Measure of Devotion

Father's Day, for me, is a shameful day. Understand, please, that the shame is mine, not his.  I don't know that this is an objective truth;  It is, however, the truth I have decided upon.

"Honor thy father and thy mother" is the fifth commandment in the Christian Top Ten, and the first commandment to add a Carrot to the Stick.

Honor your father and your mother,

that your days may be long

in the land which the Lord your God gives you

--Exodus 20:12 (RSV)

One of my favorite off-the-cuff and exceedingly clever remarks to make? "Ew, that is so Old Testament!"

I am, for some reason, surrounded by Catholics and Muslims.  Those who do not willingly self-identify usually tend to be Buddhists, and live on my various porches for up to three years at a time.  (They also bathe the least, but smell the best. Should you ever do a smell test of your spiritually-diverse household, I think you'll find that observation holds up.)

Bringing up the Old Testament to Catholics, or almost any one, really, is a wonderfully scathing thing to say in response to some undeserved harsh judgment. Sort of the "your mama" of theological cat fights.

After dropping out of college during my second semester, being disowned, and running away to the Smallish Big City, I worked 60-hour weeks as a nurse's aide in what was euphemistically called the "neurological post-intensive care unit." (Think squash, peas, corn, eggplant.)

Much of the reason for my belly-flop into the rich murky pool of life came from opening the box inside my head.  Growing up, all Serious Issues and Problems were discussed in closed-door scary sessions in the Master Bedroom on the Big Bed, my father pontificating and my stepmother applying cold cream to her face and neck, after fifteen minutes of standing on her head to avert Alzheimer's Disease.  When our "discussions" were about sad and irreparable things, Dad imparted the same advice, always:

"Put it in that box up in your head, lock the box, and throw away the key."

The smart-alek in me replied, in that same echo chamber of a head referenced above, "How the hell do I open the box to insert new bad memories, if every time, I toss the darn key?"

So it was as if I were the world's first free woman that I set out to live, and that jarring motion may have had some effect on what was, after all, an ancient lock and an ancient box, neither of which had I ever treasured.  The box in my head, built, after all, by a child, held some unwieldy, sharp-edged, and inappropriate adult things, and who knew what else, in its murky bottom.  All held together by Elmer's glue, bubble gum, oddly beautiful carved mortise and tenon joints, plus a significant sample of through dovetail joinery, a revered technique. A disparate box, my box.

Toward the end of my free times, much of which we will leave in the fogs of oblivion, I lived with Baber, a drop-dead gorgeous woman who suffered various addictions -- to cocaine, marijuana, tequila, moonshine, psilocybin mushrooms, cigarettes, and sex.   I was sleeping with the husband of a bisexual friend -- actually both Baber and I were -- in exchange for unlimited organic carrot juices at his (and her) downtown health food store -- also for pot and blueberry shine.

I became quite enamored of blueberry shine, and also, yes, of dandelion wine.

Sometimes, in lieu of a large life-sustaining carrot juice, I'd opt for a half-hour in the steam cabinet tucked in a corner of the herb-and-potions area of the back storeroom before catching the bus to tend to the brain dead.  I kept track of what I earned and owed in a bizarre mental ledger, using original mathematics and futuristic algorithms.  Lots of criss-crossing arrows in my accounts, on my account.

That still left too much time in ratio to my angst-ridden, caffeine-driven youth, so I toyed with this course and that course, using up precious elective credits at a good local university.

I had all that space of the excavated brain box to fill, and so I did. It was a rich time and rich times cost you.

Baber was lots of fun, for a while, until her Probation Officer began dropping by too often, and for the wrong reasons. If you get my blaring drift.  Since Baber ran into the bathroom and stood in the shower whenever he drove up, her PO and I became pretty good friends.  He'd always bang on the bathroom door on his way out, after a good 45 minutes of waiting for her to get clean, and sing her some version of "See you next month, Baber Baby."

Toward the end of our year together, The Baber lost her job as a Respiratory Therapist, became a short-skirted frilly-pantied waitress, began to deal coke out of our apartment (she had, believe it or not, a hollow-ended pool cue that sometimes came into play), and received her second Driving Under the Influence citation. Actually, I think these things are listed in the wrong order. It all seemed to happen at the same time, belying cause-and-effect neatness.

Part of Baber's DUI sentence included the temporary suspension of her driver's license. She insisted I go to court with her that long ago early morning, getting us there right on time in her jaunty Toyota stick shift, expertly maneuvering into a very tight -- but choice -- parking spot three-quarters up a tree-lined, steep, and narrow street.

I learned to drive in a pristine vintage  1965 baby blue Cadillac, which resembled nothing so much as a boat, after which I was gifted with a white 1963 Ford Falcon, my first automotive love. That was the extent of my experience as a driver. (Please note that as I got older, so did my cars.)   So it was no surprise, to me, at least, that I almost got us killed on the way home. We lived in a mountain town, a hilly mountain town, to boot, which helped not at all as I struggled to hold my place in line at stop signs without smashing the car behind or ramming the car in front, and to respond to Baber's barked, detox-driven instructions.

After that, my roomie called on her many other friends to get her from points A-to-B to wherever. I noticed that a few of her chauffeurs were cops, just as I had noticed a shy and blushing warmth between Baber and the traffic judge.  When I dared asked if she'd be violated on parole, she laughed.

I remember a strong feeling of disconnect during the final weeks of living with Baber. I was working Night Shift at the hospital so as to free up my days and evenings for two classes: "The Bible as Literature" and "The History of Western Civilization, Part One."

People like to play the game of "where were you when...?" -- I guess because it creates a reassuring collective, something we had more of when we were less evolved. Where were you when John Kennedy was shot, and Robert? Where were you when you heard that Reverend King had been assassinated, that four were dead in Ohio? Where were you when they tore down the Berlin Wall, when Nixon resigned? When Lennon fell, and George died, 2Pac got shot, and Pinochet waltzed off scot-free? Where were you when the Challenger blew up, when the Twin Towers came down? When Michael Jackson overdosed, when Obama won the election, when the market crashed?  When those babies were mowed down in Newtown?

Where was I when I first encountered Plato's man in a cave, chained both fore and aft to his fellows, facing a blank wall, that blank tablet on which was cast the shadows of things?

Where was I when I was washed in the darkness of the Allegory of the Cave? Turns out, it was one experience that took place at two different times. Once at its first reading, in that mountain city, in the campus library, where I sat peering out a huge plate glass window at the golden light, sun setting. The bookend of the experience came 6 or 7 years later. I was walking down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, and came upon a beautiful blue shoe, a woman's pump in raw silk. One left shoe and I was awash in the arbitrary nature of the sign, and in what Plato makes Socrates call "truth."   It had to be about noon, because for the memory to work, there can't be much in the way of shadow.

It occurs to me, after having it pointed out by many a friend, that the first chills at reading Plato's Allegory of the Cave may be a major life event that is peculiar to my life, and not, say, anyone else's.  I cannot believe that to be true.  I cannot afford that to be true.  One of the only ways I can imagine sustaining a belief that I am my brother's keeper or my sister's keeper, is that we were once all chained together, in the dark.

I had all that space of the excavated brain box to fill, and so I did. It was a rich time and rich times cost you.

All while the proper vocabularies were leeching onto my thoughts, Baber was introducing me to a sensual world more frightening than arousing. One night, when final papers were coming due, and I could get no breaks from work, I met her and the married man we shared for another late night cup of coffee.  "Let me give you some NoDoz," she offered, releasing Phil long enough to go scrounge around in her lingerie drawer.  I took those Black Beauties with a slug of coffee after she explained it was an off brand of the all-nighter's friend.  I know you won't believe me, because she didn't, nor her snickering friends the next day -- but I fell quickly and deeply asleep.

I was as if lost at Baber's place, never feeling it even half mine, despite paying half the rent. We had the second story of a huge and beautiful house, a place kept by an airline pilot in case he was ever grounded there, or so the story went.  I never met Captain So-and-So, and all my rent checks went to Baber. People tend to roll their eyes when I tell them that but if there was a scam, I still don't get it.

Were the Captain to visit, the downstairs floor was his, and it was... something.  Everything in leather that could be, the whole in black and white. The latest in electronics, a semi-loft space, some nicely exposed brick. A kitchen that made me nervous because all surfaces were flat, opaque, and smooth, no place to boil water. When I dared break away from Baber's crowd, from Phil and worries of Marion, Phil's wife, I'd bring my few dates down to that lair. All of them were male nurses from work -- most of them with pills in their pockets.  We played pool and watched TV.  Okay, there was a huge, huge waterbed, but mostly we'd just gently bounce and float around and laugh until it got too cold.

Oh, Marion.  A fiery woman, with matte black dyed hair, under five feet tall, with huge mesmerizing breasts.  She had a voice like a rottweiler, considered herself a psychic, and missed nothing.  Nothing.

Imagine smoking a joint, the usual "hello, darlin'" gift from Phil, who was soon lounging on his back beneath my straddling legs and swaying torso, and having the phone ring, knowing it was her. I always answered.  We firmed up dinner plans, or picked a movie to go see. Then I'd pass the phone to Phil and they'd discuss the retributions of that day's astrology forecast and why Phil Junior was failing art class.

It was months before my fresh squeezed carrot juices were served up by Marion with such a slam on the store counter that my uniforms all bore streaks of orange.  Baber said my mistake was not sleeping with Marion, too. The spaces in my head;  Oh, the spaces in my head!

Phil and Marion had us both stay over at their house for Christmas Eve and a wild party, after which the growing throng formed a huge snake of a massage train, and then everyone passed out in one of the sleeping bags piled beside the tree, against the stairs. I woke up at 4 AM with Phil Junior wiggling into mine, and could never look Marion in the eye again. It was hard not to grill him about his art class issues.

My work at the hospital was rarely fulfilling, so if the Allegory of the Cave rocked my world, imagine my stupefaction when faced with the poet Isaiah, with Socrates drinking hemlock because his principal and the Superintendent of the School District deemed his teaching impious, too snarky for impressionable students. You see?  Nothing is new.

Time in that Smallish Big City was not a waste. I made good and lasting friends, earned easy college credits, and saved most of my money. I met a man and fell in love.  I met lots of men, in fact, mostly guys from Baber's restaurant work, a place that featured acoustic sets three nights a week. I generally found a band member or two in the kitchen, searching desperately for coffee, happy to let me brew a strong pot while they played a gentle guitar in the living room. Baber was never an early riser. It really was a wonderful thing, once I got over the surprise and knew not to nurture any expectations of privacy.

Sharing a good cup of coffee with a softly singing guitar-playing man who expects nothing from you except, perhaps, a refill, and maybe some toast.  There are times I can go right back there, to then, and rest. Just be.

But as someone famously said, about something else entirely: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."  I had all that space of the excavated brain box to fill, and so I did. It was a rich time and rich times cost you.

Is it fair to gloss over, as if it were slick, as if it were nothing, the fact that I fell in love?  His name was Bill.  He was two years older, and I met him on the neuro floor, after he'd had brain surgery to remove an aggressive cancer.  Bill was...

A perfect world would let me leave it at that. A better writer would leave it at that:  "Bill was..." Instead, Bill was perfect for my degraded box, something so beautiful, so good, so unaware of sadness, but, finally, he was just a gorgeous tragedy, something that makes you cry and become incoherent after five shots of tequila. That's about when I get the order of salt, lime, and shot all mixed up, and everyone is laughing at me, and I weep.  There were days up in those mountains when I desired The Box That Dad Built, just to tuck Bill in it., and save him from the notice of the gods.

Baber had a gun that somehow made its way under my pillow, a lumpy comfort. I held it through some long nights.

The man I loved was called home, where two years later he died of the brain tumor that introduced us.  He belonged in a different world -- his parents had already started an evangelical organization in his name, a premortem postmortem gesture that bordered on the grotesque. They knew we weren't having consensual Bible Study, and demanded him back. I was reckoned unworthy and a corrupting influence.

Bill had some fame in their region of the world, as a Junior Olympian skier. He was compact and hard and had a low center of gravity, which made him fearless on steep slopes. But brain tumors and skiing don't mix. I helped him in his dying by calling his Ohio home every afternoon at two, by order of his mother, and coaxing him to take his nap.  How I came to have such authority, I never knew.  The implications are not, I think, good.

The day before he died, she dialed the phone for him, so that I could hear at 10 AM his arguments against the 2 PM nap, which amounted to: "I don't want to take a nap.  Why do I have to take a nap?  Where are you?" Of course, I had to decipher his slurred speech as if it were an obscure dialect of a language I once knew, but we settled the matter amicably, and I even arranged for him to have a car ride with his Dad after the damned nap.  Just as I was about to hang up, Billy launched into a refrain.  "I don't want to take a nap.  Why do I have to take a nap?  Where are you?"

I could feel splinters of Dad's box piercing my cerebrum, carving idols on the inside of my skull. I wondered if there were room up there for Bill's tumor, if it could slosh around in me while he headed back to the Alps, sexy, long-haired, and triumphant, back to Val d'Isère, where he had tumbled a long stretch of a crazy, icy race course, in full seizure the whole way.

His Mom sent me a framed picture of him a few weeks later -- his eyes sparkling, black hair in the wind, about a year before they knew those nasty cells were even there, taken on a sunny day at a blue, blue lake -- he had scared her to death by water-skiing on his bare feet, she wrote.  I can still feel the weight of him, perfectly distributed over the length of my body, head-to-head, toe-to-toe. I can barely remember him asking over and over:  "Where are you?"

I felt a failure at 19. I spent 50-60 hours a week talking to people who literally oozed, were unable to talk, and, I pray, unable to hear my insipid chatter. Telling their parents, their pregnant wives and their lost-without-her husbands that "you never know..."

Three times, when one of these vegetative-state patients exhibited repetitive autonomic movement that had no meaning whatsoever, their gathered, excited relatives offered me 50 dollars.  Fifty dollars, each time. Folded up in shaking, liver-spotted hands.  Never mind that my presence had nothing to do with their loved one's exhibition: How did they all choose $50 as the sum to offer their Angel of Reawakening?  Is there a rule, some book of ancient wisdom about how to tip the person who so irritates your vegged-out beloved that she starts to wave her arms about, that his eyes may flutter open for a moment, or even stare?  Baber, former respiratory therapist turned waitress, explained to me that since each event was preceded by deep suctioning of their breathing tubes, the ensuing jerks and tics were much more my fault than anything to my credit.

One young man really did wake up -- just like in one of those tabloid newspaper stories, or Reader's Digest.  He was a motocross wannabe, just fourteen, and had somehow managed to run a railroad tie through most of his brain. Because of his age, the neurosurgeon made a show of trying to save him, but he ended up in our care, in a swooshy room full of ventilators and like-minded people who were rotated with clockwork precision, while sucking down nutrition via n/g tubes.  Their food was always a thick white liquid.  When the time came that it spilled, for one reason or another, from their esophagus into their trachea, that's when they'd develop the blessing of pneumonia, and, if half-assedly fought by a benevolent physician, they could finally die.

This kid did the pneumonia thing and everything. Bed sores galore -- something that always broke my heart and against which I fought with much energy. I kept my patients' bony protuberances clean and dry, I rubbed them red, lotioned them up, and called forth circulation like a Siren. He had severe contractures, despite stretches and splints.   Then one day, he woke up.  I wasn't even suctioning him.  His grandparents made the customary $50 offering, while I burst into tears and, looking like a cartoon character, tried to find someone who might know what to do next, because, though debilitated, this guy was agitated and strong.  

He was soon sent to an extended rehabilitation facility.  I went to visit, feeling all proud and excited, bearing gifts for The Boy Who Woke Up. My ego muttered in my ear that maybe I did have something to do with it, maybe this was a sign unto me, as well as the gift of a new life for him.

His grandparents were there, of course, and looked to have aged 20 years in the few weeks since I'd last seen their happy faces. Grim now, and angry looking, they took my arrival as their chance to go to the cafeteria.  No handshakes slipping me money, they asked instead for change, as the sandwiches down there were all in vending machines, $1.25.

The Boy Who Woke Up threw a full bed pan at me, and did little verbalizing beyond vehement curses, all clearly enunciated and, I suppose, from his point of view, appropriate.

The precariousness of everything became too much, and not long after visiting the Young Lazarus, I loaded the gun.  (Baber had hid the bullets where she hid everything else, the lingerie drawer.)  Out of deference to Phil, I moved the now lethal weapon from beneath my pillows to my closet.  But you and I know where it always was, sitting in my brain, my brain trained to box-build.

And I doubt that Phil was fooled, for Phil did not care.

And I know that Baber was not fooled, though she'd resent me for blood splatter, and for lost rent.

It had been well over a year since I had called "home." As if it were a habit, I picked up the phone and dialed the numbers like an automaton.

The rift between me and my father is bottomless and so wide I cannot see the other side.

"Please come get me," I whispered.

"I'll be there tomorrow afternoon," Dad said. "Be ready to go."

Click.  He didn't ask for directions, which left me holding the inked-up envelope for naught.  His voice was not soft, loving, guilt-ridden, or forgiving, but he was there the next day, and I was packed.  He did not come inside, and I imagine he stopped somewhere just before arriving, to use the restroom, maybe, and eat.

We drove the nine hours in silence, without a pause, and I was led to my old bedroom like a guest unfamiliar with the layout of the house.

I may have had 3 semester hours for the apt completion of "The Bible as Literature" class, but I had forgotten, let's say, that though Deuteronomy and Exodus are credited with the Ten Commandments, they cannot hold a candle to the grave legislation of Leviticus, written around the time of the Babylonian exile..

"You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 19:32).   Reverence, fear, curse, honor, obey, mock, scorn, contempt -- Biblical parent language is loaded language.

I remember sitting in that sterile room, as sterile as when I was enshrined there, admiring its fine appointment, its matchy-matchy with just enough pop to merit a mention in a regional interior decorator's quarterly.  And I felt the pressure building in my head, that old familiar weight and space of rotted wood, bad memories, and a green tarnished brass-clasp lock being reclaimed by my willing return to repression.

For this, I had traded a gun and a litany of sins.

As I write this, it has been 23 years since I have spoken with or seen my father.  I'll never again speak with him in this world; I think of him everyday, which does neither him nor me any good, but is, in all honesty, the best I can do. I know you think otherwise but I am able to look you squarely, clearly, cleanly in the eye, without shame.

Sometimes, usually early in the morning, in kitchens without musicians, the man I loved long dead, this other man here with me for decades now, and Baber's rabid enthusiasm finally understood as the self-medicated manic phase of bipolar disease, I also know that I could have done better.  Is there shame in surviving?

I talk to Dad at night sometimes, telling him of my lasting, my endurance -- the things that might matter to that military man and his ram-rod postures.

That's the last full measure of my devotion.

Sometimes the box in my mind is purposefully closed, purposefully locked, its warped woods clumsily and unevenly reconstituted.  Sometimes it breaks apart on its own, discharging not the horror and evils of the whorling, whoring world, but also what must be called its realities.

Sometimes shining hope, the great last line, is not so much a crackerjack prize lain at the vessel's bottom, underneath all the rest, but is the stark and ugly reminder of choices and consequences -- there's no blaming the gods and their pranks and ploys.

Sometimes hope is a loaded gun, never forgotten, never really gone, pristine, ready.


© 2013 L. Ryan

daddy, ella, and elvis: "an american trilogy"

This video has been floating around for a long time but I just saw it today (Thank you, Carol!).

uploaded to YouTube by HoundDogBilly on July 7, 2013


Ella's dad, Billy, wrote:

20 months old and she's a big fan of Elvis and her Daddy!

8/5/2013 UPDATE:
Thank you everyone for all the kind words about Ella Mae! We really appreciate all of the likes and shares!!! She really is a lot of fun as you can see.
To answer the big question, Yes Ella does like to sing other songs. Some of her favorites include, of course more Elvis - Suspicious Minds & Lawdy Miss Clawdy; The Beatles - Twist & Shout; Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut; JD McPherson - Fire Bug; The Beach Boys - Barbra Ann; Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song; Bobby Day - Rockin' Robin and Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting For You (duet with Mom!!!). However she is only 21 months old and easily distracted so it can be quite challenging to get another video like this one. If we can come up with another good one I will definitely post it.
For all of the comments about the straps on the car seat, we adjusted them shortly after posting this video. They now sit below her shoulders. Thanks for the advice!
Thanks again for all of the positive feedback!
-Billy

Pop & Hiss: Isolated Vocals and Instrumentals

The LA Times Music Blog, Pop & Hiss, pointed me to some wonderful minutes of musical happiness this morning.  There's a treasure trove of isolated vocal and instrumental tracks taken (somehow) from Beatles master recordings that have been uploaded to YouTube.  I could go on and on about my favorites but as I haven't yet listened to them all, let me just signal that they were, and now are again, great -- to my mind.

There are moments when each of the Fab Four emerge as a wondrous vocalist, masterful musician, as a leader of the band -- and the insight into the construction of their music is just plain cool.

The only trouble here is due to a lack of musical knowledge to begin with -- for instance, I read the comments raving about Paul's isolated bass line, and so I listen again, and... am whelmed into boredom.  It goes without saying that I don't play the bass guitar, but it also should be noted that I'm not so dim that I don't recognize a great bass guitar performance.

Okay.  So a great bass guitar performance has to have a single-mindedness midst what seems, by comparison, a babel of catchier noise.

Still.

There is a comfort, though, in not being in agreement with YouTube commentators.  Such a fun crowd of open-minded thinkers, raised, one and all, on the tenets of Emily Post.  I admit that something comes over one... something along the lines of "well, yes, actually -- if Billy decides to jump off the bridge, that may top off my decision to take the leap, too."

Anyway, go to YouTube and search "Beatles isolated tracks." It's one more shot at the Magical Mystery Tour.  Just don't read the comments.

© 2013 L. Ryan

Karen Black, 1939 - 2013

Easy Rider - Cemetery Acid Trip - 1969
uploaded to YouTube by MACHINE OLISTIC VISION ARTIFACTS -- mova

Scene Plot:

They continue to New Orleans and find the brothel George had intended to visit. Taking prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) with them, Wyatt and Billy decide to go outside and wander the parade-filled street of the Mardi Gras celebration. They end up in a cemetery, where all four ingest LSD. They experience a psychedelic bad trip infused with Catholic prayer, represented through quick edits, sound effects, and over-exposed film.

Trivia

For the famous soliloquy that Peter Fonda does in the cemetery while tripped on acid, Director Dennis Hopper asked Peter to talk to the statue as if he were talking to his mother, who died a suicide when Peter was 10 years old. Peter didn't want to do it, as he had never confronted his feelings about his mother. But Hopper insisted, which is why you hear Peter call the statue "Mother", and he states that he both loves her and hates her, which expresses his conflicted emotions. This scene persuaded Bob Dylan to allow the use of his song "It's Alright Ma" in one of the final scenes, which contains lyrics referencing suicide. Peter told Dylan, "I need to hear those words", and he agreed to its use. 

The New Orleans cemetery is St. Louis #1, a Catholic cemetery. They didn't have permission to shoot there and Catholic audience members were shocked that the church had allowed it. Since then no other films have been allowed to shoot at St. Louis #1, unless it's a documentary and you have permission.

Uploaded on Feb 23, 2011 by DarkLadyUK
Karen Black in one of my favorites --
Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a 1982 film adaptation of Ed Graczyk's 1976 play of the same name. The Broadway and screen versions were directed by Robert Altman, and starred Sandy Dennis, Cher, Mark Patton, Karen Black, Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates.

As with the original play, the film version takes place inside a small Woolworth's five-and-dime store in a small Texas town, where an all-female fan club for actor James Dean reunites in 1975. Through a series of flashbacks, the six members also reveal secrets dating back to 1955.

Jimmy Dean was the first of several feature adaptations of plays by Altman in the 1980s, after the director's departure from Hollywood. It was screened at various film festivals in North America and Europe, and won the top prize at the 1982 Chicago International Film Festival. This was the first release for New York-based independent outlet Cinecom, which Altman chose over a major studio "to guarantee a long play" in art house venues.

Nancy Pryor: The radio's dead. We're all alone now Bette.

© 2013 L. Ryan

she finally has a place all her own

I'd like to give a warm blogger's welcome -- oh, Lord, that sounds awful, like reheated, too thick, orangey cheese soup served over a chunk of brown bread, the pope's nose.

Let me try again.

Do you remember the many pleas made here and elsewhere on behalf of my friend Joyce and her husband Billy?  No?  Maybe?  Well, click HERE to refresh your memory.

Billy died, of course, which is what most people with Stage 4 lung cancer do, and Joyce has and will run the gamut of emotions in her grief, as most widows do.

She's full of stories.  They're just bubbling inside of her, trying to get out.

So she's started a blog.  She's called it: life, from childhood to adulthood.

Joyce is shy and sees herself as the product of an accumulation of bad, evil, and unlucky things. It is our job, Dear Readership, to show her a world of welcoming, to encourage her voice, and to respond to what she says -- or she might give up.

Actually, Friends, she will try to cut and run, write and delete, start and then declare it a failure.  So tell her about the day you realized that you had actually written a hundred posts, that writing regularly filled a void, and introduced you to people you'd otherwise never have met.  Tell her about the day you realized you had a voice, and that it mattered.

Just by virtue of having cats, and cute ones, at that, she's gonna have a certain following.  Dobby's ears are already rotating.

I've been learning a lot about writing lately and at the most unlikely of places -- a website for writers.  I already have a stalker there, a read idjit who calls himself -- get this! -- "amicus." I'd laugh out loud but my throat is raw.  It's a slice of real life -- some people are mean, some stupid, some open-hearted, some closed.  There's a whole lot of failed genius seeking comfort.  And vanity?  And vanity press ads?  Oy!

I'm having a great time.

Which is what I wish for Ms. Joyce Thang over there at life, from childhood to adulthood.  I joke about wanting her to write, not so much about the things that have happened in that lifetime, but what and whom she's seen, why she loves old cars, what is it about the thick blood of family?

I joke because if she tells her story -- life, from childhood to adulthood -- I am not sure we could take it.  So yes, may it all come out, but gently, layered between stories of the hills, revival tales, and character studies.  But it must come out, I imagine.  All of the hurt done to her needs its telling, too.

So make her not scared, not nervous -- but welcome.  She finally has a place all her own...

from Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Maybe there is hope, but hie, hie!

Maybe there is hope.  

I promised Fred that I'd wow him with productivity today, beginning with dealing with financial misdeeds, my favorite thing.  So I filed "cow udder balm" under The Castafiore's "operatic make-up products" (for which The Troupe reimburses us biannually).  So I managed to reroute the deposit of my automatic PCIP premium payment to my dear friend President Obama's "Hit List Necessities" (drone maintenance, mainly, and hostess gifts) -- with occasional faulty landings in the National Debt Fund morass.

Buddy the Freakishly Large Kitten, who, at age 2 is having another growth spurt (damn Maine Coons!), complete with a reappearance of his affinity for chewing wires, woke me.  He'd overheard the "productivity" comment and was going to be my aide in seeing it through.

Trouble was, I couldn't straighten my right leg, and who the heck knew where the left one even was?  My right arm was also misplaced, though I could definitively testify that the hand at the end of that arm was swollen and vcry cold.

"Pain pill," thought I, "and a cat with thumbs and whatever other attributes are necessary to the making of a good italian roast in my newly cracked cafetière, and once made, poured over the precise -- in measure as in temperature -- jigger of milk into my ugly green mug and brought to my thirsty lips... and not spilling a God-damned drop because I did manage to mop our wing of the Manor's West Extension yesterday, before falling into a coma."

And, again, as many times before in this blog, I long for a Pensieve.  ["The Pensieve is primarily a device for storing memories outside of one's own head."]  How many other bloggers do you know who long for a Pensieve?  Oh, hush up, Fresca.  (I miss Fresca.  We've never met, yet I miss her!)  Some people are just good people without the requirement of hoops, psychometrics, and disclosure of voting history.

See?  Now, YOU, too, wish for me a Pensieve.  And coffee, and such cats as are necessary to that coffee's procurement, and two 7.5/325 Endocet.  A veritable Peace Train of things.

Aha!  Never mistrust this mind, no matter how far gone, how medicated, how self-pitying, how covered with what appear to be moss-and-lichen twigs -- the lichen we attribute to my funkalicious osteomyelitis and ill-advised skinny dips in the moat during the off-season;  the moss can only be due to my crusty celadon-green Naturalism.  (Naturalism, where the Tea Party was meant to end up, those Baggers!)

But as Brother Yusuf Islam's vintage Peace Train now took over my brain, and its humming eradicated the harmonics of my pain and the displacement of my limbs, and the cats miraculously did manage to hoist my ugly green mug and precise coffee demands to my bedside table -- and after a mere 20 minutes of waiting for the meds to kick in... I grabbed the laptop to see how the world was.  And Peace Train went from thought impediment to badly gurgled half-tones to a full-voiced joyful rendition.  Feel free to join in:


Now I've been happy lately, 
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, 
something good has begun

Oh I've been smiling lately, 
dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, 
some day it's going to come

Cause out on the edge of darkness, 
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, 
come take me home again

Now I've been smiling lately, 
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, 
something good has begun

Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train
Come on now peace train
Yes, peace train holy  roller

Everyone jump upon the peace train
Come on now peace train

Get your bags together, 
go bring your good friends too
Cause it's getting nearer, 
it soon will be with you

Now come and join the living, 
it's not so far from you
And it's getting nearer, 
soon it will all be true

Now I've been crying lately, 
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating, 
why can't we live in bliss

Cause out on the edge of darkness, 
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, 
come take me home again


Why are you singing, all belly-free and without an inhibition in sight, much less on your shoulder?
Because even before I could locate the information necessary to determining whether the world had made it overnight, my eyes spied the title of an editorial:  "America’s Retreat From the Death Penalty."

Your voice is further buoyed by the small fact that it isn't a signed guest op-ed, or even a signed regular old tired op-eder.  It's a full-fledged New York Times editorial board piece.

There's not a brilliant bit in it.  There's no new information.  There's just the recognition that the whims and moods of America, as determined by its sorta-elected judiciary, have always determined the death penalty policies of this country.  But if you talk to Most People, Most People believe that there is a standardized, measurable, referable, repeatable standard that we keep in the Judiciary Closet -- something like units of measure that are convertible to any bloody, murderous circumstance.

It's true!  Once a decade or so, depending, we fight and tousle, then we remember the Judiciary Closet, where we have stored our imaginary Standards of Legal Measurement, and we all finally gather at the corner pub (or Applebees, if there be no corner pub in what used to pass for your neighborhood) to salute the good King Edwards of the 13th and 14th centuries:

When the Roman Empire passed into history about six hundred years after the time of Christ, Europe then drifted into the Dark Ages. For six or seven hundred years mankind generally made little progress with regard to standardizing measurement. Sometime after the Magna Charta was signed in the Thirteenth Century, King Edward I of England took a step forward. He ordered a permanent measuring stick made of iron to serve as a master standard yardstick for the entire kingdom. This master yardstick was called the "iron ulna", after the bone of the forearm, and it was standardized as the length of a yard, very close to the length of our present-day yard. King Edward realized that constancy and permanence were the key to any standard. He also decreed that the foot measure should be one-third the length of the yard, and the inch one thirty-sixth. King Edward II, in 1324, reverted back to the seed concept of the ancients and passed a statute that "three barleycorns, round and dry," make an inch. 

What?  Oh, I forgot to tell you.  The "Dark Ages" is just code for "hie, hie -- hie unto your metaphors!"  In case you're having trouble following, and who wouldn't, unless she had the assistance of Amazing Felines, Pharmaceuticals, and superb Italian Roast, the standardization of measurement based on what is purely arbitrary has links to both power and the most boring of everyday stuff (barley corns and ulnae), and on these standardizations we build domes, skyscrapers, knickknack shelves, and our opinions about the death penalty.  That last item means, you poor caffeine-deprived, bed-ridden sufferer, life itself.  Toss in the Pyramids and Chichen Itza, as well as most preserved Mayan architecture, and you'll agree with me -- we are some lucky sons-of-bitches, to have such divine wonders born of arbitrary forearms and the relative humidity of a seed.

Before I die, and I do believe this is going to be my year, finally, I'd love to see the Mayan "ruins." I don't know, though, whether they've been rendered handicapped accessible.  How it would suck to make it to the bottom of all that brilliance, only to find no wheelchair ramp.

I feel a  "We the People" Petition coming on.  I'm sure that  "We the People" Petitions cover USAmerican civil rights beyond the borders as well as within.

Anyway, we have stashed away, thanks to people like Napoleon, Jefferson, and Galileo's pendulum, brass bars as arbiters of the standards dissent that falls upon We the People from time to time.  Carry the metaphor over to the Judiciary Closet, and you'll see the main reason we fail at even discussing the Death Penalty with any reasonableness whatsoever.

That's why I stopped discussing it, unless bullied into it.  I mean, I once wore the tiara of DP Abolitionist for a small but brave-hearted Amnesty International group (we even managed to free a Prisoner of Conscience, upon which occasion we drank wine from wax cups).

But somehow, overnight, the editorial board of the New York Times realized that Right is Right, and published this, of which I'll give you a salivary striptease:

America’s Retreat From the Death Penalty 

When the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it said there were two social purposes for imposing capital punishment for the most egregious crimes: deterrence and retribution. In recent months, these justifications for a cruel and uncivilized punishment have been seriously undermined by a growing group of judges, prosecutors, scholars and others involved in criminal justice, conservatives and liberals alike. 

A distinguished committee of scholars convened by the National Research Council found that there is no useful evidence to determine if the death penalty deters serious crimes. Many first-rate scholars have tried to prove the theory of deterrence, but that research “is not informative about whether capital punishment increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates,” the committee said. 

A host of other respected experts have also concluded that life imprisonment is a far more practical form of retribution, because the death penalty process is too expensive, too time-consuming and unfairly applied. 

The punishment is supposed to be reserved for the very worst criminals, but dozens of studies in state after state have shown that the process for deciding who should be sent to death row is arbitrary and discriminatory. [Please click HERE for the remainder of the op-ed]

I almost feel that scoping out the rest of the world and what was done in it while I slept is unnecessary.  Over the cliff or not, who cares?  Aleppo, more dead, less, whatever!  Mitch McConnell grew a chin?  It was covered by his health plan and will help him govern more effectively. Hillary Clinton has faked yet another illness? (What do you expect from an hysterical female?  She probably couldn't hold an aspirin between her knees long enough to earn the Presidential Fitness Award.)

None of it matters.

Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace trainOh peace train take this country, come take me home again

I know, I'm being a gullible rube again.  Leave me to it, at least for the afternoon.  Let me be capricious in my generalizations of a Bunch O'Words, if it makes me happy.  Words matter.






Upcoming Scheduled Executions in the U.S.

All scheduled execution dates cited are tentative. A number of circumstances exist that can change the date.
To write a letter to stop any of the scheduled executions, please use this directory of government officials to direct your letters.


January
1/16/2013 Robert Gleason Jr. -- Virginia
1/16/2013 Ronald Post -- Ohio
1/29/2013 Kimberly McCarthy -- Texas
February
2/20/2013 Britt Ripkowski  -- Texas
2/21/2013 Carl Henry Blue -- Texas
March
3/6/2013 Frederick Treesh -- Ohio
3/21/2013 Michael Dean "Spider" Gonzalez -- Texas
April
4/10/2013 Rigoberto Avila -- Texas
4/16/2013 Ronnie Threadgill -- Texas
May
5/1/2013 Steven Smith -- Ohio
July
7/31/2013 Douglas Feldman -- Texas
August
8/7/2013 Billy Slagle -- Ohio
September
9/25/2013 Harry Mitts, Jr. -- Ohio
November
11/14/2013 Ronald Phillips -- Ohio
January
1/16/2014 Dennis McGuire -- Ohio
March
3/19/2014 Gregory Lott -- Ohio
May
5/28/2014 Arthur Tyler -- Ohio
October
10/14/2014 Raymond Tibbetts -- Ohio
January
1/7/2015 Warren Henness -- Ohio

In Honor of the New Joyce::In Fond Memory of Billy

I've written a few posts about my friend Joyce and her husband Billy. Billy died on the morning of November 13, 2012.  Unable to afford a funeral, he signed papers to donate his body to science and that broke a few hearts. There are plans for a memorial service in early January and I hope that will be a balm.

Due to red tape gobbledy-guck, Joyce's disability check will be cut to $80 for the month of December, returning to its usual robust, over-the-top $600 in January.

Please, if you can, help her get through this month by donating to Billy's Fund, which is now a Memorial Fund.  Joyce is raising Shawna, who is in high school (and we all know HSchoolers need food, shelter, and other mysterious stuffs!).  Christmas, which is going to be hard enough, could be made a little easier with small gifts.

Go HERE to donate.

Thank you for reading and responding to these calls and reminders of need -- I know need is everywhere, and that we all give in one way or another.  And yes, I'm daring to ask for more... because you don't know what a miracle it is that Joyce has spoken up at all.  I want her to keep speaking up, and to discover that there are people to talk to, to work with, and who care.

She can be wickedly stubborn in seeing the world as a cruel place, and has a past that can bolster that point of view, if she lets it.  But over the past few years, even as her own health got worse, she started to reclaim life and its pleasures.

It is my greed, then, that asks you to donate -- I dread that former Joyce, so sure of a world that thought nothing of her, and long to keep and strengthen this woman who is learning that she can be happy, that she can do most anything!

But underneath all those fine words is the realtiy that $80 won't get them from December 1, 2012 to January 1, 2013.

shawna,   billy,   joyce

Billy Long, Rest In Peace

Joyce Ann Long ‏@ann_joyce50

Billy passed away at 10:03am this morning

Castle Bridge, connecting Caldwell and Burke Counties in Western North Carolina

Joyce Ann Long ‏@ann_joyce50

Guest Book for Billy Long – Online Guest Book by Hickory Daily Record and http://Legacy.com . http://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/hickoryrecord/guestbook.aspx?n=billy-long&pid=161051046#.UKQ17NnN2DI.twitter …


Billy Bradford Long GRANITE FALLS Billy Bradford Long, 57, of Granite Falls, passed away Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, at his home. Billy was born Nov. 28, 1954. He was a veteran of the U.S.Army, having served from 1973 to 1980. He is preceded in death by a brother, John Long; and his parents, Dale and Getty Long. Survivors include his wife, Joyce Williams Long; mother-in-law, Olivee Williams; sister-in-law, Jeannie Williams; brother-in-law, Michael Williams; three daughters, Misty Bentley and family friend, Michael Sebert, Christy Casco, and Shawna Williams; and three grandchildren, Brian, Aric, and Christopher; his brothers, Tony Long and wife, Linda, Gary Long and wife, Lisa, and Roger Long and wife, Damaris, of Conover; and Libby Silcox, and daughter, Jessi, of Hickory; and many nieces and nephews. There will be a memorial service held at a later date.

Veterans' Day: Update on Billy, an Ignored, Mentally Disabled, Dying Vet

*Billy Long passed away this morning, Tuesday, November 13, 2012, at 10:03 AM*

Joyce Ann Long ‏@ann_joyce50

Guest Book for Billy Long – Online Guest Book by Hickory Daily Record and http://Legacy.com . http://www.legacy.com/guestbooks/hickoryrecord/guestbook.aspx?n=billy-long&pid=161051046#.UKQ17NnN2DI.twitter …

to help them: click HERE
to see all posts about billy posted previously on this blog, click HERE

Grandson Brian telling Billy, "I love you."

Billy Long served seven years in the Army before being diagnosed with schizophrenia.  He was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer several months ago, in a pretty dismissive fashion.  Sent home with hospice care, his family, mostly Joyce, his wife, has cared for him every minute of every day.  The hospice nurse comes twice a week, and an aide comes to help bathe him..Joyce is not accustomed to "help," so I am not sure she is getting all that she could.  Unlike the perfect rest of us, she suffers from pride, and like so many from a disadvantaged background, she does not trust easily.

Billy got much worse this week, talking to people not there, often talking to his oldest grandson, Brian, for whom he served as a father figure.  Brian is having a very hard time, as are the other two grandkids -- who all live with Billy's stepdaughter Christina in the apartment next door.

Billy is now unresponsive.

They have no money, and Joyce, also disabled by fibromyalgia and severe osteoarthritis, will see her disability income cut to $80 a month when he dies.

And this disabled vet, who served while suffering (and one must conclude, *obviously* suffering) from a disability, is being ignored now, just as he was ignored when he served his country.

Joyce's daughter Christina started a FundRazr online to help with the co-pays and ambulance charges that they were assured were not going to be charged -- for the car they had to buy to get back and forth to hospitals and ERs -- for the gas -- for the nightly meals of hot dogs -- for the nutritional drinks that were Billy's last meals.  (The reason the FundRazr campaign is in Christina's name is that Joyce does not have a bank account.)

I went to Joyce's Facebook page this morning and read:

Was up all night with Billy, he was very restless, talking and mumbling all night. Now he is unresponsive since 9am this morning. When he passes there will not be a funeral for him, back in August when he went into Hospice care he signed papers for Body donation even though its not what he really wanted to do, so Christina started a fundraiser in September to maybe get help for a funeral, and some of his and our bills together, he was hoping to be able to change his mind and have a real funeral, But for THIS VET WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY, there will be no last minute miracles as the fundraiser didnt get the results he hoped for. Today is VETERANS DAY and it is still not to late to help, there are quite a few bills related to his cancer, so if you can please visit the sight below and donate what you can:::  https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/aMEW9  via FundRazr.org

It's too late for Billy.

It's not too late to help Joyce -- who is raising her sister's daughter (and has since birth), and still caring, in many ways, for her two adult daughters, and those three handsome, talented grandsons.

I'm begging you now.  To help them, click HERE.

Happy Veterans' Day

Billy in the Army

Billy Bradford Long GRANITE FALLS Billy Bradford Long, 57, of Granite Falls, passed away Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, at his home. Billy was born Nov. 28, 1954. He was a veteran of the U.S.Army, having served from 1973 to 1980. He is preceded in death by a brother, John Long; and his parents, Dale and Getty Long. Survivors include his wife, Joyce Williams Long; mother-in-law, Olivee Williams; sister-in-law, Jeannie Williams; brother-in-law, Michael Williams; three daughters, Misty Bentley and family friend, Michael Sebert, Christy Casco, and Shawna Williams; and three grandchildren, Brian, Aric, and Christopher; his brothers, Tony Long and wife, Linda, Gary Long and wife, Lisa, and Roger Long and wife, Damaris, of Conover; and Libby Silcox, and daughter, Jessi, of Hickory; and many nieces and nephews. There will be a memorial service held at a later date.

Looking For A Way To Make A Difference?

I can tell that my repeated requests for you, Dear Readers, to donate to the FundRazr campaign on behalf of my friend Joyce's dying husband and her essentially destitute family have apparently stirred you to the heights of apathy.... I have my sneaky means of finding these things out, such as how the total amount of money raised to help them stay flush in food, basic shelter, medicine, and gasoline hasn't risen above $62 in months.

Sooooo.... if you are looking for a way to feel a little better about your skinflint selves, here you go:  FundRazr will feature her effort to get some money to make Billy's last days somewhat easier this Friday, in honor of Veterans' Day.


About FundRazr.com:  "With FundRazr you can raise money for Anything. Anywhere.
Disaster relief, personal fundraising, group, non-profit, organizations, schools, churches, family, politics, causes, health, animals, accident, charity, legal, memorials, education, veterans, arts, entrepreneurs, celebrations, events, community, travel, volunteer..."  Right now, of course, their home page features the myriad needs created by the monster storm Sandy.

Billy's page can be found HERE. It was set up by one of Joyce's daughter's Christina.  It could be better if that family had Mad Men skills, but they're kind of busy having hot dogs for dinner every night. Billy served his country for seven years, then was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  He's a smoker, and was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer just a few months ago.  There will be no "estate," only debt, and there won't be a windfall of veteran's benefits or life insurance.

So, please, help this family out.  All three grandkids have money-sucking illnesses -- from ADD, stunted growth, and migraines,  to Arnold–Chiari malformation and psychological issues from stress, poverty... and well, isn't that enough? Joyce also juggles the fiery combinaions that come with a family stricken with the genes of addiction, that lead to narcissistic compulsions to lie, steal, beg, and generally ignore the needs of this struggling sister, daughter, aunt, and mother.


So, Sweet Reader:  Advertise that FundRazr compaign for Billy and his family!  Tweet it!  Make yourself a sandwich-board sign and stroll about your town with insouciance and affected panache! By helping Billy die with dignity, you help Joyce carry on, you help those kids, you plant the notion of a seed that people really do care.

Confuse the public tomorrow -- they'll be expecting an inundation of blither and blather about Obama and Romney and the inevitable congressional battles -- bring them up short, reboot their tired brains with information about how to actually effect real, tangible change:  by helping Billy die with dignity, by chipping away at the medication co-pays and ambulance bills, by helping Joyce finish raising her sister's child, and serve as the stability in the lives of her own biological daughters' lives, and her 3 beloved grandsons.

You can pray all you like.  Send purple, pink, sea foam green balloons with sweet wishes inside up into the ether to choke birds and litter the landscape.  Grace the universe with good thoughts.  Make a vow to help the next needy person you trip over on the sidewalk.

You can also donate a dollar.  Use user-friendly PayPal.  Steal a buck from your Aunt Mathilda's purse. Tithe 10% of your casino winnings.  Go bet on the horses!  Swipe your kids' Halloween candy and sell it back to them, a dime a Skittle.

Billy has taken a turn for the worse, as of last night.  He cannot think clearly due to oxygen debt, despite them pumping in O2 as fast and as at high a rate as they can.  Though he's dropped an awful lot of weight, he's still a big guy, and I am very scared at the thought of him getting up and falling.  Joyce is there alone, with only her teen daughter in the apartment to help.

The nurse today heard no breath sounds on one side, and very labored, diminished ones on the other.  Billy rambles, thinking he is talking to his grandson Brian, for whom he has essentially served as father.

All the nurse could do was order some Ativan and advise Joyce that there would now be more bad days than good, and that he'd not likely make it to Christmas.  Personally, I think that was a pissy bit of not-much help, but I've never worked as a hospice nurse, never stood before a harried, harassed  stretched-to-the-max woman who is running on empty.

Okay, so your own life is tragic -- your own stories would chill my spine.  But you're smart, you're something of a techie, you're good-hearted.  Find a way to get people to go to the FundRazr page on Friday (or any day, duh!) and remind your own sweet crowd that we are all in this together.

You can even use the old "six degrees of separation" thing, though that's probably a bit tired.  I'll leave it up to you.

I would not want to be accused of being bossy or telling you your business.

P.S.  Somewhere in the margins of this blog is an invitation for you to leave traces of yourself here.  I've always meant it.  I know your stories are supremely important, your needs as soul-devouring as can be.  I've been blessed to share in some of your great moments of happiness.  It's sadly typical that I may never have thanked you -- for whatever trace you've left, even those silent electronic breezes that sometimes take my own breath away.

Getting it all out, at once...

If you don't hate cancer, you ought to.  I take that back... maybe you are different from me -- it happens -- and you come at cancer with your love of life and a refusal of hate, a refusal to hate anything or anyone.

I'm resigned to not being that great of a person.  I've almost come to accept Nate Silver's probabilities that I'll go to Hell.

There is, right now, too much cancer in my life... and it's not even in my life, properly speaking.

It's in my friend Joyce's life, as she watches her husband Billy struggle to breathe and lose, perhaps thankfully, his grasp on reality.  She's amazing. Trust me on that...

Joyce and Billy on September 15, 2012

Joyce wrote on her Facebook page, this past Monday:

Billy's nurse just left, he has gone downhill very fast. She said there were NO lung sounds at all on the right and very little on the left. He has been out of it, talking to himself and people thats not there. He is sooooo worried about leaving Brian, when we ask him what he said he will say he was talking to Brian, and Brian isn't here. 

Brian is Billy's oldest grandson, who knows him more as a father...

Cancer is still in Kate McRae's life every day, too -- but she's been doing wonderfully, and hopefully will continue to be cancer free.  She and her mom Holly, and her dad Aaron, sister Olivia, brother Will are in the midst of that unimaginable angst of it being "MRI" time.  Oh, and she has pneumonia.  Holly wrote, a few days ago:

This will be 6 months out of treatment, and my heart continually reminds me that she relapsed at 9 months out of treatment last time. We pray for CLEAN scans. Not just to the Dr's eye, but that there would be distinctly no cancer cells left in her body. None. And no confusion upon reading the scan.

Kate McRae, courtesy of her CaringBridge site

HAPPY UPDATE for Ms. Kate:   "No Evidence of Disease!!!!!! Some of my favorite words!" Yayyyy!  That was Holly's tweet after Kate managed a 3-hour MRI without anesthesia, because of her pneumonia. The funniest tweet came next:

Kate: "Mom, I love you, by please don't shout it out about my MRI. They are strangers. You are embarrassing yourself. "

Not even close, Ms. Thang!

Moving on... of the other children I follow (I try to keep it at four... no idea why, but four it is) -- my personal hero, another Ms. Thang (check out her bangled-braceleted arm!), Hannah, has finished her chemo and despite a struggle with its side effects, is home.  Her nonchalance in the face of rotationplasty made me feel quite ashamed at my regret at losing a shoulder, and her courage before all that followed made me a teeny bit less self-absorbed, hard as that may be for my Dear Readers to believe.

Hannah's photo courtesy of her CaringBridge site

My third kid is also hanging in there, though his path is rough:  Sweet Braden and his super-courageous mom Maranda.  His most recent MRI?  Maranda wrote:

Brayden's MRI is completely stable. The Dr is very pleased. We are so relieved. Happy tears all around. Thank you is not enough, but it is all I have at the moment, plus lots of love from us.

Brayden's cancer, though, is not that simple.  But "stable"?  Hell, we'll take "stable."  Here's Handsome Boy:

Handsome Braden, courtesy of his CaringBridge site

 But... as reader TAM and I have commented, back and forth, both of us with the profound luxury of watching only selective truths, and from the comfort of our computers... it is grim with young Joey Keller.
I simply cannot bring myself to bring you up-to-date, if you have chosen to get news of Joey here.  I encourage you to go to his CaringBridge site as the situation is as complex spiritually as it is medically. Bless his parents and their faithful entourage, they cannot let him go... when perhaps, he needs to.  My worst fear is that he may want to, but is so tender-hearted, loves them so much, that he cannot say so, cannot give himself permission, lacking theirs.  This feels cruel to write, and a cold chill of guilt envelops me.  I cannot know or come close to imagining Nick and Elizabeth's tortured pain... but I *do* have a vague idea of Joey's, and that drives my cruel words.

Nick last updated the CaringBridge journal in the very early morning of November 7:

We saw the MRI. Major growth on lumbar spine, brainstem, and in temple regions sort of growing towards the center of his brain. It WAS in CSF kind of "on" his brain, now it seems its growing into and through his actual brain cells and tissue. Wicked, evil disease. We discussed hospice and the reports from all relevant medical teams was, "anything else we could do will cause more harm and damage than any potential for help or therapeutic upside." They do believe his unusually high heart is do to the cancer spot/tumor/lesion on or in his brain stem. We flat out need a miracle. Otherwise, what he will have to endure, systematic loss of brain and organ function, system failure, ventilator again, it's unthinkable. They were especially concerned looking at this MRI vs. the one just a month ago (brain) bc Its really moving quickly. We have got to pray. All those scriptures I looked up and listed in previous CB postings on faith and healing, haven't changed. The promises regarding healing...haven't changed. We've exhausted every medical option that exists (due diligence.) Now, We look to God to do what only He can. All day long I kept thinking about the Israelites looking at the Red Sea, the Egyptians racing to basically cut their throats or put them back into slavery. They thought they were dead. Or at best, had no idea how God would get them out this, this time. Slaves for 400 years, finally free, and now this??? To die here, like this? All day long I've been getting texts from buddies and pastors from those very chapters. Don't believe it's a coincidence. The thought keeps going through my head, if its not impossible, it's not a miracle. Thx for praying for our Joey.
PS- I have been inundated with emails and texts and VM's. thank you all so much for your kind words and for reaching out. I just can't get to them all. In time, I will read and hopefully respond to every one. There are some aspects of my job I must do everyday and outside of that, my time/energy is focused on Joey. I hope you understand. Please, pray. Just pray. Thank you.

Father and Son

Please Help Billy

Billy and his three grandsons

I was just getting ready for bed when I made my last Twitter rounds and saw this:

Joyce Ann Long ‏@ann_joyce50

not what I wanted to hear, the nurse said Billy is on a decline, and there would be more of these episodes

Details

5hJoyce Ann Long ‏@ann_joyce50

having to get the nurse out here, Billy is not acting right, I cant get him in the bed.

Details

CLICK HERE FOR BILLY'S FUNDRAZR   

I hope Joyce, Billy's wife, doesn't mind -- I'm stealing part of her blog posted on the Dr Phil website.  I think it helps us know him better, and if you've been on the fence about donating a few dollars to their FundRazr effort, maybe this will help you make up your mind and give a little.


I got Billy to eat just a little bit earlier which is better than not eating at all.

It is so hard to watch him each day knowing how much pain he has and not being able to do anything. Since August 13th when he came home from the hospital he has lost 30 more pounds so that is a total of 55 lbs.  He has had such a hard life already.  He has been abandoned by parents that should never have been parents (there were 4 kids one died of a drug overdose before I met Billy) when he was very small. Him and his brother apparently went to a foster home and orphanage (his other brother the one that passed on and his sister went to a foster home in Hickory) where his uncle found them and took them in, but from the stories I have been told Billy was alsway being thrown out due to his undiagnosed schizophrenia, so he has been homeless a lot, living on the streets and eating out of trashcans.  

He joined the Army the day he turned 18 and was stationed in Germany for a couple years. He was 22 when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia at Fort Bening, Georgia. He has been married once before to a woman that apparently was quite abusive to him. His sister said she was always calling him names and belittleing him and smacking him

One of the things I always got so mad at was him giving his money away, but his sister said he has done that all his life too. He would work (when he lived with his sister and before becoming disabled) and one time he heard this woman talking about needing money to feed her kids, he just got paid that day, cashed his check, kept a few dollars for himself and gave the rest to her. Libby said he was always like that, he would come home on payday and she would ask him about his check and he would say he gave it to someone that needed it more than he did.

Thought I would just share a little bit about him, he has his ways but for the most part he is really a good guy, always worried about everyone else, he still gives his money away although not as much. He has had a habit of giving everyone an allowence, he has to make sure Misty, Christina, Brian, Aric, Christopher and Shawna gets 10 to 20 dollars each,  every month. He even gave my brother money when he lived with us. I told him no wonder I couldnt get rid of anybody, he was paying them to live with us.  I dont fuss at him now for doing it, its his disability and as long as I can pay the bills he can give it away if he wants to.   There has been plenty of times we have had to borrow money (almost every month) the last week of the month to make it to payday and I would tell him that if he wouldnt give everything away we wouldnt have to do that, but he never listened, he would still give it away anyway.


Please donate what you are able -- Joyce cares not just for her husband, but really, she sees to the welfare of her mother, one of her daughters (disabled), her three (hyperactive!) grandsons, another daughter in her senior year of high school, and deals with a drug-addicted sister and brother who have an innate sense of when to strike for sympathy.  Then there are the twin daughters of the aforementioned sister, who are now also into drugs, and appear to have developed eating disorders.  

Their needs are great but I honestly believe you and I can help, as much as money can help, and prayers and intentions offered to the universe and God.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO BILLY'S FUNDRAZR PAGE.