Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, pick up his Cross and follow Me.”
Matthew 16:24
The cross is getting somewhat lighter. No doubt, in His great love, He has dispatched angels to help me carry it. It was heavier when I first took it up, weighted down by remorse, sorrow, shame, grief and suffering. Then, just when I had grown accustomed to its weight, a heavier load was added - the crushing weight of responsibility. Responsibility to the poor, disabled and elderly; responsibility to Carolyn, who fell by the way under her cross; responsibility to David, who, though he loved the Lord, was not willing to shoulder his cross; responsibility to Arizona’s poor, elderly and disabled who had lost needed services; and responsibility to the United States of America to which I have pledged my allegiance forever.
This manuscript has been difficult, at best, to write. At worst, it has wrenched my guts apart every day as I tap out keyboard strokes. But, I find that in taking up the cross of this manuscript, my cross of responsibility has lightened; when this work is finished, I will have done all that I am capable of doing in a fight against what appears to be the impossible odds of the entire local, state and federal governments. As one of “We, the People,” I will have fought my own war, bombed my own targets, dressed my own wounds, and will stand worthily with those who have fought in other, bigger, far away wars for the sake of the Constitution and the freedom of the United States. At the age of sixty-three, I have been called to active duty as a desktop warrior and a cyberspace revolutionary.
It is about here that some readers will drift away from this manuscript. Some readers will not understand what they call “religion,” mingling with “facts.” I cannot separate the two; Jesus Christ is a fact. It is a fact that He has brought me through the most terrible time of my life. It is also a fact that I did not want to go on – did not want to even live, much less write it all down in a prose format. But He called me to pick up my cross and follow Him. He let me know, early on in this battle, that the war was more than about me, even more than about Carolyn and David; but about our elderly; about an America whose very foundation has been eroded by lies, corruption and “shady deals”; about an America that must be brought back to the people or lost forever.
The beginning of the events that were to unravel, like a rattlesnake striking to kill, started with a vision of Great Beauty: I was lying on the sofa at the end of the day in late spring of 2002. David was lying on the other sofa playing Tomb Raider, and I was trying to block out the noise of Laura Croft fighting off attackers.
Sometimes, when I am relaxing and just talking to the Lord in my mind, He will show me sweeping panoramas of great beauty inside my closed eyes. Sometimes the vision will be a sunrise or sunset behind magnificent mountains; an emerald-green sea lapping at a sugar-sand shore; laughing children at play; birds in graceful flight, or lush, verdant forests, carpeted with velvety moss and dotted with fragrant flowers.
This particular late spring evening of 2002, I was quietly grieving for my brother who had recently passed away, and (as usual) asking the Lord to show me something beautiful to calm and refresh my tired spirit. Suddenly, in the space between my closed eyelids and my pupils, I saw it. A luscious, red, ripe tomato with its vine curled around it. My mind smiled. “Lord,” my mind spoke, “why are you showing me a tomato?”
After a few moments, the tomato was closer – much like an object in a zoom lens camera – and, not wanting to interrupt my reverie, I consciously caught my breathing and slowed it down, trying to hold on to the Beauty that was before me for as long as possible. There, for me to see, was the living, beating, beautiful embodiment of all Love – the precious Sacred Heart of Jesus! From my closer perspective, I could see that it was not a tomato vine wrapped around, but the crown of thorns! “Oh, thank You, Father!” my mind spoke to Him. “Thank You!”
The Beautiful Vision lasted a few moments more, and then was gone from my sight. I opened my eyes and sat up. I felt the enormity of His Love encompass me; all I wanted to do was to serve Him and to be loved by Him.
I am very aware that I did not deserve to see the Glorious Beauty that I saw that evening. I am very aware that I, the most imperfect of sinners, did not deserve to bear earthly witness to God’s Love. But I did. He freely sent to me “Love that I could see!” despite my carnal state. I know, beyond any doubt, that He loves us all equally – if He can love me that much, He can love the most despised that much! I will not turn this manuscript into a confessional, but my past sins are HUGE. They are also forgiven. They have been forgiven for over two thousand years, since the Son of God bled and died for me, and all mankind, on that cruel, lonely hill called Golgotha.
This Beautiful Vision still overwhelms me; I, Mary Wilson, a speck in the universe, a tiny time-traveler, a scarlet stinking sinner, actually saw the Perfect Love of our Living God! (I did not know then, but His Perfect Love would sustain and comfort me as I walked through Hell, confident in that Perfect Love because I had seen it!)
The next day, my mind kept going back to the Astounding Event of the night before. I did not tell anyone; I wanted to speak with Father Bob first.
I could not wait until I had returned home. I called Father Bob on my cell phone just as I exited I-10, and recounted the Wondrous Thing which had happened to me. Father Bob told me that he thought that I had had a “mystical experience.”
To this day, I keep a candle burning to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and will keep it burning for the rest of my life.
For a time, life on earth went on as usual. I attended daily Mass, received Holy Communion, and carried on with my work and my weekends off. David and I explored our high desert country in his Jeep, played our guitars and enjoyed one another. The candles to the Sacred Heart burned brightly on the little altar in the dining area of our home, and I considered the Beautiful Vision often in my prayers. Life was good.
November, 2002 dawned cool/crisp/hot, just the way it is supposed to in Arizona. I was working a lot in our Douglas sector, which is right on the Mexican Border. That was fine with me; I love the Mexican people and their culture, and even though my Spanish is limited mostly to menu items, I always felt loved and welcomed in our Douglas Sector.
Along about the middle of November, I was blessed to receive another message from Heaven. I had been reading about the Crucifixion of Jesus; and, in meditating the Scriptures, found that I was brought to tears by the account. Though I had read the same Scriptures before, this time I was shaken to the depths of my being.
That night, when I was meditating, suddenly there appeared before my closed eyes a Vision of Our Crucified Lord. It was painful – so painful! – to look upon the Corpus Christi with all signs of mortal life gone. His face, sweet in repose; His arms and legs, still tormented in their unnatural position; and the blueness of His Precious Blood pooling beneath His skin brought my spirit to an immense sadness and grief it had never before felt. “My Lord, my King, how much I love you!”
The magnitude of His Sacrifice was at once apparent to me, if only for the briefest of moments. It is my belief that His Perfect Sacrifice is something so very large that no human mind can fully understand or comprehend.
The Vision stayed with me all the next day – it was impossible to stop thinking about our Crucified Lord. I could not talk about it; His Visage was too deep in my heart to speak it.
The next day was Saturday, and I was half-heartedly working at the computer when David and “Billy Ten Beers” returned from a trip to Safford. I could tell that David had been drinking a bit, but I said nothing about it. He took the memory card from his Nikon and placed it in the photo printer on his desk. “I have something for you,” he said as the machine slowly spit out a picture of a red and gold sunrise. He handed the picture to me. “It’s meant for you,” he said. “He’s mad at me.”
The picture was a beautiful sunrise, but right in the middle of it was a perfect Cross. I caught my breath. “Where did you take this picture?”
“On the way to Safford – that part of route 191 with no telephone poles,” David replied, emphasizing the “telephone poles” in case I should think that the Cross in the picture was a shadow or something manmade.
“What do you think?” Billy Ten Beers chimed in.
“I think it is absolutely amazing.”
It was amazing, and became even more amazing that very night when I received another Vision.
There, in a mist, was the Cross again; but it was slightly turned so that I could not see the crucified figure. As I watched, the cross slowly turned and, to my absolute horror, I was looking at myself nailed to it. There I was, wearing tan dress slacks and a white blouse, hanging from the cross as if in some imitation of Our Lord. I was terrified, but would not tear my mind away from the scene for fear of missing that which God wanted me to know. There is absolutely nothing divine about me – I was scared to death, especially since I could not tell if my body was still alive or not.
The cross, along with the vision of myself, disappeared into the mist and I sat bolt upright, my heart racing, hyperventilating and shaking. What did this mean? What was to come? Was I going to die? Lord, please tell me, What does this mean?
The only way that I could calm down was to remember the Blessed Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the comfort, peace and Love imparted to me by the Sacred Heart. I had no way of knowing then that I was to hold onto the Sacred Heart Vision for a long time, clinging to it as a life preserver in a stormy sea. Actually, I am still holding on to it.
One of the few people to whom I have confided these visions asked if I thought that God had warned me of what was to come. I strongly do not feel that He warned me. To warn me would have implied that there was something that I could have done to change the outcome of the terrible things that ensued, and there was nothing I could do to change anything. It was all out of my control.
I know that the Lord prepared me for what was to come, and I find His Love and Grace, in preparing me, to be completely astounding. So immense is His Love, so without end is His Grace!
We received no more payments on our submitted payroll billing from Cochise Health Systems, and although times were tough, still God sustained us. As you have previously read, our means of financial support suddenly stopped. I spent the winter of 2002 –2003 writing letters, making phone calls, and literally begging for someone to make things right. I learned of the NCFE bankruptcy shortly after Cochise Health Systems pulled our contract, but the knowledge did us no good; the rest of the world denied it.
2003 passed slowly amid mountains of legal papers, research papers and depression. David’s sporadic drinking escalated, and though it upset me, I was too weak and depressed to try hard to change it, worrying every day if we would have electricity, heat or groceries. I could hardly blame him for escaping on the highway to Old Milwaukee.
Carolyn and I spoke daily on the phone, trying, mostly in vain, to be of some moral support for one another. She still dressed in her best every day; still put on her makeup and jewelry; still sat in a darkened office, waiting for a telephone that never rang.
I was still attending daily Mass, and drawing closer and closer to the Lord. I desired closeness with Him above all else; He was my unchanging Rock.
Father Bob talked to me about Crosses. I downloaded from the Internet, and read, St. John of the Cross’, “Dark Night of the Soul.” I learned that God draws us closer to Him during our own “dark nights.”
Fall turned into winter of 2003, not much of a change here in Arizona, but by December, we had been nine months without work, and the Christmas season was looking pretty bleak.
Carolyn and I talked one day about the Christmas party we had given for our employees only year before last; we both agreed that it seemed like an eternity ago, and, we both agreed that we had depressed one another crazy by reminiscing about it.
Carolyn was still sitting in the office, every day from nine till five. The phone had still not rung.
In looking back on December 14, 2003, I remember how the day felt. It did not fit, somehow. Like a dress your mother bought for your sister and decided at the last minute to give to you, the day did not quite fit into my week, my December, or my life.
David went to shoot pool with a friend. “Don’t worry, Babe,” he reassured me. “The very last thing I want to do is get drunk.”
Another odd thing: Ordinarily, I would have been sick with worry about his drinking, but, that day…that day…I did not worry. I decided to bake muffins for Christmas presents, and busied myself in the kitchen all afternoon.
At four o’clock he called me. “Hey!” I said. “Come on home and help bake muffins!”
“I can’t Babe,” he responded. “I just called to tell you that you are my best friend and the best person that I have ever known.”
I could tell by his slurred words that he was drinking, but teased him anyway. “Is that all?”
“I also called to tell you that I love you with all my heart.” Was that a tear in his voice?
“I love you, too,” I whispered. “With all my heart. Come home soon and safe.”
It was dark and about six o’clock when the headlights of his old Bronco cut through the kitchen window. Looking back, it seems that the headlights were somehow rounder that night – it seems like the Bronco was wearing a frightened face, hoping that I would notice and do something to help.
I was taking a batch of muffins out of the oven when David walked into the kitchen from the carport. He was gone – the David that I knew and loved was not “at home” behind those blue eyes. He was out-of-his-mind, blackout drunk, and wanted to argue about anything insignificant that he could think of.
I do not remember the statement that he made as I put more muffins into the oven. I do remember my answer, “Well, I guess we’ll know when we stand before God, won’t we?”
In looking back into the pain of that night, it seems that David and I were not alone in the kitchen. In memory, I can feel – so strongly that I almost see - many angels there, prepared to stop the horror of that December night, as they probably had on so many nights before; but they stood still, in tableau, as if commanded by some Unseen Presence to let it go, let it happen, let it be, let David’s choices be David’s choices.
I turned from the oven and in a split-second knew my life would be forever changed. In the ultimate act of drunken hopelessness, David had a .45 to his head.
I lunged for the gun just as it fired. “No, no, no, no, no!” I screamed and fell with him.
I began CPR immediately, but soon realized that my husband had just sustained a large caliber gunshot to the head – he would leave this earth soon, and I had to take care of – as best I could – his precious spirit.
I stopped CPR and grabbed a bottle of Wesson oil from the cupboard. Kneeling over him, I asked God to bless the oil, and I anointed David in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Then I lay down beside him, in the curve of his arm, and put my hand upon his chest, hoping that I could catch his last heartbeat and keep it with me forever. Our dogs, Bubba and Piggy, came quietly into the kitchen and lay down on his other side with their chins upon his chest. Both our dogs cried quiet tears that ran down their little faces and onto the front of his blue shirt.
I talked to him as we all lay there on the kitchen floor. I told him that I knew he didn’t mean it, and that I would be okay, and that I would take care of the kids and the dogs and the kitties. I told him over and over what our life together had meant to me and how much I loved him. I know that God let him hear me.
Our friend Gary, and his eleven-year-old son, Roy, came walking into the house unannounced, as was their habit. I sat up onto my knees and screamed, “Don’t come in here! Get Roy outside!”
Roy thought of David as a grandfather, and called him Papaw, just like Keifer and Collin did. David had taught the kids how to drive the Jeep over all obstacles in the desert, how to call quail, and how to pan for gold. He had taken them exploring all over the Sonoran, the Dragoons and the Chiracahuas. I did not want any of the kids to see this bloody horror. Papaw was their hero.
Father Bob came. The sheriff came. Westlawn Mortuary came. They took him away, into the night, into eternity, into an away-from-me place.
Liz came and gently pried me from Father Bob. “Come on, Honey, you need a shower,” I remember her saying.
My next memory is of being in Liz’s shower. The dried blood ran off my hands and arms and face; all that I had left of David’s person ran red down the shower drain. Liz yanked the shower curtain open. “What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s…it’s a tiny piece of bone…it came out of my hair…”
“Mary,” she demanded, “give me that.” She grabbed a paper towel and held out her hand.
“No.”
Liz handed me a towel, and placed a folded one on the closed commode. “Sit,” she said firmly.
I sat down, soaking wet, with the precious tiny piece of bone clutched in my hand so tightly that it cut my own skin and brought my own blood.
She knelt in front of me; my friend, my good, good friend, trying so hard to drag me from the depths of Hell, and I was resisting.
I held out my hand to her. She took the piece of bone and placed it in the paper towel, then washed the blood away from the cut on my palm and covered it with a band-aid.
“Don’t throw it in the trash!” I screamed.
She looked at me through eyes flooded with unshed tears. “You know I won’t,” she said softly. “Get dressed, Honey.”
While I was dressing, Liz buried the little piece of bone somewhere on her property. “With a prayer,” she said. To this day, she will not tell me where, and I have stopped asking.
Matthew 16:24
The cross is getting somewhat lighter. No doubt, in His great love, He has dispatched angels to help me carry it. It was heavier when I first took it up, weighted down by remorse, sorrow, shame, grief and suffering. Then, just when I had grown accustomed to its weight, a heavier load was added - the crushing weight of responsibility. Responsibility to the poor, disabled and elderly; responsibility to Carolyn, who fell by the way under her cross; responsibility to David, who, though he loved the Lord, was not willing to shoulder his cross; responsibility to Arizona’s poor, elderly and disabled who had lost needed services; and responsibility to the United States of America to which I have pledged my allegiance forever.
This manuscript has been difficult, at best, to write. At worst, it has wrenched my guts apart every day as I tap out keyboard strokes. But, I find that in taking up the cross of this manuscript, my cross of responsibility has lightened; when this work is finished, I will have done all that I am capable of doing in a fight against what appears to be the impossible odds of the entire local, state and federal governments. As one of “We, the People,” I will have fought my own war, bombed my own targets, dressed my own wounds, and will stand worthily with those who have fought in other, bigger, far away wars for the sake of the Constitution and the freedom of the United States. At the age of sixty-three, I have been called to active duty as a desktop warrior and a cyberspace revolutionary.
It is about here that some readers will drift away from this manuscript. Some readers will not understand what they call “religion,” mingling with “facts.” I cannot separate the two; Jesus Christ is a fact. It is a fact that He has brought me through the most terrible time of my life. It is also a fact that I did not want to go on – did not want to even live, much less write it all down in a prose format. But He called me to pick up my cross and follow Him. He let me know, early on in this battle, that the war was more than about me, even more than about Carolyn and David; but about our elderly; about an America whose very foundation has been eroded by lies, corruption and “shady deals”; about an America that must be brought back to the people or lost forever.
The beginning of the events that were to unravel, like a rattlesnake striking to kill, started with a vision of Great Beauty: I was lying on the sofa at the end of the day in late spring of 2002. David was lying on the other sofa playing Tomb Raider, and I was trying to block out the noise of Laura Croft fighting off attackers.
Sometimes, when I am relaxing and just talking to the Lord in my mind, He will show me sweeping panoramas of great beauty inside my closed eyes. Sometimes the vision will be a sunrise or sunset behind magnificent mountains; an emerald-green sea lapping at a sugar-sand shore; laughing children at play; birds in graceful flight, or lush, verdant forests, carpeted with velvety moss and dotted with fragrant flowers.
This particular late spring evening of 2002, I was quietly grieving for my brother who had recently passed away, and (as usual) asking the Lord to show me something beautiful to calm and refresh my tired spirit. Suddenly, in the space between my closed eyelids and my pupils, I saw it. A luscious, red, ripe tomato with its vine curled around it. My mind smiled. “Lord,” my mind spoke, “why are you showing me a tomato?”
After a few moments, the tomato was closer – much like an object in a zoom lens camera – and, not wanting to interrupt my reverie, I consciously caught my breathing and slowed it down, trying to hold on to the Beauty that was before me for as long as possible. There, for me to see, was the living, beating, beautiful embodiment of all Love – the precious Sacred Heart of Jesus! From my closer perspective, I could see that it was not a tomato vine wrapped around, but the crown of thorns! “Oh, thank You, Father!” my mind spoke to Him. “Thank You!”
The Beautiful Vision lasted a few moments more, and then was gone from my sight. I opened my eyes and sat up. I felt the enormity of His Love encompass me; all I wanted to do was to serve Him and to be loved by Him.
I am very aware that I did not deserve to see the Glorious Beauty that I saw that evening. I am very aware that I, the most imperfect of sinners, did not deserve to bear earthly witness to God’s Love. But I did. He freely sent to me “Love that I could see!” despite my carnal state. I know, beyond any doubt, that He loves us all equally – if He can love me that much, He can love the most despised that much! I will not turn this manuscript into a confessional, but my past sins are HUGE. They are also forgiven. They have been forgiven for over two thousand years, since the Son of God bled and died for me, and all mankind, on that cruel, lonely hill called Golgotha.
This Beautiful Vision still overwhelms me; I, Mary Wilson, a speck in the universe, a tiny time-traveler, a scarlet stinking sinner, actually saw the Perfect Love of our Living God! (I did not know then, but His Perfect Love would sustain and comfort me as I walked through Hell, confident in that Perfect Love because I had seen it!)
The next day, my mind kept going back to the Astounding Event of the night before. I did not tell anyone; I wanted to speak with Father Bob first.
I could not wait until I had returned home. I called Father Bob on my cell phone just as I exited I-10, and recounted the Wondrous Thing which had happened to me. Father Bob told me that he thought that I had had a “mystical experience.”
To this day, I keep a candle burning to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and will keep it burning for the rest of my life.
For a time, life on earth went on as usual. I attended daily Mass, received Holy Communion, and carried on with my work and my weekends off. David and I explored our high desert country in his Jeep, played our guitars and enjoyed one another. The candles to the Sacred Heart burned brightly on the little altar in the dining area of our home, and I considered the Beautiful Vision often in my prayers. Life was good.
November, 2002 dawned cool/crisp/hot, just the way it is supposed to in Arizona. I was working a lot in our Douglas sector, which is right on the Mexican Border. That was fine with me; I love the Mexican people and their culture, and even though my Spanish is limited mostly to menu items, I always felt loved and welcomed in our Douglas Sector.
Along about the middle of November, I was blessed to receive another message from Heaven. I had been reading about the Crucifixion of Jesus; and, in meditating the Scriptures, found that I was brought to tears by the account. Though I had read the same Scriptures before, this time I was shaken to the depths of my being.
That night, when I was meditating, suddenly there appeared before my closed eyes a Vision of Our Crucified Lord. It was painful – so painful! – to look upon the Corpus Christi with all signs of mortal life gone. His face, sweet in repose; His arms and legs, still tormented in their unnatural position; and the blueness of His Precious Blood pooling beneath His skin brought my spirit to an immense sadness and grief it had never before felt. “My Lord, my King, how much I love you!”
The magnitude of His Sacrifice was at once apparent to me, if only for the briefest of moments. It is my belief that His Perfect Sacrifice is something so very large that no human mind can fully understand or comprehend.
The Vision stayed with me all the next day – it was impossible to stop thinking about our Crucified Lord. I could not talk about it; His Visage was too deep in my heart to speak it.
The next day was Saturday, and I was half-heartedly working at the computer when David and “Billy Ten Beers” returned from a trip to Safford. I could tell that David had been drinking a bit, but I said nothing about it. He took the memory card from his Nikon and placed it in the photo printer on his desk. “I have something for you,” he said as the machine slowly spit out a picture of a red and gold sunrise. He handed the picture to me. “It’s meant for you,” he said. “He’s mad at me.”
The picture was a beautiful sunrise, but right in the middle of it was a perfect Cross. I caught my breath. “Where did you take this picture?”
“On the way to Safford – that part of route 191 with no telephone poles,” David replied, emphasizing the “telephone poles” in case I should think that the Cross in the picture was a shadow or something manmade.
“What do you think?” Billy Ten Beers chimed in.
“I think it is absolutely amazing.”
It was amazing, and became even more amazing that very night when I received another Vision.
There, in a mist, was the Cross again; but it was slightly turned so that I could not see the crucified figure. As I watched, the cross slowly turned and, to my absolute horror, I was looking at myself nailed to it. There I was, wearing tan dress slacks and a white blouse, hanging from the cross as if in some imitation of Our Lord. I was terrified, but would not tear my mind away from the scene for fear of missing that which God wanted me to know. There is absolutely nothing divine about me – I was scared to death, especially since I could not tell if my body was still alive or not.
The cross, along with the vision of myself, disappeared into the mist and I sat bolt upright, my heart racing, hyperventilating and shaking. What did this mean? What was to come? Was I going to die? Lord, please tell me, What does this mean?
The only way that I could calm down was to remember the Blessed Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the comfort, peace and Love imparted to me by the Sacred Heart. I had no way of knowing then that I was to hold onto the Sacred Heart Vision for a long time, clinging to it as a life preserver in a stormy sea. Actually, I am still holding on to it.
One of the few people to whom I have confided these visions asked if I thought that God had warned me of what was to come. I strongly do not feel that He warned me. To warn me would have implied that there was something that I could have done to change the outcome of the terrible things that ensued, and there was nothing I could do to change anything. It was all out of my control.
I know that the Lord prepared me for what was to come, and I find His Love and Grace, in preparing me, to be completely astounding. So immense is His Love, so without end is His Grace!
We received no more payments on our submitted payroll billing from Cochise Health Systems, and although times were tough, still God sustained us. As you have previously read, our means of financial support suddenly stopped. I spent the winter of 2002 –2003 writing letters, making phone calls, and literally begging for someone to make things right. I learned of the NCFE bankruptcy shortly after Cochise Health Systems pulled our contract, but the knowledge did us no good; the rest of the world denied it.
2003 passed slowly amid mountains of legal papers, research papers and depression. David’s sporadic drinking escalated, and though it upset me, I was too weak and depressed to try hard to change it, worrying every day if we would have electricity, heat or groceries. I could hardly blame him for escaping on the highway to Old Milwaukee.
Carolyn and I spoke daily on the phone, trying, mostly in vain, to be of some moral support for one another. She still dressed in her best every day; still put on her makeup and jewelry; still sat in a darkened office, waiting for a telephone that never rang.
I was still attending daily Mass, and drawing closer and closer to the Lord. I desired closeness with Him above all else; He was my unchanging Rock.
Father Bob talked to me about Crosses. I downloaded from the Internet, and read, St. John of the Cross’, “Dark Night of the Soul.” I learned that God draws us closer to Him during our own “dark nights.”
Fall turned into winter of 2003, not much of a change here in Arizona, but by December, we had been nine months without work, and the Christmas season was looking pretty bleak.
Carolyn and I talked one day about the Christmas party we had given for our employees only year before last; we both agreed that it seemed like an eternity ago, and, we both agreed that we had depressed one another crazy by reminiscing about it.
Carolyn was still sitting in the office, every day from nine till five. The phone had still not rung.
In looking back on December 14, 2003, I remember how the day felt. It did not fit, somehow. Like a dress your mother bought for your sister and decided at the last minute to give to you, the day did not quite fit into my week, my December, or my life.
David went to shoot pool with a friend. “Don’t worry, Babe,” he reassured me. “The very last thing I want to do is get drunk.”
Another odd thing: Ordinarily, I would have been sick with worry about his drinking, but, that day…that day…I did not worry. I decided to bake muffins for Christmas presents, and busied myself in the kitchen all afternoon.
At four o’clock he called me. “Hey!” I said. “Come on home and help bake muffins!”
“I can’t Babe,” he responded. “I just called to tell you that you are my best friend and the best person that I have ever known.”
I could tell by his slurred words that he was drinking, but teased him anyway. “Is that all?”
“I also called to tell you that I love you with all my heart.” Was that a tear in his voice?
“I love you, too,” I whispered. “With all my heart. Come home soon and safe.”
It was dark and about six o’clock when the headlights of his old Bronco cut through the kitchen window. Looking back, it seems that the headlights were somehow rounder that night – it seems like the Bronco was wearing a frightened face, hoping that I would notice and do something to help.
I was taking a batch of muffins out of the oven when David walked into the kitchen from the carport. He was gone – the David that I knew and loved was not “at home” behind those blue eyes. He was out-of-his-mind, blackout drunk, and wanted to argue about anything insignificant that he could think of.
I do not remember the statement that he made as I put more muffins into the oven. I do remember my answer, “Well, I guess we’ll know when we stand before God, won’t we?”
In looking back into the pain of that night, it seems that David and I were not alone in the kitchen. In memory, I can feel – so strongly that I almost see - many angels there, prepared to stop the horror of that December night, as they probably had on so many nights before; but they stood still, in tableau, as if commanded by some Unseen Presence to let it go, let it happen, let it be, let David’s choices be David’s choices.
I turned from the oven and in a split-second knew my life would be forever changed. In the ultimate act of drunken hopelessness, David had a .45 to his head.
I lunged for the gun just as it fired. “No, no, no, no, no!” I screamed and fell with him.
I began CPR immediately, but soon realized that my husband had just sustained a large caliber gunshot to the head – he would leave this earth soon, and I had to take care of – as best I could – his precious spirit.
I stopped CPR and grabbed a bottle of Wesson oil from the cupboard. Kneeling over him, I asked God to bless the oil, and I anointed David in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Then I lay down beside him, in the curve of his arm, and put my hand upon his chest, hoping that I could catch his last heartbeat and keep it with me forever. Our dogs, Bubba and Piggy, came quietly into the kitchen and lay down on his other side with their chins upon his chest. Both our dogs cried quiet tears that ran down their little faces and onto the front of his blue shirt.
I talked to him as we all lay there on the kitchen floor. I told him that I knew he didn’t mean it, and that I would be okay, and that I would take care of the kids and the dogs and the kitties. I told him over and over what our life together had meant to me and how much I loved him. I know that God let him hear me.
Our friend Gary, and his eleven-year-old son, Roy, came walking into the house unannounced, as was their habit. I sat up onto my knees and screamed, “Don’t come in here! Get Roy outside!”
Roy thought of David as a grandfather, and called him Papaw, just like Keifer and Collin did. David had taught the kids how to drive the Jeep over all obstacles in the desert, how to call quail, and how to pan for gold. He had taken them exploring all over the Sonoran, the Dragoons and the Chiracahuas. I did not want any of the kids to see this bloody horror. Papaw was their hero.
Father Bob came. The sheriff came. Westlawn Mortuary came. They took him away, into the night, into eternity, into an away-from-me place.
Liz came and gently pried me from Father Bob. “Come on, Honey, you need a shower,” I remember her saying.
My next memory is of being in Liz’s shower. The dried blood ran off my hands and arms and face; all that I had left of David’s person ran red down the shower drain. Liz yanked the shower curtain open. “What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s…it’s a tiny piece of bone…it came out of my hair…”
“Mary,” she demanded, “give me that.” She grabbed a paper towel and held out her hand.
“No.”
Liz handed me a towel, and placed a folded one on the closed commode. “Sit,” she said firmly.
I sat down, soaking wet, with the precious tiny piece of bone clutched in my hand so tightly that it cut my own skin and brought my own blood.
She knelt in front of me; my friend, my good, good friend, trying so hard to drag me from the depths of Hell, and I was resisting.
I held out my hand to her. She took the piece of bone and placed it in the paper towel, then washed the blood away from the cut on my palm and covered it with a band-aid.
“Don’t throw it in the trash!” I screamed.
She looked at me through eyes flooded with unshed tears. “You know I won’t,” she said softly. “Get dressed, Honey.”
While I was dressing, Liz buried the little piece of bone somewhere on her property. “With a prayer,” she said. To this day, she will not tell me where, and I have stopped asking.
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