Pat Bertram's Blog, page 73

Ghost Roommate

My sister visited shortly after I moved to this house, and she couldn’t sleep in her assigned bedroom because of the ghost who lives there. I don’t know if she actually saw the spirit of a woman or if it was a waking dream, but my sister swore it was true and spent her nights on the couch in the living room.

When I was dealing with a bum knee and couldn’t walk, I slept in that bedroom. It was just so much easier getting in and out of the high daybed. There were chairs and such to hang on to as I hobbled to the bathroom. And I didn’t have to deal with making the bed every morning. I spent a hundred hours at night in that room, as well as the thousand of waking hours (since the room is set up as an office with a daybed), and I never got a glimpse or even a feel of a restless spirit. Except my own, of course, and to be honest, it’s not that restless. Being a quasi-hermit seems to agree with me.

The ghostly roommate referred to in the title of this post is even more nebulous than a revenant. He uses this address, either by accident or design, though he doesn’t get the mail that is sent here. Nor has he ever lived here.

I sometimes get mail for the previous resident, though that mail is the throwaway kind — advertisements that he in no way is interested in since he is deceased. I also sometimes get an occasional Christmas card or flyer for the people who lived here before that. But no one knows who this ghost roommate is.

The mail I get for this phantom is current, such as a debit card for food stamps or a People magazine. Since I get the mail as soon as it comes, there is no way he can be fraudulently using my address to get his mail, taking it from my mailbox when I’m not around. I’ve told the postal workers about it, and they tell me they’ll take care of it, but I still get the People magazine occasionally when a substitute deliverer is on duty.

The odd thing is, although not everyone in town knows everyone, everyone will know someone who knows those they don’t know. But no one knows who this fellow is.

Apparently, he really is a ghost.

Since he is a nonentity, I figure he wouldn’t mind if I read the magazine he isn’t getting. And that adds a whole other layer to the mystery. Who are the people who appear in that magazine? I’ve seldom heard any of them, and if a name is familiar, I certainly don’t care what they are wearing, if they are happily living an unroyal life, or if they are back together with some ex-wife.

Still, it’s reading material, and I read anything that crosses my threshold. I wonder if I should just toss the magazine instead of returning it to the post office. If the magazine isn’t forwarded to the fellow, maybe he’ll get the message that he sends his mail to the wrong address.

Or not. Maybe he prefers to befuddle me with his ghostly presence.

***

“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. 

The Forgotten Americans

Because of the almost universal experience of grief, I’ve met people from all over the world. Well, “met” might not be the proper word since we’ve never met in person, but over the years, you get to know people as well as if you had met in person. In fact, the people I have had occasion to visit, are exactly the same, and our relationship exactly the same as it was online. We simply continued the conversation we’d started via the internet.

People elsewhere sometimes don’t really know what life is like here in the United States. The news media is only interested in sensationalism, and the quiet lives most people lead have no interest to anyone beyond their communities. For example, the governing body of Colorado has no interest in my corner of the state, and in fact, often enacts legislation to our detriment. Admittedly, we are scant in numbers compared to the nearby big cities, so what happens here makes no difference to the rest of the state, and our voice is seldom heard. We are the forgotten.

It’s the big cities that people are familiar with worldwide, but even in big cities, there are large neighborhoods where people quietly go about their business. They don’t start fights, don’t shoot each other, don’t do much of anything except work so they can afford to live in those peaceful neighborhoods.

I might be exaggerating here because I am as ignorant as the rest of the world when it comes to current big cities. I grew up in Denver and spend my early adulthood there, but back then, the once-upon-a-time governor (who came from Texas, not Colorado) had yet to “imagine a great city.” The president’s son had not yet helped destroy the savings and loans business. The Denver International Airport fiasco had yet to be perpetrated on the taxpayers. And the Californication of Colorado had not yet begun. And so Denver was a great city. A great city to grow up in, that is. It was more of a cow town than the major player on the world stage that it has become.

Although the USA has a reputation for being a war-loving country, generally only Washington DC and the military-industrial complex are gung-ho for war. (Even people who join the military are often shocked when they find out they actually have to fight. The recruiting officers tend to focus on career and education opportunities.) Traditionally, going way back to the Civil War, Americans have to be coerced to fight. We are peace-lovers. Most of us have no objection to helping others in need, but mostly, we want to stay home and take care of our own. Most of us don’t understand why Washington sends money to countries that hate us.

We are often vilified for spreading American culture, but those so-called American businesses that are supposedly spreading American consumerism around the world are no-longer American businesses and haven’t been for a very long time. They are global corporations. Many of us here have no money invested in those businesses (many of us have no money invested anywhere; it’s all we can do to survive from paycheck to paycheck). Some of us don’t even patronize those businesses.

Most of us are not racist, which is why the media and academics need to keep changing the definition of racism to include more and more of us.

The international policies Washington puts in force are their policies, not necessarily the policies of we the people. And the most annoying thing of all is that these same politicians apologize to the world for us citizens, as if we personally chose to start wars or changed the immigration laws, or whatever, when in fact, they should be apologizing to us not for us.

This ended up being much more of a rant than I intended. Mostly I wanted to show that there is life in the United States beyond the horrors the news media project, that even though we are forgotten, we are still here. But then, if you’ve been reading my blog for anything length of time, you already know that some of us, me especially, lead peaceful, considerate, thinking lives.

***

“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. 

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.