HE saved ME

HE saved ME

As a young girl, I fell madly in love, because that’s what most young girls do. Deeply, irrevocably, pathetically, in love. With a football player, at college, no less, because that’s what wild uncontrollable young girls do. Especially girls who are raised in very prohibitive, punishing homes, with a parent who is extremely strict and constricting.

Eighteen years old, away at university, completely free from parental prison for the first time in my nascent life, and head over heels besotted with Big Man on Campus football fella, Brad. Yes. One of those. I was one of those girls, who rushed after ball players while others rushed sororities. I don’t know why. Maybe those men accepted me easier than the ladies did. Curvy and cute, I satisfied a craving that young jocks effortlessly spot across cafeteria crowds.

We “jock flies”, as we were called back then, were deemed “easy”, and held horrid reputations within our peer groups, but posited pure envy as the reason for sister treason.

Being a ball player’s “girl” meant all sorts of special accommodations were granted, including field access at football games, broken dormitory rules forgiven, unattended classes not recorded as such, and lots of free stuff. Teenage college kids like free stuff, just so you know.

Anyway, oblivious to gossip or rules or class schedules as posted, along with Bobby Bowden as the head coach – yep! That Bobby Bowden! – Brad and I carried on our amorous little liaison until we established as “true love,” and then most naysayers let us alone. We were a couple. We would always be a couple. This was real.

Oh sure. As real as a thought bubble, which would say, “Are you kidding me?”

You came to college … you crushed on a football player … who had no interest in football to begin with, but used it to get a scholarship … you had your little affair … and then he will go back to his little hometown … and marry his high-school sweetheart.

Exactly. That is exactly what Bradley did, except first he got his high-school sweetheart pregnant, because then they had to get married. (Because back in the age of dial phones, slide rulers, and propeller airplanes, that’s what people did. If you got pregnant, you married immediately to hide the obvious deviation from biblical directives.)

We had had our fun. Brad was done. I was devastated.

I stayed distraught for a long time. I felt duped. I believed despite Brad being a football player, which instantly established him as a “player”, which translated to trustworthiness not included, did not, in fact, account for the exceptional exception of ME – the perfect paragon of smart, precious, fun, and therefore, permanent.

Apparently, I miscalculated. Especially the permanent part.

Of course I was never going to find another love like Brad. I could never adore another man in that same vein. I moved on, had other boyfriends, but Brad was the one that held my heart, and for many years, I carried the torch that scorched only me.

Brad became a physician. He desperately wanted to be a veterinarian, but the demanding schooling required daunted him, so he pursued podiatry.

While Brad was in residency, I ran into him in a podiatric hospital, surprising us both – well, him, much more than me, let’s just say. “Coincidences” are part of my mainstay in life, so much so that I don’t even believe in “coincidence” for the most part. I was there to apply for a job, Brad happened to stroll through the lobby at precisely that slim point in time, no … that cannot be called “coincidence.”

Anyway, we agreed to have dinner at my apartment that evening, and Brad showed up with steaks, green beans, and Pepperidge Farm lemon layer cake, which to this day when I see that cake in frozen food aisles everywhere, still reminds me of that night.

Dinner was delicious, but we were uncomfortable. Brad, married with a child … me, wondering what happened to “us”, and why … still swooning with a wound I didn’t know would fester so strongly so many years after the silly affair. Because it was silly, right? Aren’t most college romances silly little experiments of adult life? Happenstance?

Brad left my apartment rapidly after dinner. Discomfort engulfed us during digestion. We barely had conversation that wasn’t stilted and awkward. He was married. He had a child and another on the way. Proper behavior isn’t scripted for these sorts of encounters. He kind of ran down those steps as I recall, away from me. Forever.

Though I never forgot him or any of the feelings, we didn’t see each other again. Decades passed, I failed at life’s tests for the most part, but managed to carve out an existence that included amazing world travel, multiple exciting careers, and several moves to several states. Oh, and other loves, all of which led to nothing. Some fun, but nothing. White picket fence dreams, little doggies (and for me, big horses, too), children, the proverbial “Leave it to Beaver” life, not to be mine.

Nearly 4 decades later, now in the age of psycho crap … people talk to dead people … computers have taken over for brains … phone trees with foreign tongues have replaced actual English-speaking drones … everything costs so much but we don’t know why … cars drive themselves, and don’t do much better than we did … and terrorists threaten to end all of this bliss instantly, if we don’t give them, wait … what exactly do they want? So, in the midst of all this madness we call our current world, I get a call….

An old friend whom I haven’t connected with since college calls to tell me about Brad.

“Have you heard?” he asks, “about Brad?”

“No.” I answer, in complete shock that this is even happening at this moment in my otherwise completely chaotic life. “What happened?”

Okay, admittedly Facebook, that dreaded spy and fantastically addicting foolish platform that has reunited me with all people from all my life (is that a good thing?), brought me back together with friends from afar, and here I was talking to Brad’s college roommate, who was always a good guy back in the day, and still. He explained that Brad had retired, given up his practice, and was now in a nursing home, with advanced senility, or Alzheimer’s, or whatever the label of the week is for people that lose mental capacity. Brad had had a very hard life, consumed by addictions of some sort, his wife had left him and then committed suicide, his whole world had fallen apart over a long period of time, and now he was losing his mind at a rapid pace.

The picture painted was bleak. Dire. Shocking and disturbing in a way I can’t say. But mostly, that silent for so long wound awoken. I didn’t even know it was still there. How could that be? I had long ago gotten over the love.

Or not.

I wailed. Internally, then externally. I guess it’s true, all the mushy poems and stories about love. It never ends. It goes dormant, it smushes down into crevices we cease to care about, but it never ever dies. Not if it is real. And when we uncover that bottom of the bottoms, there it waits … love. In a different form, perhaps, but positively, absolutely resolute in its determination to alter our purview of all loves before and after. Love. It’s a permanent poison. One we ingest over and over in the hopes that it will consume us.

Recently, I went to visit Brad. I knew what to expect.

A lockdown facility with all sorts of silly (to me) rules, but nowadays with the world the way it is, they “protect” their residents, herald HIPPA as the new king of caution, and without permission from powers that be and powers of attorney, visits are limited, supervised, and often prohibited.

Using my wordly wisdom and clever circumvents, I tracked Brad down at the local YMCA. (No, I won’t reveal how I knew he was there, or how I found him.) I found him rocking in a rocking chair. Recognized him right away, even after almost forty years. Tears took shape behind my eyes and I pushed them away, needing to be joyful and optimistic that Brad would even know who I am.

Taking a deep breath of resolute belief, I walked the few steps toward him and sat down next to him. He watched me walk toward him.

“Hi Brad.” I smiled wide and sat down.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Were you a patient of mine?” he asked. He looked at me curiously, kindness etched in his please forgive me for not remembering gaze.

“No. I am Lori.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, and stared harder at me in instant recognition. “Oh, Lori! Yes, I remember you….”

We rocked and sat in the sun, and pieced together a stilted conversation recalling whatever Brad could remember, with me filling in certain details in an effort to help him remember more.

At some point, I bravely said, “Brad, you know, as a young girl, I was desperately in love with you.” I paused long and looked at him. “And I still love you.” He turned his head to look right at me, teared up, and reached over and grabbed me in a big bear hug. For a second, it scared me in its strength. He is still a very large man. In fact, I didn’t remember Brad being so much bigger than me. Either that, or I’ve shrunk much more than I realize.

I don’t think anyone had told him that they loved him for a very long time. Brad burst with emotion. Emotion that touched me deeply.

We made our way back to his assisted living facility, and dined together over their not so delicious nursing home fare, but delved back into the way past, because often people with cognizant losses are better able to remember the distant past than the present.

Some things about Brad remained intact. Other things struck me as superbly odd. Pieced together memories made a mental collage like a shadow box in Brad’s brain. Bits and fragments forged together that didn’t really go together. As a Picasso painting, subject to interpretation.

I played piano for him in the lobby, hoping to remind him of his college days when I played for him every night after dinner. We looked at photos, straightened up his apartment (as much as he would allow), I tuned his guitar for him, and well, what else is there to do with someone who is losing their mind and knows it?

“I have Alzheimer’s,” Brad abruptly announced at some point.

“I know,” I said. I waited for him to say more about that or how he felt about it, but he didn’t.

Eventually it was time to leave and we walked out to my car. I told him I would visit again. And I might.

No “coincidences”, right? I don’t believe in coincidence, in the sense that everyone uses the premise as a catch-all for strange occurrences in otherwise predictable lives.

I thought about Brad all the way home, and I still think of the amazing way God brings back some people into our lives to show us how He saves us. To teach us His lessons. About life. About love. About everything.

Here was a man I loved. Here was a man I desperately wanted to keep loving throughout my life and forever – to have a family with, to grow old with, until the end of my time.

But God had a different plan for me. A less painful plan. Which always felt more painful to me as I lurched loveless through life, but now … now, I know better. He knew that if I got what I wanted then, when I didn’t really know anything about what I really wanted, I would’ve ended up in the worst possible situation … maybe dead, maybe divorced, maybe devastated by a drug-addicted physician husband, certainly destroyed by early-onset Alzheimer’s, and potentially a very young widow.

Because we can’t know. We can never know what lies ahead on the route we pursue. We are mere passengers, struggling to drive. Instead, we are instructed to sit back and enjoy the journey. We don’t. We want control.

I didn’t get what I wanted. But I always got what I needed.

As I drove the long drive back home, over and through majestic mountains of beautiful scenery and glorious fall foliage I hadn’t witnessed in decades, I wept. For the beauty of it all, for all my falls from grace, for Brad and his certain slide away from all he ever knew or loved … which includes me.

Grief is complicated. It’s a constant pinch in the soft part of my gut. It hurts. It hurts in a way I don’t have words for. I have lost and lost and lost loves, over and over again, and I realized Brad was the beginning of the losses; he was the first one to break my heart; that even though I thought I had long ago left that loss, I had not. Pain is permanent. The broken-hearted kind of pain. It never leaves.

And there are no coincidences of our coming together, Brad and I, either then or later or now.

It fills me with a renewed sense of gratitude for the amazing work God did. HE saved ME.

Thanks, God.

Just Another Lori Story

When Whitney Went Away

When Whitney Went Away

I remember clearly when Whitney went away, because believe it or not, I was jealous. It was February 2012 when Whitney Houston died and I wanted to die too. In fact, I had thought about dying for many months beforehand, so when she made it through the veil, leaving God's green earth and passing into God's great Heaven, I mourned my own tragedy more than I mourned hers, yet I couldn't help my exaggerated emotions of envy.

Why? Yes, you must be asking, why?

As I slammed a racquetball against a racquetball wall at the gym, I asked that same question day after day. Why? Why did I want to die? And why did Whitney's sad departure accentuate that want and affect me so?

Every thought lead to that poor ball being beaten harder. How could she leave and leave me here? Why did I care so much, and why at that particular point did the anger, anguish, and stress peak into pathetic pity?

Less than a year after a fateful fall, which left me limping and in constant pain, everything had fallen apart for me. Before my unfortunate accident, I was an ice skater. Before the fall, I had a happy-go-lucky life, doing what I wanted to do, traveling all the time, laughter came easily (in fact, I had just finished performing stand-up comedy at a favorite club), I liked my freedom, and I had no debt. None.

Before that change-of-life incident, I felt in charge. I had a wide circle of friends from all over the world; there were to-do lists easily conquered; trips to a beachfront condo; dreams and plans for future fortunes.

In a split second, as with all accidents, every second thereafter altered irrevocably. Most important of all, I lost control. Completely. Game over. I lose.

And I continued to lose starting that day and every day afterward. Privacy, vanity, sanity, and yes … money. Friends, privilege, driving, freedom. All gone. All important things ceased to be so. Jail without bars. Death row.

Stripped of my independence, being utterly dependent on the kindness of others and strangers, brings an awareness of one's humility in a torpedo-like strike. It's not as if I got an opportunity to get used to disability. It's not as if I had a husband or anyone else at home to hold my hand and tell me it would all work out and that I would be okay. I was not okay. And I would not be okay for a very long time. In fact, I may still not be okay. It may never be okay, at least in the same way, for me again.

As the long road to recovery began, after a week in the hospital and emergency surgery, depression paid me an unannounced visit, but refused to leave – even when asked. Imagine your worst nightmare never going away. That's what it was like.

Good friends turned out to be not so good. Food was scarce for me and hard to get. (Except for pizza and Chinese take-out, which got boring after many days and the Chinese delivery guy grew afraid of me, because I insisted he help me by bringing in the food.) Going anywhere meant a taxi, which cost a lot of money. (Yes, my right leg --- lucky me --- no driving.)

And so on....

Then, physical therapy threw me over the edge. Too intense; both the therapy and the therapist.

It's not like I was sitting securely on the ledge of life at that point anyway, but falling again, especially into the mental meltdown miasma, meant an overload of critical components required to survive, failed.

So what's so special about survival? I mused. Certainly not amused by any of the sequential events that stole my existence from me, it occurred to me that maybe my life wasn't worth fighting for. Maybe I'd had a good run and this was it. The more I thought about that, the more it took hold and wouldn't let go.

Oh, and did I forget to mention the pain? The endless, excruciating pain that denied me sleep, kept me crying, and sometimes denied me my own breath? The pain. Intolerable.

Which brings me back to Whitney.

She was in pain. I don't know what kind of pain. None of us know why anyone else hurts. But here was a worldwide celebrity with the voice of an angel, rich beyond comprehension in funds and friends, gorgeous, with gargantuan talents, and she's in pain. She may not have meant to take her own life, but on the other hand, maybe she did. Maybe she just wanted the pain to stop. That's why most people kill themselves. Not to die, but to stop the hurt of living.

I thought about my pain a lot. Because if I didn't, it intensified to make sure I wasn't forgetting it was the new boss of me. For the first time, I understood why people want, no, need, to escape that type of pain. Incessant, unrelenting, pounding, pain. If prayer to end pain goes unanswered, then prayer ponders punishment of another sort. Prayers eventually become pointless, especially in the same vein as such pain.

Since suicide became an predominant idea, I slipped over that edge of sanity and visited the realm of ruin. I didn't have much strength to tour the vast expanse of nothingness, and maybe that's what, in the end, saved me. My complete lack of strength.

Some say it takes courage to kill oneself. It takes conviction and it takes a strength of will so strong, that it can conquer the indomitable will to live, which is incredibly stronger.

I made it out of the pit of pathetic. I don't know how, but God's Will is the strongest of all Wills, and I will be forever grateful that whatever I had to go through to find the forever of me lead me to a whole new life and a whole new view.

I wish Whitney had waited. I wish she had found her way out too. I wish I hadn't been angry and jealous and wanted to go with her to wherever she escaped to.

When the radio plays her songs, when I hear I Will Always Love You, when I think of those sad, bad days, I weep for Whitney and I weep for me.

Some memories are simply to painful to remember, and I remember when Whitney went away.

Just Another Lori Story

The Material Remembers

The Material Remembers

The wall reached out excitedly to touch me with a careful caress … then, the carpet and closet joined in for a chorus of hello. The windows whispered a greeting; the kitchen vibrated from floor to ceiling as I passed by; all the particles of the whole place appeared to come alive as if they wanted to embrace me in the molecules of their own memory.

It had been 40 years since I lived there in that house. Not much had changed, except me. Yet outwardly not a moment had elapsed since I had lived there while I was still young, happy, clueless of my future, and content with my cuddly cat, Frosty.

Yes, I saw Frosty there too. Everywhere. In the kitchen where I gently stroked her fluffy fur with a wire brush each morning as she ate a treat; by the front window where she sat patiently waiting for me, swishing her tail to and fro; on the cool counter tops where she would jump up for a slice of cheese; at the front door, daring not to go a step further than the cushioned threshold. Every room held a flash of recall and those flashes flooded through me with a passionate potency.

The material remembers.

I went back so I could remember – everything that happened there – how I felt, what I heard, saw, smelled, all the senses remembering everything unfolding as if it were happening all over again. I was back there in time and saw all the events and things and people and details surrounding events that occurred decades earlier.

Even more incredulous as I drove from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, on my way to catch a cruise ship in Miami, was the premonition that my old house would be for sale right now. How could I know that? I had a certain thought and visualized a “for sale” sign out in the front yard. Certain enough that I planned ahead to pretend to be a buyer and arrange to tour my old place – before I had any inkling that my intention would pan out. Merely a pipe dream to pass the time as I drove, idle thoughts to wile away endless highway. 

It wouldn’t hurt to drive by and have a look. I usually did that anyway when I went back by Fort Lauderdale, just to see the house and remember my life back then. There were favorite restaurants to stop and have a bite, too.

When I lived there as a hopeful young lady, I had luscious long hair and a trim slender figure. Always tanned and toned from lounging in my backyard pool, my humble being yet unabated by lessons of a longer existence. I laughed a lot, dated different men, and sipped life through a straw of sugar coated experiences. I liked to dress up, go to disco bars, and float on a large raft at the beach near Oakland Park Blvd. I shopped at the brand new Pompano Fashion Square (so hip and cool back then), and bought boxes of Florida oranges at one of those ubiquitous roadside fruit stands located across from the shopping mall. On weekends I loved going to the largest flea market anywhere, which took up 10 drive-in movie screen lots (remember those?!), and I started collecting little things I loved, but didn’t need; an unfortunate habit.

Happy. I knew happy and didn’t know then that happy would take a hiatus, even a permanent hike away from me forever. Maybe that’s part of the reason I keep returning. To remember happy.

The blessings of bliss, covered in youthful carelessness, dancing to the music soundtracks of mindful living. As a young lady on my own, living in the moment didn’t require a conscious correction or Buddha-seeking sojourns. Now came naturally, as it often does before we hit the adult wall of worry.

Here I come again, I thought, after 40 years…. I turned down the street, left off of Commercial Boulevard, and from afar saw the sign: FOR SALE. Just as I had envisioned it. For Sale. My heart skipped a small beat and my soul bowed in acknowledgement to whatever source shows me the way – always.

Pulling into the circular driveway to stop and write the agent’s phone number, a woman came out from the house and walked to my car with a wave.

“Hi!” I greeted her. “Are you the agent?”

“No,” she said. “I’m the owner. How can I help you?”

“May I see the house?”

“Absolutely! I’d be delighted to show you around if you have some time right now. It’s a beautiful home.”

I already know that, I mused to myself…. I already know every nook and cranny of that house, but sure! Show me!

She babbled about this room or that view or new tiles, and I tuned her out to sink into my own sensorial soliloquy and simply feel my way back to the way back.

The moment we walked in, inanimate objects reached for me, each with their own tales to tell, each with a record long ago filed, but never forgotten. I stood amazed at the details flooding into my mind and the scenes replayed from every corner of every room.

Everywhere I looked I saw my furnishings, my pictures on the walls, my things exactly where they once were.

I had orange and white fleecy furniture; very fashionable and very Florida; hippie décor during hippie days. There was the night I cried on the furry couch, because a boyfriend broke up with me. And the friend who lounged in the sloped furry chair – over there….

In the bedroom I remembered the night my brother called the police because I fell asleep and dropped the phone to the floor in the middle of an apparently unimportant to me, late-night conversation. He didn’t know what had happened and the police broke into my bedroom window to rescue me from my sweet dreams, scaring me half to death with their noise and the bright flashlights. Funny now, in recall, but frightening and embarrassing then. That’s the first memory that popped into my mind when I peered into the same bedroom. That and then the clothes that populated the side closet.

We walked into the backyard and there, under the bluest sky and bright summer sun, beckoned my beautiful pool. Still the same configuration, I noticed, still the same four steps at the shallow end and still the very deep side with a diving platform – and still the pretty yard and partitioned fence to separate nosy neighbors.

There’s where I shot my first modeling job for Jordan Marsh, I ruminated as I peered around the house to see the velveteen lawn still exactly the same.

There’s the patio where I played games with friends; there’s the pretty palms I planted! Still there and look how tall they are!

We walked back through the house for a final glimpse of what is now a $430,000 house. $430,000!? Once upon a time, it cost $69,000. If only I’d known … if only we all knew now what we didn’t know when.

It sparked me to consider how remarkable and lovely it remains; to learn that everything is and always will be still there for me. A reflection of perfection from my past. I left a long time ago, but my house and my beloved pet, Frosty, never left me. Not for a second.

The material remembers.

And so do I.

Just Another Lori Story 

Moonlight Dragonfly

Moonlight Dragonfly

Clearing Mary’s estate was a massive undertaking. It made climbing Mt. Everest seem like a cakewalk. Not that I ever climbed Mt. Everest, but imagining the trek could not be nearly as difficult as selling, sorting, and designating every single item from every single space, upstairs, downstairs, outside and inside, overhead and underneath, from Mary’s house. I wouldn’t call Mary a hoarder, but beyond the average collector, she didn’t leave any surface empty. Plus she had lived there over fifty years and one does amass an enormous amount of stuff if one stays put and never parts with anything, yet continues to collect.

She left everything to her grandchildren and I remember when the grandson contacted me about the possibility of helping them, that his wife wept openly about how hard going through everything had been and they could not begin to know how to go about liquidating a lifetime’s worth of goods, both valuable and worthless at the same time.

As an estate sale specialist, I had come highly recommended and it meant more to them that I had known Mary as my neighbor and would undoubtedly serve their needs with special care and consideration.

In fact Mary was a favorite neighbor. She was a wise woman and the first one to introduce herself to me when I moved in many years before. We became close and she stood as my advocate through many battles with an atrocious association that represented the worst of condominium living – the kind you hear horrible tales about.

We both liked art and antiques and I enjoyed hearing Mary’s stories of childhood growing up in the South, her many adventures as a bailiff in the county court, and learned a lot from her about her personal research into the mystical, astrology, and all things woo-woo. 

Her beliefs were odd yet interesting. She could read a person very quickly and by their mannerisms or expressions tell their sign, or birth order, or any number of not important, yet quite revealing details that stripped that individual of any cloudy intentions. Her bookcases brimmed over with books about every kind of occult, magical, science, psychology, astronomy, afterlife and other publications pertaining to exploration of people and possibilities, both future and past. It wasn’t at all unusual for her to ask someone soon after meeting them, “What sign are you?” or to identify their secrets to them without even needing to ask that oft avoided inquiry.

So it was with great care that I took on the monumental task of clearing her house and touching every single thing that she had owned and deciding how to dispose of it properly. Unlike other estate sales I had organized, this time was personal. I cared more. Things mattered more. I loved Mary and if everything she believed in meant she was indeed watching over me and this process, then I meant to do the very best in her honor and memory.

The stars aligned (or Mary interceded and aligned them for me) and all the right people happened out of nowhere to buy her belongings. There was an inordinate amount of art that I knew very little about. An art dealer showed up. There was tons of silver as Mary treated herself royally and ate with real sterling utensils and kept fine silver place settings and matching pieces. I found a trusted silver dealer who paid fair for it all. There were too many books to count, and a book dealer did all the heavy lifting and carted them away for decent dollars. And so on….

A charity needed the washer and dryer. A neighbor bought a table. The rugs sold at an antique show. The little stuff went to a little stuff dealer. Little by little the mountain that had been Mary dwindled to a manageable amount of items left. Soon it was over. Much sooner than I had anticipated and we made much more money than I could have imagined also. The clients were ecstatic with the results and my satisfaction in pleasing them, and hopefully Mary, soared to meet the fulfilled expectations.

Finally her house was empty. Really empty. Spacious in view of all that had left the premises.

I walked over one winter night and went inside one last time to make sure everything was gone and the house had been cleaned for the new owners. I rang her bell one last time (she had an antique turnstile bell that was always a joy to ring) as a fond memory of all our visits and used my loaned key to go inside. The electricity had been shut off and it smelled fresh. Though it was somewhat dark, I wandered from room to room double-checking from floor to ceiling and simply remembering Mary.

The last room was her upstairs bedroom. I looked up to see a dusty ceiling fan, but otherwise there was nothing left and I stopped for a moment to think of her deeply and wonder where she was at that moment and if she could see me … I know Mary believed in that sort of stuff and what if it were possible? How would I know? I wouldn’t until I made it to the other side and Mary was already there so if there was any chance of communication, now was the time to wonder about it and stop to feel….

I silently said a prayer for her and stopped to ask into thin air if she was satisfied with what I had done for her heirs? I spoke aloud then, since no one was around anyway, and wondered if she could really hear me? I asked her, “Mary, if you’re really still here and if you really can hear me, show me a sign, some sign, anything, maybe something left behind, something I forgot, or let me hear you in some way….” It felt foolish and spiritual and necessary – for us both – at least in that moment. I knew Mary believed in this stuff and she had encouraged me to believe too. Even though I had been through the place a dozen times and I knew nothing had been left or forgotten, I still asked for her blessing.

I didn’t hear anything. The house grew quieter. And darker.

I turned to leave and noticed the moonlight shining brightly through the window from the bedroom across the hall. I smiled. It was a pretty night and the moon glowed in gladness. That was enough, I thought.

Then I saw something sparkle from the carpet in that room. A glittery twinkle on the floor near the baseboard in an otherwise empty room. There could be nothing there I reasoned; probably the moon’s light flickering against the recently revealed wall where Mary’s books had stacked for years.

I walked inside and there! It was large for an ornament. A bronze dragonfly with a very old piece of twine had caught the light of the moon and morphed out of nowhere to rest lightly on the carpet. As big as a hand, how could we possibly have missed this piece? I picked it up and smiled up at the moon from the window. The dragonfly was beautiful and I knew we didn’t miss it at all.

It was Mary’s message to me.

Just Another Lori Story

The Restraining Order

The Restraining Order

The judge bellowed from the bench set high above the courtroom so as to separate his meanness from the rest of us and so that if you looked up at him too long your neck crooked in such a way that his bark became bite.

The poor petitioners' that dared misuse pronouns or lacked proper proof of their claims were summarily dismissed in rapid succession and left the court with their heads bowed low, and some whimpered wantonly.

Everyone came to court this day seeking a restraining order. A protective order to protect them from some fear or stalking or other offense requiring legal restraint, but this judge brutalized most plaintiffs worse than the defendants they were there to get away from.

What the hell am I doing here? I asked myself from the front row where I purposely picked a seat close up so I could hear everything that happened and hope to learn a thing or two. What I learned early on in the day was that I would be lucky to get out of there with my ego intact, let alone a judgment in my favor. There were 31 cases on this judge's calendar. I was number 29.

No one was winning. Every case presented had a particular flaw or the judge was just having a horrendous day reflected in his horrible mood. I couldn't tell which from witch. And the cases were horrific – mostly family court kind of drama; baby mamas and reality television sort of craziness. This one beat this one up, and that one broke visitation rules, and another one calls and calls, and so on.... The judge, unmoved, moved to dismiss one after the other, but not before scolding them into oblivion for their own misfortunes and misrepresentations.

Way down the line, someone won! Wow – a ray of dismal hope. Still, one out of 17 cases is not a score to count on for success.

So why was I there?

Because I had had enough. Unfamiliar with stalking or harassment or laws about similar crimes, I had put up with an unwanted individual for nearly a decade. Annoyances, “things” left at my house, comments (shouts, really, but I'm being nice), a whole host of unwanted and unwarranted overtures from a person I wanted to only leave me alone. Cameras had been put up at my home per police suggestion, and I ignored this person despite the botheration because I felt certain that if I ignored long enough it would stop.

It did not.

Ultimately, a violation of vandalism provoked me to this court. The last straw in a long sequence of last straws.

This person had bothered me into this courtroom where a blustery judge was beating up those that had already been beaten down.

~

It made me think of Him.

The person I thought of as a dear friend that had become alienated and distant and I didn't know why.

Nowadays there's a term for it, I learned recently. It's called “ghosting.”

When someone you love or someone you thought you knew well, or had a relationship with, or a friendship, suddenly ignores you. Doesn't return calls, letters, emails, any messages at all. Simply disappears off your radar and out of your reality. It's painful at best and viciously vacuous of the other person who doesn't have the courage to communicate in some way (in any way!), what for or why they have decided to delete you from their life.

Recently, someone I've been great friends with for 30 years (30 dang years!) did this ghosting thing to me and it stings and it makes no sense whatsoever. So much for great friends who turn out to be not so great.

But, back to Him....

I didn't do anything wrong that I was aware of, but I sure missed my friend and had made several attempts to contact him by email or phone, but when he didn't return my reaching out, I stopped. What choice did I have?

All I could do was wonder what I did to deserve denial. I had no answers. Life is like that sometimes.

On his birthday, just to honor him, I dropped off some special soup he liked at his office, but he wasn't there and I was glad about that, actually. I never heard anything from him afterward.

The coworker I left the soup with was a friend to me and she called to tell me not nice things about the way He accepted or rather accentuated his distress about the benign Birthday blessing: He Raged.

“Really?” I asked.

Yes. Really.

She tattled that He scolded her for accepting anything from me, said that I was “stalking” him; that he had a “restraining order” on me already … he fumed furiously at her for – well, for what? For me bringing him a bowl of soup when he wasn't even there?

Apparently. Yes.

From the way this coworker claimed He carried on, you would think I had sent him a tantric sex tutorial or something --- rather than some soup!

I was devastated.

Furthermore, I had no idea what the truth was. Either she misunderstood Him, or exaggerated, or flat-out lied, or He really said that, or something like that, in which case HE flat-out lied … since obviously I would know if someone had a restraining order against me.


(And if He truly did have the nerve to tell her that terrible lie, then I would like him to know that it's not so easy to get a restraining order....)

One of them lied. And I will never know which one.

~

So here we are back in the battleground of this jurisprudence jungle when Judge Jerk jerks me from my daydreaming of this person's disrespectful disavowing by bellowing my case number and name for the second time into the now near empty courtroom.

I gathered my documents and the last of my wits about me and approached the bench.

Fortunately for me, I had a police detective as a witness and supporter – in case I felt the need to commit my own crime against humanity and attack this offensive magistrate who might mangle his obligation to do justice and grant me my order.

Only one other case had won. (In case you're keeping score, that makes two).

No, it wasn't easy. He scolded me too. Just like all the others. Cut me off, sliced me up, and severed my common sense from the rest of any sense, while he ceremoniously circumvented my well-documented years of struggles with the offending defendant, but … and this is BIG … mostly the judge scolded me for putting up with it for so long! He asked my police detective pointed questions (with respect, of course, for the law abiding uniformed officer) and then rightfully signed off on a restraining order.

Petition Granted. I Won!

That makes three.

Only 3 out of 31 won their case that day.

I didn't care that the judge decimated my verve, only that I would avoid more otherwise unavoidable encounters with the offender.

I left the court with my head held high. I survived a hanging judge! Victory tastes delicious. That person would not be able to bother me again, without going to jail.

~

But it wasn't until I got to my car that the dam of pent-up emotions collapsed away from the strong foundation I'd faked all day in court. The tears felt like a betrayal of my anger, clung and then dropped from the edge of my jawbone. I drove home, the day's events reviewing through the peculiar mind that is mine, with the pressure of the operose process upending me in a peculiar way....

I burst into torrential tears, wailing in recognition that someone, Him, felt that same way about me:

That's the way He feels … if He really said I was stalking him … if He really spoke of a restraining order … He wants me to disappear … He's angry … He feels threatened … has fear ... This is the lesson and why I had to go through all of this … so I would know how HE feels … about ME!

The spokes of karma are powerful. Do unto others, and all that … what is done to us, we may be doing to others, just as what we don't want done to us, we shouldn't do to others.

I'll never know what was said about me between those two – the one who tattled; the one who rattled – I'll never know the truth.

But I know I got badly hurt. And there's no restraining order to protect my heart from the hurt I got. From someone I loved.

Just Another Lori Story