In April my friend Marie went into the local mental
hospital, Brentwood. She came to me one
night and told me that her husband, Jack, had told her that after 14 years of
marriage, he no longer loved her. This
sent her into a rage and she tried to kill herself. Jack had stopped her. Jack was going to put her in Brentwood so she
might get better. I asked her if she
wanted me to help her pack. She said, “Yes.” I went across the street to help her
pack.
Marie would spend 10 days in Brentwood. She was my best friend. We spent almost every day together. We had become friends no long before Momma
Muriel died. Her little wire hair
Dachshund Buddy, would often wander across the street, threw my doggy door and
into my bed. I would call her and say,
“You missing somebody?” It was Marie who
helped me get through many challenges in my life. During those first few hard months after
Momma Muriel died, I knew Marie would be coming over at 5 to drink a glass of
wine with me. I asked her to go to
Novelle’s funeral with me, to make sure I didn’t spit in her coffin.
Marie got mixed up in drugs. She came to me one day and told
me she had a $200 a day meth habit, but that she had been clean for a few
weeks. I told her to stay clean or we
would no longer be friends. Slowly she
would shut me out. I knew she was back
on drugs.
In April of 2014 I received a Facebook message from
her. I asked if she was done with drugs,
and she told me she was. She had been
arrested and convicted on 3 felonies.
She had been clean for a year and a half. Now clean to her was a relative term. Marie was a drunk. She would go threw a 5 liter box of wine in
two days. She stayed away from purple
wines, because she drank so much it would turn her teeth purple. She was also addicted to pain killers for her
back and hip.
Jack did pretty much everything for her. Marie sat in her chair and drank most
days. Jack had bough her a car, and she
had destroyed it. She told me at one
point, it had become a rolling meth lab.
We were both shocked when Jack told her he was no longer in love with
her. Jack was a great man of faith. He told her he had been praying for two years,
that he would fall back in love with her and it just never happened. He would be willing to go to counseling, but was
pretty sure he wanted a divorce. After
everything she had put him through, who could blame him.
I was a wreck when Marie went to Brentwood. I called her every day. I had three or four panic attacks in that 10
day period. I cried myself to sleep at
night, more than once. A week after Marie
got home she was sitting at my kitchen table one night. She began to tell me that she had breast
cancer. That they had found it with two
blood test while she was at Brentwood.
They confirmed it with a mammography.
She then asked me how bad stage 3 was.
We were all pretty shaken up that night.
But something just did not sit well with me. Her story did not seem plausible. Why would they do all that at a psychiatric
facility? Could they?
I happened to have an appointment with my GYN the next
morning. I asked him some of these
questions. He told me there was no blood
test for cancer. And to have a
mammography at a mental facility did not seem right. Turns out it was all a lie. When I confronted Jack with everything that had
gone on, I asked him if she lied a lot.
Jack said, “Sometimes yes and sometimes no.”
Everything came to a head the night Prince died, May 5th,
2015. I had taken Marie home from my
house and confronted her there. Buddy
was still at my house. Jay would drive
over a bit later and bring Buddy home.
Prince wanted to ride with his dad.
We did not notice he was running after Jay. I was outside, talking to Juno, when I heard
Prince get hit on the road and scream.
We ran across the street.
He’s been hit, but he was not dead.
Marie had come out of her house, crying and asking what had
happened. Begging me to forgive
her. All of us took him back across the
street to my house. He was fading. It would not be long. Even if we floored it to the emergency vet,
he would be dead by the time we arrived.
If he was going to die, let it be at home. Juno and I lit some candles on my altar,
burned some incense and called for the Gods and ancestors to come close. We would need them now.
Prince had been sick for about 6 weeks. He had had what we thought was a heart attack
one night. I just woke up screaming and
disorientated. The next day the vet diagnosed he with an enlarged heart. He was
on medication, but he did not want to eat for us. Every day was a struggle. I wonder sometimes if Prince committed doggie
suicide. I wonder if he just didn’t want
to live anymore. Prince died in Jay’s
arms an hour after being hit. This child who had been so abused and unwanted,
passed in loving arms, and surrounded by his family. We all took turns holding him. We buried him the next day, next to
Punka.
Since his passing, we have built a little area I call “the
grove.” around his and Punka’s graves, at Holda’s Well. It is a small area covered in bricks, with
seating places on either side. Now I can
sit with them alone, or with guests. It
is a great little peaceful spot, where I can listen and watch the birds and get
internet reception on my tablet.
I have not seen Marie since that night. I do not blame her for Prince’s death. I just want nothing to do with a liar. I’ve had too many in my life. Jay and I retain a good relationship with
Jack and saw him recently.
In June I had my year physical with my PCP. I told him I was having terrible anxiety and
several panic attacks a week. He put me
on Buspar and it has been a God send. I
have not felt this good since before Oma died when I was 6. It took a few months to get me to feeling
better. August 6th , I
started writing again for the first time in many years. I have written or edited almost every day
since then.
Ilsa
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