Gotta Get This Off My Chest….

 

Twenty-two years ago yesterday, at the noon hour, my cranium filled with blood when a vessel in my brain ruptured, like I’d been shot. I was rushed to a hospital, decidedly one of the very best in the Chicago suburbs.

                        I walked in under my own steam, told the triage nurse what was happening, fell back onto a gurney, and blacked out.

                         I was in and out most of the day. I recall begging the E.R. team to not cut away my new black suit. I would need it for my funeral. There were a few rattling trips to get an X-ray, and CAT Scan. The tests all indicated mortal damage.

                         The doctors conferred and agreed to do nothing dramatic. I would be made comfortable, given liquids, placed in the ICU, and allowed to die. They told my family to expect roughly “6 hours.”

                         My now x-wife was found at her job, and notified. She acted the harried soon-to-be grieving widow, but I later learned she was happy this would end her troubled marriage. I will not go into what her boyfriend felt.

                         My brother sped in from St. Louis. My light coma allowed me to hear voices, but not what they said. Nevertheless, his presence was near, and I felt protected as long as he was there.

                         This is a much longer story than I will relate here. But as you can tell, I survived. Medical science did nothing but rule me out, and tuck me in.

                         I awakened the next day, with a “voice” in my ear, saying, “This is not unto death, but unto the glory of God.” I had good and bad days. Faithful moments and moments of sadness and fear. My brother had to return home. My wife signed me up for ballroom dancing, and dropped me off by myself at the Chicago Auto Show, while she and a friend attended the theater. I never made one class. I limped into the auto exhibit area, and found a seat beside the Illinois State Police exhibit. I thought that the best seat in the house.

                         It was a very hard few years. My wife left for another city, and moved in with the man who is now her husband. She took all my money from my account, and nearly every stick of furniture, save a bed and a china hutch she couldn’t stuff into her rental truck.

                         She took my dog. She took Abigail, a little black and tan dauschund I adopted from a shelter. I made no outcry concerning anything she took. Except for Abigail. I got word to my son to convey to his mother, that I could find her, and I was coming for Abigail. I told her that nothing mattered, least of all her…but I was coming for Abigail. The following night my door bell rang. When I answered, Abigail was sitting there, all by herself. No matter the conveyance, she was in my arms again.

                         The next day, in the early afternoon, the police came to conduct a well-being check. They were from another agency, so we did not know one another. An anonymous caller indicated that I had a gun, and was suicidal. Serving a department in the next town, I had a sidearm. That call, I determined, was not that of a caring friend, but a diabolical wife, laying the framework to cast me as dangerous and out of control.

                         It was a two year drudge through the courts, both in Illinois and Missouri, where she defamed me as having waved my side arm in her face and threatening her with death. Completely false. I learned, however, that judges have favor for weeping wives, and look upon cops as bad.

                         But all things must end. She is gone. We have no contact, not even through our children. The after effects of the stroke will always be with me. Even a careful observer could not tell I suffered such a disabling cerebral accident. I limp upon my right leg, and wear a glove on my right hand to lessen pain in my hand. Significant damage remains in my spirit. I work at confronting my personal demons. I win some, I lose some. I cut off any friendship from those times. Most went to my ex anyway.

                         I am peacefully, and happily remarried. I write to express both the turmoil and the peace in my heart. I never expected to share this here. But if God cradled and supported me in all I endured, he will for you as well.

                         If you would like a word of encouragement (stroke related, or otherwise) all you need do is supply an email address and I will return contact. A word to any cop…you are a good person, worthy of help. Male or female, sworn, or non-sworn. If you are a medic, a firefighter, I am your friend. I will help.

                         Enough of this. Back to what I’m here for…my poetry; good, bad, or otherwise.      

~~ James ~~