Rescuing Mike D.

You may feel that I have covered much of what follows in my Being Pagan series.  I am sorry if I repeat myself and bore you in the process.  I like to think of this blog as the stories I would tell you, if you and I were sitting at my big, old, wooden kitchen table.  On our first meeting I would not have started with my birth and worked up to today.  I would have told you stories, that are cyclical in nature, covering different periods of time, and you would make your own timeline, in your head after some time of us talking.  Well that is if you are paying attention, and I think you are.  I am glad we are having this talk.  I am glad to be heard. 

I have been rescuing dogs for a long time.  That need to rescue over the years turned into rescuing people.  Sometimes it works and sometimes they end up biting you.  Mike was most definitely the later.  Years later, I have come to believe, that if you find someone whom you believe you can help, leave them there.  The Goddess is trying to teach them a lesson.  You are impeding upon that lesson.  Almost no good deed goes unpunished.  Even with the relationships I have now, I keep a wary eye out to see if and when they might bite me.  Kind of nervous, kind of cynical, but sorry that has been my life. 

For a long time I felt my life ended when Momma Muriel died.  I was lonely, alone, and depressed.  I turned to my new found pagan community to fill in where I felt my family was lacking.  I have spoken to you of Mike D.  We had met at a PNO and soon I was going to his rituals.  Momma Muriel knew all of this.  We attended his annual Halloween (Samhain) party at his house in 2008.  Maddie gave us a tarot card reading telling Jay he would soon lose his job.  Maddie is seldom wrong with her cards.  Jay lost his job the next day. 

A few weeks later Jay started at Dollar General doing the same thing.  Jay always worked hard for whoever he is employed for.  He still does.  For years and years he had worked during Thanksgiving.  He hired on to Dollar General with the understanding he would get Thanksgiving off.  As usually they betrayed him and made him work.  He was so mad he cried.  He just wanted to be with me for Thanksgiving.  I told him to quit his job and he did.  We had already received part of Momma Muriel’s estate and we were as they say, “not hurting for money,” at that time. 

My parents decided not to cook that Thanksgiving. Since we were alone that year, we decided to spent it with Mike D. and his group at an interfaith dinner at a local church.  Since Samhain we had been talking about Mike D., his family and his animals coming to live in Momma Muriel’s house.   At Winter Solstice (Yule) he asked me to watch over his house and his animals while he and his family traveled to New Orleans to see his superior, Velvet.  I remember telling Jay that his house was just too small for his growing family, that we should ask them to come and live with us in Momma Muriel’s house.  Jay thought that was a fine idea. 

Although it had no utilities on, I had for the past few months been trying to clear out Momma Muriel’s stuff, with little success.  We lived to far out for any local charities to come and get her things, and I did not know about estate sales then.  I called Mike D. on his way back from New Orleans.  I told him that we wanted him, his family and his animals to come and live on our place with us.  He pulled over the car and cried.  I told him that he would have to help us clear out her things, but he and his family could move in whenever they pleased. 

We all spent Christmas of 2008 together at his mother’s place.  I was in the kitchen, washing dishes when Mike D.’s wife walked in.  She was all red and crying.  She said, “Mike just choked me.”  I was shocked.  I didn’t understand what was going on.  He was an acting High Priest.  How could he do this?  I spoke with his wife.  I asked her if she wanted me to call the cops.   I asked if she wanted to leave him.  She said, “No.”  I told her just she and her children could move in, that she did not have to bring him.  Again she said, “No.” 

Because she wanted me to do nothing for her, I did nothing.  What I should have done was confront his sorry ass, call the cops and tell him the deal was off, but I didn’t.  I felt I had already given my word and I could not go back on it.  I worry sometimes that my fear of being alone, made me also continue with my plan. 

When I had watched over their house that Yule, Mike D. said, “We made a mess in the bedroom.  Would you mind cleaning it up for us?”  He was my high priest.  I said, “of course not,” and did as I was told.  What I cleaned up I now understand was from violent fight, where Mike D. had thrown a hairbrush at his wife so hard he had put a whole in the wall.  He had knocked stuff off the night stand and there was broken glass everywhere.  But I did my duty and covered his tracks.  I continued this for many years and did not tell the High Priestess in his coven about the abuse until recently.  I always guessed she knew.  She did not.

I did not know that Mike D. had hit his wife on more than one occasion.  I also did not know, until later that there had been a domestic abuse charge against him, in his home state of New Jersey.  He had broken his wife’s arm.  The charge had been dropped and so may never have appeared on his record.   I was told, when I began to hang out with his coven, that all official members of the group had back ground checks done on them, prior to being admitted.  This is why you had to pay so much money to join them.  If they did do this, I do not understand why he was not immediately flagged.  My guess is Velvet took the money and never had the check done.  I feel, because he had a prior charge like this on him, he should never have been allowed to become clergy. 

In this coven they liked to have a High Priest and a High Priestess.  That’s the way they had done it for many years.  Just prior to Mike D. and I both coming into the community, the High Priest of Mike D.’s coven had died.  A man neither one of us had ever met, but a good man by all accounts.  When Mike D. entered the coven, a power struggle in sued, by the men of the coven to fill the old High Priest’s place.  I’m still not sure how it happened, but Mike D., a man with no prior pagan experience, was able to become the acting High Priest.  I don’t know how he was able to ascend to this position.  Mike D. became a 3^rd degree in three years.  To obtain this rank, usually takes many, many years of practice, study and elevating others.  He did none of that.  Many of us in the community feel he was simply given this title, for one reason or another. 

In January of 2009, Mike and his family began to help us move out Momma Muriel’s things and bring in theirs.  In March of that year we threw the first, of what would become, our annual crawfish boils.  In April we threw a birthday party for the High Priestess of Mike D.’s coven.  Most of the pagan community was here.  It was one of the first times I had gotten to really talk with Boogie and Rovena.  That night we held both a Croning and a Maidening ritual.  It was at this ritual the honorary title of Maiden was bestowed on me.  I never officially joined his coven.  I do not believe religious orders should charge to train their members, other than for just the bear cost of materials.  Mike D.’s coven charged excessive rates to learn to become a witch, and where there money went I was never sure.

I was not even sure that the ritual was going to take place.  I had been in a horrible fight with Velvet, just a few hours before.  We were discussing the war in Iraq.  I stated that the Iraq people were in a better place now, then when the war had started.  They had more schools, better utilities and no longer lived under an oppressive government.  At this she blew up at me.  It would not be the first time.  She asked where I was getting my information.  I said, “From the soldier across the street, who has served two tours in Iraq.”  She then proceeded to scream at me and tell me that he was a liar.  You can do a lot of things to me, but you never, ever disrespect a warrior in front of me! 

I left Mike D.’s house in a panic and went to Marie’s house across the street.  She gave me a valium to calm down.  It was her husband I had been speaking about.  It took several hours to get me to calm down.  I did not want to ruin the High Priestess’ birthday party by telling Velvet to, “Carry her crazy ass off my property.”  I knew to kick her out was to ask Mike D. to leave.   I did not want that.  I did not want to be alone again.  I also did not want to upset the party goers.  So I swallowed my pride and went back across the street and rejoined the party.  If it had happened today I would have told her to carry her ass.

In May of 2009 I attended my first Pagan Unity Festival (PUF) in Tennessee.  I went with Mike D. and Velvet.  It was at this festival that I met my very first heathens.  I had spent two years on-line talking to other Heathens around the country, but had never met one in person.  I met Father Dave first and then he introduced me to his student Mother Mari and her student Mother Gloria.  They were a group out of South Texas.  They defined themselves as Wayists.  They were essentially Druidic Heathens.  They were also, unbelievable, devotees of Holda’s as well.  I was so overwhelmed I cried.  I thought at first they were apparitions, or spirits made flesh, a gift to me, from Holda for having been faithful.  They have indeed become gifts to me.   I remain in regular contact with them today.  I consider them part of my “elders”. 

That had been a miserable trip for me.  Meeting Father Dave and his group was the only bright spot in that trip. Velvet had a friend get murdered during that weekend.  The last night we were there she lit a white candle and placed it on the stove.  All night long I heard Holda in my head saying to go outside, and gather some of the rose petals, growing in the front yard, and to put them around the candle.  After a few hours of this I finally gave in. 

In the morning when the Velvet came in, she was furious.  She started screaming who had put the rose petals around the candle.  I told her I did it to honor her friend.  She yelled at me, for what seemed a half an hour, until I began to cry.  She kept screaming at me, “Who taught you to do magic?  Who?”  I finally told her Holda had told me to do this.  I still don’t understand why she became so upset.  As I have told this over the years, theories have varied.  One elder said, “You should never have messed with other witches spell.”  I agree.  I would want no one messing with my spell.  But then if it was a candle to honor her friend, and then the rose petals would have meant love, whatever I did would have been benign. Right? However if it was a bad spell, which I don’t know why she would have used a white candle, unless it was the only thing she could find, perhaps the roses negated what she had done, and that is why she became so irate.  She was like a powder keg.  You never knew when she was going to go off, or what would trigger her. 

Mike D.’s wife gave birth to a baby boy soon after Summer Solstice (Litha) 2009.  Six weeks later by Lughnasa ( August 1^st), I have been asked to stop working on forming my own Heathen group by Velvet or resign my title of Maiden.  I refused to stop the work I was doing and I resigned.  I begin my own group and we held our first ritual.  I continued to help coordinate Pagan Pride Day (PPD), with Mike, for that year.  I invited Father Dave and Mother Mari, my friends from south Texas, to speak at the event.  They came and had a lovely time.  Well until Velvet decided to insult and attack Father Dave.  I thought for a moment it was going to come to blows.  Mike D.’s son’s Wiccaning was held at PPD, and Father Dave played his flute.  Mike D. later makes disparaging remarks about Father Dave.  Living around Mike D. was getting harder and harder.  I was starting to see a man, whom I once considered a friend, turn into a rude and arrogant asshole. 

Ilsa

 

After Momma Muriel's Death

My health had been in decline for some time prior to Momma Muriel’s death.  For months I had been going thru sever stomach and lower belly pain.  There were some nights it was so bad I was on the floor crying, rocking on my hands and knees trying to survive the pain.  I had been hospitalized with hip and stomach pain in December of 2007.  After three days and a battery of tests, the doctors concluded that I had a hiatal hernia in my stomach and that was causing the pain in my hip.  They called it reflexive pain.  In truth they had no idea what was wrong with me.  I was beginning to think my job in life was to live in pain. 

A few months later, still in pain, the Dr’s begin to believe it was my gallbladder.  I had test that showed it to be working just fine.  The Dr’s came in and said, “Well we can take it out and hope it fixes your pain.  It has about a 50/50 shot of working.”  I told them to call me when they could give me better odds.  It was some years later that the lawsuits about Yasmin, an anti-testosterone birth control pill, came out.  I had been on Yasmin for several years.  But at the time I was having this pain, I was off of it.  They now believe this medicine to cause problems with the gallbladder. Yasmin and Metformin were what I had been taking to combat my PCOS.  They were the only drugs available to treat the diseases at the time. 

My pain came and went over the next few months.  I began to see a new OB/GYN a few days after Momma Muriel’s death.  I explained to her that I was in a tremendous amount of pain, and that I often had pain after I had intercourse.  I had told my previous OB/GYN this for the past five years. He told me I was too tense, that I needed to relax and have a glass of wine before I had sex. As I did not want to go through life having to drink in order to have sex, I got a new Dr.  She said the most beautiful words to me that you can say to a person in chronic pain, “If you’re having pain, there is a reason.”

 After listening to my symptoms, taking a history and examining me, she decided to send me to a Urologist.  I had been to one before.  I kept having what I thought were UTI’s all the time, but my urine was always clean.  I had struggled with urinary problems most of my life, but it really became quite bad after I left Mike.  At one point they had to put me on a bladder pill for having to go so frequently.  I remember being excited that I could go and pee whenever I wanted.  I remember drinking cranberry juice all the time, and taking lots of AZO pills, because everyone told me that it would help.  The UTI problems came and went. The first Urologist I had been sent to, early on, told me he really didn’t do women’s health.   He could give me no answers.  My new OB/GYN sent me to someone who specialized in women’s urinary health.  A month later I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.  I was told to get off all caffeine and high acidic drinks like grapefruit and orange juice.  Thank the Gods I was already depressed ‘cause I slept for weeks.  I had been living on cokes and coffee for many years, so getting off was not easy.  It finally leveled out after about 6 weeks. 

Interstitial Cystitis (IC) ought to be called Painful Irritated Bladder Syndrome.  I have the sensation that I am coming down with a UTI all the time.  Three of its primary symptoms are having to pee all the time, pain or burning in the pelvis and pain during sex.  Cranberry juice and other acidic drinks make IC worse.  This disease limits how long I can sit or stand.  How long I can ride in a car and what I can wear.  When I am having a flair, I cannot even stand to be touched.  It is a progressive and painful disease.  It will only get worse with time.   There is only one medication which is very expensive without insurance.  Although there may be genetic components to IC, there is to date no real known cause and currently no cure. 

So within the span of a few months Momma Muriel dies, I am given a devastating diagnosis, Novelle dies and then Precious the first died.  The hurricane winds had been blowing a lot that fall.  On ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­September 2^nd, 2008 what was left of Hurricane ­­­­Gustav rolled thru town.  It was the first one that had hit us that year.  We were without power for 55 hours.  That’s kind of hellish when you are dependent on a CPAP to sleep with.  My neighbors, who are on a different electric company, that we can’t get on, were out about 30 minutes. 

As the storm rolled in the winds began to change.  The dogs started going ape shit, chasing all the new smells.  Precious the first ran off in the woods.  Not a big thing.  We have such a big place that we let our fur kids roam free, and we have a doggie door so they might come and go as they please.  They were always in the woods and Precious the first loved to do nothing more than hunt.  My friend Marie and I were sitting on the porch enjoying the breeze as the power had already gone out.  As the rain started I began to count kids and came up one short.  Precious must still be out hunting.  I remember Jay and me going out back of the house tying to sense where she was. I got nothing.  I became hoarse from calling from her so long.  I finally collapsed in the tall wet grass, weeping.  Jay had to help me back in the house.  I was distraught.  She would not stay out in the rain.  She never did.  Something had to have happened to her, something bad.  She was my light.  She was my child.  She and I had been thru so much together.  I could not lose Momma Muriel and her too.  It was all too much. 

A few days later I began to hear Precious the first’s voice in my head telling me she was gone.  I did something then I had not done in a long time.  I did some non-dominate hand writing.  What I wrote was a letter from Precious the first to me.  She told me not to cry, that she was okay and in the heavens with Oma and Momma Muriel.  She said she had been chasing a rabbit and got hit by a car.  That she had died quickly.  I begged her to lead me to her body so that I might bury her.  She told me she did not want me to see her that way.  She told me that she died doing what she loved, being free.  She thanked me for loving her and bringing her to this land.  She said she wanted to ride in the Wild Hunt with Holda.  I told her that was fine, but she had to come home to me very soon.  I begged her to at least have something of hers so I might have closure.

The day after the writing, one of the fur kids brought me her collar.  Complete intact with her tags, and undamaged.  It was a breakaway collar.  Meaning it was designed to unbuckle should she get hung in something, so as not to choke her.  It was still buckled.  My guess is that she got hung in the bushes chasing a rabbit and it slipped off her head.  Despite looking for one, we never found a body.  I still don’t know how much of what I wrote was me and how much was her.  Or was it all me?  I don’t know.  I may never know.

I felt at times I would break, and perhaps I did, and I was remolded.  It was all too much for me to handle. I had to keep reminding myself that with great death, comes great rebirth.  I think Jay took Precious the first’s death harder then Momma Muriel’s.  At least with Momma Muriel’s we had been prepared, and she had lived a long life. We had known it was coming for a long time, and we had time to say goodbye.  Precious the first’s death was just out to the blue.  One moment she was there and then the next she was just gone. 

When Momma Muriel died she left us the land we live on and half her estate.  A few weeks later I told Jay that for the first time in my life I wanted to buy a dog.  I wanted to buy a Dachshund girl and have the joy of raising her from a pup. I knew a good responsible Dachshund breeder in town that raised beautiful fur children.  I talked with her and told her that Jay and I wanted a pup.  We were hoping for a black and tan little girl.  She told me that she did not have any girls available at the time, but that Cookie, one of her girls would be in heat soon.  She hoped to breed her to Dan, one of her males.  I told her if she had a girl from the litter, no matter the color, that we would like her.  We were content to wait for the right fur child to come into our lives. 

Now Dachshund genetics are a weird and complex thing.  You have 2 sizes, Mini and Standard.  Unless you are from Europe and then you have Rabbit, Mini and Standard.  Rabbit sized ones are so small they can go in a rabbit hole.  You have three coat types; smooth, wire hair, and long hair.  Then there are multiple colors with variations like piebald and dapple.  I believe there are 16 different colors and combinations.  Cookie was a standard chocolate long hair.  Dan is a standard red and white piebald.  With that combination we had no idea what we would get.

On December 21^st, 2008, at noon, Precious Teufel Plaisance was born.  She was born on Holda’s holy day and at her holy hour.  She was the only girl born to a litter full of boys and she was black and tan, just like her grandmother had been. We believe Precious the second to be Precious the first reincarnated.  Now that is not that odd of a belief.  Our animals often return to us.  Have you never caught yourself saying, “You know she reminds me of this dog I used to have.”  Many animals believe it is their duty to protect us our whole lives, or even generations of our families.  Even if that means they might have to go thru a few bodies to do it. 

We fought over who was going to be the first to hold her.  I won!  Oh she was so tiny!  She fit in my hand.  I got to hold her when she was just a few hours old.  Her little eyes and her little ears were closed and she still had a bit of dried umbilical cord on her.  Oh she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!  But then doesn’t every mother say that about her child.  Fur, skin, scale or feathered it matters not.  A child is a child, and after many long months, mine had finally come home.

Precious Teufel, who I will call Precious the second here, needed time to grow and learn important things from her doggie mommy before coming home with us.  You take a pup away from its mom too soon and you end up with a neurotic dog.  My breeder friend would not release her until she was 8 weeks old.  Which I think is just wonderful because that lets them be better adjusted.  She always has her pup’s best interest in mind.  But we were allowed to visit until she could come home and got regular pictures.  We got to bring her home around Valentine’s Day. 

We maintain a good relationship with her breeder and even adopted Cookie, when her breeding days were over.  Although I got to hold her first she quickly became a Daddy’s girl, again.  In many ways she is still who she was.  She loves her daddy and she still loves to swim.  But in some ways she is different, and that is fine with us.  Now she could care less about hunting, she is content to lie on the couch.  Time changes everyone, but not who we are at our core.

I am still often not sure what happened to Precious the first.  Did it happen the way she told me?  Did whatever is in my woods get her?  Did someone pick her up on the highway?  Or did she end up living out her finally years at a neighbor’s house I know nothing about?  Did she end up in the pound and was put down?  Is she still alive?  These are the things I torture myself with before I go to sleep at night.  Is Precious the second really her reincarnation or am I just fooling myself and seeing what I want to.  Sometimes I wonder.

Ilsa

 

Momma Muriel's

Before we left Ebarb we acquired two more souls to our tribe.  A spunky, 1 ½ year old, little tan Chihuahua we named Sophia, after the Goddess of wisdom.  Sophia had been stolen by some kids living in the Zwolle projects.  They could not bring her inside, so they kept her tied up outside and feed her when they could.  A friend’s son had acquired her after that.  I begged him to let me have her.  He finally relented.  Jay was so excited to finally have a Chihuahua in his life again. 

About the same time, I was visiting with some friends who were also in the Humane Society when I meet the sweetest little black and tan girl.  She was about 4 weeks old at that time.  They had found her and a brother at a dumpster outside of Fisher, Louisiana.  Oh she was so tiny back then!  I kept coming over to visit this little one I was just sure was going to be a Dachshund.  My follower rescuers told me they were going to put her down because they thought she was anti-social.  I said “Give her to me.  Let my pack work with her.”  We convinced Jay and I took her home at 8 weeks old.  We named her Princess.  Our royal court was now complete.  She told me that she had seen her mother killed in front of her and did not want to live.  It took a while of being with my fur children, but she eventually came around.   As to her breed, well a year and a half after getting her, we finally came to the conclusion she was in fact half Rottweiler and half Lab..  Laugh all you want.  She still thinks she’s a Dachshund.  I’ve never really had to worry about her getting on the counters and she will hide from bigger dogs. 

Princess is very special.  I don’t know that she is anti-social, but I have often said that if she was human she would be autistic.  She does really well, but she has her limits.  When there are too many people in the house, or it is too loud she will go and hide.  And of course she also does this with fireworks and thunderstorms. 

So the seven of us, Jay, me, Precious, Pumpkin, Prince, Sophia and Princess all prepared to get ready to move.  We had to find someone who could move our little trailer before the winter and the wet weather came.  If we waited too long it would be too wet to move us, and we would have to wait till spring.  I immediately began to make phone calls and finally found someone to move our trailer to Momma Muriel’s property.  In the mid part of October 2005 we left Ebarb, our painful history behind and headed home.

We all stayed with Momma Muriel while we got everything hooked up, all of us but Princess.  She went to live with my parents until we had everything hooked up.  She was just too big with all of us in such a small house.  It took me a few weeks of work to learn the dance to get back into our house.  First we had to dig the test pits to find out if we needed a septic system, to get the 911 number, to get the water turned on, to get the electricity turned on, and to finally get the septic system, which my parents paid for.  Nowhere was all this written down.  I only found this out by trial and error, and lots and lots of phone calls.  My goal was to have the lights on in the house by Halloween, but I didn’t make it.  It took us about 3 weeks to get everything turned on.  We got in our house about the second week in November.

Jay and I were overjoyed to be somewhere we were wanted.  Ebarb was a very closed community.  They are very distrustful of outsiders.  If you were not related or at least Catholic, they did not want you.  We made very few friends while we lived there.  It was a hard community to get into.  I had made one good friend down there.  We were tight until one day, while I was asleep on her couch, her husband decided he wanted to fondle me.  When I told her she said, “Oh he’s just drunk.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”  Needless to say I was glad to be away from him.

We had two and a half wonderful years out here with Momma Muriel.  She would often ask me what I wanted when she died, her jewelry, stuff in her house, her land.  I told her, “I just want more time with you, and I would really like this piece of land so we don’t have to move after you are gone.”  She lived her life, we lived ours and we met in the middle often for breakfast or dinner. 

From the time that Momma Muriel went on dialysis she knew that she was living on borrowed time. She had her will, her do not resuscitate (DNR) order, and her power of attorney all in order. She had even written her own obituary.  We had several close calls in the short time we were together, a few months before her death she had developed a bleeding ulcer.  As I drove her to the hospital we talked at length about how she wanted her funeral, what to dress her in, where to bury her, and who she wanted to do her service.  I am very grateful I had that conversation with her, because when the time came I knew what to do and where everything was.

She and I talked about death frequently.   She would have a bad day and say, “Ah!  I ain’t worth killing!  You ought to just take me out back and shoot me!  I’m going to get off this old dialysis and just die!”

I would tell her, “Before you do that, give me a couple of weeks to plan you a going away party.  We’ll have a big crawfish boil and invite all your family to say goodbye.  Then you get off dialysis and we know that you will have two weeks to live.”

She’d get this kind of pissed look on her face and say, “Oh hell Ilsa I was only kidding!”  and she would go right back to what she had been doing before.

Momma Muriel knew that I was pagan and she didn’t care. She still loved me anyways and never tried to convert me. I talked with her at length about what I thought would happen to her when she died.  I told her that in many cases I had heard of people dreaming or seeing their dead relatives just prior to their death.  I believe it is the dead’s way of helping us prepare for the next life.  I also told her that when she died she would probable see a light.  In the light were all of her family, and that she was to go towards it. I told her heaven is a bigger place then we think of.   I feel that each religion has their own version of the heavens and they all touch.  That travel between each was possible and I would see her again.  I then told her my belief that after she had been in the heavens for some time, and she was ready, she would be given the opportunity to return to earth, to be reincarnated. 

One day we had just come back from grocery shopping and were going in the house.  She began to tell me that the night before she had dreamed her Mom and her sister were in the bed with her, talking to her.  I knew she never dreamed of her dead family members.  I knew it was an omen.  They were preparing her.

Three weeks later on June 21^st, 2008 Momma Muriel fell and cracked her pelvis.  She lasted 13 days in the hospital, passing her 81^st birthday while there.  After she went in the hospital she became septic and developed a bowl obstruction.  She had surgery, but her body was just to week from all of that and her failed kidneys to continue.  The Dr’s told us that if she lived she would have to spend the rest of her life in a nursing home.  I knew that she would hate that. Her independence was everything to her.  It always had been.   She died on Friday July 4^th, 2008 at noon.  We like to say she went out with a bang. 

I got the call to come to the hospital.  That she was close to death and they were calling the family in to say goodbye.  I floored it.  I drove as fast as I could.  As I rode in the elevator up to her room, I knew she was dead.  When I arrived she had died about 5 minutes before.  It was like all the air was sucked out of me.  But I knew I had to retain my composure, I had to be strong for Jay.  He had arrived just in time.  She had turned towards him, smiled, winked at him and then peacefully passed away.  His face was the last thing she ever saw.  Jay thinks she stayed alive until he could get there. 

They ushered us out of the room so that they could disconnect her from her IV’s and other tubes.  While they did that I tried desperately to reach her priest to come to the hospital.  Turns out he was outside mowing and did not come back in until that evening.  The hospital called the chaplain on duty to come and pray with us: Jay and I, my parents, and Jay’s parents.  As we prayed I begin to hear my name being called loudly in my head. 

“Ilsa!  Ilsa!  Turn around!  What the hell is going on??”  I knew the voice, it was Momma Muriel.  I smiled politely, prayed with them and then after a few minutes of everyone saying their goodbyes I asked for Jay and I to be alone with her body.  Jay was confused but by now had learned to follow my lead in these things. I closed the door and turned to look in the corner of the room where I felt there was energy.  With my third eye I could see her energy in dazzling ribbons of white and gold. 

“Ilsa!  What the hell is going on?”  she said

“Momma Muriel, I’m sorry, you are dead.”

“Oh well why the hell didn’t anyone tell me that?” she said

I explained that she should see a light in just a bit, and when she did she should go towards it. I told her I would stay with her until she did.  It took a few minutes but I soon felt a portal open and she went through it. I collapsed into tears and refused to leave her body.  I didn’t want anyone to mess with her or be mean to her.  We had basically been her care takes and advocates for the last 3 years.  It’s hard to give up that role.  Jay convinced me I must be hungry and to come to have something to eat with him.  Momma Muriel would not want me lose my strength.  I agreed and left her body. 

Forgive me as I do not remember everything that happened that weekend.  She died on a Friday and we had her wake on a Monday.  I don’t remember if her presence stayed with me or not. I called several of my pagan friends to come to the wake and be with me for comfort.   I do know that once I got to her wake she began talking just as loud as she did in the hospital.  It was a constant stream of, “Oh I haven’t seen her in years.  And what the hell is she doing here.  Or Oh I never could stand her.”  I finally had to walk into the bathroom and tell her that she was going to have to shut up and let me do this, or I was not going to make it thru.  That there would be time for a mental breakdown later.  I remember going back in the little room where her body was and receiving guests while holding my friends hands and just shaking.   We buried her on a Tuesday in accordance with her wishes and the customs of her church.  It was one of the worst days of my life.

I kind of lost it after Momma Muriel died.  One of the only people who had ever given me unconditional love, and was my best friend was gone.  I felt I had lost Oma all over again.  I don’t remember much of that time.  I stayed in bed a lot.  I felt I had lost my reason for being, my compass in life.  She remains one of the coolest people I have ever known. 

Ilsa

Katrina and Rita

By the time I post this, y’all will be sick of hearing about the 10^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. She  made landfall in Louisiana on August 29^th, 2005.  Much has been said about the plight of those that fled from the storm.  Katrina blew people across the country.  Many don’t know that the rest of Louisiana absorbed a majority of the evacuees.  For those that had cars or RV’s they drove until they thought they were safe.  A lot of people went to Lake Charles, A lot went to Shreveport, and some came to Sabine Parish.  Church’s opened up their doors and people opened up their homes.  It was a disaster the whole state felt, not just New Orleans. 

I had been looking for, but unable to find work for the last 9 months, when the storms hit.  Suddenly there were jobs in Sabine Parish.  I called to inquire about them, but was told I had to be a Katrina evacuee to apply. 

My firsthand accounts of some of those people, you may not like, but it is true.  I was working at the Many United Methodist Church’s relief center.  I was helping to serve food, donating clothes and blankets, and doing what I could.  I watched these people be more concerned with doing their hair then keeping their little areas clean.  I was serving dinner one day, and a little boy comes up, he must have been about 8 or 10.  I ask him which dish he would like.  He tells me. I say “what do you say?”  I was waiting for a please or a thank you.  He says, “give it to me now.”  No one in line corrected or admonished him for his bad behavior.  I quit the next day.  I would not put up with such rudeness. 

Jay came home and told us about evacuees stealing from his Family Dollar in Shreveport.  How they would just load up buggies and run out the back door before they could catch them.  This happened twice.  They didn’t need to steal, everything was provided for them.  Some of them coming in and just reaching out their arms to knock any and everything off the shelves, rows and rows of things.  It did not help that corporate came in to evaluate them at this time.  These people’s actions caused Jay and his manager and BFF, Kenny to get in a lot of trouble.  Can I prove it was Katrina evacuees that did this? No, but I can tell you while the emergency shelters were open, this is the only time these things ever happened at the store. 

I remember driving past one of the big emergency shelters.  I had stopped at a red light near there.  I noticed there were all these people standing in the street.  When we stopped for the light these evacuees began banging on the cars demanding money.  When the light turned green I floored it, and got the hell out of there. 

I know that many of the evacuees that came here were good, kind and grateful people.  Many of them stayed and add their richness to our community.  I am sure someone will write and tell me that I should not be so hard on them.  They had lost everything and explain their behavior away.  To put myself in their shoes and I have.  What I saw, what I experienced was a bunch of ungrateful, hateful people who could not careless about what was being done for them.  How others were sacrificing for them.  If I had just been thru, what they had, I would be immensely grateful for what I had been given.  I would have been helpful. 

Millions were poured out for Katrina.  Entertainment stars got on planes and pulled people out of New Orleans.  Many of them remain active in helping to rebuild New Orleans today.  Benefits and telethons were held for those affected by Katrina.  When Rita hit a month later, no body carried.  No stars came to our rescue.  Those of us caught in the storm just hunkered down and soldiered on.  As in the case of most hurricanes around here, we took care of our own.  People who had escaped to Lake Charles, Shreveport and Sabine Parish got hit again.

Rita made landfall September 24, 2005.  She was a Category 3 when she hit. She had been downgraded from a Category 5.  It took a few days for her to reach my house on Peach Tree Hill.  She was Category 1 when she came over the house.  I will never forget the sound of her coming over the house.  The 70 mile an hour winds sounded like God rolling out pizza dough on my roof.  It rained, and rained, and rained, the sky turned green, but no thunder, no lightning.  I sat in a rocking chair and rocked Prince for 5 hours while he freaked out, as the major part of the storm blew over.   Jay just slept it off.  For several days I had been bottling water.  The night before the storm hit I put the sheets in the freezer to cool.  I knew when the power went off it was going to get hot, fast.  When the power did go off I covered Jay with the frozen sheet and fanned him all night long while he bitched about how hot it was.   

We made it three days, in hundred degree heat, with no power.  Thank god we had gas and bottles of water.  But everything in our refrigerator was ruined, except the mustard and the chow-chow.  I don’t think anything can kill either of those.  We were lucky in that the state issued disaster food stamps for everyone affected by the storm.  Jay was staying in Shreveport with family working.  After three days I packed up the kids and went to my mom’s.  I think we stayed about a week before we came back home.

Momma Muriel saw that we were struggling.  She was not in the best of health at this time.  Since I had met her she had gone into congestive heart failure and was now on dialysis three times a week.  She had also fallen several times.  She’d fall in the middle of the night, press her life alert and they would call us.  There was not much we could do since we lived so far away.  At the time Momma Muriel and I were discussing her going into an assisted living facility, something which she really did not want to do.  She called me after Rita hit and said, “Look Jay can’t keep driving back and forth to Shreveport for work.  I don’t want to go into a nursing home.  Why don’t I pay to move y’all up here, in back of my place?  I’ll live my life, you live yours and we will meet in the middle.  How does that sound?”  We jumped at the chance. 

Ilsa

Three weddings

In January of 2004 it was time to turn my little leased Saturn in.  Jay and I decided to buy a truck.  Now Jay’s step-father had worked for GM for many years.  Because of that he got what is called a GM certificate.  It allows GM workers to buy GM cars at wholesale price.  The person who’s name is on the top of the deal, the primary buyer, must be related to said GM employee.  Jay and I are not legal married at this point.  The date has been set, the clothes are being made, the dress has been bought and the invitations have gone out but no we are not married at this point.  My name goes on the top of the deal, because I have a little better credit score then Jay does.  We sign the papers and I take the truck home.  I’d always wanted a truck!

We get a call a few days later from our salesman that there is a problem with the paperwork.  The lien holder had kicked it back because my name is on the top of the deal, I am not official GM family, and not authorized to use the certificate.  We have committed a little bit of fraud.  We have two choices: bring the truck back and try to redo the deal, or get married immediately.  We decide to get married. 

On February 5, 2004 Jay and I are legal married by the local Justice of the Peace, in my Momma’s living room in Keatchie.  I wear a simple white shirt, black skirt and no shoes.  My mother freaks and keeps yelling at me to put my shoes back on.  Oy Vey! It is just my parents, Jay and I and Paige.  It all happened so fast that Jay forgot to invite his parents.  My father gives me away by kissing me on the forehead.  Something he used to do when I was little and sick and he was trying to check my temperature. It’s just our little thing.

As I start to say my vows I become overwhelmed.  My father is standing behind me, I almost faint on him.  He pushes me with two fingers, ‘cause he is a very big man, and says, “Don’t make me get the Shotgun!”  What??  I regain my composure.  We had never practiced our vows.  When I said them for the first time, I wanted them to mean something.  I place my hand over Jay’s heart, swearing on it when I take my vows.  I say all the vows, but I refuse to say that I will obey him.  I believe no one should have to blindly obey anyone.  It should be a choice.

There is an old saying that when you marry someone you marry their whole family, and that is very true.  A wonderful husband with a bad family can be a new bride’s worst enemy.  I know many women who have a lot of trouble with their in-laws.  I am blessed that Jay has a wonderful family.  That is one of the reasons I agreed to marry him. 

I’ve often said that when I married Jay I not only got a husband, but I got a grandmother too.  There is another old saying that men marry their mothers.  While I love my mother in law, and she has never been anything but nice to me, we are very different people.  We are cut from different cloth, me and her.  She loves to shop.  I hate to shop.  She loves shoes and purses.  I despise shoes and spend most of my life barefooted.  At the time I could count my shoes and purses on my hands.  I have since become a bit more girly.  My mother in law is very much a city girl.  Nothing wrong with that, it’s just different.  She is by no means a Novelle!  She and I are both steadfast in our resolve that we love and what whatever is best for Jay. 

Knowing Jay’s mother, and how different we are, I often wondered why he would choose to fall in love with a very country girl like me.  When I met Momma Muriel, Jay’s paternal grandmother, I knew why.  The first time I met her she told me a dirty joke.

“Hey!  You know how to kiss a ducks ass?” she said

“No.” I said

She then blew, as if to blow the feathers away, and made a kissing noise, “But you got to be quick!”

We both exploded in laughter!  She from the joke and me from the fact that this woman of 76 has just said the word ASS.  Novelle would never have done that!  Oh I liked her already.  Momma Muriel and I became fast friends.  We were both country girls and cut from the same cloth you could say.  She’s spent more the 40 years as a nurse and had seen it all.  She was fierce and independent, despite being confined to a scooter most of the time.  She still drove and did all her own errands. 

Momma Muriel lived in an old trailer on 22 acre just north of town.  Her land was full of very tall old pine trees, beautiful Bartlett pear trees, thick woods and a creek.  I feel in love with this place the first time I saw it.  Years later she would ask us to move out here to care for her and in her will she gave it to us as her last gift.  The more I feel in love with this little piece of land, the more I knew I wanted to be married here, in the spring when the Bartlett pears bloomed with their beautiful white flowers. 

I had spent months sewing and weaving clothes for our Ojibwa wedding.  For Jay I made a cream colored drop sleeve shirt.  While not period, it looked nice.  I wove him a belt on an Inkle loom.  He wore his brown canvas pants and a black beaded choker that he had made for himself long ago. 

My regalia had taken months to construct and research.  I had made for myself a purple drawstring skirt, a full length white apron with ribbon embellishment, an embroidered pocket, a handkerchief with a tatted edge, a blue tribal style shirt circa the 1700’s with ribbon embellishment, and a double sided shawl with fringe, in our wedding colors of purple and teal.  Jay made a leather sheath form me to carry my dear antler handled knife in.  We beaded the bottom and added tinkle cones.  We designed the sheath to hang on the string of my pocket.  Jay also made me a beaded choker, and Maddie gave me a cow tooth to hang from it.  I wore my hair in braids.  I also wore a ring given to me by the Caddo tribe years before and earrings made by a Caddo – Adais lady. My maid of honor, Mary, had made me a leather head band, with eagle plumes that Jerry had given me.   In my hands I carried a bouquet of feathers that Mary had also made for me.  Both of these things were her wedding gifts to me.

While I might have looked silly and stupid or disrespectful to some people, I felt beautiful.  I felt I was doing something very true to my heart and my soul.  It was always our intention to be as respectful as we could to a culture we felt such a connection to. 

In attendance were Momma Muriel, my parents, Mary and her husband, Jerry and his wife.  Jay’s parents refused to attend.  Prince, Pumpkin, and Precious looked on at us from the pen.  I had hoped to have them in one of the ceremonies, but having them watch and protect us during this time was the best I could do.

At sunset Jay built us a sacred fire.  We gathered close to it with Jerry and his wife.  She wrapped us in a blanket that Momma Muriel had crocheted many years before.   Jerry brought out a small little bowl to bless the fire with.  Inside was cedar from the tree under which his grandmother was born.  We were all shocked to find out that she and I had the same birthday.  To it we added our gift of tobacco.  Jerry gave me the bowl as a wedding present.  It sits on my altar to this day. 

At some point Jerry tied our hands together and we took our vows to each other.  I think I was crying a lot, ‘cause I don’t remember as much as I should.  Jerry spoke many words to us.  He told us of marriage and to keep our minds and our bodies clean.  He told us we were married in this life and the next and we could never divorce.  We like to joke around our house, that the only man who could undo our marriage is Jerry, and he is long since dead.  We are stuck with each other, whether we like it or not.  Finally Jerry brought out an eagle wing and blessed us with it.  That was the most magical moment for me.  To me this was my wedding.  If you ask me when my anniversary is I will give you this date.   To me everything else was just for show.  There was no reception.  We just all went out later and ate fried catfish, Momma Muriel’s favorite. 

The next day on March 20^th, 2004, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, at Keatchie United Methodist Church, Jay and I were married, again.  We were married in the same church my parents had been married in 22 years before.  Our invitations were simple and printed on parchment paper, in color from our home computer.  They were sealed with a silver wax stamp of two intertwined hearts, our little symbol.  We hand delivered invitations to those we could and mailed the rest to those we could not.  We had about 30 or 40 people in attendance.

The wedding was very simple and informal.  I wore a white chapel length dress with a v-neck and short sleeves.  I was hesitant about wearing white, because I had been married before.  Etiquette says that a bride marrying for the second time should wear cream.  When I told this to Jay he said, “You wear white for me baby.”  I loved that, and so I did.  My hair was piled high on my head with ringlets.  I wore a wreath of flower and ribbons in my hair and carried beautiful silk flowers with ribbons. 

Mary, made all the flowers as her gift to me.  She made all the corsages, flower for the bridesmaids and stood as my Maid of Honor.  Maddie and Paige were my bridesmaids.  Instead of buying stupid dresses for the ladies to wear, that were ridiculously expensive and they would never wear again. I asked that they all wear something purple, something that they would wear again.  They did and they all looked lovely. 

Jay wore a white shirt and black pants.  His grandfather was his Best Man and his friend Robert was his Groomsman.  All of our friends and family were there, yes even Novelle. 

As my Dad walked me down the aisle, I stopped to light a candle in front of a picture of Oma.  We were married by a pastor who’s name I don’t even remember, and I am not sure I had even met before.  By this time we were kind of old hats at this. 

For less than a hundred dollars we rented the Keatchie town hall and held our reception there.  We had a lovely Italian cream cake, with double hearts on it, green sherbet punch, and finger sandwiches.  We had decided on an afternoon wedding, because we didn’t have the money to feed everyone.  It was a nice way for everyone to have a break in their day, and still have time to go home and mow their lawn.  We had our little toast and cut the cake for our friends and family to enjoy.  As Jay does not dance and we have never had a special song, until recently, there was no dancing.  We opened gifts, thanked everyone for coming and went home. 

Jay and I were too poor for such a thing as a honeymoon.  We would not take that until years later.  We just changed clothes, loaded up our dogs, got in our car and headed back home to Ebarb.

Ilsa