She barks at everything, chases anything, trips all over our feet, and nearly rips the skin off our legs while attempting to jump over them on the bed. She’s clumsy as a newborn calf, and stubborn as a mule, but, if I could make her understand one thing, it would be to STOP LICKING! The floors, the blankets, the furniture, the beds, me, my husband, Pepper, and herself! For once and for all, I wish I could make her understand that her licking is bad for my health!
One Sunday afternoon, a few years ago, the family was sitting around the dinner table laughing, and just goofing off. Suddenly, our oldest grandchild, Brandon, marches through the front door with our flag across his shoulder, working up a sweat to keep it off the floor.
At first, I thought, what on earth is this silly boy doing now? Then it all made sense when he explained, “Gideon (his then six-year-old) accidentally pulled on the flag, and it fell across the bush. It didn’t touch the ground, papaw, I promise!”
Now, more than fifty years later, he still cries for those he put into body bags, some of which only consisted of a wedding band, or a pair of glasses.
PTSD they call it. I call it a living hell. Blinded by grief, my husband can’t see that I’m on the receiving end of his rage, and grief, anger and frustration. That, like a vacuum, he sucks me on the ship with him, where we battle each other because we’re the only ones there. The only ones burning. The only ones trapped. Between the ghosts of yesterday, and stresses of today, our marriage of fifty-one years began to sink before we finally put it in God’s hands.
So, you can only imagine how explosive my husband becomes when he sees murderous mobs spitting, and stomping, and burning the American flag. It reminds him of how people spit and cursed in the faces of the men and women who went to hell and back to keep them safe and free. Instead of receiving a standing ovation of honor and respect, they were crucified, and crowned as women and, baby-killers.
Politics was my worst subject in school. Too complicated for my realistic, black and white thinking. I just trusted our leaders because I always felt they had America’s best interest at heart. But, today, I see a government consumed by recklessness, selfishness, and greed. And we, the people they promise to serve, are freezing to death in their cold-hearted lies.
Who can we trust when the government fails, when it sleeps with the enemy, when its main interest is in its own political gain? We can trust God. He alone has the world in His hands. He alone has our best interest at heart. He alone has the power to hold, to keep, and to save. He alone knows exactly how the story ends. So, I put my trust in Him.
John 16:33 In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
In the cold of winter, I step outside where waterfalls sparkle like diamonds beneath a clear, blue sky. The grass tickles my bare feet as I glide across it. Nothing of the outside world distracts me here. It’s not allowed. It confuses me, judges me, condemns me. Here, I’m at peace. Perfect peace with just the sound of my heartbeat and waterfalls and birds and the gentle, whispering wind. Now, I can write, I can read, I can dream and meditate without the roar of the world blasting my ears. This is my space, my creation, my happy place for as long or as short as I want. And today may turn into night before I leave.
I had just let Pepper out when I noticed a weird-looking animal near my husband’s workshop about a hundred feet away. It was acting crazy, sticking its nose high in the air and prancing back and forth as if to impress its mate. Pepper was having a hissy fit, barking and pulling on her chain like a junkyard dog when suddenly, the animal charged toward her! I yelled and clapped my hands, scaring it away. A few seconds later, it charged after Pepper again! I’m scared for both of us now, because now this, seemingly harmless fox we’d been seeing in our yard obviously has rabies.
I picked up the broom I keep on the deck, and screamed for my husband to get out here quick! Quick is slow motion for old people, and I didn’t have that much time to wait. So, armed with my broom and terrifying screams, the fox decided it wasn’t worth fighting a little yapping dog and crazy old lady all in one day, so it turned and high-tailed it from the yard.
We called the sheriff’s department, and within minutes we had a Calvary of neighbors and police armed and ready to put the poor animal out of its misery, but it was long-gone.
Then, one evening, as my husband was locking up his shop, he nearly collided with a skunk that had wandered by. Motionless, they stood eye-balling each other, wondering who was going to move first, and it wasn’t going to be my husband. After a few long seconds, the showdown was over, and the skunk waddled off into the woods.
And speaking of skunks. When we were kids, my brothers found three baby skunks and snuck them in the house to play with them. When mom and dad found out about it, they said we could keep them in a box outside. It was so cool having skunks as pets. But the next morning, my fickle brain decided that Florence, my animal-lover friend down the road, would rather have it instead. I was wrong! As Florence stood wide-eyed stammering like a child learning to read, her mother stormed into her sparkling clean kitchen and yelled, “Get that thing out of my house!”
Feeling stripped naked on Time Square, I hurried out the door and headed back home. Suddenly, the skunk bit me! Determined to reunite him with his siblings, I started to jog. Then, he bit me again! And then again! That’s when I dropped him, and when he sprayed me, and when I choked, and gagged, and coughed my head off. It’s a smell from hell! A smell that can penetrate your car and stay there for miles down the road. But when you encounter it close up, and your entire being is melting and dripping in a cloud of skunk spray, there are no words to describe it. You’ll just have to find out for yourself.
A normal kid would have left him there, but normal isn’t in my DNA. Dazed and confused, I reached down, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and like a drunk on a three-day binge, staggered the rest of the way home and straight into the kitchen, where my dad sat quietly eating a bowl of cereal. He probably thought he’d seen it all in WWII. But that was before his idiot daughter staggered through the kitchen door with a skunk dangling from her hand, smelling worse than a cesspool and crying, “He sprayed me, daddy!”
He probably wished that he had kept the skunk and put me on a slow boat to China!
I’ll save my money and stay on earth! Besides, there’s not enough money in the world that anyone could pay me to go to the moon. I have panic attacks just thinking about it! Nope! No way! Earth is loony enough for me!
I’d rather leave the house naked than to leave without my pocketbook. It’s my identity, my medicine cabinet, my first aid kit, my cosmetic department, and my husband’s glove compartment. I never leave home without it.
~Sandi
After the softball tournament was over, my husband and I grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant before making the two-hour drive back home. Ugh! It might as well be twenty-four. And after every ball game, my husband plays it, again and again, all the way home: He should have caught that ball! The bases were loaded, all we needed was one good hit! He was safe! What’s the matter with that ump?!
And I’m thinking, give it a rest. I’m trying to sleep over here!
But I can’t sleep. My head bobs like a silly bobble head, and my husband keeps interrupting my snoring. So, to keep my mind occupied, I envision how I’m going to rearrange the living room tomorrow or redecorate the den. Maybe I’ll wash the windows, and hang new curtains in the kitchen. I think I’ll paint my bathroom, too. It needs brightening up. And the cabinets. I’m tired of that beige color. I think I’ll paint them white, and then . . .
Finally! Two more miles and we’re home. I gathered my snack bags, sweater, and cushion, then reached down to get my pocketbook on the floorboard.
OH, NO!
I looked under the seat. On the back seat. Under the back seat. It’s just not here! It’s not here!It’s back there, three thousand miles away!
Moaning like a pair of sick cows, we turned around and raced back to the restaurant. Like a broken record, over and over, I prayed, “Please, God! Let someone find my pocketbook and turn it in!”
It was turned in! Nothing was taken except our precious time: two hours to the ball tournament, two hours back home, two more hours back to the restaurant, and two more hours back home. What a day! What a long, stressful, nail-biting, hard-lesson-learned tiring day!
Well, this is a tough one, because I can barely describe myself to myself. But I’ll try.
I’m like Pandora’s box that’s better left unopened. But, for those brave souls that have dared take a peek, they’re still by my side alive and well. The birds are still singing, the earth is still spinning, and life goes on.
So, Mr. or Mrs. Someone, on my lesser, complex side, I’m nice, kind, and considerate. I respect others and give one-thousand-and-one percent of myself in all that I do. I’m passionate, intuitive, and nearly think my poor little brain to death. I help people, whether I’m asked for it or not. Years ago, when I was out jogging, a young couple was having car trouble. So, while the wife slid behind the steering wheel, her husband and I pushed the car uphill about a quarter of a mile to their house.
I’m an expert at hiding my feelings, so you won’t know that behind my humor and laughter, I’m fighting a bloody war inside that I can never win. No matter how much I pray. No matter how much I cry. No matter how hard I fight.
To be completely honest with you, Mr. or Mrs. Someone, I have extreme anxiety disorders; about as many that have ever been written about. Well, maybe not that many; I do exaggerate a little. But, I am talking about Pandora’s box, remember? Therefore, I find it difficult to describe myself to you when I don’t know which self I am at the moment. Am I my real self, or my pretend self? Am I the tell-it-like-it-is self, or the timid, and shy self? Just pick one, because I don’t know, they keep me so confused.
It’s like this, Mr. or Mrs. Someone. I never know which self is going to wake up another self, and then another, till I’m in the middle of an all-out war with a legion of anxious selves that just won’t shut up and stop fighting! My brain becomes as confused as a rat in a maze, and my heart starts pounding like a team of runaway horses. And if someone, in the midst of all this chaos, stupidly decides to jerk on my chain, they better run because I’m one hundred percent positive that I will bite them.
No, Mr. or Mrs. Someone! Of course, I don’t like this about myself, and I judge and condemn myself harshly for it. It’s not like I sat on Santa’s lap eons ago and told him I wanted a cock-eyed brain for Christmas or begged my parents to buy it for my first birthday!
So, let’s just keep Pandora’s box shut. Let’s lock it, and throw away the key. I’m too exhausted trying to describe myself to you, today. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or the middle of never!
Nice talking to you, Mr. or Mrs. Someone. Think we’ll be talking again anytime soon?
Straight From the Heart 