Fallen

 

I fell flat on my face in Petsmart today. Our giant white panda bear of a dog tripped me right out in front of God and everybody.

“Did you hurt anything?” Katy asked me in concern when I told her what happened.

“My knee. And my pride,” I said. But the other thing that hurt is that I couldn’t tell you about it. There are so many things I’ve been saving up to tell you, but short of writing you letters here or making people think I’m crazy by talking to you in an empty room, I can’t really talk to you about anything, good or bad. You were usually the one to take Brody to get groomed, you know. Because we both know he’s a bruiser with big clumsy feet and no sense of direction. You could handle him. I fall on my face.

I checked my emotions while the store manager appeared along with a cashier and two other customers, all wanting to know if I was all right. I laughed it off and held my breath until I got outside where no one could see me. “Why aren’t you here?” I accused, tears running down my face as I let go of the frustration. All these things I have to do on my own now. Why aren’t you here?

It was another rough day. Days are like that now. I cry every morning, which is as normal as brushing my teeth, and then I get dressed, open the blinds to let in the sun, and some days I actually function almost normally. Today wasn’t one of those days. Today I was in the toilet. All day. It started the moment I woke up with a text message asking my opinion on your headstone. At noon, I spent an hour listening and watching via zoom to tributes given by all your friends at Toasties who love and miss you. There were plenty of tears mixed in with the kind words. After that, I had two emails to deal with—one requiring a death certificate and the other wanting information about the military honor guard for your funeral.

Your death certificate. That one triggers every nerve in my disconsolate body. To see your name on something like that. Your occupation—firefighter. It’s you. It’s not supposed to be you, but I guess it is. I can’t get my mind around it yet. Still, with the painful precision of an ice pick, truth keeps stabbing at the numbness that encircles my heart. With every piece of ice that falls away, a little more reality sneaks in, forcing me to face the fact that you died last month. A month ago today. It’s been four weeks and, while I am still Rob’s wife, I am also your widow.

But mostly I am heartbroken. Who needs a heart anyway, I ask myself. Anything that can cause this kind of pain is, in my opinion, highly overrated. Maybe we’d all be better off if they were optional equipment. If I had the option right now, I’d disconnect my heart so it could never make me suffer this way again.

It would be pointless. I’m already infected by sorrow. Grief, which must be second cousin to the chicken pox, will never go away. That’s what they tell me. Like the virus, it changes form, but it will always be there. So, it doesn’t take time, does it? It’s not the great healer of all wounds after all. No matter how much of that tick tocking stuff flows under my crumbling bridge, I will always miss you. Always ache for you. Always wish I’d had more of that fleeting time to hold you close and tell you again how much I love you.

My knee is sore and my back is withholding judgment, probably until I wake up tomorrow, but my heart? Even an accident like the one in Petsmart today couldn’t make it any more shattered than it already is. My poor, lonely heart will never be the same.

I’ve fallen again, Baby, and just like this morning, you aren’t here to pick me up. It’s not the hard ground that hurts, though.

It’s the truth.

Fires

I draw in a breath and stare at the photo. I’m as attracted to what I see as the first time I found it. Our house. Tucked away behind guardian pines, survivors of one of the worst fires to ever hit northern Arizona’s Mogollon Rim country, our modest little place looks like the retreat it is, painted this time with freshly fallen snow. Idyllic. Serene. Inviting. I can’t stop the tears.

This is one more in a series of terrible, difficult things I am left to handle on my own now. Selling our house in the mountains. We already have an amazing offer and it hasn’t even hit MLS. It’ll be gone before I can blink, exactly like everything else I’ve lost in the last month. I hope there’s something amazing God has planned for me, Romans 8:28 style, because right now I feel like I’ve been abandoned by Him.

Crushed by loss, I told my counselor two weeks ago about my decision to sell our new home in Heber. I can’t live there without you, Babe. It’s too full of brief memories, the last of which are painful reminders of how it all ended. It wouldn’t have mattered where we lived when the virus destroyed our story. I’m not the kind of woman who is comforted by empty rooms with loud memories of the loved ones who don’t live there anymore. I’d have sold that pain and moved on even if we had still lived here in the Valley. I’ve done it before. It’s just that it still hurts no matter what I decide to do.

“Leave a mark somewhere on your property,” my counselor advised. “Something that will continue on long after you and Rob have left there.” She suggested carving our initials in one of the pine trees on our land. Our land. We’ve never had land before, and I probably never will again. Oh, how my heart aches for you.

I welcomed her idea and, since I was headed back to the house for the first time since ambulances drove us away in mid-January, I knew going back would be painful. Taking her advice gave me a purpose not wrapped up in packing boxes. I decided to pick a tree and commemorate our love story there. You’re the wood carver, Baby, not me, but I found one of your fire department knives in a dresser drawer as I cleaned out our room that weekend and tucked it in my pocket. The pines were going to be challenging. They’re so thick with protective bark, I wondered if I’d need a chainsaw to cut through with our initials. Katy wondered the same thing.

We met up in the backyard Sunday afternoon after all the friends who helped me pack up our belongings had left. “Mama, I found your tree,” Katy told me, and we held each other and cried, standing in the yard you and I had fenced for our wanderlust dog, knowing he’d never run free there again.

She had found it. The one tree out of the dozens on our land. Right off the deck. At eye level, there was a dinner plate size exposure where its thick bark had mysteriously disappeared, leaving a smooth place where I could use my amateur skills to carve. It was perfect. It was difficult. It was bittersweet.

Katy disappeared into the house and I stood at that tree, sobbing, carving, trying not to cut off my fingers as I pressed the blade as deeply as I could into the scarred pine. Adding more pain to a survivor of a terrible fire, I commiserated with the tree as I branded it with the only thing I could think of to remind people that you and I once lived here, once dreamed together, and once took a final risk, here, on this spot. R Heart E, I scratched in the golden smoothness of the exposed wood. Rough. Oddly artistic. But I couldn’t make it cut as deeply as I knew it needed to go if it would stand the test of time and not disappear the way our dream had.

Katy’s husband, Dan, appeared beside me. “Want me to get a Dremel tool out of the garage and make it deeper?” he offered. I stood back and watched while he leaned into the tree, impressing the tattoo I’d scratched out deep into the tall Ponderosa Pine. When he was finished, he snapped a picture and sent it to my phone.

That’s when I saw what I’d never noticed while I stood there alone, crying, and adding even more damage to a once ravaged pine. Surrounding the clear initials and the heart shape I’d left as a memorial to our brief presence here were burn marks. And encompassing the new image like a frame was heavy bark as black as coal, evidence of the Rodeo-Chedeski fire. Nearly twenty years ago, that 468,000-acre monster jumped the road in our canyon and swept through the empty acreage north of our house, leaving our trees wounded but the house intact.

Like me.

I have to try to believe that now.

If God is the Author of my story, of your story, of our story, then this tree had a story for me. Of terrible fire. Of survival against unbelievable odds. Of life on the other side of destruction. And of memories that will someday comfort and remind me and those who know us that we loved each other deeply and always will.

I left a picture of our love on a scarred pine tree at our dream house in Heber, Arizona, darling. I think the tree had more of a message for me than I realized when I used it to leave a memorial for others to see.

I’ve been through fire, too. I’m forever scarred by the nightmare. But I’m still here. I don’t know why, but here I am. And I will always love you and remember you and thank God that you and I belonged to each other. You are still my beloved.

R Heart E

 

“You've walked me through fires
Pulled me from flames
If You're in this with me
I won't be afraid
When the smoke billows higher, oh and higher
And it feels like I can barely breathe
I'll walk through thesе fires
'Cause You're walking with mе.”

~ Fires, recorded by Jordan St. Cyr on the album, Be My Defender

Picture Perfect

 

“I’m sorry, Baby,” I said to your realer-than-life photo. “I couldn’t hang onto it. Not without you. It only made sense if you were there, too.”

The house. Our dream. I put it up for sale today. On another snowy day in Heber where we missed seeing elk prints and deer droppings, no doubt, where they dotted the fresh, white wonderland of the dream we went for last fall. We missed it again, just like we missed the biggest snowfall in five years—a foot at our cabin—because we were both in the hospital in Show Low, fighting our individual, lonely battles with covid. A battle I won. A battle you lost.

I lost you. My one and only darling who I’ve loved since I was sixteen years old. I lost you. It’s been more than three weeks since Katy and I sat on each side of your bed, holding your hands, and telling you it was all right for you to go. You asked to go. Demanded it when the questions were asked. Those horrible questions we never saw coming until the doctor called unexpectedly. But when they finally said we could come see you, since we agreed not to fight your wishes, we knew instantly that you were right and we had to let you go.

I didn’t want to. I wish we didn’t have to. We had no choice. You didn’t either. I don’t know what happened, Baby. Why did I get well and you didn’t? The questions are deadly, packed full of guilt and condemnation. They torment me when I’m not looking, prodding me with remorse and regret. If only I’d . . . dot, dot, dot. I should have never . . . fill in the blank. It’s endless. Merciless. Pointless.

Sometimes I envy you. There are days I’m so angry that you left me here to handle all these painful details, grieving without your comforting shoulder to cry on, knowing full well you’re free and happy with Jesus. It makes me angry with both of you. How could He do that? How could He take you from me? From Katy and Lee and their families? And how can He remain silent while we beg for explanations?

There are plenty of explanations—from others. But they don’t help and they don’t explain anything. Why did it look like this last chance at our mountain home dream was meant to be? Why did everything fall into place? We got the last house in Heber when we picked up the keys that day in late November. An acre and a half in the woods. Three bedrooms and an office. My dream kitchen. Your dream property. A deck overlooking the forest where we could spend the next twenty years drinking coffee and cocoa together in peace and quiet while we scanned the distance for tentative deer.

We had it all. We bought a fun swing for the grandkids. Planned ziplines in the trees, treehouses for overnight visits, built gates to the wash where the kiddos could explore and build forts. We put up a Brody-proof fence so he couldn’t escape from the biggest backyard a dog could possibly want. We unpacked nearly every box. Set up my writing space. You even attended a Toastmasters meeting from the office looking out at our front yard of tall pines. We were home. Not completely settled, but we finally had our place in the woods.

For five weeks. Thirty-five days. Until the fevers and shortness of breath got our attention and the ambulances carried us away from there, leaving our sanctuary in a state of suspended animation. Frozen in time with blankets and thermometers scattered around the living room where we both struggled to catch our breath. We left together for the last time. I’m left without you for the rest of my life.

I can’t live there without you, Darling. You wouldn’t want me to. Hours away from our family in the Valley, trying to make sense of my shattered world in a town where I hardly know anyone. So, the dream is gone. Stolen from us in broad daylight

Worse than that, you’re gone.

I don’t understand. None of us do. Maybe there where you live now, happy and free and enjoying Jesus, that mansion He promised is a million times better than our faded, twenty-two-year old cabin in the woods of northern Arizona. I’m sure it is.

I just wish He’d waited a lot longer to give you the keys so I could have been there, too, instead of sitting here alone at my computer, virtually signing away the last home we ever shared. And missing you.

Still, I saw pictures of the snow in Heber today. Like a picture postcard, it was everything we ever dreamed of together.

It just wasn’t worth the price we paid.

If I Could Save Time In A Bottle

 

This is where I live now. In sadness. With time as my enemy. It drags on. All day long, every single day since the doctor called and said you would not survive, I have been immersed in the dark waters of grief. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning, like when a memory surfaces to remind me of what I’ve lost. But that only happens every other minute of every single day. On the off minutes I tread water and try to catch my breath before another wave of sorrow hits me in the face and threatens to wash me out to sea.

Some people reassure me that I’m going to be okay. But I don’t feel like I’m going to be okay. I don’t think I will ever get over losing you, Rob. My rock. My baby. My love. Oh, my darling love. I miss you desperately. Missing you isn’t a strong enough description. I ache for you. Bending over, sobbing out every ounce of air in my lungs until I come up for air and do it all again. And again. And again.

How could there be that many tears inside of me, all flooding out each day? If my heart were a river, it should have run dry by now. Instead, it’s a bottomless spring of heartache and pain, always seeping out, never far from the surface, bursting its fragile boundaries like a geyser right when I least expect it.

I never knew such grief existed. I’m ashamed of all the lithe, careless, poetic sympathy cards I’ve naively sent to my suffering friends when life tore away their own true loves. Or parents. Or babies. “I’m so sorry, but I’m praying you will find comfort in the arms of Jesus,” my manufactured pen writes, gliding glibly across the manufactured card I bought at the drugstore on my way to the mailbox where I dropped off my obligatory pseudo-comfort. I was ignorant. I was pretentious. I was whole. Back then when I had all the right answers to questions no one had ever asked me before. You know, when I had all the time in the world.

I’ve received cards like that, now that I am that woman. The one whose world exploded into unrecognizable fragments last month, like a tornado shredding an innocent town before it skips away to do it all again. “So sorry for your loss,” wrote a long-ago acquaintance I haven’t seen in twenty years. “We’re all sorry for your loss,” scribbled the employer whose track record belies his attempt at sympathy. “God knows best,” some present in a weak attempt at spirituality. “He’s in a better place,” another reassures—without me, I immediately think, even though I told you we were supposed to kick off together so I wouldn’t find myself left behind, suffocating in this goulash of conflicting emotions. “Your memories will comfort you,” anonymous Hallmark writers gush with no concept of the gut-wrenching pain accompanying those memories. Christmases I once shared with you are gone forever. The inside jokes are no more. Desperately I search my phone for videos of your smile and your voice, longing to hear you say something, anything, no matter how insignificant.

Word to the wise—take more photos. Film more videos. Make the one you love talk to you on camera and save it forever. I haven’t heard Roby’s voice since the day I left the hospital, on my way to my own recovery. In the Age of Covid, when the man you love spends every second for four weeks trying to breathe in a lonely hospital room, visitors aren’t allowed and conversation is a technological impossibility. I’d give anything in the world to hear him tell me once more how much he loves me. Or to stop filming him.

I’d give even more for one minute to feel his arms around me again. Instead, I smell his favorite jacket and pretend I’m burying my face in his shoulder once more. I sleep with his t-shirt and pretend his arms are around me. In the morning I refold it the way I used to fold his laundry for forty-four years and put it back under my pillow where it waits patiently until it’s time to use it to dry my tears. Tonight. When I sleep alone again.

This is hell, this unexpected loss and its accompanying grief. “It’s going to take a long time,” they tell me. It’s already taking a long time. Every day feels like a year since the last time you smiled, held me in your arms, kissed my lips, told me you love me. Every morning the sun rises without the sense God gave it, pretending that everything will look brighter today in its beaming renewal, forgetting that from the moment my eyes open until hours later when exhaustion brings its solitary relief, this is only the beginning of a long day of missing you. Longing for what I can never have again. Regretting all the moments I was too distracted to bask in your generous love. And wondering how I am ever going to live without you in a world where I feel as disconnected as an alien on a foreign planet.

I miss you, Baby. Like the ocean would miss the shore. And I’m drowning in my sorrow with no hope of a rescue. Katy said we’re all just trying to stop the bleeding. So true. Half of me is gone, viciously torn away, leaving me alone here, violated, shattered, bleeding out. But I’ll be all right eventually. In time. Everyone says so. Just as soon as I forget how I was perfectly loved once. As soon as the memory of you fades enough to soften my sorrow. When I stop trying to remember what you smelled like or sounded like or the way your eyes softened when you looked at me and how your laughter diluted my worries. Just as soon as time heals all my wounds.

That’s what the Hallmark cards say, anyway. It just takes time.

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go

 

“We could live here,” I told him. “Or some place a lot like this.”

He gazed across the lush green meadow at the distant hills scarred by a long-ago fire. Where legions of ponderosa pine, heady spruce, and douglas firs once rendezvoused, the ravaged landscape had softened with the arrival of a new generation of aspen—young, for sure, but tall enough to paint the rolling contours with summer green. In a few weeks, the view that kept us captivated for the last month would transform into fall’s golden gala.

“Yes, we could,” he agreed. Simple and profound, that lengthy exchange abruptly changed the course of our life. Four months ago, on vacation in Arizona’s White Mountains, we let ourselves believe in the dream. Yesterday we celebrated our first Christmas in our new home on the Mogollon Rim, deep inside an evergreen forest. Mostly moved in, the dining room holds the last twenty boxes waiting their turn to be unloaded, but we’re here.

I still can’t believe it.

We ran away from the crazy of 2020 last August, secluded ourselves deep in the woods for a month, found some sanity and calm, and realized we couldn’t live in the urban jungle anymore. Not only that, we didn’t have to. Rob’s been retired for over six years and I’ve been a kept woman for way longer than that. So far, this is still America and we can do whatever we want to do and are willing to work and fight for.

I knew moving would be a fight. Not with Rob—with the status quo. It meant I’d be forced to clean out those closets filled with thirteen years of forgotten materialism that I’ve been avoiding like unwelcome relatives. It meant the heartache of explaining to our nearby grandchildren that we’d be living a few hours away now. We’d lose the comfort and familiarity of the best neighbors we’ve ever had. Leave us wondering how to manage doctors and hairdressers. And worst of all, my OCD self would willingly choose to dismantle my home and live in a whirlwind of chaos for the unforeseeable future.

All in order to make the dream come true.

We had to ask ourselves a few times if it was worth it and encourage each other—when the vision got cloudy—that it was. I’m sure you’ve been there and know what I’m talking about. In 44 years of marriage, this is our eighth move. But I hate doing it. I hate chaos. And stress. And starting over. I loved our last home and all the perks that came with it. No one has been more shocked than me at this drastic thing we’ve done in the golden years of our retirement. It was exhausting. My body, devoid of the vigor I had those other seven times, may never forgive me. I think I’ve accurately predicted that we will die in this house—perhaps sooner than I expected according to my angry joints and aching muscles.

But I had a dream. A dream of writing from the desk where I now sit in full view of a forest of trees. I could actually see it as it drove me every day to pull photos off the wall and fill cardboard boxes with the security I once called home. I need tranquility. I crave serenity and peace. This year has destroyed that for me. As fear has taken over our country and once friendly faces have disappeared behind masks, as elected officials have declared themselves dictators and the concept of God-given rights has morphed into perceived selfishness, and even people of faith surrender their freedom and common sense to fall in line six feet apart and avoid any semblance of assembly, the familiar became the forgotten. It was a year of hiding for most of America. Believing that a virus with a 99.9% survival rate was equivalent to the plague, everything that we once took for granted was taken from us. The simple pleasures of being with friends, returning a smile, keeping my temperature to myself, attending movies and concerts, worshipping shoulder to shoulder in a crowded church, traveling easily. All gone. Relegated to history books and tearful memories. Things are difficult now. Lonely and complicated. Easy has been stolen from us.

No longer do friends offer healing hugs—they bump elbows if they even dare to get that close. No more can we sit in a coffee shop or fast-food restaurant while children play carelessly on a jungle gym nearby. Instead, the drive-throughs are open so we can eat cold food at home or spill ketchup on our shirts in the discomfort of our cars. It’s not even considered safe by some to enjoy the outdoors—that virus is sneaky. It apparently hovers all around our own heads wherever we go. Mask up, Arizona—you’re on somebody’s radar.

There’s a lot more going on than fear over a politically charged virus, though. Unfortunately, the majority of people still believe the mainstream media, i.e. evening news, tells the truth. I’ve known since my high school journalism class that manipulation and fear is what sells newspapers and pays the bills for networks. Perhaps the biggest loss to Americans right now is their ability to think for themselves.

Maybe people are beginning to wake up. I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell what they can see while they stay hidden behind worthless masks. I’ve thought about it a lot from where I now sit watching squirrels race up pine trees, listening to them leap onto the roof of our house here in the woods. Oblivious to the chaos of boxes in our new home or the lies of corrupt politicians and censorship testing our First Amendment rights, they just live life on their own terms, enjoying the piney jungle gym in our back yard, breathing free the way God intended.

While we were in the Adirondacks a few years ago, my husband bought a hat with the inscription, The mountains are calling and I must go. That’s why we’re here. We’ve returned to the simple life where we laugh at our dog’s delight as he races across the acre of treed land we call our own. Every day we listen to the soothing sound of swaying trees in a cool wind. Wake up to the delight of fresh fallen snow and fall asleep at night under a canopy of stars I’d forgotten exist.

The mountains offered us peace. Ravaged as they have been by manmade fires just as all our lives have been this year, they, too, are healing and life has returned. “I lift my eyes to the mountains and realize my help comes from the Lord, their Maker.” It was time. Time to go after the dream of tranquility and sanity. For us, that could only be found here, on the Mogollon Rim.

The mountains were calling and the only choice we had was to listen and come home.

Swim Lessons

I get it now. I don’t know how I missed it before. I didn’t completely, of course. I haven’t been in a coma exactly, just a head-in-the-sand kind of hopefulness that wasn’t as realistic as it should have been. Not that I’m gonna “should” on myself. It’s hard to put a puzzle together with half the pieces missing.

All these years. I missed it. Even though I’ve been an upstream swimmer all my life. Growing up in a conservative church environment will do that to you. Having a father who worked in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco in the 60’s as a narcotics agent dulled the glamor of the drug culture. Then there’s the fact that I was born with a conscience more sensitive than a seismograph on the San Andreas Fault. I once turned myself in to my mother for getting in trouble at a friend’s house. “Go get the paddle,” my eight-year-old self announced. She did. Somehow, I felt better in spite of the spanking.

I don’t break rules. Until I hit menopause, you could count the number of swear words I’d uttered on one hand. Okay, maybe both hands. That was seven years ago and I no longer blame menopause for my potty mouth. I blame no one. I just call it my latent rebellion.

I have never smoked a cigarette. Not once. Reference the “drugs are no fun” declaration above. I didn’t taste my first beer until 2010. I was 52 years old. It was nice – all two sips of it. Then I gave it to Rob and drove us both home cuz he’d already finished off his own when I donated my glass. I’ve never stolen anything, not even a pack of gum. I crossed my legs for four years in high school so I wouldn’t have to breathe in the marijuana smoke in the girls’ bathroom. I didn’t go to dances because I wasn’t allowed to. As a result, I still can’t dance, which is really a shame.

I have been called ‘pure as the driven snow’—a favorite of the not-my-people crowd—which isn’t as vitriolic as they thought, although it still managed to hurt my feelings. After all, the reason non rule-breakers avoid breaking rules is because they want to be liked. And stay out of trouble. It’s hard to be accepted by troublemakers when you disagree with their platform.

So, I grew up as an oddball. I was not a cool kid, in case you haven’t picked up on that. The most rebellious thing I ever did was get my ears pierced on my 18^th birthday because that’s the age when my father figured I was old enough to add extra holes to my head. I’m still glad I did it. Two years ago, for my 60^th birthday, I got my first tattoo. The next year, I got another one. I think I’m done now. No matter what anybody tells you, tattoos really hurt. That’s about it for my rebellions. I cuss when I’m mad, have had pierced ears since I was eighteen, and own two tattoos, both of which I’m proud of.

Please don’t misunderstand. I was saved from a lot of pain by marching to the beat of a different drummer. For example, I’m not chemically addicted to anything except chocolate. I’ve only ever been intimate with my husband of 44 years. I don’t have a rap sheet. I can’t even rap. I have scars, both inside and out like everyone does, but they’re survivor scars. They’re not self-inflicted.

Swimming upstream all my life may have been the best preparation for what I’m facing now.

And what is that? It’s the same thing you’re facing. That we’re all facing. An attempted overthrow of our 244-year-old republic by our own citizens. The horrifying possibility of the downfall of freedom. To be sure, we have enemies outside of America, but they have wedged their big fat toes in the door of traitors who have sold us out for cash on the barrelhead. Promised favors. Wealth and power. You know, the normal bribes weak-charactered people can always be bought out for. But what really hurts is that we didn’t see it coming. Or, maybe I need to own this since I can’t speak for you, I didn’t see it coming. I heard rumors in the wind, listened to warnings from political watchdog groups, and tried not to panic. I may be used to going against counterculture, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare me.

We once owned a red-headed beagle blend of a dog who thought she was safe if she stuck her head under the dust ruffle of our bed. Or cozied up against the two-inch ledge beneath the oven in the kitchen. Her logic seemed to be if she couldn’t see us, we couldn’t see her. We laughed at her stupidity as much as at the bulk of her exposed body while she thought she was hiding, but the joke was on us.

Maybe she was just imitating her owners.

There’s plenty to be scared about now. Socialism masquerading as democracy, which is a pretty lousy disguise if you ask me, has declared itself in control of our country. Illegally. Right now, their tentacles are so far-reaching you’d be hard pressed to find a mayor or council member, secretary of state or governor who has not deserted their sacred oaths and crossed over to the dark side. The proof of their attempted coup is everywhere. Dishonesty recorded and played back to the socialist players means nothing to them. They lie to our faces and are proud of it. Overflowing evidence of a stolen election can only be discounted from that hole in the ground where sleepy ostriches hide their brains. Now the impetus is on our courts, many of them pre-packaged with corrupt judges, to sort out the good from the bad. They are woefully unqualified, being themselves as crooked as sin.

Right is called wrong (vote for Trump? We will find you and make sure you disappear from polite society.) Since when is the privilege of voting a punishable offense? City-destroying violence is called ‘peaceful’ by the mobster politicians who now govern blocks of ashes—convince the families of dead policeman and children to accept that description while the smoke from Antifa riots hovers above their graves. Medical “authorities” have sold their souls to the devil, convincing a terrified populace that a virus with a 99.9 per cent survival rate permeates the air they breathe, even in their own homes, and the only way to protect themselves is to isolate. Forever. Faceless, fearful people in grocery stores are a constant reminder that all is not well with the world.

I’m not telling you anything new. This is barely scratching the surface of the fallout of 2020.

But why do public servants surrender to evil? Is it for money and power? And why does half our population think they’ll have any freedom left if they submit to the government putting them out of business, purposely impoverishing them until they’re completely dependent on it for their very survival?

Why are so many people blinded by what’s really going on? Is it because they’ve stood for nothing and will fall for anything? Are their muscles atrophied because they never swam against the easy flow of compliance? Do they seriously believe that the progressive socialist platform of the thieving left will still be their savior once they’re in control? It’s a lie—an unraveled rope clung to by those who have never learned the repetitive nature of history and may be doomed to repeat it.

I don’t know if it’s too late. I know good always conquers evil, eventually. Even the decrepit movie industry portrays that in the plot of every film they’ve cranked out for the last hundred years. I know that turning us against each other in the arena of opinions and politics is deadly. Haven’t you been reminded that united we’ll stand and divided we’ll fall? There must be some common ground somewhere that we can agree on, a safe place where we can all link arms and stand against lies and corruption and the threat of a holocaust more horrible than even World War II represented.

If we are listening. If we are watching. If we pay attention to the rumbling earth around us and shake the sand from off our heads. There’s so little time left to recognize the signs of an approaching earthquake. The trap has been laid for the future of our children and grandchildren—a stolen heritage that we could have prevented if we’d put aside our pride and taken a hard look at the truth.

Everything that has happened this year—one enormous tsunami of bad news and lockdowns and riots and politics—has been in the works for decades. That’s what I missed. Maybe it’s what you missed, too. The slow, purposeful erosion of our morals and our liberties have converged and now the dam is about to break.

For the love of God and everyone else who matters to you, I’m begging you to connect the dots and turn around. Start swimming against the flow before it’s too late. It’s going to take all of us together, speaking up, standing for freedom, demanding the truth, and refusing to settle for anything less.

It’s the only way. There’s no more time to hide. This is the time for righteous rebellion. Civil disobedience. Swimming upstream. Taking off the floaties.

And it’s gonna hurt. Evil doesn’t give in easily, but we don’t either. I’m taking my own advice to heart, pulling my head out of the sand, practicing my breaststroke. I’m scared, but I’m not willing to give up without a fight.

This could ruin my snow white record, though. I may wind up rapping after all.

With thanks to Prezmek P for the use of the photo above. The original may be viewed by following this link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/globalquiz/27757743303/in/photolist-JhRG26-6D6U1W-c5eg7o-6D6XQb-b7jVq-b7kmb-b7jRe-3d7GJb-b7khJ-b7jkT-b7jp8-jbQ7d-EYnGh-2vEm3b-BpoP-7wGUsp-7CJAWG-e6EKzT-nNHAD-4mW7sJ-6D6TSE-Bprt-aRQmVX-8gcH6n-5T2SMo-d6TaX-fhMb71-7wLGkU-s5jkGe-9713CV-6ctBUQ-gTXdq-561Xjm-6sChh7-pswDrU-jbQ7e-BppN-W3SJf-6sCh2A-7PP5VC-56F26o-56F1Ph-56F1LC-6sCfBb-Bpuu-56ARhB-Bptt-BpHN-Bpvm-Bpjy/

Chivalry Is Dead

“Welcome, m’Lord and m’Lady,” the medieval peasant muttered in a deep bow. His eyes narrowed in confusion as he looked us up and down. “Thou dost sport strange attire,” he said slowly and then stepped behind my husband who wore our toddler in a baby carrier on his back. The timid man pointed a dirty finger and then drew away in mock fear.

“Hast thou noticed a child grows between thy shoulder blades, sir?” his voice warbled. “Might this be some kind of . . . witchery???” Covering his mouth in feigned horror, he quickly disappeared through the arched entry at the annual Renaissance Festival.

“He’s right, you know,” I laughed. “You do look like a two-headed creature.”

And that’s how the costumed actors convince you that for one day in the desert of Apache Junction, Arizona, you have stepped back in time to live among kings and queens, bawdy maidens and hapless beggars, merchants and musicians, knights and jesters. With a turkey leg in one hand and a wooden sword in the other, you can transform yourself into a noble whose virtue is above question. Long live chivalry!

That is, until you reach the highlight of the festival—the jousting. Then all bets are off.

With velveteen layers of royalty watching from the reserved boxes above, the dusty arena below their stands the center of equine machismo, visitors like us filled in the cheap seats to watch and applaud. It was a display of divided loyalty. Everyone in the east stands, rooted for the good guys, cheering a loud “Huzzah!” for the King’s favorite, while the spectators in the west, including us, gave their best boo’s and screamed at the top of their lungs, “Cheat To Win! Cheat To Win!”

And cheat they did. Charging the hero’s horse when he wasn’t looking, the popular knight was knocked into the dirt to the horror of the royal family and the easterners while the western crowd went wild, clapping in glee. While the royal favorite showcased courage and skill, the arrogant challenger played every dirty game in the book to the delight of half the stadium. We hooted at his sneaky antics and the childish insults he lobbed at the crowd favorite. Boy, was this ever fun!

It was hilarious to throw our support behind the rival knight even though he was so obviously bad to the bone. “Cheat To Win!” we laughed and yelled, caught up in the delirium of the western crowd that surrounded us, all of us behaving like newly rebellious teenagers, stoked up by our enthusiastic peers. Of course, I knew it was all a game and assumed the good guys would win in the end, bruised and bloodied as they were. After all, it was just for show, right?

But sometimes the bad guys won. Then what? Was the kingdom lost? The princess spoiled? The royals flushed? It was like reeling in a catfish after a struggle with the spiny creature—maybe you won the battle, but suddenly that salty trophy lanced your fighting hand.

You gotta be careful what you fish for.

It’s a lot like politics, don’t you think? Especially this year, in the battle to end all battles between communism, a two-headed creature disguised as progressive socialism, and our republic of freedom. It would be one thing if the challengers were transparent and honest. Heck, at this point, I’d settle for just one of those. Instead, they’re no better than actors on a stage, their selfish intentions disguised by scripted speeches. I know, that’s politics. But this year, 2020, they’ve managed to outdo themselves. The supporters of the left—more often than not rebellious crowds of naïve college students blended with the murderous, violent rioters of Antifa and BLM—cheered from the wrong side of the stadium while their puppet hero sold them all out. They don’t know it yet. And my prayer is that they will never know it if the Good Guy in the White Hat arrives to save the day.

But it might not happen.

This year’s elections have been hijacked. With ballots cast by long-dead voters. Underage voters. Multiple ballots by the same voters. Out of state voters. The playbook used by the left is long and complex. Ignoring a state Supreme Court order to allow observers in buildings to keep the elections clean, poll watchers have been left standing with nothing to watch except disappearing votes reported by a corrupt media on their cellphones.

But that’s not the coup de grâce. With their carefully contrived plot of deceit involving the sophisticated supercomputer system known as The Hammer and its counterpart program application, Scorecard, the left engineered a way of hacking into computers to flip votes on election night, effectively knocking the Good Guy completely off his steed so they could steal an election.

In plain sight.

Right in the middle of the political arena with western stands of traitorous reporters, cowardly conservatives, and greedy, power hungry politicians all cheering wildly, “Cheat to Win!” After all, the ends justify the means, right? It’s not the first time they’ve done it. It’s just the first time they’ve been caught at it. The only option now involves the nation's Supreme Court. Litigation. And hostile accusations aimed at the right that they don’t know how to be good sports.

It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?

Why can’t we all just get along? Let bygones be bygones, accept defeat and get on with our lives? That’s what it means to be an adult after all, isn’t it? Sure. Under normal circumstances when a fight is fair. When the count is accurate. When your vote matters.

That’s the problem.

If the left can claim a victory on the basis of the all-out cheating lengths they went to in this election, then your vote and mine will never ever matter again. You think this kind of election is a lark? It’s not. It is all too common in socialist countries across the globe. Just ask every immigrant you know who came to the land of the free to escape communist leaders and manipulated elections. And those are the lucky ones. The rest of their countries’ dissenters had their voices silenced years ago.

This is what’s hiding beneath the masked intentions of the so-called president elect and his co-conspirators. If they win the White House, not only will there never be another true election in the United States, but our days of personal freedom will be numbered. And all those turncoat politicians selling their souls to enemies both foreign and domestic? Boy, will they be surprised when they’re dismissed by the new regime as quickly as a far-right conspiracy theory. Puppets are disposable, you know.

This is an attempted coup. An overthrow. A forced takeover by the socialist mob who are now threatening to make Trump supporters pay for their crime of endorsement should the left win an Electoral College victory in December. Inspiring, isn't it?

It could happen. Victory can be stolen from the jaws of defeat. It happens every spring in Apache Junction, Arizona. You just have to remember the rules of the game.

Cheat To Win.

With thanks to Hans Splinter for the use of the photo seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link: https://flic.kr/p/an7koM

Five Days

 

Five days.

Til the election.

The one so contentious it makes the Revolutionary War look like a family squabble.

Never once did I ever think I’d see the collapse of this Great Country in my lifetime. Not on our watch. Not with my generation at the helm. If we lose the legacy left in our care by an army of veterans who died to preserve this Republic, we will have no one to blame but our own deluded selves. We heard the warnings. We may not have known how to steer this storm-tossed ship, but God help us, the alarm bells have been sounding for years. I fear we were asleep at the wheel and woke up too late.

Someone neglected their duty – a collective someone – and missed the frantic warnings sent out constantly by faithful lighthouses for decades. The rocks of destruction obscured the shoreline, but we didn’t recognize the danger. As breakers licked their lips in saline anticipation of our imminent doom, we looked the other way and hoped for the best.

Is it too late to turn this Titanic around? I’m praying it’s not. Oh, God, how I’ve prayed. Earnestly, desperately, weeping, I’ve asked God since January to expose the truth, the lies, the evil, and hold the perpetrators of it all accountable.

Be careful what you pray for.

I had no idea how deep the corruption, how far-reaching the tentacles of evil, how devastating the betrayal by men and women who lied as they swore to support and defend our Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. It never occurred to me that they themselves were our enemies.

God answers prayer. The truth is coming out. And it’s ugly.

I didn’t know about the pedophilia. I didn’t know about adrenochrome. Or Hollywood’s addiction to it. Or red shoes.

I was unaware of the push toward Marxism, socialism, and communism in our universities. For decades.

I naïvely trusted in the balance of power, confident that justice still prevails, and that public servants are exactly that. I had no idea that career politicians never retire and their bank accounts grow larger than the national debt while they tax us into poverty.

I laughed at the overreaction and obvious marketing maneuvers when designer face masks first showed up on the internet on foreign faces. I never dreamed our elected officials would soon force them on us and that citizens would be arrested for refusing to wear them.

You see, until this spring, I thought that America was still the Land of the Free.

I was sure everyone around me would realize the “novel” virus could be outsmarted by a healthy immune system created for just such a purpose by our Creator. But I, like everyone else, knew nothing of herd immunity until a group of courageous doctors explained it to us and were immediately shut down, their message silenced, their videos removed. I never dreamed we no longer have freedom of the press or that communistic censorship would rule America.

I also didn’t know the Mainstream Media is corrupt. Like I told you—asleep at the wheel.

This time last year I still believed our Constitution was as impenetrable as Fort Knox. That my right to peaceably assemble, worship in public or private, and bear arms if the need arose to protect my property, my loved ones, or my own life was immutable. I still understood that public property was public – not once did it cross my mind that statues stood in the open as an invitation to thugs to destroy them—without fear of consequences.

I’ve been a mother for thirty-nine years, but if either of my children had ever attacked police officers, thrown Molotov cocktails at department stores and federal buildings, beaten strangers bloody simply because they disagreed with them, or stolen millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and called it a “peaceful protest,” the last thing on earth I’d have done was form a wall with other mothers of criminals and wept at the way my kids were misunderstood by the masses.

I’d have beaten their butts and turned them in to the police. Just ask my children.

I always understood that destruction and violence were against the law and would be punished. That “peaceful” meant no one died or was maimed and no buildings were burned down while police officers watched helplessly on the sidelines as per orders from their supervisors and mayors. I thought “protesters” and “rioters” were listed separately in the dictionary for a reason.

I didn’t know someone changed dictionaries when I wasn’t looking.

But above all else, as wave after wave of shocking violence and panic and fear was lobbed at us every single day since last spring, it was inconceivable to me that the end result would be the fall of our country into the hands of power hungry politicians who’ve sold their souls to the devil of socialism.

Is it too late for America? I don’t believe for one minute that God is punishing us. Let’s be real here—we’ve never been a perfect people in a perfect country. I am confident that God is on the side of good. He shed His grace on America, remember? That the great experiment of freedom dreamed up by our forefathers was honored by our Creator. He fights for us. And while I did not, any more than you, see the net that was cast for us by enemies both foreign and domestic this year, nothing takes the God of Heaven by surprise.

Nothing.

It is not too late to avoid the breakers. To save our ship. The world is rooting for us—it’s true. I’ve read their comments. People in Australia and England and Canada and Spain and Chile and Africa and other countries see the trouble we’re in and they are praying for us. Praying that we will survive this crisis. Why?

Because America is the last vestige of hope in a world already overtaken by evil men who want nothing more than to oppress freedom.

Five days. While the clock ticks its countdown, the beacons of warning flash their lights  across the waves—from sea to shining sea.

Are you awake yet?

My thanks goes to Peter Roome for permission to use his stunning photograph, seen above. The original can be viewed by following this link to the artist's page:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/roome/6827668519/in/photolist-bpkzYK-Gr6qEC-jFtRi-HaSoXf-294kjRt-5u2UKm-716Gg6-cp89xG-8kh1AG-rnzgD-ax42SR-ae3kKz-f28cUg-cvgVXE-52yDr9-3MV8WA-TPoysM-czfcH3-5tXsdi-6ScUiQ-2aowWGb-6skiXG-F6ZGX-2UD4Tt-cFUjNh-t6uhab-6Botho-jUomZ-a92DbQ-d2yL7N-33wJ7f-caLE2o-2dASo-pYxhX8-9d21EE-59QYg-9d1Unm-wetu7P-jUoBu-LfiKC-cDmYEf-28dezU6-WYyQs-QhYz32-FF9fJC-BQobTW-4eKm39-6nXQba-iNqpro-JqhB24

Silence

I get it now.

I get so many things that once were dusty words in history books. The people on those pages have been coming to life, practically against my will. The dates and fashion that kept them locked down in the past no longer separate us. Gradually appearing in the shadows of current events, they are real people who once walked in the shoes I’m wearing now. Only mine don’t have big black buckles on them.

Suddenly, I know how they felt in both the struggle to gain freedom and the fight to keep it.

I’ve been to the birthplace of America a couple of times with my family. We walked Boston’s Freedom Trail where all those guys in funny looking tights put their lives, their wealth and their sacred honor on the line. We stood beside the grave where Paul Revere is buried. The North Church, where he lit “two lanterns if by sea,” is in peril once again, just as much as the upscale businesses surrounding it.

And we’ve driven through Gettysburg where bullet holes still riddle the stone walls of historic buildings, sobering reminders of what can happen when friends and family divide over little things like states’ rights. They say there are ghosts who still linger on its Civil War battlefields. But apparitions like those are as questionable as Covid case numbers. The thing that haunts me about that conflict, which took more American lives than all other wars combined, is this—now I understand how friends can be lost, families can divide, and a nation can disintegrate when unity is undermined. I’ve already seen brother turn against brother and children against their parents. There were probably more tears shed in that war than in all others combined, too.

My history teacher never told me there’d be a final exam like this one.

Bible stories are coming to life for me as well. Fear is written in its pages where true stories of oppression and depravity are told without the gilt edges of censorship. The conflict there was always good vs. evil, leading up to the climax of Jesus’ death. But in a well-played sting operation, Jesus turned the tables on his enemies by rising from the dead and overcoming sin for us. He is alive. But the Church is on a ventilator. The cancel culture of A.D. 85 feels like a mirror image to dictatorships like the one happening in California where now, as then, Christians began to meet in secret to avoid arrest and persecution.

I never thought I’d see the day when governors would order churches to close and stay closed. Or that corrupt politicians like Gavin Newsom would forbid Christians to hold in-home Bible studies. Or sing together. All while mass riots are not only overlooked but validated as important for the mental health of its violent participants.

Suddenly, bullying is not only tolerated, it is encouraged.

So, when John wrote his epistle to the first century church with teaching on how to become a Christian, he wasn't suggesting that born-again believers weren’t born again. John knew his audience. He knew their audience. And just like today, when Christians are afraid to show up at church for fear of being turned in by trolls, the apostle understood the reason. Congregations in A.D. 85 were a mixed bag of Christians and spies.

The echoes of those holy sandals rings loud in my ears right now.

Freedom, that thing which matters as much to God as it does to us, is under fire. Again. And the reason? Because control is a valuable commodity to bullies. We let our guard down while our enemies, both foreign and domestic, have burned their candles at both ends for decades. We took our cherished independence for granted, assuming we were immune to hostile takeovers. After all, we’re the land of the free and the home of the brave, right? But we got careless. Lazy. Lulled to sleep by entertainment and complicity. If the hostilities we are dealing with right now take a turn for the worse, many of us will wonder how and where we missed the warning signs.

Why didn’t we listen to the alarms of watchmen on the crumbling walls of liberty? Because fear sells and liars know this. We have forgotten how to think for ourselves, listening instead to the advice of power-hungry authorities and caving under peer pressure. Or maybe we never knew how. Critical thinking, too, is a valuable commodity because it is rare.

So, what about those shadowy people I just mentioned? That great cloud of witnesses who fought back against tyranny in their own time? And those who didn’t? In junior high when I read about peace loving Quakers who didn’t believe in conflict, I thought they were just fearful. Even disloyal for leaving the freedom fight up to others. Then when America’s enemies were eventually routed, conscientious objectors reaped the benefits of victory. I judged them as a bunch of cowards.

But, this morning, my own conflict-hating stomach is in knots. I watched a video of folks much braver than me who did what has become the unthinkable. As medical professionals who took an oath never to harm, they stepped out on thin ice and told the truth. They walked out in public in our nation’s capital to tell us we can have hope and live free. It wasn’t a popular message in D.C., strangely enough. While hecklers tried to shout them down outside, inside the hallowed halls of Washington politicians made sure their good news was censored. We wouldn’t want people to unite in these United States, especially while we’re being told to be fearful and stay away from one another.

Ironic, isn’t it? Who’s really afraid here?

Mesmerized, I saw a video of a man in an open-air event in communist California. By the time it was over, he’d been hung out to dry in the farmer’s market. His transgression? Bucking government approved fashion trends and letting people see his lips move. He refused to cave before a faceless society. He was mocked. Threatened. Confronted by a police officer who could not tell him what law he was breaking by breathing free outdoors. I was proud of him—from where I watched inside the temporary safety of my own home. Unmasked. Unseen. Unassaulted. Uncondemned.

I want peace. I want my life back. I want to wake up from this dystopian nightmare. But every single morning, it’s Groundhog Day. More liberties, paid for by my relatives and yours as they, too, were attacked by socialist enemies, are stolen. Right out from under our masked noses while we try to keep the peace, not make waves, and live our lives in silent desperation.

It’s the silence that is killing us.

Freedom matters. That’s the reason it’s under attack by people we actually elected to represent us in government, people who swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. It’s under attack by the CDC and Fauci and Birx, health officials who are breaking their Hippocratic oath to do no harm. And it’s under attack in farmer’s markets in California where citizens are held hostage by a communist governor who has them scared to death by illegal mandates.

Freedom is under attack in grocery stores that make announcements to “mask up or get out and do your shopping online.” You are dangerous, you oxygen-breathing resisters. We see you. We can pick you out in a crowd. You’re the one with the face.

Freedom is forbidden in fast food restaurants, too, where asthmatic teenagers deliver milkshakes to self-righteous drivers who yell at them for not wearing a mask. The choice now is "paper or fabric?" Our forced protection against a virus at least ten times smaller than the tiniest opening in a “face covering.” There’s a reason they’ve changed the noun there, you know. Calling them ‘masks’ isn’t specific enough—just ask the Lone Ranger. Face coverings imply that your ability to be seen is a danger to others—and they are one step away from a burqa.

But I get it. You can’t incite a Marxist takeover of a Republic by being obvious. You have to make it look like the rebels are those who resist. You can’t call yourself a communist when Democratic Socialist sounds more politically correct. You can’t capture a population of 350 million people by an overt attack. But you can immobilize them with panic and fear if you use a less-than-novel virus to cripple their courage, shoving propaganda in their faces twenty-four-seven on every TV, freeway, and store in America.

We are being conditioned to accept the unacceptable. And what is that? You already know. And our shadowy ancestors know. If we don’t get their history—which is our history—we will be doomed to repeat it. The goal of the left is to keep us so ignorant that while we submit to illegal mandates and government overreaches, we won’t realize we are surrendering everything.

It’s a white flag assault on our liberties and the future of our children. But we never saw it coming. We never thought our voice mattered. Until it was silenced.

It's time for the Silent Majority to make their voices heard. It’s not too late. It’s actually our time, and our turn. While the pen pauses and history waits to record our choice, we can take back what was given to us by the millions of Americans who gave their all for us. But we have to speak up in whatever way we know how. The warriors are weary. You and I are needed. Our silence won't cut it anymore.

This time, if we value freedom, it's going to be up to us to . . . get it.

With thanks to Simon Johansson for the use of the photo above. The original can be viewed by following this link:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/arksim/4363865976/in/photolist-7DBXjy-Dsuvo-5W7PaV-bApG88-6ArJUh-8gKEk5-56uEoG-2izawhK-ruV7kz-HStHP8-5rvVG7-M1EHwn-2dxFJf8-GWREX2-25w2ewc-2fyEXYG-2gih3Ru-NFXjti-29iZ9B6-2inN7F8-S1rZNG-bopkrK-T695YM-UfyqSs-RiCfkN-2d1LbFy-2hkCBFo-D6Zec7-23V4Tok-E1Bfez-2ikHEP9-RoHmMU-27LkvK7-YVb5Mu-21T2fHu-Fki4ka-YbCG9R-FcwsA2-8tk37z-YfRgok-S8BiWM-24zdpS4-HnkusG-QtNtC2-BNTJyy-76Nbak-CeFnrd-3H51hP-aDdmPV-5PV9MD