. . . And Still I Rise

After all is said and done and my name has faded from memory, my spirit will still be around, checking to make sure everyone is fulfilling God's wishes = the main wish I have after I am gone is that the work to rescue the defenseless animals and abused strays will continue.

That is my wish and my prayer.

I have already made all of my final arrangements = there will be nothing left to chance, I organized it.

I'm a great organizer and wanted to put my final wishes in my own words.

My recent episodes of illness and grief stripped my soul bare, as if there were nothing left and my brush with death was real and surreal at the same time, like Lazarus, I came back, not quite as strong in body but strong in mind. I didn't actually die, but I came close, according to the doctors in the Emergency Room.

Being that sick is psychological as well as physical. My body betrayed me, didn't hold its promise of keeping me safe, but after all, I am mortal and I was wounded, seriously wounded by pneumonia, the silent killer that strikes without warning, especially to the elderly.

. . . and still I rise.

My routines are now normal, but I don't feel normal, I feel empty emotionally, having cried in my grief and cried out in desperation in the hospital to God to "let me go" = "just let me go" = but He did not "let me go". Trapped, I felt trapped.

Just found out last night that one of my classmates passed away in May 2014, the month of my birthday and the month of my diagnosis for MS. I cried for her, for she was one of my favorite people to be around = silly and reckless and outspoken, she was a bright light in my dark world. God rest her beautiful soul.

When all the paper plates on the kitchen floor are no longer put out for feeding, it will be time for me to go, it will be time for God to lead me home, for I no longer want to inhabit this earth without at least one of my babies in it. I don't think I'm going to live that long, but I think I will be here to see the last one of my babies breathe their final breath = I believe that's why God brought me back from the brink = to take care of them.

In honor of National Black Cat Day, here is a picture of my baby Lucy Belle =

She is representing . . . my baby . . . and she is my company tonight as I take the words out of my head and put them down in front of me.

People often ask me to write "happy" tales, but I don't think I'm wired for that = some people are born to be just who they are and I am just who I am supposed to be = took me a long time to get here, to recognize myself as myself, but here I am.

. . . and still I rise.

I can't make up stuff to write, it has to be "real" to me and my thoughts are very real, they are a part of my past, my present and my future. I have loved parts of my life and I have hated parts of my life, but when all was said and done, I was who I was supposed to be.

Take me for who and what I am or let me be.

I don't need your approval to live my life the way I want to live it and some people have a distorted view of my life, one which they will never change, but most of the time, their view is not true and it's not mine.

= To Maya Angelou, who passed away, also in 2014, my eternal thanks for writing this poem for those who have beaten the odds. =

In The Midnight Hour

In the midnight hour, I'll take you there = 

Inside my head filled with thoughts, emotions and suicide bouncing off each other, each wanting to break free, to express themselves, but I am unable to let all of them out = fear takes over.

Everything is quiet this midnight as if I am the only living person on the planet, but I know that's not true. The TV is turned off, lights blaze in two rooms and the bathroom, I don't know why I don't turn them off, but I don't, psychological I know, but I can't bring myself to turn them off.

Sitting behind my computer keyboard, don't have any company tonight, just me, putting my thoughts down, my babies are elsewhere in the trailer, in my newly partially-cleaned trailer, looking brand new, but it somehow seems like a hollow place, even in its cleanliness, it seems like somebody else's place.

Baby-Doo (aka Boo) has been gone 8 days now, but it seems like yesterday when I held him in my arms and said goodbye. He "claimed" me from the moment I rescued him almost 13 years ago and he didn't stop loving me and "claiming" me until he drew his last breath. I let him go because he was suffering = he couldn't breathe without struggling and I know that feeling too well, having survived two attacks of pneumonia that led me to the brink of death, been home 2 weeks from the hospital when I made the decision to release him from his struggle.

He kept me company beside the computer one last time, making a valiant effort to be normal, but I believe he was doing it for me because he thought I wanted him to and I did want him there and I praised him, made over him and he left his mark on the side of my computer and went into the living room and tried to sleep that night, but at 4 o'clock the next morning, he was telling me he needed to go, I could see it in his eyes, in his face which had aged over the last 2 weeks, he was asking me to let him go.

My friend came by and she carried him to her car = I sat in the back with Baby-Doo and let him roam free = he stood up at both windows and looked through both of them, watching the rain come down, feeling the air on his face from the open window and watching the hillsides go by, watching the traffic go by, the first and last time he would experience that kind of freedom. I wrapped him in a quilt I had with me, been with me many, many years, carried him to the table and held him = he kissed me on the cheek one last time and head-butted me one last time, like he did the day I rescued him and then he was gone = he was cremated wrapped in that quilt and his ashes will be with me shortly, to sit beside Beanie's on my computer desk.

As I struggle every day to come to terms with Baby-Doo's death, I also struggle every day to regain my health = a monumental task in both cases. The pain, like it has been in the past, when my other babies died, is shattering and beyond description in my soul = my heart actually hurts when the grief overtakes me, full throttle and there's no stopping it. The facade I present when there are other people around quickly disappears when I'm alone and reality hits me right between the eyes. That Friday at the vet's office almost put me six feet under, I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into that abyss between life and death, wanting death to overtake me at that moment.

But the strength I didn't know I had brought me barely back to where I was and I knew I had to get well and take care of my other 8 babies, but I knew it would be a challenge to get my house back in order, to get my emotions intact so I could at least go through the motions of living.

So, part of my trailer is clean and soon all of it will be clean, thus sparing me from going to the nursing home and sparing me from losing my babies to the Humane Society = I was threatened with both with Social Services = so, the trailer will be clean, I will go on, my heart and soul are shattered, but I will go on, crying uncontrollably at midnight when me and my babies are alone in the dark.

The space by my computer where Baby-Doo loved to sit and keep me company, is empty now, like the space in my life that Baby-Doo doesn't fill anymore.

Lord God help me = because the thought of going to sleep and never waking up is a prevalent thought in my mind each night as I lay my head down on my two pillows = so Lord God help me to wake up to see another day to take care of my blessed, beloved babies.

Baby-Doo, we will all see you and the other babies at the Rainbow Bridge one of these days and I know your spirit is still here, because I feel it around me every day. Every time the wind blows through the open window, it is you = Darby looks for you and is lost, I try to comfort him and I keep a watchful eye on him, but he misses you and looks for you every day. Every time the wind blows, it is you saying "Hello" to all of us. 

Rest in Peace, my beloved baby.

THE WORLD KEEPS TURNING

In the mid-60s, I was working for the Lexington Herald-Leader and one of my co-workers was a woman named Mary = we had met at the training center where we both were hoping to be hired by the Herald-Leader if they bought the new machines we were training on and they eventually did buy the machines and hired both of us and so here we were.

She was about 10 years older than me, the mother of two and a husband who had been seriously injured in an accident he was working at during the summer break when he was a teacher. He could no longer teach and Mary took over as the breadwinner. Mary and I became close friends and I still miss her all these years later, if she is alive, she would be in her early 80s. I hope she is still among us, because death is one of those finite events that no one can escape.

A very fragile thread separates us from death and when it's broken, there is nothing we can do but go to be with our Heavenly Father. I'm ready to go, ready for God to come and take my hand and lead me to my Home. I'm ready but I'm also scared. I don't want to go anytime soon, but I find myself, when the MS kicks in really badly, I wish I could go to sleep and not wake up, to end the suffering and pain and mental demons I fight on a daily basis. When I do wake up, I can only see out of my right eye = lost the sight in my left eye in October 2014, another demon to deal with.

Toward the end of the 60s, Mary came in to work one day, very somber-looking, not smiling, but ready to go to work. After a while, she told me that her husband Jim had died that morning! And she still came to work! That was her way of coping.

She said, "When Jim died, I thought the world would stop for maybe a minute and honor him at his passing, but it did not, it kept on turning, it keeps on moving, no matter what, it doesn't stop for anything." And that's all she said that day.

What she said stayed with me, I still remember that day and I felt the same thing when my Mom died in 1971. The world keeps on turning and you go through the motions to keep up with it. 

Since moving to Kentucky in 1997, I have lost friends, family, acquaintances, pets = to natural causes, accidents and disease. And not one time did the world stop turning and acknowledge any of these passings = maybe it should have, but it did not.

I know I'm not invincible. It will happen to me one day and I can't stop it. I have made my final arrangements, wrote my own obit and dotted all the "i"s and crossed all the "t"s. I'm eventually going to view my memorial video with the pictures I picked out and the music I picked out. I'm off to the sidelines looking at what I have done, knowing I will not be here, but looking at it like I will be. I also wrote a final column to be published by the Herald-Leader after I am gone. There will be no more chapters in my life, no more pain for me to endure, no blindness for me to cope with and no more mental demons that have waged battle with me for most of my 71 years here on earth. I won some of those battles, some I did not.

I turned 71 yesterday, Friday the 13th, May 2016, but it was not a bad day = I stayed in, spent all day with my babies and looked at the clock at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday the 14th, May 2016 and knew God had given me another day to share with my babies. It has been a chilly day today, with rain and that kept me from going to the annual May Day parade. Worked the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle, drank my coffee from BP (where I pay $2.00 worth of quarters for the Saturday paper in the vending machine) and ate my Subway sandwich of Provolone cheese, tomatoes and mayo, on toasted bread, bringing my babies a piece of chicken which I shared with some of them, the others didn't want it, they haven't acquired a taste for it.

About that time, 12:01 a.m., I was wide awake, frustrated I couldn't sleep (again!) and wishing I could close my eyes and drift away, but I couldn't. I had closed the storm door that goes to the porch and locked it for the night and turned off the porch light. Darby (Doodle) picked that time to come to where I was laying down and looked up at me with those big eyes and "meowed" = wanting out. I lost it, I don't know why, but I lost it, yelled at him, put him on the porch and closed the door, leaving him outside in the dark to keep a watch to see if the mouse that hides under the porch had made an appearance. Immediately, I felt a pang of sadness that I had yelled at him and the pain in my heart was breath-taking. I made it up to him when he came back in, but I think the world just closes in on me sometimes and I vent an anger that comes from way down in my soul about everything going on with me and I yelled out, not at Darby, but at the world around me. Can't explain that to him, but I can love him unconditionally and that I do, love him unconditionally.

Darby came to me in a very unusual way and I believe God had a hand in it = my beloved rescue Maggie had been killed in a freak accident in my house in October 2009 and I was going to my friends Susan and Darrell's house who was keeping Maggie's body for me until we could bury her that weekend. Another friend James had made a tiny wooden coffin for Maggie to be buried in. I went over to Susan's house to verify that she and Darrell would go with me to help in Maggie's funeral and before I drove up to her house, a classmate of mine was carrying this huge orange and white cat in her arms, saying "This baby is sick and hungry and he is out here just wandering around = can you take him in?" I said, "Well, I just lost one of my babies" and the classmate handed the cat to me through my open car window. He immediately started purring, putting his head down on my chest and just stayed there. I could tell he wasn't well = I took him inside Susan's house, she fed him, gave me a pet carrier for him and I took him home. All I had for him to eat at home was an Arby's sandwich I had in the car. That's where Darby got his name!

Darby (Doodle) the night I rescued him

The next day I took Darby to the vet and sure enough, he was very ill from an infection he had acquired during a fight where his nose had been badly scratched. The vet tended to him and I left him overnight. I buried Maggie the next day, with the help of Susan and Darrell, holding a ceremony and asking one of the people who showed up, Mary Lou (it was her property), to read some words of comfort I had found online. I held Maggie's tiny wooden coffin up to the sun and opened the lid so the sun could shine on her face one last time. She was buried with some of her favorite toys, her coffin wrapped in one of my jackets, her face toward the East, where "she would be one of the first to go" to Heaven when God welcomed her in. Under the tulip tree, I said goodbye to my baby. The day she died, it broke my heart and soul into a million pieces and they have never been put back together.

Maggie in one of her favorite places to sit

The world didn't stop for her the day she died, but I think it should have = I think it should have. I know it's not going to stop turning for me when God leads me Home, but I wish it would, just for a split second.

God walks among us and I know He will give me His hand and lead me Home when it's time for me to go. Then it won't matter if the world stops or not for me, because I will already be Home.

THE BOY I USED TO BE

Most everybody I know is familiar with my history and they are probably tired of hearing it re-hashed and frankly, I am, too.

The boy I used to be made me the man I am today, with less hair, more weight and wrinkles and lines I have earned over the years = I've paid my dues.

So, this is a new history, one that brought me back to my native state, clinging to my little terrier dog Benjamin and running from an impossible situation in Georgia, where I had lived for 24 years. I consider Georgia my "second home" - did then and I do now.

This is a new chapter, or new chapters, as I face my last journey on the road that has been so bumpy and rocky over the years. I'm not going back past 1997, when I moved back to Kentucky, because this is the story of the Native Son who took a chance on a difference life from the one I had in Georgia.

Long story short about that move to Lexington in May of 1997, with Benjamin resting on his favorite quilt in the back of my little blue Dodge, my 4-door Dodge I bought when I got my Disability Settlement, my "crazy check" lump sum, if you will. I settled into an apartment, found a part-time job and spent the days taking care of Benjamin. He was almost 17 years old when he passed away in my arms, at home, on November 12, 1997. That day, I believe, altered the rest of my life, because I finally saw the meaning of true love, between a man and a faithful, loyal, beautiful little terrier who gave up the fight, couldn't go on any more.

I tried to foster a little blind dog named Henry, but I couldn't do it. After I took Henry back to the Humane Society, I realized what a grave mistake that was. But, it was too late. That day, too, altered the rest of my life.

And here I am, in 2016, a 70-year-old man who has completed his final arrangements and what a trip that has been!

While researching and soul-searching my Memoriam, I happened to see a picture of me when I was 16, a black-and-white photo of me sitting in the grass in my sister Marie's yard, with her son Terry Brent sitting in front of me. It looks like I'm showing off my class ring, so I must have been 16 at the time. It was an awkward stage because I was all arms and legs with a crew cut and very aware I was different from most of the boys in my senior class. I knew some of them were "just like me" but I really did not know what that meant.

But, I've come to terms with that = "the difference" = and have settled into a "routine" of routine things = taking care of my nine babies, my fur babies, rescued cats I have saved over the years, living in a trailer on a narrow road in the middle of the country. I've settled into that, too.

All the people I know are aware of my daily struggles but I try not to dwell on them and post them on Facebook, which a lot of people use to connect to other people. But, when I do slip and post something about the way my day is going, I go off on a tangent and go overboard, and I'm tired of doing that, because I don't want to portray myself as a Pitiful Pearl, whose life is centered around my survival.

But in reality, I "fight" to get through every day and that is not an exaggeration. Blind in one eye since October 2014 and diagnosed with MS that same year in May, I spend my days adjusting to those facts, but the BP Disorder I was diagnosed with in 1995 is thrown into that mix and at times, I believe I am living in a surreal world that don't exist for other people, just me and my babies. Well, that isn't true, I know there are other people around me, but they're like blurry images most of the time in my mind.

The MS has created its own set of problems, weakening my immune system which leaves me vulnerable to illness and parasitic infections = another thing to fight off. Most don't believe me when I tell of these events, so I don't go into it anymore. I don't want to force any information onto anyone, so I let it stay inside my mind, not sharing it anymore. I've just shared it here, but you know what I mean, share it in a daily conversation, no I don't do that anymore. My only sibling survivor, a sister, refuses to let anything register with her unless she can become part of the story and add drama to it. Otherwise, she doesn't really care what is wrong with me. Tied up in her own world, tied to her family and the church, afraid to break those ropes that would set her free.

I've become the man I am now because of the boy I used to be.

There are no ropes to bind me, no church to hold sway over me, no human to interfere in my life, but I am bound by a faith that takes me forward, a faith that was late coming into my life, but I know it has touched God on the shoulder and He has put His hands on me and guided me to this point on this long and treacherous road and from this day forward, I hope to keep my journey in this "blog journal" so other people can see, if they want to, what it is to be me and walk daily in my shoes.

I've become the man I am now because of the boy I used to be.

My Last Journey

As the sun went down on this cold winter night, I felt an overwhelming sadness but that's the name of the game with me, isn't it?

It goes with the territory.

I'm not a passionate person.

I'm not a romantic person.

I'm not a sentimental person.

I'm an emotional person.

I wanted to write this post before this day, January 21, 2016, ended, because 50 years ago today, I started out on a journey I should never have taken, but I did. 

I got married here in Owingsville, a gay man marrying a straight woman. Against all odds, it happened, but it never should have = not because I was gay, but because I knew from a long time ago, that I was not meant to spend any part of my life with another person. I didn't want that responsibility of making another person happy, of making another person sad, answering questions all the time and trying to explain to people what was going on with my life.

But I did.

If I had walked away and stayed where I was in Lexington, I would never have been on this 50-year journey, never would have taken the many roads that led to where I am today.

I would have "missed the dance", as they say.

Was it worth it?

Today, I live in a trailer beside a narrow country road, having finally adjusted to living in a place where you are always walking in a straight line, never from room to room, but in a complete straight line, from one end of the trailer to the other.

That seems to be the story of my life = finding my way from Point A to Point B, trying to find the easiest route, but never quite succeeding.

I'm not going to re-hash what people already know about me. I'm going to talk about what it feels like to get old and be on the last journey of my life, because I know what that feels like. No one knows when their life's journey is going to end, they can't stop it from happening, they can't change the outcome.

I look back on my life, but I know I can't change anything about it. I've lived it, it's over, but it lingers, in your memory, buried somewhere in the back in your mind that comes out in your thoughts, your dreams, your imagination of "what ifs".

I really don't want another person to intrude on my life now, don't want anyone to disrupt what little peace I've created, don't want anyone to interrupt this last journey.

My ex-wife took me on as a project, not as a husband, a project to change me, change me to make me what she wanted me to be. I was not strong enough to stay single and I was not strong enough to stand up to her strength. The day I did, when I stood up to her and told her what I really thought, what she had done to me, what she had put me through, is when our relationship finally came to an end, 21 years after our divorce. She had tried unsuccessfully over those 21 years to pull me back into her orbit so she could change me, she wasn't through with me, but I was through with her.

And for six years, I have been completely free of her, free to become myself, free to fight my way through every day of my life without her help.

The end of my journey will come when God says it's time for me to come Home. The end of my journey will come when I'm alone, because I was born alone and I will die alone, we all do.

A lot of times my journey is rough, it's the cards I've been dealt.

My nine babies = Boo, Darby Doodle, Toot, Emma, Pete, Penny, Linus, Lucy Belle and Charlie Brown = will accompany me on this journey. I know that one day they will all be gone and I know one day I will be gone. The trailer will sit empty beside the narrow country road, the shade tree over the porch will still bloom in the spring, shading the little screened-in porch where my babies have spent most of their days You will be able to see where they made their marks, sharpening their claws on some of the boards, you will be able to see the holes in the screen they have climbed upon, you will be able to see the posts on the porch where they climbed to the ceiling, proud of themselves. The trailer itself will echo their playful runs as they chase each other from one end to the other, jumping on the furniture, chairs, tables, countertops, on top of the refrigerator and their little beds will smell like them, where they lie tonight, safe and warm from the bitter winter chill, except Emma. My beautiful Emma, who keeps watch over me while I'm on the computer, she is here with me tonight, silently at her post, she watches me, to be near me, to go with me to the living room when I turn the computer and the overhead light off.

Toot sat on the porch the other day and just took in the snow, watching it fall, so did Darby Doodle. I got a picture of Toot gazing through the screen.

Lucy Belle sitting on the back of the couch, taking everything in.

Charlie Brown and Linus sharing one of the beds.

These moments will not be forgotten, even after they are gone.

These pictures here and others I have taken will be displayed at my memorial service, where people who want to pay their respects to my memory, will gather. My spirit will undoubtedly be present also.

Was the 50-year journey worth it? Yes, because it led me here, doing what I need to do = surviving day-by-day to take care of my babies as best I can. They have brought me joy and happiness on a level I can't explain and their presence is a reminder of the journey that brought me here, having saved them from a cruel environment so they could spend their lives in peace.

The peace I have found is scattered around, it's not here on a daily basis, but the moments I feel it, I know I made the right decision to be by myself. And the sex part of being gay was not something I ever wanted and when it happened and it was over, there was a feeling of emptiness that went straight to the core of my soul. I was not born to be a sexual person, but that also came with the territory = it is not a priority in my life anymore, hasn't been for a long, long time, because it was not something of pleasure, there was a lot of emotional pain, because I didn't really want it, but it happened.

I go on. I fight to survive. I struggle to get through the day. I fight my mental illnesses and my health problems, struggling to find peace at the end of the day. Sometimes I'm blessed with that peace, most times I'm not. It's scattered, like I said, but tonight, with a winter storm approaching, there is a storm in my head that won't let my life be easy, but it's my life and my journeys have brought me here, to the beginning of the end of my last journey.

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.