the end of the world / the Dragon returns

it's happened.  the Veteran's Administration has risen up to keep me in the teeth, the stomach, and when i am doubled over, they are crushing my back.

i wrote to them all along telling them about my job, how much i am making with each raise.  i have never lied to them or kept them in the dark.

i got my response from them tonight in my mail.

dated Nov. 28, 2012, they have written that they have been overpaying me since..............

April of 2011.

19 months ago.

they have just now figured out, or are ready to implement their new edict.  no more death pension for Bunny.

oh, but wait.  they have been overpaying me as far as they are concerned.  their words:

"We have created an overpayment in your account."

and now they want me to pay it back.  they will let me know in a separate letter how much they have overpaid me, and how i can "repay this debt."

i am terrified, devastated, in shock, worried, so many emotions and feelings.  i am crying and laughing at the same time.  crying in terror at paying back 19 months of pension.  laughing at the fact that it has taken them 19 effing months to put this together, get the letter written, and set this in motion.

how am i going to live?  this was my rent money?  who can i make it? eat?  diabetes medicine?  gas for work? high blood pressure meds? food?  car payment?  car insurance? 

i am falling into an abyss.  what do i do?

~~~

oh, my God, my love!  my sweet wife!  please hold on.  please don't let go.  keep yourself safe.  take care of yourself.  somehow you will survive this.  somehow it will be okay.  {my son and daughter} said they will help you work it out.  lean on them if you feel yourself wanting to give up.  please, Baby, please don't give up.  please, don't let this scare you.  you and the kids will get this worked out.

oh, Christ, why did i have to die and leave her?  she needs me!  she NEEDS ME!!

Honey, hang on.  just close your eyes and feel me.  i'm here.  i really am still here.  oh, Baby.  don't let this ruin your Christmas with the kids.  breathe, Bunny Love.  breathe.  oh, please, just keep breathing.  you deserve to breathe free.  God, i wish i could take this all away from you.  you deserve an easier time.  you work so hard and now, to have them do this.  Shit.  oh, honey.  please just hang on.  i'm here.  talk to me.  

~~~

i don't know what i'll do, but i'll have to do something.  they want their money back even though it is their mistake.  i wish he were here to talk to .  i need him to hold me and tell me it's going to be okay.  i really don't know if i can do it anymore.  i feel myself breaking apart inside; like i've burned up inside with this hot fear that has scorched my insides.  i feel myself flaking off piece by piece and blowing away in the breeze.  i am losing my humor, my spirit, my energy, my desire to anything other than to just survive.  

find a friend?  i'm too wiped out with work and worry.

take a class maybe?  i'm too wiped out with work and worry.

breathe free and embrace what i have accomplished?  i'm too wiped out with work and worry.

and Christmas with my children?  i am going to embrace it and them and take as much peace and love and absorb the memories from it as i can.  it might be my last one.

i am shattered into a billion pieces.  i feel gone inside; like a flame has gone out and the wick has been cut off to that it will never be able to catch again.

how do i eat?  how do i live?  how do i pay this back?  their mistake.  my debt.  i think i need to go throw up.

i think i will go to bed and have a stroke.  

~~~

oh, Babe.  suffering.  why do this to her now?  why do this to her?  stop the pension, okay, but tell her to pay them back?  that is wrong!  i need to go back.  i need to just go back for a little while and help her with this.  please, God.  let me just help her..................

~~~

my new mantra.  "don't lose hope.  try not to lose hope. you used to be loved.  the kids love you.  somehow you will find a way.  don't lose hope." 

i wish you were here.

~~~

i am here.

an abstract life

the moon rises and is a warm color. buff or beige with the craters being the darker mottling on the surface. i've thought of her as a woman. the lonely woman next door who can only shine when the sun shines on her. sort of like me. i shined when my Dragon smiled at me. but i do know that the surface creates an illusion called "the Man in the Moon." masculine and feminine.

i feel a kinship with the moon and sometimes think of her in the feminine. but when i search for the moon, possessively and painstakingly wait for it to clear the trees so i can talk to the moon face to face, it is to my Dragon that i speak. only the moon can pull this off in my imagination. only in my imagination would it have to.
as the Earth turns, the moon appears smaller in the night sky and it starts to cool off in color. to me it looks more silver. it's subtle. maybe no one has noticed and you can't see what i see as a difference between the two photographs above. it might only look that way to me. value, hue; color has always been a huge part of my life as an artist.

this holiday season has been difficult to put it mildly. beyond the obvious of missing my Dragon, i have had to face some very harsh realities. i am alone. not to put too fine a point to it, or one that is melodramatic, but i realized yesterday that if i died right now, only two people would come to my funeral, my daughter and my son.

my brother doesn't speak because i committed the unspeakable. i became a Catholic.

i lived a segregated life before the Dragon and few kept up with me. after the divorce and becoming my Dragon's wife, we lived such poor lives, gypsy lives, that no one could know us, or me rather. the church at his funeral on Valentine's Day had almost 50 people that managed to drop everything to come and pay their respects to a man whom they cared about and deeply respected.

no, it is only me who has managed to get this far and leave no trace of my existence. only in an abstract sense am in here.

i am not pouting. i am merely trying to work this out in my head. seeing it in black and white helps.

people here online will suddenly realize that i am no longer here. my daughter has all my passwords and knows to post a notice should anything untoward happen. i value all i have "met" here and i am arrogant enough to think you all need to know why i might no longer be a "voice" here. that's it. it's you. all of you. and there is no way she would think to do a posting until after i am gone by at least a couple of weeks.

thus my funeral will be an "Eleanor Rigby."

why this horrible missive? what brought this on? a couple of things and i've been thinking about them for the last three days.

one. the woman who gave me the book inscribed to her friend called upon her return from her vacation over Christmas. i had been crying and she thought my voice sounded "rough." i explained and she thought i should try to sound better on the phone. i tried. she talked about her trip and how wonderful it was. i listened and murmured in the appropriate places but i admit i was sad that day. actively sad. New Year's was coming. that whole thing about it being a different year number than the one he died in. but i did listen. i heard everything and told her i was happy for her. but she said i did not sound excited enough for her, and that i should be because it had been such a reversal of emotional fortune for her (my terminology - verbatim it was: "i had the best time, better than i thought i would considering it's my first Christmas as a widow and you should be happy for me, well, sound happier. i'm sorry you're having a tough day but this is my time and i'm trying to tell you about it. you should rise to the occasion.")

i just could not manage to make my voice rise enough and she hung up on me. an email on New Year's eve from her confirmed her anger and criticism of my lack of understanding her needs. apparently i am not a good friend. i failed to measure up to. there is nothing i can do about it. i could not apologize enough nor make her understand that i was having a very bad day and i was alone through it.

second. with my dismissal from her life, i realized that should anything happen to me, only the fact that i would not answer my cell when my daughter called would anyone know something was wrong. no one but her calls daily. no friends check in with me because i have acquaintances. there is one widow who reads my writing and i do not want her to feel berated. she is young and dealing with her own pain. she touches base and i do feel that if i were doing a "Hamlet," a "to be or not to be" thing, i could call her. but you see, i will never get that close to the edge. i fight against that despair every minute of every day. and that is the only reason i would bother her.

i believe in God and in doing so, i have to at least acknowledge that there is evil. evil can be found in despair. it is the absence of all hope and i will not go there. i will fight and struggle and find a way to stay connected to a world that i have managed to leave no footprints on.

yes, i know. the quilts. and my writing. i get emails that instill me with hope that i matter. and i am humbly grateful. but again, it leaves only an abstract mark, like the feeling of a passing zephyr. you feel the gentle caress but then it passes and you will forget that moment. the quilts are tangible solace and once they are made, they are a tribute to the one whose clothes they are made from. that's the foundation of my creations. to honor and bring to a renewed life the clothing left behind. the quilts are for the families. i bow out and move to start on the next one. but i also worry about getting more commissions.

i worry about people wanting what i can make, what i can give them. i think these quilts will be my sole legacy besides my two children who really are enough. but i live such a solitary existence and i believe everyone wants to think that they will be missed. i believe everyone wants to believe that someone will stand in a church beside their remains, whether they be in a casket or as ash in an urn, and know that someone, several someones, knew them well enough to pick out hymns, readings, or composed something from the heart. i think people need to hold onto the idea that they will be missed and that friends as well as family will gather together and mourn them, that losing them will be awful and their life celebrated.

it's something i need to work out in my head. i need to find the lasting power of being abstract. it has just been hard to realize that my life is more abstract than most. the people who might miss me, won't miss me until it's all water under the bridge. that subtle wonder of where i might be. "she hasn't written in a while. i wonder what she's up to?"

sort of like the warm and cool colors of the moon. until someone points it out, you don't really notice.