Catching up with some of those I've met in the Gardens

Sorry I haven’t blogged for two days.  I had a blog entry on Thursday but erased it—it was too personal.  I don’t think people want to read about my strange love-life.   I’d rather write about people I meet in Memory Gardens—which is why I started writing this blog in the first place.

I did some research the last couple of days though:  the first was a major in the U.S. Army who happened to be a veteran of both the Korean and the Vietnam Wars—for some reason I couldn’t find his service records in the National Archives.  Then I learned that was because he died in 1979, and the public isn’t allowed to see on-line after 1951.  If the military died in action, there are those lists everywhere.  Still, I kept feeling a strong, capable, decisive man as I searched.  I did find a photo of him on a deployment in the forest of Germany in the 60’s? 

 

The major in Germany.

 

Boy, he was handsome and in his late 40’s when he died.  I get the impression the major died due to an illness—not a sudden only like a heart attack—something like cancer—something that science couldn’t fix.  I liked him because he had the traits of all the soldiers I know—both alive and dead.  Even though he never saw action in those conflicts (another impression), and even though he might have been a tough boss when it came to his troops, when it came to his family, he was an old softy, generous, good-humored, loving, protective.

The second person I looked up was a little boy I’ll call “Bear” due to the fact his parents wrote the nickname on his headstone—along with the appellation of “Our Little Worm.”  (That made me laugh.) He was four years old when he passed, and the smile on his picture makes me want to go out of my way to see his grave when I take the pups out.  The dogs like his headstone and often sniff around it, even lay down next to it, as if Bear is there, wanting to play with them. 

 

Buster on the left--Beanie on the right.

 

Bear knows he died, but I can’t tell if he died due to illness or from a car accident—I’m leaning toward accident—a crash, where he was not in a car but one plowed over him.  He went quickly and met by a relative he knew; so he isn’t crying, wanting his mommy and daddy.  He told me he visits them often, but his mother cries a lot and can’t hear him talking to her.  He’s a great kid—a celestial angel—truly special.

One lady name Magritte has a marker with one of those funny notations on it.  She lies next to her son who died two days after she did.  She really must have had a great sense of humor because her family wrote under her name “I told you I was sick.”  I laugh every time I walk past her eternal bed.

A few yards away on the other side of a gravel path, one of her neighbors put one of my favorite scriptures on her headstone—“Why seek ye the living among the dead.”  Clearly, a woman who grasp of the spiritual was dead on (bad pun intended).

There is another baby in the “Kindergarten.”  I wouldn’t go by this lawn if I could help it, but it’s one of Beanie’s favorite places.  The baby’s name is “Sonny.”  He was a month old at the most when he died—the specific dates are not on the tiny head plate that must have matched the size of the little coffin his grieving parents laid him in during the 70’s.  I think Beanie and Sonny like hunting the lizards together.  These diminutive reptiles are three to four inches long and like sunning themselves on paving stones and gravel landscaping.  Once I thought I heard a baby’s laugh when Beanie practically buried himself in the middle of a pine bush where a couple of the little creatures live.  After I pulled him out, he stood there and cocked his round, black head back and forth, listening for his intended prey, the baby giggling when he came out of the bush empty handed—or should I say, with a mouth full of pine needles.

Beanie in the lavender chasing lizards

 

Although I didn’t see his grave, I met the mother of a local police officer who shot himself over a decade ago.  He left a devastated family behind.  His mother mourned as if it had happened yesterday.  I couldn’t find any fault in that emotion.  She didn’t know why he did it—didn’t understanding the pressures of the job he did. 

Her story had a silver-lining for me.  It made me glad that though my daddy suffered from PTSD after World War II, having seen, smelled, and lived through the hell of such ghastly events at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, he hadn’t picked up one of his many personal weapons or service handguns.  I don’t doubt such thoughts flashed through his insecure and occasionally depressed mind on some incidents in his life.  Yet his profound sense of professional duty—and also his eternal duty to his family kept such contemplations fleeting and at bay.  What the young police officer didn’t do was talk about his feelings to family or friends.  Pride kept him from going to another officer to admits his fear, his guilt, his hopelessness.

When I was a teenager, I can remember over-hearing my mother and father talking through the door of their room or through one of my walls which adjoined theirs.  Sometimes I could hear him complaining or expressing his fears to my mother, who really was a great listener.  She never said much until he had finished, allowing him to get what he needed to off his chest.

I also remember thinking, if I got married, I would be that kind of supportive wife.  Too bad the young police officer didn’t have a relationship like my daddy.

I’m glad the dogs have added a second walk to the routine of their day.  The light of the fading sunset bathes the garden in a comforting glow, softening the edges of the plaques and headstone  to match the rounded corners of the lawn sections, the gravel crunching under the pups’ little paws; the dirt rats and the lizards long-settled into borrows and crevices for the evening.

When the light of the cemetery’s sign begins to cast a glow on the grass and the bronze, I know we’ve stayed too long.  Bad people come out when it gets dark—their souls black, gloomy, angry. 

Memory Gardens just before dark.

 

Once we didn’t start home until dark started to engulf the park, and a heaviness entangled my feet, as if vines or thick mud made them weighty; I couldn’t walk fast enough to get home.  The pups didn’t pull at their leashes as was their habit; instead, they almost hugged my legs like children might on Halloween.  That was when I vowed never to get caught in the garden after dark again. 

I prefer the light, even the intense heat in comparison.  I revel in the sunshine, the happy glints and sparkles that blaze off the bronze plates and the shiny granite polished to such a high sheen you can see yourself or an ephemeral reflection in the multi-colored stones. 

Yes, I much prefer the garden in the day.  The light brings out a better sort of people.

 

Memory Gardens in the spring and in the morning.

 

 

Day 11--Damn that Heroic Son of a Gun!

Have you ever thought you knew someone and when you started looking, you discover you didn’t know them at all? 

(Note to reader:  this entry isn’t about someone I met in Memory Gardens.  Since I’ve been writing about so many “dead” people, I’ve been thinking about this man for quite some time; and I feel I need to write about him.)

More than eighteen years ago I wrote a novel about the Rough Riders; it centered around the officers and soldiers of Company A:  men such as their captain, William “Buckey” O’Neill, and the “heart” of Second Squad—Sergeant Henry W. Nash.

It was a project, I added to, read and re-read, and edited with love and care.  The first draft was 535 pages long—which somehow, I miraculously started and finished in a mere 10 days—a feat I’ve never duplicated while writing my other 19 novels.  At one time in a fit of literary frustration, I took out so much of the plot it ended up being an anorexic 370 pages.  Nonetheless, the manuscript has ebbed and flowed until I told myself, no one will ever want to read it and abandoned it on a disk, a computer and a soft-covered manuscript like pieces of garbage strewn along a rarely travelled highway.  I thought of the novel as a craft project I generally finished but didn’t frame; a quilt I had spent years sewing only to have no one want to use it on a winter’s night.

Over the years, I molded and rounded off some of the sharp edges of many of the soldiers as I learned bits of information about one or another (I had used the names of real men and real events in order to make my “great American novel” as “authentic” as I could).

One of my favorite characters was Sergeant Henry W. Nash.  In spite of searching every written source available to me in Utah and beyond (remember, there wasn’t an Internet and huge megabyte data bases online in the 1990’s when I did most of my research for this particular novel), so who this man, in truth, was eluded me.  That meant I had to make up a backstory for the non-commissioned officer—had to create a realistic man from what I had in the dozens of pads of notes I had in my home library as I typed on a blue-screened computer now considered so old it was a step up from an electric typewriter. 

While I crafted the first draft, I often “heard” his Midwestern voice that was interwoven with a western twang.  We would “communicate” for hours, until I came to love him as a friend, admire his intelligence, his common sense, and self-sacrifice he had for the men he led and loved like brothers.  But when I “saw” Hank (I called him that but now I know friends and family preferred “Harry” which I don’t like that much) in my mind since I never found a photo of him, I saw an older man, tall, in his early forties; a man quick to laugh, but not quick to settle a problem with a gun.

Perhaps because he had such commendable qualities, I naturally thought only an older man and not a younger one could have such wisdom which originated from so many life experiences—experiences which built him, which he exuded like a sweet smelling after-shave I remember from the old-time barber shops with the red-white swirling contraptions outside their doors and big, bay windows to advertise their occupations.

Since I was becoming so good at looking up people on genealogical sites due to focusing on my blogging, finding sites with more information than I could get in ten history books, I thought, “Why the hell not look up Henry Nash; you like him, so do it.”

After an all-afternoon search, I found information I would have loved to have gotten my hands on at the time I was researching for my "magnus opus."

The first piece of info I gleaned was his death—1902—which ironically fit with the plot to the sequel of the Rough Riders’ Snake Eyes entitled Debt of Honor.  In that story I dramatically and poignantly killed Henry Nash at the evil hands of the Klu Klux Klan in Arkansas.

Henry actually died in Globe, Gila County, Arizona.  His occupation listed in the 1900 census as “miner”—not unexpected since I knew he had gone through many occupations—from gunman, cowboy, stage coach shotgun and coach driver, wrangler, farmer, grocer, etc.—all before becoming a member of history’s famous all volunteer cavalry unit. 

By 3:30 p.m. I got access to his military and pension records which were difficult to navigate to since they are controlled by the government.  When I saw the digital records with its too familiar greying envelope adorned with his name, I about cried.  There it was—the enlistment sheet, his pay stubs—even a medical note which informed me he had been absent at roll call at Camp Wilkoff due to an illness—“a malarial fever” he had picked up in Cuba.  I also found facts I already knew—like all the action he had seen on that hot, tropical island—Las Guisimas, the Kettle Hill engagement, and action at Santiago.  There were also succulent tidbit--entries when he became a corporal—May 4, 1898—and when he had been promoted to sergeant, on May 14 in San Antonio where most of the Riders’ war training occurred—their form of “boot camp.”

The most important material the “jacket” had was his age—29 9/12 years.  It floored me!  The guy I saw in my head as this wise, well-versed almost white-haired sergeant—the man who had kept out of trouble, yet had seen enough of life to give me sage counsel, the man who comforted me when I got frustrated with the research, the writing and the editing—the man who whispered “Don’t worry, missy, it’ll be awright, trust me” was younger than I was in 1995.

He was born in Indiana, a place called Mt. Sterling—but no longer exists.  “Hank” or “Harry” as his men called him was born sometime in September 1869, the youngest of two, his older sibling was a sister named Carrie Louise—named after her mother Louisa Walden Nash, who married George Welding Nash (after his father) on December 30^th, 1863.  “G” was born in Delaware, Ohio.  Henry Nash’s birth-state had plagued me for two decades.  I kept thinking—he was born in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana—some place like that, but since I couldn’t actually find his specific place of birth, finding his information had been impossible!

At 11, Harry lived in Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana and between 1880 and 1902 lived the western life he had told me about late at night when I lay in a darkened bedroom in Orem, Utah in 1995 missing my momma who had recently died and cried that the novel wouldn’t be good enough representative for men such as Sergeant Nash, Corporal Cade Jackson, Private Tom Freeman, Private William Wallace and their leader who I had fallen head over heels in love with like a teenager with a schoolgirl crush—Captain William Owen “Buckey” O’Neill.

Nash lived in Globe with his sister and her husband John Henry Thomas (on January 1, 1887 in Yavapai County—where he had met Buckey who been sheriff of that county when Henry had been a boy.  Buckey had taken the younger Nash under his wing and considered the “young” man a good friend—which is why Henry became a Rough Rider—because Buckey had formed the unit and Henry was determined to go in order to watch over his friend). 

Uncle Harry had a room next to his sister’s two daughters, Louisa and Ellen.  Carrie had given birth to five children by 1900, but only the two girls had lived.  It bothered me that such a great man like Nash had not married according to that record.  When he died in Globe at the very young age of 30, I cried.  He died from injuries sustained in a mining accident, but that ugly malarial fever raised its pernicious head and complicated his health, which worsened until he succumbed on July 5^th. 

It’s so typical of Nash to help me find all this personal information like a flash flood then leave me with a mystery after all was read, written down and done. 

In 1930, a man by the name of Velasco C. Murphy, (an interesting combination of Spanish and Irish uh?), who I couldn’t find anything on, requested the U.S. Government to give Henry W. Nash’s unmarked grave a headstone, which they did in 1933—this is noted on Harry’s military jacket by the way, along with a mysterious name—“Nina Nash Burger.” 

(An interesting side note:  I used the name of “Burger” as the tormentor (step-father) of my serial killer in Snake Eyes, because all good novels need a well-rounded “bad” guy.)

This mystery “Nina Nash” resided at 1602 N. Edgemont Street, Los Angeles, California—this address was accompanied by an odd notation—10-25-65.

Who is “Nina”?  As far as I knew Henry never married.  He didn’t have a brother who would have given her the “Nash” part of her name.  And Carrie didn’t marry a second husband who would have added the “Burger.”  So who is she?

The romantic writer in me would love to create a lover for Henry.  He did live in a mining town with its many unofficial brothels—was Nina’s mother a lady of the evening?  Or perhaps her mother was a young lady, maybe 18, who fell for a handsome older man who was once a famous Rough Rider. 

And who the heck was Velasco C. Murphy?—a local citizen whose altruistic bent just made him want to see Henry W. Nash receive the recognition a hero deserved?

It is just like Nash to do this to me:  give me information which will bother me until I go back and edit the two novels I wrote with “Hank Nash” as an essential character; then leave me with two names with mysterious relationships to him which, of course, will annoy me more than smart students who won’t do their homework.

If I could, I’d slug you in the arm as hard as I could Henry Nash, even as you laugh at my discombobulation.  It’s times like these I wish I’d never met you.

Alright, that’s a lie. 

I’ll get you back for this Nash!  I don’t know when or how, but I’ll get you back.  Think you’re so funny, don’t ya, you cowboy, soldier, minor—hero.  Urggha!

At camp in Tampa Bay, Florida


Above--after the charge up Kettle Hill then in support of the U.S. Army Regulars up San Juan Hill.  TR looks real smug while everyone else looks tired of having to pose for yet another Roosevelt photo and are glad just to be alive--don't you think?

 

 

 

Cleaning weapons--Krag/Jorgensons--not the best weapons to have in combat--they tended to jam and were slow to load and fire.  Ironically the U.S. Govt.  wouldn't let the Riders bring the Browning's automatic machine guns--which are such good weapons Navy S.E.A.L.s still use the .45 automatic today.  The Riders couldn't have them because they would have killed the enemy "too quickly."

Cleaning up after chow in San Antonio

'

 

After the surrender at Santiago--which meant they were going home.

At the dock at Tampa Bay where the Riders are told they can't take all their horses nor would all the companies be allowed to go on to Cuba.

 

Reading about themselves in Florida--the newspapers by Hearst who had basically started this shin-dig.

 

Writer's Block and Silence in the Garden

Today we walked for almost 45 minutes in the gardens and what did I get?--nothing--nada--zip--a big fat zero.

I didn't meet anyone visiting a loved one.

I didn't feel any of the residents stand up and want to talk.

The dogs didn't even go in the right direction when I let them go to chase the dirt rats.  No wonder those rodents laugh at them.

Last night I met two women who wandered from section to section, putting flowers on relatives and some of their relatives friends' graves.  I thought I had an idea about a blog entry.  When I started to write, it didn't sound that great--one big white blank.

Typical--writer's block.  Just when I thought things were going well, I come up with a goose egg--I wish I had a goose egg, I could at least scramble it up for an omelet.

Perhaps tomorrow someone will want to talk to me--or perhaps I'll hear an interesting story--or get a better idea.   Until then, I'll have to be patient and try again.

I put in a picture of my mom.  Why did I have to look like my dad? 

This is my beautiful momma--one of the glamor shots taken in the 1940's when she modeled hats for a living--along with being a secretary at Boeing where she chit-chatted with Clark Gable who flew test planes during World War II.  I sure miss you momma.  You are my roll model (pun very much intended)--someday I might even get skinny like you, babe.  Love always.




A Louisiana Summer in the Middle of New Mexico

We walked by JT on this morning’s stroll through the gardens.  He surprised me by his insistence I remember his name and the dates on his plaque.  By the time the dogs got to the wilderness to chase the dirt-rats, I had forgotten most of his name and one of the years, so I had to make a special trip back in order to pass JT’s grave again.  Using a chant, I repeated the information in a rhythm I continued to say in my head after writing it on a notepad. 

I’ve got to remember to bring a pen and paper on these walks.

After calculating the years, I comprehended that JT was 23 when he died.  He would have been 53 today, if he had lived—three years older than I. 

Bragging some, I have to say, I’m getting pretty good at navigating the Net for information on newly-found-friends, because I gleaned a decent amount of data about this young man in two hours.  (In comparison, it took six to discover Little Davie had divorced Aurelia, and she hadn’t come close to actually killing him.) 

Here’s some of what I found:  JT was born in August, a very hot month, especially in Louisiana.  I went on a vacation in February to New Orleans about eight years ago, a few months after Hurricane Katrina.  I know I couldn’t have taken a Louisiana August. 

JT died on July 1, in Arboles, Colorado, which is close to Durango.  He worked for a Farmington oil company that no longer does business.  It makes sense, though; that this young man would go into such work, living most of his life in Shreveport, which is the off-shore hub for the oil drilling industry.

In 1983 some type of misfortune occurred in a desert job site, and JT was killed.  I speculate his little family was too poor to ship his body to Louisiana, too poor for much of a funeral, too poor to spend money on a head plate with all the engraved information—since it had merely his name, the year of his birth and the year he died. 

His wife, Laura likely had to save every penny the company had given her as compensation.  She most likely took her two boys, JT junior and Little Jason, back to where the summers are hot and the air is as heavy and sweaty as a New Orleanian long-shore man while the sea blows mocking breezes with disparaging regularity. 

Not like in New Mexico where the summers swelter with drought-dry heat while dusty tannish-red sand makes the eyes crusty and painful as it flows across the highway during storms--just like Nebraska winter snow does—snake-like, hugging the ground as if it had never come from a cloud let alone seen one.

Who could blame her for leaving?—wanting to return to what she knew, to a culture she understood—to be with family—JT’s momma promising to help raise the boys, knowing what this young widow went through since she had buried JT’s daddy years ago—he had died in the middle of the Gulf, however; with a mile of water under his boots, and his hard hat smudged with grease from the chugging machinery—a popular melody which meant work and wealth.

Yes, I liked JT right off. 

He was friendly, politely bending to pat the pups one at a time before tipping his hat and calling me “Ma’am,” even though I’ll never consider myself old enough for that appellation. 

The voice I heard in a whisper was full of soft Louisiana lilting lyrics, similar to those my Grandma Jean sang on quiet summer evenings in the 1960’s.  My father annually made these northern pilgrimages, driving our vintage grey-green station wagon from Pocatello to Washington State to visit his father and step-mother.  I remember Grandma Jean’s rhythmical Southern alto during late-night conversations, my father adding a deep-bass as he leaned thick elbows on a linoleum-covered kitchen table standing in the center of a Walla Walla clapboard, two-storey house. 

In my mind’s eye, I saw JT and Grandma Jean with the same Cajun-inspired grins, accompanied by good-natured laughter which originated from the heart, not the heat.  They had the same brilliant summer sky blue eyes which beamed with tiny white-stars—you know the kind—when nearly blinding light twinkles off ripples of moving water. 

Their richly intoned voices seemed as cool as tall red glasses of iced-lemonade about to bead perspiration in the shade of a screened-in porch, like those in the front of shotgun-styled houses down where granite graves sit on top of thick Delta clay, where gators are jus’ iddy-biddy nuisances, and lacy grey-green moss drips from crooked magnolia limbs like melting ice cream running down chocolate dipped waffle cones.

I bet JT used his boys’ entire names—first, middle and last—like Grandma Jean did when I got into trouble.

“Beth Elmajean Boldman, if yer not insi’ this house in t’next ten-secon’s, Imagoin’ ta shave t’top layah ov skin frum yer backsi’so nice ‘n’ neat yew won’t be-a-siddin’dow-n fa’ a-week-ov-Sunday dinnahs!” 

I can tell you with a hand on the Bible she was a woman of her word—I felt every smack with accurate acuity.  Oh, yes, ma’am, I did!  And to this day, when someone says my middle name, on purpose or by accident, I cringe instinctively.

JT might have used such singing imagery, a similar poetic metaphor to get his kids a-running—a memorable turn of phrase which would make Jeff Foxworthy proud to be a red-neck.

My backside aches just to think about it.

 

Grandma Jean, Me (age 2.5), my brother Cameron

I look like Grandma Jean's mini-me, don't I?

 



Day 8 It goes on and on!

When it comes to divorce, one must remember there are at least two versions of the story—if not more if children are involved..  It’s that way in life and believe it or not, it's the same in death—a lesson I was definitely reminded of meeting “Little Davie,” a young man who eternally sleeps not far from his parents, “Big Davie” and “Joanie Lee.”

His unassuming name plate lies a few yards into Memory Gardens, but I don’t remember seeing his mom or dad, then again, I didn’t look around.  I was trying to remember all the information on his head plate.

After two hours on the Net, I found where “Little Davie” died—Tuba City, Arizona.   He had been a fireman’s assistant in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and had been born somewhere in the state of Washington. 

As I got a handle on his family tree, I started getting small crumbs of information, but with those tidbits came the following: “That c--- is a piece of work” and “Why are you bothering to look her sh-- up—she is nuthin’ but a fat old slut!”  This happened as I found his wife’s name on Ancestry.com –“Aurelia” {remember I never use real names—names don’t matter—it’s their stories which are interesting}.

I tried to ignore his angry rants.  I had the television on and was kind of—but not really listening to A&E’s “My Ghost Story—Caught on Tape,” so you can understand I thought I was picking up ideas from the show—which was natural.

Then came, “Don’t you listen tew anything dat man says.  He’s crazy.” 

I thought I was making up this rather dramatic and fairly entertaining argument—this he said/she said thing usually makes for good drama and to be honest I wasn't feeling in good vibes on our walk this morning, nor was I feeling like writing anything.   

As I kept searching for Little Davie’s cause of death, I heard, “Ya know she killed me--yeah, it’s true.  Why don’t you look in the Arizona’s historical prison records, because she did it—she took out a pistol and shot me for no-reason-what-so-ever.  I never laid a hand on the b----!  The fat f------ cow.  Go on, look it up, you’ll find her in the f------ prison records under K---- Murderer.”

After another hour, I was beginning to think I was going off my rocker—which I tend to do as a matter of habit.

A female tone, with a slight hint of a German accent piped in, “See, he vas lying to you.  I never killed heem, never shot heem—perhaps I shot at heem—but I made sure I missed heem by a good, long mile--the big baby.  He’s an s-o-b from way back.  But I scared heem dat day--dat’s for sure.”

“The f------ cow!  She would have killed me—she wanted to killed me!  Saying all that sh-- that I beat her, telling the f------ cops I tried to strangle her for no reason.  You heard her, didn’t you f------- good reasons!  If you had heard that German yappin' constantly for two years you would have wanted to shut the f------- b---- up too!  OK—well, I might have lunged for her throat—but for crist’s sake, who wouldn't want to?!  She was the one shooting the f------ aimed a pistol at me!”

I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone hear the television with all their yelling because that was when they started going at each other as if anyone on either side of this life's veil.  They were shouting, trying to convince the other that his or her version was the truth, but after forty years, who gives a flying fart who's story is true?  They're dead for cryin’ out loud! 

 

It goes to show that what baggage we don’t unpack or throw away in this life, goes with us in the next.

My heart went out to Little Davie; he had died in 1971 at the age of 24.  Then again, I have natural sympathies for abused women.

I started to find a lot of information about Aurelia at that moment.  Even she didn’t know exactly when she was born—somewhere in Germany in or about1948—arriving on the U.S. Ship “Homeland” from Europe not long after World War II; entering New York Harbor at the age of maybe two or three.  She came with a few members of her family, but by the time she arrived in Arizona, I couldn’t find a single name that belonged on the passenger list.  By the time she got to that desert state in 1966 I wonder if any of her relatives were alive.  It was that year she married her handsome 19-year old sailor, and she, was 18.  They chose Solano County, California—where else would one find a sailor but near San Francisco?  A year later “Davie Jr.” was born, and that’s when things really got out of control—black eyes, broken dishes, Shore Patrolmen making late-night visits so the neighbors could get some sleep—naval detectives interviewing the culprits, because both of them had violent tempers, and I’m not even sure who exactly got the shiners—it wouldn’t surprise me they both had to cover up such shameful evidence.

One or the other wised up and called the whole thing off—sometime in October of 1968.  Aurelia stayed in sunny Vallejo, California, while in Tuba, City, “Little Davie” met his demise—how—I have no idea—neither one of them would shut up long enough to tell me.

Nonetheless, Aurelia went on with her life—(wink, wink, nod, nod).  She married a man named Lou, a German American, born in Minnesota and who happened to be 42 years older than she was.  They got hitched on May 15, 1970, and I doubt very much that he was a free-spirited or drugged-out hippie.  When I saw her address in Camino Alto, I guess she wasn’t living in the slums!  Of course, she was looking out for her boy.  Oddly enough, Lou didn’t live long after their nuptials, and Aurelia buried him a week after his death on November 29, 1971.  I never found out how Lou died either. 

Because she used two or three different versions of her name, Aurelia could have married again—and I lost track of her after 1974.  I know she’s dead—I wouldn’t have found myself in the middle of yet another argument if she wasn’t. 

 

Something odd happened while I roamed between doing my laundry at my neighbor’s and looking up information about this “very loving couple.” 

 

One of my majolica plates worth about $50 fell off the wall and broke into a dozen pieces.  The 3M sticker hook that is advertised not to come off the wall stopped sticking and the plate fell—nothing really paranormal, but still…odd uh.  Eventually, I had to kick both of them out of the house with, “Please, people!  Take it outside, will ya?!”

After they left everything settled down—I wasn’t feeling agitated, and more importantly the dogs didn’t look like someone had hit them and was about to do it again.  They’re chasing each other around like they normally do.

Who do I believe—Little Davie’s or Aurelia’s version?  Neither.  Both.  Who knows?  They probably have lied about the other so much not even they know exactly what really happened.  Which is pretty ironic, don't you think?

Day 7 A Killer Headache

I suffered all day from a migraine after the dogs went for their walk this morning.  Strangely, for the half hour there I couldn't get the "feel" of the garden, even after saying good morning to T, Gary, Donny, Gracie and even Pepe--from a safe distance I might add.

Nevertheless, on the way home, I met Fondie, who died in Memphis, or should I say, "perished" as quoted in her local obit.  She was only 47, a former Marine who had seen deployment in Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom then return to became a postal worker.  I walked away from her grave three times, and three times I dragged the pups back to look at her plaque, staring at her name, drawn back for some strange reason, wondering why her name was spell so creatively, wondering if she was Black (I'm 1/4th Black as an adopted kid), wondering why I couldn't walk casually by and get home for some breakfast.

Fondie had indeed been a beautiful Black woman, from the picture posted in her obit, (I was compelled to look ay it upon returning home.  Of course, nothing in the few paragraphs announcing her local funeral revealed how she died.  At first, I wondered if it have been a car accident.  Statistics show that 40% of those dying every day do so in an automobile accident while 45% die due to some physical reason, such as a heart-attack, cancer, an infection, or a disease.  For a minute I was sure it was an accident.  But after reading her obituary a second time, a "gut" instinct said "shooting."  (Only 14%--die due to accidents at home--such as falling off a ladder, while a tiny portion of what's left of that 100%, die in a burst of quick violence--usually some woman killed by a husband or boyfriend, which is why the police always bring the guy into their interrogation rooms--because 9 times out of 10, the murdered victim is killed by someone he or she knows.    But it's an even smaller percentage which remains a mystery; because they are random, meaningless, brutal, committed by strangers--and for strange reasons. 

Who would shoot and kill such a wonderful mom, grandmother, Marine?
 
I hoped it wasn't an ex-boy friend, or worse, a random violent blast from a gun stuck out a window of a car that swerved in front of a house from which she had finished delivering a few letters and a whole lot of junk mail.  One of those moments where a member of some evil affiliation needed to slaughter some person who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, be it a child, a by-stander, or a mail-carrier, in order to "prove" his or her worthiness to belong to this " wicked social club.". That sort of death would have given anyone a horrible headache.

Fondie, could have died from a tumor.  Like Arnold said in "Kindergarten Cop" I keep hearing, "It's not a toomah!"  Which goes back to a shooting thing, which is making me so angry the pain in my head is starting to dissipate as I write this--something I wasn't going to do because of the migraine:  the irony of this situation is not lost on me. 

You don't think Fondie was trying to tell me something, do you?--trying to tell me how she died in the only way she could?  If so, I would rather not get this kind of communication again.  I didn't get anything done--slept for most of the day, and prayed God (while taking more migraine medication) would make this pain would let go of me--perhaps go and visit someone in Memphis instead.

If it was a message from a woman not that much younger than I, whose dark eyes and lovely caramel-colored skin haunted me in my dreams.  Fondie, I got the message!  But don't fret, my dear.  Karma (I'm using that term for the lack of a better one), karma works in strange and wonderful ways--what goes around, comes around.  If God doesn't mete out the proper justice in this world, oh, the blood of the innocent are even now crying out from the Earth!  His merciful bowels are filled with righteous vengeance which will come in the Great and Terrible Day of Judgment, when all secret deeds-- yours, mine, and theirs will be revealed--where blood will testify with more truth than a witness can in any court in this world. 

I'm glad I met you Fondie, but no more migraines, okay?

Day 6 Oh Donny Me Boy

Whenever I take time to visit Memorial Gardens, my day goes a bit better—except today.  This morning I met a woman I’ve been seeing for the last couple of days, visiting one of the newer resting sites—one without a stone pillow skillfully carved with names and dates and appropriate decorations.

I finished picking up some broken branches which had come down during yesterday’s wind and headed for her.  The day before I missed talking to her by a dozen feet; so I wasn’t going to make the same mistake by hesitating. 

When I boldly approached, she glanced up, grey eyes filled with grey grief which dampened tired, suddenly aging features.  She looked as if she hadn’t slept for quite a while.

I impertinently offered the sole condolence a stranger can to another—I simply asked if she would like a hug.  We embraced as if we had known each other for years.  She clung with such a profound need it took my breath away.

With a small amount of prompting she disconsolately informed me this newly-made bed composed of uneven squares of sod struggling to grow as best it could in such a desert climate belonged to her son “Donny.”  I muttered the expected reply.   She continued to answer my meddlesome questions.

Donny had been the 30 year-old father of two daughters.  He loved his mother, his children with a tender heart, but with such passion which tended rule his actions—like choosing to fall in love with an unfaithful wife who took advantage of his gentle adoration, until one night he caught her and her elicit partner in the act.  Such passionate men as Donny tend to give into impulsive actions, not thinking, not analyzing, not projecting consequences into future situations—consequences which would affect all the important people in his life—affect the true and loyal—particularly a dear mother and children.

I could almost hear him say as he gunned the car’s engine, racing from the mocking, ironically composed scene, blinded by tears of throbbing unhappiness which had habitually burned his face, “I’ll show her!”

“The police think he killed himself,” his desperate mother explained.  “They’re still investigating.”

When police officers tell family members this, they are really saying they pretty-much know what happened; it’s just a matter of how long it will take to get the report typed and sent in triplicate from the coroner’s office, stapled to another report from the investigating officer who finally intra-office mails it to the desk of one of dozens of city attorneys, who may or may not get around to tell this poor woman her son did take his own life.  Who in the hell wants to say this sort of thing to a mother who comes every day to the garden to sit next to Donny’s eternal resting place crying over the what-ifs, the if-onlys, and the might-have-beens.

The situation is a ubiquitous epic, an operatic tragic plot told for centuries.  I’ve read their out-comes in books or even felt the suicide wandered from loved one to loved one, begging them to forgive him for that one, stupid, impulsive act which was meant to solve one problem but ended up creating a hundred unintended ones.

These spirits do not rest easy in their coffin-covered beds.  They spend much of their energy going from a family member, a friend or a child, trying to explain that they never meant to hurt them—he was either so tired of the pain dying seemed to be the logical solution, or he did it to hurt someone else entirely.

This never works.  When a person does some act in the hope of cursing his adversary, he mistakenly believes she will beg forgiveness, will realize the pain and turmoil she caused and will plead for mercy from the torment her soul is wracked with.

One hundred percent of the time it is the man shaking a fist at heaven, cursing an unfaithful spouse, an unfeeling boss, or a tormenting neighbor who is the only one feeling the pain.  The opposite party is always oblivious, never realizing the ache of the situation, or (and this is worse) she knows exactly what she is doing and revels in the agony she has created as carefully as a master chef has conjured up a once in a life-time feast.

I’m sure Donny knows this—but now is too late.  Such enlightenment always comes too late.  That’s why suicide is life’s pathetic tragedy—why so many operas, plays, and novels center plots on these situations.  Why audiences come away with damp eyes, the arrogant-and-simple minded members  saying with worldly superiority—“I’d never be that foolish.  I’d have shot the b---- and that would have ended that story right there and then.”

What a piece of work is man—I mean all of us really.