The Brett Incident

I had spent much of my teenage years wanting to be an Oceanographer, like Dr. Bob Ballard.  I even ran my bath scalding hot, so I might prepare for diving in the hot water around the underwater volcanoes.  When I tried to get into LSMSA, see Cold Hands, I had to take the SAT’s.  I began to understand I was smart, but not that smart.  Math is the bane of my existence.  I also began to understand I would have to leave the state to study, something I was not prepared to do.  I did not want to leave my family.  I also did not want to leave the area, go away, build a life, get married, have kids, own a home, and have to give up everything many years later, to come home and care for aging and dying parents.  I am an only child.  I don’t get the luxury of handing it off to another family member.  It is going to be me, doing it all, in the end.  I was brought up to believe you do not put your loved ones in a nursing home.  It is dishonorable and distasteful. 

So I knew I could not be an Oceanographer, although I loved writing, I figured I could never make a living at it, besides I knew I wasn’t very good at it.  I knew people who could write circles around me.  I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mom was working on becoming, and two of my Aunts were already.  I didn’t want to be a nurse like my other Aunt.  I had been training in the wifely arts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and hand work since I could remember.  My mom always said she wanted to prepare me.  So I thought I am a pretty good cook and I love food, maybe I will be a chef, so that is what I started out going to college to do.  I was also in love with the Frugal Gourmet about this time.

As my senior year approached I began to look at colleges.  My father then stepped in and said, “You may only apply to colleges where I may get to you in less than a day’s drive.”  That sealed the deal, no Oceanography for me.  I remember measuring off the distance and marking my large US map with my compass and setting up the radius.  I decided to apply in state.  I asked, my family, for help filling out the forms for both financial aid and college applications, they refused.  It taught me how to do them though.  I always found it odd some colleges required you send a picture.  What the hell did that tell them about your brain or who you were???  I applied all over the state: to Northwestern in Natchitoches, LSU in Baton Rouge, USL in Lafayette, Louisiana Tech in Ruston, NLU in Monroe, Southeastern in Hammond, and McNeese in Lake Charles.  I got in to all of them.  I was very surprised I got into LSU, but I did. 

I was so ecstatic when my letter came from Louisiana Tech that I had been accepted.  My entire life my father had told me, “You’re going to college.”  I never had a say in it.  I wanted to go to Tech, desperately, like my father before me.  I have always wanted to be just like my Dad.  I still remember going into the living room to tell him.  He held the letter and said, “That’s great, but you can’t go there.  You will have no one to watch over you.  You can go to NSU, where you Mom is attending, and she can watch other you, or you can go to USL where your aunt can watch over you.”  I was devastated.  All that work, applying to all the other colleges, only to be told, again that what I wanted, didn’t matter.  I am sure he had his reasons, but he broke my heart that day.  Still makes me angry to this day.

I thought for a moment.  I wanted to get as far away from my mother as possible, and I knew others from my school were going to NSU.  I was terrified the bullying would continue there, so I said, “I guess I will go to USL then.” 

USL became my battle cry, it became my hope, and thinking of going there and getting away from the daily abuse, which was only getting worse now that Cajun Rink had been added to he bunch, became my refuge.  Cajun helped crank the daily taunts up to 11.  But I was trying so hard to be a good Christian and turn the other cheek, and to do what my parents asked.  But with every word he hurled at me, I died inside.  He even went so far as to paint penis on my car windows, in shoe polish. I am still thankful for the cheerleaders who helped me remove enough from my window, to drive home, with spit and a Kleenex, and held me while I cried.

Into my life came Brett.  He was beautiful or so I thought.  He had this long curly black mullet.  He was of Native American decent, and covered in pimples.  I didn’t care.  I was on him like white on rice.  He was fresh meat and I wanted him.  In my mind he had not been tainted by my tormentors.  So it was game on.  He was from Shreveport.  He was always crying, come to find out his father had recently died.  His mother had remarried.  She and her new husband had moved to Keatchie.  Brett and I became fast friends.  I was always trying to comfort him, rubbing his back and trying to help him through this difficult time. 

As I sit here looking at my annual, I don’t know that we were ever officially boyfriend and girlfriend.  I was invited to a bonfire at his house.  Our parents met and they liked each other.  They encourage us to be together.  I went to a Christmas party at his house, where he danced with me.  He gave me a cassette single of Dwight Yoakam’s “Fast as you.”  I spent hours listening to it, to see if Brett was trying to give me a secret message.  I hate that song now, it reminds me of all of this.

Brett was strange.  He spent hours on his hair and although it was my guess he liked me, he didn’t want to hold my hand, and kissed me only once.  When he kissed me it was not like Adam’s kisses, full of passion and want.  No it was like kissing a rock.  I was confused.  I liked him, was falling in love with him, but he did not seem to reciprocate.  I knew, deep down, it was going to be another one of my one sided love affairs.  I often fell “In love” with a guy and then waited for him to say he liked me, even tried to buddy up to some of them, but none of them ever got the hint.  So it was always on sided.

Brett, me and our families went out New Years Eve to the American Legion Hall dance.  Brett was prone to migraines.  He had one that night.  I would learn later he faked it to get away from me. 

Not long after we were due to give blood.  I talked all my friends into doing it.  It ended up that I could not because had an ear infection and was on antibiotics.  Brett, Sonya and some more of my friends gave blood.  A few weeks later Brett received a letter, or so I was told, that said he had a devastating medical condition.  I wrote him a letter and told him how much I loved him and I would stay beside him through this diagnosis.

Within a few days later I was given a note from him, by Sonya, he said wanted nothing to do with me anymore.  I was devastated.  For once in my life, I thought I had found love.  I have always said the worst thing about all of this, was that for a few weeks, I had hope that I was not this horrible, ugly, fat, crazy monster that everyone told me I was.  When I read his letter, all that hope was destroyed.

It was not just the relationship that hurt, what did the most damage is what came after.  Sonya, my best friend since 2^nd grade, was also friends with Brett.  What I didn’t know, is that many nights that I was on the phone with Brett, she was quietly listening in.  He had called her, before he called me.  I didn’t know until later that she was acting as a conduit to help get him hooked up to another friend, who Brett began dating a few weeks later.

This friend he dated, a few months later, when the relationship was over, turned to me in class and said, “He lies doesn’t he?”  I said, “Yes he does.” 

I still do not know what was said.  I don’t know what rumor was spread, but from the time that Brett broke up with me in January of 1994 until about a month before I graduated in May of 1995, I was basically shunned.  Suddenly none of my friends, or anyone for that matter, would speak to me.  No one would eat lunch with me.  I was treated like a pariah.  My only clue is what one friend said to me one day.  He had the courage to break whatever taboo they had set against me.  He said, “They have told me to hate you and I just can’t do it anymore.  You have always been nice to me.”  And he sat with me and ate lunch.  It was finally over.  He was the first, more would join us as they year drew to a close. 

I cannot tell you how desperate I was.  I cannot tell you how many nights I wanted to kill myself.  How I wanted to jump from the river bridge.  In one swoop I had lost everything I understood.  My people, my tribe, my friends, or however you want to call it.  My sociology professor years later, would call it a “social death.”  When I finally got up the courage to talk to my parents, tell them what was going on and I was suicidal, my Dad said, “Oh It’s just puppy love.  It will pass.”  Twenty-Two years later it hurts, almost as bad as it did when it happened.  At least I now have some understanding to go with all of this.

I stayed friends with Brett’s parents.  I have seen his mother several times over the years.  When I saw her, I told her all that had happened, and she confirmed for me what I had begun to suspect many years before.  Brett was gay.  I now understand what he did.  He used me for cover.  He was pretending to be interested in me to appease his family and hide his homosexuality.  That I could have lived with, and would have even happily participated in it had I known. 

I found Brett many years ago on Facebook, we discussed much of the above.  To say he has a different idea of what happened is an understatement.  He said we were never in a relationship and he never cared for me, that he has always been gay.  I am sure there is much truth to that.  I have known for a long time what I felt for him, was not reciprocated.  I had hoped for an apology, but that will never happened.  Never got one from Sonya either or knew what was actually said about me.  Would love to know now, if someone wanted to PM me, I would be open to hearing it now.  Ten years, after all this, I would see Sonya again.  Who just hugged my neck and could not understand why I was so mad at her.  What a Bitch!

While all this was going on, all I could do was pray and count the days until I would go to USL.  I was in Hell and I had to find my own way out.  I was like Rapunzel.  I was trapped in the tower, no one was coming to save me, I had to cut my hair and save myself. 

There was a young man in my class who came in everyday, with the most beautiful smile.  As corny as it sounds his smile, gave me hope.  Seeing him smile, and hearing him laugh helped me in ways he has no idea of.  I even developed a little crush on him, but my fate was sealed and I was too broken and afraid to try to find love again.  I was leaving for Lafayette after I graduated, and that was that.

I began what I called “Smile Therapy.”  I would force myself to smile, just for a few seconds every few hours.  I noticed when I did so I would feel better.  Turns out smiling releases all kinds of endorphins in your brain, that are good for you.  Slowly, ever so slowly I feel it began to pull me out of the worst of my depression.  The first few weeks were the worst.  I would get two or three seconds and then burst into tears again.  I cried so much during class, during this whole thing, me a woman who hates to cry and used to see it as a sign of weakness. 

A few weeks before we graduated someone told me something I would never have dreamed.  They said, “Melvin has been in love with you for years.  He would have done anything for you.”  I remember sitting in our drafting room, looking at him and just smiling.  I have no idea if it was even true, but it helped me none the less.  And today I regret not doing anything about it.  The idea that Melvin had once loved me, along with my friends smile, gave me comfort in one of the darkest times of my life.  Stupid and corny, right?  I know.  But I love stupid and corny. 

Ilsa

 

 

 

 

 

Bronchitis

Well hello family, and happy New Year.  This is my first post of the New Year.  It’s January 22, 2016, and I have been down for about 10 days now.  I got, what I hope, is my yearly case of Bronchitis.  I have talked, at nauseam, I am quite sure about my many cases of bronchitis.  Sorry folks, those are just the facts, kind of like my hair is brown, I am married to Jay, and at least once a year, since the age of 6, I get bronchitis.  I have talked to you about this in Blood in the Water, The family secret, and The healing power of music.  

This case we caught early.  I am lucky enough to have a doctor who I can call and say, “I’ve got it again,” and they will call in meds for me.  They have seen me have it enough, and I have had it enough to diagnose myself.  I know what meds work for me and what don’t.  You know you are sick when you WANT to rub Vicks on yourself!

It does not take much for me to get it, and I am always in a preventative phase.  I monitor my allergies and try to take meds if I am sniffling too much or I am congested.  I know that my sinuses dripping on my vocal cords, will cause a sore throat and it is all downhill from there.  I have seen me go to bed fine and wake up with a full blown case of Bronchitis.  It was kind of like that this time.

Jay and I don’t have a lot of money.  There are weeks where I have to ration out the wash powder and the milk.  We get by, and do what we can, where we can.  This year we did not have the $500 to $600, plus the tank rental fee, to fill up the propane tank, that runs both the heater and the stove.  This caused great upset in the family, a few months ago when I first came to understand this, but all is well now.  I am blessed with warm clothes, 2 space heaters, and many blankets.  The children have sweaters and I am always covering them up, checking ears and paws to see if they are cold.  Lots of people have done a lots more with a lot less. 

Every day I worry that I will run out of gas to cook with, but the stove is still going.  Should it run out I have a grill, and a camp stove.  I also could gather fire wood and cook outside.  I am not opposed to such as our ancestors have done that for millennia.  Hell that is still done in many parts of the world today.  Jay promises that he will not let it come to that.  He says when the gas runs out, he will rig up a 5 gallon refillable Propane bottle to our lines, and we will have gas that way.  I trust him, he has not let me down yet.

 Now I am not trying to tell you a sob story to get y’all to set me up a Go Fund me account, or for somebody to lend us the money to fill up the tank.  No even if we borrowed the money, and there is nobody to borrow it from, we, I don’t think, would be able to pay it back.  What a rich person might spend on a dress or shoes, would take us several years to pay back.  Just the facts of the working poor people, I am just trying to tell it like it is.  We will find a solution to our own problems, and I am sure there are layers of lessons the Gods are teaching us here.  I keep thinking of JK Rowling’s writing her first book in the café’s, because she didn’t have any heat either.  Maybe it will help to get my creative juices flowing.

So we have been saving the running of the heater for our freezing nights, and days when I just can’t get warm.  I think it has been on a handful of times since it started getting cold.  Hell we had the AC on Christmas Eve!  We had our first night of freezing the other night, in fear of the pipes freezing, I convinced Jay to turn on the heater, although he said the ones that always freeze are the ones outside.  Pipes were fine the next morning, but we were not.  Both of us woke up with sore throats.  My guess is when we turned on the heater, it blew out all that dust and that’s what did it.  Jay is fine, he is always fine, a day or so later my coughing started. 

I got meds, but still did not feel all that bad, and I went on and did my usual things, just 10 times slower, which is greatly annoying to me.  Despite not feeling that bad, I probably should have gone to bed and stayed there, but guilt eats at me.  I constantly hear the voice of those who said/ say they loved me, now mixed with my own, call me fat, lazy, crazy, and useless in my head.  I know since I don’t “carry my own weight” by bringing home a pay check, I have to work as hard as I can, as much as I can, pushing through pain, depression, and anything else that might try to block what I have to do.  Jay has never, and would never say such things to me, and in truth it has gotten better over the years.  But it still does not seem fair to me, for Jay to work all day long, and have to come home and tend to house, make dinner, and wash clothes.  Yes there are days when I can’t, and I have to ask, but it is not something I like. 

So I get sick and then a few days later Jay starts this project that we have been planning for a while.  We had a hole in our floor in the living room, don’t start me in on why you should never ever buy a trailer.  We decided instead of ripping out all the floor, we would lay ¾” plywood over the top and polyurethane over the top of it.  It looks really nice.  So much better than trying to mop a floor that had broken and missing peal and stick tiles over it.  I have 7 dogs sharing our home and a goat that thinks she’s a dog.  Pee is simply a fact of life in my house people.  You just can’t mop that out of particle board. 

Since Jay and I got together, some 13 years ago now, we will celebrate our 12^th year of marriage in March, Gods willing, I have helped him with every project.  When we built the porch, I helped him carry the 16ft pressure treated posts, learned to use a nail gun, and dug holes (sometimes with a soup spoon) and help add concrete to them.  When we built Bridget’s house, I helped him raise the walls, and then held them in place while he shot it with the nail gun.  Other then paint, which I do mainly by myself, since he hates to paint, I have helped him with every project he has ever done in this house.  From nailing, ripping out floor, putting in pipe, re-running water lines, putting in electricity to somewhere, and cutting insulation. I am a good helper.  I try to think two steps ahead of him, as to what he will need, even if it is just something cold to drink. 

For the first time, this week, I watched him do a project on his own.  I watched him struggle with heavy boards, in and out of the front door.  It broke my heart that all I could do was sit at the kitchen table and watch.  Not make him dinner (although I did help with that one night and spent the next few days in bed after that) not bring him something to drink, nothing, all I could do was watch this beautiful man try to make our lives a little better.  Not only did he do that, but he cooked for me, tended me, and fussed at me to put socks on, go back to bed and encouraged me to sleep all day.  I was overcome with love for him and immense gratitude. 

This has been on my heart for days to write this to you, but I have had no strength to do so.  Finally today the Polyurethane is dry and I have my desk back to write you from.  We have rearranged the living room, now instead of looking at the goat barn, at Kay’s house, and who is coming down the drive.  I am looking down the hill, to Jay’s gun range, what is left of the old circle, and the now blocked path, down to the creek, and the other 11 acres beyond that.  I see lots of trees, some that have fallen down and need to be cut, but Kevin stole our chain saw, you know the one that never did work right.  Joke was on him.  And I see a little Ms. Bridget, who is rubbing her horn on the dead Dog Fennel plants, and standing in the sunshine.  Wonder if this view will inspire me the way the other does.  You know when we first moved out here, we had this area I am looking at, oh about a 40 x 80 section, fenced off for the dogs.  But as those of you who own Dachshunds know, there is no such thing as Dachshund proof fencing.  No matter how we patched or what we did, they kept getting out.  Finally we gave up and just tore it all down. 

I love it here, I never want to leave, my only regret is that I cannot be buried here.  But I promise you I will haunt it!  I just hope it never changes, and remains forested forever with these huge pines and oaks.  Some people look at it and see money and I see an eco-system.

This round of sickness reminded me so much of when I had bronchitis right before I graduated High School, which I talked about in The healing power of music.  I have been working on a project where I was taking all my old CD’s, copying onto my computer, and then transferring them to my tablet and / or Jay’s phone.  Apparently I have 16 Jimmy Buffet albums.  For days, this is all I could do.  It brought back lots of memories.  I cried when I heard Keith Whitley sing, thinking of how we lost him too soon.  I still remember where I was when I heard he was dead.  For some of my generation they lamented the loss of Kurt Cobain, for me it was Keith Whitley.

When I got to some of my country classics and my soul music, I thought about my Dad.  When I would get sick, I would sleep on the couch, with my little vaporizer and Mom would tend me.  Dad would come in drunk as Cooter Brown, and he would teach me about music.  He would play Tanya Tuckers TNT album.  The album folded out and on the inside was this picture of her in bright red body suit.  Then he would pull out his Barbara Mandrel albums.  Mom despised her, something about she was in a car wreck and sued the family of the man who hit her, even though he died and she was rich.  Then Dad would pick up his Barbara Streisand albums and look at them longingly.  He would say, “I love her, but I hate her politics.”  She is a liberal Democrat, Daddy is a died in the wool conservative Republican.   He would inevitable put the record down and not play it.  He would talk about The Temps and The Tops and said he used to argue with Uncle Andy over who was better.  He taught me to love soul music and really all music, no matter the ethnicity. 

My mom loves music too, but with her it was only Rock and Roll and Pop; Elton John, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Wings, Joe Stampley and The Uniques, and James Taylor.  I had to fight her to able to listen to country music.  “Why do you want to listen to people sing threw their nose?!”  she would say.  We would be riding along in the car and she would ask me who was playing.  Then she would snap her fingers and say, “You ought to know it when it starts!”  But with Dad, he taught me, the world was my musical oyster.

Something else has happened in the last few weeks that I want to share with you.  A friend of mine in middle school I have talked in Friends, named Stacy, lost her baby brother Sammy to suicide. Now those of you who are following along, know I have struggled with suicidal tendencies throughout my life.  But the shock of what this has done to someone so dear to me, and her family, has made me see what damage I would do to my family should I chose to do this.  Also watching Jay struggle this week with those heavy boards has made me realize, if I should leave him, there would be no one to help him with projects.  He would have to struggle to tend to this house, this farm, and these kids, by himself.  I just can’t do that to him.  It’s not fair.  I feel this round of Bronchitis might have just cured me of this tendency.

 As much as I hem and I haw that I don’t do enough around this house, cause I can still look around and see cobwebs and a toilet I need to attack with a toothbrush.  I realize this week just how much I do do, that I have always done, and how much more I have started doing since I got on my new meds.  How much I grieved, not being able to type or even having the energy to pick up pen and paper and write to you.  I still have so many stories left to tell you.  I have to tell you about The Brett Incident, and going to USL, and lots of other stories and I have to finish my books.  I really realized this week how much y’all would miss me, and how much I would miss this life.  What the dead always tell me is how much they miss being alive.  How frustrating it would be to me, to be on the other side and not be able to bring Jay a glass of tea when he his hot, or find his hammer when he has lost it again.  How sad indeed. 

Ilsa

 

 

Starting School

When I started school I knew I was different then the other kids.  Way different.  When Oma brought me into have me tested for placement in Kindergarten, I could read, I could write a little, I could count to ten in English and German, and I could sign my name in cursive.  There was discussion about putting me in 1^st grade, but they decided to put me in Kindergarten, because I lacked social skills. 

I remember being shocked by the stupidity of the kids around me.  Sorry if I sound arrogant here.  They did not know their numbers, their colors or shapes, and could not read.  Much less they did not understand German.  I thought everyone spoke another language at home.  I remember walking into the cafeteria and watching some of them eat with their hands.  These were not kids that were from ethnicities that ate with their hands.  These were American children, who should have known how to use a fork and spoon.  I was shocked and appalled. 

My first week of school I understood I was different than the other kids.  Some of my clothes, were what was hot that year in German fashion.  I didn’t care a back pack, I cared a satchel.  Oma had gotten it from German for me.  I knew I was different, and I desperately wanted to fit in, make friends and be liked.  Instead I would be singled out and called crazy or weird for my entire schooling. 

Angie was my best friend and Sean was my boyfriend.  Sean had been in my life as long as I could remember.  He was this beautiful little boy with blond hair.  His mother and grandmother cut Oma’s hair.  I have this memory of Sean and I being in the closet together and getting caught.  When they found us,  Oma and them had shocked looks on their faces.  Neither one of us remembers what we were doing.  But I am sure the two of us were up to now good!  LOL! 

Sean and I would get married in the morning, on the play ground and then divorced by lunch.  I remember lying in this ditch birthing his imaginary babies, while my friend I nicknamed Doc attended.  We did this every day.  Sean and I would sleep next to each other at nap time and cuddle.  I would even throw my leg over him.  Oh the teachers did not like that and had to separate us.  It really upset me.  I felt like I was all alone.  Sean remained my on-again-off-again boyfriend until the 3^rd grade, when I caught him holding another girl’s hand.  That was it for us.  I avoided him after that.  It helped we were also in separate classes.

Sean and I found each other on Facebook several years ago, and I got to see him on a trip into town.  He is just as beautiful as ever.   I was just as attracted to him, as I was when we were little.  He has a beautiful bald head, now that all his lovely blond hair fell out.  I got the chance to apologize to him for ignoring him all those years, we were still in school together.  He told me I am still his longest relationship to date. 

I attended Logansport Rosenwald Elementary School.  Now the Rosenwald here is a bit of a misnomer.  Julius Rosenwald built 5000 or so schools across the country to help educate mainly African-American children in the early 20^th century.  These schools were 1^st -12^th grade.  Our Rosenwald school was opened in 1952 and used as a segregated high school until the 70’s.  I remember going to school and seeing large photos of all black graduating classes.  Now I lived in a very small town.  There was only one high school.  It didn’t make since to me as Rosenwald was then used as an elementary school up until 6^th grade, and then you went to the high school.  I just kept looking at those pictures wondering where all the white kids were?  What was Rosenwald High School?  How do you explain the past of the segregated south and Jim Crow laws to a kindergartener?

My school was very small.  Maybe a 1000 kids from K-12.  The year I started school we had 90 in my class, by the time I graduated there would be 47 of us.  We were all a pretty tight knit group.

In May of 1982 Mom would met the man I would call my father for the rest of my life.  I talked about that in Novelle. They married that summer.   Daddy loved me almost instantly.  He picked up the gauntlet of being my father, long after Beau had thrown in down.  I think the great thing about Daddy was that he always considered me.  I remember going on family dates.  We’d have a picnic or go to the zoo.  When Mom got to go on a date, I got to go too.  I loved that.  I was a bit confused.  When Dad married Mom I thought he was marrying me too.  I used to go around and tell people, “well you know I got married this summer.”  LOL! 

They married in the same church, I would marry in 20 years later.  I was Mom’s Maid of Honor.  When they kissed I was so embarrassed I put my hand over my face, and just shook my head.  There is a picture of this.  I could not believe they were embarrassing me by kissing in church!!

Daddy legally adopted me that fall.  He never had any natural children of his own.  I am the closest thing he has.  Now let me have you understand, Jef is my father, Beau is my biological father.  Jef fed me.  Jef clothed me.  Jef disciplined me when I did wrong.  I was accountable to Jef when I screwed up in school.  Jef taught me to dance, love Motown, and read.  It was Jef I confided in and drank my first beer with.  It was my conversation with Jef and his offer to move me home, that got me to leave my abusive relationship.  It was Jef that gave me away at my wedding.  Beau did none of that.  So by everything that a father is measured by, Jef is my father and will be heralded here as such. 

Oma loved my Dad, Jef.  She found great comfort in him I think.  I remember we would have a big dinner, and after coffee they would sit and drink peppermint schnapps.  My dad is the only man I have ever seen stand up to my Grandfather, James Parker.  And the only man I ever saw my Grandfather back down from.  My dad was a godsend for all of us, a father, a husband, a lover, a son-in-law, but most of all, an advocate and a fighter for both my mother and I. 

During my first grade year they would diagnose Oma with Multiple Myeloma, a terrible form of cancer.  She would die before I started 2^nd grade.  She was 57.  By the time they found the cancer, she was already in the advance stages of the disease.  It had metastasized to her bones.  The end was not pretty and made me an advocate of euthanasia. 

Oma was shuffled back and forth between the hospital and home.  There was no hospice in those days.  My Mom and Dad did everything for her.  The rest of the family refused to help.  Perhaps they thought it was my Mom’s place because she was the girl?  Perhaps because she didn’t have a job?  During that year period I would spend a lot of time with Novelle and the rest of my new family. 

My last memory of Oma coherent is hard to put down on paper.  I was in the kitchen standing by the refrigerator and Oma was laid out in her brown leather recliner in the living room, not 20 ft. from me.  I suddenly hear this very loud, ragged, sucking inhalation.  I look up at her and a few moments later I hear her utter, “It was so beautiful.”  I know now she was traveling between worlds and had just come back into her body.  The Gods and The Dead were preparing her for her death.  She turned and she saw me standing in the kitchen.

 “Oh Ilsa, when I die I am going to be your garden angel.” 

I was confused.  I told her, “Well when you die tell Elvis I said Hello then.”  She and I were big Elvis fans back then. 

She smiled and told me to bring her some grapefruit juice. 

The last time I saw her we were in her hospital room.  They must have called all the family in, because they were all there.  I was the only kid in the room.  I am sitting on Mom’s knee and she whispers in my ear to take a good look, because that may be the last time I ever see Oma alive.  I wish to the Gods she had not.  That image is still stuck in my head of Oma laying there with a green oxygen mask on, moaning in pain, and finally she started screaming and I was ushered out of the room.  The morphine had long since quite working. 

I remember the whole family standing around her bed arguing who was going to take care of her.  My Mom begging my uncles to come and give her and Dad a break, as they were caring for Oma all the time and were exhausted.  One uncle said flatly, “I have a daughter to raise.”  I know made no since to me either.  Grandpa never hired a nurse.  I wonder if he thought, “why should I pay, I have free help in my daughter and her husband.”  Grandpa did take her at night after Mom and Dad left. 

When you have a family member come down with an illness that requires round the clock care, you really start to see the families true colors, and who you can depend on.  Usually one family member is singled out, just as my Mom was, to “handle it.”  I guess so the rest of the family isn’t inconvenienced. 

I was not allowed to attend Oma’s funeral.  I was only 7, but other kids in the family did.  I know my parents were trying to shield me.  I don’t know if going would have better or worse on me.  I will never know.  I understand Oma’s funeral was so packed that the men stood outside, to let the women and children have a place to sit.

My mother took Oma’s death very hard.  She nearly grieved herself to death, she became depressed and suicidal, and she also became anorexic.  Those were tough years for me.  I had lost my Oma, in my little girl heart my mother, and then to watch what my Mom loose her mind.  I had to become my mother’s emotional protector, both Daddy and I did.   Every word I said to her had to be measured, as to whether it would make her breakdown in tears.  For years I walked on eggshells around her and others.  I have often felt, too much was placed on me too soon.

I did not know that I was also in a deep depression at this time.  It became like second nature to me.  For most of my life I forgot what real true happiness felt like.  I hated myself and felt like a burden to my family.  So depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts became my norm. 

The first time I remember wanting to kill myself was not long after Oma died.  I walked into Mom and Dad’s bedroom and told them I wanted to be with Oma.  Mom said, “You want to die?”  I don’t remember what I said but it was in the affirmative.  My Mom lost it and I was pushed out of the room. As far as I know no one ever discussed with my Mom getting her any kind of mental help.  She refuses it to this day even though she is plagued with Panic Attacks and Anxiety a well.  I wish to God they had, for both of our sakes.

Ilsa

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving Mike

I am sorry to say that things continued to get worse in my life.  Our sex life had been bad for many years.  Mike like to role play Star Trek characters.  But in the last few months I was desperate.  I did what he asked.  I tried to invent new things.  I remember one night dressing as best as I could like a Geisha.  Oh went for that one.  His requests became strange.  He asked me to laugh like my mother and pretend to be her in bed.  He wanted us to be teenagers, like 14 and 15 year olds.  One night he decided to try to bite me all over my back.  Hey if it was good enough for Marv Albert, why not him. 

Mike began to express to me that he wanted to become swingers.  He told me, “I want to have sex with a blond, and a red head, and a black woman and an Asian woman.”  I told him that was fine but he could not have me and do those things.  I said, “If you can’t keep me satisfied, how do you expect to keep them satisfied.”  I’d really fuck with him and say, “I know you can’t wait to see me with another woman.”  Oh that got him hot.  “And I can’t wait to see you with another man,” I said.  Oh that shut him up.  “What its okay for you to want me to bisexual, but not you.” 

I have learned much about swinging and bisexuality since those days.  A lot of what I said to him was from misconceptions that I had about both communities.  Neither one goes hand in hand.  Just because you have sex with someone of the same sex does not make you bisexual.  I have been told by swingers in this community that Mike would not have been let into their groups without a partner.  When I asked my swinging friends if they knew Mike they said they did not.  I guess Mike never got his wish, poor boy.

The worst night came sometime in late June of 2001.  Mike was angry I was asking him for sex again.  I was lying in bed necked as usual.  All of a sudden he was on top of me.  I thought, oh this is different.  Then he pinned my arms above my head. He said, “You always want sex so much.  How about this!” and he entered me dry.  I screamed.  I began to try to fight, but he had my legs spread out so I could not kick him.  I screamed, “No!” at the top of my lungs, over and over again. I fought as long and as hard as I could. But I remember thinking I am being raped and there is nothing I can do about it.  I turned my head to the side and prayed for it to be over quickly.  When it was over I got up and showered.  I felt like I would never get clean.  I was terrified of him after that.  I could not even look him in the eye.  I was like a whipped dog.  I was broken.

The details around that time are a bit muddled in my brain, so forgive me if we go back and forth in a dance for a minute.  I don’t remember when I became suicidal again, if it was before or after the rape.  My plan was to jump from a local bridge.  I felt from the water I came, and to the water I would return.  I woke in the night to see my plan out and I felt something heavy push me back down on the bed.  I fell instantly back to sleep.

There was a computer at work that I had begun journaling on.  I did not know that it was company policy for the office managers to go around and check what was being done on all of them.  I had written a piece where I talked about wanting to kill Mike.  That even if I cut his head off, with his blood running down my arm, it would still not give me satisfaction enough for all he had done to me.  I was caught.  I was hauled into the office and given an ultimatum.  Either I begin counseling immediately, threw their Employee Assistance Program, or I would be fired.  I consented.  Although angry at first at what I saw was an invasion of my privacy, it was ultimately what saved my life.

Mike and I walked in to the councilor’s office a few days later.  My opening line, which I thought was funny was, “One of us is about to die and his odds are not looking to good.”  Very coolly the councilor, Liz, suggested we might try a trial separation.  We resisted the idea.  I began to see Liz every week.  Mike was to see a male councilor.  I believe he went once or perhaps twice.

Mike still would not work at this point.  He would not even look for work.  We were behind on my Methodist loan payments, of which my father was a co-signer.  My Dad called me one day at work and said, “I just called and paid $535 on your Methodist loan.  I told that husband of yours if he didn’t get a job I was going to come and get $535 out of his ass, move you home and pay for the divorce.”  I laughed and hung up with my dad.  I called him back an half an hour later and asked, “What time can you be here?”

My parents picked me up.  I went home and packed a bag.  I told Michael I would be back when he got a job.  I took the car, which was in my name, with me.  I think that was on a Thursday.  I went home to stay with my parents and I noticed how much better I felt.  Mike continued to call me and tell me to bring back the car.  How could he look for work, with no car?  I told him figure something out.  I was feeling stronger every day, just being away from him.  This is all I heard that weekend, bring my car back, bring my car back.  He called me on a Tuesday. 

“I’ve got a job.  Bring my car back,” he said.

I’ll never forget I was making copies, talking to him on a handset with a 25ft. cord.  “Wonderful!”  I said.  “I want a divorce.”  He heard me this time, after 6 months he finally heard me.

The other end of the phone was dead silent, “But I love you,” he said.

“Funny, that’s the first time you’ve said it since I left.  From now on if you want to talk to me, you will have to do it threw my attorney.” and I hung up on him.

I saw Mike a few more times after that.  We met at counseling so I could return my gold wedding band to him.  He had long ago made me pawn the little diamond that he had brought for me.  We got $100 for it.  I told him I released him from his vows.  I made him take off his ring and say the same thing to me.  I considered our marriage dissolved at that point. Somewhere in there we went to dinner so I could explain to him why I was leaving him.  He just didn’t get it.

When I left Mike I only took what was mine: my bookcase, my books, my clothes and accessories, my toiletries, my gumbo pot, my muffin pan, my big bottle of tobacco sauce and my car. I had wanted to make Mike hurt for a long time for what he had done to me.  My best revenge came the morning after I left.  He now had to figure out, for the first time in years, who was going to pay the rent, who was going to pay the bills, who would wash his clothes and clean up after him, how would he go anywhere, and who would pay to feed him.  For the first time in years, he had to be totally dependent on himself.  I hope it scared him to death!

One day after work, I went to get in my car.  Inside, I’ll never forget, was a potted African Violet.  He had been there.  I freaked.  I realized at that point, that Mike still had keys to my car.  I called him and told him to come to the dealership immediately and return my key.  When he showed up I was just coming down from inside the tower, where all the deals happen and the sales managers sit.  He walked up to my desk and said, “Hello Sultan Vial Betrayer.”  It was a line from Aladdin, one of his favorites.  I lost it.  He just had to have one more jab at me. I ran crying back into the tower.  I begged the new car sales manager to get the key from him and throw him off the lot. 

“Your husband?” he asked confused.

“My ex husband,” I informed him. 

He was great.  He took Mike by the shoulder and walked him outside.  I have no idea what he said to him.  He returned with my key and Mike has never tried to contact me since then.  And for that I am grateful.  We did try later on to establish nice relations, via chat, but that quickly disintegrated.  Liz told me, “You stay away from that psychopath,” and I have. 

I continued to see Liz every week for about a year.  Early on I told her, “I cannot get out of my head what he would say to me.  It keeps playing over and over again in my head.”  She told me to write some of it down and bring it in next time.  I did.  About half way through the first page she stopped me.  She said, “You do understand you have been abused?” 

“What?” I said.

“The things he said to you is verbal abuse.”  I was shocked.  I was too smart to be abused.  It just could not be.  Over the years I had counseled other women to leave abusive relationships. But it was true.  Mike’s abuse left me PTSD.  I had flashbacks for the first few years.  Although I have not seen him since that last day in the dealership, I remained terrified of him.  Afraid that he would somehow find me and convince me to go back with him.  The first few weeks I jumped at every sound.  I was so unsure of myself, that I was not even sure the ground would hold under my feet.  I slept with a loaded shot gun in my room for two years.  After that I kept a knife under my pillow or had to go to sleep with my hand on it.  I still keep a loaded gun in the head board, but that is more for scarring coyotes off than anything else.  For many years I refused to go on the side of town he had once lived on.  Terrified I would run into him.  I changed the spelling of my name and took back my maiden name.  I kept my profile on Facebook hidden, until just a few years ago. We have mutual friends on Facebook.  We have even commented on the same things, but he has never tried to contact me.  He is either to stupid or is being respectful.  I am grateful for whatever one it is.  For the last 14 years I have considered myself to be in hiding.  But with these articles and blog I feel I have finally come out of hiding and reclaimed part of my life.

And then there are my dreams.  In the 14 years since I left him, I continue to dream of him on a frequent, sometimes nightly basis.  For the first year after I left I blew him up, cut him up, hit him and killed him in every way possible each night in my dreams.  But every night he just came back.  I had not been dating Jay long when I woke up one night in his arms.  My face wet and Jay gently soothing me.  “It’s okay.  You’re safe.  You’re going to be okay.”

“What’s going on?” I said confused.

“You’ve been screaming in your sleep again.”  Jay answered. 

I have no idea how long I had been doing that.  It was a year and a half between leaving Mike and meeting Jay.  I am thankful to say that does not happen anymore.  Now most nights Mike is just a figure in the background and rarely tries to hurt me.  One of the affects of the Buspar is I have hardly dreamed of him, even in the background, since I began taking it.  Oh he’s reared his ugly head while I’ve been writing about him, but now that I am finishing telling you this story, I believe he will go away again.

I never talked about my abuse or my rape to the police.  I do not even know if marital rape is prosecutable in the state of Louisiana.  I washed away all evidence with my shower.  I knew who my assailant was.  Of course his DNA was going to be on me, he was my husband.  So it would have been a story of he said she said.  As for the abuse unless it is recorded in some way it is damn hard to prove in court.  By the time I understood I had been abused, it was already too late.  I escaped with my life and that was good enough for me. 

I fear now for Mike’s other victims.  I know there have been several women since me.  I know that he has since remarried and is living in the Houston area.  I also believe that she has children.  Now when I left Mike the pictures were getting younger and younger.  I saw young girls just starting to bud.  I don’t know what dark corners Mike’s predilections have taken him into. 

My thought in all of this is, if I can survive, you can too.  With good meds, good councilors and doctors you can get better!  Whatever you’re going through there is help out there.  Tell the people around you want is happening.  No matter how embarrassed you are.  Tell everyone until someone helps you.  Tell them even if you think they won’t care.  Watch how they treat animals. They will treat you the same way.  They keep them on a chain; they will keep you on an emotional one too.  If the animals don’t want your person around, RUN!  The animals know, they can sense these things.  No sex and no amount of money are worth your life.  If you want to leave, have a plan, keep a bag packed in the car.  Remember don’t go back for something you forgot.  Don’t take the animals with you, almost no abuse shelter allows you to have animals.  Abuse is wrong no matter what your religion or morals may teach you.  No one deserves to live in fear.  You did not cause this problem, no matter what they might tell you and I promise you, that no matter your intentions, you cannot change the abuser.  Only they can do that.  I tried.  You’ll get thru this.  What I learned from Mike was that I wanted to be loved at any cost, and it cost me my soul, my mental health, and almost my life.  Don’t be like me!

Mike taught me an important lesson.  If I had not had such a terrible husband I would not know what a good one looks like.  I was into bad boys.  I had it messed up in my mind that abuse, control and manipulations equaled love.  They do not.  I have often said if Mike had hit me I would have stayed forever, because in my brain that would have meant he loved me.  Leaving Mike made me get help for my depression and continue to seek counseling for the other issues in my life.  I do not regret being married to Mike.  I honestly believe if I have not survived what I did, did my work to get over it, that I would never have married Jay and have the successful marriage I have today.  People often tell me as a pagan that I am going to hell.  I respond with, “No Mam’ I’ve already been.  I spent 6 ½ years there.”  And any person who’s been in an abusive relationship knows that it is the truth. 

Ilsa

After College

In May of 2000 we moved into an apartment at the Foxborough Cove in his hometown of Shreveport.  I had sat reading him the names of the apartment complexes available, he had insisted on this one, as it had the same name as the stadium that his beloved Patriots played in.  Mike ate, slept and breathed sports, football in particular.  He often called it his religion.  He collected trading cards, of all things that he considered sports.  Some things he referred to as just games.  Mike was also obsessed with video games and toys.  He was obsessed with Pokémon.  He was very childlike. 

I have often wondered what his major malfunction was.  We went through several ideas during our marriage, from hypoglycemia, to him being possessed by a demon, whom we tried to expel.   My first councilor after I left him, Liz, believed him to be a psychopath.  I agree.  I wonder now if Mike was also bipolar like his mother was.  I have always wondered if he was abused by his parents.  He refused to discuss or even tell me one story of himself as a child.  Why I don’t know.  Whatever made him the way he was I will never know. 

At some point I lost the belief that I could change Mike, that I and love alone could make him get better.  That I could make him treat me better.  I wanted out.  I had known for about a year and half before I left him that I wanted to leave, I just had no idea how. Now I had threatened many times, that if he did not clean up his act and get help I was going to leave.   Mike had me believing my parents would never take me back.  About six months before I left I began telling him I wanted a divorce.  He would not listen.  He could not hear me.

When we arrived at the Cove we began to look for work.  We were surviving off a loan that he forced me to sign. In Northwest Louisiana no one wants to hire someone with a college degree and little work experience.  I got some temp work and eventually I began to sell cars at a local dealership.  I was terrible at it.  I can’t lie with a straight face, but I tried.  I think I sold a total of 3 by myself, and one was to my mom.  I quit selling cars in January of 2001.  I told them if they ever need a receptionist to call me.  A few weeks later they did.  I started working as a relief receptionist and later as file clerk at their Shreveport branch.  Mike eventually got a job working in the new sports radio station in town. 

I was now very Buddhist and defined myself as such.  My Christian husband could have cared less.  I remember being at times suicidal, even writing a note that Mike made me burn later.  He made me promise to never write one again.  I remember being very angry.  My Buddhist books helped me to realize that and to realize that I was very angry at Mike for the first time.  I became violent.  When we fought I threw dishes.  I remember one day asking him to come get his dishes out of the sink.  I began to count to ten.  When I got to ten I broke a dish.  I went through three dishes and throwing a canister at him before he finally got up from his video game to do what I had asked.  I just loved to hear them crash!  When I married Jay, I made sure my dishes were heavy enough that if I threw them at the wall they would not break.  I am thankful to say that I am no longer a dish thrower.  I haven’t needed to be.

Mike was fired from his position at the radio station in the Spring of 2001.  I still do not know why.  We had one car so Mike would take me to work.  He would be unshaven and unshowered at that point.  I would ask him if he was going to look for work that day.  He would say, “uhum,” while he continued to play Pokémon on his Gameboy.  When he would come back, he would look just the same.  I would ask if he had looked for work that day.  He would say, “ Yes.”  I began to believe he was lying to me.  So one day I preformed what I called the kiss test.  I had to wear makeup for my job.  One day as he pulled up to drop me off at work.  I put on a very bright red lipstick and as I prepared to leave I covered his whole face in kisses.  I asked him if he was going to look for work that day.  He responded in the affirmative.  He returned 8 hours later unshaven, unshowered and covered in my kisses.  Michael was lying to me. 

I confronted him and he blew up as usual.  I wondered where he was going while I was at work.  Now Michael was a book smart man, but he was stupid about covering up his tracks.  One day not long after, I was putting away his socks and discovered a receipt for Capri video.  He was in the shower.  I stole a look in the checkbook.  Remember I was allowed to deposit money in but I was never allowed to look in it or know how much money was in the check book.  Inside were more receipts for Capri video.  Now Capri video was a little hell hole where men could go and rent a little room for $25, watch pornos and jack off.  Mike got out of the shower.  I was furious.  We were living hand to mouth at that time, I was being lied to and I snapped.  I grabbed him and threw him down on the bed.  I choked him until he turned blue.  That was not the only time I was violent with him.  A few weeks before I picked up a large serrated bread knife and held it against his throat.  I told him, “I ought to kill you, but you’re not worth the prison time,” and I let him go.  I am still ashamed at what I did.  I hesitate to tell you these things, but I want you to understand that this man pushed me to places I never dreamed I could go.  I was becoming like him.

I made the decision to try to reestablish relations with my parents.  I remember sitting down with them in my living room.  I told them, we are broke, it looks like we are going to have to file bankruptcy, and I told them finally about his porn addiction.  It was the first time I had told the truth I a long time.  It felt good and I kept doing it.  It was the first time I had been open with them about my relationship with him.  They were shocked.

I wanted to leave and I just did not know how to do it.  In April of 2001 my mom did something very smart.  She began to take me to the movies once a week.  It was a glorious break of normalcy.  I remember getting in the car one Sunday afternoon after our movie and saying, “I just don’t want to go home.”  She chimed in with, “You don’t have too.”  I convinced myself that I did and I went home, but that…that was the seed that started it all. 

Ilsa