Who Could Ask For More! Part 23: The Walter Sebastian Saga

Look into faces around you … you never know what you may see. By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

Written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Walter Sebastian almost danced with glee as he walked toward the store … shore.  He could hear the people down below in the water now.  What a wonderful time they were having.  Walter Sebastian grinned.  Oh, what a beautiful day!

The sun was shining brightly … blue, blue sky … fluffy white clouds … seagulls flying overhead.  The only thing that bothered Walter was the happy sounds of the people down below the pier.  They were too damn happy.

Walter walked to just above the people … the dark shadow in the water was beginning to circle around.  Walter Sebastian looked down at a little girl just beneath him … she never saw him … no one saw him.  He let several drops of blood drip down into her hair.

No sooner than Walter Sebastian did that … the little girl was pulled beneath the water … silently.  Walter Sebastian stood watching … soon … soon, the action would begin.

Be damned if I didn’t forget my Coca-Cola and peanut butter crackers!  Son of a bitch!  Too late to run into the store for some.  Walter Sebastian stayed put … some people went to the movies for entertainment.  Walter made his own ‘movies’ happen … action and all.

A woman turned around … Walter could see fear on her face.  He thought she must be the little girl’s mother.  She began calling for her little girl.  Julie!  Julie!

No sooner than she called Julie’s name … the little girl’s body surfaced right next to the mother.  Her legs were gone … so was half her face.  The woman began screaming … people were running into the water to get to her.  Walter Sebastian loved that … the more people in the water … the merrier.

Walter Sebastian dripped the remaining contents of his vial into the water.  No one noticed the several black fins in the water … Walter felt intense excitement … all hell was gonna break loose!  This was what he lived for!

The sharks struck with such force.  People went flying through the air back into the water only to be grabbed by a shark.  Legs flew through the air, so did arms … and two heads.

Walter was awestruck at what he had caused … this was the best!  He heard people screaming … ‘shark! shark!’

He saw a man trying to crawl out of the water … one of his legs was missing.  He was grabbing at the sand to pull himself … when a shark came out of nowhere … grabbed him by his remaining leg.

The shark jerked the man around like he was a rag doll.  Terrible screams filled the air.  No one saw the man up above on the pier grinning.  No one saw the sharks as they pulled each person under the water one by one until … only a bloody shore remained.  Soon, that washed away as each wave came in.

Quietness filled the air … people stood in shock on the sand.  Walter watched them … this was one of the parts he loved.  The quietness after a disaster.  It never lasted long enough … people began crying for their loved ones.  Medical teams arrived to care for people … everything became noisy again … sirens, screaming … crying.

Walter watched until he became bored.  He walked through the store onto the pier that led to the shore.  Soon … he was on his way home.  He felt alive … this was what life was all about.

Walter Sebastian got home an hour before Grace did.  He had supper made for her … he even had one rose in a glass of water on the table.

Grace came in and exclaimed how homey, good the house smelled!  She felt loved very much when she saw Walter had cooked supper for the two of them.  Spaghetti and meatballs, French bread and butter … a beautiful salad … glasses of iced tea!  Who could ask for more!

To be continued …

Helping Zelma Struthers … Part 20 of The Walter Sebastian Corbett Saga

Helping Zelma Struthers … Part 20 of The Walter Sebastian Corbett Saga  written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

Artwork by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

Thirty minutes later found Walter driving up to Zelma’s house.  It was a pretty house … not too big.  It was on one level. The driveway was paved.

Walter parked … sat there … damn!  Oh, I’m so sorry Lord, I didn’t mean to cuss! he thought.  Good people try not to cuss.  Walter was a good man … but, why did he feel so bad?

He made himself get out of the car.  He shut the door quietly.  For some reason, he didn’t want to make any noise.  He felt uneasy being here at Zelma’s house. There was something about her …

He walked up to the door, knocked.  Zelma with her big self-wrapped in a pink and white towel … opened the door. “Why hello, Walter!  Come right in!  I just got out of the shower”.

Walter felt awkward … now, what was he supposed to do?  “Have a seat in here, Walter”.  I’ll put on something comfy and be right back!

Walter sat on the floral couch … looked at the big flat-screen tv.  Thankfully … it was on so, it wasn’t too quiet in the house.  Walter hated quiet.

Zelma came prancing into the room with her fat self … all decked out in a … pink polka dot bikini … hot pink dots on black fabric.  Walter felt a jolt go through him … polka dots!  Polka dots?  He wondered why he had such a reaction to … polka dots … of all things.

Come on, Walter.  Let’s go to the pool for a little while before we move the piece of furniture.  Walter didn’t want to go to the pool with Zelma.  He began telling her he needed to get back and wouldn’t have time.  Zelma kept walking … her rolls bouncing all over the place.

Walter had no choice but, to follow her.  This was going to be a bad day, he thought.

Thoughts Float Just As I Do… You Know How Thoughts Go…

I wrote this in 2013 … AFTER … my swimming pool collapsed and threw my ……. out on the ground in front of … God and everybody! We’d gotten it put back up … the problem was Skip had paid a guy to even out the sand … he evened it out alright … just right enough to … ‘get me’! I’ll never forget the sudden collapse of the pool … me suddenly taking a wild-ass ride! I was in the middle of clear water drowning while the thought was in my mind … ‘isn’t all this clear water beautiful!’ Then … I hit the ground with a crash … I suffered sand burns from that wild ride! 🙂

 

Thoughts Float Just As I Do…

You Know How Thoughts Go…

Anything Goes! I’m Just Saying….

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

via Thoughts Float Around Just As I Do… | GRANNY’S COLORFUL.

 

 

‘This picture’ used to be ‘me’ at a younger age!  :)))  I always drew ‘myself’, everyone would recognize it.  Now… I would have to figure out how to make my girl appear ‘older’…  :)))

I floated around in the pool on a hot-pink float.  I let my mind ‘float’, also.  Whatever thoughts wanted to go through it… I let them.  Just because I said ‘hot-pink’ doesn’t mean ‘it’s a beautiful sight’!  :)))  I’m just saying…..

I’m at least 2-3 feet, or more… off the ground.  Only a thin, vinyl wall separates me from the space that would make me fall onto the ground!  The thin, vinyl wall holds the water that makes it possible for me… to float around on the space that normally… I could only walk on.  Think about it… amazing!  I mean… have you really ‘thought about it’?  I’m in ‘this clear liquid that allows me to ‘float’ around… in the air!

I see a bug floating around, his little legs kicking hard.  I care about this little bug; yet, I would kill a spider, fly; and battle a ‘kiddiddle hopper’!  I help it by pushing a leaf up to him… I think he is very happy to climb up on it.  I’m happy for him.  I forget about the bug…

My eyes enjoy the very hot-pink of the float I’m holding onto, then… as I pass by the neon green float… I feel pleasure at seeing such ‘happy colors’… especially when all comes into focus along side the beach ball with its yellow, white, blue, hot pink colors.  Happy colors do make me happy… they keep the ‘darkness’ away from me.  I’m afraid of the … dark.

I love colors… I was thinking even the ‘ugliest’ person in the world could have on happy colors… they would be beautiful; especially… if their personality was just as beautiful.  Don’t you agree?  Can you see that ‘I agree with myself’… as my photo below… does a ‘happy dance’?

I need more happy colors in my life again… when Tommy died… through time since… I notice I wear a lot of black, dark colors.  My happy colors seem to be all ‘inside’ now.  I am trying to make them ‘show’, again.  A little color here… a little color, there…

My funny, happy-moving photo… Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee… I still haven’t figured out ‘how’ I made some of my photos move!!!  My friend, Prenin, in England said my camera probably has the ability to make photos animated.  I have some I would like to see animated… but, ‘how’?  :)))

I closed my eyes, feeling relaxed.  I could hear the drone of a plane so high up in the sky… behind fluffy, white clouds.  I couldn’t see it, so… I closed my eyes once again.

I listened to a black bird as he kept saying ‘caw’!  He said it many times… I wondered if it was communicating with the dog across the road.  The dog would bark, the black bird would ‘caw’…

I opened my eyes, feeling…. sensing my swimming pool.  It felt ‘safe’, I studied the sides of it, I didn’t ‘feel’ as if it would ‘all of a sudden’… collapse!  If it did… I worried for a moment about going out with all the water… in front of God, and whoever happened to be looking.

I wasn’t in the mood to entertain anyone by riding a wave of water as the pool collapsed!  Much less getting more… sand burns!  I still have a couple of places that are still healing.

I looked at the privacy screen (3 sections that fold).  It stood nearby… I’m thinking about painting a beach scene on it.  I don’t paint for anyone now… I can’t put my heart into it… I thought I might not can be inspired enough to paint for myself.

The privacy screen is made of wicker… white.  I was thinking of refreshing the ‘white’ with more white.  As I look at it, I can imagine the sand; ocean disappearing into the sky in the far-off distance… the sky blue; big puffy white clouds…. and several white sea gulls flying in the wind.  I imagine several breaking waves on the shore… then, my mind goes to … Tommy.

Tommy was at the ocean when he died… he was happy.  He and Taban, his little 3 year old son… were running, playing.  Their happy sounds blended with the music of the sea gulls, waves washing ashore… I know it was a beautiful sound his ears heard… just ‘before’…

Artwork by Gloria Faye Brown Bates… a poster I did for a business some time ago.  I love this… I wish I could become inspired to paint, draw again………..

I floated around, deep in thought, as I imagined a big guy, a little guy running, squealing, laughing.  It was the big guy’s first time to play at the ocean with his little son.  I let myself… hear them in my mind.  This time… I didn’t cry.  I let go of my ‘Tommy’ thoughts…

The motor of a big truck sounded… the neighbor just came home.  I don’t know him, nor his wife.  I heard they were nice people.  I think maybe someone’s been repairing their roof… a tree fell during a storm.  I’ve been hearing the sound of a hammer, lately…

I hear a sound outside the pool… why, it’s Kissy walking by.  He looks at me, probably wondering how I can be in the air like that.  If I were a Pup… I would wonder many things, too.  His sweet face… another sweet face appears.

Chadwick, our other Pup… just walked by…  neither Pup tries to get on the pool… I like that.   It has a inflated ring that goes all the way around it… it could lose air… if a toenail punctured it.

My mind is coming back to reality… it ‘seems like the pool is going to be… alright’.  I’m hoping it will; it means the world to me to have it.  I think about all the money Skip earned to make the pool possible for me… all he goes through.  My heart… it touches my heart.  Thank-you, Skip.

I decide to get out as I cast my eyes around the inside wall, the water… I compare what I see with what I saw on the outside wall… I ‘think’ everything’s going to be alright.

I don’t feel ‘gun-shy’ now, about getting into the pool.  I look forward to the next time, when… I can let my mind float around just as I float on my hot-pink float!  Free as the wind…

I want to float ‘free as the wind’… a soft wind.  Not one that will throw my a___ out on the sand in a torrent of violent waves of water!!!  I’m just saying…  :)))

You know how one thinks… anything goes!

I Am Going to Write On My Primary Blog … Please Visit Me There

http://happycolorsandgrannygee.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

I am going to write only on my Primary Blog for a while :    http://happycolorsandgrannygee.blogspot.com

I hope you will come to visit me there.  I will look for you.

Gloria/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

 

What You Need To Know about Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

From time to time I have to remind others ‘why?’ I write. I don’t write to gain pity … I write to live. Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

Think of me as the strongest, biggest Redwood tree in the forest.  I’m still standing after all Life’s storms.  Pray that I have beautiful, calm weather until the end of my days.  I would love to know that for the rest of my life.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/Granny Gee.

Artwork by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee  … I’m still standing.

 

 

This is the link to this story I wrote today … 2-29-2016 … I want to tell my new readers, friends, followers ‘why?’ I write ……. I want to remind everyone who knows me why I write grief, pain … I write as I promised about grief, pain when it happens, how it feels.  

 

 

http://new.mylot.com/post/2898107/this-may-be-the-last-time-i-tell-what-happened-to-tommy

 

 

Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.  Think of me as … envision the biggest, strongest Redwood tree … I’ve weathered many of Life’s storms … twigs, limbs are missing … but … I’m still standing.  I hope now … at this point in my Life … that the weather be wonderful … calm … until the end of my days.  I’ve had enough grief, pain for several lifetimes.

 

 

I have been writing since November 2010 …( I’d been writing all my life … but, I began my blog: ) … just a few months after my son … Tommy … died. When I began my blog I made the promise to all my readers/followers/friends I would describe pure grief, pain of a grieving mother.

 

I didn’t need anyone’s sympathy … I never thought of anyone as I wrote my pain. The truth is … writing my grief, pain … saved my life. While I was in darkness, the keys under my fingertips gave me comfort as well … as an outlet for my grief.

 

 

My grief, pain flowed like the biggest river in the world … rocks hurt like h___ … I still flowed on to … wherever. In fact, before someone says something to add more pain, grief … say empty, useless words … I asked people to just come into my blog to read quietly, leave just as quietly, go their way.

 

 

My beautiful Son … big as life … in a truck stop on his way to somewhere … taking a selfie.  I miss you, Tommy.  Your Mama miss you with her very Heart.

 

They could see how it all felt, never having to experience in their life … grief, pain of a grieving mother. I promised my readers that I would write grief when it happened … as it happened … and I would tell the raw truth about grief.

 

 

No pity … no feeling sorry … read like you are reading something else … if you learn something from my grief, thank God. I pray no one ever goes through losing a child … only child like I did.

 

 

This logo was made just for me by Donnalyn, several years ago.

 

 

I didn’t need all those comments that you are going to always hear people say … such as … ‘oh, he’s in a better place now … he’s sitting down at the Lord’s table eating … you don’t have to worry about him anymore … oh, you’ll get over your grief in no time, like in the next few weeks … the worst one I heard, that fills me with pure, white anger is … oh, I understand, I know how you feel.’ I understand, I know how you feel … can you imagine someone telling you that when they’ve never experienced grief?

 

 

Needless to say … I didn’t say a word to those people … I never forgot them … I forgave them for their careless words. Can you imagine modeling your life after someone who has never experienced what they are ‘selling’? Can you? Can you imagine listening to a pastor preach empty words when he has never experienced being saved, the true feeling of love, compassion, caring for his congregation?

 

 

My son, Tommy … holding his newborn son … Tommy had one son, and one daughter.

 

 

Can you imagine telling a grieving mother that you understand how it feels, her grief should be over in oh, probably … 2 weeks? Can you imagine being told that by someone who has never lost a child? Can you imagine someone who has never experienced the pain, grief in their life … try to tell you how it feels? How you should handle it?

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I want to share with my new friends … and new readers/followers on my blog … what happened to Tommy one year almost to the day he died … what he suffered … what his mother suffered, what I was grieving for …. before he died. I was already grieving for Tommy one year before … he died. Tommy ‘died’ … one year before he …. died.

 

 

Every writer knows that in order to write … be real, sincere … they have to write what they know best in life. You can’t fool your readers .. they know when you are being an imposter.

 

 

I write what I know best in my life since being a child … all the way until today … I’ve known grief, pain … awful things throughout my life. I know grief, pain … best. Just remember this when you read ‘me’ … I don’t write to gain your sympathy, pity … I don’t need it. I truly don’t need anyone’s pity.

 

 

Tommy is holding his newborn son …

 

 

I have grown very strong throughout time … think of me like you would a … redwood tree. I’ve withstood many, many terrible storms. I’m weathered, beaten … missing a twig or two … but, I’m still standing. I’m still weathering storms … I do pray for sunshine, calm weather … I would like to rest from battling the storms in my life.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I would like to tell you this … to remember also, about me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … I’m the most positive, happiest person you’ll ever meet who is a grieving mother … a person who has battled cancer … congestive heart failure, motorcycle wreck … lost over 19 family members (not just any family members but, the ones I truly loved with my very Heart) … whose husband has battled cancer, almost dying again twice with strokes, heart problems … blood infection in his body from a tiny cut from old wire … lost all in a housefire … the ultimate loss … losing the only child whom I loved the ground he walked on. These are only … a few things ‘BAD’ that’s happened in my life.

 

 

My published book of grief, pain … writing this book saved my life … if you asked me what is in it … I can’t tell you … I can’t remember … I can’t open the book to read it.  Over a thousand pages of pure grief … pure pain.  You are looking at my life raft … writing this book is why I’m here today.  Writing this book makes sure my son, Tommy, is remembered forever.  It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t sell … doesn’t matter at all.  I have my copyright from Library of Congress on this book ( I have 3 copyrights on the 3 books I published).  They don’t sell … that’s okay … I still have my copyrights, and I’m proud to have them … I did it all when I was in the deepest throes of grief.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

 

This is only a fraction of what I’ve battled … so, this is what I write best … pain, grief, sadness. I write it to tell you that no matter how bad … things DO get better … no matter how BAD … they will get good again I can smile now … when I thought I couldn’t ever smile again … I mean how does a mother ever smile again with the knowledge that her child died?

 

 

It does happen … a grieving mother can smile again … but … this grieving mother had to make a choice … either stay in the darkness and not cope with the loss … or … meet it head-on … no matter how bad it hurts … battle it like you would battle with a bear … I did … I was going to either live … or die.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

I’m smiling … I am here five years after my son’s death … yes, I still go through bouts of grief … oh my, I really do. Those times are farther apart … and I recover from them quickly now. Does it … lessen the pain, grief … when it comes again … no.

 

 

To write my story … on my blog for maybe the last time about what happened … I had to transport me back deeply into the darkness where I knew my grief, pain was for my son … doing this … something I don’t do anymore … took something out of me … for several days until now … I still feel the pain deeply. I can’t do it anymore … if I do … it may be years down the road.

 

 

For now … in order to understand me, my type of writing … one will have to go read on my blog … this is the link to what happened to Tommy … exactly one year leading up to his death. Link to my Blog: Colors in My Life … /2016/02/this-may-be-last-time-i-tell-anyone.html

 

 

A grieving mother … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

These are only words trying to describe by writing … living pain, grief … they are in no way the same. I couldn’t describe how … it really felt. Know that as you read … there was so much more than what I wrote.

 

 

Unless you are a mother who suffered with her child … then … her child die … you can’t understand at all. The closest you can come to that is … get very quiet … think of one of your children … think of what that child means to you … what you love so dearly about him/her … think of the sounds that child makes when they laugh, talk … everything that makes that one person your child.

 

 

Now … the phone rings … you see your child’s cellphone number pop up on the caller ID … you smile! You answer … you become confused because a stranger is trying to tell you something. What? What did you say?

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … a grieving mother who can smile today.

 

 

“Ma’am, I have a man collapsed here on the sand … he’s not breathing.” You have just found out before anyone knows … you are 200 miles away … you learn from a stranger that … your child is dead … he is laying on the soft sand at the ocean where he’d just arrived on vacation to play with his own little boy.

 

 

Your son has just collapsed on the sand … died that fast … 3 blockages to his heart. No one knew he was sick.

 

 

At that very moment … only you and the stranger and his family who cares for the man’s little son to keep him safe … knows your … son is dead.

 

 

The little son is wanting his daddy to get back up … “Let’s run, play … Daddy!”

 

 

I see you can’t bear to think of your child being … dead. I know you can’t … I couldn’t before my own son died. I’m sorry I made you feel pain, grief when imagining losing your child.

 

 

It’s the closest you’ll ever come to understanding a grieving mother … until … I pray you’ll outlive all your children. That’s the way it’s supposed to be … parents should never outlive their children.

 

 

My beautiful Son, my only child … Tommy

Born November 20, 1969

Died May 29, 2010

 

 

 

Children are our world … our family support when we have no one else … children carry on our name, inherit all our possessions and knowledge. Children are truly the … wealth of our world … when we teach them to be the best they can be.

 

 

Children are our everything. Now … I only have Skip, my husband … and our 2 dogs … they are truly the only family I have left in this big, old world … they are my whole world.

 

 

I have no one else … but, you … my online friends, readers and followers. So, my whole world, Skip and our 2 Pups … and you … mean everything to me.

 

 

 Tommy Mitchell Sidden … my only child, my Son.  This is the last photo taken of him driving to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina … he died that evening … collapsed to the soft, damp sand by the ocean’s waves washing ashore … where he and his little son played just minutes before …  May 29, 2010 … on a Saturday evening.

 

 

 

Just remember whenever you read anything sad, painful that I write … that it’s coming from a most positive person who has traveled many journeys in life … who has felt the pain from many things … who knows how so much feels … who truly knows no matter how bad … everything will be alright.

 

 

Good comes from … bad. Don’t even feel sorry for me … feel how strong the redwood tree looks when you stand below it … it’s still here after many storms have tried to take it down.

 

 

I am short, 5′ 2″ … but, I’m tall in spirit. In soul, I’m larger than life … from all the experiences, journeys I have taken in my life.

 

 

I have no room for pity … I’m not a ‘poor little thing’ … all broken into pieces … I worked very hard … to put ‘me’ back together. Sure … a piece falls off … now and then … I begin scuffling to put it back so … I can be alright again.

 

 

So now … you have an idea who Granny Gee/Gloria is … a strong person who when knocked down … jumps back up, dusts her pants off … holds her ground to meet life head-on … no matter how painful it is. Sometimes, it takes a little time to get up … I always manage.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee … in this photo you can see the gold nugget necklace that was around Tommy’s necklace when he died.  He wore it always … it is my class ring melted down into a gold nugget … 11 grams gold.  I gave it to my son … his wife gave it back to me … it meant the world.

 

 

 

Don’t feel pity for me … don’t think when I write my grief … I’m reaching out for someone to feel sorry for me. I don’t need it. Just care … go on … open your eyes wider when you see a grieving person … have compassion, not pity. Just simply … care with your Heart.

 

 

If you say something sincere in your own words (not a bunch of ___ you’ve always heard) … it’ll mean the world to that grieving person. Don’t recite a bunch of nothing just to have something to say … don’t say anything … just hug … care … if you can’t say anything … real.

 

 

Know that I am a for-real good person … I’m most real. I love everyone … see through fakey people … don’t waste time on them. Life’s too short to let others in my life that aren’t sincere.

 

 

I will voice my Gloria Opinions in a moment … I’ll respect yours and you respect mine … I won’t argue anything with anyone. Why? Because I simply don’t have to … it’s not worth the grief, pain it causes.

 

 

Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

One last thing … I’m known for some times, writing long stories. I have to … it’s part of being me. You don’t need to tell me … I already know. I don’t do it all the time … only when … it’s important.

 

 

Photo/story owned … written by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee.

 

 

Photo is of the only tattoo I most likely will ever have … in memory of my son, Tommy. He loved dragonflies … dragonflies show up in my life at the oddest times.

 

 

My Tommy Dragonfly Tattoo created for me by Jason Wilkins at Revelation Ink & Piercings … his new shop will open in early March 2016 in Raleigh, NC (Wakefield area).  Until then, you will find him at his shop in Louisburg, NC at Dystink’d Tattoo.

 

 

Related articles

• Souls in Agony …
• Grief is When One is Trapped in a World of Pain … and Can’t Get Out
• Can You Imagine?
• I Feel a Rainbow Coming On In My Heart …
• To Paint My Grief I Will Need More Colors Than I Have …

I Have to Look Back … to Go Forward

I Have to Look Back … to Go Forward

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny

 

 

I look back in the past for things to write about.  As I take memories out one by one … I look at them as long as I can bear to.  I let it go again when I know it’s time to.

You can know I don’t dwell on any one memory while doing that.  I don’t let any memory hurt me … only for the time I write so, you can feel, see how real it was.  I let you feel some of that pain … if you feel anything in your Heart … tears in your eyes … you are only experiencing a fraction of what I suffered.

What makes me so special to be the one … to write about my past, pain, grief?  Well  … I write.  I am the only one who knows best the things I write.   I know there are people like me … people who have suffered.

An author writes what he knows best … when one reads they know when author is writing … real.  The reader knows when the author knows … what he/she are talking about.  All comes through as the words seep into one’s mind.

It helps to be an expert on something … to be an expert one has to know exactly what they are talking about.  The only thing I am an expert about … is … me.  I can tell you a million things about me … this is what I know best.  I can write my life.

I look back in my young life, see all the other children who were there with me … I can see their little faces in my mind.  I know their suffering, fears … but, I can’t write what they felt, saw … smelled, tasted.  Only that child who is an adult now … can do that … only they can write in their words what they experienced.

I can write about where, what, how another child played a part in my life.  I can tell you what I saw … how it affected me.  When I write these things … I go to a place in my mind … I write the story not to hurt others … but, to tell how things affected me.  As an author I tell my story … to tell my life I have to look back to … go forward.

 

 

Note by this author:

Thank you, Prenin … for inspiring this.  You made me think about ‘why’ … I bring up the past … now you know, I know!  🙂  What in the world would I write about if I didn’t have … me.  I’m not an expert on anything else.  As long as I live … I have something to write about.  Every day is never the same … I’ll never be able to write all my life stories … the colors of my life are endless.  I haven’t even begun to write yet.

 

Photos of me/story written … owned by Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny

 

I Knew I Had Been Caught!

I Knew I Had Been Caught!

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

I have made mustard Hearts for many years … in the name of love 🙂  Whenever I make a sandwich for Skip … he has never known until recently about … my Mustard Hearts!  Photo taken, owned by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

 

 

I was caught this morning when I was seen doing something I always do in private.  I have no need to let anyone know I do this … have done this all through the years.

To tell you the truth … I’m going to keep on doing it.  Actually … I wasn’t seen … ‘what’ I was doing was laying out there in plain view.

I had been busy, needed to walk away from what I was doing.  I never thought about Skip coming by … seeing what I was doing!  It hasn’t been so long ago I told him what I’ve doing all these years without him knowing it.

I had to run down the hall to get something to make sure I didn’t forget doing it.  I came back into the living room and heard Skip say something as he walked through the second door into the kitchen.  I stopped what I was doing … I knew I’d been caught!

I walked to the kitchen, asking what he said.  “I see those Hearts!”  I smiled because he has never seen me doing the Hearts all the years I have been doing them.

On the white sandwich board I had 6 slices of bread lined up to make 3 sandwiches.  I was making sandwiches for him to take with him today.  I was making one extra sandwich for him to give a friend … it had Hearts on each slice of bread too.

My way of thinking is when Skip gives a sandwich away, he won’t know which sandwich has a Heart … so, they all have one.  He’ll get the Heart sandwiches either way.

I told him to tell his friend if he happened to open the sandwich, see a Heart (2 Hearts, one on each slice) to tell him I have always made Hearts on his sandwiches.

I smile thinking about it now … I was caught doing a secret, happy thing … for years Skip never knew all his sandwiches had Hearts inside … surely he’s felt my love when he ate one!

I was doing something special … as soon as he said what he did … I knew I’d been caught!

 

 

 

Note by this Author:    Photo is owned by me, a true color of my life written by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee   #sandwiches   #mustard Hearts   #Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

I Believe in the Right to Die With Dignity …

I Believe in the Right to Die With Dignity …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

Photo is owned by me.  The friend (Cindy) who made this for us never knew how comforting I found this light in the bottle to be. Even my photo of it … comforts me.  Why?  Because light chases the darkness away.  I’ve been in darkness too much in my life.  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter

 

 

This is another controversial subject I’m going to write about. I’m going to tell you how I feel about it.

I respect your feelings, your way of thinking on this subject.  I would never think I can tell you what to feel, think.  I will let you respect my feelings, way of thinking … I couldn’t let anyone tell me that my way of thinking is wrong.  How do you know?  How do I know?

So, before I go on … I can see your way of thinking as well as my way of thinking.  It’s just that my way of thinking ‘feels right’ to me inside my Heart.  These are my feelings that are … right for me.

I have been in the position of dying … of knowing I was going to die.  I know what it feels like to … know … there was no need of buying me pretty clothes … Ty Beanie Babies for my collection … no need of doing anything extra for me.

I knew I wouldn’t live to see a future.  I didn’t want money wasted on me when it could be used for more important.  This was my way of thinking when I so sick …

If you’ve never been to this point in life … being sick with a life-threatening illness … so close to death, I can’t expect you to understand.  The only way you will be able to make such a decision as I’m going to talk about … is to go to the doorstep of Death … if you can come back from it … you can make a judgement.

I’ve been there a few times in my life.   I was dying from cancer … non-Hodgkins lymphoma … the suffering, tests, the time it took to find out what was wrong with me before surgeries … took several months.  Only surgery could … save my life.

After the surgery … I was told I could die before I opened my eyes to see who was telling me I had cancer.  I never saw her … I never saw the oncologist that saved my life with the aggressive treatment she used … and others didn’t understand why she chose that.  It worked … it damaged my heart.  It was a trade-off to live.  I’ll take that.

I remember I thought she was a big, tall presence.  Later, months later when I began to be aware of things … I really looked at her, saw that she was tall but … not big.  How did I think she was ‘big’?  Because later I found out she lost a lot of weight.  Strange how I perceived her … I never saw her clearly and was drugged up.

When I heard her booming voice … the nurse, Skip were sitting me up in a chair in the Intensive Care Cardiac Unit … that’s the first I remember.  All I could see were tall letters in my mind when the oncologist’s voice said … C A N C E R … in giant letters.

I’ll have to describe the strange feeling, thoughts that played in my mind when I couldn’t see around me …  because of the drugs given to me, the weakened state I was in.  I kept thinking I could go back on the other side if only … I could go back, not have cancer.

I was dying.  For some reason, I kept ‘thinking I could go back to being all right if …. ‘

I could see an invisible line … if I could just go back to the other side of it.  I lay in that dark world … my mind kept trying to take me back … to the other side of that … invisible straight line.  Strange I know.  I’ll examine that closely one day.  I’ve never taken time … why does it bother me … now?

I know now, I have lived 16 years when I shouldn’t have … not many made it.  The new oncologist told me not long ago, I shouldn’t be here … 98% didn’t make it with what I had, and as sick as I was.  I was at Death’s door the morning I had the first surgery to remove the huge mass off my lung … resting on my heart.

I will have to take time to sometime, think about what if anything I have done of value during the precious sixteen years I was given.  I don’t think I’ve done anything so special.  I should have at least been some kind of hero or something.

Anyway, dying with dignity.  This is how I really feel after making it back from the Cancer Journey in my life.

I feel if I’m at the point of dying … know that I’m not going to live … laying in agony … or becoming a ‘vegetable’ … I should have the option to end my life while I’m aware.  I feel I should be able to say my goodbyes if by that time … I have anyone to say goodbye to.

No one knows it … I had my option to let go of life … if I knew with certainty I was dying, no chance of living.

I knew I wasn’t going to live … I was preparing.  The thing is … strange thing is … something kicked in (I do think it was that infamous fighting spirit I have :).

When it kicked in … I began seeing in my mind … the future.  The future where I could see me doing things once again.  It was like putting a colorful toy just out of reach … to encourage a child to learn to walk.  If he wants it bad enough … well, you know the rest.

When that happened, I began forcing myself to sit up (oh God, I could never tell you the horrible pain I had in my chest … get a thoracotomy … you will always know.  I had two thoracotomies exactly one year apart … I have ‘forever pain’ you wouldn’t believe).

Anyway, no matter the horrible pain … I couldn’t see straight for the powerful medicines I was given … I made my body raise up, stand up, hold onto things to walk.

I could barely walk … and go only a few steps.  Tears ran down my face, I couldn’t breathe for crying … I kept doing this for many months.

I had become determined to live.  I wanted to live … I wasn’t accepting death without one hell of a fight.  When I did these things … I would fall into bed … in agonizing pain.  No matter, I meant to get strong.

No one can ever know the agony I was in … I was alone while Skip was working as a fleet manager in a produce company.  I tried to be strong when he came home so, he could go to work, know I was all right.

Not only that … if he even thought I was suffering … he would become very upset.  So, many times I have to say … I fooled Skip into thinking I was so tough, strong … we have to do what we got to do.

That wasn’t a bad way to fool someone … at least in my situation.  It did make me personally stronger, and I made it.  It gave him comfort … he just knew I was still me … and I could do what I said.

After 3 years of fighting the toughest battle of my life … I made it in time to go with Skip to the doctor, then … oncologist … to be there when he was diagnosed with … colon cancer.

Skip had been caring for me, working his ass off … and he was … dying with colon cancer that had begun coming through his colon.

I’ll never forget what I said to him at the moment he went into shock.  I said, “Skip … that must be the reason I lived … so, you could see that you can make it.  I’ll take care of you just like you did me”.

I will say this … when I became aware of Skip being sick … something wrong … was during the time I was very ill.  I couldn’t make decisions for myself at that time … had to hold onto things to walk.  My body was in bad shape … I was on powerful medicines.

Skip came to me during that time, told me that he’d been bleeding.  When he’d ‘go’ to the bathroom … the commode would be filled with blood.  You know how sick I must have been when I couldn’t jump up from there … make him get to a doctor.  I wanted to … but, the state of mind when one is very ill … you aren’t yourself.

One day, I raised up out of bed after Skip told me he wished I could see all the blood.  I meant to see it … I knew deep down something was wrong.  Skip had been suffering with terrible cramps in his legs.  Ripping cramps up the inside of his legs.  This had been going on for months.

I made Skip help me to go see … my knees buckled under me, he grabbed me.  I began crying … I knew then … Skip had colon cancer.  The damn crazy thing here is … I ‘knew’ … but, being so sick I couldn’t keep it in my mind … I couldn’t make him go to the doctor … I couldn’t help myself.  Months went by …

This is what happened as time went by … I had something in my mind that ‘made me’ know I was going to get well to do.  I meant for Skip to go to a doctor.  I knew … he was very sick.  Skip … like me … is strong … has a fighting spirit that matches mine … maybe stronger.

I know our neighbors heard me crying through the walls of our home at that time.  They just didn’t know that I was beginning to force myself to do things in the house again.  I had a purpose ….

I made myself hold a broom … my hands had forgotten what a broom felt like.  So hard, splintery.  I made myself put clothes in the washer.  I began to mop … sure the area was very small … it was a beginning.  I burned my hands as I stood at the stove staring at the eye on top … it was hot.

Somehow I had forgotten … like a child, I didn’t think about it burning me … isn’t that amazing?  I took something out of the oven … letting my hand touch the top … I learned from that burn … not to touch hot things.  Now … I knew that … but, forgot everything during my illness.  I am amazed when I think back.

I began to do little things … in my mind … I could see me in my future being strong, well again.  I knew I wouldn’t be letting myself die … with dignity.  I knew I was going to live.

You have to know that knowing I could decide what I wanted to do … if … I was going to die … gave me comfort.  I needed that comfort … I didn’t want to live not having quality of life, someone having to care for me.  So, no matter what anyone thinks … that’s the way I felt … still feel.  I won’t argue it with anyone.

A person who has never experienced this … can talk all they want to.  Put their ass in the same situation … see what they do.  It’s funny how things change when the person who talks loudest … experiences pain, agony, near death.  You find out what you are made of.  You find out … that your whole perspective changes on life, death.  You find out … you know nothing.

So … those who run their mouth about this or that … don’t really know anything … maybe they’ll get to know firsthand … then, we can see what they think.

It’s like in my situation being a grieving mother … I lost my only child … having listened to people who ‘knew it all’ about losing a child … find out they don’t know a damn thing … they don’t know how it feels to have their own child … die.  Some people … hadn’t ever had a child … go figure.

Until people can walk on those roads in life … they can only ‘guess’ at what they would do.  I promise you … they won’t do all these things they so loudly say they will do when … tragedy strikes.  I promise you that.  It would be good if they kept their mouths shut … not make an ass of themselves.

They do not know a damn thing.  Admit it … just say I think I would try to do this or that.  Not ‘if my child dies I know I’ll do this, I know I’ll do that’.  Like I said … you don’t know a damn thing.

I don’t even listen anymore to people … like you.  It’s probably best for you to tell someone who has a weaker mind than I do … I don’t want to hear it.

Why … would I listen … to you  …tell me something you’ve never had to deal with in your life?  You’d be like a teacher trying to teach … never having an education … not a foot to stand on.

It’s like someone telling you how to drive … never driving in their life.  It’s a whole different ballgame …

Anyway … unless one knows from experience … it would pay to tread lightly when saying things around people … who have survived trauma, tragedy … bad things in their life.  You don’t want to make these people … teach you a thing or two.  You really don’t have to say a thing excepting … I care, I’m so sorry.

This is some … I never said it’s all I think on the subject of death … of what I think about dying with dignity.  In my case after experiencing what I have with near-death …  it’s for me.  I believe in it.  I believe in hospice … keeping someone from suffering.

I believe in my case, my life … I would want to have a tablet to take when it came time that I knew I couldn’t come back from my illness.  I can’t speak for you … only for myself.

I believe in the right to die with dignity.

 

 

Note by this Author:  Photos/my thoughts on this subject are both owned, written by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee/@GeeGranny on Twitter.

 

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My Characters Speak For Themselves …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Photo is of me, owned by me … Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee …

I wanted to take a few minutes to let people who know me, don’t know me … to know that I write stories … they aren’t necessarily true stories.  I add my thoughts to my stories to make them real.  Some people take them too seriously, sometimes.  I feel like when they do, I wrote the story … ‘real’ enough.  🙂

Sometimes, I will hear something in the background on tv, around me … and go off on a writing spree.

Example:  the story I wrote about ‘I Don’t Give A Damn How You Are’ … that story came from hearing in the background on tv … a woman in an office setting saying, “hello-ooooooooooo, how-wwww are-eeeeeeeeeee you-uuuuuuuu”.

I began instantly thinking about how fakey it was … how it bothered me to hear someone say that.  I worked in an office setting for years, and I knew when one of the women said such in ‘that tone’… it wasn’t real.  They really didn’t give a damn.  Truth is the truth.

Anyway, I think people really thought I was meaning myself … like it was me who didn’t give a damn ‘how you are’.  It wasn’t me.  It was just writing.  It was one of those times, I went off on a little writing spree.  It was taken too seriously.

I am going to say this to those who don’t know me, and are new to my writing.  I’m a for-real good person who has been through very bad things in my life.  I ‘could have been very, very bad’ … from the things that happened … I chose to be a good person.  I do care about people, feelings… animals.

I am very private, but, it doesn’t mean I don’t notice, or care about people around me.  I care more than anyone knows.  Sometimes, I don’t know how to show it.  When someone begins getting too close to me … I begin backing off.  It’s just me … it doesn’t mean I’m mean, or bad.  I can’t afford to be ‘too close’ to anyone … I don’t need any extra pain.

I don’t write about any one thing.  But … one thing that I do write at any time is grief, and remembering Tommy, my son.  I know pain, grief … how most things in life feel from experience.  It’s why I write … and I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me.  I don’t feel sorry for myself.  No one has to take what I write … too seriously.

Whenever, I see someone doing that (I read the comments you write) … I have to stop time to time … to write what you are reading at this very moment.

Just know that whatever happens to be on my mind … isn’t for anyone to take too seriously.  The story I wrote about the mother (Is This What My Son Died … Fighting For?) … wasn’t a true story in my life … but, it is in … someone’s life.  It just came to me, when my heart felt for the mother of a soldier who died in Afghanistan.  No, I didn’t know her … but, as a mother of a son who died … that came to my mind.

We are all human, and we focus on what’s in our immediate life.  I know we all aren’t aware every moment that young men are on foreign soil fighting, losing their lives for us.  I think of it a lot; some people do.  We have to live life wherever we are … I realize that.  We are what we think about …

Anyway … just know, I am a most caring, compassionate person.  No matter what I write, the several ‘ugly’ words I use from time to time … doesn’t mean I’m not a good person.

When writing, one has to write what’s on one’s mind at that time … sometimes, in order to be written as it needs to be … an ‘ugly’ word has to be used.  It doesn’t mean I’m being ugly.  That’s what writers do …  ‘My characters speak for themselves’ …

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I Don’t Give a Damn How You Are …

I Don’t Give A Damn How You Are …

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

Yes, that’s right … this is the expression to give a … fakey-ass … person!  I ‘don’t know’ who this photo is of… but, I do own it!  🙂  Gloria Faye Brown Bates/ aka Granny Gee

 

God!  I cringe every time I hear that!  I’m just saying if someone says that to me … I’m going to stop, look them in the eyes, make a horrible face, stick my tongue out at them.

I might even comment back in the same ‘tone’ of voice.  If I do that, I know they will get my big hint.  They might even think twice of doing it to someone else … again.

I don’t like fakey-ass people.  God knows there are so many.  They are always ‘magically there’ … if they think you’ve done something ‘great, important’.  When they find out you are just yourself, always been yourself … they ‘magically disappear’.  As for me, I’m always glad, because … I don’t have to figure out how to get them out of my life!

I know … I know.  Once in a while ‘we all’ … have to be a fakey-ass person.  I mean, really … we do.  Some things call for nothing less … than being fakey … unless you want to make a ‘bad’ scene.  Do you agree?

Like when someone is blowing smoke up someone’s ass … telling them how beautiful they look.  You look for ‘that beauty’ … for some reason you don’t see it.

Are you going to say, “damn, you look like hell … there’s nothing beautiful about you”.  Are you going to say that … or are you going to agree, go your way.  It’s easier … not to make a scene … not only that, what in the world would you accomplish if … you told the truth?

HELLO, HO——WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW AR-RRRRRRRRRE Y—–O—- UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU?

Don’t tell me that, ever.  I will instantly become disgusted.  I hate to hear someone say that to me.  I don’t feel like smiling, being nice anymore!

Can’t you just be honest, say ‘I don’t give a damn how you are … it’s just part of my job to pretend I do’?

Photo/story credit:  owned by #Gloria Faye Brown Bates / aka &grannygee

NOTE:  This is exactly my ‘Gloria Opinion’.  I know some things require ‘being fakey’ … but, some things … don’t.  I won’t argue this with anyone … I have a mind of my own.  🙂 ❤

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