Live from Baton Rouge

I'm here at the home of my best friend Daph and my new friend Allison, aka Nice Lady. It is here that I have come to heal through laughter therapy at the end of each day since Wednesday this week.

It's been a tough week. Even tougher than I expected in some ways. I found things out this week. Things that the living never tell. Things that only the belongings of the dead can reveal. If you've ever had to clean out after a death, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. There are things that lie concealed in everyone's past. Some of which are best left concealed.

There are also things found in the belongings of the dead which serve no other purpose than to give us something to do that takes our minds off the grief. Did my mother know that by saving every grocery, drug, and bill receipt from 1962-1983, every Christmas present tag, every letter from every kid off at college, and every shot record and report card from each of us that by sifting through these useless records for at least 8 hours a day for a solid week I'd have a break from the grief of being completely without parents for the first time in 52 years?

What the hell are all these keys for? Are they my mother's keys as well as keys my mother inherited from her mother and was afraid to throw away for fear that whatever they unlocked will show up? I am now the keeper of the keys. I couldn't throw them away either Mom, so I'm going to make a wind chime out of them. Until whatever they unlock shows up, they'll tinkle in the breeze.

I have to say that at 25 years after my mother's death, I didn't expect to find so many of her things in Dad's house. Her entire vanity area was as if she'd only stepped out for a moment. Even her makeup case was still there. The vanity must have been a sort of memorial since my father had placed her final notes to him there, her final scribbled wishes in case anything happened because of the surgery, which it did, and the kind note from her surgeon who seemed genuinely stricken by her passing and wished to let us know that she was unconscious and unaware as she passed away so there was no fear or pain in her final hours.

Then, to stir up the emotions a little more, I found out that my father felt guilty because my mother was terrified of the coming surgery and had asked him to do something simple to comfort her. She'd asked him to crawl into the hospital bed with her and just hold her. My father was so uncomfortable about being seen in bed with his wife, in public, that he would not do that one simple thing. Yet, years later he prominently displayed on his night stand the photo he took of his girlfriend clad only in a flimzy teddy, attempting a pin-up style pose. Perhaps in heaven or wherever, there are large, cast iron frying pans and perhaps the only pain is when dead wives clout their dead husbands with them. We can hope.

Then there is my eldest brother who looks so grief stricken and sorrowful at times that I'd just like to hug him tightly until he cries. I'm sure he has some rather conflicted emotions as well, although probably different than mine. I'd give just about anything to save him the pain he's in.

Thus, with my brain clouded with grief for the father that wasn't, grief for the mother that was, anger at the injustices, guilt over the anger, and worry for my brother, I have stumbled gratefully through the door on Vicksburg St. and into the healing company of women who care and laugh and lighten my heart and spirit.

I am lucky to have three of the most wonderful women in the world as my friends and they are all right here in Baton Rouge. Becky, my absolutely crazed friend that is known for picking up sea shells, shark teeth and missiles on the beaches of Pensacola, Allison my new friend and truly Nice Lady, and Daph my soul friend who lifts my heart even if I simply hear her laughing on the other side of the house. These are the kinds of women that make having women friends such a special experience. I thank all three of them for helping me through this week.

Norman Caldwell Scaife

Gone Fishin'

July 13, 2008

'Nuff Said

One picture worth at least 500 words

2nd picture, a close up, worth the next 500.

Farmer's Note:

Okay. I guess pictures aren't enough and a bit of explanation is necessary for Zonkster pals and others.

We do know the importance of our prey animals. All the gods know how I wish I had more king snakes, more bull snakes, more coachwhips, more coyotes, more hawks and falcons. I have to draw the line at snakes that will kill my animals, my family, my friends and me. In a much much earlier post I go into some detail about the effects of having put 1/4 inch wire mesh around the entire horse facility in order to discourage the rattlesnakes. The coachwhips can zip over that stuff like it wasn't there and they're welcome in my barn and pastures. We keep our mouse population under control with traps. My barn dog keeps the squirrels and rabbits out of the barn and pastures quite handily. None of the snakes kill the adult rabbits and only prey on the very small young ones. The snakes can eat the squirrels and I wish more non-lethal snakes were here to do so. It's never with "glee" that we dispatch a rattler so we work more to discourage their presence. When we're forced to, however, we do without hesitation and that's just how it's gotta be.