Pat Bertram's Blog, page 73

Free Samples!

If you’ve been wondering about my novels but have been afraid to take a chance on buying a book, below are the links to all the first chapters.

I hope you will take a peek.

Bob, The Right Hand of God (Absurdist, Urban fantasy)

Unfinished (Drama, mystery)

Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare  (Mystery, Dance)

Light Bringer (Suspense, Science Fiction)

Daughter Am I (Mystery, Road Trip,)

A Spark of Heavenly Fire (Drama, Suspense)

More Deaths Than One  (Thriller)

All books are available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Pat-Bertram/e/B002BLUHUY/

Death and the Death Penalty

I’m reading a book about an innocent guy who was executed by the state after spending nine years on death row. The story was supposed to show the horrors of death row as well as the immorality of the death penalty, but it made me think beyond moral issues to the whole death thing.

When Jeff died, people told me that he was in a better place, that God needed him more than I did, that he at been taken home.

So, according to all these comments, death is a good thing, right? Then how can death be a punishment? Of course, people justify the dichotomy by talk of heaven vs. hell, but when someone dies, no one brings up the possibility that the deceased might not be in a better place.

Although, to my way of thinking, if God created an evil person (ie: if the person was born evil rather than being created through torment and abuse) then it’s not exactly fair for that person to be consigned to hell. (I’m only being a trifle facetious here because it is a real conundrum.)

Sometimes death is a good thing, especially when the person has suffered longer than is humane, for no other reason than death puts them out of their misery. My take on that has always been that the poor benighted folks shouldn’t have suffered in the first place. And there are other ways of relieving suffering besides death if we but knew them, such as . . .  oh, I don’t know . . . finding a cure, perhaps.

Also, if there is life after death, then killing a killer doesn’t actually remove that person. It just puts them in a different place. (That better place so many people assured me exists?) It seems to me if people are really bent on vengeance, it would be better to keep the evildoer alive as long as possible.

I truly don’t know what the answer is, and it’s not one I have to decide. Other people decide such things as retribution and punishment.

Luckily, I am in the last phase of the book where all those who conspired to put the innocent guy on death row get their comeuppance. And then I’ll be done and will be able to stop thinking about all this.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Celebrating My New Year

We are five days into the new year, and it feels a lot like the old year. Nothing has changed except the calendar. There is a lot to be said for a nice, clean, new calendar — it speaks of hope that only good things will fill all those coming days. But as for a new year itself, it seems so arbitrary. It’s not even a universal new beginning. The Chinese New Year this year is February 12, the Jewish New Year is September 6, the Persian New Year is March 21, the Korean New Year is January 12, the Tibetan New Year begins on February 12, and various communities in the Hindu religion have different dates for their celebration.

January 1 is not even the beginning of a new season or of a solar cycle such as a solstice or an equinox. Nor is there any personal demarcation — no black line separates the old from the new. The world is no different today from yesterday, nor are we. We carry the old year with us because we have the same problems, sadnesses, hopes, fears. We don’t simply leave all that behind, along with our old selves, at the chime of the clock on midnight, December 31. We drag the past into the future.

The sun doesn’t count the years. It doesn’t even count the days; from its point of view, there is no sunrise and sunset. It’s always there, always risen.

And so, in a way, if we ignore the calendar aspect of the new year as well as the number we have assigned to it, every day begins a new year. For example, the year beginning today will end on January 5, 2022 rather than on the first. This way of looking at years makes as much sense as the other. Come to think of it, our personal new years begin on our birthday, and that makes even more sense than calendar years. We have an established beginning for our first year We even have an established hour for the beginning of that year.

In my case, at 7:27am one day in the months to come, my personal new year will begin. Of course, the effects will be the same as our western calendar year — there will be no dumping of the previous year’s baggage at 7:26, to begin anew at 7:27. One year flows into the other, with only an occasional event that truly does create us anew at a moment’s notice, such as falling in love, the birth of a child, the death of a spouse. In each of these cases, we are instantly different.

I suppose it’s just as well we drag our baggage along with us from year to year. To leave it behind would also mean leaving the memories behind. I certainly wouldn’t want to wake up every January 1 completely washed clean of the past!

As for the problems we carry with us, ours and the world’s, the only way to stop carrying them is to solve them or to make friends with them.

Unlike most people, last year was not at all a bad year for me. I might not thrive on being a total hermit since I do need some contact with people (which I have been getting), but normally, I don’t go out to eat, don’t do social gatherings, tend to stay away from sick people no matter what their illness might be.

So, come to think of it, this new year being like the old one is rather nice, so whether it started on the first, or starts today, it’s worth celebrating.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Good Girls

I’m reading a book about a dying rapist/killer who is remorseful for what he did and wants to atone before the end. Is this plausible? Or are such folk unable to see that they did anything wrong? Could they change so much at the end? I suppose anything is possible, but mostly I’m looking at this from my life and so the truth of the character doesn’t really matter.

I am very glad I didn’t do anything terrible in my life, at least, not that I know. We all do things that affect others, and somewhere down the line, our innocent actions might have dire consequences, but since we don’t know what those consequences might be, we have no reason to feel remorse.

I was always the “good girl,” though I didn’t want to wear a halo. I just didn’t want to be punished. I remember as a teenager and how some of the kids got into trouble with drinks or drugs or sex, but I never did. Even then, I understood the long-term effects of alcoholism, drug addiction, and teenage pregnancy, and could see no viable reason for flirting with disaster.

When you’re young, being considered a goody-two-shoes or whatever the current phrase might be, is a terrible fate, and although I railed against such names, I never gave in. My logical mind always stood in the way of peer pressure. Of course, as time went on, people just crossed me off without hassling me, but the name stuck.

Now that I am far beyond those younger years, I can be glad for that lack of “bad girl” behavior. I have a hard enough time with remorse for my small unkindnesses, petty transgressions, and lapses in generosity of spirit. I can’t imagine trying to deal with the crushing remorse of actually having done something that got someone killed or maimed or sent to prison.

I don’t even have to worry about my lungs, or at least not much. Like me, my mother never smoked, yet she died of lung cancer, and her death certificate erroneously called her a life-long smoker. So, I might not have smoke-damaged lungs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have damaged lungs from other causes, like breathing, perhaps.

I do find it interesting that people who started smoking after the sixties can still blame their habit on ignorance. The information was available when I was a kid, which is why I stayed away from such things. Well, that, and a distaste for the activity as well as an allergy to smoke.

I don’t mean to sound smug and judgmental, especially since some of you might have succumbed to some habit or other. I’m just glad I never got talked into being a getaway driver, or heard voices telling me to kill someone, or became so angry, I fatally lashed out. It makes these last years so much more peaceful than they could have been if I had been other than that scorned “good girl.”

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Taking a Rest From Thinking

I’ve been procrastinating about writing anything today, hoping for inspiration, but deep thoughts or any thoughts, actually, seem to be absent. I suppose that’s a good thing — it means I’m not obsessing over anything.

At least not today. I have been overthinking my insurance, trying to figure out if I want to stay with my same agent for automobile insurance or bundle the car insurance with my house insurance. It doesn’t save me anything. Even though the house insurance will go down (after it goes up because of the new garage), parts of the auto insurance will go way up. Other parts will go down, but mainly because the deductibles will go up. And then, because of the high comprehensive deductible, I’d have to get full glass coverage so there would be no deductible for replacing a windshield. And that cost alone is more than the comprehensive cost.

What a racket!

The one good thing about changing insurance companies would be that I’d get to set a value on my car rather than rely on the vagaries of the first insurance company. The first insurance people do know I restored the car, and they have a photo of the car as it looked a couple of years ago, so it might work out. Of course, the best thing to do is simply not get in an accident!

There are other differences to consider when switching insurance companies. For example, if I am in a chargeable accident (I presume that means the accident was my fault), and if I have been with the first company for nine years (which I have been), and haven’t had an accident in those years, my insurance won’t go up because of it.

I certainly don’t plan on getting in an accident, but such things to happen — it’s why they are called accidents. I do make sure I don’t drive at night, in bad weather, in heavy traffic, when I’m distracted, or any other unsafe condition, but still, accidents happen.

All these things have to be taken into consideration, so is it any wonder that today I am not thinking about anything and giving my poor brain a rest?

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

A Very Sweet Year

Ever since I moved here to my house, I’ve been buying honey from my beekeeping neighbors, and what a treat! Local honey is good for more than just as a sweetener; it helps with allergies. I’m not sure why that is exactly, though it seems as if by ingesting the local pollen in the honey, a person becomes less sensitive to those pollens.

For the last month or so, I’ve had to ration the bit of honey I have left because the neighbors didn’t have any for me to buy. I tried to buy some at the grocery store, and it shocked me to see that even the trusted honey brands are no longer using just USA honey. They blend it from a multitude of countries, which seems strange to me. The honey gathered one location is different from the honey gathered at another location, and to mix them seems counter-productive. I’m sure the packagers do it that way to save money — apparently, at one time China almost put beekeepers in the USA out of business because they were selling it so cheaply. That it was mostly flavored corn syrup didn’t concern consumers. They preferred the cheapness.

Well, not me. I am now a local honey afficionado, and I would rather go without than deal with whatever foreign pollens (assuming there are any pollens in the over-pasteurized mass-produced honey on the grocery store shelves) would assail me.

Luckily, my neighbors finally got enough honey packaged that they could share with me. Yay!

I can tell already, this is going to be a very sweet year.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

My Recycled Year

A few years ago, someone gave me an expired but unused calendar still in its original packaging. I’m sure it was more for the origami aspect than any sort of nostalgia, but the interesting thing to me is that the calendar was for 2010, the year Jeff died. I never did the origami, just set it aside, and lo and behold, the calendar is current again. 2010 has been recycled and has now become 2021.

There are many differences of course. Not in the days — everything lines up between the years 2010 and 2021, including non-date-specific days such as Easter — but in the events of the year.

Eleven years ago, Jeff and I were dealing with the stress of his dying, he was dealing with excruciating pain, and then later after he died, I had to deal with the incredible angst of grief.

This year, instead of being assaulted by my grievous loss, I am tending more toward gratitude. I am grateful he is no longer suffering. I am grateful I was able to be there at his end. But most of all, I am grateful he spent more than half his life with me. I got the benefit of his kindness, his intelligence, his gift for appreciation. He brought so much to my life, taught me so much, and even his dying and the gift of grief he left behind taught me much more.

I’m sure it seems odd to people who are still dealing with the daily grief of a deceased loved one that I would call grief a gift, but it is. All that turmoil brought me to the place I am today, both geographically and mentally. More than that, it showed me that there is so much more to us — to me, specifically — than we can ever imagine. I had no idea such a profound experience as grief for a soul mate existed. I had no idea the human heart could hurt so much. I had no idea that given that hurt — and the void he left behind — the heart could heal.

It reminds me of an Edwin Markham quote I’ve always loved:

“He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!”

In this case, my grief took in the void, and made it a part of me.

For that, I am also grateful. Even in his absence, he is a part of me.

It makes me wonder if gratitude is the final aspect of grief — for in gratitude, we find the grace to continue living, to embrace all the joys the new year (and all the new years) hold.

If, as the day of my eleventh anniversary of grief approaches, and I get sad and don’t want to relive that year for real, I won’t have the daily reminder (other than the reminders that are in my heart, mind, and soul) because the calendar doesn’t specify a year. Only the day. And that will quite to deal with — one day at a time — during this recycled year.

Wishing you a happy, healthy, and harmonious New Year.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

More of Life’s Confusion

Yesterday I mentioned how much of life, dying, death, grief still confuse me, though now I am usually able to store such things in the back of my mind rather than dwell on them. Writing about that confusion made me remember how often I’ve been confused in life.

When I was very young, almost everything confused me. People always seemed to know things I didn’t, and I didn’t know how they learned such things. For example, everyone knew the names of the streets, and even though I knew the streets around where I lived, once we got out of the neighborhood, I hadn’t a clue what the streets were, and yet everyone else did. It wasn’t until after I got glasses in fourth grade that the confusion cleared. So that’s how everyone knew what the streets were! There were signs, and they could read them.

I came from parents who never used slang and who wouldn’t let any of us use it in their presence, who wouldn’t buy a television or let us listen to the radio unsupervised, so when I went to school, I didn’t understand what most of the insults meant. I remember asking a friend once what “fart” meant, and she turned bright red, and could barely stammer out the meaning.

There were many other episodes, such as the day a group of girls on the school bus were giggling about double-barreled slingshots, and when I asked what those were, they just laughed harder and made fun of me for being such a baby.

Many years later, I saw a Beverly Hillbillies show where the once-poor country girl who knew nothing of women’s underwear, called a bra a double-barreled slingshot. And suddenly it all made sense. I hadn’t been “such a baby.” I simply didn’t have the same cultural references than they did. I read. They watched television.

Although I liked my school classes, mostly because it was cut and dried (1+1=2) so there was no confusion, I still got confused at times. Years later, when I researched those confusing subjects, I learned that the reason I was confused was that the lesson — whatever it had been — was not the truth, or not the whole truth.

And then even later, listening to politicians, I’d get confused until it finally dawned on me that this particular brand of confusion acted as my own particular lie detector. It still works, though now I recognize it for what it is. (Oddly, during this past election, the only person who did not set off a spate of confusion was the one person most people were convinced was a liar.)

Such a lot of confusion! No wonder I spent my life reading and researching. All that not knowing set up a craving in me to know. I do know some things, but mostly what I learned is that just because everyone else knows something, it doesn’t make it true. And I learned to live with not knowing. Although some things we can know, such as the names of the streets and what a double-barreled slingshot is, there are other things we cannot know.

Perhaps this acceptance of not knowing is part of maturity. Maybe it’s just an excuse for being mentally lazy or some other not-quite admirable trait, but I am comfortable (usually) with confusion.

If nothing else, it keeps me from being arrogant. At least, I think it does.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Life’s Confusion

The other night I talked to Jeff’s photo, as I sometimes do. I think it was Christmas night, and I was feeling a bit lost. And confused. So much of what has happened to me in the past twelve or thirteen years (the years of his dying and the years of my grief) still doesn’t make sense, but for the most part, I just go on about my life, concentrating on the day I am living.

Even so, sometimes, the confusion makes itself felt. For example, I really do like my house, my life, having a place to call home, but it all came about because Jeff died. If he hadn’t died, my life would have been completely different. I wouldn’t have missed this current life, of course, because I would never have known it existed, but still, the confusion is there.

I also continue to be confused about life and death, what it is, where we go, and all that, but again, generally I don’t think about it, just take it as a fact that he is gone and I am not.

And I’m still confused about a lot that happened that last year we were together. I don’t worry about it much — after all, it was a long time ago — but there is one episode that still makes me feel ashamed.

When people talk about those who care for their dying spouses, we imagine tender care, patience, and the warm glow of love. After all, that’s how it’s portrayed in movies, and movies are a reflection of real life, right?

Well, no. Many of us endure a love/hate relationship — we want to be with them and savor ever moment we have, yet at times we can’t stand the stress, the turmoil, the pain (theirs and ours), the sleepless nights and all else that goes along with trying to survive while your mate is struggling with death. We can’t always be the person we want to be, and even worse, as the months pass and the exhaustion and numbness take hold, we become someone we’d just as soon pretend never existed.

Even during a year where death hovers, life still reigns. So we live. We get impatient and frantic and frustrated and surly. And, even though sometimes we wish they’d die and get it over with, we never really believe they are going to die. We forget that each day might be the last, and so we forget to be patient and kind.

It’s one of those time that still shames me. He was looking at Google Earth and visiting all the places he once knew. I listened to his stories of old Denver for a while, and then suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I got impatient and left. I still don’t know why I felt that way, so that adds to the confusion. There wouldn’t have been a problem if not for Death. If there had been another time, I would have made a point of drawing up a chair and soaking in the time together, but there wasn’t another time. And I am left with the knowledge of how I am not always the kind and patient and generous person I wish to be.

And I am left with confusion.

So much of that time is gone, out of mind. Even if I wanted to remember it, I couldn’t. I can’t even, at times, remember being with him, even though he was the most important person in my life for decades. Even after he died, he continued to be important because of the grief I experienced.

I don’t think I will ever truly find my way out of the confusion. Despite all my studies and experience and contemplation of dying, death, and grief, so much can’t be known. Most of the time, I can live with the confusion in the same way I live with the knowledge that one day I will die. It’s there, but doesn’t have any meaning on a day-to-day level.

Until, of course, there comes a day when the confusion wells up, and I end up pretend talking to Jeff.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Searching for a Tagline

I’ve been struggling with my new website, and I’ve mostly learned how to use the website builder, or at least as much as I need to know for right now. I’ve pretty much set up the bones of the site; now it needs to be fleshed out with information about me and my books. The book part, while time-consuming, is easy. It’s just a matter of coping and pasting the blurbs and such that were on the old website.

The “about” needs to be updated. I can no longer brag about being a nomad as I did in the previous bio since I am as unnomadish as a person can get — the furthest I’ve been from home in the past few months is a mere handful of miles. But the bio is really just a matter of finding something to say about me. Whatever it is, it won’t be on the homepage; people will have to go looking for it, so it doesn’t have to be as catchy as some of the other parts of the website, such as the tagline.

Taglines are hard. You have to give the essence of your books or yourself in a matter of a few words. This morning I woke up thinking that “Author of provocative fiction and profound works of grief” would be good, but a few hours later that tagline seemed as if it would be too off putting for people who are simply looking for a bit of information about grief. Of course, search engines wouldn’t be sending them to my website for such information — they’d send grievers to one of the grief posts on my blog. Chances are, the only people who would end up at the website would be those who were specifically looking for information about me.

More importantly (to me anyway), I’m trying not to second guess myself too much and to stick with the first ideas that come to mind. Still, I want to hook people into staying, not push them away with pedantry.

So, what about “Author of intriguing fiction and insightful works about grief”?

Originally, I just used, “Author of fiction and non-fiction,” but that is boring and uninspiring to say the least.

If you have any suggestions for a tagline, I’d be glad to hear it.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator