S. Kay Murphy's Blog

Day of the Dead - Honoring the Grandmothers

 I come from along line of strong, independent, defiant, flawed women. I see myself in all ofthem, all the way back to my great-grandmother.

 

Bertha Gifford, my great-grandmother

BerthaGifford, born Bertha Alice Williams, was my mother’s grandmother. She married aman much older than she, and he was unfaithful. When he died, she married a manmuch younger than she. She could, because she was beautiful, but also becausethere had to be something—I mean, I never met her—but for a man of 20 to love awoman of 30, and pursue her, and marry her—there had to be something more thanjust carnal lust. Unless she was the one pursuing him, in which case, knowingthese women as I do, he never had a chance.

But Berthaand Gene were together for decades, faithfully, each committed to the other.Even when Bertha was accused of poisoning people she had cared for as anuntrained “volunteer nurse” in their community, Gene remained loyal to her. Andeven when Bertha went to trial and was subsequently remanded to an institutionfor the criminally insane, Gene stuck by her for years, driving downthe long, slow gravel roads of Missouri to see her as often as he could… untilhe finally took up with another woman. (Lucky for him she was incarcerated….)

Someone intheir community told a snoopy reporter that Bertha once chased a man off oftheir property with a butcher knife. This story was offered as evidence thatBertha was insane and capable of murder. Was she, though? Because I havequestions about that. Where was Gene when this happened? And for what purposehad the man come on their property? Because this is what I know about somemen—starting with my stepfather and including men I’ve worked with and men withwhom I once attended church—some men believe that they can take what they wantfrom a woman, that it’s their role to dominate, her role to submit. Berthastrikes me as a woman who didn’t cotton to that, a woman who stuck up forherself, and yes, a woman who would grab a butcher knife from the kitchen whenthreatened and stand up to a man and say, “Touch me again and there’s going tobe blood shed and it isn’t going to be mine.” Because I have said these wordsto a man, although I did not have any sort of weapon in my hand when I said it.Is this proof of my own insanity? Am I capable of murder? I will answer aresounding yes to that, given certain circumstances.

My grandmother, Lila Clara Graham (West/Parrack)

Bertha’s onlydaughter was my grandmother, born Lila Clara Graham. Lila, a child fromBertha’s first marriage, married a Missouri man, but they soon moved to Detroitso her husband could get in on the growth of this new technology, theautomobile. The marriage didn’t last, but Lila provided for herself by runninga boarding house. Okay, full disclosure, this is what I was told when I wasyoung. In my thirties, after Lila had passed, and I began to ask some criticalquestions of my mother while researching Bertha’s life and alleged crimes, mymother explained that, well, yes, the establishment was actually a “blind pig,”the boarding house being a cover for the illegal sale of alcohol duringprohibition.

“A lot ofdifferent people would come and go,” my mother said, “and it wasn’t the bestclientele, if you know what I mean. That’s why my mother sent me down toMissouri to live with my grandmother. She didn’t want me to be exposed to thekinds of people who hung around there.”

It wasn’tuntil many years after my mother’s passing that I learned from her stepsisterthat the “boarding house” was neither hotel nor blind pig. In truth, Lila ran abrothel. Thus the shady clientele. Thus the need to shield her daughter fromwhat was actually going on with all those folks quite literally “coming andgoing.”

Mygrandmother saved enough money in the 1940’s to move to the West Coast. Gotherself a cute little apartment in Los Angeles and took a job as a cook in abar. She did this on her own, no man in sight. And this was the grandmother Iknew, the one whose daily uniform, whether at home or at work or visiting ourfamily in Lakewood, was a comfortable cotton dress with short sleeves and afull skirt to accommodate her large, round body, covered always with a clean,ironed apron. She made her own clothes, and she made clothes for me and mysister. She came to visit often, sitting at the kitchen table with coffee or acocktail, snapping green beans or shucking corn, gossiping with Mom about theneighbors or talking shit about the men in their lives.  Until Mom told her to “stop spoiling” us, shealways brought gifts for us kids—coloring books for the girls, those littlebalsa wood airplanes with plastic propellers that wound up with a rubber bandfor the boys, cinnamon raisin bread, and hugs. Big, soft, laughing Grandmahugs.

Lila laugheda lot, clacking her dentures closed so they wouldn’t fall out of her mouth. Shetaught me my first Spanish words and phrases— con leche, mañana, café—whenI was Kindergarten age. Because when she came to L.A. and worked in the bar,she had Spanish-speaking customers. So she learned to speak as much of thelanguage as she needed to in order to serve her customers. Imagine that.

Lila, mygrandmother, never spoke of Bertha, her mother, never gave a hint that shelived with this secret… that she lived with so many secrets. When her marriageended and she was alone in a big city, she found a way to survive. And when shecould, she pulled up stakes and struck out for the Pacific Ocean, reinventingherself again. She didn’t have a single relative living in California when shecame here. I wish now I could ask her why she came, what her dream was. I wishI could ask about her mother. Mostly I just wish I could hug her again andthank her for my lifelong love of cinnamon raisin toast.

My mom, in uniform

My mother,Arta Ernestine West, was born to Lila and her husband in Detroit. But shethought of Missouri as her second home, loved life on the farm with Bertha andGene, loved fishing in the Meramec River, loved her horse, Babe, loved schooland winning spelling bees. (I never once beat her at Scrabble, but Lord knows I tried.) She loved James, her uncle, Bertha and Gene’s son, who was fouryears her senior. They were hanging out together the day the sheriff drove upand took Bertha away to jail, the day my mother’s life changed forever andbecame one of shame and secrets. Mom had just turned ten.

At twelve,back in Detroit, she was sent to live with her father and stepmother while sherecovered from an illness.

“Ernestinewas very, very sick,” her stepsister told me. “I hope it’s okay to tell youthis; she had syphilis.” (Years before, a doctor had confided to me privatelythat he was treating her for tertiary syphilis. In a terribly awkwardconversation, I tried to explain to my mother, in her late eighties by then,why he was prescribing certain antibiotics. The conversation did not go well.)

Apparentlyone of the customers from the so-called boarding house had… Well, there’s noneed to elaborate… just… more shame and secrets.

My mom leftschool and married the first time at age 15 and was divorced a year or so later.In her early twenties, she roamed around the country, picking up gigs as a nightclubsinger. In 1943, at the age of 25, she enlisted in the branch of service known thenas the Women’s Auxiliary Air Corps, where she learned to drive and service thelarge military vehicles used in WWII.

Until myadulthood, I had no idea Mom had been married three times before she married mydad. I also didn’t know how bad their marriage had been until a family friend,a man who’d been the kid down the street from us in the 1950’s, told me thestory of how Mom and Dad had been at the neighbors’ house for a cocktail partyone night and had exchanged heated words. Mom sassed him, and my father slappedher, at which point my mother grabbed an empty beer bottle and said somethingto the effect of “Come on, Pete, come at me again.”

Shades ofBertha, no?

My fatherdied in 1963, and my mother, with the GED she earned while in the service,found a job working as a clerk for a school district. Somehow she managed tofeed four kids and keep us in clothes until we were old enough to care forourselves.

As I said, Icome from a long line of strong, independent, defiant, flawed women. And I amgrateful every day for that strength of character, that defiant independence,that willingness to do what needs to be done in order to survive. When Idivorced, and my husband abandoned his children, refusing to pay child support,I went to college, earning my degree in four years while raising four kids onmy own and living at the poverty level. People sometimes ask how I did it. Thisis what I learned from these women: We do what we have to do to survive.

What Ilearned further from these women is that no good comes from carrying the weightof shame and secrecy. Unlike them—and because of them—I try to live my life insuch a way that my children and my grandchildren can ask me anything, and I cantell them the truth.

No more secrets.No more shame.

And because Ibelieve in life after death, I know that these three women are with me alwaysin spirit and in power. Lordy, I just wish I could hear what those old gals aregossiping about now.

Wear Sunscreen

 

Wearsunscreen.

Wear. sunscreen.

In 1993, Ifound a mole on my leg that looked scary. When my doc saw it, he said, “That’scoming off today.” Two weeks later, he called me in, sat down beside me, took my hand, and told me it was a melanoma, that I wouldbe having surgery in a few days to remove a large chunk of tissue from my leg, and further treatment might be needed if the cancer had metastasized.

At that time, I had been divorced a year. I was a single mother of four beloved children whose greatest fear in life matched mine--that something would happen to me and their father would get custody of them. Those days... sitting on the couch... waiting for the surgery... were long and dark.

Post-surgeryI was relieved to hear that the first pathologist had been incorrect; the mole wasreally a basal cell carcinoma, and not much of a threat. I started breathing again.

From thattime going forward, I stopped tanning my legs, always wore long pants, began using a face moisturizerwith sunblock, and I always wear a hat or cap while outside to protect my faceand my eyes. (A colleague was diagnosed with melanoma in his eye. He lived less than a year after his diagnosis.)

Fast forwarda few decades….

I generallyspend August picking peaches off my tree (eating them, freezing them, givingthem away) and writing poetry for the Cascadia Poetics Lab's Postcard Poetry Fest. ThisAugust, while I did do those things, I spent some quality time with first mydermatologist, then a surgeon. Because, after months of pleading for adermatology appointment, I finally got one—and yep, I was right, I had acouple of spots of skin cancer.

One of thosespots was a melanoma. For real this time.

Damn.

Damn damndamn.

Hearing the voice of a doctor I didn't know say in a voicemail, "Unfortunately, the lesion on your arm is a melanoma, and you'll need to call and schedule surgery right away...." sunk my heart from my chest to my hiking boots. Thus followed a few more long and dark days.

A week after surgery, when my surgeon called to let me know he’d gottenclear margins, that the cancer had not spread and I was free to “go live my life” as long as I see mydermatologist on a regular basis, I thanked him profusely. Then I ended the call and sobbed in relief for twenty minutes.

So now I have a four-inch scar down my arm (which will fade with time, I know) and the sense of gratitude that wells up when we realize that, shoot, this could have gone in a whole different direction.

I don’t wantto be sick or undergoing treatment. I suck at that. I want to be writing, and Iwant to be out hiking (which, by the way, no doubt led to this skin cancer, asI had been covering everything except my arms. Now I’m wearing UV blocking sleeveswhenever I am out in the sun).

My belovedreaders… wear sunscreen. Cover up. Take good care. Some cancers, as we know,are preventable. Let’s be smart together, okay?

For your edification(and because we’re getting close to Halloween, ha ha ha), I have posted belowphotos of my arm immediately post-surgery, then as the healing progressed. Don’tfeel compelled to look unless you want to.

Here’s toyour good health! Sláinte!

How Terribly Strange...?

The "round toes" of my "high shoes"
Old friends... sat on their park bench like bookendsA newspaper blown through the grass... falls on the round toes... of the high shoesOf the old friends....Can you imagine us years from today? Sharing a park bench quietly....How terribly strange to be seventy....(from "Old Friends," by Paul Simon)
Paul Simonwas twenty-six years old when his song, “Old Friends,” was released on theBookends album. I was fourteen. I played that vinyl record (a gift from myjunior high boyfriend, Doug Olson) over and over and over that year and thenext. To Simon, at age twenty-six, the thought of being seventy years old musthave been unfathomable, as it was for me. Paul Simon is eighty-three now… andstill doing music.

I am seventy.And I have to say, it has not been “terribly strange” at all. In fact, beingseventy has been a lot like being sixty-nine or sixty-eight. Am I a bit morewrinkly? Well, sure. Does it bother me? Not a wit. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, Ihope that with each passing year, I am becoming more “real” (although, just tobe culturally current, I would use the term “authentic”).

At fourteen,though, I could not envision myself at fifty, much less seventy. By the time mygrandmother was in her fifties, although she still had her sense of humor and anappreciation for the absurdity of life, she was diabetic, wore dentures, andhad trouble getting around. I was already clinically depressed at fourteen, andI could not imagine finding joy in a life such as hers. “No,” I thought. “Justno.”

At fourteen,my vision of what my future would hold was darker than I can describe withwords… and I do know some words.

Turns out, inmy fifties, I wasn’t like my grandmother at all (though I loved her dearly). Atfifty-two, I moved to a cabin in the wilderness where in winter I regularlyshoveled my truck out of several feet of snow in order to get to work, hikedalmost daily, stacked cords of firewood, and befriended young bears, raccoons,and the little fox that wanted the other half of my burrito.

At seventy, Istill have my own teeth, in case you’re wondering. And I’m still hiking, thoughnot daily, as I no longer live in the mountains. I’m walking three miles a day,though. Climbing over downed trees or up onto boulders when I hike. And, likePaul Simon, still playing my guitar and singing. Who knew seventy would be thismuch fun?

Honestly, I’mfeeling pretty blessed after seventy turns around the sun.

That includesexperiencing the miracles of Nature through 280 seasons.

At two a day,that’s approximately 38,690 cups of black tea (given I began drinking the stuffat age eighteen). Ahhhhh….

I’ve hadeleven cats (13 if you count childhood family cats).

Nineteendogs. (Some were short timers, like my beloved June. All were adored.)

I’ve rescuedand held a hummingbird twice.

I’ve rescuedand held (with leather gloves) a baby opossum, returning it to its anxiousmama.

I’ve felt themuzzle of a yearling bear as it snuffled my bare hand.

I’ve written andpublished eight books, and I’ve seen my byline in numerous nationalperiodicals, including a published poem or two.

I literally laughedand sang my way through a career teaching teenagers what to love and what notto love about literature.

I’ve lived tosee all four of my children fledge, struggle, find their wings, and fly toresponsible adulthood. (My biggest blessing to date.)

I’ve lived tosee five of my six grandchildren do the same. (Jordan is still a teen.)

I’ve lived tohold two magnificent great-grandchildren in my arms.

So, I’m justsaying, seventy does not seem strange at all. Seventy feels warm andcomfortable, like flannel sheets in winter and a cup of hot chocolate withIrish cream and a good book.

Despite thecurrent political climate (don’t get me started), seventy feels hopeful. Yes,it’s awful right now, but the young people coming up are brighter and coolerthan ever, and as much as some might try to hide diversity from them, it’sright there in their social media feed, so yeah, they will be the champions ofinclusion. Trust me. Just wait.

July 1 beginsmy birthday month. I’ll be seventy-one next week. Here’s my prediction, basedon waking up above ground with open eyes and open heart for the past 25,909days: Seventy-one will feel a lot like seventy. Only just a bit more wrinkly.

A Gift by Special Delivery

 

We live in amagical time of consumerism, don’t we? I mean, make a wish—“I’d really like apair of flannel pajama pants with dogs on them”—and here’s a pair for you in The Big Shopping Warehouse of Rocketman Jeff.

Can youimagine this for someone in the late 1880’s? “Oh no! The paddle on your butterchurn broke! That’s gonna take Grandpa a day or so in the barn to make one. Oh,wait—we can order a new paddle. Better yet, let me just order you someKerrygold butter from Whole Foods. Yeah, the milk comes straight from Irish cows so youknow it’s good….”

Ah, it’slovely, isn’t it? And weirdly, part of the charm is getting that brown box atthe door—especially when we didn’t order anything. I love opening my front doorto find something a friend or family member has sent. “Hey, kids!” (Of course Imean Maya, Maudie, and Jenny.) “Look what someone sent us! Let’s see what itis!”

Exactly oneyear ago this month, I received an unexpected gift. But it didn’t come in abrown box, and it wasn’t left on my front door. It definitely came from afriend, though, and it was left in my back yard, more specifically, in theplanter. You can see a photo of it on this page; Nature gifted me with thatyoung cottonwood tree you see above.

Quite abeauty, isn’t she? Of course, she didn’t start out that way. She started outlike this:

Can youbelieve it? A tiny seed like that! There are cottonwoods that grow in theravine (aka “Coyote Gulch”), and they slough off their seeds in the springbreezes like Californians shed sweaters. The air is filled with these floatingpuffs of seed pods, reminiscent of the Who Horton heard.

Somehow, oneof those puffs blew into my yard, and one single seed—somehow—took root.Sometime in September, when I was weeding that section of the planter, I discovereda tiny baby tree. My first thought was, “Oh, honey, you can’t grow up here.There won’t be enough water, and your roots will eventually wreak havoc on theblock wall.” That’s me. Always leading with the pragmatic aspect of my being.

My nextresponse was this: Thank you, Nature, for gifting me with this tree, a placefor the little finches to rest in the heat of the day and perhaps even nest oneday when the branches are tall enough and strong enough (instead of inside myaluminum patio cover). Thank you for offering a place for Jenny and Maudie tofind shade where there was none before. They love to lie up there in the tallgrass, but by summer it has dried to a crisp brown in the heat. In seasonsahead, they will have shade. And so will I, on that side of the house.

I know, Iknow, you don’t have to tell me; cottonwoods spring up quickly and fall downeasily and break branches in tall winds and ask me if I care. I don’t. I wantedto worry about all those things, but you know what? I already have so manythings to worry about—the health of my aging cat, the health of my agingfriends, hell, the health of my beloved country—this one tree can do what it’sgoing to do. Nature offered it. Nature must care for it. I’ll just stand backand enjoy the benefits.

And maybe,from time to time, I’ll climb up there and give that tree a hug. Because that’sjust who I am. Thanks, Nature. I love you!

 

Of Love and Friendship

Tom Clift on bass. Photo courtesy of Steven Young Photography

This is acautionary tale.

It is a storyof love, and trust, and friendship, and sad lessons. And time. Because wealways think there will be enough time….

Sometime inthe late 90’s, I stumbled upon a chat room for depressed people. Don’t rememberhow and doesn’t matter. My first reaction upon finding it was laughter.

Seriously?Y’all sit at your computers and talk to each other about how sad you are?

My secondthought was: Boy howdy, this is my tribe.

So I joined. Nearlyevery night for months, I would log on and chat away with perfectly imperfectstrangers who turned out to be some of the funniest, most intelligent people Ihave ever encountered. And yes, most of them were or had been clinically depressed.At that time, my life… my soul… was fairly balanced. But while I had learnedstrategies to keep the darkness away, I had not yet followed my journey intotherapy, so I never knew when suddenly I might be spiraling down, trying tohang onto hope. These people, with their love and compassion and kindness,lifted me. Nightly.

One of theindividuals who was frequently in the chat room used the handle botTom. (Myhandle was Savannah, the suicidal sister in Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides.)Among those chatting, botTom stood out for three reasons: He was kind. He wasfunny (in a gentle, clever way). He was articulate. (God, I love a man who canspell and punctuate correctly.) And he was incredibly smart.

It happenedone evening that folks in the room were discussing the winter weather, and Imentioned that I was blessed to be enjoying the sun in Southern California.BotTom sent me a private message: “You’re not in Georgia? Are you visiting?Or…?” It took me a sec. Then I realized….

“No,” I toldhim. “Born and raised in and can’t escape CA.”

Turns out thesame was true for him. We decided to meet for lunch and get to know one another.He had described himself perfectly, so when I saw him outside the restaurant, Ifelt immediately at ease.

“Tom?” Isaid.

He held thedoor open for me as he said, “Is your first name Savannah, then?”

I am stilltempted to tell people that’s what the “S” stands for….

We talked fortwo hours—about how we both grew up in Orange County, about how we came uponour blessed tribe of fellow depressives, about love found and love lost, andabout cats—specifically, the two Siamese cat children that remained after Tom’sgirlfriend moved out.

Somewheretoward the end of that two hours, we established that Tom was a musician. Iabsolutely love that he was so low key about this. It would be another year orso before he happened to mention that he had toured with The New ChristyMinstrels and had played with this or that well-known person or band in theL.A./Orange County areas of SoCal.

Tom’s music,my writing, were almost never a focus of our conversations. We met up or calledinfrequently to check in on each other, and our exchanged “How are you doing?”was intentional and meaningful. He knew I was living with adult children andgrandchildren and working fulltime and trying to write my second book. I knewthat he was grabbing gigs wherever he could get them while working a low-payingday job and struggling to afford rent in Orange County.

Life is hard, and depression is a sly companion, slipping in while you’re busy keeping youreyes on all the chainsaws you’re juggling. We kept tabs on each other’s mentalhealth, and after we became Facebook friends, if he saw something there or onmy blog that indicated I was struggling, he would message or call. Those twoSiamese cats—his sweetest and truest companions—lived to the age of 20. Wheneach one passed, I checked in often, as Tom was so heartbroken in losing them,I thought we might lose him.

Over theyears, I saw Tom perform a couple of times, once on a magical night at the L.A.County Fair. He was doing the gig solo, just Tom and his guitar. I’d forgottento bring a jacket, so by the time I’d finished my Australian potato and amargarita, I was shivering and my fingernails were blue. (This detail havingbeen recorded in a personal journal.) But I loved hearing him sing. He satwith me on his breaks, and we laughed together about “fair people.” Iconfessed that I was absolutely one of them.

In 2017,Tom’s sister Jill, his last remaining sibling, passed away. As will happen, herpassing put my friend in mind of his own mortality. At his request, we met at arestaurant with two of his friends to discuss his last wishes. At that meeting,Tom asked me to be the executor of his will. Of course I agreed immediately,feeling honored that he trusted me in such a capacity. I urged him to have aproper will drawn up, naming me as such. We went on to discuss such things asthe disposition of his remains and who would get his guitars. “If I still haveany by then,” he said. And we laughed.

Because ofcourse he was expecting to live a long time.

Fast forwardto 2025. In January, Tom and I exchanged exasperated messages via Facebook.After the pandemic lockdown, we had taken to meeting up for culturalexperiences, touring the Mission Inn in Riverside, visiting the art museum, and indulging in other pleasant outings. But when my old dog was dying in 2024, I had to curtailthose meetups for a while. Then Tom’s phone became unreliable, and he wasnot receiving my messages. Somehow, finally, his phone was sorted, and I wasfree, and we started trying to make a plan to see each other.

“Trying”being the operative word in that previous sentence.

On March 29,Tom tried to call me while I was driving up to the mountains and had no cellreception. When I arrived at my destination, I received the following textmessage from him:

          My gabby thing is dying and so

          am I wo n

          the be long

"My gabby thing." His phone? Was he joking? Or unable to bring to mind the word "phone"? Was he trying to tell me he was dying? I didn't want to believe it was true.

I triedcalling him, but he didn’t pick up. When I began my drive home, I tried callingagain. No answer. I tried several more times that evening. No response. I knownow that he had been hospitalized that day. That he had been suffering fromadvanced gall bladder cancer for months. That he had been sent home that samenight and placed on hospice care. But I didn’t know it then.

My phone rangthe next morning at 5:30a.m. while I was walking the dogs. It was Tom, so Iimmediately picked up. “I can’t reach my water,” he said, his words slurring.“Can you come?”

Every once ina great while in our lives—maybe only once or twice—we are called upon to do bigthings, tasks that require special sacrifice or uncharacteristic spontaneity.This was one of those times for me. I wish with all my heart I could write thatI took the dogs home, got dressed, and drove the hour to Tom’s apartment—aplace I had never been before—and given him his water. Instead, my veryrational brain took over and began a series of questions. To my “Are you sick?”he responded “A little bit.” He wouldn’t tell me how, and finally told me anurse would be coming any time, and he didn’t want to talk anymore. I made himpromise that he would have the nurse call me as soon as she arrived so I coulddetermine what was going on and whether I needed to cancel plans and go to him.

No one evercalled. Tom died a few hours later. This, I learned from a post on his Facebookpage.

The days andweeks following his death have been complicated and sad and frustrating ashell.

He never madea will, as far as we can tell. At least, one has not been found. One of hisnieces, because she is next-of-kin, has been tasked with taking care ofeverything—his apartment, his belongings, his finances… his guitars—all whileshe is grieving his loss.

As we allare, all of those who knew him and loved him. I am meeting his friends andbandmates for the very first time, and they are amazing and wonderful people…and Tom told no one, until the very last hours of his life, that he was dying.

So grief ismixed with guilt, and I push back against it, because guilt, other than makingus ‘do better next time’ or apologize when we need to, is a worthless emotion. I will struggle, though, until I see Tom on the other side, with this:

You hadone job, Murphy. The dying man just needed you to drop what you were doing andcome to him, something he had never asked or expected of you before, and youfailed him.

It's fine. Ofcourse it’s fine. He has crossed over, and he no longer feels any pain and heis joyfully singing with his friends who went before.

But….

My friend, wealways believe that there will be enough time. None of us, however—no matterwho we are—have a guarantee that there will be.

 

Tom Clift on bass. Photo courtesy of Steven Young Photogr...

Tom Clift on bass. Photo courtesy of Steven Young Photography

This is acautionary tale.

It is a storyof love, and trust, and friendship, and sad lessons. And time. Because wealways think there will be enough time….

Sometime inthe late 90’s, I stumbled upon a chat room for depressed people. Don’t rememberhow and doesn’t matter. My first reaction upon finding it was laughter.

Seriously?Y’all sit at your computers and talk to each other about how sad you are?

My secondthought was: Boy howdy, this is my tribe.

So I joined. Nearlyevery night for months, I would log on and chat away with perfectly imperfectstrangers who turned out to be some of the funniest, most intelligent people Ihave ever encountered. And yes, most of them were or had been clinically depressed.At that time, my life… my soul… was fairly balanced. But while I had learnedstrategies to keep the darkness away, I had not yet followed my journey intotherapy, so I never knew when suddenly I might be spiraling down, trying tohang onto hope. These people, with their love and compassion and kindness,lifted me. Nightly.

One of theindividuals who was frequently in the chat room used the handle botTom. (Myhandle was Savannah, the suicidal sister in Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides.)Among those chatting, botTom stood out for three reasons: He was kind. He wasfunny (in a gentle, clever way). He was articulate. (God, I love a man who canspell and punctuate correctly.) And he was incredibly smart.

It happenedone evening that folks in the room were discussing the winter weather, and Imentioned that I was blessed to be enjoying the sun in Southern California.BotTom sent me a private message: “You’re not in Georgia? Are you visiting?Or…?” It took me a sec. Then I realized….

“No,” I toldhim. “Born and raised in and can’t escape CA.”

Turns out thesame was true for him. We decided to meet for lunch and get to know one another.He had described himself perfectly, so when I saw him outside the restaurant, Ifelt immediately at ease.

“Tom?” Isaid.

He held thedoor open for me as he said, “Is your first name Savannah, then?”

I am stilltempted to tell people that’s what the “S” stands for….

We talked fortwo hours—about how we both grew up in Orange County, about how we came uponour blessed tribe of fellow depressives, about love found and love lost, andabout cats—specifically, the two Siamese cat children that remained after Tom’sgirlfriend moved out.

Somewheretoward the end of that two hours, we established that Tom was a musician. Iabsolutely love that he was so low key about this. It would be another year orso before he happened to mention that he had toured with The New ChristyMinstrels and had played with this or that well-known person or band in theL.A./Orange County areas of SoCal.

Tom’s music,my writing, were almost never a focus of our conversations. We met up or calledinfrequently to check in on each other, and our exchanged “How are you doing?”was intentional and meaningful. He knew I was living with adult children andgrandchildren and working fulltime and trying to write my second book. I knewthat he was grabbing gigs wherever he could get them while working a low-payingday job and struggling to afford rent in Orange County.

Life is hard, and depression is a sly companion, slipping in while you’re busy keeping youreyes on all the chainsaws you’re juggling. We kept tabs on each other’s mentalhealth, and after we became Facebook friends, if he saw something there or onmy blog that indicated I was struggling, he would message or call. Those twoSiamese cats—his sweetest and truest companions—lived to the age of 20. Wheneach one passed, I checked in often, as Tom was so heartbroken in losing them,I thought we might lose him.

Over theyears, I saw Tom perform a couple of times, once on a magical night at the L.A.County Fair. He was doing the gig solo, just Tom and his guitar. I’d forgottento bring a jacket, so by the time I’d finished my Australian potato and amargarita, I was shivering and my fingernails were blue. (This detail havingbeen recorded in a personal journal.) But I loved hearing him sing. He satwith me on his breaks, and we laughed together about “fair people.” Iconfessed that I was absolutely one of them.

In 2017,Tom’s sister Jill, his last remaining sibling, passed away. As will happen, herpassing put my friend in mind of his own mortality. At his request, we met at arestaurant with two of his friends to discuss his last wishes. At that meeting,Tom asked me to be the executor of his will. Of course I agreed immediately,feeling honored that he trusted me in such a capacity. I urged him to have aproper will drawn up, naming me as such. We went on to discuss such things asthe disposition of his remains and who would get his guitars. “If I still haveany by then,” he said. And we laughed.

Because ofcourse he was expecting to live a long time.

Fast forwardto 2025. In January, Tom and I exchanged exasperated messages via Facebook.After the pandemic lockdown, we had taken to meeting up for culturalexperiences, touring the Mission Inn in Riverside, visiting the art museum, and indulging in other pleasant outings. But when my old dog was dying in 2024, I had to curtailthose meetups for a while. Then Tom’s phone became unreliable, and he wasnot receiving my messages. Somehow, finally, his phone was sorted, and I wasfree, and we started trying to make a plan to see each other.

“Trying”being the operative word in that previous sentence.

On March 29,Tom tried to call me while I was driving up to the mountains and had no cellreception. When I arrived at my destination, I received the following textmessage from him:

          My gabby thing is dying and so

          am I wo n

          the be long

"My gabby thing." His phone? Was he joking? Or unable to bring to mind the word "phone"? Was he trying to tell me he was dying? I didn't want to believe it was true.

I triedcalling him, but he didn’t pick up. When I began my drive home, I tried callingagain. No answer. I tried several more times that evening. No response. I knownow that he had been hospitalized that day. That he had been suffering fromadvanced gall bladder cancer for months. That he had been sent home that samenight and placed on hospice care. But I didn’t know it then.

My phone rangthe next morning at 5:30a.m. while I was walking the dogs. It was Tom, so Iimmediately picked up. “I can’t reach my water,” he said, his words slurring.“Can you come?”

Every once ina great while in our lives—maybe only once or twice—we are called upon to do bigthings, tasks that require special sacrifice or uncharacteristic spontaneity.This was one of those times for me. I wish with all my heart I could write thatI took the dogs home, got dressed, and drove the hour to Tom’s apartment—aplace I had never been before—and given him his water. Instead, my veryrational brain took over and began a series of questions. To my “Are you sick?”he responded “A little bit.” He wouldn’t tell me how, and finally told me anurse would be coming any time, and he didn’t want to talk anymore. I made himpromise that he would have the nurse call me as soon as she arrived so I coulddetermine what was going on and whether I needed to cancel plans and go to him.

No one evercalled. Tom died a few hours later. This, I learned from a post on his Facebookpage.

The days andweeks following his death have been complicated and sad and frustrating ashell.

He never madea will, as far as we can tell. At least, one has not been found. One of hisnieces, because she is next-of-kin, has been tasked with taking care ofeverything—his apartment, his belongings, his finances… his guitars—all whileshe is grieving his loss.

As we allare, all of those who knew him and loved him. I am meeting his friends andbandmates for the very first time, and they are amazing and wonderful people…and Tom told no one, until the very last hours of his life, that he was dying.

So grief ismixed with guilt, and I push back against it, because guilt, other than makingus ‘do better next time’ or apologize when we need to, is a worthless emotion. I will struggle, though, until I see Tom on the other side, with this:

You hadone job, Murphy. The dying man just needed you to drop what you were doing andcome to him, something he had never asked or expected of you before, and youfailed him.

It's fine. Ofcourse it’s fine. He has crossed over, and he no longer feels any pain and heis joyfully singing with his friends who went before.

But….

My friend, wealways believe that there will be enough time. None of us, however—no matterwho we are—have a guarantee that there will be.

 

A Brief Reflection

 

This is what I know:

Sometimes it’s not the huge problems that get us down, it’s the accumulation ofmany successive small ones.

Also what Iknow:

One dog, oneleash = easy peasy.

Two dogs, twoleashes = a tad more challenging (especially if Dog Two is still learning how wedo this, how we walk on one side of Mom, how we don’t pull out in front of herand suddenly slam on the brakes or back up into her because, while it may amusethe neighbors to see her fumble and nearly fall and dance around to regain herbalance, it is not—it is never—the correct thing to do).

Two dogs, twoleashes + one bag of poop = a bit of a struggle. Does the stinky bag go in myright hand, the one not holding the leashes? It’s 40 degrees, though, and I wasplanning on keeping at least one hand warm in my pocket (because adding glovesto this leash-training scenario—and I do have gloves—really warm, reallyexpensive gloves—is just out of the question). Or do I try to hold two leashesand the stinky bag of poop in one hand?

Did I mentionthere is also wind? And that’s it 5:30a.m.? And dark? So yeah, it’s thepre-dawn hour, and we’ve had high winds for days, and the gusts are blowing DogOne’s little floppy ears up so that every few minutes one of them folds over,exposing her ear canal, and the wind chill makes it I-don’t-know-how-cold-but-way-way-too-coldand I know how my ears would feel (but I’m wearing a knit cap plus ahood), so I stop each time to flop her ear back down to protect her tiny earcanal. But we’re training, see? So that means this:

“Maya, wait.Good girl. Sit. Good girl. Maudie, sit. Wait. Good girl. No—wait. Good girl.”

When they areboth seated and waiting and I have set the bag of poop down and fixed Maya’sear and picked up the bag of poop and secured both leashes (with very cold,very stiff hands), we begin again. Moving forward.

Then Dog Twosees a bunny.

Sigh. I amgrateful that I did know that this little cattle dog will chase any and all smallanimals running—or flying. Had I seen her in action, I would have dismissed heras untrustworthy around The Queen Feline, and I would not have adopted her.Whew. Ignorance is bliss.

Not in thismoment, though. In this moment, as I try, with freezing fingers, to hold herand Dog One and the bag of poop, ignorance is… well, it’s clearly evident.

As the bunny goesinto statue mode and Dog Two rears and lunges and jumps at the end of the leashlike a Blue Marlin on the line, I whisper, sotto voce, “Maudie! No chase!” That’sas loud as I can correct her, of course, because I do like my neighbors and afew of them like me and it is 5:45a.m. by now.

When thebunny’s brain has finally shifted from “Freeze!” to “Flee!” and it dives undera bush, we can move forward again, Dog Two still hypervigilant, though,searching every yard for the rascally…. Well, you get the picture.

It’s aboutthe time when I fully regain control, priding myself on being an adequate packleader, Dog One and Dog Two trotting nicely along, the bag of poop swingingback and forth with their stride, my right hand just starting to warm up afterthe bunny encounter, that my nose starts to run.

If you’vehiked or dined with me, you know this: If it’s cold, my nose runs. I am neverwithout a pocket pack of tissues because, if the air is cold, if the AC in therestaurant is set below 72 degrees, my nose is running.

Here’s theexistential dilemma in this scenario: How long would you keep walking beforestopping to blow your nose? I mean, you see what this entails—both dogsstopping, sitting, the bag of poop set down again, a tissue extracted, the missionexecuted….

How longwould you keep walking, snot beginning to flow to the edges of your nostrils?(Okay, sorry for the visual there, but can you feel how uncomfortable it is?)

I go another30 feet, then with an exasperated sigh, it’s this again:

“Maya, wait.Sit. Good girl. Maudie… Maudie… no, sit. Sit. Wait. Good—no, sit. Wait.”

Finally, we’removing forward again. For a half mile, down the back side of our loop, aroundthe corner, and around the next, we are golden—the wind is at our backs, thereare no bunnies, and my nose isn’t running.

Until we turnthe corner for home. We are six houses from home when my nose begins to runagain, and I am eyeing the distance, and considering my options, and that’swhen we see—okay, I don’t, but Dog Two sees—a small animal dart acrossthe street.

Whining andyipping, she bolts to the end of the leash, and because I didn’t see thecritter, I wasn’t ready for it, and I almost—almost—drop the leash. Which inthis case would have been very, very, very bad. Why? Because as soon as it allregisters—the small animal running, the heavy scent in the air—I realize thatthe critter she wants to chase is a skunk.

Holy smokes.

In TheLion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan tells Edmund, “We can never knowwhat would have happened.”

No, wecannot. But I have a pretty good idea in this case what would havehappened had I not held onto my silly little cattle dog. But I did. I held ontoher all the way back to the house and in the door, whereupon I immediatelygrabbed a tissue and blew my nose and exhaled loudly in enormous relief as I unleashedmy hounds.

This is whatI know:

Nine timesout of ten, at least in my life, expecting a task or some endeavor to be routinewill not be so; it will be fraught with small challenges that need to be facedand dealt with in the moment.

What I alsoknow:

It’s allabout moving forward….

Guest post: Writing as Legacy

I recently had lunch with Donna McCrohan Rosenthal, past president of the East Sierra branch of the California Writers Club. She and I have both been at this a long time, both past presidents of CWC, both began writing and publishing decades ago. As we chatted, she shared with me a short piece she had written for the SoCal Writers Showcase, an online publication that presents work from members of CWC.
Donna's piece was lovely in its sentiment, and beyond that it honored some of our old friends who have passed away. I asked her if I could share it here, to further bring attention to them and to the Showcase. She graciously agreed. The remainder of this post is what Donna wrote. I couldn't agree with her more:

We decided from Showcase’sinception that we would occasionally include pieces by colleagues I like tothink of as “active deceased” – those who live in our hearts and minds, whoadvanced the mission of the CWC on every level, and so meaningfully whosewritten words stay with us long after these dear friends have gone.

 

I recentlyhad the privilege of posting San Fernando Branch Monte Swann’s thoroughlyengaging “Ars Gratia Artis” about his frequent forays of sneaking onto the MGMlot as a boy, Orange County Branch Jeanette Fratto’s clever and savvy “NightDuty” about an ambivalent detective, and High Desert’s inimitable Bob Isbill’s“The Importance of Volunteerism” which we should all read and take to heart.

PuttingMonte, Jeanette, and Bob up on our site, I felt such elation in the factthat writing makes us immortal. Their earthly presencehas left us, but their written words never will. I sensed them smiling to seethis rebirth of appreciation of their talent as they spin their tales again toentertain more people they hadn’t reached before. What a wonderful thing. Agift that goes on through time.

Don’t wewrite for permanence? Otherwise, we could just sit someone down and talk.

Showcase canpost the active deceased’s legacies. Branch newsletters can reprint them, too,and we can read them at open mic meetings, their inner beauty brightening ourcamaraderie just like it used to. When their stories survive, they survive intheir stories.

But even if you’ve never published anythinganywhere, don’t overlook recording family memories and histories. They’llendure through generations if not through the ages.

How to Break Up with Your Internet Service Provider

 

Last week I finally--FINALLY--signed on with a new Internet Service Provider (hereafter known as the NISP). It took two tries. After receiving a "special offer" in the mail--okay, after receiving a hundred or so over the past couple years--I decided to give them a try. This was after repeated attempts to get my old Internet Service Provider (hereinafter known as OISP) to lower my bill by removing the monthly charge for a landline. ("Of course! I can help you with that!" one hour later: "I'm sorry, we're unable to separate your phone from your internet....")

Old monthly bill with OISP: $139

Current monthly bill with NISP: $41

(Boy howdy, that $41 was hard fought and has it's own story that involves me hanging up on the first representative I spoke to--after being on the phone with him berating me for half an hour. You don't need me to explain to you that's not the way to make a sale. Sheesh.)

ANYWAY, the only thing I had left to do was break up with my OISP. You know, call and cancel my service.

If you've done this before, you know that it should be a short phone call. "Yes, thank you, I just need to cancel my service...." But it's not. Because as soon as you say that--in the nicest way possible--you're asked why, and then you're directed to the "loyalty" representative who promises to lower your bill, wash your car, walk your dog, and maybe give you a back massage if you'll only stay with the company that has the "best" customer service and support. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

My NISP system was installed last week by a very happy dude named Michael who had a great work ethic and got it all handled in an hour, including pulling the ladder off his truck, climbing around in the garage, and other time-consuming tasks. It is indeed "faster and more reliable" (so far). I waved goodbye to Michael and my next thought was, How do I cancel my OISP without wasting time with the loyalty people? So (finally), here's how it went:

OISP: Good morning! This is Billie! How can I help you today?

Me: Good morning, Billie! I need to cancel my service today.

(After some preliminary identification verification)

OISP: Do you mind if I ask why you're canceling your service?

Me: I don't mind at all! I'm moving to Australia!

OISP: Australia! Wow! That's... a long way to move. What made you decide to move to Australia, if you don't mind me asking.

Me: I don't mind at all! My granddaughter just got a recording contract there, and since she's rather young, her parents were concerned about her moving so far away by herself. I'm footloose and fancy free, so I offered to go with her and live over there for a year or two. Should be fun!

(What was really fun was listening to Billie tap away on her computer, listing, I assume, the customer's reason for canceling service. She assured me right away that she could help me, waited for her computer to tabulate a closing bill, told me what that total would be and that my service would be canceled by the following day.)

OISP: Before I let you go, Ms. Murphy, do you mind giving me your granddaughter's name so I can look forward to hearing some of her music in the future?

Me: Oh, of course! You can listen to some of it now. She's done a few recordings and they're on YouTube. Look her up! Her name is Ellie Blue.

OISP: I'm writing that down....

The entire phone call took less than ten minutes. And yes, that last bit is true--my granddaughter's stage name is Ellie Blue, and she can be found singing on YouTube. (Note: If one intends to prevaricate, one should always have at least part of one's story based in fact.)

In all seriousness, I realize that Billie, the OISP, is out there working, hoping her day doesn't get too crazy with angry customers, hoping she can pay her bills or feed her kids or support herself through college or whatever it is she needs to do with her paycheck. I didn't want to waste her time anymore than I wanted to waste mine. Nor did I want to engage in that toxic back-and-forth that is sometimes required in these situations. So I just came up with a story that made it easier for her to do her job, and for me to do mine... which was get back to sitting at this laptop, making up stories. So there ya go.

The Care and Feeding of

 

Photo courtesy of Jeanette Ragland

If anythinghappens to me—and it won’t, I promise—but if anything happens to me, pleasetake gentle loving care of Maya.

Let her stayin whatever safe place she finds, even if she stays there for hours. She willlove that. Just curling up. Safe.

Take her fora walk every single day, even if it rains a little. (She has a raincoat.) Shewill hate that. The world, after all, is a very scary place.

But if youcan, walk her before the first rays of the sun bring with them activity andnoise and human interaction. Walk in the stillness of almost-dawn. She willlove that.

It’s a chore,I know, but please clip her little nails once a month. If you’re slow and gentle,she will let you. She will hate every minute of it. But she will let you.

Once a week—ormaybe twice, if you don’t mind—please give her two small pieces of cheese. Orpart of your fried egg. (No pepper, please.) She will love this.

Once a year—eventhough she’s almost always inside and never exposed and no one will ever comelooking to see if she’s had her rabies shots—please take her to a soft-spoken,slow-moving vet to get her vaccinations. She will hate being touched by astranger, just as most of us do.

On occasion,if you can, please take her out to the hills for her walk. Use the long lead soshe can enjoy the sensation of running free, even though you will be on the otherend, hurrying to keep up as she trots along the trail with wild abandon, unfazedby the scent of coyotes or bobcats. She will love this.

If visitorsor repair persons must come, please shut her away in her safe place, preferablybehind a closed door, preferably with a large, soft blanket to tunnel under,preferably with Charlie, her favorite stuffie. She will hate the intrusion, andmaybe she’ll be reluctant to eat her dinner for many hours afterward. But Ipromise by the next morning, she’ll be okay again. If she ever missesbreakfast, you will know that something is terribly wrong.

At night,before she goes to sleep, please rub behind her ears and massage her back andstroke her beautiful face and head. She will lie still, and you will never seeevidence that she loves this, but she does. You will never see evidence thatshe loves you. But she does. Trust me. If you feed her treats and keepher safe, she will love you, even if you do nothing else for her.

And, if you’llindulge me, I have just one more request for her if something should happen tome. Which it won’t. I promise. But if somehow it did…. Please keep her with herbest friend, Maudie. Because as humans, we can keep her safe and keep herhealthy, and she will love that. But for her to be truly joyful in the way onlydogs can be, she will need her bestie by her side to let her know that shenever has to face the scary world alone again. That’s what we all need, isn’tit? After we are fed and safe? A friend to assure us that we will never have toface the scary stuff alone. We are fortunate, we are blessed, we are downrightjoyful as only humans can be, when we have a bestie like that.