Saturday, February 10, 2024

and the wizard cast a spell…

and the wizard cast a spell….


Magic always scared Joey as a kid, but eventually it was an area of curiosity, a desire to understand and eventually an obsession. As Joey aged and life deposited flakes of love, happiness, grief, pain, sorrow and everything that one could endure, magic fell to the wayside. Magic because something that Joey wanted to understand, but experience taught that not being able to understand something left you scared of the unknown, afraid that people will think less of you, anxious and needing to know the answer and alone with nobody to have it all explain (as the code of magic insists). Magic found a way out of Joey’s life and laid dormant for many years. Books, movies, and anything to do with magic were not a part of Joey any longer. 


Just as magic happens, the dust of a wizard or a sorcerer fell upon Joey. Covered, uncertain and terrified, Joey tried to cleanse the magic dust away, but Joey had no power or ability and quickly and happily gave in to the beauty, the magic and the incredible adventures that Joey would have never allowed to experience again. Joey smiled, laughed and the fear dissipated and magic was fully consumed again. 

All the wonder and confusion was of no concern. Joey reveled in the bright colors, the moon, the mountains, the sky, the soft place to fall and the comfort and easiness of the passion for magic. Joey believed again, like a child eating chocolate for the first time, Joey smiled and wiggled and rejoiced. 

In all of Joey’s belief the concept of the loss of believing, the loss of the power of magic left the heart, but it was reminded from time to time. It caused Joey to panic and be fraught with sadness and pain as magic has consumed the entire soul in so many ways and healed broken wounds with simple spells; loss was unwanted. 


As all magic can, while Joey was unable to guard a spell away, a powerful spell was cast and Joey was thrown to the wall, slid down and left for broken. Joey, alive, but destroyed by this invisible think called a spell, was again left with pain, hurt, discomfort, anger and the reminder magic and spells, real or not, can bind you, destroy you and often without the an antidote. 


“Practices classified as magic include divination, astrology, incantations, alchemy, sorcery, spirit mediation, and necromancy. The term magic is also used colloquially in Western popular culture to refer to acts of conjuring and sleight of hand for entertainment. (Britannica.com, 1/2024).”

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

she called….

She called earlier that afternoon in April. She told me that she would be home at 4:15 and would like to pick me up so we could go run some errands. I agreed and went carelessly about the rest of my afternoon.  Simplicity was my closest friend at that time in my journey we call life. Day to day chores, sitting, reading and anything to do with my hands were all that I could manage as I felt such angst. I knew nothing of the cause of my angst, just thoughts swirling in my head that had nothing to grasp onto to tie them down to reality, so I avoided thinking, puzzling and sleuthing for an answer. As taught to believe, I trusted the angst was simply created in my body by my quickened pulse, unsettled stomach and an ache that loomed over every inch of me. It had not taken me over, not just yet, but the mere threat consumed my mind. 

Time ticked slowly as it never seemed it was going to reach 4:15. I wanted a task, something, anything to take the imaginary threat away. I closed my eyes as I showered and as I felt the water I imagined the water trickling down my body stealing every painful memory or thought being gathered in the drops and sucked through the drain far, far and further away from me. As I turned the valve off and grabbed the towel, I felt a wetness, a different sensation and I turned to look in the mirror and recognized the sad eyes and the tears streaming through the clean water dripping off of my face. The shower failed to take it all away. 

I dressed and I sat. 4:15 came and as per usual she was pulled into our driveway at that very moment. Slowly I stood and guided myself slowly to the door. I took a breath in and reminded myself to smile and that the next few hours would be a distraction, a beautiful time with this woman I loved so dearly, that there would be a moment when she placed her right hand slowly across the back of my neck; her middle finger first to make contact with my skin, to be followed by her ring finger and then the pressure would deepen and her whole hand would hold my neck with a slight tug to bring me closer into her. As my body would give in and fall to my left into her, her left hand would, in one motion land ever so softly onto my face and kiss my cheek as my head fell forward in awe of the intensity of her passion. 

As I approached the car I reminded myself again of the coming moment and the looming angst was immediately cast down with passion and power. I opened the familiar car door and slowly sat down and allowing my anticipation to rise and was damn near shy to make eye contact before the moment began. I closed the door and began to put on my seatbelt. The moment always began once I was safely buckled in and my body pulsed and longed for this moment to begin. I reached for the seatbelt and felt it in my damn near shaking hand and pulled it across my needing body and found the latch. I heard it buckle and my entirety was alive and aware. I pulled my head up and center and slowly started to look down, expecting the first touch of her middle finger. I felt nothing. I waited and became quickly dead as my blood pulsed loudly through my body. I saw movement to my left and when my eyes were no longer blurry I saw that she placed the car in reverse and now the car was slowly moving beneath me. 

I took a breath and considered quickly what was happening. Did she forget? Did something happen? Was it all a dream? What was happening? 

She completed backing up and the car was now turned and ready for the forward motion to begin the physical journey of wherever our destination was when my eyes glanced at the gear shift as her delicate hand was releasing it and in that second it was clear, it was beyond clear to me. I stared trying to disbelieve, but the clarity was too bright. Just a few millimeters above the shifter was a place where a small ashtray was to exist, but it did not come with the package of the car we bought a few years ago. It was just simply a barren enclaved spot where her wedding ring now lie, abandoned, alone and unlike the enclaved spot above the shifter, had a very specific purpose. As she approached the stop sign just a few feet from our position on the road, I felt my right hand grab the door handle and my body begin to leave the vehicle that had delivered this crushing and catastrophic clamp on my heart. As I disembarked, my left hand crossed my body as I was reaching for the door to close, when startled I began to feel those drops down my face again, my wedding ring was no longer on my hand, either. 

she never saw him coming …

She never saw him coming as he crossed the threshold into her world. It was as if they vapored into air and became one before they ever even met. Delicious with desire he managed to stumble over his feet and fumble awkwardly away from her. Without intent, he relinquished his control and he quickly became hers. The storm they created enveloped them and kept reality at bay. Neither could find the ground and the air they floated in was soft to the touch and peaceful on their hearts. Reality, like a firestorm, began to tear the fabric of their covered storm and slowly pieces trickled to the ground until there was nothing left. She looked at him in the final shards lying on the swollen ground and knew that it was simply a dream, a desire, a comfort that held her together. Without the mended pieces she was lost and trapped within the hurricane that was left behind when they molded. Unable to piece herself back together she lay dormant until she simply faded away.

it seemed so simple

It seemed so simple how they met. She on a cruise with her family and he at a bar near where the ship docked for the day. Casually he sat on his stool leaning over the bar grasping his brown beer bottle with his right hand. Slumped and slightly defeated his look said to her, as she entered with her sister. He didn’t notice her, not at first. As she and her sister crossed behind him he caught a glimpse of her in the mirror before him that sat awkwardly behind the bar. His eyes opened a bit more, but he did not turn around. He tracked her by her voice, or what he assumed was hers. He hadn’t noticed the sister and was unsure if she was with a male companion. He remained in his pose as he heard the first laugh and chills danced along his spine. This forced him to sit up abruptly, which gave her what felt like a long awaited reason to glance over. Their eyes met. He, ..he, dropped his shoulders and a solemn expression dripped onto his face. She, … she, nervously smiled and looked away as her pulse quickened and she became unknowing of how to respond. She felt a longing and a sadness that she could not determine. Slowly her gaze found his again. His face had not changed and the sadness was flowing into her. She crept up to the bar beside him and placed her left hand on his right shoulder. She slowly tightening her grip before he lifted his head and simply said, “I’ve found you.”

15 years later, he again, sitting slumped at a local watering hole where they lived, beer clutched in his right hand and his left hand softly laid on the bar with his silver wedding band exposed, she walks in unknowing he was there. Again, she walked behind him and he saw a quick glance of the woman he had devoted his entire self to since the first glance in a mirror behind a bar. His posture changed this time. He sat up, a smile charged through him and developed on his face. He was rejuvenated and full of life and hope. He placed his beer down with his right hand, slowly turned his stool in the direction in which she had walked. He lifted his left hand off of the bar and his right hand ever so immediately grasped the wedding band as his emotions took flight. Once the stool met its stopping spot caused by his foot on the rung of the stool his eyes found the object of his happiness. His fingers still laced around his wedding band, his heart so full of feelings, of desire and happiness, he saw her face; he saw her eyes looking at him. Every ounce of his breath, blood, emotion, and being fell beneath the stool, dripping out of his soul and his body. That look. That one look. That look that he had believed was his, was no longer. He could not gather his physical self to do anything. He simply just floundered to keep his balance. Not because he had drank too much, in fact he wasn’t much of a drinker, but because like a car sputtering the last ounce of gas and then dies, is what his mind, body and heart just experienced. She never saw him that day. He found his way out of the bar before she noticed him. He never saw her again. He never heard from her again. He never told any one of what he saw. He packed his things and he was gone. He left the state. He left , in his words, everything behind, because she, she was everything. He never recovered and he never was able to deliver happiness to his eyes, his self or allow himself to be steady within his emotions. 

She, she left that bar with her male companion that day. He drove her to a fine dining restaurant and as he walked around his car to open her door, she glanced at her wedding ring and felt every piece of love she had ever had for him. As the male companion opened the door, she slowly and awkwardly rose from the seat and met his gaze. “I didn’t know what was missing in my marriage when I agreed to this date, but I know now. It’s me, I am missing from my marriage. He is the reason my blood runs through my body. I am sorry to you, but I must go.”

With that, she closed the car door and walked past the male companion as he looked annoyed and confused. 

She walked the first block and quickly realized that with every step she was going faster and faster to get home to him. She was running and the wind was chapping her cheeks and she did not care. She dodged the occasional people on the street and tried to manage the streets as she crossed them, until it her. The blue Honda Accord struck her so intensely that when her head hit the windshield her legs and torso were already bouncing off the roof. She died instantly. 

He, … he grieved his loss for the rest of his breathing existence never knowing that she was gone. He longed for her to find him, but never knew that her last act was running straight to be in his arms.

and he said….

And he said, everything is going to be ok as he slid his hand down her cheek. 

She lightly smiled as a tear quietly escaped her right eye. She blinked as her face flushed with the quickness of her heartbeat. She closed her eyes and whispered to him as he clenched his jaw and simultaneously removed his hand and his person, turned and as quickly as that, he was a figment of her imagination. There simply lies air in front of her now. She tries to breathe him in, but there’s nothing left to absorb in her lungs. He is gone, has been gone, and will forever be gone. The earth shuttered beneath her as the beast that is grief swallows her entirety.

Monday, March 3, 2014

My Mother, Her Battle for Life and the Cyclical System of Health Care

My mother is 63 years young. My brother and I always called her The Giving Tree. She is beautiful, stunning and more intellectually brilliant then the vision off a cliff gleaming down on the ocean crashing against bright silver rocks. She is talented, creative and nothing short of incredible. Becky took her life by storm, raised two children on her own, opened a company and quickly rose to be the leading female entrepreneur in this country. She started the staff leasing business (which she named after her children, Heatherton), posed on the covers of the fancy magazines, dined with the politicians, shook hands with Oprah and did nothing but succeed at everything that she touched.


My mom, Becky, made an easy decision in her youth that her children would not have a childhood that even remotely resembled her own. Becky, full of steam, chugged forward every day of my childhood no matter how tired, sick, frustrated she felt. Mom worked around the clock, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 hour days if she had to… whatever she had to in order to make her dreams come true. Her dreams were simple, 1. Her children would receive the best education possible no matter what it cost. 2. Her children would have a wonderful home to call their own. 3. Her children would become the kind of people that would be giving, thoughtful and successful in the world. 4. Her children would attend college and graduate. 5. Her children would be successful on their own. Lastly, number 6, her children would be good people. She shed every leaf off of every one of her branches, lost strength in her trunk, but she would never, ever stop giving.
                                                
My brother and I are both adults now, me being the eldest. We have successful lives, dreams, vision and we are always helping people, and taking time to grow within ourselves. My mother’s success provided her with her 6 dreams to come true, but not everyone got their wish.


I don't get it! I just don't get it. I am sick to my stomach every single day and am plagued by the overwhelming frustration of it all.


My mother has 2 rare blood diseases, had a bone marrow transplant and has leukemia. She also has a lot of related graph versus host issues from the bone marrow transplant and a host of other medical issues.


She cannot work, due to the medical issues.


Thus, she is dependent on the very small amount of money that the state of Indiana perceives as just above the poverty line.


She cannot get affordable health care because of her pre-existing conditions.


Thus, she is forced to have a spend-down, meaning that she must first spend $1,500 of her own money before the insurance will cover anything.


However, she does not receive enough money from the state of Indiana to afford her spend-down.


She must take all 15 of her medications, or she will die.


She cannot afford the $1,500 worth of medications.


She has to pay rent, for she has to live somewhere, but she cannot afford to pay rent,  because she has to take the medications that keep her alive, that she cannot afford, because she cannot have health care because she was struck down by her own body, not by a crime that she committed.


She cannot breathe because the pain is so bad. When she cannot breathe, she gets infections in her lungs and she gets sick. She can’t go to the doctor because that is more money on top of the $1,500 for her medications that she cannot afford so she spends days crawling across her bedroom floor trying to reach the bathroom as she is aspirating on her own vomit, but she can’t go to the doctor since she can’t have insurance because he body waged a war that our country won’t help her fight.


My mother cannot walk, now, because the pain in her legs is so fierce that she must rely on a walker. But, she cannot use the walker because her hands have lost all strength and she is supposed to have surgery on them, but that of course costs money that they health care won’t afford her and the great state of Indiana surely will not care about.


Due to the pain, she is breathing so erratically that she is back to being on oxygen all of the time, when she can get to it. She falls a lot and she bleeds, and bruises. She has such extreme pain in her legs that a phone call home is one that near breaks me in two and leaves me for dead. She is panting, moaning, seething in pain. I cannot bare it. My heart cannot manage her utter desperation and pain. She is my mother, she is my mom, she is my mommy, she is the one that held me in her arms and promised to breathe life into me at any moment that I may not be able to do so myself. She is my mother.


My mother is suffering and there is no help? How is there not a health care provider that will assist with this awful and torturous situation? My mother is brilliant, kind, generous and would give you her last breath if you needed it.


The health care system forces her to pay money that she does not and cannot have. The state will not give her enough to live on and to have the medical care that she requires. She will die without the medical care and she will die trying to maintain having a place to live and the medications to keep her alive.


She has turned to driving for a company, basically a taxi service. She moans when she moves because the pain all over her body is so excruciating. She must use the walker to even get to the car. She can barely move her legs as much of her pain is centralized there. Remember, her hands also have no strength. She must operate a stick shift car on the icy streets of the storm ridden Indianapolis for no less than 4 hours a day, which means she is driving for 8 hours a day.


I beg her and I plead her to stop driving in her condition and in the condition of Indiana, she says that she must earn the money. I beg her to talk to the doctors to appropriately treat her pain, the pain medicine costs money, too. The doctors refuse to help her find a way where she could possible afford the medications that they prescribe. She begs them to wait to order the most expensive ones until the spend-down is over, but they refuse, and she must find the $200 for one prescription that will last her 28 days.


The state of Indiana won’t give her more money, as they already give her less than her spend-down. She has to pay the spend-down every month in order to get the medications in order to live. So, while near cripple, she is driving around in snow and ice storms trying to earn money to simply stay on this planet and yet, there is no help? There is nothing that can be done? There is not one avenue that my mother can utilize to help her out?


I spend my entire day with a knot in my stomach and scared half to death. I am not ready to lose my mother to a car crash because she continues to drive for this company because it is the only income that she can have or else she won’t get her money from the state. I am not ready to lose my mother because she cannot afford the medications that she needs in order to stay alive.


This woman, my mother, she is the woman that met a woman at the drugstore one cold afternoon in Chicago. Somehow the two of them began to talk, my mother in her fur coat, and the woman in her near rag clothing. They shared stories and they exchanged numbers. My mother came home and said that we were loading up the car and going to a friend’s house. We did not know where we were going. When we arrived, there was a tree strapped to the top of the car, a box of decorations and trunk full of presents. Apparently, her new friend had fallen upon hard times and were being evicted from their home, had no money or food to feed their 5 orphan children. My mother promptly went to the Christmas tree lot, bought a tree, decorations and then proceeded to the store to buy gifts for all of the children, clothes and food for the mom, and a box of toys from Santa. We spent the evening turning their dismal home into a joyous celebration with decorations, music, laughter, hot chocolate and love.


That woman, the one that stopped her entire life on Christmas Eve to make another family feel less pain, even if only for a moment, that woman is my mother. That woman is the woman being denied health care, medications, money and all of the necessities to keep her alive. I am not ready to lose my mother because there are no systems to help her. I am not ready to lose her at all.



How I ask you, how, just how is this even possible? How is it that we live in world with a woman like my mother and in a world where there is no help for that very woman, my mother. I am not ready to lost my mother to a failing system, I am not ready to lose my mother at all. 


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

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