IT'S STRANGE EVEN THOUGH... 'LOVE BOTTLED UP INSIDE'
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES aka Granny Gee (March 10, 2012)
I am sitting here thinking about my stories I've written for the past several days about Tommy. I know I am going through a period of time missing him and feeling inside... frustrated.
It's strange even though I know Tommy is gone... he can't come back... there's not a thing I can do to change that fact.......... I go through periods of time just like the one I'm experiencing now. It used to be that for the slightest of moments, I could almost feel him come back. Do you know how someone disappears from view when they walk into a doorway ..turn a corner? 'They could turn around and come back'. It is the only way I can describe what I just spoke of.
I think truthfully .... for me ..... I go through times where somehow I can stay numb (I wondered if we give ourselves spiritual pain shots inside?)... I can talk about Tommy, I don't cry at all. Then... such as now, I just sit here quietly at my computer, alone, crying silently 'inside' as the tears drip onto my desk, my keyboard.
Sometimes my fingertips will touch a teardrop on my keyboard, I stop to look at it. It feels cool, and in the light of my monitor... it sparkles, yes... it sparkles like a diamond. You know me by now... diamonds look like teardrops to me.... teardrops look like diamonds to me. :))) It's a 'Gloria thing'......
Frustration... I just did it again, I just observed my two hands clasping each other, my fingers holding tightly to the fingers of the other hand... my heart squeezing hard in my chest ... just wishing so much..... I sigh so hard....
I feel my foot lift slightly up and just .... 'hit' and press the floor lightly... I wish ... I really feel 'mad' and want to stomp my foot hard... but, I don't... I can't change a thing... I just 'stomp' my foot gently. It doesn't help a thing at all.
I'm really not 'mad' at all... I just wish my son was here... I see and hear other mothers talking happily about their sons of different ages... I knew my son up until age 40... I know about sons up until that age.
I do feel a happiness seeing another mother feeling and showing such pride and love for her son... I remember being like that. I was so proud of my son. I'm always seeing that golden sunshine smile of his in my mind, the one that lit his beautiful blue-green eyes up with a soft light, a caring light. His voice... oh my God... I wish to hear his soft voice again saying 'I love you, mama'.
I miss you, Tommy. I have you on my mind, I miss you, Son. My eyes hurt from crying, my nose is stuffy from crying, my heart is sore from the pain that has been soaring through it for the past several days. Tomorrow I go for an echocardiogram... my heart has been hurting.
It may be from just the love and missing my son... I can't tell, but... several times it has been severe. It may be the love in my heart that is 'bottled up' now... I don't have my child here now to shed it on. We hear so much of 'hate being bottled up'....... inside.... I think I have "love bottled up inside"... it may be what's making my chest hurt lately.
I have become aware of hearing myself 'sniffle'... yes, I am missing Tommy. I will be alright now... I just felt a calmness.
This is how this mother does... she grieves in silence so, that she doesn't upset her precious husband who worries with his heart for her, whom she loves and respects with her heart. He can't bear to see me cry... I hide my tears so, that he doesn't hurt. He has enough to worry about.
I don't know how other mothers grieve... I only know how I do. Just like when I was deathly sick... I didn't know how others got better or what to expect, I was too sick to ask.... I know that I got better in my own way... I fought hard in my 'Gloria way'. This is what is what I have done since Tommy died... I'm getting better in my 'Gloria way'. I'm glad to say I've travelled a long way to get to 'here'... I'm glad to be here 'now'.
Strangely enough... I know as a grieving mother that though I do go periods of time such as this... it's really going to be alright now. I know inside Tommy won't be coming back, I won't see him for the rest of my life. I have my own memories, I have photos, I have a few things of his... sometimes I sense him smiling. I have all these things, I keep his memory alive through writing.
I think he would be so proud and happy that his mama doesn't forget him, nor does she just sit.... and suffer in silence while growing old, bitter and angry at the world. His mother writes her love for him so, it can flow through the air and maybe even reach to him, as it goes out to her readers.
This mother remembers her son in her 'Gloria way'... in a good way. I want to grow older in a graceful way, full of beauty inside. I don't have the beauty I once had on the outside... somehow... it's all gone to the inside. I remember Grandma Alma saying what was important in life was 'beauty on the inside'.... I think this is how her saying went.... 'beauty is as beauty does'.
Oh...she said something else about 'beauty is skin-deep and ugly is to the bone'. Have you ever seen some of the most 'not prettiest people' ...reflect the most beauty from inside? They become beautiful in front of your eyes as they begin to speak, to show their actions. Have you seen 'beautiful people' who when they begin to speak, to show their actions become... some of the ugliest, meanest people in the world... no longer does one ever notice the beauty again, once the 'ugly' shows itself. I felt like is exactly what she meant.
I'm older, and my exterior beauty is slowly fading as the years go by, slowly finding its way to the 'inside of me'. Once I begin to speak or show my actions... I hope to reflect that beauty. I have a long ways to go... I'm not perfect, and I still can get mad, not be the nicest all the time... I try so hard. I will always try to be the best I can... sometimes it is the hardest thing to do. Do you agree?
Tommy's death took a heavy toll on his 'ole mom', and one can see those changes when they see 'me'. I now see those changes in my mirror... for a long time I've been embarassed for others to see me because 'I look like I've been through hell'..... now, I don't care. They don't know 'why' I have changed so drastically.... they don't know the world I have finally ... come out of.
I'm so thankful to be back out in the sunlight that warms my heart, the soft breezes that caress my skin, hear the sounds of life once again. Where I went and almost couldn't 'get back'...... was dark, cold, unforgiving. I knew no warmth, I felt no breeze, nor was I aware of life going on around me.
Somehow that wonderful sunlight reached down into my soul, made my path begin to appear so, I could slowly make my way back.... no, it wasn't easy.... it's taken almost 2 years to be able to function like a normal person again. I still have my moments, but now... I'm aware of them and I can consciously help myself.... no matter what... I keep fighting in my 'Gloria way'.
It's strange even though I carry such sadness inside.......... I can now be happy at the same time. I can laugh, talk and want to be around people. Everything ......... really is going to be .... alright. I have 'love bottled up inside'...... I will let it flow freely from each smile I smile, hopefully into any words that come out of my mouth (though I'm not perfect, I may say a choice word sometimes). I will just have to do it all in my 'Gloria way'... I think that'll work. :)))
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
GRANNY GEE'S EXERCISE BOX...
GRANNY GEE'S EXERCISE BOX...
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES
I've been thinking about something, and I've even talked about it to my friends I see every day. They all laugh and love my idea... but, 'if it were reality'.......... I'm sure 'everyone' would love it!
Do you know know how hard it is to make yourself exercise? Especially when you have to for your health. There are days it really is hard to make yourself move, I know the constant pain in my body tries to keep me from moving to know 'more' pain. I push over it, it's like that song 'It Hurts So Bad'........................ :)))
My idea ... I've had it for a long time... if it were to be brought into reality would be wonderful. Let me tell you all about it! Who knows ...maybe someone will read this and think... 'I will make this!' They could call it 'Granny Gee's Exercise Box'! :)))
I was thinking one could build a big, square box with three sides (the fourth side would be the big door with hinges to open and close it to hide it from view if one wanted to).
Anyway, on the inside and top of that big box... one could make it like they do with the puppet stages... only this would be an adult-size box with an adult-size stage. At the top would be where the controls are that could be controlled by a button... or by another human!
The idea is for one to go up on that special stage... even if you had to get up on it on a special lift! The ropes or soft cables would be hanging down with their little soft cuffs that would fasten around one's wrists, ankles, waist. As long as there isn't a rope to go around one's neck.... this should work just fine!
After being 'fastened in'... one could just simply press a button or yell 'hit it Jack!' The ropes would immediately go into action on soft, low, medium, high, and 'not too high'.
Picture this: you see this person up on the stage and he just stands there smiling.... the rest is up to the automatic control! The ropes begin to maneuver their body into exercise positions! This way, that way, down there, up here... and around!
The lights are on, the music of your choice is playing... oh my, how we could exercise our body on low, gentle, medium... and for those who like punishment... high. The ropes/cables would put us through our range of motion exercises and of course... it'd help if we put through 'just alittle effort'... at least!
What more could one ask for in the exercise world? I got up early to write this... Skip got up soon-after. I told him my idea and this is what he said 'you have gone insane, totally insane!'
:)))
I believe it would work, especially for ..... for 'us grandmas'.
They did send a man to the moon!
They invented an airplane!
They 'could' invent a 'Granny Gee's Exercise Box'!
What do you think?
:)))
I mean.... really, what do you 'really' think? I've been rethinking my 'puppet on a string' exercise idea! Hit it Jack!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
IF I DIE, I WANT TO COME BACK AS YOURS AND SKIP'S ...DOG! "GLOBE OF LOVE"...
IF I DIE, I WANT TO COME BACK AS YOURS AND SKIP'S... DOG!
'GLOBE OF LOVE'
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES... AKA/GRANNY GEE.. MARCH 06, 2012...
I would like to share something very different with my readers that I've thought about ... ALOT. I know it will sound very strange, but... it really happened. I will say this beforehand..... even if it's not like that, I think about it... I think you would to.
Hopefully, you'll get a smile from it, Skip and I do.... 'now'. Who knows...it could be so! Either way.... it's good. Remember I told you that no matter how bad something is...... you have to find humor in 'good taste'... to make it better. This is an example of that... and I think you all can see 'that I'm going to be alright'... now. It's one of the 'fun ways' to remember Tommy.
One day Tommy was visiting, we were laughing, talking when Tommy stopped petting Fairchild, our 11 year old Rottie. Tommy loved Fairchild very much. Tommy looked up at me and said the darnest thing ...'if I die, I want to come back as yours and Skip's dog'!
It's common knowledge that we are are true 'dog-lovers'. We love, care and protect our Pups. They sleep on the bed with us (yes, they do), they are fed good,have fresh water... all in clean dishes (I wash them), have their chewbones, treats. We have a chain-link fence to keep them protected. We are always talking to them, and petting them, loving them.
I don't know 'why' that stood out to me when he said that last year at the time he said it. It always stayed in my mind.
Now, I think about what he said, and smile. I smile because we 'never know'. Of course, reincarnation could be true, or it could 'not' be true. But... I will tell you something strange... think about it. I smile when I do, so does Skip when we bring the subject up. We even 'test' it out.....
Tommy was born on November 20, 1969
Tommy died May 29, 2010
Kissy, our young Rottie, was born on November 02, 2010....... just 5 months after Tommy went to heaven.
Now... we know that most likely Kissy isn't 'Tommy'. :))) Sometimes we do 'test' him to 'see'! We'll say 'Tommy!' or talk about Tommy... Kissy never pays us any mind. He doesn't have any reactions to make us think something is strange. (I've watched alot of tv... :))).
I am smiling now... I wanted to share this. This is one of those things to bring a smile to make sadness stay at bay. Tommy would have loved this, and I can hear his laughter echoing in my mind.
Tommy and Skip, and I... always laughed and joked. This was one of our special times together with Tommy when he said that. It was a very nice compliment when he said that. 'Each of us was always saying................the darnest things!' We had such fun........
I don't think Tommy was reincarnated... as Kissy. It's just uncanny how his birthday is 11-02-2010..... Tommy's birthday is 11-20-1969.... Tommy went to heaven 5 months before Kissy was born. It's just special... because of what Tommy said. :)))
Now... don't go telling people that I'm thinking our Kissy is 'Tommy'. It's just a happy, fun thing to remember about Tommy. He could say the most precious things... this is one that made an impression on me. He knew how we cared about our pups, animals.
We used to tell Tommy about feeding some opossums, raccoons, and the squirrels, and deer where we used to live up on 'Fairchild's Mountain' named after our infamous Fairchild, the 11 year old Rottweiler. Tommy truly loved that little 'mountain', he really wished to live there where he felt peaceful.
We have wished to buy that little acre of land...of course, we can't afford it now....... that's the last place I saw my son... I go there each day to feed the feral cats we've fed for years... there are 9 of them. I walk around looking......
I look down at the deck where Tommy stood telling me that he was leaving in the morning to go to Myrtle Beach with his family... at first he was going to stay behind... something made him change his mind. Whatever it was, he was feeling so happy, excited.
Tommy said....... 'mama, I going to the beach and I'm looking forward to spending the first time with Taban at the beach playing... it's our first time'.
I saw such sunshine in his smile as he spoke. Isn't it something how this 'stood out' to me?
He died...collapsed on that beach while running, playing with little Taban the next day... he died doing exactly what he was looking forward to doing... I know this to be true.
He died....'beautifully' as we'd all hope to do some day... doing 'exactly' what we want to do, with who we want to do it with, and where we want to be.... no suffering, possibly no pain as .... he quickly 'shed his human form' to... walk straight into heaven... smiling.
I saw that little smile on his face when I stood there looking at him, my tears falling... I wasn't smiling, but... I saw his. I felt he wanted to tell me to please 'be alright, mama'. He would have known that I would almost die myself to hear that he'd died... he, my precious son whom meant the world to me. He knew how much he meant to me, and he would have been afraid for me.
I can see in my mind's eye... up on the roof Tommy was standing there pressure-washing our house, at the top of the driveway he was sitting there on the ground, in the driveway where he washed mine and Skip's vehicles, at the picnic table where he sat to eat the 2 sandwiches he swore ...'mama, these are the best sandwiches I've ever eaten!' Oh, that sunshine smile he had! Reaching into his eyes reflecting love from his heart to his mama. I felt it so deeply at that moment... I was happy that I'd made 2 'ordinary' sandwiches 'taste so good' to him.
I stand at the sidewalk to the house and see in my mind.... my tall, golden-handsome son leaning down to give me the 'last kiss' in both of our lives, I hug him back with so much motherly love. Yes, his mother loved him with her very heart. Thank-God I always told him no matter if it embarassed him, or I said it 'too much'... my son 'knew' his mother loved ...him. I 'knew' my son loved ... me.
I walk to where the gate was when we lived there... I look toward the driveway 'seeing' Tommy driving between the two trees on either side ... looking toward me ... smiling. He toots the horn on his white pickup that he was so proud of... he's smiling, I'm smiling. This was the last time we got to smile at each other...........................
Tears, more tears........ where do they come from? I'm fine ... it's just love of a 'different texture'..... liquid. I wonder if it can be captured in a little bottle to keep always? If it could, I would wish to capture all my tears for my grandchildren so, one day they could actually 'see' my love in some kind of form they could hold in their hands... there would be so many that would be 'bigger than their hands'... they would have to stand and see maybe a.... huge, transparent 'globe'... one huge 'ball' of my tears in a solid shape, sparkling in the light like a diamond.
They would see how much their Granny Gee loved/loves them. That 'globe of love' would reflect Granny Gee's love. Hopefully my words 'here' will ... be that 'globe of love' that they can read, know and hold in their hands.
They may never know me while I'm alive.... but, they can through my 'writing voice'... feel the specialness of my words for each of them. I love you, Taban. I love you McKenzie. Love, Granny Gee
'GLOBE OF LOVE'
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES... AKA/GRANNY GEE.. MARCH 06, 2012...
I would like to share something very different with my readers that I've thought about ... ALOT. I know it will sound very strange, but... it really happened. I will say this beforehand..... even if it's not like that, I think about it... I think you would to.
Hopefully, you'll get a smile from it, Skip and I do.... 'now'. Who knows...it could be so! Either way.... it's good. Remember I told you that no matter how bad something is...... you have to find humor in 'good taste'... to make it better. This is an example of that... and I think you all can see 'that I'm going to be alright'... now. It's one of the 'fun ways' to remember Tommy.
One day Tommy was visiting, we were laughing, talking when Tommy stopped petting Fairchild, our 11 year old Rottie. Tommy loved Fairchild very much. Tommy looked up at me and said the darnest thing ...'if I die, I want to come back as yours and Skip's dog'!
It's common knowledge that we are are true 'dog-lovers'. We love, care and protect our Pups. They sleep on the bed with us (yes, they do), they are fed good,have fresh water... all in clean dishes (I wash them), have their chewbones, treats. We have a chain-link fence to keep them protected. We are always talking to them, and petting them, loving them.
I don't know 'why' that stood out to me when he said that last year at the time he said it. It always stayed in my mind.
Now, I think about what he said, and smile. I smile because we 'never know'. Of course, reincarnation could be true, or it could 'not' be true. But... I will tell you something strange... think about it. I smile when I do, so does Skip when we bring the subject up. We even 'test' it out.....
Tommy was born on November 20, 1969
Tommy died May 29, 2010
Kissy, our young Rottie, was born on November 02, 2010....... just 5 months after Tommy went to heaven.
Now... we know that most likely Kissy isn't 'Tommy'. :))) Sometimes we do 'test' him to 'see'! We'll say 'Tommy!' or talk about Tommy... Kissy never pays us any mind. He doesn't have any reactions to make us think something is strange. (I've watched alot of tv... :))).
I am smiling now... I wanted to share this. This is one of those things to bring a smile to make sadness stay at bay. Tommy would have loved this, and I can hear his laughter echoing in my mind.
Tommy and Skip, and I... always laughed and joked. This was one of our special times together with Tommy when he said that. It was a very nice compliment when he said that. 'Each of us was always saying................the darnest things!' We had such fun........
I don't think Tommy was reincarnated... as Kissy. It's just uncanny how his birthday is 11-02-2010..... Tommy's birthday is 11-20-1969.... Tommy went to heaven 5 months before Kissy was born. It's just special... because of what Tommy said. :)))
Now... don't go telling people that I'm thinking our Kissy is 'Tommy'. It's just a happy, fun thing to remember about Tommy. He could say the most precious things... this is one that made an impression on me. He knew how we cared about our pups, animals.
We used to tell Tommy about feeding some opossums, raccoons, and the squirrels, and deer where we used to live up on 'Fairchild's Mountain' named after our infamous Fairchild, the 11 year old Rottweiler. Tommy truly loved that little 'mountain', he really wished to live there where he felt peaceful.
We have wished to buy that little acre of land...of course, we can't afford it now....... that's the last place I saw my son... I go there each day to feed the feral cats we've fed for years... there are 9 of them. I walk around looking......
I look down at the deck where Tommy stood telling me that he was leaving in the morning to go to Myrtle Beach with his family... at first he was going to stay behind... something made him change his mind. Whatever it was, he was feeling so happy, excited.
Tommy said....... 'mama, I going to the beach and I'm looking forward to spending the first time with Taban at the beach playing... it's our first time'.
I saw such sunshine in his smile as he spoke. Isn't it something how this 'stood out' to me?
He died...collapsed on that beach while running, playing with little Taban the next day... he died doing exactly what he was looking forward to doing... I know this to be true.
He died....'beautifully' as we'd all hope to do some day... doing 'exactly' what we want to do, with who we want to do it with, and where we want to be.... no suffering, possibly no pain as .... he quickly 'shed his human form' to... walk straight into heaven... smiling.
I saw that little smile on his face when I stood there looking at him, my tears falling... I wasn't smiling, but... I saw his. I felt he wanted to tell me to please 'be alright, mama'. He would have known that I would almost die myself to hear that he'd died... he, my precious son whom meant the world to me. He knew how much he meant to me, and he would have been afraid for me.
I can see in my mind's eye... up on the roof Tommy was standing there pressure-washing our house, at the top of the driveway he was sitting there on the ground, in the driveway where he washed mine and Skip's vehicles, at the picnic table where he sat to eat the 2 sandwiches he swore ...'mama, these are the best sandwiches I've ever eaten!' Oh, that sunshine smile he had! Reaching into his eyes reflecting love from his heart to his mama. I felt it so deeply at that moment... I was happy that I'd made 2 'ordinary' sandwiches 'taste so good' to him.
I stand at the sidewalk to the house and see in my mind.... my tall, golden-handsome son leaning down to give me the 'last kiss' in both of our lives, I hug him back with so much motherly love. Yes, his mother loved him with her very heart. Thank-God I always told him no matter if it embarassed him, or I said it 'too much'... my son 'knew' his mother loved ...him. I 'knew' my son loved ... me.
I walk to where the gate was when we lived there... I look toward the driveway 'seeing' Tommy driving between the two trees on either side ... looking toward me ... smiling. He toots the horn on his white pickup that he was so proud of... he's smiling, I'm smiling. This was the last time we got to smile at each other...........................
Tears, more tears........ where do they come from? I'm fine ... it's just love of a 'different texture'..... liquid. I wonder if it can be captured in a little bottle to keep always? If it could, I would wish to capture all my tears for my grandchildren so, one day they could actually 'see' my love in some kind of form they could hold in their hands... there would be so many that would be 'bigger than their hands'... they would have to stand and see maybe a.... huge, transparent 'globe'... one huge 'ball' of my tears in a solid shape, sparkling in the light like a diamond.
They would see how much their Granny Gee loved/loves them. That 'globe of love' would reflect Granny Gee's love. Hopefully my words 'here' will ... be that 'globe of love' that they can read, know and hold in their hands.
They may never know me while I'm alive.... but, they can through my 'writing voice'... feel the specialness of my words for each of them. I love you, Taban. I love you McKenzie. Love, Granny Gee
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
A MOTHER'S TEARDROPS ... IN HER SON'S HAIR
A MOTHER'S TEARDROPS ...IN HER SON'S HAIR
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES aka... GRANNY GEE MARCH 07, 2012
I'm going to be alright now, because I have worked so hard to 'pull myself back from the edge of a cliff'... when Tommy, my only child... died. I can go on now. That doesn't mean that I don't still cry and grieve for him, miss him. It means I'm safe now... from dying myself to keep from accepting his death, not coping with it, to keep from feeling the panicky feelings in my stomach, knowing I'll never see him again.
I will tell you honestly at this moment... I almost 'let go' ... in plain words ...I almost died because I couldn't bear the knowledge that my only child, the baby I brought into this world, the child who loved me with his heart, I loved with my heart.... died. If you want to know the real truth that is rarely talked about, read further... it is about what one really feels and what they really do, when someone they love ... dies. This is how Tommy's mother felt....
Skip worried so much for me... I could hear him, more than see him. The medicine I was given made me sleep so ... deeply, quietly, almost like..... death. Skip would watch me to see if I was breathing... no, he didn't want me to keep taking medicine, he was afraid I wouldn't wake up.
Truthfully... I wasn't aware of it... though I could hear him when he spoke to me. It was the darkness... again. I had entered 'that world' .... again. I did know that .... I could 'take a little more of that medicine if I couldn't cope with knowing my son was dead'... and I could sleep forever.
I tried to 'hold on' for Skip and the Pups. Skip... my lifesaver who kept pulling me back from the ocean of darkness... death. I just drifted away to 'knowing nothing'......... Skip's voice would lead me back. I focused on nothing, then... I would focus on Skip's voice... and work so hard in that darkness to come back.... over and over... and over.
I'm saying it now... my son ..died. I can still 'feel inside' .... shaky feelings, but... I also, feel the 'strength' that's there too. It holds me up, it helps me to be able to walk now... holding up that 'heavy load'... one that is the heaviest in this world... strange how no one can 'see' it.................. I carry it in front of everyone... everyday, every second of my life..... right in front of everyone.
If Skip could see it, he would help me carry it until the day.... that I can gently put it down, and the pain is completely in a place that it doesn't hurt me like it still can now. I'm not sure if that day will come, I'll tell you 'why'.
I have been waiting since 2001 to look into the chest that holds my mother's ashes, her photos, some of her things, to look into it without feeling that sudden suffocating sensation, my stomach instantly hurting, and tears fill my eyes, pain wrenches my heart. I can't even begin to take her things out. I feel as if I'm 'going into darkness'......... it's pure grief, pure pain, all from loving her so much.
I have been waiting to look into my brother, Rick-Rick's chest that holds his ashes, his photos, his cap, and his cellphone, and other things. The same thing happens to me.... I can't look into either of these chests and it has been several years now... not so long before Tommy died. I loved my brother Rick-Rick with my heart, too.
I can look at my cousin Jimmy's ashes with the angel that sits beside them. They sit beside my mother's, and brother's ashes as he requested ... in my happy art room. I used to tell him about their ashes sitting in my art room where there is color, sunshine and happiness... he made me promise to one day put his ashes beside them... I did. He hoped it possible to 'match wits with Earlene again'.
Tommy's chest is nearby... it's bigger than the others. It holds more things of Tommy's, one day it will be Taban's. I can't remember everything that is in that chest since he died... but, I know this... the time hasn't come for me to sit and take those things out. There are several photos of Tommy laying in that 'casket'....... the one they use to cremate a loved one.
One day I opened his chest thinking I would be able to take the little plastic box holding those photos out ..to look at them. I waited until I took out several of his things to hold, to put to my face to see if I could 'recognize my son'.. hoping to smell something that said to me 'Tommy'. My stomach began shaking, I felt that tightness in my chest, I felt like I was going to suffocate.
At this moment... my stomach feels funny, my heart is tightening up.......... it will be sometime before, or if that time ever comes for me to 'gently put down that load'. But... I'm still... alright.
I made myself open the plastic box, to take out the photos. I looked at the photos, holding them away to keep the tears that rained from my eyes from wetting them. Tears, diamond teardops... I would be rich in diamonds if every teardrop was frozen into a diamond... diamonds that sparkle in the wetness of my unstoppable tears. Skip doesn't want me to look at the photos... he's afraid for me. I'm afraid for myself.
My eyes are always drawn to his face ... he looks 'peaceful'... so quiet. There is a slight smile on his face. He eyes are closed, he looks like he is asleep, his neck is swollen (could it be from the heart attack?).
My memory of being 'there at that funeral home'... standing at that casket alone with Skip nearby.... is like seeing myself in a dream, feeling myself in such agony, grief, holding in screams of pain. Screaming 'TOMMY, PLEASE COME BACK!, PLEASE COME BACK, TOMMY!' I sit here while writing to you all.. now, feeling it all over again... I am crying, tears falling down my face. I am still alright.. this is bound to happen throughout the rest of my life. It does hurt, though.... but, I can live now.
I have sat here crying, my heart aching so. I didn't know that 'all of that' was still so close to the surface... I've been trying to 'push' it all back far enough so, I can talk about Tommy freely ... and not cry. It's love you know... love that falls into tears as they pour from my eyes. I know every mother who has or will... lose their child... will recognize what I'm saying.
My memory of taking my hand to touch my child's hair as he lay there, I began to rub his hair, pat his head just like I did when he was a little boy ..... I was crying, screaming 'inside'...'Tommy!' My fingers felt something toward the back of his head...
My hand froze in place as my mind tried to somehow make sense of what I was feeling. It was hard, bumpy... at first I couldn't identify what it was. It came to me that the 'hard, bumpy places' were ... stitches. Stitches from the autopsy.
I looked up to see alarm on Skip's face ... 'Skip, there are stitches in Tommy's head, there are stitches in his head!' I did begin crying aloud, Skip's arms holding me. In my mind ..at this moment ...as my fingers caress the keys on my keyboard.... I can 'feel' those ...stitches.
I was crying inside, my tears falling onto his hair. Yes, when my son was cremated... his mother's tears were in his beautiful hair... falling as my fingers worried with the hard, bumpy scar on his head. Touching, not touching, but touching............ ever so gently. Each 'bump' burning its memory into my fingers... I'll always 'know' what it feels like... I won't ever forget that.
I was 'in a far away place' that night ....so many people were there at the funeral home. I 'wandered' ... I don't remember staying still long.... I have said over and over... I was like a leaf blowing in the wind, when it stopped blowing, I stopped.. also. When it blew again, so.. did I move. I didn't stay by Skip's side... I 'wandered'... like a lost soul. At least... I 'think I did'. I think I thought I was doing things, but... when I ask Skip... he doesn't remember me doing anything, except to ....... cry. It was the medicine trying to carry me to a place of peace to help me, to lessen the pain...
I remember 'wandering' as our home and everything in it ... burned up... moving, wandering, watching as 'our life went up in flames'. It's the shock, the disbelief.......... the 'wanting to reach out and bring our loved one, our precious possessions back'............ I was like that in the funeral home... I was led here... there when needed, I think. How many times in my life have I been in shock? I can't count them anymore... I recognize 'shock' now... it's become very familiar to me... too familiar.
I could hear people, see people yet.. not really see 'them'. The medicine I was given kept me in a 'calm place'.... it was potent. For once in my life, I had begged to be drugged... I was drugged... Thank-God! That night ... I don't know if I was crying... I don't know alot of... anything. I think I was smiling as I cried... smiling as if to apologize for anyone seeing my tears, and upsetting 'them'. Maybe I was 'thinking'... I did that.
Maybe smiling because the medicine was responsible. Smiling the wettest of smiles.... shining smiles from my teardrops... diamond smiles... maybe to keep people from feeling pity for me. Who knows... I react differently to things from the way I grew up. I was just sitting here... thinking ... maybe I didn't... smile. I don't know. I did know 'inside' the medicine made me numb that night.... but, when we went to the funeral home that day... I wasn't numb.
I do know that the whole time I seemed 'so far away'.... I never lost sight on that box 'over there' ... in it Tommy was lying peacefully with his eyes closed... the light above where he lay... it seemed 'dark around me', but, I could see 'over there'.......... that spot of golden light shining down on Tommy. His hands were clasped together... just like when he went into the Army...
I remember seeing him stand there... with his hands clasped together.... my beautiful , tall, golden-blonde haired, handsome son with the sunshine smile. Such a wonderful smile that reached his eyes to make them sparkle with... love, mischieviousness, fun. He was always ready to tell a joke, play a prank, or to help someone. Everyone loved him, women loved him, I loved my son. I loved to hear the sound of my son's soft voice.
I remember hearing that Taban ran to the 'box' as he called it... he tried to climb up in that box to be with his daddy. He was used to laying beside his daddy when sleeping, and taking naps. He was close to his daddy. He was just a little 3 year old boy who didn't know... that he'd never see his daddy again, never nap in his daddy's arms again... at that time, he just wanted to be beside his daddy.... he didn't know his daddy wasn't 'just asleep'.
I remember Taban telling me that he was 'dead'... and he fell to the floor just like his daddy fell to the sand at Myrtle Beach. His mother told me that at preschool, Taban had begun doing that, to tell the children that his daddy died... he'd fall to the ground and say 'I'm dead'. Taban would talk about his daddy and always point up to the sky and say 'my daddy's up there'. Can you imagine how I felt for my little grandson, how my heart broke because I was 'old enough to know'... that his daddy wasn't coming back.
Taban still didn't know that... because I saw several times he thought someone meant his daddy was here, and the excitement in his little face and how he jumped up quickly to look in the direction he thought Tommy would come. I can't tell you how that hurt me, how I wished for his sake, his daddy could... walk through the door. Isn't it just awful... for a little boy trying to find his daddy... somewhere?
Isn't it sad when that little boy begins to have new people in his life, his home... who resent him, and make his little precious life bad? I can't bear to think of him being hurt... I remember his mother telling me she got angry at the guy she was with (the one who didn't work, drank, a deadbeat).... for talking ugly to Taban. He called him names. Taban didn't deserve that... also, the man continued 'to be there' for so long, he should have been kicked to the curb. Yes, I mean that... if I say it ...I hold my ground... I just said that. We met him... she brought him to our home just weeks after my son died.
It broke my heart to hear the things Taban said... he loved his daddy. Sometimes... he'd call Tommy 'Big Daddy'... I know Tommy's height made him look so tall when Taban looked up to him. Also, Tommy drove a big white tractor-trailer. He always talked to his daddy at nighttime... when he'd say his prayers. His mother used to do that with him every night.
Taban's mother has Tommy's ashes, one day she will take them to Stone Mountain to scatter them... he wanted that. When she began going with that guy, I asked her for Tommy's ashes... she didn't want to let me have them... I understood, and was gracious. Inside, I wished so much to have my son's ashes.. I don't think I'll be asked to be there when she scatters my child's ashes... When she moved on, she shut us out. I email her once a week asking to see my grandson.
She just sent an email back to me along with a copy of the email I'd written to her letting her know how I felt about her.... she said that was 'in case I'd forgotten' what I wrote to her. I admit the email was not my nicest ... because I took offense at something she'd wrote to me.
Normally... I stay quiet, smile and... go on. I 'told her off' in my email, the first time since Tommy died. She messed up bad, affecting my grandson's life, and I was upset. The guy she'd began to be with soon after Tommy's death was a deadbeat, he drank, he talked ugly to Taban. He just used her while she was 'rich'. While I was 'at it' writing to her, I added other things that were in my mind. No, it wasn't a nice email...
She had emailed me an apology for 'messing up' with that guy, and she knew it hurt Taban... that she'd try to think with her head, instead of her butt.... from now on.
She had quit nursing school, now ... she is supposed to be back in school to be an RN... I admit I was harsh when I told her that she'd probably never finish school... truthfully, I hoped to make her angry enough at me... to make her say ....'I'll show that b_____!' I just want her to do good, her every action affects my grandson.
My granddaughter's mother has done well, she remarried to a great guy, and he loves my granddaughter.... they have a loving home, they go to church, and they are your good community people who will be there when someone needs them. I don't worry about my granddaughter... she is surrounded with people who truly love her.
I emailed her back telling her that no matter how we felt about the other... it wasn't about us. She hasn't communicated since. I will continue asking in the nicest way to see Taban. He needs to know his father's mother. I need to know him.
I will say this much in credit of Taban's mother... she really is truly a good person... I loved her with my heart. She is a family-oriented person, and tries to do the right things. I understand the feelings between she and I are really 'not good... she would have to think about letting me see Taban.
What she has done has been done by a 'million' young women when they suddenly find themselves alone. She had alot of grief inside, she was lonely. I hate her and I don't hate her... I only want good things to be in her life. I'm sure alot of mothers of sons who have died... have felt like I do.
As for my granddaughter, strangely enough.... her mother communicated with me through email until May of last year. I feel my grandson's mother is involved in 'why' she cut off communication. They were calling each other and talking ... once again at that time. I never heard from her again. I want to see my granddaughter, she will be 12 in September.
I feel that to justify insurance money spent that 'might have been' my granddaughter's.. she may have told her mother that I didn't want her to have it until she was eighteen years old. I did say that one time but, later I told my grandson's mother to give it to her, that her mother would spend it on her, and family things. McKenzie's mother would do right with that money. It wasn't my decision to make.... it was my grandson's mother's decision.... Tommy's insurance money and 401K went to her.
She kept the money.... hers, Taban's, and McKenzie's. I don't think that money is 'there for my granddaughter'... anymore'. If it is, then ... I'm wrong and I would feel bad for what I think..... I hope that's the case. She knows I feel this way... she says it's put up for McKenzie. Why not give it to McKenzie 'now' when she needs it? She has a new car she paid cash for, and really I don't know what else she has 'to show for all the money spent' through this time.... let McKenzie have her money, to help them have a better life... Tommy meant for that to be.
Just a month before Tommy died, he'd always kept me as beneficiary on his life insurance through the years he drove a truck..... I kept telling him that he was 'married now', he needed to put his wife's name as beneficiary. He would always say 'but, I want to keep you, mom'. It came time soon after to update all... he put it in her name. He died just a short time after this. It was a mistake.... but, I wanted to do the 'right' thing.................................
He told her just like he'd always told me.... 'if something happens to me, split it all in 4 ways... to you, my wife, my daughter, my son. She gave me the money he wanted me to have.. though, with hesitation on his 401K, but... later did. Tommy had told me just a week or so, before he died that he wanted me to have a new computer, mine had quit working.
He was waiting for his 401K plan at that time... I remember him standing there in the sunshine saying 'Mama, I want to give you $2,000 so, you can get a nice computer, and I haven't decided what to get Skip'. His wife was standing beside him... both smiling. She couldn't wait for him to tell me, and reminded him to. How he touched my heart... we both smiled at each other, his smile matching the sunshine over his shoulder. There was no need for words.... we'd done this before. All through time Tommy, Skip and I would do something 'big' for each of us... when there was extra money... it was how we were... we wanted each other to have something we wanted, and might not have the extra money for. We three were always 'there' for the other. I had my family, my own family.
I felt anger when Tommy's wife told Skip and I about the guy she began to see just a short time after Tommy died... (she saw his cousin first)... she began shutting us out. She did tell me that 'for the first time in that guy's life, he had 'brand-named' things because she bought them for him'... she did this at Christmas... Tommy had just died the 29th of May. She bought all these things on the life insurance money meant for Tommy's loved ones. She took her friends out to expensive restaurants, riding around, having a good time... she would call us sometimes from expensive restaurants to let us know... where she was at.
Just a thought... can you imagine how I, as Tommy's mother, felt when his wife tells me she's just bought name-brand things for a drunk so, he could have them for the first time in his life? Bought all those things for him ..... with money from my son's insurance and, he'd just died? Do you know... many things such as this happened while I was in mourning, the world of darkness.... I just remember looking at her through my grieving eyes, and I would quietly smile, and nod my head. I never commented... she felt she could keep 'telling me things'... not remembering I was Tommy's mother, that I was hearing her say the 'damnest' things that I am sure another mother would have physically jumped on her for. I sat there in my grief... quietly... listening and... smiling.
She will never know she made my grief ten times heavier ... she would 'forget' I was Tommy's mother... and tell me things I really shouldn't have heard.
If I don't see my grandchildren ever again... one day they will see my stories and know they are loved by their Granny Gee. I know I'm not the only grandparent who goes through these things. I want to stay nice as possible, sometimes it isn't easy and once in a while 'I'm not nice'.................. I'm not going to make a scene to see my grandchildren.
I do know that it will bite both mothers in the ass one day... it's wrong to do that to grandparents. I used to cry so much over this... I'm alright now. I don't cry over this anymore.... my grandchildren 'have me and have Tommy' in them.... they will come to see me ...one day.
Both mothers of my grandchildren helped to make me finish losing nearly everyone left that I loved with my heart in my life. Now... I have Skip and our Pups. Truthfully... I don't hate them, I only wish the best because really both are good people... see, I knew them both at one time... I 'know' they are really loving people... I never forgot their kindness through time.
Remembering back to 'that night'... I walked back to the 'casket' where Tommy lay... I put my hand back on Tommy's hair, I leaned down and kissed him on his forehead, I softly whispered 'I love you, Son... your Ole Mom loves you'. Skip led me away... that was the last time I saw my son, my child, my only baby... Tommy.. in my life. He lay there with my teardrops in his hair, sparkling like diamonds... if they had had a scent, I would chose 'roses'.
A mother's teardrops in her son's hair... to The End.
Note By This Author:
No one knows who my son's wife was... I never had 'family' enough to know or care. Even my mother never knew her. Both of Tommy's wives were from other states. In fact, very few people ever knew who my son was... no one ever cared... they were focused on their own lives when living. Tommy never grew up around any of my 'family'. There is no one to leave my information to, so... I write my stories so, that my grandchildren will read one day to 'see' me as a person, and know what's happened through the years I don't know them.
I don't tell my life stories to hurt anyone... never. I know that most people are like me... they are basically good people, sometimes life throws twists/turns to make us make wrong or bad decisions sometimes. The sad thing is that if we don't forgive and accept that we all are human... that person always remains 'bad' in our minds... when alot of times they aren't.... it was the 'wrong combination of people, circumstances' that was the catalyst triggering 'bad' things.
This includes me, both making mistakes and forgiving... I'm no exception, I'm the most imperfect person there is. I can say this in all honesty.... I'm a good 'imperfect' person with a good heart. So are they... no matter the mistakes. I've made mine, too. It didn't mean I was 'bad'... wrong people, circumstances, wrong combinations were the catalyst. That's why I can forgive, understand... I've been on many roads in my life to learn this.
Never think that I am talking to be talking 'bad' about anyone... ever. I'm writing my life stories/colors here... it's my life. My goal is to tell 'my' story... and let others tell their stories... we all see life differently. This is how I see mine.............
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee (March 7, 2012)
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES aka... GRANNY GEE MARCH 07, 2012
I'm going to be alright now, because I have worked so hard to 'pull myself back from the edge of a cliff'... when Tommy, my only child... died. I can go on now. That doesn't mean that I don't still cry and grieve for him, miss him. It means I'm safe now... from dying myself to keep from accepting his death, not coping with it, to keep from feeling the panicky feelings in my stomach, knowing I'll never see him again.
I will tell you honestly at this moment... I almost 'let go' ... in plain words ...I almost died because I couldn't bear the knowledge that my only child, the baby I brought into this world, the child who loved me with his heart, I loved with my heart.... died. If you want to know the real truth that is rarely talked about, read further... it is about what one really feels and what they really do, when someone they love ... dies. This is how Tommy's mother felt....
Skip worried so much for me... I could hear him, more than see him. The medicine I was given made me sleep so ... deeply, quietly, almost like..... death. Skip would watch me to see if I was breathing... no, he didn't want me to keep taking medicine, he was afraid I wouldn't wake up.
Truthfully... I wasn't aware of it... though I could hear him when he spoke to me. It was the darkness... again. I had entered 'that world' .... again. I did know that .... I could 'take a little more of that medicine if I couldn't cope with knowing my son was dead'... and I could sleep forever.
I tried to 'hold on' for Skip and the Pups. Skip... my lifesaver who kept pulling me back from the ocean of darkness... death. I just drifted away to 'knowing nothing'......... Skip's voice would lead me back. I focused on nothing, then... I would focus on Skip's voice... and work so hard in that darkness to come back.... over and over... and over.
I'm saying it now... my son ..died. I can still 'feel inside' .... shaky feelings, but... I also, feel the 'strength' that's there too. It holds me up, it helps me to be able to walk now... holding up that 'heavy load'... one that is the heaviest in this world... strange how no one can 'see' it.................. I carry it in front of everyone... everyday, every second of my life..... right in front of everyone.
If Skip could see it, he would help me carry it until the day.... that I can gently put it down, and the pain is completely in a place that it doesn't hurt me like it still can now. I'm not sure if that day will come, I'll tell you 'why'.
I have been waiting since 2001 to look into the chest that holds my mother's ashes, her photos, some of her things, to look into it without feeling that sudden suffocating sensation, my stomach instantly hurting, and tears fill my eyes, pain wrenches my heart. I can't even begin to take her things out. I feel as if I'm 'going into darkness'......... it's pure grief, pure pain, all from loving her so much.
I have been waiting to look into my brother, Rick-Rick's chest that holds his ashes, his photos, his cap, and his cellphone, and other things. The same thing happens to me.... I can't look into either of these chests and it has been several years now... not so long before Tommy died. I loved my brother Rick-Rick with my heart, too.
I can look at my cousin Jimmy's ashes with the angel that sits beside them. They sit beside my mother's, and brother's ashes as he requested ... in my happy art room. I used to tell him about their ashes sitting in my art room where there is color, sunshine and happiness... he made me promise to one day put his ashes beside them... I did. He hoped it possible to 'match wits with Earlene again'.
Tommy's chest is nearby... it's bigger than the others. It holds more things of Tommy's, one day it will be Taban's. I can't remember everything that is in that chest since he died... but, I know this... the time hasn't come for me to sit and take those things out. There are several photos of Tommy laying in that 'casket'....... the one they use to cremate a loved one.
One day I opened his chest thinking I would be able to take the little plastic box holding those photos out ..to look at them. I waited until I took out several of his things to hold, to put to my face to see if I could 'recognize my son'.. hoping to smell something that said to me 'Tommy'. My stomach began shaking, I felt that tightness in my chest, I felt like I was going to suffocate.
At this moment... my stomach feels funny, my heart is tightening up.......... it will be sometime before, or if that time ever comes for me to 'gently put down that load'. But... I'm still... alright.
I made myself open the plastic box, to take out the photos. I looked at the photos, holding them away to keep the tears that rained from my eyes from wetting them. Tears, diamond teardops... I would be rich in diamonds if every teardrop was frozen into a diamond... diamonds that sparkle in the wetness of my unstoppable tears. Skip doesn't want me to look at the photos... he's afraid for me. I'm afraid for myself.
My eyes are always drawn to his face ... he looks 'peaceful'... so quiet. There is a slight smile on his face. He eyes are closed, he looks like he is asleep, his neck is swollen (could it be from the heart attack?).
My memory of being 'there at that funeral home'... standing at that casket alone with Skip nearby.... is like seeing myself in a dream, feeling myself in such agony, grief, holding in screams of pain. Screaming 'TOMMY, PLEASE COME BACK!, PLEASE COME BACK, TOMMY!' I sit here while writing to you all.. now, feeling it all over again... I am crying, tears falling down my face. I am still alright.. this is bound to happen throughout the rest of my life. It does hurt, though.... but, I can live now.
I have sat here crying, my heart aching so. I didn't know that 'all of that' was still so close to the surface... I've been trying to 'push' it all back far enough so, I can talk about Tommy freely ... and not cry. It's love you know... love that falls into tears as they pour from my eyes. I know every mother who has or will... lose their child... will recognize what I'm saying.
My memory of taking my hand to touch my child's hair as he lay there, I began to rub his hair, pat his head just like I did when he was a little boy ..... I was crying, screaming 'inside'...'Tommy!' My fingers felt something toward the back of his head...
My hand froze in place as my mind tried to somehow make sense of what I was feeling. It was hard, bumpy... at first I couldn't identify what it was. It came to me that the 'hard, bumpy places' were ... stitches. Stitches from the autopsy.
I looked up to see alarm on Skip's face ... 'Skip, there are stitches in Tommy's head, there are stitches in his head!' I did begin crying aloud, Skip's arms holding me. In my mind ..at this moment ...as my fingers caress the keys on my keyboard.... I can 'feel' those ...stitches.
I was crying inside, my tears falling onto his hair. Yes, when my son was cremated... his mother's tears were in his beautiful hair... falling as my fingers worried with the hard, bumpy scar on his head. Touching, not touching, but touching............ ever so gently. Each 'bump' burning its memory into my fingers... I'll always 'know' what it feels like... I won't ever forget that.
I was 'in a far away place' that night ....so many people were there at the funeral home. I 'wandered' ... I don't remember staying still long.... I have said over and over... I was like a leaf blowing in the wind, when it stopped blowing, I stopped.. also. When it blew again, so.. did I move. I didn't stay by Skip's side... I 'wandered'... like a lost soul. At least... I 'think I did'. I think I thought I was doing things, but... when I ask Skip... he doesn't remember me doing anything, except to ....... cry. It was the medicine trying to carry me to a place of peace to help me, to lessen the pain...
I remember 'wandering' as our home and everything in it ... burned up... moving, wandering, watching as 'our life went up in flames'. It's the shock, the disbelief.......... the 'wanting to reach out and bring our loved one, our precious possessions back'............ I was like that in the funeral home... I was led here... there when needed, I think. How many times in my life have I been in shock? I can't count them anymore... I recognize 'shock' now... it's become very familiar to me... too familiar.
I could hear people, see people yet.. not really see 'them'. The medicine I was given kept me in a 'calm place'.... it was potent. For once in my life, I had begged to be drugged... I was drugged... Thank-God! That night ... I don't know if I was crying... I don't know alot of... anything. I think I was smiling as I cried... smiling as if to apologize for anyone seeing my tears, and upsetting 'them'. Maybe I was 'thinking'... I did that.
Maybe smiling because the medicine was responsible. Smiling the wettest of smiles.... shining smiles from my teardrops... diamond smiles... maybe to keep people from feeling pity for me. Who knows... I react differently to things from the way I grew up. I was just sitting here... thinking ... maybe I didn't... smile. I don't know. I did know 'inside' the medicine made me numb that night.... but, when we went to the funeral home that day... I wasn't numb.
I do know that the whole time I seemed 'so far away'.... I never lost sight on that box 'over there' ... in it Tommy was lying peacefully with his eyes closed... the light above where he lay... it seemed 'dark around me', but, I could see 'over there'.......... that spot of golden light shining down on Tommy. His hands were clasped together... just like when he went into the Army...
I remember seeing him stand there... with his hands clasped together.... my beautiful , tall, golden-blonde haired, handsome son with the sunshine smile. Such a wonderful smile that reached his eyes to make them sparkle with... love, mischieviousness, fun. He was always ready to tell a joke, play a prank, or to help someone. Everyone loved him, women loved him, I loved my son. I loved to hear the sound of my son's soft voice.
I remember hearing that Taban ran to the 'box' as he called it... he tried to climb up in that box to be with his daddy. He was used to laying beside his daddy when sleeping, and taking naps. He was close to his daddy. He was just a little 3 year old boy who didn't know... that he'd never see his daddy again, never nap in his daddy's arms again... at that time, he just wanted to be beside his daddy.... he didn't know his daddy wasn't 'just asleep'.
I remember Taban telling me that he was 'dead'... and he fell to the floor just like his daddy fell to the sand at Myrtle Beach. His mother told me that at preschool, Taban had begun doing that, to tell the children that his daddy died... he'd fall to the ground and say 'I'm dead'. Taban would talk about his daddy and always point up to the sky and say 'my daddy's up there'. Can you imagine how I felt for my little grandson, how my heart broke because I was 'old enough to know'... that his daddy wasn't coming back.
Taban still didn't know that... because I saw several times he thought someone meant his daddy was here, and the excitement in his little face and how he jumped up quickly to look in the direction he thought Tommy would come. I can't tell you how that hurt me, how I wished for his sake, his daddy could... walk through the door. Isn't it just awful... for a little boy trying to find his daddy... somewhere?
Isn't it sad when that little boy begins to have new people in his life, his home... who resent him, and make his little precious life bad? I can't bear to think of him being hurt... I remember his mother telling me she got angry at the guy she was with (the one who didn't work, drank, a deadbeat).... for talking ugly to Taban. He called him names. Taban didn't deserve that... also, the man continued 'to be there' for so long, he should have been kicked to the curb. Yes, I mean that... if I say it ...I hold my ground... I just said that. We met him... she brought him to our home just weeks after my son died.
It broke my heart to hear the things Taban said... he loved his daddy. Sometimes... he'd call Tommy 'Big Daddy'... I know Tommy's height made him look so tall when Taban looked up to him. Also, Tommy drove a big white tractor-trailer. He always talked to his daddy at nighttime... when he'd say his prayers. His mother used to do that with him every night.
Taban's mother has Tommy's ashes, one day she will take them to Stone Mountain to scatter them... he wanted that. When she began going with that guy, I asked her for Tommy's ashes... she didn't want to let me have them... I understood, and was gracious. Inside, I wished so much to have my son's ashes.. I don't think I'll be asked to be there when she scatters my child's ashes... When she moved on, she shut us out. I email her once a week asking to see my grandson.
She just sent an email back to me along with a copy of the email I'd written to her letting her know how I felt about her.... she said that was 'in case I'd forgotten' what I wrote to her. I admit the email was not my nicest ... because I took offense at something she'd wrote to me.
Normally... I stay quiet, smile and... go on. I 'told her off' in my email, the first time since Tommy died. She messed up bad, affecting my grandson's life, and I was upset. The guy she'd began to be with soon after Tommy's death was a deadbeat, he drank, he talked ugly to Taban. He just used her while she was 'rich'. While I was 'at it' writing to her, I added other things that were in my mind. No, it wasn't a nice email...
She had emailed me an apology for 'messing up' with that guy, and she knew it hurt Taban... that she'd try to think with her head, instead of her butt.... from now on.
She had quit nursing school, now ... she is supposed to be back in school to be an RN... I admit I was harsh when I told her that she'd probably never finish school... truthfully, I hoped to make her angry enough at me... to make her say ....'I'll show that b_____!' I just want her to do good, her every action affects my grandson.
My granddaughter's mother has done well, she remarried to a great guy, and he loves my granddaughter.... they have a loving home, they go to church, and they are your good community people who will be there when someone needs them. I don't worry about my granddaughter... she is surrounded with people who truly love her.
I emailed her back telling her that no matter how we felt about the other... it wasn't about us. She hasn't communicated since. I will continue asking in the nicest way to see Taban. He needs to know his father's mother. I need to know him.
I will say this much in credit of Taban's mother... she really is truly a good person... I loved her with my heart. She is a family-oriented person, and tries to do the right things. I understand the feelings between she and I are really 'not good... she would have to think about letting me see Taban.
What she has done has been done by a 'million' young women when they suddenly find themselves alone. She had alot of grief inside, she was lonely. I hate her and I don't hate her... I only want good things to be in her life. I'm sure alot of mothers of sons who have died... have felt like I do.
As for my granddaughter, strangely enough.... her mother communicated with me through email until May of last year. I feel my grandson's mother is involved in 'why' she cut off communication. They were calling each other and talking ... once again at that time. I never heard from her again. I want to see my granddaughter, she will be 12 in September.
I feel that to justify insurance money spent that 'might have been' my granddaughter's.. she may have told her mother that I didn't want her to have it until she was eighteen years old. I did say that one time but, later I told my grandson's mother to give it to her, that her mother would spend it on her, and family things. McKenzie's mother would do right with that money. It wasn't my decision to make.... it was my grandson's mother's decision.... Tommy's insurance money and 401K went to her.
She kept the money.... hers, Taban's, and McKenzie's. I don't think that money is 'there for my granddaughter'... anymore'. If it is, then ... I'm wrong and I would feel bad for what I think..... I hope that's the case. She knows I feel this way... she says it's put up for McKenzie. Why not give it to McKenzie 'now' when she needs it? She has a new car she paid cash for, and really I don't know what else she has 'to show for all the money spent' through this time.... let McKenzie have her money, to help them have a better life... Tommy meant for that to be.
Just a month before Tommy died, he'd always kept me as beneficiary on his life insurance through the years he drove a truck..... I kept telling him that he was 'married now', he needed to put his wife's name as beneficiary. He would always say 'but, I want to keep you, mom'. It came time soon after to update all... he put it in her name. He died just a short time after this. It was a mistake.... but, I wanted to do the 'right' thing.................................
He told her just like he'd always told me.... 'if something happens to me, split it all in 4 ways... to you, my wife, my daughter, my son. She gave me the money he wanted me to have.. though, with hesitation on his 401K, but... later did. Tommy had told me just a week or so, before he died that he wanted me to have a new computer, mine had quit working.
He was waiting for his 401K plan at that time... I remember him standing there in the sunshine saying 'Mama, I want to give you $2,000 so, you can get a nice computer, and I haven't decided what to get Skip'. His wife was standing beside him... both smiling. She couldn't wait for him to tell me, and reminded him to. How he touched my heart... we both smiled at each other, his smile matching the sunshine over his shoulder. There was no need for words.... we'd done this before. All through time Tommy, Skip and I would do something 'big' for each of us... when there was extra money... it was how we were... we wanted each other to have something we wanted, and might not have the extra money for. We three were always 'there' for the other. I had my family, my own family.
I felt anger when Tommy's wife told Skip and I about the guy she began to see just a short time after Tommy died... (she saw his cousin first)... she began shutting us out. She did tell me that 'for the first time in that guy's life, he had 'brand-named' things because she bought them for him'... she did this at Christmas... Tommy had just died the 29th of May. She bought all these things on the life insurance money meant for Tommy's loved ones. She took her friends out to expensive restaurants, riding around, having a good time... she would call us sometimes from expensive restaurants to let us know... where she was at.
Just a thought... can you imagine how I, as Tommy's mother, felt when his wife tells me she's just bought name-brand things for a drunk so, he could have them for the first time in his life? Bought all those things for him ..... with money from my son's insurance and, he'd just died? Do you know... many things such as this happened while I was in mourning, the world of darkness.... I just remember looking at her through my grieving eyes, and I would quietly smile, and nod my head. I never commented... she felt she could keep 'telling me things'... not remembering I was Tommy's mother, that I was hearing her say the 'damnest' things that I am sure another mother would have physically jumped on her for. I sat there in my grief... quietly... listening and... smiling.
She will never know she made my grief ten times heavier ... she would 'forget' I was Tommy's mother... and tell me things I really shouldn't have heard.
If I don't see my grandchildren ever again... one day they will see my stories and know they are loved by their Granny Gee. I know I'm not the only grandparent who goes through these things. I want to stay nice as possible, sometimes it isn't easy and once in a while 'I'm not nice'.................. I'm not going to make a scene to see my grandchildren.
I do know that it will bite both mothers in the ass one day... it's wrong to do that to grandparents. I used to cry so much over this... I'm alright now. I don't cry over this anymore.... my grandchildren 'have me and have Tommy' in them.... they will come to see me ...one day.
Both mothers of my grandchildren helped to make me finish losing nearly everyone left that I loved with my heart in my life. Now... I have Skip and our Pups. Truthfully... I don't hate them, I only wish the best because really both are good people... see, I knew them both at one time... I 'know' they are really loving people... I never forgot their kindness through time.
Remembering back to 'that night'... I walked back to the 'casket' where Tommy lay... I put my hand back on Tommy's hair, I leaned down and kissed him on his forehead, I softly whispered 'I love you, Son... your Ole Mom loves you'. Skip led me away... that was the last time I saw my son, my child, my only baby... Tommy.. in my life. He lay there with my teardrops in his hair, sparkling like diamonds... if they had had a scent, I would chose 'roses'.
A mother's teardrops in her son's hair... to The End.
Note By This Author:
No one knows who my son's wife was... I never had 'family' enough to know or care. Even my mother never knew her. Both of Tommy's wives were from other states. In fact, very few people ever knew who my son was... no one ever cared... they were focused on their own lives when living. Tommy never grew up around any of my 'family'. There is no one to leave my information to, so... I write my stories so, that my grandchildren will read one day to 'see' me as a person, and know what's happened through the years I don't know them.
I don't tell my life stories to hurt anyone... never. I know that most people are like me... they are basically good people, sometimes life throws twists/turns to make us make wrong or bad decisions sometimes. The sad thing is that if we don't forgive and accept that we all are human... that person always remains 'bad' in our minds... when alot of times they aren't.... it was the 'wrong combination of people, circumstances' that was the catalyst triggering 'bad' things.
This includes me, both making mistakes and forgiving... I'm no exception, I'm the most imperfect person there is. I can say this in all honesty.... I'm a good 'imperfect' person with a good heart. So are they... no matter the mistakes. I've made mine, too. It didn't mean I was 'bad'... wrong people, circumstances, wrong combinations were the catalyst. That's why I can forgive, understand... I've been on many roads in my life to learn this.
Never think that I am talking to be talking 'bad' about anyone... ever. I'm writing my life stories/colors here... it's my life. My goal is to tell 'my' story... and let others tell their stories... we all see life differently. This is how I see mine.............
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee (March 7, 2012)
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
I WITNESSED THE MURDER OF .... OUR MAILBOX!
I WITNESSED THE MURDER OF... OUR MAILBOX!
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates (aka Granny Gee) March 06, 2012
One evening just before dark .. I was standing at the glass door looking downhill to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. We lived up on a small mountain ... it was like a park. Everyone who came to visit loved being up there... the peacefulness, birds singing their songs.
Tommy loved coming up there, he would relax and one could see he could feel the peacefulness there. I wished with my heart he'd come home to stay for a while to enjoy what he loved there. We asked him to come, he wouldn't... we understood.
Each day I go there... I go every day.... since the second week in February 2011... I haven't missed one day, nor has Skip. We go there to feed the seven feral cats that live in the woods there. They love and know us, though they keep their distance. Once in a while one will come to us. We aren't 'cat people'.... but, we love them dearly. We feel protective of them.
I wish we could bring them here to our new home, but... of course we couldn't take them out of their enviroment where they know the dangers, and how to protect themselves. I would never attempt to try to move them. We will feed them until the day someone else will want to... people who will buy that property.
I walked through the house to the back deck and decided to rearrange a few things. I could look down onto the highway through the trees. It was so pretty up there, so quiet, so......................................................
The huge white pickup slid to a stop... I looked down the hill to it. I could see it had black tinted glass... too dark to see who was inside. I felt afraid for some reason... I stood frozen there as the truck ...sat there for several moments.......
All of a sudden that huge white pickup began spinning around in one spot, making the God-awfulest sound! It spun completely around as I watched in shock, feeling that terrible sound go through my body..... thinking 'are they coming up here!' They began driving forward fast, sliding to a stop at the end of our driveway. I had run back to the front glass door to see what was happening... knowing in my mind that I knew where Tommy's gun was... I was truly afraid. Thankfully, Tommy had left it there .... he had a permit for it. He used to be a bounty hunter at one time.
I stood there watching that big white truck... it just ..sat there. I don't think anyone ever saw me ... or they may have driven up our driveway... I don't even want to think what would have happened. I know I wouldn't have 'just stood there' for them to hurt me... but, for the moment I never thought any farther than to see what was going to happen... they weren't sitting there for nothing.
It seemed so quiet, I held my breath... I felt fear. What are they doing? I don't know 'why' I thought 'they'.......... but, I was proved right when the .............passenger door opened!
A very tall, handsome white guy got out, he looked around... I 'knew' he was going to walk up here... I just knew that he was. They must be mad because I looked at them from our back deck!
That guy began to walk quickly .... toward our mailbox. Our mailbox was one I had painted a farm scene on... it was very pretty. Lately our mailboxes and some of the distant neighbors' mailboxes had been destroyed...... oh my God! My eyes couldn't believe what I saw!
That clean-cut, handsome guy had something against his side... I saw him raise his arms, at first I thought it was a shotgun.... no! It was a bat!
When he reached our mailbox... he began violently beating it ...beating it like he was beating a person... he was killing our mailbox! I did go into shock, then.
Each time he struck that mailbox... I felt it. I watched in horror seeing something no one would ever sees... I felt so numb, so afraid. I stood there as if in a dream seeing him beating the mailbox with such fury... is he coming up here?
My mind couldn't comprehend seeing such a nice, clean-cut, handsome guy doing something so awful... seeing such violence from him.
He stopped after beating the mailbox 'forever'... he put the bat to his side... and began rapidly walking back to the huge white pickup truck. He opened the door... and got in.
The truck began spinning in one spot as it took off up the road. It didn't come up the driveway, it kept going.
I kept standing there... I was in total shock at witnessing something normally no one would ever see... that's how people go and murder someone... I could visualize that guy actually.... beating a person with that bat. It was so violent, making me sick to my stomach. He seemed so mad! so angry! so wanting to kill something! I 'felt' so much violence from him... I know if he saw me... I would have been in danger.
I took my cellphone from its case and began trying to call Skip to tell him...we lived in a isolated area where one couldn't just call on a cellphone and expect to have a signal... you had to almost stand on your head to get a signal. I couldn't get him.
It was getting dark and I was beginning to tremble now... they could come back. I began dialing the number to the sheriff's department. They sent a deputy out ... he was a welcomed sight. Skip drove up, he was upset to learn what happened. He knew what he'd do 'if they came back'... he reached out to hug me, saying he wished he'd been there.
We never found out who those people were, but, more mailboxes were destroyed throughout the month on that lonely old road. We never put up a pretty mailbox again as long as we lived there, because that had made the third mailbox that was destroyed.
I can still look into my mind and see the picture of that guy... one could see that he didn't look like he was a mailbox murderer... but, he was... I saw him beat it to death with my own eyes.
The death of our mailbox affected me for quite some time. I couldn't get over seeing a face on 'who did such terrible things'... he didn't ever know I saw him.
I worked for a long time making our mailbox beautiful.. I painted a barn on on it with a sign at the top of the barn door saying 'Bates Farm'. I painted chickens, a horse, and beautiful trees, grass, flowers, sky, clouds and sunshine on that mailbox. It reflected happiness.
Maybe the happy colors and the happiness from that mailbox made that guy angry.... angry enough to murder our mailbox. We laid it to rest in the trashcan... its days were over. All the colors and trees, grass, sky, sunshine, barn, chickens, flowers, horse, clouds were beaten into one...... big, crumpled mass of metal.
They slid to a stop after passing our driveway and mailbox... could it be that when seeing the happy mailbox just sitting there innocently..... they had to destroy it? I wonder how many people that guy has beaten.. he was a big, tall guy. I sensed such violence and anger in him, I sensed danger from him.
I have seen mailboxes destroyed when kids do that for a prank... that is so different from what I witnessed. That guy 'went farther' than to merely destroy our mailbox... he meant for it to 'die'.
Throughout time I sometimes take certain memories out of 'storage' to look, feel and sense them again to 'see and know why', hoping to figure out answers to questions I have in my mind. This is one of the memories I 'look' at sometimes. I always 'put it back up'.... I don't have a answer for 'why' he did that.
Yes, that was the day I witnessed a murder... of a mailbox. Our mailbox... it was laid to rest in the trashcan. It's still an unsolved mystery.
This could have been a funny story if there hadn't been such violence involved. I think to myself... I've never seen a mailbox that made me feel so ... angry. I wish it could have been kids that I'd caught in the act.... it would have been funny at the same time, as not funny. It would have been somehow 'more innocent'..........
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates (aka Granny Gee) March 06, 2012
One evening just before dark .. I was standing at the glass door looking downhill to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. We lived up on a small mountain ... it was like a park. Everyone who came to visit loved being up there... the peacefulness, birds singing their songs.
Tommy loved coming up there, he would relax and one could see he could feel the peacefulness there. I wished with my heart he'd come home to stay for a while to enjoy what he loved there. We asked him to come, he wouldn't... we understood.
Each day I go there... I go every day.... since the second week in February 2011... I haven't missed one day, nor has Skip. We go there to feed the seven feral cats that live in the woods there. They love and know us, though they keep their distance. Once in a while one will come to us. We aren't 'cat people'.... but, we love them dearly. We feel protective of them.
I wish we could bring them here to our new home, but... of course we couldn't take them out of their enviroment where they know the dangers, and how to protect themselves. I would never attempt to try to move them. We will feed them until the day someone else will want to... people who will buy that property.
I walked through the house to the back deck and decided to rearrange a few things. I could look down onto the highway through the trees. It was so pretty up there, so quiet, so......................................................
The huge white pickup slid to a stop... I looked down the hill to it. I could see it had black tinted glass... too dark to see who was inside. I felt afraid for some reason... I stood frozen there as the truck ...sat there for several moments.......
All of a sudden that huge white pickup began spinning around in one spot, making the God-awfulest sound! It spun completely around as I watched in shock, feeling that terrible sound go through my body..... thinking 'are they coming up here!' They began driving forward fast, sliding to a stop at the end of our driveway. I had run back to the front glass door to see what was happening... knowing in my mind that I knew where Tommy's gun was... I was truly afraid. Thankfully, Tommy had left it there .... he had a permit for it. He used to be a bounty hunter at one time.
I stood there watching that big white truck... it just ..sat there. I don't think anyone ever saw me ... or they may have driven up our driveway... I don't even want to think what would have happened. I know I wouldn't have 'just stood there' for them to hurt me... but, for the moment I never thought any farther than to see what was going to happen... they weren't sitting there for nothing.
It seemed so quiet, I held my breath... I felt fear. What are they doing? I don't know 'why' I thought 'they'.......... but, I was proved right when the .............passenger door opened!
A very tall, handsome white guy got out, he looked around... I 'knew' he was going to walk up here... I just knew that he was. They must be mad because I looked at them from our back deck!
That guy began to walk quickly .... toward our mailbox. Our mailbox was one I had painted a farm scene on... it was very pretty. Lately our mailboxes and some of the distant neighbors' mailboxes had been destroyed...... oh my God! My eyes couldn't believe what I saw!
That clean-cut, handsome guy had something against his side... I saw him raise his arms, at first I thought it was a shotgun.... no! It was a bat!
When he reached our mailbox... he began violently beating it ...beating it like he was beating a person... he was killing our mailbox! I did go into shock, then.
Each time he struck that mailbox... I felt it. I watched in horror seeing something no one would ever sees... I felt so numb, so afraid. I stood there as if in a dream seeing him beating the mailbox with such fury... is he coming up here?
My mind couldn't comprehend seeing such a nice, clean-cut, handsome guy doing something so awful... seeing such violence from him.
He stopped after beating the mailbox 'forever'... he put the bat to his side... and began rapidly walking back to the huge white pickup truck. He opened the door... and got in.
The truck began spinning in one spot as it took off up the road. It didn't come up the driveway, it kept going.
I kept standing there... I was in total shock at witnessing something normally no one would ever see... that's how people go and murder someone... I could visualize that guy actually.... beating a person with that bat. It was so violent, making me sick to my stomach. He seemed so mad! so angry! so wanting to kill something! I 'felt' so much violence from him... I know if he saw me... I would have been in danger.
I took my cellphone from its case and began trying to call Skip to tell him...we lived in a isolated area where one couldn't just call on a cellphone and expect to have a signal... you had to almost stand on your head to get a signal. I couldn't get him.
It was getting dark and I was beginning to tremble now... they could come back. I began dialing the number to the sheriff's department. They sent a deputy out ... he was a welcomed sight. Skip drove up, he was upset to learn what happened. He knew what he'd do 'if they came back'... he reached out to hug me, saying he wished he'd been there.
We never found out who those people were, but, more mailboxes were destroyed throughout the month on that lonely old road. We never put up a pretty mailbox again as long as we lived there, because that had made the third mailbox that was destroyed.
I can still look into my mind and see the picture of that guy... one could see that he didn't look like he was a mailbox murderer... but, he was... I saw him beat it to death with my own eyes.
The death of our mailbox affected me for quite some time. I couldn't get over seeing a face on 'who did such terrible things'... he didn't ever know I saw him.
I worked for a long time making our mailbox beautiful.. I painted a barn on on it with a sign at the top of the barn door saying 'Bates Farm'. I painted chickens, a horse, and beautiful trees, grass, flowers, sky, clouds and sunshine on that mailbox. It reflected happiness.
Maybe the happy colors and the happiness from that mailbox made that guy angry.... angry enough to murder our mailbox. We laid it to rest in the trashcan... its days were over. All the colors and trees, grass, sky, sunshine, barn, chickens, flowers, horse, clouds were beaten into one...... big, crumpled mass of metal.
They slid to a stop after passing our driveway and mailbox... could it be that when seeing the happy mailbox just sitting there innocently..... they had to destroy it? I wonder how many people that guy has beaten.. he was a big, tall guy. I sensed such violence and anger in him, I sensed danger from him.
I have seen mailboxes destroyed when kids do that for a prank... that is so different from what I witnessed. That guy 'went farther' than to merely destroy our mailbox... he meant for it to 'die'.
Throughout time I sometimes take certain memories out of 'storage' to look, feel and sense them again to 'see and know why', hoping to figure out answers to questions I have in my mind. This is one of the memories I 'look' at sometimes. I always 'put it back up'.... I don't have a answer for 'why' he did that.
Yes, that was the day I witnessed a murder... of a mailbox. Our mailbox... it was laid to rest in the trashcan. It's still an unsolved mystery.
This could have been a funny story if there hadn't been such violence involved. I think to myself... I've never seen a mailbox that made me feel so ... angry. I wish it could have been kids that I'd caught in the act.... it would have been funny at the same time, as not funny. It would have been somehow 'more innocent'..........
Monday, March 5, 2012
IT'S A WILD WORLD OUT THERE ON THE ROAD... TRUCKING, LOVING LIFE!
IT'S A WILD WORLD OUT THERE ON THE ROAD... TRUCKING, LOVING LIFE!
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/ AKA GRANNY GEE... MARCH 05, 2012
Who knows if it's going to snow or not? I love our weather forecastors on Channel 5. They are fun characters to listen to each day... one could almost think of them as their friends. Each time I've ever lived here in this area... I turn the tv to Channel 5 to see them. As a child at Grandma Alma and George's... I watched it.
It 'looks like we could, but... probably not' get a light dusting of snow this morning. Even the schools in several places are closed or on a 2 hour delay. I found that unusual and wondered 'why'? Usually it's the other way around... school having to let out early as it began to snow. Now...it may not snow... and there are closings/delays like ... when we expect a 'significant amount'.
I have two doctor appointments this morning in Raleigh. I will visit my cardiologist, and shortly after... my oncologist. I deliberately scheduled them on the same day to 'get it done'. Now... I will be glad when I'm back home.
Alot of people hate to drive in Raleigh... I love it. I love to drive in much bigger cities than Raleigh. I loved doing it when I drove the tractor-trailer with Skip.
It was exciting, it was fun.... that big, old wind coming through. I can't tell you how exhilarating it was... manuevering lanes in that wild traffic, staying with the speed and flow.
Sometimes other women would drive beside me as I drove... rolling the window down... yelling 'you go girl'! Or give me the 'thumbs up'. All made me proud I could do something that not other women normally did.
Of course, there were the guys driving by, too. They really loved to see a pretty, young woman with long, curly blonde hair driving... especially one who was smiling because she was happy to 'be out there, traveling and making 'big' money, in comfort in a beautiful new truck'. That was me, I loved it though, of course.... there was the bad as well as the ...good.
I always stayed on the alert watching constantly my mirrors and 'the big picture ahead' of me. I was very safe, and I took pride in that. Still.... unexpected things happened... thank God, I was 'most of the time' .... alert. :)))
When I say most of the time... I will honestly admit there were times I became sleepy. I did alot of nighttime driving as I was the 'night owl'. I loved driving through sleeping cities on the interstate... all was quiet. Of course, one watched when it wasn't quiet at nights. There were all kind of 'goings on' in the night. Police chases, fast cars making one wonder if they were trying to get away from something.
This was funny, not funny... funny... and just plain ...awful. There were the predators of the night on the interstates... everywhere. They all did the same things but, had a different face, gender, body, color..... they did the same things.
Driving along at night, all is quiet and a car drives up beside you, never passing. Why would they stay even with a truck on a quiet and dark night, a truck driver has to be careful.. someone could begin shooting or do something stupid.
One can't see in the dark-tinted glass until...... that window rolls down to reveal.............a lighted interior, there sitting is a naked man doing things he shouldn't be doing 'in front of the world'! Then...you see him duck his head down far enough to look up into the window of the truck... grinning!
One knows what this man wants... there's no doubt. He wants some fun and hopes you will join him. Of course.. he is expecting to see a male truck driver most of the time. I've seen this at night driving... knowing me ...guess what I did?
Yes, you are right! I began laughing so hard because it's so ridiculous to see a naked man all................... sitting there under the steering wheel. He is feeling like 'such a man' and wants the world to see. From my viewpoint... it was funny, sad all at the same time. Funny... because can you imagine all that naked skin sitting on a carseat under a steering wheel and you see an 'extra finger' threatening to help quide the steering wheel?!!!
Sad... because that person must not have anyone else and have problems. Sad, because he feels he has to prey upon other people to either make money, or to feed his 'addiction/habit' which is being over-sexed. Sad, because he doesn't know how ridiculous he appears from 'up above'... if he could see, I don't think he'd do it ever again.
Now... this is the funny part of seeing something like what I just told you about. That never gets old with truck drivers, and believe me when I say this... it happens 'all the time'! Yes, it really does.
One can be driving down the interstate in daylight just as well as nighttime...... and see a car come buzzing up beside the big truck. The same old thing happens.... that window begins to roll down and 'lo and behold'.......... there's a woman sitting there.... 'massaging' herself... 'everywhere'!
One waits for the head to duck down and look up at the big truck to grin at the driver............... I loved it, though I hated to disappoint, the woman would be grinning up into .... another woman's smiling face! Her grin would fall into her naked lap ..... I sort of felt bad doing that.. but, I couldn't 'go anywhere'... I had to drive that big, old truck. Drive it, I did!
Do you know how women love to just bare their breasts to Jerry Springer? Well, this happens all the time.... it can be women riding with their husbands/boyfriends, or lots of time.... pretty, young girls having fun... they will come driving up beside a truck and ... boom! there it is..... they will quickly pull their blouses up to show..................................................... yes! their breasts to the truck drivers.
More than that... they will 'bare bottoms' in the blink of an eye making one wonder 'did I really see that!' You wouldn't believe... no, you wouldn't believe. Summer days bring out alot of what's hidden on cold days! Yes, you really... did see that.
The CBs go crazy .... the drivers will become excited. They will tell the driver in front of them to 'look at that seatcover'! They'll tell about the 'hooter shot' they just got. In front, one can see the driver in front begin looking in his mirror... waiting 'for his hooter shot'!
It's a wild world out there on the road. Oh ..the stories I can and will tell as time goes by. You wouldn't believe.... but, they are.... true. I didn't until I saw with my own eyes.
I was fascinated to see people 'do what I could never do'........ I was amazed at the 'nerve they had'.... most all done with a....... big, old smile. I was embarassed ... alot!!! But.... I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything... I've gotten to see and live things the normal, everyday person never does in a lifetime.... they only read about them and... imagine.
I may get embarassed, be shocked, or amazed .. never want to do such things, never want to be thought of as 'bad'.................. but, I'm glad I saw and know what I did, and do now, even being a little older. That's the spice of life.... no one never knows what people will do, sometimes even they don't know what they'll do.
Sometimes.... you never really know that person you call your friend, father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, or grandma, or grandpas........................................ they are people, too. They do 'things'... I know. It seems I'm always the one to see the 'things they do'... that they never show to the ones who 'know them'.
There are some crazy people out there in this big, old world. It's a wild world out there on the road.... it's a wild world even here at home. I know.
I'm shocked all the time... seeing people being something other than what others... think they are. It's like when reading in depth in a boring-looking book.... all of a sudden........... it's so amazing, interesting, and ...unbelievable! People are 'books'..........
Yes, it's a wild world 'out there'. Granny Gee knows, she's seen, she's heard, she's been shocked, embarassed, amazed.......... and .....looks forward .... to more. Granny Gee.... loves life!
Oh, how she loves the sunshine, soft-flowing breezes blowing in her hair with the scent of White Diamonds in it, as the sun warms her skin, her soul, her heart.... when it rains diamond teardrops sparkling in the light. Granny Gee loves life. She can see now... the light guiding her on her path as she goes. :)))
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/ AKA GRANNY GEE... MARCH 05, 2012
Who knows if it's going to snow or not? I love our weather forecastors on Channel 5. They are fun characters to listen to each day... one could almost think of them as their friends. Each time I've ever lived here in this area... I turn the tv to Channel 5 to see them. As a child at Grandma Alma and George's... I watched it.
It 'looks like we could, but... probably not' get a light dusting of snow this morning. Even the schools in several places are closed or on a 2 hour delay. I found that unusual and wondered 'why'? Usually it's the other way around... school having to let out early as it began to snow. Now...it may not snow... and there are closings/delays like ... when we expect a 'significant amount'.
I have two doctor appointments this morning in Raleigh. I will visit my cardiologist, and shortly after... my oncologist. I deliberately scheduled them on the same day to 'get it done'. Now... I will be glad when I'm back home.
Alot of people hate to drive in Raleigh... I love it. I love to drive in much bigger cities than Raleigh. I loved doing it when I drove the tractor-trailer with Skip.
It was exciting, it was fun.... that big, old wind coming through. I can't tell you how exhilarating it was... manuevering lanes in that wild traffic, staying with the speed and flow.
Sometimes other women would drive beside me as I drove... rolling the window down... yelling 'you go girl'! Or give me the 'thumbs up'. All made me proud I could do something that not other women normally did.
Of course, there were the guys driving by, too. They really loved to see a pretty, young woman with long, curly blonde hair driving... especially one who was smiling because she was happy to 'be out there, traveling and making 'big' money, in comfort in a beautiful new truck'. That was me, I loved it though, of course.... there was the bad as well as the ...good.
I always stayed on the alert watching constantly my mirrors and 'the big picture ahead' of me. I was very safe, and I took pride in that. Still.... unexpected things happened... thank God, I was 'most of the time' .... alert. :)))
When I say most of the time... I will honestly admit there were times I became sleepy. I did alot of nighttime driving as I was the 'night owl'. I loved driving through sleeping cities on the interstate... all was quiet. Of course, one watched when it wasn't quiet at nights. There were all kind of 'goings on' in the night. Police chases, fast cars making one wonder if they were trying to get away from something.
This was funny, not funny... funny... and just plain ...awful. There were the predators of the night on the interstates... everywhere. They all did the same things but, had a different face, gender, body, color..... they did the same things.
Driving along at night, all is quiet and a car drives up beside you, never passing. Why would they stay even with a truck on a quiet and dark night, a truck driver has to be careful.. someone could begin shooting or do something stupid.
One can't see in the dark-tinted glass until...... that window rolls down to reveal.............a lighted interior, there sitting is a naked man doing things he shouldn't be doing 'in front of the world'! Then...you see him duck his head down far enough to look up into the window of the truck... grinning!
One knows what this man wants... there's no doubt. He wants some fun and hopes you will join him. Of course.. he is expecting to see a male truck driver most of the time. I've seen this at night driving... knowing me ...guess what I did?
Yes, you are right! I began laughing so hard because it's so ridiculous to see a naked man all................... sitting there under the steering wheel. He is feeling like 'such a man' and wants the world to see. From my viewpoint... it was funny, sad all at the same time. Funny... because can you imagine all that naked skin sitting on a carseat under a steering wheel and you see an 'extra finger' threatening to help quide the steering wheel?!!!
Sad... because that person must not have anyone else and have problems. Sad, because he feels he has to prey upon other people to either make money, or to feed his 'addiction/habit' which is being over-sexed. Sad, because he doesn't know how ridiculous he appears from 'up above'... if he could see, I don't think he'd do it ever again.
Now... this is the funny part of seeing something like what I just told you about. That never gets old with truck drivers, and believe me when I say this... it happens 'all the time'! Yes, it really does.
One can be driving down the interstate in daylight just as well as nighttime...... and see a car come buzzing up beside the big truck. The same old thing happens.... that window begins to roll down and 'lo and behold'.......... there's a woman sitting there.... 'massaging' herself... 'everywhere'!
One waits for the head to duck down and look up at the big truck to grin at the driver............... I loved it, though I hated to disappoint, the woman would be grinning up into .... another woman's smiling face! Her grin would fall into her naked lap ..... I sort of felt bad doing that.. but, I couldn't 'go anywhere'... I had to drive that big, old truck. Drive it, I did!
Do you know how women love to just bare their breasts to Jerry Springer? Well, this happens all the time.... it can be women riding with their husbands/boyfriends, or lots of time.... pretty, young girls having fun... they will come driving up beside a truck and ... boom! there it is..... they will quickly pull their blouses up to show..................................................... yes! their breasts to the truck drivers.
More than that... they will 'bare bottoms' in the blink of an eye making one wonder 'did I really see that!' You wouldn't believe... no, you wouldn't believe. Summer days bring out alot of what's hidden on cold days! Yes, you really... did see that.
The CBs go crazy .... the drivers will become excited. They will tell the driver in front of them to 'look at that seatcover'! They'll tell about the 'hooter shot' they just got. In front, one can see the driver in front begin looking in his mirror... waiting 'for his hooter shot'!
It's a wild world out there on the road. Oh ..the stories I can and will tell as time goes by. You wouldn't believe.... but, they are.... true. I didn't until I saw with my own eyes.
I was fascinated to see people 'do what I could never do'........ I was amazed at the 'nerve they had'.... most all done with a....... big, old smile. I was embarassed ... alot!!! But.... I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything... I've gotten to see and live things the normal, everyday person never does in a lifetime.... they only read about them and... imagine.
I may get embarassed, be shocked, or amazed .. never want to do such things, never want to be thought of as 'bad'.................. but, I'm glad I saw and know what I did, and do now, even being a little older. That's the spice of life.... no one never knows what people will do, sometimes even they don't know what they'll do.
Sometimes.... you never really know that person you call your friend, father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, or grandma, or grandpas........................................ they are people, too. They do 'things'... I know. It seems I'm always the one to see the 'things they do'... that they never show to the ones who 'know them'.
There are some crazy people out there in this big, old world. It's a wild world out there on the road.... it's a wild world even here at home. I know.
I'm shocked all the time... seeing people being something other than what others... think they are. It's like when reading in depth in a boring-looking book.... all of a sudden........... it's so amazing, interesting, and ...unbelievable! People are 'books'..........
Yes, it's a wild world 'out there'. Granny Gee knows, she's seen, she's heard, she's been shocked, embarassed, amazed.......... and .....looks forward .... to more. Granny Gee.... loves life!
Oh, how she loves the sunshine, soft-flowing breezes blowing in her hair with the scent of White Diamonds in it, as the sun warms her skin, her soul, her heart.... when it rains diamond teardrops sparkling in the light. Granny Gee loves life. She can see now... the light guiding her on her path as she goes. :)))
Sunday, March 4, 2012
BULLYING... I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
BULLYING... I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE
I was walking from my job to the breakroom dreading what I knew was going to happen. Every day it happened if Virginia was in the breakroom. She loved to make herself look good in front of her friends. I was the butt of their joke because... I never said anything and let it go on for 3 times... plus.
I had left the mountains to come home to my mother's. I went to work in a hoisery mill only a mile away from where she lived. I was glad to be so close to home. I'd never really worked at a job, I never had to. I was curious to how 'so many' pairs of stockings could be made at one time!
I saw people I never liked on that job... I remembered how some of them abused me mentally as a child when I lived there, how they looked down on me 'then'. No one could look down on me or push me around 'now'. But... there was one woman who must have still thought of me as she did when I was young... she thought she could bully me. She didn't know................
I was in my early twenties, a pretty young lady with a big smile. I liked everybody.... or so, I thought I did. Until I met up with.... Virginia. I remembered her when I was a young child... her husband had done something he shouldn't have, he was old enough to know better. They were older than I... when he did what he did..... I was 12 years old.
I lived with my mother in an apartment in town when she met Virginia and Wayne... both were extraordinary good-looking. They were a married couple living next to us in that apartment house. We 'heard' them fighting constantly, making love just as often. They were ...loud people.
This is awful.. I know. But... my little cousins... who lived with us at that time... and I..... had been told we could hear things in the next room 'if we would place a glass on the wall and put our ear on it'.
It works! We put a glass on the wall to hear old Wayne and Virginia when they were loud one day... sure enough, we heard them good! That bed was making alot of noise, and so were they! We made alot of noise..... giggling!
I know this is awful... but, children 'will do these things'! I was no exception. I wanted to know if that glass really worked. I think I'm embarassed thinking about it... at this moment! Yes, my face feels alittle too ..... warm.... :))))))))
Wayne came over one day to look at the furnace and mom asked me to take him something... I did. My memory of this is taking the wrench, or whatever tool it was he needed...... is that when I walked up to give it to him.... he began grinning at me, talking softly to me... and he put his hand on my breast. I left the room quickly... I never encountered Wayne again... alone. Men's hands... always reaching out.....
Not long after that ... Wayne and Virginia got into an awful fight... she stuck her arm through the glass window on the door when she hit it..... cutting her arm badly. The blood........ I never saw them again... they left the apartment. I never wondered about them again... nor cared.
Years later as a young woman in my twenties, I met up with her at the hoisery plant I went to work at. There she was... just as pretty as ever, tall and leggy, with a head of blonde hair and... blue eyes. I was just as pretty but, not as tall... my legs were a little shorter.... I had curly, blonde hair.... my eyes were ... green. :)))))
She saw me and recognized me. 'Hello Gloria'! she yelled. God, she was a loud-mouthed woman. I recognized her voice... just as loud as it was when I was a little girl. She was just as crude as she was... pretty.
When she got close to me, she would run up deliberately yelling 'hello Gloria!' and hit me on my shoulder with her hand. It would hurt badly, and I felt I would go to the floor. That was the 'first'.... time. I felt anger at her as I smiled brightly at her, and spoke quietly saying ...hello.
Oh, how she laughed and looked over to the table where her friends sat, laughing. I saw her wink at them. I filed that back in my mind... I 'saw' that she thought she was going to use me in the future for her laughs, to entertain her friends. Needless to say, but, I now....... 'had Virginia on my mind'.
'Hello Gloria'! It happened again... 'second time'. The pain in my shoulder was excruciating. She was enjoying inflicting pain on me and I would look bad if I said anything.... after all... 'wasn't she just so glad to see me'? Second time....
How her friends at that table laughed... they loved being entertained... old Virginia was their hero. I could see that they thought she 'was something'. They don't know me ... yet...... my shoulder was hurting something awful. I kept smiling.......
I was thinking that maybe Virginia didn't know 'really' that she was physically hurting me each time she hit me on my shoulder. All I had to do was close my eyes and 'study the whole picture' in my mind.
Yes, Virginia meant to inflict pain hoping to make me cower in front of her friends so, they could laugh.... 'Virgina, the Conqueror'. Only.. I didn't cower when she did that... and I 'stood up under that pain'. I kept .... smiling sweetly......
Not only did I stand up under that pain, I spoke in a very quiet, sweet voice saying 'hello Virginia'. I would look up at her... smiling. Smiling while my shoulder hurt.......... and my heart hurt... I didn't deserve to be treated like that.
I almost went to the floor days later... my shoulder was sore from the 'hello blows' Virginia had inflicted on me. 'Hello, Gloria'! She did it again... her friends laughed harder. This was the 'third time'............ usually with me.... the third time 'is it'......
'Hello Virginia'... I said softly back to her. I walked away to the vending machine to get a drink with ice. I stood there with my back to everyone... no one saw the tears and pain... humiliation in my eyes. I was being bullied... that's exactly what it was. 'Three times'... she knew what she was doing.... she didn't stop. I'm going to cry, I'm going to give old Virginia satisfaction if I don't 'get a hold of myself'.
I felt like crying, and almost did. My shoulder was very tender where she'd hit me 'now... 3 times' in the very same spot. I didn't want to have a public scene, I didn't want to be embarassed. I think it's trashy to 'fight in public, much less in private'.
But... sometimes......... one has to put an end to things............... I didn't break down crying when I stood there wanting to so badly. How I wanted to just give in to the tears that threatened. I felt my body stiffen up straight, my shoulders went back proudly, I held my head up... and began smiling... once again. I'll let her do it once again.... because she 'really might not mean to be hurting me'.
I saw her again... there she comes with her false bright smile, those big old teeth shining white! Boom! She's done it again... my shoulder was bruised now... the pain, oh my God... the pain. Tears did come into my eyes right in front of Virginia... I was right! I saw her love seeing my tears and she .... waited... for a reaction from me...
I .... began to smile, quietly I said 'hello Virginia', and walked on. I heard that laughter behind me coming from that same table. I noticed by now... everyone had begun to pay attention to what Virginia was doing to me.... they had frowns on their faces.
I smiled at them... too. All the while I was crying inside, I felt sick to my stomach, I 'knew now'.... I was going to 'kick her ass'! I had no choice but.... to stop the abuse.... that was the 'fourth time'. I let her get by 'more than 3 times'... to give her a chance... she wasn't going to stop. 'I made her look good' to her friends, but, I had noticed the other people in the breakroom... they didn't like it... I didn't like the pity I saw in their eyes.
They didn't know that I was capable of 'holding my ground'... I just didn't want to hurt anyone, I didn't want to be trashy, I only wanted peace around me... I could choose that now. I also, could choose to put a stop to this. I grew up being everyone's 'whipping post', I had no choice but, to put an end to this.
I dreaded the next day... I 'knew it was time'. I dreaded bringing attention to myself, I dreaded making everyone think I was trash because I was... going to hold my ground this time, and I was ready to 'whip Virginia's ass'.
I had had enough... she mistakened my smiles, my kindness, my soft voice.... for weakness... she didn't see that I genuinely wanted to be friends.... she didn't 'see' that I was tired of being 'kicked around'... she didn't see 'what was coming her way'.......
I walked into the doorway of that breakroom, and all eyes were on me.... waiting to see Virginia hurt me again, to see if I would have a reaction to it. They didn't have to wait long.............
I began to smile so brightly, nodding to everyone... my head was held high, my body strong and ready... 'to kick ass'. I felt like sunshine was shining on me, strengthening my soul, my mind and ...my body. I felt 'cold chills' on my skin... 'it was time'....
Old Virginia was sitting at that table with her happy friends... she looked up and saw me.... she began to get up... but, before she could get completely up.... I walked right over to her smiling so brightly... my teeth were shining so white and happy now...
I said loudly 'why hello Virginia'!!! I hit her on her shoulder as hard as I could ... the force knocked her backwards to the floor, she caught herself with her hands behind her.
I stepped back and I........... waited. I was going to kick her ass if she came toward me... if she beat me up or killed me... I was going down fighting! I was tired of it, I was sick and tired of it. I wasn't going to take any 'damn' more of it. Get up, Virginia!
I heard someone gasp, a little nervous laughter... and then... I heard some clapping! I didn't look to see, my attention was on that big, old Virginia. I was the one .... waiting now.
She rose up to her full height and looked down at me... I smiled brightly back up into her face.... only she could 'see in my eyes' that she'd made a bad mistake and that it was ending now'... either she could kill me on the spot... she was big enough to do that, beat me up or........ make peace. It didn't matter to me 'now'... I was ready to die... I was fed up. One way or the other... it was ending 'now'.
She quietly said 'hello Gloria'. I 'saw' respect in her eyes and when she smiled .... it was finally.... real. I wonder 'why' she couldn't have been like that in the first place? I smiled back at her... it was real. So was what I said to her...................
'Virginia, I know that must have hurt... I didn't mean to hurt your shoulder but, I was so glad to see you'! I smiled..................................
:)))))))))))
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE
I was walking from my job to the breakroom dreading what I knew was going to happen. Every day it happened if Virginia was in the breakroom. She loved to make herself look good in front of her friends. I was the butt of their joke because... I never said anything and let it go on for 3 times... plus.
I had left the mountains to come home to my mother's. I went to work in a hoisery mill only a mile away from where she lived. I was glad to be so close to home. I'd never really worked at a job, I never had to. I was curious to how 'so many' pairs of stockings could be made at one time!
I saw people I never liked on that job... I remembered how some of them abused me mentally as a child when I lived there, how they looked down on me 'then'. No one could look down on me or push me around 'now'. But... there was one woman who must have still thought of me as she did when I was young... she thought she could bully me. She didn't know................
I was in my early twenties, a pretty young lady with a big smile. I liked everybody.... or so, I thought I did. Until I met up with.... Virginia. I remembered her when I was a young child... her husband had done something he shouldn't have, he was old enough to know better. They were older than I... when he did what he did..... I was 12 years old.
I lived with my mother in an apartment in town when she met Virginia and Wayne... both were extraordinary good-looking. They were a married couple living next to us in that apartment house. We 'heard' them fighting constantly, making love just as often. They were ...loud people.
This is awful.. I know. But... my little cousins... who lived with us at that time... and I..... had been told we could hear things in the next room 'if we would place a glass on the wall and put our ear on it'.
It works! We put a glass on the wall to hear old Wayne and Virginia when they were loud one day... sure enough, we heard them good! That bed was making alot of noise, and so were they! We made alot of noise..... giggling!
I know this is awful... but, children 'will do these things'! I was no exception. I wanted to know if that glass really worked. I think I'm embarassed thinking about it... at this moment! Yes, my face feels alittle too ..... warm.... :))))))))
Wayne came over one day to look at the furnace and mom asked me to take him something... I did. My memory of this is taking the wrench, or whatever tool it was he needed...... is that when I walked up to give it to him.... he began grinning at me, talking softly to me... and he put his hand on my breast. I left the room quickly... I never encountered Wayne again... alone. Men's hands... always reaching out.....
Not long after that ... Wayne and Virginia got into an awful fight... she stuck her arm through the glass window on the door when she hit it..... cutting her arm badly. The blood........ I never saw them again... they left the apartment. I never wondered about them again... nor cared.
Years later as a young woman in my twenties, I met up with her at the hoisery plant I went to work at. There she was... just as pretty as ever, tall and leggy, with a head of blonde hair and... blue eyes. I was just as pretty but, not as tall... my legs were a little shorter.... I had curly, blonde hair.... my eyes were ... green. :)))))
She saw me and recognized me. 'Hello Gloria'! she yelled. God, she was a loud-mouthed woman. I recognized her voice... just as loud as it was when I was a little girl. She was just as crude as she was... pretty.
When she got close to me, she would run up deliberately yelling 'hello Gloria!' and hit me on my shoulder with her hand. It would hurt badly, and I felt I would go to the floor. That was the 'first'.... time. I felt anger at her as I smiled brightly at her, and spoke quietly saying ...hello.
Oh, how she laughed and looked over to the table where her friends sat, laughing. I saw her wink at them. I filed that back in my mind... I 'saw' that she thought she was going to use me in the future for her laughs, to entertain her friends. Needless to say, but, I now....... 'had Virginia on my mind'.
'Hello Gloria'! It happened again... 'second time'. The pain in my shoulder was excruciating. She was enjoying inflicting pain on me and I would look bad if I said anything.... after all... 'wasn't she just so glad to see me'? Second time....
How her friends at that table laughed... they loved being entertained... old Virginia was their hero. I could see that they thought she 'was something'. They don't know me ... yet...... my shoulder was hurting something awful. I kept smiling.......
I was thinking that maybe Virginia didn't know 'really' that she was physically hurting me each time she hit me on my shoulder. All I had to do was close my eyes and 'study the whole picture' in my mind.
Yes, Virginia meant to inflict pain hoping to make me cower in front of her friends so, they could laugh.... 'Virgina, the Conqueror'. Only.. I didn't cower when she did that... and I 'stood up under that pain'. I kept .... smiling sweetly......
Not only did I stand up under that pain, I spoke in a very quiet, sweet voice saying 'hello Virginia'. I would look up at her... smiling. Smiling while my shoulder hurt.......... and my heart hurt... I didn't deserve to be treated like that.
I almost went to the floor days later... my shoulder was sore from the 'hello blows' Virginia had inflicted on me. 'Hello, Gloria'! She did it again... her friends laughed harder. This was the 'third time'............ usually with me.... the third time 'is it'......
'Hello Virginia'... I said softly back to her. I walked away to the vending machine to get a drink with ice. I stood there with my back to everyone... no one saw the tears and pain... humiliation in my eyes. I was being bullied... that's exactly what it was. 'Three times'... she knew what she was doing.... she didn't stop. I'm going to cry, I'm going to give old Virginia satisfaction if I don't 'get a hold of myself'.
I felt like crying, and almost did. My shoulder was very tender where she'd hit me 'now... 3 times' in the very same spot. I didn't want to have a public scene, I didn't want to be embarassed. I think it's trashy to 'fight in public, much less in private'.
But... sometimes......... one has to put an end to things............... I didn't break down crying when I stood there wanting to so badly. How I wanted to just give in to the tears that threatened. I felt my body stiffen up straight, my shoulders went back proudly, I held my head up... and began smiling... once again. I'll let her do it once again.... because she 'really might not mean to be hurting me'.
I saw her again... there she comes with her false bright smile, those big old teeth shining white! Boom! She's done it again... my shoulder was bruised now... the pain, oh my God... the pain. Tears did come into my eyes right in front of Virginia... I was right! I saw her love seeing my tears and she .... waited... for a reaction from me...
I .... began to smile, quietly I said 'hello Virginia', and walked on. I heard that laughter behind me coming from that same table. I noticed by now... everyone had begun to pay attention to what Virginia was doing to me.... they had frowns on their faces.
I smiled at them... too. All the while I was crying inside, I felt sick to my stomach, I 'knew now'.... I was going to 'kick her ass'! I had no choice but.... to stop the abuse.... that was the 'fourth time'. I let her get by 'more than 3 times'... to give her a chance... she wasn't going to stop. 'I made her look good' to her friends, but, I had noticed the other people in the breakroom... they didn't like it... I didn't like the pity I saw in their eyes.
They didn't know that I was capable of 'holding my ground'... I just didn't want to hurt anyone, I didn't want to be trashy, I only wanted peace around me... I could choose that now. I also, could choose to put a stop to this. I grew up being everyone's 'whipping post', I had no choice but, to put an end to this.
I dreaded the next day... I 'knew it was time'. I dreaded bringing attention to myself, I dreaded making everyone think I was trash because I was... going to hold my ground this time, and I was ready to 'whip Virginia's ass'.
I had had enough... she mistakened my smiles, my kindness, my soft voice.... for weakness... she didn't see that I genuinely wanted to be friends.... she didn't 'see' that I was tired of being 'kicked around'... she didn't see 'what was coming her way'.......
I walked into the doorway of that breakroom, and all eyes were on me.... waiting to see Virginia hurt me again, to see if I would have a reaction to it. They didn't have to wait long.............
I began to smile so brightly, nodding to everyone... my head was held high, my body strong and ready... 'to kick ass'. I felt like sunshine was shining on me, strengthening my soul, my mind and ...my body. I felt 'cold chills' on my skin... 'it was time'....
Old Virginia was sitting at that table with her happy friends... she looked up and saw me.... she began to get up... but, before she could get completely up.... I walked right over to her smiling so brightly... my teeth were shining so white and happy now...
I said loudly 'why hello Virginia'!!! I hit her on her shoulder as hard as I could ... the force knocked her backwards to the floor, she caught herself with her hands behind her.
I stepped back and I........... waited. I was going to kick her ass if she came toward me... if she beat me up or killed me... I was going down fighting! I was tired of it, I was sick and tired of it. I wasn't going to take any 'damn' more of it. Get up, Virginia!
I heard someone gasp, a little nervous laughter... and then... I heard some clapping! I didn't look to see, my attention was on that big, old Virginia. I was the one .... waiting now.
She rose up to her full height and looked down at me... I smiled brightly back up into her face.... only she could 'see in my eyes' that she'd made a bad mistake and that it was ending now'... either she could kill me on the spot... she was big enough to do that, beat me up or........ make peace. It didn't matter to me 'now'... I was ready to die... I was fed up. One way or the other... it was ending 'now'.
She quietly said 'hello Gloria'. I 'saw' respect in her eyes and when she smiled .... it was finally.... real. I wonder 'why' she couldn't have been like that in the first place? I smiled back at her... it was real. So was what I said to her...................
'Virginia, I know that must have hurt... I didn't mean to hurt your shoulder but, I was so glad to see you'! I smiled..................................
:)))))))))))
Saturday, March 3, 2012
BLUE BALL OF LIGHTENING... SITTING THERE WITH A MESSAGE TO ME?
BLUE BALL OF LIGHTENING ... SITTING THERE WITH A MESSAGE FOR ME?
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE
Skip and I both woke up at 3:00 am this morning to the sound of thunder. My first thought was to go back to sleep as soon as possible 'so, I wouldn't have to know the storm was going on'. I am always afraid of a storm. In fact, at this moment at 5:12 am... I am hearing thunder in the distance.
Storms put my mind back to Grandma Alma and George's house to when I was a child living there. I always begin thinking and seeing in my mind ...'myself as a little girl' running to get a quilt. I would take that quilt and go into the living room and climb onto one end of the couch.
The quilt would be completely around me and I could see out of a little opening I would make... I always 'knew what I was going to see'. I was so afraid, but... somehow I could manage to look each time. I wonder how I knew to go to the couch to sit quietly during a storm? That thought just came to my mind.
Another thought just came to my mind..... you know how people, children always 'run to someone for comfort'........ I never had anyone to 'run to'. I always remember having to 'fight my own battles'... no one was there for me to 'run to'. I wonder 'why' I didn't run to Grandma Alma and George... I look back... I can only think ...'I never thought to, I just kept on no matter what'.
There it was! Just where I knew it'd be.... all I had to do was wait and it would soon appear. Sure enough ...out of that bedroom that was my mom's youngest sister's bedroom........ it slowly rolled through the doorway... toward me. It would stop as if... it was watching me... sit there... until... I couldn't look anymore! I would close the opening in the quilt, close my eyes tightly, holding my body tightly 'just in case' it ... would 'get me'.
Nothing would happen... each time I would wait and soon want to look to see 'if it was still there'..... if that big, blue ball of lightening ...big as a basketball....... was still there. Thankfully, it would be gone each time. I would begin to breathe freely, I always held my breath out of fear... trying to be so quiet... so, it wouldn't notice me.
That ball of lightening would sit there in front of the bedroom door.... just 'sit there'. I saw it many times at Grandma's when a storm came up. I could never look long to see 'what happened to it when it disappeared'.
Do you know... that all my life I 'knew' that everyone else saw that, also? Do you know, that it happened so much, that I accepted it as 'normal'. Do you know what? I was the only one who would see that ball of lightening.... at Grandma's house. I've always 'wondered why'? I never thought to ask that question until I was an adult... I thought everyone knew about it... I thought it was 'normal'. You can imagine my surprise when I found out differently.
I can remember seeing a ball of 'red lightening' as an adult... that was the only time I ever saw 'ball lightening' again in my life ... so far. It was a huge red ball of lightening in the air..... Tommy was a little boy.... we were in a department store shopping. We were visiting my mother at the time.
A storm had come up and I remember Tommy running off from me like all little boys do. I was trying to find him ...I looked out the big windows of the store and saw.... a big, red ball of lightening across the street over a Hardee's fast food restaurant... it disappeared.
I remember just standing there looking at that... of course, remembering my 'blue ball lightening experiences'... as a little girl. So strange..... the lights went out in the department store and I began to call Tommy to come to me... I was afraid I couldn't find him. 'I'm here, mama'! His precious voice led me to him.... I didn't think of that red ball lightening after that.
I was thinking that through time when sharing things with others, I would sometimes tell about that. No one ever said they'd seen that in their lives. Only once in a great while would someone know what I was talking about. Many years ago, I did research it on the computer for a short time to see.... other people knew what I'd seen, they'd also, experienced it.
I know this probably doesn't have any bearing on that Hardee's where I saw the big, red ball of lightening....... but, that Hardee's eventually failed in that location years later.... then, a Popeye's opened there (a very nice one!)... it failed in a year or so. Later, it went on to be an Italian restaurant... it also, failed.
For years, that building has sat there 'empty'. Who ever heard of a Hardee's or a Popeye's ... failing? I'm sure they have... but, that was so unusual .... all the other fast food restaurants have made it all these years... they all are close by. They are still 'there' ..... today.
As for Grandma Alma and George's house......... that house and all that ever lived there... they only knew lots of grief. I never saw happiness there... it did try to come there because I can remember seeing smiles ... but, soon those smiles would turn to tears, turn to anger. Yes, that house George built... was built right over hell... it is the portal to hell... the house guards that doorway to hell.
I don't know if the blue ball lightening was trying to give me a message as a child.... when it would sit there 'looking at me'. If it did.... looking back over my life at this moment.......... I can 'see' it would have been......... losing so many people I've loved, our home burning down, my husband being in those wrecks, both of us having cancer, me with congestive heart failure, losing my son...my only child. These are only a 'few' things that have happened in my life ........... 'I see' looking back.... that 'could have been a message' for me.
I'm too positive in my attitude, the way I think... to 'blame it all on blue ball lightening'. :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) Though................. it was an interesting thought. We never ...know.
I am always ...thinking, connecting the dots I love in life, putting things together like a puzzle. Sometimes... it takes years to 'put a piece in place, or to connect a dot to another one'.... eventually, I do it. Strange.... how one can 'see clearly things' ...years later down the road, isn't it?
Strange how the 'whole picture' becomes clear as years puts us far enough from it... so, we can 'see'. It's like.......... putting on reading glasses when you become forty years old... so, one can focus on the whole picture that was... blurry 'before'. I've done that, too. :)))
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE
Skip and I both woke up at 3:00 am this morning to the sound of thunder. My first thought was to go back to sleep as soon as possible 'so, I wouldn't have to know the storm was going on'. I am always afraid of a storm. In fact, at this moment at 5:12 am... I am hearing thunder in the distance.
Storms put my mind back to Grandma Alma and George's house to when I was a child living there. I always begin thinking and seeing in my mind ...'myself as a little girl' running to get a quilt. I would take that quilt and go into the living room and climb onto one end of the couch.
The quilt would be completely around me and I could see out of a little opening I would make... I always 'knew what I was going to see'. I was so afraid, but... somehow I could manage to look each time. I wonder how I knew to go to the couch to sit quietly during a storm? That thought just came to my mind.
Another thought just came to my mind..... you know how people, children always 'run to someone for comfort'........ I never had anyone to 'run to'. I always remember having to 'fight my own battles'... no one was there for me to 'run to'. I wonder 'why' I didn't run to Grandma Alma and George... I look back... I can only think ...'I never thought to, I just kept on no matter what'.
There it was! Just where I knew it'd be.... all I had to do was wait and it would soon appear. Sure enough ...out of that bedroom that was my mom's youngest sister's bedroom........ it slowly rolled through the doorway... toward me. It would stop as if... it was watching me... sit there... until... I couldn't look anymore! I would close the opening in the quilt, close my eyes tightly, holding my body tightly 'just in case' it ... would 'get me'.
Nothing would happen... each time I would wait and soon want to look to see 'if it was still there'..... if that big, blue ball of lightening ...big as a basketball....... was still there. Thankfully, it would be gone each time. I would begin to breathe freely, I always held my breath out of fear... trying to be so quiet... so, it wouldn't notice me.
That ball of lightening would sit there in front of the bedroom door.... just 'sit there'. I saw it many times at Grandma's when a storm came up. I could never look long to see 'what happened to it when it disappeared'.
Do you know... that all my life I 'knew' that everyone else saw that, also? Do you know, that it happened so much, that I accepted it as 'normal'. Do you know what? I was the only one who would see that ball of lightening.... at Grandma's house. I've always 'wondered why'? I never thought to ask that question until I was an adult... I thought everyone knew about it... I thought it was 'normal'. You can imagine my surprise when I found out differently.
I can remember seeing a ball of 'red lightening' as an adult... that was the only time I ever saw 'ball lightening' again in my life ... so far. It was a huge red ball of lightening in the air..... Tommy was a little boy.... we were in a department store shopping. We were visiting my mother at the time.
A storm had come up and I remember Tommy running off from me like all little boys do. I was trying to find him ...I looked out the big windows of the store and saw.... a big, red ball of lightening across the street over a Hardee's fast food restaurant... it disappeared.
I remember just standing there looking at that... of course, remembering my 'blue ball lightening experiences'... as a little girl. So strange..... the lights went out in the department store and I began to call Tommy to come to me... I was afraid I couldn't find him. 'I'm here, mama'! His precious voice led me to him.... I didn't think of that red ball lightening after that.
I was thinking that through time when sharing things with others, I would sometimes tell about that. No one ever said they'd seen that in their lives. Only once in a great while would someone know what I was talking about. Many years ago, I did research it on the computer for a short time to see.... other people knew what I'd seen, they'd also, experienced it.
I know this probably doesn't have any bearing on that Hardee's where I saw the big, red ball of lightening....... but, that Hardee's eventually failed in that location years later.... then, a Popeye's opened there (a very nice one!)... it failed in a year or so. Later, it went on to be an Italian restaurant... it also, failed.
For years, that building has sat there 'empty'. Who ever heard of a Hardee's or a Popeye's ... failing? I'm sure they have... but, that was so unusual .... all the other fast food restaurants have made it all these years... they all are close by. They are still 'there' ..... today.
As for Grandma Alma and George's house......... that house and all that ever lived there... they only knew lots of grief. I never saw happiness there... it did try to come there because I can remember seeing smiles ... but, soon those smiles would turn to tears, turn to anger. Yes, that house George built... was built right over hell... it is the portal to hell... the house guards that doorway to hell.
I don't know if the blue ball lightening was trying to give me a message as a child.... when it would sit there 'looking at me'. If it did.... looking back over my life at this moment.......... I can 'see' it would have been......... losing so many people I've loved, our home burning down, my husband being in those wrecks, both of us having cancer, me with congestive heart failure, losing my son...my only child. These are only a 'few' things that have happened in my life ........... 'I see' looking back.... that 'could have been a message' for me.
I'm too positive in my attitude, the way I think... to 'blame it all on blue ball lightening'. :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) Though................. it was an interesting thought. We never ...know.
I am always ...thinking, connecting the dots I love in life, putting things together like a puzzle. Sometimes... it takes years to 'put a piece in place, or to connect a dot to another one'.... eventually, I do it. Strange.... how one can 'see clearly things' ...years later down the road, isn't it?
Strange how the 'whole picture' becomes clear as years puts us far enough from it... so, we can 'see'. It's like.......... putting on reading glasses when you become forty years old... so, one can focus on the whole picture that was... blurry 'before'. I've done that, too. :)))
Friday, March 2, 2012
ROOM OF EMPTY BOTTLES...
ROOM OF EMPTY BOTTLES
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES
I was limping, I stopped, pulled my loafer off to look at the heel of my foot. It was bleeding and had little holes in my heel. Those nails were cutting into my heels, it hurt so bad. The inside of both of my shoes were bloody.
For so long... I had to wear these shoes... at one time they were pretty, and didn't bite into my feet to make them bleed each day. No one ever knew... I was too ashamed... too proud to let anyone know how I suffered. I would try to wipe the blood out of them each evening... I hated the smell of blood. That's what the inside of my shoes smelled like... blood.
I wished for a new pair of shoes, but, I thought no farther than that. The pain was too great. I just wanted to get home, I was tired from being in school all day... I had fought my daily 'battles' there, as I did each day. Not physically, but.. mentally.
My classmates, other kids made my life harder, never knowing how they contributed to my pain... pain I hid from them. No one knew how I suffered both.... mentally, physically. I was someone they could pick on and take attention off their 'imperfections'. Yes, I made it easy for them to 'point with their finger to direct attention away from themselves'. I had to walk 2 blocks to get home... I wanted to take those shoes off my feet.
I worried at how I'd find my beautiful mother. Would she be herself today, or would she be a 'monster' today. Everyday I always had to wonder what I would find when I got to the house my mom had gotten for her and I ... this was now... home.
I had my own bedroom and sometimes at nights I would wake from nightmares. One of the nightmares would be of my mama being under my bed having convulsions. I couldn't bear for anything to be wrong with my mama. To think about how much I loved her... brought tears to my eyes.
It was an awful nightmare that haunted me for years.... in my dream I would hear something under my bed, I would slip out of bed and look underneath... my mom would be lying on her back having a convulsion.
I would be sick at heart and scared when I woke up. I worried so much about my mom. Men tried to take advantage of her when she 'wasn't herself'. They would come here to this new 'home'. I hated them.
I loved it when my mama was 'my mama'... I loved my mama. She would smile, her eyes would sparkle with mischieviousness, and happiness, she would talk and laugh with me. She was so fun, and so beautiful! I was proud of my mama when she was like this. I wasn't proud when she was like.....
I came inside the house, I was looking around sensing like I did every day to know if 'mama was my mama'...or... if today she would be the 'monster'.
I heard her in the kitchen, I followed the sound. She had her back to me and I couldn't tell just yet. "Hello mama", I said. She turned around and smiled at me. I took a deep breath and thought inside 'thank-God'... that's my mama! I knew we'd have a good evening talking and laughing.
I walked by the little room we called a pantry. There was nothing in there, excepting.... even today I see this little room as I stand in the doorway.... bare wooden floor, sunshine coming in from the one window in there... over in the far corner a stack of clear medicine bottles piled up high in the corner.... sloping down toward me on the floor... dusty floor.
The sun was shining on the bottles, in each bottle I could see a little liquid... it was very pretty in the sunlight. It was green liquid. This room of empty bottles always made me sick to my heart. These bottles with the green liquid turned my mama into the monster she became for about three days at a time. She made my life pure hell and I was frightened of her.
The pile of empty bottles kept growing ... as it grew, I knew firsthand 'why'. My mother drank it... it changed her from beautiful to a monster. In my mind, at the age of thirteen, the only name I could think of to describe my mama when she changed ...was 'monster'. She was mean and very cruel to me. When she was my mama... she would never be mean to me.
My heels hurt so bad. I had to wear hand-me-down shoes, the nails in the heels were coming through... my feet bled and hurt. I never thought past that... I thought probably that was the way life was supposed to be. I never complained. I went into my bedroom to take my shoes off.. I just wanted to feel the cool hardwood floors on the bottom of my feet.
I ran into the kitchen to talk to my mama. Edna, my only friend, had come to see us. She lived next door to us. She was always so nice, and I thought alot of her. My mother liked her, too.
We all three were standing around the dining table, we were drinking glasses of chocolate milk. I still see the image in my mind, how funny and happy that time was. Someone said something so funny, that unexpectedly I became so tickled that I began laughing, chocolate milk spraying from my mouth.
I remember looking at my mother's eyes to see if she got mad. Her eyes were so full of surprise, and she began laughing harder. That was one of the happiest moments in my life with my mama. She never got mad at me for the chocolate milk... we all cleaned it up.
Several days went by, all went well. I was growing more tense by the day... 'it was time'. It was time, my mama was going to be a monster soon. It never failed. I wished so much my mama would stay the same way. I never told anyone at school what I lived with at home. Even as a child I was very private about 'what really went on in my life'. I protected everyone by not saying anything... it also, kept attention off me.
I was moved from here to there, made fun of depending on 'who' I lived with... I dressed good here, dressed bad there. I don't think anyone ever asked me why I'd come to school for a while, be gone for months or maybe a year or so, come back. It was a pattern.
The teachers even began to make comments saying that my mama 'not only looked just like Elizabeth Taylor, she got married as many times as Elizabeth Taylor', and moved as many times. They never realized 'it was only me' that was moved many times... they wouldn't have cared anyway.. they all had good lives and couldn't 'see' past that.
I would feel embarassed, but, I accepted that as part of my life. I didn't complain, I cried only when my feelings were hurt or I was physically hurt. I don't remember crying over something I couldn't have... somehow, I knew I wasn't good enough to have things. To have things one had to be like the girls who gave me that present with deodorant, soap and lotion. They lived in cosy, nice homes with real parents, cars, and they got to be in the Brownies, and in different things at school. At that time, I knew I wasn't 'good enough', also... there wasn't money for anything I needed. I never asked, I didn't think to.
Oh no! I heard something falling to the floor in the kitchen when I came in the front door. I felt that familiar dread, sick feeling in my stomach, my hands began trembling. I walked slowly to put my things in the bedroom. I knew I had to see my mama sooner or later. I hoped she wouldn't scream at me. I took my hated shoes off my feet.
I tiptoed quietly to see where my mom was, I heard her. She was in the kitchen. She'd made a mess on the table. The 'monster' was here now. I was afraid. I was sick to my soul, life was going to be hell for several days.
My mama began screaming at me to do this, to do that. I couldn't bear hearing her voice full of anger at me. What did I do? The whole evening went like that... she was cussing, ranting and raving at me. I asked her once could I go outside and play in the street with the kids. "Hell no!" she screamed at me. "You have too many things to do in here!"
I gradually sneaked off to my bedroom to get away from her. I couldn't feel good being in there with her, nor here in the privacy of my bedroom. She could come in here at any minute to scream at me. My mama did just that! Her face would be contorted into a face that I didn't know, a horrible monster face with demon eyes looking out at me. It seemed she took pleasure in making me cry, hurting me so, that I would. She hated me when she was a monster. 'Why'... I didn't know.
Life was hell, and it grew to the point that I couldn't take anymore of it.... I didn't have anywhere to feel safe at, I was hated at home, at school... no one would look at me, if they did they 'looked down' at me. I'm sure they thought I was white trash. A girl had already called me a whore... I didn't know what that meant. I was labeled with names I hadn't deserved ..or earned as a child, much less knew the meanings of.
My mama whom I loved with my very heart... could become a monster just at anytime. I didn't know exactly 'why' she'd become a monster but, I did know it had something to do with all those clear bottles in the pantry.... in that big pile that sloped down... in the sunlight those bottles were pretty... each held a small amount of green liquid in them... the 'whole' picture of those bottles was ... pretty. Colors attracted my attention... the pretty green always drew my eyes toward it.
Somehow, I 'knew' that green liquid in those bottles contributed to the hell I lived in for that period of time. Yes, each and every one of those empty bottles affected my young life in some way... many ways. Not only that... my beautiful mother's life. We were both victims.
That room of empty bottles... with the little splash of green color in each one. Empty bottles, green liquid... all sloping from high up in the corner into a pile downward toward the door... toward me, when I stood there. I never thought to taste it... to see if I'd like it. I knew that I liked that pretty color... green. I liked how the clear glass bottles sparkled in the sunshine... diamonds and emeralds... that's what they made me think of, in that room of empty bottles.
Those bottles, that beautiful liquid of emerald green had... strange powers. Those crystal clear glass bottles... with a splash of emerald green mixed with the golden light of the sunshine piled high in that corner... only a dusty floor beneath them, and bare walls around them, one window letting the sun shine through to highlight... those empty bottles, empty excepting for the little splash of emerald green in each bottle. I remember those bottles so well.
Those bottles made such an impression on me the day I walked into the door of that room... I don't remember seeing that 'pile' grow... I just remember the pile that was so high. That pile of bottles ... if one had taken a photo of it, it would have made a pretty piece of art... colors of crystal clear, golden light, emerald-green liquid in a stark, empty room...with a dusty floor.
Know that this author loved her mother with her very heart, know that she would be rich just counting the tears she cried just for her mama in her whole life. Just think how rich I would be if I counted the tears for 'all' the ones I've lost in my world...
I miss my mama with my heart. She was a very good-hearted person... she really would give you the last thing she had if she knew you needed it. She was beautiful, no matter the life she had... addictions are powerful. We all have had one or the other in our lives... habits are hard to change. They become 'one with us' until we no longer recognize ourselves or... others recognize us...... without them. We can't live without them. I always 'saw my mama', I always recognized my mother.
In my life my 'addictions' have been smoking as a young woman, it took almost dying and forgetting there was such a thing as a cigarette... to break my addiction. I never remembered smoking after I entered the world between 'life and death'. I know firsthand how powerful that addiction is. My next addiction was/is ..... eating good foods. Just these words in this paragraph... think about them.............. if you smoke ..you are knowing exactly what I mean.
If you don't... 'feel' the power of those words and 'know'...... that once people are addicted, it's not easy to 'let go'.... of anything. I have compassion, empathy for people who fight addiction, because in 'my own way'.... I know and have this to compare with.
I can look around me, watch tv... I know that I'm not alone in this 'addiction/habit' of ... eating. We eat for comfort, pleasure in tastes and textures of different foods as well as for satisfying our hunger.
I constantly 'fight the battle of obesity'... I'm fighting it now, and actually doing very good in my struggle. As a young woman... to stay 'beautiful, perfect'... I could only eat a couple of spoons of food, or eat several very tiny bites of food, only drink mostly liquids, dance and walk, run... to stay small enough to wear sizes 8-9. Oh... I would look at my beautiful designer clothes and know if I wanted to wear them... I would continue to starve myself. I know what it's like to be 'on both sides'.
I would like to add.... 'everyone loved me, Gloria'... when I starved myself... and stayed so tiny. I was popular, what I thought ...mattered, when I spoke...everyone heard me no matter how softly I spoke. I was 'perfect' as long as I 'had that addiction to starvation'. I had to suffer for years to be so popular, so 'loved', so 'perfect'............ I was the most imperfect being in this whole world. Strange 'how we humans' ........ 'see and think'. Don't you agree?
I suffered to be loved and thought of as 'somebody'. For a number of years now... I am only myself, I don't starve for anyone's attention or their love... I like myself.
I wonder if my mom's addiction began at some point to make her more acceptable in other people's eyes, more beautiful, more 'perfect'? Something made her have a 'starting point'.... all addictions ...do. She was 'perfect' in her beauty, her personality... just being herself. Of course, like people who have entered 'that world'.......... it becomes 'more than that'... they begin to not be able to live without what they 'need'. It's almost 'too late' for them.
My heart breaks for people who go through their 'own hells' while living here on earth.... my feeling is that when you live in 'hell' while here.... you go to heaven when you die. You've earned it by the time you die. My opinion only... I know you have yours.... I respect it, as I know you will mine.
I am sitting here... I see that 'room of empty bottles piled high in that corner'........ with a little splash of emerald green in each..... beautiful, golden sunshine making all 'sparkle'..... magic. My favorite jewelry is gold and diamonds, emeralds... I wear only gold and diamonds... maybe one day a emerald. I would think of those bottles, and their power.
I'm glad I never thought once of...... tasting that beauty... it never lured me excepting to see 'the art, the colors, the way those bottles sloped down to the dusty floor, sunshine making the bottles, liquid... sparkle'. Such beauty in that ..somehow. Strange, isn't it... strange how I think that... looking back.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
GOOD MORNING EVERYONE...
GOOD MORNING EVERYONE... :)))
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE (March 01, 2012)
I wanted to say hello to everyone this morning, and to thank-you all for reading my blog here on blogger.com. It means the world to me. In fact, it means more than my words can say.
This morning I saw that there have been 2,999 page views on 'just one' of my blogs (this one!). I am so honored that anything I write... people find it interesting enough to take their time to read it. Can you imagine what an honor that is? I can.... I am knowing how it feels!
I know how it felt when I kept thinking.... 'I'll be glad when the stats show '100 pageviews'!!!' When the stats showed '100 pageviews'......... you can't imagine how happy that made me.... 'me'! :))))) People took time to read 'that many pages' of what 'I wrote'!
Can you imagine how I feel this morning seeing that it takes '1 more'... to make... 3,000 page views!!! I am happy and more inspired to 'write on'. I love to write, it has become so important in my life. Since
Tommy, and Lena have gone..... I have a way of always remembering them 'out loud'.... never making others 'feel they have to listen to how I feel'........ because it'll be here in words and 'whoever reads it ..will read because they wanted to'.
I have a way to remember all of my loved ones who are gone, a way of remembering the 'good along with the bad'.... so, that one day my two grandchildren 'will be able to see the person their Granny Gee was'. They will see me in my words, my pictures I paint with 'my colors' as I see them... they will 'see me'... they may be alot like 'me'. This is the only way I have of letting them know that 'I, Tommy's mother, their grandmother was a real person, to know that I've loved them with my heart all along as they grew up'. This means the world to me.
Not only that.... I realize that from the page views that if people have taken their time to read 2,999 pages of 'my writing', and they keep reading them.... maybe I've become 'real' to you, also. I know that each time I read a comment or email... you become more real to me. Yes, you all mean the world to me, I treasure each and every one of you. Thank-you for letting me see 2,999 page views on my writing.... I won't forget how much it meant to see '100 page views'!!! :)))))
I always have Skip to talk to, thankfully... I 'have all of you to 'talk to', also. I'm glad you are here! I hope to become important to you.... as you all have become important to me... I mean that with my very heart.
I wanted to take this time to let you all know how much you all mean to me.... more than I can possibly say. I love you all.
Love, Granny Gee
aka Gloria Faye Brown Bates
BY GLORIA FAYE BROWN BATES/AKA GRANNY GEE (March 01, 2012)
I wanted to say hello to everyone this morning, and to thank-you all for reading my blog here on blogger.com. It means the world to me. In fact, it means more than my words can say.
This morning I saw that there have been 2,999 page views on 'just one' of my blogs (this one!). I am so honored that anything I write... people find it interesting enough to take their time to read it. Can you imagine what an honor that is? I can.... I am knowing how it feels!
I know how it felt when I kept thinking.... 'I'll be glad when the stats show '100 pageviews'!!!' When the stats showed '100 pageviews'......... you can't imagine how happy that made me.... 'me'! :))))) People took time to read 'that many pages' of what 'I wrote'!
Can you imagine how I feel this morning seeing that it takes '1 more'... to make... 3,000 page views!!! I am happy and more inspired to 'write on'. I love to write, it has become so important in my life. Since
Tommy, and Lena have gone..... I have a way of always remembering them 'out loud'.... never making others 'feel they have to listen to how I feel'........ because it'll be here in words and 'whoever reads it ..will read because they wanted to'.
I have a way to remember all of my loved ones who are gone, a way of remembering the 'good along with the bad'.... so, that one day my two grandchildren 'will be able to see the person their Granny Gee was'. They will see me in my words, my pictures I paint with 'my colors' as I see them... they will 'see me'... they may be alot like 'me'. This is the only way I have of letting them know that 'I, Tommy's mother, their grandmother was a real person, to know that I've loved them with my heart all along as they grew up'. This means the world to me.
Not only that.... I realize that from the page views that if people have taken their time to read 2,999 pages of 'my writing', and they keep reading them.... maybe I've become 'real' to you, also. I know that each time I read a comment or email... you become more real to me. Yes, you all mean the world to me, I treasure each and every one of you. Thank-you for letting me see 2,999 page views on my writing.... I won't forget how much it meant to see '100 page views'!!! :)))))
I always have Skip to talk to, thankfully... I 'have all of you to 'talk to', also. I'm glad you are here! I hope to become important to you.... as you all have become important to me... I mean that with my very heart.
I wanted to take this time to let you all know how much you all mean to me.... more than I can possibly say. I love you all.
Love, Granny Gee
aka Gloria Faye Brown Bates
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