“A Family’s Inherited Death Wish” The Suicidal Thoughts in My DNA

[all the names herein are changed to protect the privacy of the living.]

An Original Collection of Provocative and Powerful Essay's by R. B. STUART. Her Work Begins and Ends at the Crux of Truth, Sorrow and Humor---Capable of Slicing Through Your Psyche and Piercing Your Heart.


By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Nine


In April 2007 shortly after my move from New York City to the outer tip of Long Island, I experienced an isolation and desperation that brought my thoughts back to suicide. Which hadn’t occurred for 20 years since the age of 26. Now that I was living in my future the hopelessness over my place in life and achievements fell short of the expectations I had for myself as a young girl with dreams of a bright future. After the death of both parents---an orphan for the first time---I witnessed my joy replaced by sadness---and youth traded in for jaded age. It became difficult to see my accomplishments and replicate the beauty cast over me by my mother’s eyes. The vanishing of everything I felt to be true created voids in corners of my life, becoming a vortex of pain that had reached the crux of….that spring day.

When I left the bank, I could feel the emotion snake up my throat---I didn’t expect to still be struggling at 46 the way I did at 26. I asked the teller Laura if any portion of the check cleared. I felt shame and sadness as I withdrew money from my account. Over the past two years I deposited yet another credit card convenience check to pay my rent and bills. Suspending the tears when she asked how I was doing, “Not well. Say a prayer for me,” I responded trying to hold down the emotions that were beginning to regurgitate. Her soft, compassionate blue eyes had a wisp of sadness in them, as if she knew the hardships I was undergoing. Reflected in numerous withdrawals that dipped my account to the $10 minimum.

I couldn’t turn my face to walk out the door fast enough before the pain and sorrow imploded from my heart, melting from my eyes. Orchestrated by a high-pitched whale I wept, ‘They say God doesn’t give you anymore than you can handle…it’s a lie. If it were true then people wouldn’t commit suicide.’ It seems God doesn’t ration the mounting pressure one experiences in life. In times of sorrow, sadness, desperation and hopelessness…. nothing changes. You cry yourself through it and wake to the same toil the next day.

Abandoning the thoughts in my head, I was lost in the grief of my heart. I reached my car door, opened it and sat in the seat of my pain. My apricot miniature Poodle, Sunday lept onto my lap and sniffed the emotions escaping from my mouth. He probably wondered what happened while I was in “that place.” He stayed quiet as I started the car and we left.

I decided to take him to the woods for a walk on the trails at Laural Lake. As we drove down the steep, mottled, dirt entrance I thought, ‘Should I tie him up to the exhaust pipe the way Daddy did with litters of kittens we couldn’t afford to keep.’ In the 60’s my father would have us kids go in the house while Mum turned up the radio. Then he’d place the unwanted litter in a bag, turn on the car and asphyxiate them. On the outskirts of the woods under mounds of dirt and dried leaves he’d bury the remains in a pit. The decaying animals would rest….living out their memories with us on the grounds in which we played.

I plotted, ‘If I didn’t have to worry about my dog, then I could kill myself. What if I killed myself and my dog survived, who would take him? If I killed him first I would surely want to die. I couldn’t bare life without him. Maybe a family member would parent him.’ I parked, he yelped and scratched at the door with pleasure having just arrived at one of his favorite spots. He hopped out, prancing as though life was grand, unaware I was premeditating his murder.

Tucked in the woods we meandered around the dirt trails when I noticed broken chunks and shards of glass from shattered beer bottles. I didn’t want him stepping on broken glass and cutting his paws so I was always cautious where we walked. I began picking up the brown chunks, green chips and clear slivers. I carried them in the palm of my hand, they reflected in the sun. He explored while I contemplated using the glass to cut my arms.

My thoughts raced, ‘What if I took the glass shards and sliced upwards from my wrist to forearm, the way suicide victims do killing themselves in a tub of water. If I sat down on the old cement foundation in the middle of the woods, and slit my wrists I would eventually bleed to death. Would Sunday howl or lick the blood off my arm? How many hours would it take before I died? Would I make it through the night alone in the woods? Whoever found my car would eventually find me. When opening my car door they’d see I had just come from the bank and was on my way to pay bills. The errand and food list wedged on the dashboard. Ready for execution.’

In my family, talking about death and dying was as common as discussing life. My thoughts drifted to my father Irwin, a 1st Division Calvary Specialist in WWII, an Army Master SGT who survived the invasion of Normandy but always wished he died with his war buddies. In 1966 he died at 46 from lung cancer. And as he wished, his ashes were scattered across the ocean…finally finding a resting place with his buddies at sea. My father left behind seven children and a 37-year old wife, my mother, Patricia.

Over a decade ago my mother told us that when my father relocated her from Boston to the 88-acre family farm in the country hills of Sterling, Massachusetts. It was the mid 1950’s, she was around 27, and they were newlyweds. She gave birth to her first two children, my brother Frank and sister Pearl. Desperate to get away from the seclusion of farm living, she went out to the barn and picked up my fathers shotgun. With one hand holding the cold metal barrel she sat with the tip in her mouth. The head pressing against her inner cheek, she tried stretching her other arm down the butt of the rifle. Unable to maneuver both, she fumbled to pull the trigger. In her attempt my father walked in. He ran over and snatched the gun out of her hands and thundered, “What the hell are you doing! Don’t you ever try that again!”

A city girl used to living a comfortable life, she was ejected into a meager existence as a housewife, and reasoned, “I hate it here! I don’t want to live in the country on a farm.” Desperate to be taken out of the surroundings that on one hand, brought her happiness with her children and husband, and on the other, torment and despair. The poverty, daily chores and tending to the farm animals wasn’t what she thought her life would be. She prevailed throughout the years, and after several strokes she died in 2002 at 73 from Congestive Heart Failure.

My brother Frank, the first-born and only boy, said at the age of 18 he thought about slitting his wrists with razors. Having felt caught between the stages of boyhood and not wanting to be the same type of man as our father. Which to him represented the negative connotations of being a man. Frank experienced violent physical abuse by my father’s hand. As a result he didn’t want to grow up and be the monster he saw our father to be. So instead he turned to drug use; marijuana, hashish and acid and developed a slicing sense of humor.

Four decades later, our fathers brother shared Dad knew Frank was homosexual and tried to beat it out of him---thinking he could beat his son into being a man. Frank had experienced bouts of depression since, but no longer suicidal thoughts. Now, in his mid 50’s, he’s drug free, but thick with the past. As a health facilitator he lives happily with his long-term partner.

Born in 1952 my older sister Pearl, who was a toddler on the farm when my mother attempted to kill herself, has had death thoughts since the age of six. Because of the role my mother gave her as junior Mum caring for her four younger siblings. Rather than be a mother to us, Pearl longed to forfeit her birthright of childhood---to die.

She’s the only one in the family to be clinically diagnosed with depression. Her desires to die were more silent than the other siblings. It resurfaced over the last five years partly because she feels stuck in her life, and being involved with a verbally abusive alcoholic for over a decade beat her down. Her self-inflicted punishment casts an anchor of guilt around her neck fearing he’ll have nowhere to go if she throws him out. So instead, each day he extracts a piece of her while she slowly dies inside.

Her seclusion, hopelessness, weight gain, loss of her son and resentments are at most times too much to bear. Pearl confessed to feeling jealous when hearing on the news of people who have accidentally died, “God why take them….I’ll gladly go.” Seeking relief from the pain, she attached a hose to the tailpipe of her car in a failed attempt to asphyxiate herself. It was divine intervention that the car wouldn’t start.

Pearl remains trapped in a life she loathes, childhood wounds still raw, her lackluster commitment to life saddled with the psychological and emotional loneliness of aging makes merely getting out of bed a challenge. As she disappears, she struggles to keep her grasp on living. Fortunately, a brief stint in a mental facility scared her sane. She finally kicked out her abuser, and life and love seems hopeful, as she’s in control of her life again.

In 1957 my sister Karen’s birth was shaky from the start having survived a ruptured appendix at age three. After the death of our father, and the remarriage of our mother to gold digging-child molesters, who over a three year period single handedly drained my mother financially, while desecrating everything that was once my fathers---including his children, especially the younger daughters.

Karen, the prettiest girl in the family, began experimenting with drugs and sex at 16. By her late 20’s she had tasted as many men and women, as drugs, and seemed to be the most seduced by hard drugs; barbiturates, narcotics, amphetamines, shooting up the latter and heroine.

Influenced by her as an older sister, with her guidance, I began an escapade with drugs. In 1981 at 21, Mum gave me my first journal. Karen and I had rented an apartment together in the North End of Boston. As young women, we hadn’t lived together since we were children, and wanted to experience freedom from abusive, controlling relationships. So we spent nearly a year partying together in the safe havens of Boston’s gay clubs. The drug use created erratic behavior and depression, and an uncertainty in my life. At that tine I needed the comfort and guidance of my father. So the first few pages of my journal were about depression and being caught in between life and death---success and failure.

Within months Karen had a boyfriend, a pharmacist and drug addict, whom I detested and she eventually married. She decided they would cohabitate so she moved out. Shortly thereafter they broke-up, and impulsively reunited, got another apartment, moved and separated again.

In the late 1980’s at the age of 28, Karen started complaining of pain on the back of her neck. She compared it to being hit on the back of her head with a brick. At that same time she began a mantra. The first time I heard it we were sitting in the back of a Boston cab going to her apartment in the North End, “I wish I’d get AIDS and die. I wish I’d get AIDS and die,” she chanted. I reasoned with her to stop saying that.

By January 1987, she wanted to reconcile with her husband who’d been bounced out of pharmacies around Boston for stealing drugs. He moved South, finding a drug store in Florida where he charmed his way back into the pharmaceutical business. Karen made plans to be in Florida with him by Valentines Day. Once there, within weeks she became exhausted, had a shortness of breath and developed the flu. By mid April she was diagnosed with AIDS. Three weeks later she died alone in a Florida hospital at the age of 29.

The death of my childhood chum, the beauty who shared bunk beds with me, the kid that tormented me, the girl that combed, cut and braided my hair, the friend who shared laughter and scars, my dance partner, the only one who knew my fears and collective memories, she was the black raspberry to my pistachio ice cream, the one who sang Jennifer Holiday’s “Dreamgirls” with me….the only person who corralled those moments in time, in our lifetime, had vanished. Into the ethers her spirit went---sailing the sea with my Daddy.

I was 27 when she died. My psyche was ripped from the core. My heart bled a constant river of tears and grief. As I mourned, I stopped smoking, no longer drank or did drugs, became celibate and read self-help books. Learned Transcendental Meditation and affirmations, became one with the earth and saw the face of Mother Nature for the first time. I searched the heavens endlessly for the meaning of her death…and to my life. Grappling with my own desires to die.

In the darkened hours of the night, in the mist of heartache and sorrow, I begged God, “Please take me I want to die. I don’t want to live anymore.” My head waved side to side against the pillow that cradled my inner torment. A flush of tears soaking the sides of my face as I repeated my pleas. My stomach ached from the heaves of anguish. I pleaded to take me from this misery. Exhausted, hopeless and feeling abandoned….I began to fall asleep….until I felt my feet being tugged off the bed.

A miniature casket was suspended in the left corner of the room where the ceiling meets the wall. There where two lights blinking, one red to stop, one green to go. As it began to move toward the bed the tugging at my feet continued. Like magnets, I was being pulled towards the casket. I looked at the foot of the bed and saw a three-foot high ugly brown troll, with a big animal like face and pointed ears tugging at my feet.

Frantically I pulled my feet back, using my legs to push myself back up to the headboard. I was horrified and whaled, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” Instantly the spell was broken. I leaned over to turn on the light. My forehead felt afire, was it my third eye and a mystical episode I wondered. I was panting and called by brother to tell him what happened. That’s the night I made the conscious choice to live---and would never wish to die again. Until 20 years later….

Karen’s death transformed everyone in the family in different ways. My younger sister Nita decided the Lord was calling her and in 1989 became a missionary for the New Tribes Mission. Giving herself to the Lord she became celibate, refrained from alcohol and smoking, and learned how to preach fire and brimstone. For eight years she lived across the country learning and preparing for the ultimate goal of doing missionary work, bringing Christianity and Jesus to third world countries. She built houses by hand, cut off the heads of chickens, prayed, asked for donations, sang in choirs, learned linguists; Cherokee and Pigeon English so she could speak with the natives. With training complete and her life in crates, she and the other missionaries moved to the New Tribes Mission camp in Papua New Guinea. Where she’d do her life’s work.

It wasn’t long after she arrived did she meet a tanned and salty scuba diving instructor from Australia, who not only taught her about diving, but rekindled a few of the seven deadly sins. Within a month she was reprimanded and told to stop seeing him or else she would be expelled from New Tribes. The affections from her illicit love was stronger than Jesus, and so she opted out. Leaving with him for a torrid seven-day sojourn in Australia.

Knowing it was time to depart from her fantasy romance she reluctantly abandoned her heart. Aware that her life over the last eight years had dissolved, she flew to California and stayed with our brother and reverted to secular life. The smoking and drinking reemerged as Nita felt God had forsaken her by allowing a weakness for the flesh to return. For weeks she pondered at the crossroads, then moved to Florida. Overtime the doubts began to surface and by 1997 at 34 she uttered repeatedly, “I wish I’d die. I wish I’d get cancer and die.” She hasn’t died. At 43 she lives successfully….with those thoughts, and has recently begun journaling, writing “goodbye” letters to family and friends.

In 2006 my baby sister Ella, a 41-year old Army Captain Chaplain with the 101st Airborne returned two years post Iraq with stage IV Dygerminoma cancer. Although the dance of life and death has been one woven throughout all of our lives…when faced with an unwelcomed death sentence with a rare stage IV she whaled, “I don’t want to die. I’m only 40 years old. I’m too young to meet my maker. I don’t have enough memories yet.”

With all the prayers, a great medical team at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the rotation of family support in D. C. After 35 rounds of Chemo, two major surgeries, one to remove a volleyball size tumor from her abdomen, the other to remove her creative organs. As of November 2006 she’s in clinical remission and celebrating her rebirth.

As my yearlong dedication to her began to wane, I had to resuscitate the life I put on hold. During that period I allowed my already fragile writing career to disintegrate. Willingly, I sacrificed the focus of me, my life and doggy, to be certain Ella would live. I made sure not to make the same errors in judgment as with Karen’s death. The remission eradicated her mindset from the death sentence, giving her permission to take her life back, and in the midst forgetting she didn’t do it alone.

By January 2007 after several telephone arguments, the gratitude and sacrifice of the conjoined family efforts had vanished from her mind. As she reverted back to being the same person before the cancer, with the same sibling conflicts and issues. The near hint of death hadn’t yet transformed, or even awakened her. As a result, our servitude had evaporated from her thoughts.

This was the catalyst to my emotional devastation, compounded by my fragile financial outlook, and lack of work. Having spent a majority of the nine months with her in D. C., my credit card debts were mounting. Edging their way to swallow me whole. I turned from her to me, and what I found was feelings of forsaken. Being isolated in a new town, with work that was sparse. The burdens of my own and Ella’s, was too much to carry, crushing my last bit of hope. I couldn’t see around the corner---was anything even there? Or was there more loss, pain, suffering and abandon.

My daily and hourly prayers were marred by doubt. A blanket of confusion of what to do to twist out of the spiral of defeat was taking hold. I felt disconnected from the family, mostly misunderstood, and judged for not having a “normal” life. And slighted for following my fruitless dreams was only compounded by not having a steady income. It gave them the ammunition they needed. Would I abandon them---or my dreams?

As the work ended my hope diminished. I detached from Nita and Ella breaking the emotional bonds. It was a vortex of heartache that produced thoughts of death once again. Nearly 20 years, 1987 and now 2007. Karen’s death was the catalyst the first time. This time a blend of family and career; fear, scarcity, loneliness and loss.

I took Sunday for a walk and within blocks my mind was flooded with words, thoughts and visions of how I could die. I wept with each step pleading to God why has he forsaken me. The sorrow dripped from my eyes as I fell in a trance of grief. My dog oblivious to my howls of anguish meandered along the frozen edge of the country roads. The feelings of being misunderstood were apparent, as was the lack of respect for the life experiences I had tucked within my history. I pled to the spirit of Karen, my Mother and Father for help. My mind and heart became one---lost in a bounty of aloneness and suffering.

As I approached the homes along the bay the negative tape in my head began to silence. The vision of myself along the rocky shores of the beach started to emerge---I became still inside. Like Virginia Woolf’s suicide, I envisioned myself collecting rocks and putting them into my jacket pockets, into my sports bra, into my underwear, my socks, boots and tying Sunday’s leash to my arm. As we’d wade out into the calm winter water, he’d become cautious as I walked slowly through the graveled shore, clutching him against my breast.

The smooth, faceless cold rocks pressing against my flesh---the weight taking hold, the waves knocking me off balance until I surrendered to the salty foam. The warmth of the water against the crisp air would cover me like a blanket. The life-filled world of Technicolor would become grey, still, and lifeless as my feet became heavy in the sand. I relinquished my will to the vast oceans of death that came before me. Sunday would frantically submit to his masters wish, staying tethered to my arm as our ship of life went down.

This reel in my mind had silenced my cries---as I was suspended by the vision. We floated back home along the tarred road. I thrust my body onto the bed and whaled for my dark thoughts. Sunday was confused and sat by my side. With no one except the spirits to hear my lowly inner turmoil, my journal became the caring caress I needed. It stood firm, spine erect, arms wide open, steadfast. In silent strength the pages took all I could expel. The unfettered paper marred by tears, pain and confusion absorbed the strife eating away my psyche. Only after I exhausted the power of death did the wave of emptiness rock me peacefully to sleep.

The next day brought a feeling of renew, and three weeks of unexpected part time work brought my optimism back. It made me feel self-sufficient and strong. I decided to see a tarot card reader in NYC. I needed to know what was ahead. The trees in the forest were closing in. She provided the hope that abandoned me. She spoke of success, riches, powerful men and love. I only had a few weeks and months to wait before all the cards fell into place. She affirmed my terrible life experiences with lady luck nowhere in sight, but all that would change. The depression would lift, and everything I’d worked for in my life would finally meet---with that elusive four-leaf clover.

I spun like a top with excitement. Nothing could penetrate my star filled eyes. The future was finally mine. Three weeks came, then five weeks, then nine, and….no powerful man, no money, no luck, and was out $50 dollars. I regressed back to the darkness on that crisp, bright spring day when I took Sunday for a walk through the woods at Laural Lake. With each step pieces of my family history sprouted in my head like jewels---suspending the visions of cutting my arms with the glass sparkling in my palm. Their events began to link themselves together. My family’s own personal demons, our own struggles, and fight with life and death I noticed had a similar thread. Like a patchwork quilt their stories surfaced and revealed themselves. Maybe we don’t own those thoughts---they belong to our parents, our ancestors. Their desires to die were passed down to us.

Woven through my parents and siblings is the fragile balance of doubt and hope, weakness and strength, confusion and clarity, sadness and joy. And if tipped one way for a long period of time desperation emerged wrapped in the package of despair, wishes of dying, or death.

While I was able to uncoil the intricate emotional longings that have replicated and connected us over the generations….the memories, the words, the sentences. It painted a picture for me of my family, and I thought, ‘Maybe the death wish isn’t mine after all.’

Just then, as I rejected death, I was possessed by generations of understanding. Their spirits gave me permission to be cradled by the muse and in euphoric excitement I grabbed a pen and paper from my pocket and this story began to unfold. The phrase I penned brought enlightenment, “my death wish was inherited in my DNA, it doesn’t belong to me.” And by unlocking the originators….I felt peace with my demons and was somehow set free. My soul, no longer lost in the woods of darkness---the spell was broken, and in my clarity I found the freedom to finally---live.


© COPYRIGHT 2007, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

End of The Line: “When a Branch of Your Family Tree Breaks”

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Five


Studies show that when a woman is shown images of babies their pupils dilate. I have never experienced that sensation but know when I see furry images of a floppy-faced, innocent eyed puppy, my mouth breaks into an immediate smile and my heart is filled with joy. Like when The Grinch is converted by the unconditional love and compassion of little girl Who?, in the town Whosville he’s taken Christmas away. An x-ray of his heart shows it expanding and beginning to pulsate with love and joy, while the sparkle in his eyes give way to half mooned grin. That’s how I feel when I see dogs.

Was that the prediction that I would never bear children? Or was it because me and three other sisters were molested for a three-year period all under the age of 12 by our ex-stepfather and his 16 year-old pedophile son?

When that psychic scar penetrates your entire life---with a secret that distorts all your romantic relationships. If by your 30’s you don’t allow it to surface into the rage it’s festered---then we turn on ourselves.

As my older sister Karen did with hard drugs introduced to them at 16 by a street hustler twice her age. He infiltrated her life preying upon that protection she craved since the death of our father when we where six and nine. The drugs numbed out the childhood pain, and glazed over the domination, exploitation and beatings he’d give her to keep her submissive and fearful of leaving him.

In her 20’s her love for heroin was stronger than the addiction she once had for him. And she parlayed that for a new life for herself with other functioning addicts that didn’t abuse her. But it was only time before the drugs would call her home….

At 28, while she was going through a period of sobriety she said to me she longed to be someone’s wife, at the same time her demons clawed at her and wished she’d contract AIDS and die. She married a pharmacist with a drug habit and access to pharmaceuticals….and with all her fortitude attempted to salvage her once reckless life. But the mantras of death had already begun to weave their web and she developed full-blown AIDS Easter of 1987. She died that May at the age of 29.

Tormented by sexual abuse of my ex-step fathers hand, Karen partied hard and lived recklessly until her body couldn’t withstand the violation it absorbed when she was 12. I watched as she psychically willed herself to death.

It left four sisters and a brother to grant my mothers wish of grandchildren. The latter would be removed from carrying on the name since he was gay. The future rested in the wombs of the four remaining.

When she died I was 27 and the loss shook the foundation of my holy trinity as she would never reach her 30th birthday and I would ultimately outlive her. Her life was frozen mid-stream---her image burnt into the Kodak paper in my mind. Like a caveman in search of a fossil---I clung to her personal effects as remnants of a life half lived, but had evaporated into the ethers. Her remaining belongings reduced to a few cardboard boxes were sifted through by the family---like wiping the dust from the rubble of a gold mine---in search of the one nugget of artifact that extracted the totality of her life. That would essentially invoke an image, thought or feeling of her.

Now only I was the locket of our shared childhood of bumps and bruises, lies and betrayals, jealously and envy, love and empathy. I inherited what was and had the power to change what would be for my own life.

I stopped drinking, getting high, partying, quit smoking and became celibate. I lost the support of my intoxicated weekend friends and turned inwards for the first time in search of myself, my pain, my God.

As the calendar months flipped by, so did the decades. As I celebrated the milestones of 30, 35, 40---I marked the loss of what could have been for her. Having come from a family of five girls and one boy, after our fathers death in 1966, our innocence was sacrificed for the pleasures of out ex-step brother, as three of us had suffered sexual abuse by him. It would permeate every facet of our life, and forever stain our ability to love, trust and experience intimacy with a man.

So damaged, I observed each of us girls become abstinent and relinquish our maternal clocks. While I feel the pricking of turning 50 in a few months I am acutely aware I am childless. Having lost my mother in 2002 at the age of 72 I am now parentless---officially an orphan. Being emotionally maimed by abusive relationships until I was in my mid 30’s---I find myself spouseless. The psychological injuries obtained stunting my ability to love again---trust again. As I’ve resolved it’s too late for me.

My family jests my apartment is so over run with memorabilia and collectables---that when I die they dread having to dismantle my tangible life. Threatening me and my objects of affection with a garage sale or much worse the dump. As I scan each intricately placed photograph, shelved Norman Mailer books and an assortment of his framed letters of encouragement and sketches to me, souvenirs from my world travels and longings for Italy hang side by side, religious artifacts, and wall of achievements---my eye rests on a Bible sized, Italian leather bound coffee table book, with a cover etched with a trio of naked female figures.

Within the parchment pages is my New England Family Tree dating back to 1834 and 1844 in Naples, Italy, 1616 Scotland, 1711 Belfast and 1847 County Cork, Ireland. My fathers and mothers lineage ends with me and my siblings.

Having four childless and spouseless sisters prepares us for a life of spinsterhood. But even more jarring is there’s no one to tell the family stories to, no one to leave the genealogy with, and no other generation who’s interested in my baubles, much cared for chronological photo albums of 25 years---all of which will one day lay on a wobbly aluminum table in a dusty thrift shop. Being picked over by the pelicans of the future.

Like those before me who beloved trinkets line flea market tables or antique shops because their family found no attachment or they had no one living that would carry on their memory. No one to leave their every hope and dream, shared laugh and tear, no one to mark the life they had lived.

It brings sadness to my heart, as I mourn the life I’ll leave behind. The life that will ultimately vanish into the incinerator of death. The only value of my achievements will be in the money I leave behind. There will be plenty of takers for that…. But my grandmothers cameo pendent and engagement ring, my grandfathers communion ring, my fathers WWII dog tags, my mothers Mother’s ring and ruby, the jewelry from the chapters of my own life---will they lay encased in a darkened, antique store marked with white price tags? Will they strike a strangers fancy and find a home ‘round their finger or neck….their history forever dormant.

Or do I have all those keepsakes buried with me, or thrown into the crematory with me? Is it vulgar to ponder adopting a teenage boy and girl to selfishly carry on my Family Tree, and who will mourn my passing by cherishing my volumes of poetry, journals, books, manuscripts and other possessions? Or do I spend the last segment of my life distributing what I’ve amassed over the years to my friends? What will come of my mothers belongings that I horded after her death? The white chest stacked with magical memories and doo-dads laced with her fragrance of “White Shoulders”….the contents and their past only sentimental to a loved one. Will it be impersonally bulldozed into a landfill for seagulls to nest?

After her death is when I became more entrenched in her lineage---the parts she kept secret or long ago forgot. I uncovered generations of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins she intentionally detached from decades ago when she was a young bride in her 20’s. The reasons were hazy. Her estrangements made us, her six children suffer, as we knew no one else except each other.

The floodgates of her private heritage opened up with merely a brief tug. My desire to know who she was, and who I am, brought forth a domino of living great aunts, great uncles, cousins, and childhood chums who happily resurrected her life by recalling moments with her. Within two years I’d been introduced to branches of my mothers side back three generations to Italy, and three to Ireland. As I became engulfed in the family history I longed for while she was alive. I saw a pattern in the Irish genealogy beginning with the seven children born in early 1800’s---none ever married.

I noticed every generation from then on, whether in a family of two or seven siblings; one, two, three, five or six of them within that family never married. Including my own. And I wondered had their families fallen victim to abuse or dysfunction? Just as I noticed numerous drowning from boat or water accidents over the centuries in my lineage, should I beware of the water? Is it better if a family not reproduce and die-off---rather than perpetuate the dysfunction? Was our need not to procreate a good thing for our lineage? As the torment on my mothers side will end with us. Could it be our mission, our destiny is fulfilled, our spiritual work complete? Or had it been in our bloodline----a prophecy effecting certain family branches like mine?

The answers I may never uncover, and it may just be a destiny that no matter how I play tic-tack-toe with my life----the end result is the same for my family: no heirs. At some point I have to come to peace with my inability to pass along all that is precious to me. So along your journey if you come across a bauble, a trinket, old pictures or a journal along the way and find my name etched somewhere----please buy it and give it life----knowing that it came from a girl without a tree.



© COPYRIGHT October 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“Celibate in The City” - When Abstinence Becomes Celibacy…and You’re Not Clergy

By R. B. STUART
Part Twenty-Four


They tell you as a writer to write what you know. It’s not that I set out on a path of vaginal cobwebs---it just happened that way---by choosing emotionally retarded or sexually deviant men over the years, paralleled with idealistic notions of love and romance portrayed in 1940’s films. My travails into premature spinsterhood was emphasized by broken promises, disappointments and misunderstandings. Compounded by my own emotional vocabulary comparable to the board game level of four letters (Scrabble). My trust issues percolated just below the surface with fear of intimacy and abandonment.

Since my late teens I went from abusive relationships with men 10 to 20 years my senior to intoxicated sex with the rare gay male friend, parlayed into fantasy relationships in my early 30’s upon moving to New York City. Which at the height of AIDS graduated to abstinence and later celibacy. My last casual relationship was with an impotent man (unless silicone was omni present) who still lived at home (fully aroused when watching the Playboy channel). When I caught him one day masturbating to their televised, artificially enhanced, shiny naked bodies---our fragile year long relationship ended, and so did my self-esteem as it was marred in cellulite. That finale edged me towards abstinence and into fantasy relationships.

My aptitude for fantasy affairs was born when I was 5 years old twirling around a silver clothes line pole holding the imaginary hand of my “man.” We'd end the dance with a kiss---my innocent tongue reached out to lick the salty, cold metal, as my blue plastic Cat glasses clanked the pipe. Immediately, my notions of men became eschewed as they took on an air of an inanimate, lifeless object. [photo above at six years old]

Likened to a romance novel unfolding, my imaginary ideal of love resurrected itself a quarter of a century later with a handful of fantasy relationships. They were rich with sexual gratification (in my own mind). Literally carrying on a romantic conversation with my latest conquest that escalated to sexual encounters. They were fueled by suppressed longings and an inability to communicate my attraction in real life (unleashing imaginary escapades).

The last fantasy relationship I had was with Ken, a young George Clooney type who worked at World Gym in Lincoln Center. In time, the disinterest and endless rejection from my object of affection, would eventually slap me back to reality. That is after I realized my lovely wasn't able to wake-up and smell the obsession. The hope of my affections being returned would ultimately go unfulfilled and the heartwrenching discovery became apparent, that once again, I latched onto unrequited love.

Ken interest wasn’t in me---but rather a heavily painted, faux bronzed gym tart with implants. I wasn’t dissuaded. To me he was strong and solid like a rock---unmovable. But unknowingly, internally, he was shaking in his Nike’s. His silent strength emerged when he was still, quietly listening to me, and for the first time I felt understood and accepted. I thought during those seven months we had a special, equal, honest connection. Unfortunately, I was so excited by it, (becoming an exuberant puppy with men I’m attracted to) I couldn't contain myself and wanted to share with him every aspect of my life (without peeing on his foot). And in turn he became overwhelmed.

I felt that I had so much to offer and searched years for a man that could handle it, that my unexpressed emotions poured into him. The only way for me to stop the overflow was to step-back and give him and myself---space. Only a few days after we stopped talking did I realize that I appeared "needy." Maybe I was needing to be heard by someone familiar who would just listen. To be understood, accepted, and liked for who I was---by a man.

But a week later the abandonment set in and I crumbled. In an attempt to cloak my emotional collapse, I grappled with small talk, but Ken was swiftly doing sets, and the more he pretended I was invisible, the more desperate I became. I couldn’t bare the hurricane swirling within and it being Easter weekend---searched for the nearest church.

Barely able to contain my psychological and emotional convergence, I scurried down Ninth Avenue and leapt up the stairs of a church at 55th Street. I found myself weeping at the foot of another man----a priest, begging him for clarification. With sorrow spilling from my heart, I cried uncontrollably and in between heaves and puffs of breath asked, “Father, every time I find a man it’s unrequited love---no man ever loves me?” With a halo of candles burning behind him, he replied matter-of-factly, “You have to love yourself first.”

Those detached words of wisdom didn’t bring comfort or understanding, and I staggered drunk with sorrow to the M11 bus home (where I would rekindle a late night rendezvous with a Trinitron sized David Letterman).

Except, Ken’s rejection was so severe, it sent me to the cold white tiles of my bathroom floor. Symbolically, the bathroom where one cleanses, the primal pain of lovelessness throughout my lifetime surfaced as I sat hunched on the floor in the shadows of a night light. Trying to muffle my howls (from the other tenants), I cradled myself behind the closed door. The portal of pain became uncontrollable sucking me into a trance of one question to God, “Why doesn’t anyone love me?” That mantra reverberated through me as I rocked myself looking desperately for answers.

The emotional breaks of past loves (post abusers); Stephen, Michael, George, Marcello, Leonard, and imagined ones; Roy, Blaire and Ken---had ruptured. Looking at pictures of myself in a variety of ages and stages spanning my life---no longer a young, taunt filly. I realized I spent my youth wildly---and wept for the girl I used to be.

Is that me? Such a beautiful, young creature. Why didn't I see it then and love her more. Have I lost my youth? I didn't know what it looked like when I had it. Now I see--it was me. How could I have wasted so many years wondering what's wrong with me?

Believing I was too fat, too homely, too crooked, too loud. Now I see her as thinner, prettier, and all the crooked lines have disappeared. What a fool I was to spend her so recklessly.

While laying in the hammock of my loneliness I cried uncontrollably for quiet some time. I reached for my journal to write what was unearthing. I wrote about the loneliness I felt. It was then I observed my own mind, it wasn't cluttered with the obsessive thoughts of a man. The fantasy obsessions were for many years a distraction for the lack of a man----the void of love in my life. Without the daily pining over a man whom didn't want me, my dejected spirit, negative feelings of self-worth and unattractiveness became intertwined. I was finally alone with the emptiness of my own heart and mind. The more I scribed and reflected, I began to put the pieces of my emotional and psychological puzzle together.

I had many fictional relationships begin and end in my mind. Each ending was as traumatic as in real life. Aware of my regrets and mistakes, with each termination learning more about myself. I'd jest with my siblings that I was the only person to have a relationship, and cause infliction upon myself without ever touching or involving the other person. The fantasies protected me from a partner with unsuspecting sexual dysfunction's or diseases, feared pregnancy or the dreaded, awkward confrontation of clearing out your clothes or his (and asking for the return of apartment keys). It was less messy. Only one partner was hurt. One side of the story (literally). And after I woke from my hypnotic obsession, I'd wonder what I ever saw in him anyway.

As a writer I found the paper helped clear the dead wood hanging around the attic of my heart and mind. An emotional eruption gained momentum with each memory unleashed and re-lived. In order to write about it I had to re-experience it. During a moment of being stuck in a deep fog of emotional pain from the past. I came to realize while walking through the fire---that somewhere along the way I stopped needing people. The endings of important relationships, the loss, the deaths stacked upon one another until I closed my heart and stopped needing and loving others. In the interim it was safer to fantasize relationships. Ending a fictional relationship was still hurtful for my young heart, but less permanent. The obsession was created as a need to not feel any more pain or loss---I was already filled to capacity and needed to empty.

The vessel I searched my lifetime for, to pour my love and adoration into, wasn't a man after all. I mislead my heart in a continual quest for "the one" who could handle such powerful love and devotion. The prose tumbled around my soul while I waited for him. I had so much to share with this creature, where was he?

The years of suppressed emotions saddled with the inability to communicate laid dormant no longer. As I hovered over my laptop rewriting the past, the sorrow and pain surfaced. A cluster of tears dripped from my eyes and through them I found my way clearly. All the experiences and words I absorbed until that point imploded onto the page. The paper morphed into my vessel. I poured all the love, sorrow, regrets and heartache into those pages; strong enough to handle the abundance of painful words. In its silence---effortlessly absorbing the overflow of what I could no longer contain. Unconditionally accepting everything I offered.

But the more I wrote….the more detached I became from men and relationships---as the work became my lover---the memories and experiences became my muse. The reams of white cotton 24 lb. Strathmore paper parlayed my way to celibacy.

Trying to quell my sexual desires the first year of abstinence was the most difficult. The second, somewhat challenging but fulfilled by conjuring up liaisons. Years three to five were satisfied by porno….

And what I notice now after living without the warmth of a mans hand, is that the more I’m in my head as a writer---the less I feel my body below. A disconnect emerged. The less physical touch I experience---the less time I invest in (presumed) dysfunctional friendships or relationships, it severs my connection with other humans. I’m not sure if there’s a way of going back. As I still sense the trappings of inadequacies, the older I become, the more beautiful younger women appear (affirming that without enhanced procedures my days are numbered).

So instead my thoughts drift off to prayer and God (the ultimate in imaginary figures), imagining a better life, and what I want to accomplish. I ponder how iconic religious figures, whether Jesus, the Pope, Dalai Lama or Buddha dealt with the lack of intimacy that comes with celibacy. In 2007, new Mother Teresa journals surfaced, one inscription read, “….I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness, coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. (If I am) The Child of Your Love….you have thrown (me) away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no one to answer — no one on whom I can cling — no one. — Alone…”

Is it harder to walk this life alone, independent, and seemingly self-contained---then committing to the pain and sorrow brought by exploring and loving another? Or will we as humans always crave the love and closeness of another, whether we are celibate or not.

© COPYRIGHT May 14, 2009, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.

“The Furry Paws of God”

By R. B. STUART
Part Nineteen

When my sister [above with my dog Sunday], Fran E. Stuart transferred from the Navy [below] to the Army in 2001 she hadn’t know that within months she’d be deployed to Iraq in 2003. As an Army Chaplain Captain on the heels of a war with Iraq she was deployed from Ft. Campbell, Ky. Enroute to Baghdad with the rest of the 101st Airborne battalion in a C130 Military Aircraft. Unaware by March 2006, she would be diagnosed with a rare Stage IV Dysgerminoma Cancer two years post her tour in Iraq.

In the year while Fran was stationed in Mosul, Iraq, within six months she built for her battalion the first ever 101st Airborne Army library, her Colonel named it “Camp Performance.” Aiding her with donations from The New York Public Library, Penguin Putnam Books, Blockbuster and others packed the shelves with religious works, collections of books, music and movies. The library was to serve as a recreation center, a place where soldiers could gather hope, and occupy their minds with something other than war.

Besides her daily prayer services and Sunday worships that accommodated all denominations and ethnic faiths [above monistary Iraq], Fran also created a Commitment Ceremony for the married soldiers to re-strengthen their bond to the spouses back home. While other soldiers she took on field trips to the sacred sites of mosques built in the desert centuries ago. Visiting the holy lands only seen by the Iraqi's themselves---until now.

Fran’s makeshift office was in an abandoned Iraqi Army Officers Base and became the center of her mission. Surrounded by protective talismans; some sent by family, others she brought. The religious artifacts, angels and saints rested on her desk, clung to the walls, hung around her neck and laid in her pockets. They were constant reminders that God was present and all would be well. Amidst the heat, gun blats, and waves of sand storms, she would continue to care for the soldiers and press on.

Fran often wondered if she’d escape the war without damage---besides the fear of her safety and psychological impact of the noise---she did. Except two years post Iraq, she was deployed to Germany for three years where she would undergo hostility from several civilian co-workers. The daily strife caused so much angst and discontent Fran knew she couldn’t cope there the three year term. Nearing the end of the first year she began praying to God, begging him, to somehow get her out of there and back home to the United States closer to her five siblings. And unknowingly---God heard every word. Her wishes were fulfilled---and prayers granted. In March 2006, at 40 years-old Fran was diagnosed with stage IV Ovarian cancer, later re-diagnosed to Dysgerminoma, a rare aggressive Germ Cell Cancer. She was instructed to get her affairs in order--for she--was going home.

The Army made arrangements to medEvac her to Walter Reed Army Medical Center [WRAMC] in D. C. Fran telephoned me in NY from Germany to tell me her worst fears. Whaling the results into my ear, she cried out, “I'm only 40 years-old, I’m too young to meet my maker. I'll be 41 on Wednesday. I need more memories. I don't have enough yet,” she bawled in horror. I could only weep, “I'm sorry honey, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” Ironically, it was almost three years to the day since she was first deployed to Iraq.

How could a young woman who had held the hands of wounded soldiers, comforted the spouses of soldiers killed in a cross fire, cradled babies dying of Leukemia and give the last rights to those in their final days….be herself on the other side of the bed? And be at war with the Cancer raging within. I asked myself, “Why her?” And then thought, “Why not her?” Fran said she asked herself, “Why me?” A voice repeated, “Why not me?” We both had unknowingly heard the same answer.

The day before Fran’s 41st birthday, March 14th, the medEvac originating in Germany laden with 30 plus soldiers from Iraq, all in need of medical attention in the U.S., headed for D.C. and Andrews Airforce Base. They carried her in a stretcher across the tarmac to the plane, she heard music blaring from the cockpit, the Rolling Stones song, Beast of Burden. The tears began to slide down the sides of her temples as she knew she was finally going home to see her family, but I didn't expect this way. The song reminded her of me, I used to sing it when we were younger. Fran loves music and has always had a special song for each of her family members.

A different person was emerging, one who shared her secrets, her joys, her pains. The Cancer was unveiling her Soul, the sorrow was opening her heart.

On St. Patrick’s Day 2006 Fran was wheeled into the WRAMC O.R. where she gave birth to a Volleyball size tumor that grew in my belly. And later, the eventual loss of her creative organs, as well as her red locques of hair. Conjoined would be the loss of faith and hope in God, as she asked why he would give her Cancer, as she was doing his work.

Months before the Cancer diagnosis she remembered envisioning a white, short haired kitty with piercing green eyes sitting on her belly. She whispered to me, “Its paws stretched out grabbing lightly at my chest. I’d stroke it with both hands and it would purr. It made me feel good when I’d see it.” Being a cat lover—I told her it was a guardian angel.

After six months and 30 rounds of chemo, the loss of who she was brought with it a fear of the future and an abandonment of hope. The family watched their baby sister revert to an infant, at the same time intertwine with the fragility and sadness of an old woman. Through the carving away of self through surgeries, unable to recognize herself anymore and finding more in common with a monster---produced a betrayal of her body as it had relinquished her life force to Cancer. The violation by another’s hands inside of your sacred body, splitting your armor apart and dissecting deep into your soul…..as they attempt to remold what God himself created, and in the process lifting the veil of boundaries of the sacred self, marred by the spoils of war.

We heard the echoes of her silent cries and inner torment as Cancer spread itself through the entire family, changing the core of who we were, as we try to balance between life and death, health and sickness, love and loss. The anger penetrates her dreams and dissolves her thirst for life as it becomes too arduous to live…and death is just a slip away.

In September 2006, for two weeks in between treatments as a way of revitalizing her, I picked Fran up at WRAMC and brought her home with me to New York. While visiting, a four-year-old male nurse appeared draped in Poodle fur, his name was Sunday. Never experiencing the sight of a bald human, nor the scent of Cancer, he steadfastly stayed by Fran’s side forfeiting his daily walks, food and water for days on end. His gaze affixed upon her, his small furry body glued to the calf of her leg. He wasn’t aware his patient was of rank, a Captain, and a higharchy of the cloth, a Chaplain. All he knew was that he must stay with her every move.

Sunday became entranced with his mission to care and bring comfort. And although Sunday was naturally a timid pup---he became a Dingo. Like a mother protecting a newborn, he turned on his owner---me. I stayed away, as he became her nurse. As she leapt from the couch to the bathroom to vomit he was by my side, head cocked as this strange odor spewed from her mouth. Fran became his master, as he listened to her every command. In turn, I became invisible.

Since I couldn’t get near him without him showing his teeth, daily Fran would clip the leash to his collar so that I could drag him off the bed and out of the house to urinate. As I tugged him towards the door, he resisted and barked in protest as if to say, “Don’t move! Don’t get up. I’m being taken away. But I’ll be back!”

Once outside he’d scamper down the stairs of the deck to the backyard, and urgently go to the bathroom next to the last step. Without thought of me---he’d race back to scratch and bark at the glass door, notifying Fran he was coming back into the house. I’d unclip him from the leash and he’d dash to the bedroom and jump onto the bed to inspect his patient; sniff her mouth, push the pajama leg up with the tip of his nose and lick the skin of her calf. He insisted she keep the skin of her legs bare at all times, besides cleaning her legs, he’d rest his head on Fran’s shin, to detect any movement or change in body odor. A possible signal to him she was in distress.

Determined to nourish him, after he shadowed her to the bathroom she quickly shut the bedroom door so that I could attempt to feed him. He scratched at the wooden door, while I laid the plate down next to him. Without taking his eyes off the door he realized how hungry he was---and in rapid speed scoffed a few bites down. In between chews he’d pick up his head to listen for movement in the room and make sure the door didn’t open. Hesitantly focusing on the food, jerking his body back to the door I could see his apprehension as he tried to do two things at once. He was caught between guarding the door and eating as fast as possible. Normally a picky eater---now within minutes he was done. I opened the door and back he went to inspect his patient, canvassing her entire body with his eyes and nose before finally laying at her feet.

I’d never seen such behavior in him. And didn’t want to interfere with what he was doing---but knew whatever it was it was important to him, and it brought comfort to Fran and waves of pleasure and laughter, as this strange creature would sacrifice, his food, water, sleep and walks---to tend to her. The ultimate sacrifice of God – Dog.

It was time to return to WRAMC and Sunday would head off to N. H. for a month. I would drive Fran back to D. C. and care for her through the final five rounds of Chemo and exploratory surgery. The darkness of the womb was calling her home, and at the same time her heart was beating stronger towards the light, towards the love cradling her back to health. The strings of her memories, the melody to her songs awakened the eye of hope, and courage was born. The goodwill and faith of others pulled her back into life as she turned a corner onto a different path. The wheel no longer in her hands, she proceeded with caution and edging herself out of the tunnel of fear, towards the rebirth of the woman she has become.

By November 2006, after 35 rounds of Chemo, and three surgeries, Fran was deemed in clinical remission. The sun returned to nourish her sprouting red locks and sparked the wisdom beaming from her eyes. As she shed the infant; the innocence no longer paints her face. And shrugged off the spine of an old woman as she walked into the future---holding the hand---of hope. The death sentence is lifted, the words remission propel her back into life as she’s once again, Fit for Duty.

God is omni present, taking Fran’s hand and walking her back to the soldiers returning from war---like her. With conviction in tact, she dons her Army uniform---black and gold crosses on her lapel, and once again, Fran the Chaplain returns to the path of comforting the military men and woman---with the furry paws of God.


Copyright August 2007, R. B. STUART. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction of this Blog in any form.