It has been a day. A day of Al going from not being able to move to Al being able to sit up a third of the way. He called the bath people some really nasty names this morning. He wants to get up and leave. He asked for cheeseburgers. He asked for chicken. He asked for his keys. He wanted to get up and get dressed.
He has not slept all day. Part of the time his eyes were bright and big. Other…
It has been a day. A day of Al going from not being able to move to Al being able to sit up a third of the way. He called the bath people some really nasty names this morning. He wants to get up and leave. He asked for cheeseburgers. He asked for chicken. He asked for his keys. He wanted to get up and get dressed.
He has not slept all day. Part of the time his eyes were bright and big. Other times he was staring off into space. Sometimes I think he was talking to me and other times I am sure I was not in his conversations.
He was able to use one of his arms for about a half an hour. He was able to not only lift his head but actually move it to the side. This is something I have not seen for months. This entire scene actually shocked and kind of spooked me a little.
After about a half an hour he stopped and went back to being the Al I recognize these days. But the words, take me home God, I am ready to go home have been chanted non-stop from afternoon and even now as I write.
He told me Jesus is in his room. He said that Jesus was a short man with brown hair. He said that Jesus has carpenter clothes on. He said Jesus was standing right beside me.
I don’t know what is going on. I don’t know what to think. How was Al able to lift off of his bed and move his head? I am just dumb founded and almost speechless.
Fear On The Edge Of Your Seat
Come here my friends. Come closer, sit on the edge of your seats. Be prepared to quiver and shake.…
Come here my friends. Come closer, sit on the edge of your seats. Be prepared to quiver and shake. Get ready for the ride of your life. This is a true story of what happened here at my home ballooned with effects to give you a better scare. Are you ready? Have you gone to the bathroom already?
Click on the link to get the sound. It will play in the background while you read.
It was a very dark night. No wind was blowing. All was calm. The whole evening had been this way. Something even had changed with Al. The house just had an eerie feeling about it; but nothing I could put my finger on.
The later the evening went the more Al became quiet. He had slept from after supper and at his usual time he didn’t want to get up. I let him sleep some more. The next time I tried to wake him up, he did but he was not himself. He was more like a shell or a skeleton. I said his name a few times with no response. I finally ended up yelling, ” Al, Al, answer me. Can you hear me Al? Who am I?”
He finally looked at me with eyes that sent shivers down my spine. I got a cold chill that ran completely through me as I was looking into empty eyes.
I somehow managed to be able to hold him up long enough to change his brief but then almost dropped him from fear that over took my soul.
I let out a scream, which didn’t even phase Al at all.
My face felt cold as the fear dripped from my head.
I was staring at his bed sheets and what I saw I had never seen before, never in all my years of being a caregiver.
The bed pad had a large circle or odd shape of black. I quickly changed Al and put him in his recliner. When I got him positioned I quietly asked, ” are you hurting anywhere? Do you have pain? Is everything alright?”
He never answered me. He dropped his head and just seemed lifeless.
At this time my heart was racing and yet I knew I had to remain calm. My son and my nephew came about then. They were talking about all of their major issues from the day.
In my mind I was scared. I could feel my body shivering from what I had seen.
I talked to them a few minutes and then my son conversed with my daughter via cell phone.
While they were talking I sneaked a way back to my bedroom and called Hospice. I explained every detail I could remember and she told me that Al is beginning to go through the stage of Renal Failure.
Oh my God is all that was racing through my mind. I felt like rats were eating at my brain, leaving me nothing but pieces of broken threads. Nothing was connecting. All I could gather in sentences were this is bad.
I hung up and went and threw all the evidence in the trash can. I smiled at Al and asked him if he was ready for his bedtime snack. I heard nothing but he did look in my direction. I went to the kitchen and got him a glass of juice, a pop tart and his medications.
Going back I gave him his medicine first and then sat the goodie in his lap. He sat there, motionless. I prompted him a couple of times and then he reached for the food.
I told him I would be back. The guys had gone outside to build a fire in the pit. We all gathered round. It was a nice roaring fire and although it is still summer there was a slight chill in the air at midnight.
We were all discussing the day. I was glancing towards the house admiring the white lights that run throughout the wheelchair ramp.
I remembered Al and came back in. He had not moved. Once again I prompted him he needed to eat a little because he had his medications. He moved his arm as if to raise it to his mouth so I left again.
Once back outside I started telling the guys how I felt an eerie feeling. I felt like something was not right. I had an instinct that Al was not really here with me. We started discussing a little bit about his life and what he had done in it.
My nephew made the comment that Al had always been a fighter. He said Al will not give up until he can fight no longer. I looked back at the ramp again. Those white lights always bring me comfort.
The fire was crackling and all three of us became quiet for a short time. Then we heard something in the trees. A squirrel?
Was the owl back? A couple of weeks a go there was a big, white owl that was sitting in the tree directly above me. 
Maybe Rhino had tried to come outside.
No, it was none of these things. In fact, what caught our attention was the click of the screen door. Now you have to realize it is dark except from the glow of the fire and the lights surrounding the ramp.
We all turn to look at the door when we heard the click of the handle. We watch as the door is thrown open. Not gently, but like a force of someone being in a hurry.
It was opened as far as it could go, then in two seconds it was slammed shut.
We all saw it. There was no denying it. We jumped up out of our seats and huddled.
I knew that Al was inside and I needed to check on him. Swallowing hard and forcing my feet to walk, I had to enter that door that had just opened and slammed by itself.
I went in and checked on Al. He had never eaten the pop tart nor touched his drink. Once again I somehow with added strength, was able to get him out of his recliner and into bed. I changed his brief, rolled him over and tucked him in. He was nothing more than a zombie at this point.
I made myself walk through the house. Opening closet doors, looking behind shower curtains.
Nothing, no one was anywhere. I went back in and again checked on out-of-it Al and he was sitting up in bed, wide awake. His eyes were wide and he looked at me but said nothing. I asked, ” are you alright? Did you see Mom?” He looked at me and then laid back down. I went back outside.
We tried to reason what we had witnessed but there was no explanation. The door had been flung open and slammed shut. We all saw it. The fire was almost out so the guys headed home and I had to come in the house by myself.
Someone or something had definitely been in our house. Last week the door action had happened twice. Once when I was here alone and then when I had company it did it again. The TV had been turned very loud by someone other than me and with no remote.
Was it a spirit? Was it Mom here for Al? I don’t know. Maybe I will never know. Whom ever or what ever it was definitely linked to Al.
For most of Al’s life after the teen years, everything remained the same at home. Mom and Dad worked full-time. Al went from job to job. He would lose a job because of not comprehending quick enough what needed to be done.
He got let go from a couple of places because he spoke too much to the ladies. From what I was told the ladies were scared of him. Evidently they were not used to being smiled at and having someone say hi to them so often. I have in the past heard people, strangers make remarks about “The Freak”.
Oh, that made my blood boil. I think we all have issues in life. It is just for some, it is obvious by looking at them, and others, it is an uncommon action, like repeating the word hi to the same person every time they walked by. He still does this today. He just wants so badly for someone to be friends with him.
Cardinal Center is a company that helps disabled adults get jobs, and this was an excellent program for Al. He worked at the same job for a long time. During this period of his life our Step-mom, and it is going to be here that I quit calling her this. I will call her mom. I have spoken about the real mom and she doesn’t exist in our lives. In fact, Al never even remembers her. So it was at this time that Mom was retiring from her job.
She stayed home for some time but eventually missed being busy so she went to work for a health company taking care of their payroll. After a few years went by, she finally retired for good. The very next week she had an aneurism.
Dad found her on the potty and called the EMS. Our Mom never drank, cussed or smoke. She was only 62 years old when this happened. She was taken to the local hospital where she stayed for several hours and then was transferred to a bigger hospital about an hour a way.
While she was at the local hospital, Al and I were there with her. Al didn’t really understand what was happening but he knew something was wrong. I will never forget Mom thrashing her arms and legs around on the ER bed. She managed to get her arm out to me and she kept patting my arm. It was almost like she was telling me to be strong, it is going to be alright.
That was the last time Al and I saw her conscience. By the time they got her to the bigger hospital, she was unconscience. She never came out of it. I lived at the hospital per say,and Al came up before he went to work. Seven days later, the doctors told Dad and Al, me and our half-sister, that Mom only had 10% brain activity left. Did we want to keep her on a breathing tube?
Our tiny family huddled together. Al and the sister didn’t say anything. Dad and I decided to let her go. After they unhooked her Dad was watching me the entire time while he and I held her hand. It was as if he was asking me, is she ok?
It was a sad time for us those next several hours. Finally I was the one chosen to go tell Al that she went to heaven. Al didn’t cry. Instead he went into himself even further. The rock that held our family together was gone.
From that moment on Al had no one to speak to. Shortly after Mom’s funeral was over, my aunt in Florida moved her mother down to that area. Dad became withdrawn, and Al was left to figure out how to survive.
He went to work and came home alone. He ate alone and watched TV alone. He and Dad didn’t even sit in the living room together to watch TV. When I tried to reach out to Al, Dad would tell me to butt out.
Dad believed that if everything was going fine then don’t mess it up. But things weren’t going fine. Al was suffering and so was Dad. Al started going to auctions out-of-town and this is when he really began to collect his coca cola.
Dad hated it that Al was spending money. I will never know why. Dad charged Al a small amount of rent money for living there. I never agreed with it but I couldn’t stop it either. Al barely made above minimum wage and he already had a car payment and auto insurance to pay for. Dad even made him purchase his own groceries.
It was so stupid. Dad put his refrigerator items on two shelves and Al put his items on the other two shelves. They were not allowed to mix. It makes my skin quiver just thinking how sick that was between a father and a son.
When Dad and Al went to church it was the same one for a while and they each drove themselves. Then Al changed churches. Nothing they did was together. Dad got so upset with Al spending his Saturday evenings going to the auctions that he finally had his friends go to the auctions too and spy on him.
I thought so little of these people that they would disrespect Al so bad and even stoop low enough to do as Dad wished. I hated knowing this was going on but again, I could do nothing.
There was no one to stand up for Al anymore. What his life must have been like for him I can only imagine in my own mind. I felt so bad for him but yet I was forced to live my own life.
After several years of this routine, Dad finally met a new lady friend. He introduced her to Al and me. She seemed very nice and she was pretty. Dad liked it that I agreed with his selection. Al didn’t say too much but the little he did tell me was, that’s not my mom.
Some days I just don’t know what is wrong with me. Today is one of them. For the last two hours I have been reading posts and writing my own but……..underneath it all I am on the verge of tears. I feel heavy in my heart with sadness. I have no idea why.
I have sat here a few times and looked in the mirror and plastered a smile on my face but it doesn’t look like me. I had a good day, a little mind-boggling but good. So what is my deal? I have the most wonderful blogging friends. I have great kids, but yet I feel so empty and alone tonight. I even have my American Idol on and very oddly for me I am not following it like I usually do.
I thought if I spit this out and read what I wrote I would see the problem, but I still don’t.
http://dailypost.wordpress.com
Many of us think of our lives as boringly normal, while others live the high life. Take a step back, and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.
Oh my gosh! This is so funny to me> the boring one. The chosen one for the boring category. They want me to tell all of you at LEAST six unique, exciting or just plain odd things about myself. Wow! Can I do it? Can I make myself sound like someone you would just love to have as a friend?
Let me think as I go along here.
Six things, unique or odd about me.
1. Well I can tell one thing about me right off the bat that is odd. I huddle under my blankets and heavy comforter and sleep with my fan on high-speed. Yep, even in the winter!
2. Maybe one thing about me is that I am a soul searcher. Not a gold finder. Not a loan shark, but a soul searcher in other people. I try real hard to find at least one good quality about each person I meet. After all God made you in his image. The least I can do is find something good too. Even my half-sister as well as we get along like dogs and cats, I still believe buried deep inside of her is a lonely woman who has never gotten over her husband’s death. I try to keep this in mind as I see her daggers coming towards me.
3. I love quietness. I think this is sort of an old-age thing but no matter what I will take it. Quietness for me does not necessarily mean no noise. It may mean only hearing my keyboard tap a way as I talk to you. It may mean that the noise I hear in the background is the Escape channel on Sirrus.
4. I love order, oh yes, order in my house and life. I hate surprises unless it is my birthday! LOL. It takes me a while to adopt to change. I know when my bills are coming due. I know pretty much what I am eating the entire day when I get up in the mornings. I like my house to be clean and unmessy.
loan shark
5. I absolutely love to walk but not alone. I still have not returned to my classes because of a lingering cough but am looking forward to the walking track and the pool. Come on cough, disappear!
6. The last thing about me is a love-hate relationship with men. I don’t see myself ever getting married now that I will be a year older in April, but I would love a companion to date. I hate being alone and yet I love it. Does this make any sense at all to you? Is it odd or what? It is what it is as my friends say so I just learn to accept that I am an odd creature.
Who I am 