon, but it has taken a toll on my mind and my body. Have become a recluse, with the exception of going to Owingsville to pay my rent and sometimes go to McDonald's to pick up breakfast. But I don't socialize.

I am also fighting a parasitic infection that doesn't seem to go completely away. It will go away for a little while and then come back, not major, but it does come back and ruin the routine of my days. I concentrate on it more than I should but I feel like I've lived in a nightmare with it for the past 3 months. I am going to see an infectious disease specialist in Morehead one day next week. That's why I am a recluse, I don't want people to see the ugly breakouts on my arms and legs and the ugly scars they leave behind. I have been told it is not contagious, because I have taken a lot of vitamins and medicine to keep it at bay. Seems like my immune system is fighting back, but I want it gone completely from my body, I want it gone.

Was just turned down for an editorial spot in a new newspaper, because the owner said my columns were too harsh for his "soft news" newspaper. You know, bland pap news that spoon-feeds the reader. Not my style anyway.

I was going to write about things that are going on around me, you know, like I used to, for the Bulletin and the Outlook, but it's much better this way, because the only person who has access to the content of my blog postings is me and that's the way it should be and that's the way I like it.

I was asked one time by a friend of mine why I didn't write more "upbeat" editorials and I said = "That's not my life, that's not the way I think". Not in my nature to be upbeat, but I have my moments when I do read something funny or see something on TV that strikes me as funny and I laugh by myself, not at myself, but by myself. One of my favorite shows that lifts my spirits is "The Golden Girls" = always makes me laugh or smile real big, anyway.

I was also told, not asked, told that I was too emotional and should try to change that. I said "The more I get involved with a project or a subject, I put all of my emotions in one basket. I'm human. I don't keep my emotions inside. They come out. It is what it is".

I don't know why I was asked that question and I don't know why I was told that = people are curious about me, about my life and I have contributed to that over the years, telling them just about everything about myself, but the general public still doesn't know what makes me "tick" = they think they do, but they don't. They just get bits and pieces and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle and form their opinions. But no one "really" knows me, the real me, except God.

When the same-sex marriage law was passed in Kentucky, people around me thought I had an opinion. Well, everybody has an opinion but I had no desire to participate in a marriage, same-sex or otherwise. Don't want to be bothered with that albatross around my neck any more. Did that for 23 years in a heterosexual marriage and do not want another person in my life who I am responsible for. 

When Caitlyn Jenner made her appearance on the public stage, I was "for" that, but am slowly changing my mind for my own personal reasons.

When Kim Davis started refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I was neither "for" or "against" her decision. I didn't become the poster child for the gay community. I have been asked numerous times to participate in protests and parades to support that community and I have refused, because I think that community's "bad apples" spoil everything for all involved. Bad apples are the ones who always have a hidden agenda, no matter what cause they currently stand behind. They become politically obnoxious, citing reasons why Kim Davis should issue those licenses. There is nothing worse than letting a "political know-it-all" person with an agenda take the microphone and speak, same with religious zealots who do the same thing.

I am spiritual, I am not religious. I believe in God, I believe He walks among us and I believe He is very annoyed at the way the world has changed. He is the only person I have to answer to, in this life and the next.

The Times They Are A-Changin' and creating chaos at every turn.

***

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you

Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

Every Life Tells A Story

In the time that I  have lived

And in the times that are to be =

My head has gone in circles

Of the things I got to see.

I've seen the sun rise,

I've seen the sun set.

I've seen people at their worst

And people at their best.

I've loved and I've hated.

I've laughed and I've cried.

I have mourned many times

At the time a soul has died.

My love and my grief

Go hand in hand

Because the more you love

The more you understand

Of how great a love can be

When it comes from the heart.

People mistake me for someone weak

When I show who I really am,

But in the face of all the odds

I come out the better man.

I was given a life I didn't want

And tried often to give it back,

But God had decided it was too late

For me to crack

Open another egg

To make myself into another.

I've stood on the brink of madness

And wondered whether I would fall

Into that world of darkness

Because I would never crawl

Back out of it 
To resume my unwanted life.

Every person is a book
And every book tells a story
Divided into chapters and pages
Telling good and bad things of a
Person's glory,
Whether untold or silent,
It's a book and a story
Forever written in a person's
Blood and sweat and tears
That leave scars on the soul
That never heal.

I laid aside my sword and shield
And tried to live a life of peace,
But every time I turned the corner
It became days of dire unease.

You see, I can see into your soul
And when you say you are my friend
Are you being sincere
Or are you trying to bend
The truth just a little bit?

I've had my time in the spotlight
And I've had many many turns
To bemoan my life as it is
But truth be told,
I will return
To the earth as ashes
On the mound of dirt
Of a beloved friend
That I will once again see
When I come to the end
Of my time on this Earth
Where I have spent time since birth
Taking up space and light and air =
Then I stand before God
Who sits on His Golden Chair
And invites me to sit a spell.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY . . .

And I didn't see anything changing.

I picked up a copy of the Herald-Leader after I got my hair cut this morning = that always makes me feel "put together" = one of the little tricks I have to make my life somewhat "normal".

I know "normal" is in the mind of the beholder but from the time I was born until now, I now believe my life was cursed from the day I was born. I don't know who put the curse on me, but it sticks to me like glue.

I don't say these following details for sympathy or empathy, just stating facts, but this has been the path of my life since May 2014 =

When I lived in Georgia, working for IBM, I had a few friends, actually two friends, I could tell anything to. They were my anchors. I felt I belonged somewhere, they both treated me with respect, were always honest with me and didn't expect anything from me except hard work and honest friendship = those two things I delivered.

Last May 6, one week before my 69th birthday, I was diagnosed with MS. I sent my friend Margaret a Facebook message and got no response. I waited a week for a response when I messaged one of her FB Friends to see if anything was wrong = there was. Margaret had died the morning that I called.

I felt like I was drowning. I fell into a deep, dark hole of depression. Never to hear her voice again, never to tell her my innermost thoughts.

In October 2014, I lost the sight in my left eye = surgery saved the eye but could not restore the sight.

Again, I fell into this deep, dark hole = actually, I was not all the way out of it before that October day.

When I was very young, I was sexually abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused and left by myself to cope. My mother's boy friend had done his damage to me and my sister, but I somehow survived, got married, got a good job, but there was something going on in my head all those years I couldn't put my finger on. At age 50, I was divorced, on my own and finally diagnosed with a slew of mental illnesses. I had been fighting "something" for all those years, but they finally had a name.

The curse was still active.

A lifelong battle to survive was always the uppermost thought in my mind. But, just when I thought I was settled down to meet my old age head on, another blow struck me upside the head = besides the MS, Margaret's death, losing the sight in one eye and the slew of mental illnesses, I was struck down in June of 2015 with a mysterious illness that played havoc with my immune system. Already taking meds for pre-diabetic sugar levels and slightly elevated cholesterol levels, I was told by the doctor she didn't know where I had picked up the virus, but it could have taken my life if I had not seen her when I did. I took the meds she prescribed over a 2-week period and I'm still fighting the lasting effects of the virus, which hopefully will go away in about another month, but has left ugly permanent scars on both my arms, both my hands, both my feet and both my legs. She knew it was some kind of parasitic virus, but she couldn't tell me where it came from. My paranoia grew.

Again, I fell into the rabbit hole.

Am still in it.

Went to the dentist to get the first fitting for my upper denture, but because the meds for my mental illnesses had caused most of my upper teeth to break off, an infection had run rampant in my mouth, my sinuses, my head and my eyes for quite a while = I think that in itself answered a lot of my health questions, but I wasn't sure. The dentist placed me on heavy doses of meds to clear up the infection so I could get my upper denture and I did that, am doing it now, but have lost my motivation to take any of my meds and move forward. Each day since then, it is hard to put one foot in front of the other = oh, I'm not tired, actually the meds for the pre-diabetic sugar level I believe has given me extra energy, energy I can't seem to utilize because of this dark cloud over my head, this curse I have endured all of my 70 years on this earth.

I don't think anyone = not even all the psychologists and psychiatrists I've seen over the years could convince otherwise.

I am different. I feel like the Devil is working inside my mind. I struggle to exist every day, but somehow manage to get through each day, knowing I have to take care of my babies = Boo, Darby, Toot, Emma, Pete, Penny, Linus, Lucy and Charlie Brown.

The daily routine I'm on carries me automatically through my chores and errands, but my mind is telling me to run, run as fast as I can, take my babies and hide somewhere from the world until I can't run anymore.

I took out a substantial life insurance policy to take care of my babies after I'm gone and I know a suicidal death would not pay off the insurance, but I have a plan. If all my babies pass away before I do, I have a plan.

But, God keeps getting in the way. My spiritual beliefs came to me late in life = sometimes they have been shaky, depending on what is going on in the world, but eventually come back = that has become the anchor that keeps me from taking my own life, because if I did, I don't think I would stand before God when I die, I think I would go the other way = join the Devil that has been in my head for the past 70 years.

The curse worked. I fell down the rabbit hole and I've never completely been able to crawl out of it.

I have another anchor, the third person who joined me and Margaret as friends, she is there in Georgia to listen to me, to cry with me, to laugh with me. She said she didn't want "to lose me". That's odd, because that's the same thing I said to Margaret a few months before she died.

I am thankful for what I have, but the Devil lurks in the background, waiting for me to fall. I do what I have to do and that is just "go on". But there is no motivation, no happiness in "going forward". but God continues to guide me each day and I hope he can be my anchor until I meet him face to face.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY . . .

When Everything Falls Away

When everything falls away

And night becomes day,

The only sound I want to  hear

Is the Sound of Silence.

For the past 2 weeks, it seems, the general public has been bombarded by news they all have an opinion on.

All the news channels have people nattering, people chattering, people stating their opinion, people protesting, people accepting, but somebody is always saying something until there is nothing else to say. Freedom of expression, freedom of speech, I support that, but enough is enough. An opinion is like an asshole, everyone has one. Enough is enough.

The flags, yeah, the flags, WTF is wrong with people = why don't they just accept what is going on and go on their way? If you have something to say, say it, but don't wear it out.

The American flag = everybody seems to love the American flag = a symbol of freedom =

The MIA/POW flag = it wasn't in the middle of the debates going on the past 2 weeks, but it is a significant flag = it helps us remember the POW/MIAs still missing after one of the most controversial wars of the past century. I wear one of the hats that display that logo on it = don't have a service record because back in the 1960s, gay people were not allowed to enter the service = but I support the director of Task Force Omega and told him I would wear it faithfully until every soldier who is missing or is a prisoner of war, had returned home. My choice to wear the hat, my freedom.

The Confederate flag = the knee-jerk reaction on all fronts to be "politically correct" means we are a nation of followers, not leaders.

As a gay man who has been faced with hatred, bigotry, prejudice and physical violence throughout my lifetime, the only thing I will say about the Rainbow Flag = it is a symbol of freedom for me to live the rest of my life on my own terms

When everything falls away

And night turns into day,

The only sound I want to hear

Is the Sound of Silence.

Gimme shelter . . .

Gimme shelter from the storm.

This is a Saturday afternoon in mid-June, hot, muggy, humid, with all of us trying to keep cool = me and my 9 babies.

They have shelter, though, they are protected, they are safe and if anyone harmed any one of them in any way in a deliberate act, I would kill them.

June 10, 2015, started as a tense day for me = appointment with the eye doctor to see what the chances were of having partial eyesight restored in my left eye. After hours of waiting and testing, the doctor told me he could take the cataract off my left eye, but the sight in that eye would never return. I had been told that week also that the MS I was fighting was not going to kill me, but the quality of my life as I got older would not be good. I could still take care of myself, but the quality of that life would not be good.

A year ago, I thought my life was good, going in the "right direction" but it veered off course, never to be in the "right direction" again. I was diagnosed with MS on May 6, 2014, a week before my 69 birthday; I lost sight in my left eye on October 7th, 2014.

To take my mind off my troubles and try to keep busy, I joined an animal rescue group and even though I was not physically active with the rescues, I did what I could to help = donating money for supplies like vaccines and food, formula for the little kittens, whatever they needed the money for and I even managed to find a forever home for a senior cat.

We, as humans, as a rescue group of individuals, had one goal in mind = saving these homeless cats and kittens from euthanization by setting that as our goal = keeping them alive until they could be adopted/fostered. I became emotionally attached to these cats and kittens, looking at their pictures and being updated by the volunteers. They became everyone's "babies".

On June 10, 2015 sometime in the afternoon, someone or a group of someones that sit on the government-run board that runs the shelter, decided to do the unthinkable without warning any of us, so we could react to the situation. Julie Sloan, a volunteer, had just posted the number of the babies at the shelter, some of them had names, some did not, but there were 50 of them we, the trusted humans, were caring for.

At the end of the day, all 50 of those babies had been euthanized = all of them were being cared for, a donation for food had just arrived, they were being monitored, they were being vaccinated, we were protecting them, or so we thought. Without warning, they were gone.

I was horrified, absolutely horrified. Some human or a group of humans, had betrayed the trust those babies had placed in humans, had betrayed that trust on the highest level. I can't get the images out of my mind of those sweet innocent faces being carried to their death, probably thinking they were being taken to their forever home or were going to be fed, held, stroked, loved. I pray they were not scared, I pray they were not.

I have been told of various reasons why this happened, but all of them could have possibly been saved if we had been warned, but we were not. That's what we worked for, saving them. 

My first instinct was to find the person who had authorized this mass killing and kill him/her, actually kill them. I've thought about that since I heard the news. I have cried, the pain in my heart makes my heart ache, my heart and soul are in a million pieces, the grief = there is no word for the grief. The greater the grief, the greater the love, maybe that's why my grief is so strong right now.

I make no apologies for my emotions or my anger or my thoughts of retaliation = if anyone has a problem with anything I say in this blog, they need to get over it, because I make no apologies for being human.

People often say I am over-dramatic, over-emotional, too sensitive, shouldn't wear my feelings out in the open for everyone to see = for those people who say that, I make no apologies for any of that = I feel my feelings very deeply. That Wednesday was life-changing for me = being told I would be permanently blind in one eye and being told earlier in the week that my MS would eventually destroy the quality of my life, not kill me, but destroy the quality of an already fractured life. I couldn't let my anger and my hate hasten that process of slow destruction. 

So, I withdrew from the rescue group. I have quit "following" the members of the group on Facebook  = I needed to make a clean break. I need, right now,  to concentrate on myself, my health, my 9 babies. Maybe later I will make another donation to the group who is determined to "start over" = but I don't believe you can just "start over" = I can't go on like nothing happened, it did and I can't change it, but I can seek solace in my solitary space, shut off from the outside world as much as possible. Maybe it will help me heal, but I don't want to get that emotionally attached to a group of God's creatures again and have those creatures destroyed.

But, whoever sits on that board that made that decision that day, without giving us fair warning of what they were going to do, is unacceptable. They need or the whole board, needs a lesson in communicating with the people who actually run the shelter = the volunteers, the board needs to learn how to communicate, they apparently haven't been taught how to do that. I don't know the individuals who sit on that board, but what they did, for whatever reason, is inexcusable, because they will do it again, without any warning. They will do it again, mark my words, they will do it again, because that was a powerful thing, a powerful thing, making a decision of life or death and we all know that power corrupts.

Like I said, my reaction for the past several days, has been physical retaliation = I thought = these people have to pay for this, they have to answer for this, they have to answer to the community as to why they did this with no warning. My anger lies heavy in the humid air around me, but I will not retaliate. I want to, but I won't. My belief in my God will not let me do that. I don't want to stand before God on Judgment Day and answer for that violence, but you, as board members, will have to answer to the community for your actions, or answer to God on Judgment Day.

Some of those babies had names = Tecumseh (and her 6 babies),  Bruiser, Shelby, Tangie, Cairo, Summer (and her 4 babies), China (and her 4 babies), Helena, Fera (and her 2 babies), Rain, Weather, Lucky, Baseball, Patch, Peach, Yellow and 18 who had not been named yet, but who were always loved and cared for = nine babies were 7 weeks old; there were five Calico babies; and there were 4 other babies.

Gimme shelter . . .

Gimme shelter from the storm.

In God's name, they all went together to the Rainbow Bridge. In God's name, I pray they weren't afraid, I pray those sweet innocent faces I had seen and fallen in love with, were not twisted in fear at the last moment. I pray, in God's name, they weren't afraid.

My faith has been shaken to the core, maybe beyond repair, I hope not, because I want to stand before God on Judgment Day and ask Him if I can reside for Eternity across the Rainbow Bridge with all His creatures, where I know I would be welcomed with open arms, I pray for that. I pray and I pray and I pray and I cry and I cry and I cry.

Gimme shelter . . .

Gimme shelter from the storm.

RIP

Those 50 Beautiful Babies