Letter to Don

 I've been thinking often about what I would say to you if you walked into the back door.   I know that I would cry, for crying is what I do best these days.  I am angry at you for many things.  I think I've been angry with you since the first day you got sick.  I wish I had been a better wife in the face of illness, I messed that up over and over.  I was so out of my element, something I never expected, never wanted to happen, and I know you didn't want that to happen either.   That's what so damn sad, it wasn't your fault or mine.   But what was your fault, what I blame you for the most, is that you left this Earth without saying goodbye.  You left without telling me how to do things, how to manage.   I've felt abandoned, an orphan even.  You wouldn't even tell me about any insurance policy.  I had to find it by myself.  

Transformation

 Transformation.

A monarch butterfly starts its life as an egg, placed on the underside of a milkweed leaf by an adult female monarch.  The egg, about the size of a sesame seed, is spring green in color but darkens as it matures.  It lingers there for 4 days, protected by the shade of the leaf from the sun and wind, and hopefully predators.  It emerges after 4 days as a caterpillar as tiny as an eyelash.  It's first act of life is to eat the eggshell from where it emerged.   They are voracious eaters, growing from eyelash size to two inches long in a matter of 10 days.   They then transform to a chrysalis, a state they linger in for about 10 days.   Eclosing from chrysalis, they are a fully mature monarch butterfly.   Change is hard.  

I've been watching Noah Thompson as most of us have been here in eastern Kentucky.  The monarch caterpillar doesn't realize transformation is coming, and I expect that Noah could not possibly envision how this TV show would transform him. He has to feel like he's been given the golden ticket, the keys to the city, the magic trip to Disney World.  But he also has to feel at times like he's moved into The Twilight Zone.   Change is occurring rapidly with Noah, I fear.  I wonder how he is handling it all.  Change is hard.

I've been forced into a change that I never wanted, never expected.   I often feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.  I'm still in the caterpillar stage of transformation, but change is happening. Each day, I learn new things about myself, and I'm finding new ways to cope with grief.  It's not easy.   I hope Noah is able to fly high into the sky, and I also am determined to fly one day.   Change is hard.  

Creating a New Me

 I don't know how I got to where I am, and I don't understand how to get back home.  Back to peace and contentment.  I have become a shell of who I used to be, who I could be, and I gone back to being that scared, terrified little girl who peed on the bed every night.  My anxiety is overrunning who I am.  I miss Don terribly, and I've got to figure out a way to start a new life, a life of peace and contentment.  Don would not want me living my life this way.  I've just taken some new medicine for anxiety and depression.  I hope it works.  I hope it helps me and I can find a way to eat again, and sleep again.  When I get up tomorrow, I'm going to try to be more positive, more hopeful, more alive.  Tonight I'm going to relax and just rest.  

River Monster

 

I am a keeper of the river. The Big Sandy flows behind my home and has for the 50 years that I've been on Earth. My grandmother taught me signs and portents. She taught me that if the birds hide in the trees during a rain that it will be a short rain, but if the birds are feeding in the rain, then it's going to rain a while. When the wind blows and you can see the back of the leaves, that a rain is coming. She also taught me something else. She taught me to believe dogs. For when a dog barks at nothing, he always sees what we cannot see. She taught me about a creature she called the River Monster. On moonless nights, she is silent, yet I can hear her. I can hear her in my soul. The fog rolls in on the river as white waves crashing on a distant beach. Black birds noisily seek their nightime home in the trees that hang low over Big Sandy as yellow eyes search for their next meal, the taste of blood fills each black heart. Vermin. The River Monster moves quickly through the sandy soil, causing bugs to skitter into tunnels in the sand and feral cats to squal in terror. The River Monster, as legend goes, feeds once a year around the end of October. A hapless victim, quite possibly a derilict or helpless deer, will fill her craw for a season. So she hunts and I can feel her awakening. My grandmother taught me, to keep me safe. When she hunts, the birds sound different, frantic with worry. The leaves on the riverbank trees will suddenly start to fall like drops of rain in a summer storm. The fog will start as whisps of smoke from a jack-o-lantern pumpkin then move in quickly as a blanket, covering the low brush along the shore. Dogs will bark at nothing. Signs and portents. As I am drawn to the top of the river bank, I know she is down there. Somewhere. It's time. Driven by a natural longing to feed, to satisfy her needs. The hairs on the back of my neck are signals of dread and fear. She is silent, yet I hear her. I also hear my grandmother's voice, "Be careful! One false move and you're next, my dear." Terror fills my soul as I search, for I have a longing to witness her beautiful horror, yet she eludes me. The fog is thick, rising upward from the water. Spiders have slung their webs from tree branch to tree branch and I can feel that I am wrapped in their stickiness, yet I continue on to my unknown reward. Sudden cat shrieks fill the cold night air and I feel the need to retch. Hoot owl warnings remind me of the question of "who" as in "who will be next". The darkness covers me in goose bumps, and envelopes me in his arms, yet I feel a thousand eyes on me. Two of those eyes are bulging and yellow, and staring straight at me. Stumbling down the hill, my movements quick and without any sense of direction, I find myself in her presence. Sheer terror and dread fill my God fearing soul, I know I have come too far, too close. Quick, ragged breaths are upon my neck, rage and hunger and desire are pouring toward me from black, souless heart. So I ran. I ran for my life screaming prayers to Heaven above for help, for safety, for freedom. Clawing the ground with nailess fingers, I surge upward on the hill, muscles burning and heart pounding. Terror induced screams fill the night air, coming from deep inside of me. My desire to live fills me with rage and fury and speed and I surge to the top of the dark, dank riverbank. Total exhaustion wraps around me as I reach the safety of my backyard. I cannot move, and I lay there as crickets again begin to sing their night songs. I never did see her, the River Monster that my Granny knew. My mind draws her form in my dreams, or nightmares. But I can feel her, her hot breath and her hollow eyes. She'll feed again next year, but I won't fall prey to her spell, I will not head to the river bank. Always remember this: if you live on the river, likely any river in any small town, stay away from it this time of year. The river holds secrets we do not want to know. And if your dog barks, listen to him.

143You, Vicki Burke Brown, Betty Grey and 140 others

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Encounter

 

Encounter

I am a keeper of the river. The Big Sandy flows behind my home and has for the 50 years that I've been on Earth. My grandmother taught me signs and portents. She taught me that if the birds hide in the trees during a rain that it will be a short rain, but if the birds are feeding in the rain, then it's going to rain a while. When the wind blows and you can see the back of the leaves, that a rain is coming. She also taught me something else. She taught me to believe dogs. For when a dog barks at nothing, he always sees what we cannot see. She taught me about a creature she called the River Monster.

On moonless nights, she is silent, yet I can hear her. I can hear her in my soul. The fog rolls in on the river as white waves crashing on a distant beach. Black birds noisily seek their nightime home in the trees that hang low over Big Sandy as yellow eyes search for their next meal, the taste of blood fills each black heart. Vermin. The River Monster moves quickly through the sandy soil, causing bugs to skitter into tunnels in the sand and feral cats to squal in terror. The River Monster, as legend goes, feeds once a year around the end of October. A hapless victim, quite possibly a derilict or helpless deer, will fill her craw for a season. So she hunts and I can feel her awakening. My grandmother taught me, to keep me safe. When she hunts, the birds sound different, frantic with worry. The leaves on the riverbank trees will suddenly start to fall like drops of rain in a summer storm. The fog will start as whisps of smoke from a jack-o-lantern pumpkin then move in quickly as a blanket, covering the low brush along the shore. Dogs will bark at nothing. Signs and portents.

As I am drawn to the top of the river bank, I know she is down there. Somewhere. It's time. Driven by a natural longing to feed, to satisfy her needs. The hairs on the back of my neck are signals of dread and fear. She is silent, yet I hear her. I also hear my grandmother's voice, "Be careful! One false move and you're next, my dear." Terror fills my soul as I search, for I have a longing to witness her beautiful horror, yet she eludes me. The fog is thick, rising upward from the water. Spiders have slung their webs from tree branch to tree branch and I can feel that I am wrapped in their stickiness, yet I continue on to my unknown reward. Sudden cat shrieks fill the cold night air and I feel the need to retch. Hoot owl warnings remind me of the question of "who" as in "who will be next". The darkness covers me in goose bumps, and envelopes me in his arms, yet I feel a thousand eyes on me. Two of those eyes are bulging and yellow, and staring straight at me. Stumbling down the hill, my movements quick and without any sense of direction, I find myself in her presence. Sheer terror and dread fill my God fearing soul, I know I have come too far, too close. Quick, ragged breaths are upon my neck, rage and hunger and desire are pouring toward me from black, souless heart. So I ran. I ran for my life screaming prayers to Heaven above for help, for safety, for freedom. Clawing the ground with nailess fingers, I surge upward on the hill, muscles burning and heart pounding. Terror induced screams fill the night air, coming from deep inside of me. My desire to live fills me with rage and fury and speed and I surge to the top of the dark, dank riverbank. Total exhausted wraps around me as I reach the safety of my backyard. I cannot move, and I lay there as crickets again begin to sing their night songs.

I never did see her, the River Monster that my Granny knew. My mind draws her form in my dreams, or nightmares. But I can feel her, her hot breath and her hollow eyes. She'll feed again next year, but I won't fall prey to her spell, I will not head to the river bank. Always remember this: if you live on the river, likely any river in any small town, stay away from it this time of year. The river holds secrets we do not want to know of.

And if your dog barks, listen to him.

1977 Flood

 

I graduated Prestonsburg High School in 1977 and I remember my senior year, just like most, as a season of dreams starting to be fulfilled.  It was a season of blooming, as I recall.  Don and I were dating.  Tennis was a real focus for me, I played tennis every single day.   I was a football statistician, a pretty big deal for a girl in Prestonsburg.   I also was a lifeguard at Archer Park, the biggest of all deals.  Oh I was one fine thing, driving around town in my faded red Toyota that sometimes wouldn't go in to reverse.  Often the football team would come to my rescue and push my car backwards out of my parking space at the high school.  In the winter months I worked at my dad's drug store which was also a hang out for the cool kids.  In the spring my grandmother fell and broke her hip.  Nannie was my mom's mom and she lived in a little apartment across the street from us.  Nannie had to be taken to a hospital in Lexington for surgery and of course mom went with her.  It was just  dad and I and the pets in our house in Blackbottom near the Big Sandy River.  In April 1977, the rain started to fall.  It fell hard for 4 days.  Black ominous clouds filled our skies for 4 days.  Prestonsburg received over 6 inches of rain, and I relied on my dad to calm me and tell me what to do with mom being away with Nannie.  On the day when it became clear that Prestonsburg was going to flood, we had to move all the merchandise at Fountain Korner.  The Burke brothers decided the safest thing to do was to carry all the contents from the store, every candy bar, camera, cosmetic, Coke, and Coumadin had to be hauled upstairs to the empty offices.  Dad let me bring my cat and my dog up to the store with me and let them stay in Ethel's office in the back. It was all hands on deck as items were pulled from peg boards, greeting cards were put in to boxes and carried up the steep stairs.  All the Fostoria glassware had to be carefully packaged. Easter was near, so the shelves were full with Easter baskets from Russell Stover candies.  All of those baskets had to be carried as well.  The glass bottles of the perfumes were delicate and had to be carefully packed.   Our merchandise was our life, our future and it didn't matter if they were ruined by flood mud or breakage.  The merchandise had to be protected.  

  I remember standing there and listening to the grown ups talking about the '57 flood.  High on the wall in the restaurant part of the store was a large clock.  I remember the grown ups saying that in '57 the water reached the clock.  I also remember seeing ambulances going by on Court Street taking the residents of Mountain Manor from the low part of town where it still sits to the old Prestonsburg General Hospital.  The hospital was near where Mountain Muse is now.  The residents of the nursing home were protected at the hospital.  As the day wore on we moved all that stuff up the stairs.  We were exhausted.  Dad told me that I needed to take Little Bit and Kitty and go on home, that I should park my powder blue Nova at Uncle Johnny's and walk home.  I did just that and I remember crying as I walked to Blackbottom.  Due to the nature of the neighborhood and the nature of flooding, the part of the neighborhood on University Drive floods before our property which is right on the river.  So my neighbors across the street had some water in their homes, but we didn't.  I nervously waited for dad to come home, I didn't want to be alone.  Thankfully dad made it home.  He had to park his car in the upper parking lot behind Kentucky/West Virginia Gas Company, which for the youngsters is that area upon the hill behind Wendy's.   Dad had to wade in flood water that was over University Drive and he had a black garbage bag full of money since the bank was closed.   It was a scary night for a 17 year old girl in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.  

We missed weeks and weeks of school my senior year.  The flood destroyed PHS gym floor.  We still had graduation services and we had to walk across a gym floor that was warped and twisted from the rushing water.  And right as the flood water went down and my mom was able to make it back home, my grandmother passed away alone in a Lexington hospital.    

I Am A Football Mom

I  am a Football Mom, by Kaye Willis

I will not be one of those football moms! That's what I tell myself as I stare into my newborn son's face. Someone else's son can be the one who dives on loose footballs on cold hard frozen ground. Other boys will be the ones who smear black stuff under their eyes and spit and cuss and stink. OK, so maybe he has a cute little blanket with a teddy bear running back, a little squeaky football, a hat that looks like a helmet, but that says NOTHING about me! My son will never have bruises on his shins from being kicked, cleat marks on his back and broken thumbs. My son will never know what it's like to have a concussion and order a Mountain Dew even though he hates Mountain Dew because he's all scrambled. And yes it's true that we've taken him to Blackcat football games since he was 3 months old, but that was just to show him off, because he will never play football!

I am not a football mom! That's what I still tell myself when I am working a roadblock in the middle of the road during a rainstorm. After all, flag football isn't real football, it's just my son and his friends playing, spending quality time with their dads on fall afternoons, right?. It doesn't mean a thing that he and my dad walk to the grocery every afternoon with a handful of quarters to get little plastic football helmets from the vending machine. It also is meaningless that we have to drag him home on Monday nights from his Pop's house during Monday Night Football. I will admit that I secretly keep score at his little flag games, but I'm sure everyone does it. And yes, sometimes I find that I'm sitting alone because I get a little loud now and then, but I can't be distracted by others anyway. But it will be fine, I'm sure this will all be over after this fall, because I am not a football mom!

I guess I'm a little bit of a football mom. I have to admit that when we took him to get measured for a helmet, I teared up a bit. He's so little to be putting on the armor of war. Helmet, pads, cleats, Good Lord, it's scary, but he loves it. I clean his room and see his little 3rd grade writing, drawing x's and o's on paper notebooks. I listen to him and his dad talk and he knows more about the game than I do! I find myself scouring grass and mud out of white football pants and loving it. Slowly the focus of the week is becoming those Saturday morning games at Archer Park, the fall leaves brilliantly falling like rain on bright green grass. The park filling with players and parents, cheerleaders and children, food and the festivities of football! I listen to their little voices, "Good game Joey!" And suddenly it hits me... I am a football mom!

I am a football mom. I wake up on Saturday mornings with bodies laying everywhere. Smelly, snoring bodies, sore from the previous week's battle. Soon those bodies will be waking up, ready for pounds of bacon and eggs and loaves of bread. Laughter will fill my kitchen as they begin to wake up and reminisce about funny things that the coaches did or said, the smell of farts in the middle of huddles. After a hearty breakfast they will hit my backyard for a quick game of touch/tackle before my friends, their moms arrive to pick them up. I've learned how to insert pads into football pants in a split second and how to squirt air into helmets with expertise. I've watched these little fellers grow and change. Soon these guys will be in high school, the big league, but for now it's so fun! Good times with great kids, time spent together because of a little oblong ball, a club that I feel so fortunate to belong to. I feel like these days will last forever!

I am a football mom and it's playoff time! This little town is a powder keg. The store windows are painted black and red. My son's number appears on many windows in town. I know he feels the stress, we do too! We have so much to do, money to raise, food to cook, fields to paint. Every week might be his last week. It could be the last time this year that we will know the high of seeing him lead the team out of that tunnel and into the fireworks. It might be the last time I have to worry that I'm going to see him laying injured in a trough of mud. Agony and elation go hand in hand when you're a football mom. Our school song has always been "Loyal and True" and that song embodies my spirit, I am loyal and true. I've drank the Kool Aid, I'm all in. So that's me, hiding behind the bleachers because I'm so nauseated with nerves. That's also me screaming at that ref because he's an idiot and deserves it. I know it's normal for a woman to own 46 sweat shirts and not a single dress. It's also normal to remember numbers by thinking of football jersey numbers. If a phone number is 1721, why that's Joey and John, I'll never forget that! A normal dinner is a great selection of gas station roller food and M&M's. It's totally fine to spend more money on film and processing each week than dinner. Isn't white shoe polish and air horns on everyone's shopping list? Don't all women count as their only friends other women with whom the only common denominator is football? Isn't it normal to worry about getting trampled when you make a tunnel? Don't all women talk about streamers and concession stands and hot dog sauce recipes?

I used to be a football mom. I listen to the fireworks each Friday night with a mixture of sadness and longing. My thoughts wander back to those days that we stood together in a field of battle; players, coaches, parents. We laughed and we cried, we worked and carried and sweated and froze. We faced Friday Night Lights with fear and excitement. And trembling hearts. We've watched our sons be transformed from babies to warriors, we've become warriors too! I know that other football moms are around me, in different stages of being that football mom. So as the second season begins, and your sons will be heroes, please know that you - a football mom - is a hero too!