Around 10:00 this morning I arrived home from the oral surgeon, feeling woozy but suprisingly good.

Painted some parts of a house resto project, started kicking around the idea of mowing the lawn. Hardly seemed necessary I should lay around all day. Sure, my face was all swollen and I was bleeding, but big deal, right?

Then my blood pressure bottomed out and I started to sweat. I popped a pair of Vicodin and just made it to my bed before passing out.

Woke up mid-afternoon, went to get the mail. Heard my name. My roommate's girlfriend, coming up the walk. She handed me a strawberry milkshake and headed off to work. Heck of a girl.

My genetic aversion to lounging hit. No solid food for the next few days, so I made a pureed soup from home-grown basil and summer squash, watered my sick shrubs, did some resto work. Drove my car (!) to the library, swung over to the co-op and bought more ice cream. Talked to my folks.

Recovering from oral surgery is fun! They gave me tons of drugs, bless their hearts.

I'm scared for you both, FF and weaver, and glad for you. I'd love to have a daughter some day.

GC

Enjoy those drugs, GC! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I would be the same way, couldn't sit still and recuperate. Almost blew the surgery I had three years ago trying to do too much. That was giraffe that brought you the shake? Kewl.

You will make a great dad someday.

I forgot the best part!

A few minutes before the surgery, the doctor came in to introduce himself. Gave me the usual due diligence schpiel about "this is a surgery and the following disastrous things are possible..."

He fetched his two female assistants, and the three began preparing me. They worked fast and didn't say a word. The needle went into my arm. They put a gas-administering gadget over my nose.

Finally the doctor spoke again. "Doug, you may feel a slight tingling--"

I stopped him. "My name is not Doug, it's Gray."

That's my last memory before waking up on the vinyl couch in the recovery room. Far as I can tell, they didn't perform the operation meant for "Doug" on me instead.

GC

When a freshman, I had all four removed, went home and rode my motorcycle, then had a hamburger for dinner. I hear it does not work that way for most....

I had a sad, sad evening.

My last two years of high school I was in the All State Baptist youth choir. Two or three of my friends and I went together, and made a ton of great friends from all over the state. Particularly a young lady from near the coast. We developed a tight freindship in that week, and she drove 5 hours several times that year to come see us. She seemed particularly interested in one of my friends and myself. My friend ended up the one kinda "dating" her, but she and I still talked and wrote a bit. The second year of all state cemented the friendship even more. We stayed in touch through college. It was crazy how far that woman would drive, to show up un-announced for an evening of just kicking around. She would drive back that night. (5 hours one waY!!)

She was a great singer, and played the guitar. She was in shows all over the state, and I have fully expected to see her on TV or hear her on the radio by now. I have always wondered what she did. Where she went.

She sang like an angel.

One of the last times I saw her, I drove to Galveston and we went to the beach together. We just stood, with the cold wind blowing against our faces. I held her, and we watched the ocean for an hour or two. She would have married me if I had ever asked her, I believe. She was such a loyal friend, that i know she would have been a wife loyal to her death.

Tonight I was researching on the internet, to see if I could find out what became of her. I found her name and the name of the man she married.

I googled her married name. It was in some headlines.

Four years ago, she was loyal to her death. Her husband, a minister, beat her to death with a table leg, and then went to a strip bar. The reports described her being found in her pajamas in a pool of blood. I can not get that picture out of my head.

My heart has broken again. I went to the ocean, and cried, and screamed at God.

I feel as if I could have been the lucky man to have had her loyalty.

Oh, my heart aches.

How I long to hear that angel sing.

I am so messed up.

far

FAR I am so sorry. I know just how you feel.

I'd scream at God too. He could use a good screaming-at.

GC

{{{FAR}}}

(((((((((FAR)))))))))))

That's the saddest thing I've heard in a long, long, LONG time.

I am so sorry for your ***loss***... your deep, profound loss.

Wow.

FAR, I don't have any words at all for you. I -- lots of us, I'm guessing -- am just here.

Jumping in to say hi .

I have missed you guys.

We have had some ups and downs here. The affair started up again, (no surprise).


Thinking of sending him here. He needs see that he does not have a monopoly on adultery...


Love to you all,
Shul

JJ, NB, FF, GC - thank you. I appreciate your presence.

I feel that my life will be forever changed by this event.

I spoke with her mom yesterday. She was fairly amazed that I called on the 4 yr anniversary. We had a good conversation. I did not know her mom. She said that "it" has never let up. Not a day goes by that she does not think of her sweet daughter. Apparently she googles her name at work every day, to see if there is new information.

It was weird driving on Friday night. I recently took a critical incident stress management course. I was experiencing and recognizing firsthand the shock through which one goes in an event like this.

NB - it is far sadder than it sounds. Turns out the 2 year old probably witnessed it, then lived with his father who was out on bail for several months. The 6 week old who was still nursing was likely left in the crib by himself all afternoon while his father washed the blood out of his truck and cleaned off his shoes.

Her mom lives with these thoughts every day.

It is an unresolvable situation. The husband, who is in jail, has never since spoken to the family. No apology - no explanation, no confession of what exactly happened. He maintained his innocence, up until the trial was about to start, then plea bargained and plead guilty.

This has changed my outlook on life, my thought pattern. I assume it will subside - but I am changed.

I think I was urged by God to jump in at this point. Possibly to help her mom get to a better place. I will stay in touch with her. I do not think it a coincidence that I found out exactly when I did. And that I was able to contact her mom.

Anyway - I have three beautiful kids to raise - a wife (of whom I am at this point unaware) to pray for, and life to live. I need to go visit my grandfather who lives 1000 miles away. He will not know me - but it is important. (something about a dream, and my grandmother who died over a year ago, and her concern in that dream that we were travelling and left him behind...)

The pain is subsiding faster than I thought it would. But I feel the patina of cynicism, and the thread of sadness that I feel will remain forever.

I sure appreciate your thoughts - your compassion - your prayers.

thank you so much.

far

Oh Shul, can you tell us more? How are you coping?

Shul, I am sorry about the continuing affair. Stay well and strong. I hope you're able to prevent harm, where you can.

FAR, I've been thinking about your friend a lot tonight. One of the things I thought about was how that beautiful woman probably had a mom who mourned her daughter. And little children? I can't even comprehend it. I truly cannot.

When there is a death, the best thing it can accomplish is to bring the living together. I hope that can happen here, somehow.

There are days when I wander onto MB and I am so happy that there is a resource for people in such great pain.

Today isn't one of those days. I think I'm sadder for the people who are being triggered than the ones who are looking for help. I hope they all find some peace.

Yes.

I don't feel too much one way or the other though, and I find that strange.

Does unaffected = self-involved ?

I hope not.

Nah, weaver. It just means that you're more detached (in the good way) than I am. I think some of it is because I found support here even though my marriage is so far from the norm. It's really sad to me to see people treated so badly.

I know, too, that I'm not always compassionate, either. That man FAR talked about. I don't think I could be compassionate with him. Like the Dalai Lama said (I'm paraphrasing) about some soldiers who beat a child to death with a pipe. "I try to forgive. Those men? If I had a gun, maybe I would have killed them. Sometimes the finger [making a pulling-trigger motion] moves faster than compassion."

I think folks here have had the time to stop their trigger fingers. But they don't know how, so things get ugly. It makes me sad. And tired.

I like the analogy about the trigger finger being faster than compassion, unfortunately true for all of us, especially when there is more healing to do.

My delete finger is now pretty dang fast, so I delete almost as much as I write these days, thankfully. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

HI WEAVER.

GC

It's good to be able to put down the gun and take back the bullets. I try to do that too.

It's been a rough week in MB-land. I wonder if anyone else would like to join us around the campfire.

I suppose it's unlikely that we could get the various factions to declare a cease-fire. Kinda makes you understand how the whole Middle East crisis can be so hard to find answers to if we can't even find peace amongst a bunch of English-speaking Westerners, most of whom are in the US and most of whom grew up in Christian or secular Christian families.

I wonder what Jesus or Buddha would say if they found their way here.

I would like to pull up and have a marshmallow if there are any. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, hi, Weaver! I think Gray left the marshmallows last time he was here. Too hard to chew with his teeth the way they are right now, y'know.

I brought lemonade and iced tea, myself. It's still too hot for hot chocolate. Oh, and there's beer for them as wants it.

Anyone else show up? Seems like we could use a guitar and some singing.