Three Days in January ’18

So the Government Shutdown came to an abrupt stop a little after mid day today. It was a surprise to almost everyone (especially the liberals). No one had expected Chuck Schumer to throw in the towel so quickly after so much posturing and preaching prior to the Friday vote.

Pelosi hemmed and thawed and postured and preened at the podium until one and all were well and truly sick and tired of looking at her and listening to her say the same old thing. She spouted her oft repeated words about the bad, bad Republicans and the perfect and wonderful Democrats. She repeated the same tired words with as much feeling as the  pinched look on her face. We have seen it before;we are not impressed.

Chuck Schumer took the podium and began with his disappointment in the President and his lack of participation in the planned groveling that should have taken place once the shutdown was a fact. Nothing seemed to be going as planned. Schumer went over the past week in his mind and relived the brilliant plan he had executed. He had told POTUS in no uncertain terms how this was going down. The Dems wanted DACA and that was how it would be. All or nothing. And suddenly, there was a government shutdown and he was walking out with a big smile on his face. What had just happened?

From that moment on, nothing was as it should have been. The news did report that the shutdown had begun and that Schumer had been instrumental in causing it but it didn’t sound like he was the savior he had planned on being. The news and gossip was saying that the Dems cared more for the dreamers than for the constituents in their districts or the people they were supposed to represent. Instead of pats on the back, they were getting emails that barely passed censorship.

All of a sudden POTUS was the patient man sitting in the Oval watching Schumer hang himself on Prime Time network tv. The voters were outraged. The Democrats had chosen their side and it was the side of illegal aliens. They chose to stake their reputation on the DACA order that didn’t expire until March. DACA didn’t have anything to do with the fiscal health of the country or the budget. The Democrats had shown their true colors. They don’t care about the legal US citizens they are elected to represent even 1/2 as much as they do about those DACA “kids” ( some now in their 30’s) who were brought here as children without their permission or consultation. Those illegal aliens are going to lose their status here in just a few weeks when DACA expires. The Democrats don’t want these people deported back to their home countries. The Dems want amnesty and fast tracked citizenship so they could have (at the least) hundreds of thousands to millions of ready made life long Democrat voters who will owe their allegiance to the Democrat party. For Schumer this far outweighs the pain of government furloughs, non payment of salaries, frozen services.  VOTES! It is all about the VOTES!

Surprise! We get it. You play with our rights and our lives for ILLEGAL ALIENS and their votes.

For three short days in January 2018, Chuck Schumer felt like a God. He had finally outsmarted Donald Trump. And then, he realized he hadn’t been the brilliant man he had planned to be. The people were blaming HIM and the DEMS for the shutdown and Trump wasn’t budging.

In a quiet manner, a vote was arranged and the shutdown was over in exchange for??????? In exchange for nothing except words that had been heard before. We will put DACA on the table.

The Democrat leadership showed its true colors;  they work not for the people who elected them but for the people who paid for them.

And, as they say in Vaudeville, THAT is when the fight started.

Everyone has his own cross to bear.

It has been 47 years since my parent’s deaths and still no one has an answer for what really happened. There have been many theories thrown out over the years and some have been investigated and some have been dismissed. People who knew my mother all of her life have never believed, and never will, that she could have killed my father and then shot herself. Stories regarding the dispensation of my father’s business to a “silent partner” no one knew about, remain at the top of the skeptics list. I was 22, no local lawyer would represent me against a well known businessman, and I had to stand by and watch someone that I had no proof was the legal owner of that business take it away from me without as much as a legal notice. I was never able to find legal documents to prove that supposed partnership even existed. No documentation was registered in the county office. The man in question asked for a portion of my father’s life insurance(saying it was really for the company) and convinced me that if I did not give it to him my father’s reputation would be ruined like my mother’s. Today, someone in this position would receive professional help. PTSD had not been named then. Seeking any sort of mental help, even in these extreme circumstances, would have covered that person with a terrible stigma that would have destroyed any chances of a normal life. The South handled this sort of thing back then by telling the person to not embarrass the family and to not air the family laundry in public. No help at all. Just get over it and get on with your life.

This is the season leading up to Easter when Jesus was forced to carry his heavy wooden cross up a hill to die. My pastor has spoken about us all recognizing his/her own cross to bear. I had never given it much thought but our choices in life direct us to this cross and how we handle it.

Recently my husband’s mind and thought process has begun to severely deteriorate. He is just beginning to realize what I have known for the last year and a half. He is no longer competent to drive or make important decisions. Life has changed. I shoulder the load of making certain our bills are paid, repairs are made, doctors seen and medicines taken. As he realizes how his life has changed, he gets frustrated and doesn’t know how to cope. He can’t understand the television programs and gets frustrated when I can’t explain them so that he can. It is like watching light fade at the end of the day.

As his health deteriorates, I wonder at times if he might not prefer to die. He doesn’t look “forward” anymore.

I worry about his health and I worry about the possibility of his sudden, unexpected death. I try to be a good caregiver but I have a lung disease that has made me lose a great deal of weight and I am not able to rest and take care of myself the way I need to because of it. I stay tired and I know that I have lost most of my strength. I pray that God will help me continue to care for him as he deserves. I pray there is minimum arguments and that love continues to thrive.

 

Death Kills

Death kills; no, that is not an oxymoron. I have seen it happen. In point of fact; it happened to me.

The day my parents died my world turned upside down. Nothing was as it should have been. Even the simplest thing seemed to be “off”.  I lived a block from their house but my aunt was the one who was sought out when it was realized what had happened. She arrived at my door without sympathy or information, ordered me to get dressed and get into her car and started driving away.

I was 22, raised in a tiny Southern town, taught to do what my elders said without question, and that’s what I did. On the  way to town, I asked what had happened. All she would say was that her sister, my mother, was in the hospital. She drove fast and didn’t talk. She answered no other questions.

It took fifteen minutes to arrive at the emergency room of our small local hospital. I looked around in the parking area for my daddy’s car. It wasn’t there. I asked my aunt where he was; she answered HOME. That was beyond strange but I couldn’t really think. She never asked me any thing about how I was feeling. It was all surreal.

Met at the door by a local doctor, I asked how my mother was doing and what was wrong with  her.  “She’s dead. Shot herself in the mouth. Bullet came out the top of her head.” My legs were weak. A nurse I had known all my life helped me to an empty room next to the E.R. My aunt and her best friend stood in the hall talking to each other. No one explained anything or asked how I was. I was left alone for about 30 minutes and then daddy’s friend (the local undertaker) arrived. He stopped to speak to my aunt and then came in to speak to me.

I will never forget how he knelt down on the floor in front of  me and took my hands in his. I asked where my daddy was and he told me that he was home; dead, too. Shot in the forehead at close range. He was presumably shot by my mother. And then the first cover up was told. He told me that daddy was having another heart attack and mother had shot him as he has begged for release. LIE #1 .

Another thirty minutes waited while our family doctor finished his morning rounds. He needed to go with my aunt and me to see my grandparents. My grandfather had suffered a stroke 2 years previously. My  66 year old grandmother was his caregiver.

When we arrived at their house there were already many people there. The doctor, my aunt and her friend, and I went in. My aunt went straight to my grandmother who was sitting in the kitchen by the oil stove. My grandfather got upset at all the visitors and tried to ask what was going on. Everyone just ignored him as if the stroke that had taken his speech and movement had also taken his understanding. It was left to me. I knelt down in front of his wheel chair and told him what I knew.

“Grandaddy, they are saying that Mother shot and killed Daddy and then , killed herself”.

He understood completely and as I heard my grandmother scream “oh no”, my granddaddy , offered me the only comfort I was given by moving his paralyzed hand onto my head in his lap. We both cried. In the hours that followed, we realized nothing would likely ever be right again.