My Saga, continued.

 

When I was 15, during a moment of extreme grief, my mother said to me through tears, that I was to never cause family destruction and cause such pain to a  woman. We were on our way to confront my step-father when he was caught cheating on their marriage. The marriage and entire family soon fell completely apart. To this day my siblings and I do not speak, and I rarely speak to my mother. 

And of all the writers, so-called, few write words worth reading at all.

The most important stories, I feel, are the ones that are too hard to tell. This might be one of them, though a continuation of my struggles to have a life that my own children and a family. These stories are mostly to let them know of my hardships while trying to create a shameless existence out of the lies and deception that kept me desperate for something better than to be capitalized on because of that desperation.

And out of the hundred or more women that I subjected myself to, the life I had known after my divorce kept me very reserved from becoming unequally yoked once again. 

After more than a year of seeking what I thought was safety and security to improve my family relations, I began internet dating but this time I tried Tinder.  

Several weeks, and failures went by- avoiding more drug addicted situations, Julie and I found each other. After many conversations she came to spend time with me at a local motel. It was nice, and we continued seeing each other for several more weeks.

Things began to be difficult to manage, especially since the people I entrusted would rather have me self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana instead of seeing my doctors and using the prescribed medication.

After I found a hand gun in my bed, and avoided being shipped to Mexico with my savings, I made the decision to cut ties and move on, although I had no idea what I would do aside from trying to get my home repair business back together. I decided to get a motel room for a week to buy time to make a plan. Having no one else to call, I called Julie and asked her to come help me get out. She came right away.

While at the motel, I became friendly with some other people staying there. They were outside drinking, offering me a drink. Later that night I blacked out because the drink was drugged. Julie almost left me there over it but the next day we straightened things out and she began to share things with me that she really didn't want to share, and I don't blame her.

We had spoken on the phone quite a bit, sharing time with her grand daughter with me. Soon I learned that there was no man involved with this family that wasn't a heroin addict, and little did I know at the time, her daughter was also an addict.

While laying in bed, Julie began telling me about electrical issues at home. Outlets were bursting into flames. Circuit breakers were constantly popping etc... Knowing that the house was full of women, I knew they were in great danger. Having nothing better to do with my time, I demanded she take me to her home first thing in the morning to intervene. It was clearly understood that the house was going to burn down.

There was no way I was going to read about 4 women dying in a house fire that was placed in my hands. It felt to me as God had sent her to me so, I went.

This way very well be the hardest story I have ever told, and maybe the most important.

The next day, we arrived at her farm. The entire property was in a shambles. Soon I would learn that this was her prison. Her only escape was going to work, where she worked. Then to return home to be robbed of what she earned. Off with the work clothes, on with the pajamas, and then back to her own personal space in her bed where she prayed over and over for 28 years... to die.

The only thing that I could do was anything and everything to improve something in the least for her. My legal pad accumulated notes and details to document everything I could. My fear was that she would go to prison because of what had become of her life... at the insistence of a demon created by her own daughter.

"Out of the frying pan.." was my video documentation of my efforts to tend to what needed tending in order to protect Julie. After seeing what I saw there was nothing I could do but stay and tarry there for her, which I did. I kept this video journal as evidence in order to defend her, if necessary. This is the biggest disaster I have ever dealt with, and it's still not over. Out Of The Frying Pan... 1

Although my sobriety has been about 15 months, I must admit that alcohol helped me to endure for a while or so I felt but I found myself to be more than overwhelmed, drinking myself into a stupor when depression overtook me. 

There was no choice, in my mind, to leave her. For love for her was not the reason but love for myself. How could I abandon her when there was no other man that dared to tread there and give of himself? No, I admit, at the time I was not in love with her. It was my personal convictions that forced me to stay. She needed me more than all the women I had even known put together.

Her only request of me was to not ask her to purchase alcohol for me, and I don't believe I ever did.

There were five horses, six dogs, twelve cats, a pot-bellied pig running loose destroying forty years of lawn care, a rabbit and a bird in a cage- all brought home as what I feel were offerings to improve her relationship with a daughter that kept her dwelling in the grief a woman feels when the father denies the child. And if that wasn't bad enough, to be forced to endure the daily grief of guilt constantly reminded to her that she had no father for the child. A father that should have been there to dictate that children do not play with farm equipment as toys. Yes, while in the house preparing lunch, Julies daughter was injured by a young boy riding the lawnmower which caused her daughter's hand to be amputated.

So, between punishing her mother for having no father, she waved her amputation like a magic wand that had command over her mother. Having a child of her own was the trifecta, and she would use that child against her mother like a bully.

One week after I arrived and started making corrections, Julie's daughter removed herself and child from the home in order to punish her mother for bringing me there. When she found a place to live, she then plead with her mother to allow her to take possession of her grandmother due to the fact that she needed her income to pay her bills rather than submit to the household and her mother as she should.

When the electrical issues seemed to be mended, the animals commanded my attention. The barn needed a make-over for the horses care. The dogs were severely depressed. Twelve cats had taken over the entire house and property, and little did I know that years of dumping cat food out had attracted raccoons that had taken up residence in the abandon house on the property that was being used for storage.

The room her daughter had for Julie's grand daughter was overtaken with boxes of junk stored, as well as the many shipping boxes accumulated from television programming that stripped Julie and her mother of their money while chasing down prepackaged affection offered through television programming.

While the manure was left unattended, the pile grew to a well trodden three feet in the horse pen. A pile a discarded vacuum cleaners and air conditioners lay concealed by broken swimming pool parts and "salvageable" materials that were heaped up on the property by Julie's two brothers. And, little did I know, they were waging their war against her as well- ever since she was employed and able to purchase the property from her parents. No one did anything but add to the debris and destruction.

Even though Julie had purchased the modular home new, it was all but completely destroyed. And her daughter? She was just fine with it. And Julie continued to pray for death to come for herself. 

After begging her, Julie finally went to the doctor to be treated for depression. And multiple times I asked her to get insurance on the house.

For almost a year, Julie was not allowed to see or speak to her granddaughter simply because of my interrupting the control she had over her mother. 

To this day she rejects my offerings and will not allow her mother and I to visit her together. She mockingly calls me "the hero".  

One day, Julie had an opportunity to take a job transfer that I fully supported, seeing as it was the only way to encourage her healing by getting her away from the disaster of her property. It was then my intention to renovate the home with the intentions that Julie's mother, daughter, and granddaughter could take over the property. This, secretly to me, was an impossibility because Julie's daughter was not lovable. She had no love for herself, and certainly had no love for God. To me it would be impossible for her to ever have a man in her life that could tend to the many issues of the property- let alone tending to a Godless, loveless selfish woman.

Eager to escape the property, I began remodeling the entire house. Suddenly, Julie's daughter was on speaking terms with me but only as my boss. Of all of the things that needed to be tended to, the home had to be handicap accessible for grandma. As for Julie's daughter, all she cared about was the dilapidated swimming pool so, she searched around to find pool parts and concerned me with the pool. 

As Julie healed in her new environment, her sebaceous boils went away and I tended to her healing when we were together by removing the boils and blackheads left, and rubbing her with salves and ointments.

Two years of begging her family to come help me, Julie's daughter brought a friend of hers named Josh to help me. Little did I know Josh was just another drug addict, which all of her friends were.

He was little to no help at all.

At midnight, the end of July, Josh came to me as I watched a television show. He said, "something is going on on the porch". When I went to see, I instantly realized the house was on fire. I said, "Fire!" And Josh went running out of the house to go look, closing the door behind him. He did nothing to take a dog with him or anything. The house began filling with black smoke as I looked around for Hercules and Jax- our two dogs. The power went out and I hit the floor to crawl around in my search for my animals while holding my breath. 

Exhausted and scrambling, I located an animal cage of a bearded dragon that I recently rescued. Crawling on the floor, I felt the wall in order to find my way out of the house. 

When I finally found the door it was burning but I got it opened only to find the storm door. Instead of flapping in the breeze, it's actually shut. Reaching for the handle, my hand hit the glass and burned. I took a picture of my hand print later. Rolling out of the doorway, dragging the cage, I landed in a soft spot on the ground and dashed to get some things out of the way for the fire department.

The flames were so big and hot that I could not get near the water faucet, and it would have been useless. I moved my truck, dragged the quad runner and motorcycle out of the way and hoped they got there soon to save the house. A neighbor, who most likely never lent her a hand, drove up and parked out front to watch the place burn. It made me sick.

When the fire department showed up, they sent me to the emergency room to be treated. I was in shock.

Escaping The Despondent Sea is available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited, and is receiving 5 star reviews on Goodreads.com