I haven't been posting because I've been so busy keeping my life together...work, kids, CTCL. I have an "alert" on my gmail for CTCL and yesterday I got an email.  It was a poem written by an interesting, unique and fellow blogger battling CTCL.  The poem has changed my outlook in such a positive way that I had to post it. Here it is:

My skin is covered in tattoos.

They're fiery red and constantly changing, like flickering flames.

They tell the story of where I've been and they hint at where I'm going.

My tattoos are what Buddhists call dukkha.

They represent suffering, but through that suffering, they provide fuel to kindle the flames of my spirit.

I didn't choose these tattoos, they chose me.

It isn't easy being marked in this way and sometimes the rashes make people stare.

But I'm grateful that they are there.

As the tattoos on my body wax and wane, brimming with the threat of relapse, they remind me to live every moment as if it is my last.

Remember these words if you are miserable at work...

Life is short, life is priceless, you are much more than your job. Your job belittles and dis-empowers you. All money businesses are corrupt. There are countless dis-empowering jobs like yours out there. If you lose this one, there will be others waiting for you. Don't worry or let your job define who you are.

Thinking of you, Linda

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting
when we meet again!


Canon Henry Scott Holland

Easter without Linda, again

This digital greeting card personalized with Smilebox

“The Sisterhood”, an organization against domestic violence is on Facebook. They write a lot about it and everything is so relevant to what Linda went through with her loser of a husband. Another thing I found out is that he abused his first wife too. She was so afraid of him that she moved and didn’t tell him where she lived. She had to fight him for child support and, of course, Linda paid all his legal fees AND the child support because he wasn’t working. His family knew what a loser he was, how he abused his first wife, his drug abuse, his propensity for violence – and they never said a word. His step-father is a retired cop for God's sake, he should have done something.  The idiot's police record speaks for itself – assaults – but the police never took that into consideration when he was lying to them saying that Linda hit him. The saddest part is that his family knew what he was and had a chance to get him help. Maybe they were afraid of him, but that wasn’t a good excuse to put Linda and the kids’ lives on the line, not to mention any innocent victims who might have been in the way. It was Linda’s problem as far as they were concerned. God I wish I knew what was going on. Linda just wanted me to think everything was fine. She wanted to “fix” it herself.
This is what these losers put you through – this is what Linda went through. His family believed him and blamed Linda too, so she was up against them on top of all her other problems.
-Falsely accusing you of being the abuser (he would hit her and then run to the neighbor’s house and say Linda hit him and he’d call the police. And guess what? The police believed him!)

-Yelling and Screaming (the kids still have nightmares of him screaming at Linda).

-Unwarranted Accusations (he told the kids she was a “slut.” He told everyone else she was cheating on him (even though they were separated and the divorce papers pending). Meanwhile, he had a 16 year old girlfriend but that was ok.

-Ignoring your feelings or making fun of them (he actually told her that anyone can become an R.N., it wasn’t anything special, that even HE could do it. What a joke.)

-Isolation from your friends or family (He kept breaking the phones and stealing her cell phone).

-Stealing, destroying, selling or giving away things that are important to you. (He would come into the house and make it look like a break-in and take her mortgage money and the kids’ food money. He took their TV and stereo. He even took the kids’ Christmas gifts! His family still had them after he killed my sister on January 22nd. How do they live with themselves?
This is by no means everything – there is so much more I can write. All in due time. Linda’s life could have been saved by the only people who knew the truth, but they were too busy going to AC, having parties and dinners, and staying as far away as they could from that freak she called a son.

There is one....

Everything underneath the skyline
From the east side to the west
Of the lives I've lived and those I've known
There is one I've loved the best

-John Waite

“Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward.”