Four months have passed since I lost my beloved Jim to
suicide.
In that time I have felt the pendulum of emotions swing back and forth like a wrecking ball.
There is still no peace.
There is still no moving beyond that dreadful night -
or coming to any resolution.
There is just sorrow, and a gnawing pit of emptiness that fills my gut where appetite used to live.
Hunger is the first thing to go.
The first thing people say to me is
" I'm so sorry for your loss."
We have all heard it before, and probably said it ourselves when nothing else comes to mind. Some people say,
"It will get better in time," as they honestly try to give comfort to someone going through something that they themselves
dread.
Death is a tough enough topic, but
suicide is a real conversation killer.
Niceties are more comforting to those comforting others
than they are to the one who is suffering, so we end their discomfort by putting on our brave faces to hide the fact that we are
quietly dying inside.
This is what suicide does to those of us still here. Our loved ones are gone forever free of their own private
hell that made living (
just one more day ) impossible. Their pain might be over but ours is
just beginning.
My nightmare began as I watched, mute and frozen, as the man I loved destroyed himself before my disbelieving eyes.
Some horror films play on and on in your head, and no matter how much you try to change the channel, these movies keep rewinding to torment you another day.
I can see myself watching that
real life movie in
real time. There I am, aloof, safe and secure in the back row of the theatre, far away from the violence to come.
As I contemplate the dark stream of blood cascading down the bookcase, I notice how the flow of blood is like the flow of maple syrup, and am struck by the relative ease that such heavy shelves have given way , as if they were poised and waiting to cradle the falling man who had just ended his life. A composition in a
nearly perfect scene shot as a
film noir.
Beautiful in life--Beautiful in death.
His head rests peacefully, nestled against the inside corner of the bookcase- as if large, tender,
unseen hands had reached out from the nether-world to quiet his fall
.
"I'll carry you now son." I imagined his deceased father saying
,"I couldn't catch you then..but I'm here to catch you now."
He had talked about his Father the day before, and had found forgiveness and understanding. A renewed love had replaced the loathing for a sick and abusive man.
There he sits, tucked away inside that shelf, like a small child hiding in a secret place. Safe from monsters and demons, and intrusive thoughts.
I'm standing now, looking in awe at what had just transpired-- understanding most of it-- but unwilling to accept it's finality.
I'm floating....floating.... in a perfect silent sea of calm.
After they took him away I was left to contemplate the impossible silence of our empty house. I noticed soothing music
somewhere but couldn't place its source, until I remembered it was my music that always filled the house. Hearing the music brought me back to reality and I pulled myself together to confront my new task.
My new job now, was to wash away the traces of violence that had occurred in our
sacred place.
He called our home his sacred place.
I placed a thick towel over the pool of blood, telling myself I was cleaning up spilled molasses, and it reminded me of the time he had fallen asleep in bed with a quart of chocolate ice cream.
Three towels later, with my forearms stained with blood, I attended the bookshelves that had fallen pancake fashion, and placed them one- by- one into the shower where the hot running water washed them clean.
I sat for the longest time, with my back pushed up against the tub, eyes closed listening to the steady drum-beat of the falling water, and tried to take it all in.
Washing away his blood was the
last act of love I would ever be able to give him in this life. And I took comfort in this,
giving of myself to the man I loved for eight wonderful/terrible years, who had just destroyed everything. It was all I had left to give to someone
who tried so hard, and with
such sincerity to live in this unforgiving world.
His sad reality hit me like a sledge-hammer to the chest when I recognised the truth, that he had been destroyed long before I ever met him. I was just the
glue that held him together for eight
more years.
He called me his
" glue - girl." Suddenly I understood what it meant.
He was a burning candle with a too-short wick, that no matter my own vision for his life's expectancy, it was doomed to never exceed a certain point,
whether I liked it or not.
We don't have control of anothers life, and no matter how much we use our power of influence to keep their feet on the ground, a broken person's will belongs to them , as do they actions.
Childhood abuse had molded him into a package of perpetual victim hood, one of unresolved fears seething with self doubt, and
unrelenting self-imposed ever changing expectations.
He was ravaged by PTSD and had lost his ability to get help due to budget cuts in our state. It was the last straw- this final abandonment.
"This isn't more than I can handle", I told myself,
"I 'm paying homage to someone who deserves dignity in his darkest hour." It had to come from me.
His life was surrounded by the fallout of physical and mental abuse, where some who are abused become abusers, and others abuse themselves with a special kind of cruelty, as if to satisfy some invisible parent's need
to inflict suffering.
He became his own abuser.
I so long for him.
Sometimes I
desperately grasp for bits of him...
pictures , clothes , a pair of shoes , or his cologne that I inhale with a strange desperation
- while something inside me begs,
"Don't go away, don't go away ...not now...not just yet."
It's a long hard road to walk. One that's paved with broken glass and I'm barefoot. Sympathizers, whose lives are intact may have the best intentions, but they can't understand why I
still walk with a limp. Just being in their presence is painful as they are living reminders of what I had yesterday...
or a year ago, or eight years ago.
The simple things they take for granted -
you wish you could have today. As your life lay in ruins, they go about their daily lives unaware of each other
more than half of the time. But for those of us who have lost a child or a partner- we are
vividly aware of the pain, and the void ,
in each and everyday.
We are like
the walking dead - empty, hollow beings, who have been
cleaved in half by a dull blade.
If you are lucky enough to encounter family members suffering as you are, you find other unlucky members in your
personal bereavement club, and together you try to mend, and patch, and make some sense of something that makes no sense at all.
We talk about the things we miss. For me these are the small things that most people take for granted.
I miss the comfort of his warmth and quiet breathing as he lay asleep next to me.
I miss his forgetfulness, and constant need to be reminded to be on time.
I miss his devastating smile, and fierce blue eyes that looked at you, and through you at the same time.
I miss the way he was always losing things, and needed my help to find them.
I miss giving him haircuts --and baking him apple pies. I miss his brilliant sense of humor and our long talks about the universe, or the world at large, or the difference , and importance between brands of house paint.
I miss the way he loved
The Home Depot as much as a child loves
Disneyland, or the excitement he expressed when collecting the huge stones that matched the color of our house for the fountain he never got a chance to build.
I miss the arguments, the bliss, the thunder of his angry voice, and his full hearted declarations of love.
He was a house painter
by profession and an artist
, an inventor, a philosopher, friend, a dreamer, a poet, and a fool. He could at one moment be filled with unmeasurable joy, then suddenly without warning, be hollowed out with regret.
Everyday was an adventure into the foreign lands of human emotion. He would fly sky- high, briefly touching the clouds, only to find himself in free fall..falling down..down, into the darkest abyss,where he lingered for days on end, finding himself lost,and
crawling on hands and knees in a desperate search to find a way out.
Sometimes he was as vulnerable as a new-born kitten, blind and searching for the comfort that always escaped him.
Other times he
became the sign of the year he was born- the Tiger, cautious, feral and fierce, unforgiving yet kind. He could lash out cruelly when threatened yet sought forgiveness in the end.
He was born in the year of the Twin Tigers 1962
Tigers are known to be stubborn and want to be in charge. They can selfish and ruthless but are extremely generous overall. They are intelligent and ever alert. Tigers are charming and well-liked by those around them. They are not motivated by money or power.
Water Tiger – Years 1902 and 1962
Water Tigers are sensitive and tranquil. They realize that other people have worthy opinions too. They’re very intuitive which makes them good at accurately judging different situations.
Tiger people are extremely sensitive,given to deep thinking and are capable of great sympathy. Though short tempered they usually mend the wounds they cause immediately. They have difficulty making up their minds and sometimes make rash decisions not in their best interest.They are equally suspicious of others as they are courageous and powerful.
Tigers are most compatible with Horses, Dragons and Dogs.
I was born in the year of the dog. We were a good match, his
weaknesses were my strengths- and we were just different enough to keep each other amused for our eight years together.
There never came a day that I didn't look forward to seeing him. Although when he was trapped in his own darkness life could be quite difficult.
Deep inside him lived
three beings. One the Tiger of his birth. One a terrified abused little boy- and one a confident capable man.The difficulty came when one emerged dominating the others.
On the day he died
all three emerged... separately and briefly.
First came the boy who was bewildered and afraid. He clung to me for a time, confused by his emotions, terrified of being found out. Emotion swept through him in torrents and he cried for a time, saying repeatedly,
" I don't know what these feelings are. I don't know what to do."
"I think I'm cracking up."
Later came the rational man, who tried to distract the confusion away with the work ethic."
I need to go out and work on the fence" he said, in his attempt to drive the desperation away.
Later that evening
came the Tiger. He paced back and forth in restless anxiety, as if his cage was becoming smaller, growling,
" I feel trapped. I can't get out. I need to get away"
The wounded tiger hiding inside him, sought the safety and darkness of its den. His heart raced. His mind was wild with fever. He heard voices of his past that terrified him, and saw images of his own painful transgressions-- people he had abandoned, a lost child, and all of the self- imposed failings he could never forgive himself for, or ever let go of.
These demons took on a life of there own, and as he lay still trying to sleep they caught his unconscious mind in a web that pulled tighter and tighter into a strangle-hold.
Before he fell asleep I said to him, "
We will get through this, we always have, and always will." And I believed it to be true.
Sometime that night the tiger awoke, and
crept silently out of the room. I felt him pawing at my foot and was awakened to see a large shape poised over me. He looked directly at me yet was far away, with large luminous eyes.
He asked me quietly, "
Can you see how pathetic I am ?"
In the half light I saw him holding a gun to his head but couldn't believe it. Suddenly a crack of thunder reverberated through the room, and a flicker of light swept briefly across his face.
And in that time I saw the glimmer of a
haunted other-worldly despair.
"Can you see how pathetic I am?"
I see.
God yes.....I see!...But it isn't you Jim, and never was. I just wish you could have seen what I saw."
A brave, beautiful, broken man who was never pathetic.
Not ever... not even for a moment.
Later it occurred to me what he had meant, what he was
trying to say. Somewhere deep inside him he understood that the
tiger within him had become dangerous - and he knew
it was out of his control.
He acted in the only way he could--
in the moment.
He became the man who killed the tiger,
in order to save the boy.
I lost all three that night.
And nothing can ever change it-- or undo it for me, and all of us
who loved him so.
I just have to move forward--one foot in front of the other, for however long it takes,
until someday, I can learn to walk again.
Today I walk amongst the 99% in Occupy Wall Street. I walk for Jim and countless others suffering under this corrupt system that worships money over human life.
This too shall pass, this too shall pass.........but will never be forgotten.
Wait for me Jim.
Carla
ickenittle
Recently Citibank foreclosed on a family who had been paying their mortgage for 25 years with only $37,000 left on the loan.
After buying out the bank who had financed the house, the California family says Citi stopped accepting their payment via automatic payment. After working out the glitches Citi set up a repayment plan in which the family paid $4000 in back and current payments. The second payment (according to Citi) was never received . The owners had foolishly sent the second payment by mail without notifying Citi ahead of time, and even though they received it, Citi went ahead and foreclosed anyway- just because the could.
The family was shocked to find their home had been auctioned off for $255,000.The family had built up $218,000 in equity.
Without money to pay for a lawyer, the father, an insurance salesman is representing himself in two lawsuits against the bank alleging illegal foreclosure.
In a statement, Citibank said:
"We work very hard to keep borrowers out of foreclosure and in their homes. We often offer borrowers who are seriously behind on their mortgage a repayment plan. If they fail to make the payments, however, the plan is cancelled.
But what if they make the payment, and Citi refuses to acknowledge it?
"We attempt to contact the borrowers by mail and telephone to advise them of the plan's status. If the account becomes delinquent due to missed repayment plan payments, we are normally unable to offer another solution. We regret we were not able to offer further options to these homeowners."
Citi gets hacked and doesn't notify anyone.
On May 10th Citibank was hacked, and a total of $2.7 million was stolen out of customers accounts. In total 360,000 accounts were hacked.
"Customers are not liable for any fraud on the accounts and are 100% protected," the bank said.
Who knows if this will be the final word on the May 10 incident, which wasn't made public until early June. At that time, the bank announced that 200,000 accounts had been impacted by the attack. That number was later increased to 360,000.
Not only did citi get hacked with relative ease, they waited weeks to notify their customers.
Citi currently moving closer to the number one position.
Citi sued for Foreclosing on soldiers in 2003-still ongoing
An Iraq War veteran has filed a potential class-action lawsuit against CitiGroup's CitiMortgage division, alleging that the lender violated the Service members Civil Relief Act by foreclosing on his home and that of "thousands" of other active-duty soldiers.
The lead plaintiff in the case bought a home in Texas in 2003. CitiMortgage later took over the loan from the original lender and ultimately foreclosed on the property, selling it at auction. The lawsuit states that the foreclosure occurred while the plaintiff "was engaged in a period of military service in the Texas Army National Guard or was otherwise entitled to the protections of the Service members Civil Relief Act."
While the solder was on lock down training at Fort Hood, CitiMortgage initiated foreclosure proceedings against his property and sold it at a foreclosure sale on May 2, 2006. The foreclosure sale was not conducted pursuant to a court order and was not approved by a court. That same day, CitiMortgage's lawyers filed an affidavit in the real property records of Travis County, Texas, stating that [the plaintiff] was 'not on active duty with any branch of the Armed Forces of the United States or w[as] not protected by the Service members Civil Relief Act.'
Those statements were false.
The SCRA protects active members of the Armed Forces, including the National Guard. According to the suit, "lenders may not foreclose on a covered service member's mortgage while he or she is on active duty, or within a specified grace period thereafter, without court approval."
"This was not an isolated incident," says the plaintiff, who seeks class-action status for the suit. "From Dec. 19, 2003 to date CitiMortgage initiated thousands of foreclosure proceedings across the United States without adequate safeguards to ensure that service members on active duty were not targeted by CitiMortgage's foreclosures."
With household incomes falling Big Banks search for fresh veins to bleed.
2009 was the supposed end of the recession yet household incomes are still falling. From 2009 to 2011 the average income for Americans was $49,909 according to the Census Bureau, while incomes of the highest percent (the 1% er's continues to grow)
Average Americans are being screwed by the banking cartels as they continue to loot and plunder the working class with ridiculous fees, impossible to maintain high minimum balances, and lousy customer service.
Two words--Credit Union.
Screw the Big Banks.
It's time to drive a stake into these vampire's hearts.
ickenittle