I wish that there been an awareness at the time to expand traditional behavior in dealing with those who came home.... in other words Raymond, I wish to Hell that I had been able to fully comprehend what you went through and what you were going through and how trying to carry on a normal life let alone an over the top relationship tipped you upside down and sideways. You did try to tell me pieces of your pain but I still just didn't get the depth. I am deeply sorry for compounding these issues by being bullheaded and pistol ready. I am very grateful that we have been able to continue all these years through all our drama in our not normal fashion and still feel and carry the love that drove us at the very beginning.
WELCOME HOME RAYMOND!
I can't even begin to fathom how much having this day Memorialized affected him. This war ran deep. It took over a generation of unsuspecting folks at home as well as those who served in ways that are still manifesting today.
I wish that there been an awareness at the time to expand traditional behavior in dealing with those who came home.... in other words Raymond, I wish to Hell that I had been able to fully comprehend what you went through and what you were going through and how trying to carry on a normal life let alone an over the top relationship tipped you upside down and sideways. You did try to tell me pieces of your pain but I still just didn't get the depth. I am deeply sorry for compounding these issues by being bullheaded and pistol ready. I am very grateful that we have been able to continue all these years through all our drama in our not normal fashion and still feel and carry the love that drove us at the very beginning.
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"There will be another Angel around the throne tonight"
Raymond would get a good laugh over this "Heathen Angel" thought. For me, not so funny but I can see it's appeal to him. It's strangely comforting to receive communications from him in the form of Songs and Lyrics. We had a few favorite songs. We both had favorite singers and groups and although I loved most of his, he was not all that fond of mine. Mostly he tolerated them but sometimes the Teaser in him would just take over and be ruthless for awhile. Generally we would collapse in laughter at the end of these episodes which as a rule led to some of the brief moments of respite in the intenseness of love, tenderness and laughter as mentioned previously. Intense being the operative word. We did nothing without intenseness. "I'm just jealous of the Angels around the Throne tonight!" For whatever reason, at this time it seems that he has chosen songs that I instantly relate to and zero in on what he is trying to tell me. I told him even Heathens needed Angels or folks who acted like Angels and he hesitated, paused and redirected. So here we are with a great Irish singer and a beautiful heartfelt song stating my truth at this time in this plane on earth while the "Irish" part of it reflects our Black Irish Heritage, the undeniable blood evidence of our forging and the inescapable path of our future. The songs he sends to me make perfect sense. The timing and delivery are spot on and the look, feel and sense of the whole operation is done in true Raymond Fashion with a few feathers hanging out of his mouth.. but I digress. I'm truly thankful for this plethora of information, communication and opportunity. It had been a very long dry spell without him. "I didn't know today would be our last Or that I'd have to say goodbye to you so fast I'm so numb, I can't feel anymore Prayin' you'd just walk back through that door And tell me that I was only dreamin' You're not really gone as long as I believe" Way back when, when I moved back into the State all those years ago, his only Son had a friend that lived a few doors down that had a heart of gold, not much sense and was wilder and crazier than anything I had ever seen... if that was even possible. This kid was over the top. If you were on his side, you had no better protection and a laugh a minute. If you were on his wrong side you had no worse enemy, there was no mercy and no humor. Fun loving, wilder than a March Hare, crazy, loyal and big hearted he found himself a girlfriend while they were teens that somehow was able to bring him down a notch or two so that at least a finger stayed in reality. She was able to ride with him in the wind of his life through dramas that may have surpassed Raymond's and mine or not... it's hard to say but this friend of His only Son lived extremely hard and his loving relationship with the girlfriend, like ours was tumultuous for years and yet finally miraculously two or three years ago he came around, pulled his head out, they got back together and got married in August 2016. The wedding pics are beautiful... and so is his Obituary which includes that contrary to rumor, he was not a hit man for the mob..... Cause of his Death, like Raymond's was Cardiac Arrest two days after our Irish Day. They have a new babe and now she is utterly fucking alone. I can't make sense of this, spent the night dreaming about the whole thing and couldn't really figure out why as I personally have not seen this young man for several years... heard many stories but have not seen him. I finally asked what the message was, why does this have such an impact on me. Raymond's imprint was swift. Even had our Love gotten it's shit together in this lifetime and we had been able to go forth into the world fairly normally together as we had planned in the early days, there was this small problem of no guarantee no proof of life to sustain it in the physical world. I would have gotten too comfortable. He would still have left early and likely left me and ours much as the new Wife is today... not only totally adrift but with more mouths to feed and completely unprepared for this twist of loss to be without him after finally getting right... and I would not have climbed out of the twist. Raymond's choice for us did in fact prepare us for his early departure as much as it hurt and as much as it sucks. Genetics have a way of trumping best wishes and long range plans. I was prepared for that shoe to drop and yet when it did... I was still totally lost and adrift without him, blindsided. It doesn't matter how much time I ended up walking alone before he died because in Life I knew we would be reunited and with that there would be a physical continuing ... to see, to hear, to touch. When Death finally came, it put this in a whole new light and with a different delivery system ... He made sure that when he did pass, he passed in the Loving arms of just Myself and His Only Son. He sent his message loud and clear to us and to others. The continuing continues now without interference. We did not have an agreement for "til death do us part". Parting at death was never entertained. "So I'll hold you as close as I can Longing for the day, when I see your face again" Now he plays songs for me and I listen sometimes wondering what in world he is up to. He wakes me up with his laughter and leads me to some of our inside jokes. Occasionally he sends me one of his birds or one of his or our friends. I laugh, I cry, I wonder why he waited til now to tell me. I feel his intense Love and also his frustration with our early days and years and Russian Roulette. I untangle memories that have been frozen in time, I complete unfinished arguments, compliments, arrangements, laugh at the inside jokes, address miscommunications and faulty presumptions on both sides ... and I still melt at his touch just like I always did. "Your Love lives on inside of me and I will hold on tight" I'll take that Lifeboat! No matter how far we stretched the limits with each other, in sweet repose when I was at rock bottom and in sweet repose when he was at rock bottom, we held and held on to each other in Love, a Love that for some reason just could not get it's shit together for the life of it ...at least in this time and place. We never rekindled... we always continued. "You were the first, you'll be the last Wherever you go, I'll be with you Whatever you want, I'll give it to you Whenever you need someone To lay your heart and head upon Remember, after the fire, after all the rain I will be the flame" ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Jealous of the Angels Jenn Bostic, sung by Donna Taggart I didn't know today would be our last Or that I'd have to say goodbye to you so fast I'm so numb, I can't feel anymore Prayin' you'd just walk back through that door And tell me that I was only dreamin' You're not really gone as long as I believe There will be another angel Around the throne tonight Your love lives on inside of me, And I will hold on tight It's not my place to question, Only God knows why I'm just jealous of the angels Around the throne tonight You always made my troubles feel so small And you were always there to catch me when I'd fall In a world where heroes come and go Well God just took the only one I know So I'll hold you as close as I can Longing for the day, when I see your face again But until then God must need another angel Around the throne tonight Your love lives on inside of me And I will hold on tight It's not my place to question Only God knows why I'm just jealous of the angels Around the throne tonight Singin' hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah I'm just jealous of the angels Around the throne Tonight Written by Barrett Yeretsian, Jenn Bostic, Jimmy Fortune, Zach Rundquist • Copyright © Fortune Publishing, LLC, BMG Rights Management US, LLC
What a long winter this has been!
Folks in my home state are still digging out in one part of the country and already seeing floods in another part. Even the always present wind has joined the extreme behavior creating more than the normal havoc. Then sadly in other areas of the midwest and Texas, there have already been devasting destructive life taking fires. Very crazy weather with very sad outcomes.... Spring and summer retail items are starting to appear on the shelves as well, I think a little sooner than I've seen them in the past. I never understood "why" so early until I became involved in selling... then it became very clear. It still drives me nuts but the "why" is due to folks wanting to move on to the next thing as quickly as possible after a Season or Event. This drives stock quantity and availability projections as we go through the year. Basically folks are "done with" Christmas and planning their garden, yard, home improvement project before New Years... It's hard to tell when consumers will start to buy and what will really be needed versus what may be needed and very hard to tell what the Hot Picks are going to be. If I wait til a more sensible April or May to put items up, they will literally either already be gone or disappear entirely within a few days of my find so it is a never ending loop looking for summer items in January and Christmas items in June and July. Enjoy what Spring there may be this year and Best Wishes for a Great Summer!
"We were a strange love, her and I.
Too wild to last Too rare to break." ~ Atticus ~ It's a hard thing to transition from the previous post to another life or topic. Some clean up probably needs to be done. I'm pretty sure many of you have had tumultuous other worldly relationships so you will understand. Literally hundreds if not thousands of memories of Raymond have rushed through to me since the last Hi noted in the previous post... many giving opportunity to reflect on and acknowledge and support his statement later in our lives that neither one of us had been taught how to have a healthy relationship or for that matter any relationship. This moment of clarity came during an "I Love You but I Hate You" rant after he was busted for pretending to be drunk during a beat on the door and let me in episode while we were continuing ... before I moved myself and his only Son out of town for the 2nd time. He told me that he just wanted the Love but the Hate in all the drama we had put each other through just kept taking over as well as all those so called friends around us that didn't help either. I'm not saying this quite right but it really doesn't matter as it's another one of the unspoken things between 2 people who have Forged through the Fires of Heaven and Hell. Fact is our primary issue was Vietnam. Too soon back, too much PTSD, too much time there in his head and not enough time here in the present. Too much guilt over things that he and his Battalion had done. Additionally he lost a friend on the Quad who had been ordered to take his place while he was being reprimanded. He felt that his life should have been taken and not the life of his friend. Combine that with losing his brother in a car wreck with the same plot, Raymond should have been driving and not his brother. Combine that with getting run out of his home and State by the Father of his then girlfriend, the Mother of his Only Daughter... whom he thought at the time he would never see....all this led to countless times of telling me that he didn't deserve me, he didn't deserve a life and he did not deserve to have anything normal... yet the look in his eyes claimed every sweet minute of life he could get... and that's not counting his home life growing up with a dirt poor bunch of siblings in rural America run amuck. And that's just on his side. My side didn't have all the "current" players but it sure had a bunch of past players involved in my Parents lives that affected mine to the nth degree. I felt guilty for things that I was not even alive yet to see or do and I was held accountable for them as well. Combined with being raised as an only child on a Ranch in the middle of nowhere when I had half brothers and sisters 2 miles away that were not allowed to see me or my parents. Combined with being farmed out to over 30 family friends and even more Relatives to live with off an on until I was 16 due to my Mom always being sick and in the hospital - I was the poster child for a stable partner. When I said that Raymond and I knew each other other immediately, we really did. He was right, we just didn't have the skills to get through it in a "regular" manner. So we chose to get through it in a highly irregular manner. Til Death do us Part was never in our agreement. "Just stopped by to say Hi..." A few nights ago he woke me up rather slowly with his classic tease laughter... the first was off in the distance as if in another room, the second and third were so real and so close and so intense that in my semi awake state I reached to swat him as I had done thousands of times. I couldn't figure out how he had gotten away from me because he was so close that I could feel and smell him ... Heartbroken and elated at the same time I cried myself back to sleep. That afternoon, his Only Son came in talking about some Vet movie that Stiffler (Matt Best) had made that was to die for - Range 15, the Black Rifle Coffee youtube stuff etc. and the dark sense of humor that we came to love and live with through Raymond. Some time later I found the channels and started watching some of the uploads. I found Raymond's home that afternoon.... same stuff that I lived with 46 years ago and every day of every year since then was right there a click of a button away. One of them in particular set me laughing hysterically for a couple of hours before I cried like crazy for the rest of the night. The theme was about you know you're a Vet if... it included a clip of the wife driving and the Vet backseat driving while sitting in the passenger seat and I totally lost it... this is the tease laughter that woke me up, this is me swatting him to stop spinning me up with "go left here no right no MISS THAT no go left STOP GUN IT BACK UP pull over right here"... my Hell it was instant playback of Raymond making me a better race driver or Raymond making me make my car believe it was a heavy duty pick up truck or us going to get a burger or Raymond taking me to some new outdoor place for peace and quiet... because he could not go to places that were loud and or that had any type of bang.. . I could tell him to shut up a hundred times, he would laugh, I would swat, he would laugh, I would tell him to shut up, he would give a new direction and this would go on and on... and then when he could see that I was completely flustered and ready to plant the flag right up his ass he would pull back a little in the passenger seat, grin from ear to ear, put his hands up in a dandy pose, flick his cigarette and say "home James".... and I would melt. "You were the first, you'll be the last Wherever you go, I'll be with you Whatever you want, I'll give it to you Whenever you need someone To lay your heart and head upon Remember, after the fire, after all the rain I will be the flame" If you haven't lived it you don't get it. If you get it then find your Forged Mate whether dead or alive and tell them how much you truly love them... whether you ever get your act together in this life or not really doesn't make one damn bit of difference .... state your Love and then keep a spot of Honor for them in your Heart rather than a spot of fury, anger and denial. Any way you cut it, they are ALWAYS ON YOUR MIND |
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