"Letters to my brother...in jail"

December 20, 2007...

I think of you ever day. I promse our mother everyey week that I will be sencding off the nesh fresh installment and yet…

Have been in a dar place. I am better. In retrospect…now tha tI am better, I just ffl selfish. We are gearing up around her for Christmas. For a change, am not overtaxed, stressed out of my gourd. I put oup the tree, pu up a garlan over hta eamntle, iI wrpped the Itllian cypress trees in te fron yar with lights, pu u[p wereaths on the front windows. And callee it good Kevin has been tyring to win the business of Amaretta_hess (Arn & Hammner) and it llokds positive. Plese pray. If he winds this acound, he will be te firs. He I the most dedicated, hard-working man I have ever known’; and ans a result, Ia m the most hardest, dedicated, har-working woman I have ever known. We just get by.. Belive me. I find myself reading “Rule your retirement” articles in popular retiriement subscriptions; I am drunk.

January 7, 2008

Hoooly shat. That little pile of crap up there was a letter I started you one night after having too much to drink. I was missing you. I opened up that file yesterday and almost cried. My finger was poised over the “delete” key, but then I stopped and read it again, decided to keep it.

I have done a lot of searching my heart lately about myself, what I hope to accomplish, the habits that I need to get rid of, and decided that I will come back to this infamous letter to my brother on December 20th, 2007, just to see how f’d up being drunk is.
Forgive me for even attaching it in this letter to you, but that sorry-ass little paragraph just about sums up what I have been doing with myself every evening for the past -- I don’t know -- too long. I even have these astonishing, heart-rending excuses for “drinking too much” but so what?

Powerful words, words to make a person give up or wake up -- “so what?”

Moving on, congratulations on surviving another new year. I considered the typical “happy new year’s” wish, but figured you might laugh at that. But in retrospect, I know you will look at this time in your life and count your blessings.
I know that I do.

I’m very proud of your hard-fought fire fighting education, plus the electricity training you have. Electricity and fire scare the living crapola out of me, so I am duly, duly impressed, brother.

I’m so sorry for my lack of communication. Damn, just read my mind, okay, because you are on it too much of the time. You are such an abominable distraction, my dear.

I pray for you… and pray for you… and pray for you. Know that.
As you can probably discern, especially from the last letter, I have been really searching my soul about my religion. Not one moment have I doubted my Creator and his love for me, but something in my mind is trying to stretch me. I’m wanting to know more and more about “why”.

I know this is normal for humans at some point in their life. I have never had the need to do that, but now that I do, it has just been spiritual torture. I have been writing poetry for the last six months or so. Kevin seems astounded and wants to know where it comes from. I have met a real, live rock star, And we’ve become great friends. She wants to use my poetry in some songs. I will tell you more about that in the next letter, it is unbelievable.

I have to be honest, I don’t know how to answer to anybody, other than it comes from a part of me that I haven’t met yet. A part of me that I would like to get to know. I use the analogy of talking in tongues. I have never considered that phenomenon, though I believe it.

One of the many times Kevin asked me, “where does this come from?” the strangest, but most true answer just came out. “Kevin, I self-hypnotize, and then my mind speaks to me in tongues.”

My response and my poetry have puzzled me. I have done enough research on the Internet and have been taken to so many unbelievable, ironic sites that I know that God is leading me somewhere, and I am trying to be patient. If you read my poetry, then go to Rosicrucian sites, or those that speak heavily of Kaballah, some of my poetry is almost direct quote -- and this scares me, because I’m not sure that those places are where I need to be. Both claim to be non-religious, but a platform upon which to strengthen your religion and personal growth. Ideals, strategies thousands of years old, ancient secrets of growth and learning. A place where people that have been enlightened eventually are lead. (???)

And that is all I’m willing to say about that right now, because I do not want to influence you toward a path that I’m unsure of and am mostly doubtful about myself. I am just trying to come to terms with God and where I need to be. The last thing I’m looking for is some cult, sect or secret brotherhood, ya know?

It is raining outside today. I can’t imagine anything that thrills me more than a rainy day. I’m not sure if it is my gutters or some of the pipes on my roof, but it almost sounds like I have a metal roof when it rains. You remember the large deck with all of the slate, plus the pool. I think the rain drops hitting all of that just sound amazing. I can still remember what the rain sounded like when it hit the porch in our old house in Queen City -- really loud and cool -- big plops falling out of that big tree and rolling off the roof onto the little patio, because we didn’t have gutters, I don’t think.

I'm finally recovering from the ass-whippin' known as the common cold.
Several times this week I found myself complaining about the misery that accompanies the cold -- but then I reminded myself what my friend is going through -- lung cancer. Very rough stuff.

Regarding Mere' and the Navy... I just don't know. She backed down right before taking the oath. I certainly didn't pressure her. However... she has gotten herself into a deep rut. She dropped out of college. She is plenty intelligent enough, just doesn't have the maturity yet to set her ducks in a row. The notion of studying outside of the classroom, to her, is just unthinkable.
This just breaks my heart.

We've been patient. We've had pep rallies. We've given deadlines. She honestly, honestly, honestly believes that it is her choice and right to set her own schedule and run her own life. She can't calculate yet what it takes in self-sacrifice in order to keep up the sort of habits she is so fond of, such as... sleeping in until 2 p.m. every day, staying up all night, cavorting around in Fairyland, a/k/a MySpace.

Things have gone from the point of ridiculous to just plain unbelievable with her. As you know, we have made her leave our home on a couple of occasions (I know that sounds extreme). In my mind, this should have been a "wakeup strategy." She ends up in the homes of friends whose parents just don't give a damn about what the young people are doing. We have always taken her back after understandings and agreements, which eventually fall off within a couple months.
She is irritated because I will not pay for her education at the tattoo institute. Yes, there is such an institute, and it is over in the College Station area. She claims they offer financial aid. ( I'm scratching my head on this one) She insists I should respect "her choice", which I tell her that I do, I just simply choose not to pay for it, "my choice." Take advantage of the "financial aid."
Really, I need to draw the line somewhere. I think paying for an education at the tattoo institute will be about as satisfying to me as taking my hard-earned bills from our bank account and burning them, one-by-one, with a cheap, plastic cigarette lighter.

Knowing her, she'll be the most famous tattoo artist in the world, will have her own TV tattoo series. She can then go on live TV and announce, "See, Mom, I told you so!"
Go ahead, darling, knock yourself out. I will be your biggest fan.

Jeez, I never ordered a child like her, haha. I do have faith (somewhere deep, deep, deep inside of me) that she's going to make it just fine. When she does make it, I will be very proud, as long as it is something she was willing to fight for.

I was touched by an interview I saw on the news a couple months ago, and it just spoke to me -- Mere'! I'm not sure if you had opportunity to read about or see (you get TV time?) an interview of the forensic artist that made the rendering of "Baby Grace", Riley Anne Sawyers. Riley was the tiny 2-yr-old child that was found here several months ago in a container in a Galveston bay. Horrible, sad tragedy. The interview was highlighting the artist, Lois Gibson, who is world-renown for her gift.

Mere' is such an intricate, bizarre artist. If you could see her portfolio, you would probably have the same "ah-ha moment," that I had. I think Mere' would make a terrific forensic artist.
I am pasting on a bit of the story that profiles this forensic artist. It is a CNN article and has a link that shows one of the artist’s actual interviews. I have seen other interviews of her that are much better, but this video link is good...

CNN) -- A man in the medical examiner's office pushed back the cheeks on Baby Grace's corpse to put a smile on her tiny, decaying face. That's how forensic artist Lois Gibson captured the open-mouthed grin with spangled risotto-sized teeth. It was one of the girl's few features that had survived six weeks in a shed during a Texas summer and nearly two months in Galveston Bay.
But it was the way the blond toddler looked outside of the black body bag that made Gibson draw large, lid-filling eyes on the picture of the girl that led to identifying Riley Ann Sawyers.
"She was so very, very small. She looked like the size of a child that you would change the diaper on, just laying there on a metal gurney like a giant stainless steel cookie sheet," Gibson says just above a sad, disbelieving whisper before her voice shifts and she's strong and scientific. "If you are very, very small, then the iris, that colored part of your eye, takes up almost the entire eye opening."
The corpse's decay helped Gibson perfect the gentle downward slope of Riley's eyes. "The decomposition was such that I could see that bone on her face," she said. "And her eyebrows were going to follow her little ridge."
Gibson said she felt her blood pressure rising during her morgue visit. It passed quickly, she said, and "I turned into the artist. I was going to make the best picture possible and get every piece of anatomy right and find her name and get justice for her." In spite of what lay on the gurney, Gibson said, "I knew that she was beautiful, and the picture would reach out to people who knew her and loved her." Watch what the sketch artist has to say about the case »
And it did. Five days after the release of Gibson's precise post-mortem sketch, Riley's grandmother in Ohio recognized the sweet face and contacted police.
It's the kind of result police hope for when they summon one of the handful of forensic artists across the nation who can re-create the faces of maimed, burned and decaying bodies. Gibson spent what she described as just "three intense minutes" with Riley's body that day. It was all she needed. It was all she could take.

There’s more, okay, but enough on that subject. Oh, wait. A bit more on Mere'. She moved out of the house this week, for about the fifth time. We had a confrontation. I called her downstairs because I needed to speak with her about a few normal, misc. things. She was busy on the computer, probably MySpace, and chose to ignore me. About the sixth call up to her I was furious.

When she finally did come downstairs, she told me that the candle that I had burning smelled like "ass". She isn't necessarily trying to be rude, this is just her very, very strange sense of humor. I have learned to live with it.

I ask her how various things were coming along. She replied that she had been taking care of those things. I asked her to sit down in the sunroom with me, spend some time, and we would go over some of those things. She hit the roof.

Chandler, now 13, had come down for a snack. He butts in, starts defending her defensiveness. I stayed calm, because I have learned to do this -- believe me it is not easy --
Soon she will not be insurable on our health policy, and she needs that. Her time is running out to make some important decisions…. and that if she continued to disrespect me in my own home....

She responds, well, fine, if you're kicking me out, (I wasn’t) there's nothing I can do about it, and proceeds to go upstairs to pack. Chandler starts howling, accusing me of "giving up" on his sister.
Just an example of another normal conversation that got completely out of hand. A mother that asks too many nosey questions...

Okay, I'm just going to reel it all in here, because it will sound ridiculous to you if I keep going. It sounds ridiculous to me.

A person can slice it any way they want to …
that’s what you get for indulging your kids -- that’s what you get for not indulging your kids enough -- that’s what you get for letting them talk to you that way -- That’s what you get for not talking to them enough -- that’s what you get for allowing them to watch the wrong TV, look at the wrong books, the wrong art, allowing them to use MySpace, for not taking them to church enough, for taking them to church too much --

Brother, I know one thing -- when my friends have these issues with their kids -- and they do, and worse, believe me -- I am full of all kinds of smart advice and sage wisdom. But when the rubber hits the road over here on my street, it’s a totally different state of mind…believe me.

Damn this is hard. It is hurtful and astonishing how children that are raised in a nurturing, loving, generous, intelligent environment can bite down so hard upon the hand that feeds them.

I had an interesting conversation with a young couple we met in Jefferson last month. We were at a restaurant together and struck up a conversation about kids -- something that is easy to do when you have them. The young man said that his brother, Jud, had always struggled through school and college, which was rough on their parents. They couldn’t understand why Jud couldn’t or wouldn’t just buckle down. It wasn’t because he wasn’t intelligent, but it just wasn’t his thing; he couldn’t make himself do it. So Jud struck out to Hollywood to be an actor, eventually landed in New York, doing theater work -- and now everything Jud does seems to be touched by the hands of the Lord, because he is now acting, writing and producing Broadway productions. Jud is happily married and has children. I commented to this man, wow, I can listen to this objectively and say, more power to Jud! Jud is my Hero! -- But if that had been my child on that same path, I would have torn my hair out. Now that may sound hypocritical, but it is just not the same when it is your child, does it? The young man said, “Yeah, exactly.”

Shoes fit differently on other feet, don’t they? Well, yes, they do.

My Mere' is that special case, like Jud. The child that has to try everything once and make all of her own wrong mistakes. Either she's not smart enough or just too proud to listen and learn from the mistakes and successes of other people. Or maybe she’s like Jud.
It's time for her to go. I know that doesn't sound so great, coming from her mother. Obviously I’m not doing her any favors, but just allowing things to grow in the wrong direction -- hell, what I am saying, I’m not allowing, I’m doing everything I can -- but I know that God expects us to let go and let nature take its course. That is so hard, but the harder we try, the more boogered up things become, it seems.

We have tapped into every energy source that we have to help and encourage her. I believe that now she needs to enlist. It has worked wonders for Kris.

Do you know what the last admonishment I gave him I dropped him off at the airport? "Do not make friends with those people, do not trust them, because that is not your job." (sigh)
Well, here we go. I have a whole new set of worries regarding Kris, and I will fill you in on that soon.

I'm working on a blog site now, in collaboration with Kris, that will show what he's up to -- and it's pretty fascinating. I won't even give you a hint right now, because I just want the words the speak.

Chandler, his father and I had a conversation last night about grades. A very sore subject with Chan. His privileges have been severely curtailed because of his steadily declining report card grades, and he's not having any of it. He's decided he needs to be angry and rebel. Remember, he's 13. He's right about everything. Daily we have conversations that go something like this...

"You don't ever take my side."

"You think taking my stuff away from me is going to work -- well, it's not!"

(he’s actually right -- but what in the hell does work??)

"This is the last time I'm ever going to get to see Lindsey, because she's moving to Colorado, so you should at least let me go to the movies with her tonight." -- it goes without saying that Jake wants me to pay for all or part of the deal.

"That teacher is making stuff up about me."

"That teacher is stupid!"

* insert everything he requests " * -- should be my choice!"

"My stupid classes are too far apart, so those tardies aren't my fault."

(sigh) I could go on...really. And then the other 10% of the time he's sweet and smiling. He's smart enough, somehow, to know that he has to put in some good time, and that good time gets him lots of mileage.

Things that put Chan in a really great mood:

Instead of asking what he has for homework, mom has a discussion with him about the latest motocross heros, such as Travis PIstrano or Jimmy Stewart.

Mom is too tired to cook and decides to order pizza.

Mom picked up the right kind of chips and snacks. There is plenty of Dr. Pepper under the counter, you know.

We allow one of his friends come over to spend the night and believe him as he swears that they will not trash out the whole upstairs.

Mom tells him that she needs to go to the mall, but that he had better not ask for anything -- yeah, right.

This child also gets a lot of mileage from his sheer beauty, and I'm not kidding. He has an interesting look about him. Not a traditional quarterback look but a Johnny Depp beauty that just makes the ladies go gaga. Even his teachers will admit to this.

Most of his problems at school stem from the fact that school just eats into his social time. Since kindergarten, I have had this type comment from most all of his teachers, "Chandler is the center of attention, loves to visit with his neighbors. Chandler should be a teacher one day, because he has an uncanny ability to draw the attention of...well...just about every kid in the class.

Chan's been sent to the principal quite a few times for his socializing. Interestingly, our principals are mostly female here and are very charmed by this boy. How many times have I gotten calls from a very sweet, fluttering voice that I mistake for the secretary, but is, in fact, the principal. She and Chan have just had an understanding. Chan has convinced her that she has changed his life; that she is the one that has encouraged him to buckle down and make his lessons a priority. She believes this.

I sit on the other side of these conversations, just shaking my head, trying not to smile.
What am I going to do? Jeez.

When I get Kris's blog put together, I will send you the link. I won't comment about it until I get your opinion, which I value a great deal. Interestingly, when I read Kris’ s letters Kevin, he looked kind of thoughtful for a moment and then commented, “you know, it almost sounds like you’re talking to your brother there.”

Kris came home with some pretty harrowing videos of being pepper-sprayed and inserting IVs all willy-nilly. Imagine watching the loony tunes version of how to insert an IV, with all the spurting and half-assing around.

While Kris was here, he spent an entire paycheck on a gun at Gander Mountain, something called an m3, I think. Looks like a machine gun to me. He promptly took it to East Texas and went deer hunting with it.

Jack died in November. As hard as it was to watch him keep on, it was unbelievable when we got that phone call late one night. We immediately started beating ourselves up for not visiting enough, not doing enough, you know, and rehashing all of the sad, bittersweet feelings that came along with watching his body essentially wither away while he was still alive. Rough stuff for a family to go through.

I hope a cure for Parkinson’s is forthcoming, very soon. But sadly it was not soon enough for Jack. We had him cremated, for obvious reasons -- he just didn’t look human.

The cremation process was pretty bizarre. I was told by the man at the crematorium that I must keep Jack’s ashes in the refrigerator, because they were still biological. I freaked, yelling at Kevin -- you’d better ice your dad down in a cooler in the garage, because he’s not going in my refrigerator!

I was serious at the time, but now we can almost smile about that memory.

When weekend all of those bad ice storms hit, Kevin suddenly needed to have closure, (dangerous traveling conditions be damned) so here we go.

From the hotel to the church is probably an hour’s drive, but in the icy conditions, multiply the drive time by 2.5. We get halfway there, then Kevin smacks his forehead and says, oh, no! I left dad in the hotel!

Well, I almost started crying, then he starts laughing. (???) After the memorial service, after everyone stood up and shared funny-cute memories about Jack, and we were all getting ready to go to the graveside service, Kevin held out the urn and asked the girls which of the two wanted to take grandpa home for a visit first? They didn’t much care for that question.

Cremation humor, you know…

I got a sweet Christmas card from Roland. He mentioned a call from you and how much he enjoyed hearing from you. He really made over the fact that he is so proud of his sweet, smart, pretty children and grandchildren -- mentioning all of us by name.

He is really proud of a new puppy, seven weeks old. I don’t blame him, I know what it is like to have a puppy that young -- even dingos, hyenas, orangutans and scorpions are cute at that age. He is especially proud of the fact that it is part lab, part wolf (whu???)

Well, good for Dad and his little wolfkin. He also notes that Trixie loves the pup and has taken it as her son. Sounds like life in Dad’s world is good…and I’m ever grateful. And the beat goes on.