Monthly Archives: February 2008

“Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain.”
~ Fyodor Dovstoyevsky [The Brothers Karamazov]

It didn’t matter that they were lower middle-class, teetering on the verge of white trash, I loved their youngest son, and so I put up with them; he with his missing arm, nasty mouth and hateful attitude toward everything and everyone, and her, sweet as she could be, but spineless, submissive and fearful of him.

Needless to say, Sunday dinners were a little uncomfortable, but they liked me, even though I was 15 years his junior and still in high school. I won’t go so far as to say I felt welcome there, as there was an ex-wife and grandbaby still in the picture, which the mother secretly wished was back in the main frame – so, no matter how sweet and good I was, I was the obstacle blocking any chance for reconciliation.

For over two years I was as good as a member of the family; sharing holidays, birthdays and other such occasions, knowing in the back of my mind that one day he’d marry me and then they would be family, and perhaps their flaws would be easier to overlook – but that never happened.

Instead he died.

And when they descended on his house, like a pack of ravenous vultures, I could see the displeasure in their eyes, the accusatory glances and outright contempt, when they found a sink full of dishes, dirty laundry stacked on the closet floor, an unmade bed and paraphernalia, both sexual and drug-related, in the stand next to the bed.

It didn’t matter that he was thirty years old and capable of doing his own dishes and laundry, or that it was his house to clean and not mine, as even though I spent most of my days and nights there, I still lived with my parents. No…somehow it all got put on me; I was to blame for the mess and probably his death as well.

For the day of the funeral, as the immediate family filled the private room off to the left of the viewing area that opened into the main, via beautiful French doors, not a single one of them spoke to me, or acknowledged my presence for that matter. In fact, I had gone early, the first one to arrive, so as to spend a few moments, my last moments alone with him, until the wife arrived with the kid and asked me to leave, so she and the baby could say goodbye in private.

It was several days later when I was finally allowed back in the house to retrieve my personal items, at which point the ex-wife approached and told me she needed to look through the boxes before anything left the house. I was devastated – at just having lost the love of my life, barely able to drag myself out of bed and face life, let alone this fat bitch in my face, who was offering to sell me the waterbed that we had shared and slept in together for the past two years. Un-fucking-believable!

I collapsed on the couch, as a wave of tears washed over and threatened to consume me and at some point she must have tried to console me, because I started babbling about how could he have done this – why he left me alone in the world, after promising to stay with me forever. And that’s when she changed her tune and started asking fifty questions, making certain that I understood the importance of not repeating any of this to anyone, because if the insurance found out that there was even a slight possibility that the accident was suicide, then his life insurance policy would be null and void, thus she and the kid would be left with nothing.

Left with nothing…

© Copyright 2008 by Jill Terry. All rights Reserved

We tend to gravitate toward people who are most like us, at least in the ways that make us feel comfortable. But life has its way of bringing us into contact with people who challenge us with their differences. It may be an obvious difference reflected in their outward appearance or an invisible but powerful philosophical stance. Even in our closest circle of friends and family, though, there are those that confront us with their different ways of experiencing and expressing life. We can choose to resist, but we can also choose to learn from them and appreciate that they too have a place in the kaleidoscope of life.

Source: Daily OM

I’d been trying since January, when our insurance started, to get an appointment with a dentist on the preferred DMO list. The list was seven printed pages long, but this proved to be much more difficult than one would imagine, as I was trying to schedule a Saturday appointment so that I wouldn’t have to take off work.

Finally, I got appointments for Cole and I and the office was only 7 miles from home. I filled out the twelve pages of new patient forms they mailed (six for each of us), set my alarm on Friday night and was all excited to finally be going to the dentist. Then the alarm went off bright and early Saturday morning and the nervous knots started forming in my belly. I’ve never had a bad experience at the dentist, so I have no fear of them in general, what I feared was what they would find when they looked in my mouth, as I haven’t been to the dentist in 22 years. I know…I’m ashamed to admit it.

Growing up, my parents made sure we went faithfully, every six months for check-ups and cleanings, but as soon as I turned 18 and was no longer on their insurance I stopped going. I’ve been working since I was 16 years old and have carried insurance most of my life, but I never had a problem and so I thought there just wasn’t any reason to go.

So, when the dentist and assistant read my new patient forms, they quite literally, flipped out! Needless to say, I was scared shitless of what they were going to find. I’ve always liked my smile, other than my bottom teeth crowding a bit when my wisdom teeth came in, it’s the same smile I’ve always had.

“Are you a smoker?” they asked accusingly. “Yes,” I answered hesitantly. “And you haven’t seen a dentist in 22 years, is that correct?” By now I was white-knuckling the arms of the chair, when I shook my head and whispered, “yyyyes.”

He stuck the little mirror in my mouth while the assistant pulled up the x-rays on the computer and he started calling out random numbers, which I assume were identification numbers for individual teeth. Imagining these were the ones that were rotting out of my head and needed to be pulled, he told me to hold still, as my lip started quivering and I silently cursed myself, as I imagined what I would look like with false teeth.

He removed the mirror, sat back in his chair and said, “Given your age and the circumstances, I’d normally be giving you information on dentures or bridge work, but I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Like what,” I asked wide-eyed, with heart racing. “There’s no doubt that you were meant to keep your teeth and you’ve got someone to thank for an amazing set of genes; because other than needing two small fillings and a deep cleaning, you’re teeth are perfect!”

Hallelujah, praise my daddy! He’s the one with the healthy teeth genes…but wait, he’s also the one with the curly hair genes…and he’s balding on top…

Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!

Sunday Scribblings #99 – Passion

Then Blend They

Two paths combine and blend into one
One beautiful and perfect whole
Restless souls mirrored in complexity
Intertwine and mesh in the light

Untamed hearts synchronize in rhythm
Crossing the bounds of time
Emotions sparked, imaginations soared
Each time they came together as one

For a time it was real
Though it felt like a dream
Now they are no more

He showed her how to love
She showed him how to live
That’s all either was able to give –

© Copyright 2008 by Jill Terry. All rights Reserved

Snapped this sundog last night on the way home. And in case you’re wondering…

A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion, plural parhelia, e.g. “with the sun”) is a relatively common halo, an atmospheric optical phenomenon mostly associated with the refraction of sunlight by small ice crystals making up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.

Sundogs typically, but not exclusively, appear when the sun is low, e.g. at sunrise and sunset, and the atmosphere is filled with ice crystals forming cirrus clouds, but diamond dust and ice fog can also produce them. They are often bright white patches of light looking much like the sun or a comet and are occasionally confused with those phenomena. Sometimes they exhibit a spectrum of colours, ranging from red closest to the sun to a pale bluish tail stretching away from the sun.

They’ve lived two doors down for several years, but I wouldn’t call them friendly neighbors. The first encounter we had was six years ago, when the little girl was five and Cole was four. It was the middle of winter, about seven o’clock at night, already dark and cold out, when I thought I heard something on the front porch. There she was, in pajama shorts and tee-shirt with no shoes or socks, all alone and asking if she could come inside.

Turns out her mother had left her in the care of her sixteen year old sister, who locked her in her room while she was sleeping and left with a carload of boys. I know this only because I’d heard the ruckus and saw her leave. The little girl said she woke up alone, in the dark and when she tried to leave her room the door was tied with a rope from the outside, but she managed to squeeze through, only to discover that she was home alone and didn’t know where her sister was.

As a mother, I was appalled, horrified and livid, as every horrible scenario possible ran through my mind. We brought her inside, gave her warm clothes and something to eat then tried to find out how we could reach her mother, but she didn’t know where she worked. Luckily, the neighbors across the street did and called her. An hour or so later the mother shows up at the door with an attitude…toward me! No thank you, no attempt at an explanation, not even a fuck you…just grabbed up the kid and left.

According to the neighbor across the street, she was afraid I was going to call child protective services and she’d get her kid taken away. This dumbfounded me even more, and made me wonder just what kind of people we were dealing with that would automatically jump to such a conclusion.

So, six years of being cordial and waving as we drive by, only to have the mother look the other way, Cole and the little girl started riding bikes together on our street over the summer, which was fine, so long as they stayed within the boundaries and nothing doing about going over to her house or vice versa. Then one day after school had started, the mother shows up at our door with the girl in tow, hair wet and frazzled, asking if we could take her to school because she missed the bus and she was running late for work. Not a problem, I told her, as we drive Cole to school every day anyway, but thinking in the back of my mind what nerve she has, showing up for a favor after acting the way she has for so long.

Two days later the little girl walked out her front door as we were leaving and headed to our house; didn’t ask if she could get a ride, just showed up, ready to go, and hopped in the van with us. This went on for several days, until I finally said something to the affect of her needing to set her alarm so she could get to the bus stop on time. Cole was relieved when she finally stopped showing up. Not that he doesn’t like her, or mind giving her a ride, just that driving to school is “our time” that we’ve grown accustomed to and come to count on each morning as we start our day then go our separate ways.

This morning she showed up and asked if she could get a ride, saying she missed the bus. I looked over and saw her mothers van and sisters car in the driveway. I asked why her they couldn’t take her and she said her mom was running late for work, but didn’t say anything about the sister.

She had to wait about 10 minutes before we were ready to leave, which she did on the front porch with the cats, as we were all running around half naked getting ready. Cole was pissed, I was pissed and Byron, going with the flow as always, says, “Don’t blame the girl because she has a lazy-ass mother and no-count sister, just be glad she has us next door and we’re able to help.”

He’s right, of course, and I immediately felt like crap for thinking bad thoughts, until I drove past the house on the way out and not one single light was on and I knew they were both inside sound asleep!

GGGGrrrrrr…………..

Her muse was screaming, tired of being ignored and neglected; demanding attention, as it pulled her out of hers and slowly unfolded his world inside her mind. She couldn’t steal herself away as she would have liked; submerging herself in her thoughts, locking herself away from the outside world and its interferences, as she reveled in this newfound epiphany; and so she did the only thing she could, making sure she hit every red light on the way to the office, as her pen fervently scribbled words on paper, scraps that she had dug from between the seats.

She was familiar with his work, had been for a few years, and while his claim to fiction was evident, she couldn’t help but feel, deep down inside, that the words she read were real; dark, straight-forward, sometimes mysterious words that never ceased to bring her pause, as she slowly absorbed, reading between the lines of their meaning.

His profile gave no specific details, although hints of his true self it did reveal; if one were to believe he was a person of no consequence and no one you’d really care to know; which made her want to know him all the more. She read once in a comment that he was thirty-something, but found this hard to believe, as every vibe she picked up screamed older and distinguished, with decades of life experiences from which to draw. Regardless, given his obvious level of intellect, one could safely assume that he had, perhaps, dabbled at some point, within the upper echelon of intelligentsia; which gave his calculated prose even more weight in truth to her.

He’d come around on whims, leaving comments when inspired to do so, as if sensing her absence and drawing her back, always to something that shocked and amazed her, but this was his modus operandi; scouring the web for talented writers, looking for the one worthy of telling his story, once he carried out the heinous deeds he’d eloquently written for the world to see, in the form of fiction and creative expression.

When in truth, his hermitage was strategically planned, so that within the walls of his modest dwelling, nestled in the woods along the creek, at the end of the lane where no one would suspect, he could carry out his darkest deeds, ridding the world of demons, in the form of human predators; the ones that possess not a shred of decency or regard for human life, killing for the thrill and momentary delusion of power the act brings. The ones that live among us and go undetected; the ones that need to be hunted, profiled, locked up and studied, before even one innocent life is lost at their hand.

He silently studies all those who cross his path, peeling away their mask in passing, gazing into the windows of their souls…searching for beasts that need slaying, while his own mask goes completely undetected.

© Copyright 2008 by Jill Terry. All rights Reserved.

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”
~Samuel Johnson

Walter has a great post (Growing Up Ain’t What It Used To Be) at A Writer’s Rites, about life as it was in a simpler day and age, and while reading, I couldn’t help but wonder, how things got so screwed up in such a short period of time.

I’ve heard some people blame the media, saying things haven’t changed so much, but that we’re inundated with every conceivable negativity known to man, with no focus on the good, because let’s face it, good doesn’t sell; and while I can buy that, to a point, the fact that times have changed cannot be argued.

Thank you, Walter, for taking us back in time and reminding us of the good old days. I often wish we could go there again.