I'm guest-posting over at Anita Ojeda's "Blessed But Stressed" today, on what the church can do for dudes with PTSD. Please step over and visit!
Thanks to the hard work a dear friend I've never met, Carol Ashby, let me introduce...drum roll, please...
Yes, Emerald Isle made it out of the shadows. It's about love and hope and death and second chances.
I's about life. Please click on the cover to go to Amazon and learn a bit more.
But mainly, for me, it's about people who will pick you up when you can't walk another step, and carry you over the finish line.
I was out of strength, and, to tell the truth, out of hope.
And I did the most important thing I could have done, even though I didn't know I was doing it. I asked for help.
In participating in the blog run by the agents of the Books and Such literary agency (of which I am not a client...I don't have an agent), I mentioned that I had some work that probably, due to my physical situation, would not see the light of day.
It wasn't a cry for help or reassurance; I don't do that easily. And while there may have been some self-pity involved (some?), I don't think that was the motivator. I've seen things that are way more deserving of pity than me.
It was, as close as I can say now, with hindsight, a warning...don't wait too long. Some day tomorrow won't come.
At any rate, the Books and Such blog community leapt to my aid, with encouragement, and in Carol's case, with editing expertise.
I cannot tell y'all how humbled I am.
Emerald Isle meant a lot to me when I wrote it; it still does. But even more, the lesson I have learned here has changed my life, even this close to its ending.
I learned that when God opens the doors of Heaven's treasurehouses, what rains down is love. We have only to accept it.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
I have to confess that Kate gave me the word early. Stopped breathing for bit on Sunday (click here if you're interested), got canine CPR, but still am shaky and slow. Words are hard come by.
For all the difficulty, I don't want to pass from this life. I don't want to die.
Yes, it hurts, yes, I'm exhausted, and yes, I dread what tomorrow may bring.
But it is worse to look at the routines I have, the imprints of myself in this place...and to see them soon to disappear.
I hate that.
I hate thinking of the dogs who won't hear my voice and whose just-for-me gestures will be seen no more, the tools that will gather dust, the projects I began and couldn't finish developing a patina of rust, and then being put out into the weather to return to their elements.
Death comes to all; every story ends.
But I don't want mine to, not just yet. There has to be some coda yet to hear, and I will fight hard to stick around for it.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
I've talked about this before...remarriage for a widow or widower.
I hope you'll indulge me for a revisit to the subject.
The thought of my wife remarrying, and forming a life beyond that which we have shared is, to a real degree, heartbreaking.
I want our routines to be cherished in memory. I want to be something more than a picture in a photo album that's seldom opened.
I want the paths that we walked to be sacrosanct.
I want to be selfish.
Wanting that is natural...but it''s wrong. It reduces my wife to, at best, the curator of a memory, and at worst, and object that was ultimately merely an appendage to my life.
A cruel fate for anyone, and particularly cruel to wish it on the person I love most in all the world.
I have to be better than this.
The memories have to be entrusted to the Almighty. My wife has to have the chains of post-mortem possessiveness cut away.
I must want her to laugh, and to love.
I am constrained by decency to want her to feel free to remarry.
It's not easy.
It's just the right thing to do.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
Stopped breathing last night, and Ladron the Heeler brought me back.
She jumped up and down on my chest, barking furiously.
I felt myself being draw up, as if caught in a tornado, unable to breathe, and I could see my body, and them my house, receding beyond mortal reach.
Almost.
"Dad, NO!" You can't go!"
And I came back.
The experience was scary. I knew I was not breathing,and that I couldn't. But my buddy canceled my Apocalypse.
Coming back hurt, physically. I'm pretty shaky, but felt this should be documented.
And it's been emotionally rough. I hate to admit this, but I've had crying jags all day. I don't know why.
Glad to still be here. It's a nice day in New Mexico.
It's spring.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
Time for another Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-themed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.
The word this week is...actually, I have no idea what it will be, because it's Tuesday, and I am hoping to have something even remotely ready to post on Friday. (And see below for an update on when this thing was finalized.)
(OK, Thursday night, and the word is UNTIE.)
Lost a lot of ground in the past few days. If you left a comment last time and did not see a timely reply...that's why.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, here goes. (And before we do, the original version had a lot of really bad language. I excised that.)
This post was supposed to be elegiac. Something peaceful, yet moving. That's what was written over Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe I should have left it, but today a news item came over the Internet, and the red mist came down.
And my soul was untied all over again.
And I should lead off with a disclaimer. I have nothing to do with the VA. I worked as a contractor. A mercenary. Big boys' rules. I've stood knee-deep in a mass grave; and hell itself caught up with those responsible. That was a good day.
I occasionally follow Fox News, and a story they posted has me enraged at the idiots who claim to 'understand' how do deal with PTSD.
The academics are saying that the use of service dogs, trained to scan a room and 'block', and provide a veteran with support, may actually be reinforcing PTSD, and not providing 'healing'.
A quote -
"Critics of the study object most strongly to the tasks the VA is requiring of the dogs — sweeping the perimeter of a room before a veteran enters, for example, or protecting the veteran by "blocking."
"Isn't that saying that al-Qaida could be behind the shower curtain? That's supporting paranoid, pathological thinking," said Meg Daley Olmert, author of a book on how contact with a dog can create a sense of well-being."
Paranoid? When were you in your last gunfight, Meg? When did you have to last clear a room not knowing if a true-life demon was about to pop out of a closet...and kill you?
You throw around words like 'paranoid' and 'pathological', you better have walked where the real people walked. Otherwise you're irrelevant.
And yes, Al-Qaida doeshide behind shower curtains. They also hide behind crowds of kids. They're called 'human shields'.
Ever seen kids die? Sorry, not die. That's too nice.
Have you ever seen kids been killed by people who were making a political point? No?
Any other questions? Great. Go back to your latte.
A bit more -
Four years in, that research has been plagued by problems. Only about 50 dogs have been placed with veterans, and critics question whether the protocol itself is flawed — with the dogs being trained to do things that could reinforce fears. Others worry the animals could become a substitute for the hard work that comes with therapy.
"You will have the veterans go to more places with the dogs and do more things than they would otherwise do. But they are reliant on the dog, not on their knowledge of ... whether really they are afraid of a ghost," said Dr. Edna Foa, director of the Center for Treatment and Study of Anxiety at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
I love this. I mean., absolutely LOVE it.
"...a substitute for the hard work that comes with therapy..."
I guess that seeing your friends, people to whom you would literally trust your life, blown into lumps of muscle and intestine by an IED or mortar makes you lazy. Gotta work harder at the therapy to overcome that, lazy-bones!
And, ohhh, Dr. Edna...I'm afraid of ghosts!
I guess the situational awareness I developed, at a cost, is useless in our lovely peaceful Kum-Ba-Yah country. We're all pals here, so I suppose that when I feel a threat...I'm just afraid of the bogeyman.
Thanks. Doc, for trivializing my life. I guess I don't qualify for entry into the hallowed halls of academia after all. Guess I'm just the man on the margins, who doesn't really understand the real meaning of The Modern World.
You went to the mall, Doc. I went to Hell.
Let's get real. There are very few people alive who can understand where I have been, and what I've seen., because almost no one else has been there. You can see Saving Private Ryan all you want. It doesn't make you a veteran of Omaha Beach.
I have the mass grave dream every night, and I can still smell it.
Therapy will not make this go away. A group hug will not soften the ache, and not even the fragrance of Jesus - and I am a devout Christian - will overcome the smell. Not in this life.
My service dogs, Ladron and Sylvia, are my lifeline. The are the reason I did not eat a bullet a long time ago.
They get it.
They understand that my scars are what I am; and that the anger inside is my wellspring of life.
THEY KEEP MY WORLD SAFE.
They bind back up what has been untied, to hold it together.
You don't 'recover' from those memories. You don't transition back into the world of The Voice and Empire and Joel Osteen. and "Let's eat out tonight!" You just don't.
What you do, with combat trauma, is to live a world that keeps the faith. You live a world that recognizes that the bell is going to ring again.
And you're going to go back out, somehow, because that is what you do.
PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEFULLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF.
George Orwell said that, a long time ago.
I will kill for you, and I will die for you. I can barely move, but I can still pull a trigger, and still have a Bowie knife. Detcord and claymores are my friends.
All I ask is that you respect the cost to me.
I don't do this for fun, and the money was nothing.
I do this for you.
Because I love you all, more than my own life.
In the end, dear readers, the only this is the only thing that makes living worthwhile.
I give a damn, and still have something that's worth dying for.
So, some music...Buffalo Springfield has been on my mind...for what it's worth.
f you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
A day late, but here is my entry for this week's #BlogBattle, the weekly keyword-driven flash fiction challenge hosted by the patient and gracious Rachael Ritchey.
This week's Word is FLOAT.
I've been quite ill, and have been very tardy in replying to comments...but please be assured that I read them all, and they mean a lot to me. Illness has kept me confined to the property, so you guys are really my only window on life in The World.
This story is the first in another multi-part 'anecdote' that's just too long for a single entry.
Hope Floats
The L.T wandered over, clipboard in hand. "Got a minute?" he asked, with the professional smile of an officer.
It couldn't be good news, Lieutenants with clipboards never bring glad tidings, so The Dude and Biff stood up from the everlasting task of greasing the roadwheels, while I slid down from the turret, where I was polishing the viewing locks in the cupola.
"Sure, L.T.," I said. "What's up?"
He looked down at the papers under the bulldog clip, and a small, shy smile started to light up his face. This smile wasn't professional. "How would you guys like some R&?"
"Uh," said The Dude. I wasn't sure if he ever wanted to leave Viet Nam.
Biff was not nearly so cagey. "Yes, SIR!"
The L.T. looked at me. "Make it unanimous?"
"Sure. Why not." Like The Dude, I really didn't want to leave but I figured my reasons were different. I didn't want to have to face coming back, You can't go back and forth through ALice's rabbit hole and stay sane.
But maybe that wasn't really all of it, and maybe I was more like The Dude than I realized. Maybe I really did...well, not like it here. But maybe this was where I belonged.
The L't''s smile went to a hundred watts. "I'm glad to hear that, sergeant, because it means I won't have to kick your butts all the way to Saigon to catch a plane."
Interesting. We weren't being given a choice.
"The Old Man isn't giving you a choice. You had two loaders shot up, and y';all need a change of scenery. That's what he thinks."
The Dude said, "Well, one was a ricochet..."
Biff added, "And Smiley was fratricide."
The L.T frowned. I don';t think he knew the word. "Anyway," he said, "turn the tank over to maintenance platoon, and get to the pad by 1500. Admin bird will take you to Da Nang, and you can catch a ride further south."
He looked down at the clipboard again. "Oh, hey...forgot the best part...where do y'all want to go?"
"What's on offer?" asked Biff.
"Bangkok, Sydney, Taipei..."
The Dude interrupted him. "Bangkok's fine," he said.
"Well, great, I'll put you down for..."
"All of us. We'll go together."
Biff looked at him, horrified. "Dude, I want to go to Sydney!"
"It's overrated. Trust me."
Biff's growl was like a kitten choking on cream, but he subsided, and said, "Well, OK. Bangkok."
"Yeah, me too," I added. "Why not?"
The L.T. grinned. "The Three Musketeers! Remember to have you service A's with you. Won't let you out of the country dressed like...uh..." He took a long look at us, and sniffed pointedly. "Like that."
"Last time I looked at my A's they were moldy," said The Dude
"Last time I looked at mine the moths had gotten them," said Biff.
"lLst time I looked at mine I was a corporal," I said.
"Anyone got a sewing kit?"
f you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing (even more so recently!), but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
Not up to saying much, and apologies to those whose comments have recently gone unanswered. It just hasn't been possible.
I have learned that there is only one prayer worth saying.
"God, please align my wishes with Your Will."
That's it.
f you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing (even more so recently!), but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links (they're 99 cents each). And if you'd like a free PDF, please email me at tempusfugit02 (at) gmail (dot) com, and I'll gladly send them
