WRITING ON THE WALL

Sitting below the stairs in that grey, cold, inhabitable space, Charlotte recalled the sense of peace and calmness the cramped and lifeless space brought to her so many years ago.  It all started when Charlotte was seven years old and out of nowhere the eruption would happen.  Her parents would be screaming at each other at the top of their lungs and Charlotte couldn’t decide which behavioural method of her parents she preferred; the yelling and screaming or the quiet as a mouse nonsense that seemed to go on for days disrupting the whole house and always left Charlotte feeling bad about herself.

On this day, her parents were yelling and screaming and Charlotte found herself at the back door.  She opened the door and slipped out into the beautiful sunlight as if she was entering another dimension.  Slowly she walked down the pathway, paying attention to every stepping stone she stepped on, careful to make sure her whole foot fit into each stone and every step was taken with a painstaking effort to ensure that she never stepped on the cracks, surely this would “break her mother’s back.”  She found herself around the side of the house staring at her feet as she stepped on each stepping stone when suddenly she heard “are you alright sweetie?”  Charlotte looked up to see her sweet neighbour, Mr. Brown, looking over the fence at her with such concern in his face.

Charlotte instantly felt grateful as she was sure he could hear the yelling and screaming coming out of the open windows of the house.  Thankfully she was standing at the garage side of the house where there were no windows and the yelling and screaming sounded as if the fight was coming from a far off location.   She gave Mr. Brown the biggest smile she could, looked at him straight in the eyes and as confident as a seven-year old could be, she said; “thank you for asking Mr. Brown, everything is good and will get better soon.”  “If you ever want to talk sweetie you just say so.”  Off she skipped away like she hadn’t a care in the world, all the while feeling the stare of Mr. Brown on her back and even though she was not looking at him, she knew he was shaking his head in disgust.  Her parents were always fighting and it was obvious he knew all about it and he was concerned for his little neighbour.  Charlotte would never in a million years betray her parents but she appreciated Mr. Brown’s concern and his gesture gave the situation some lightness.  At least he cared, her parents had no idea where she was and at this moment they didn’t care; they were consumed by anger and jealousy.

Down to the end of the house, across the driveway and up the walkway she found herself at the front door of the house.  What she was doing there she had no idea, the last place she wanted to be was inside that house.  In the moment she was standing there she saw her father near the front window and in a panic she ran up the steps and under the stairway where she sat amongst stones, spiders, ants and dust.  Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to remember when her parents weren’t fighting.  If they weren’t fighting then they weren’t talking to each other, she couldn’t remember if they were ever happy, did they ever smile?  Not really, they never smiled, both of them seemed miserable.  Sitting underneath the stairs Charlotte tried to think of happy thoughts and smile.  It was tough to do because in order for her to have happy thoughts she had to block out all the yelling and screaming.

Charlotte’s desire to be happy was far stronger than her desire to listen to her parents stupid fights.  She would close her eyes and think about the time her daddy took her to a farm in the country and let her ride a horse.  That day her dad had the biggest smile she had ever seen.  She grabbed hold of those reigns and kicked that horse to get him going like she was an old pro, problem was she had no idea what she was doing and that old horse took off with her on it.  She fell off that horse and Charlotte’s anger gave away to all caution when she walked straight up to that old horse grabbed those reigns and got right back on as if nothing happened.  When she glanced over at her father he was smiling from ear to ear.  In the car on the way home, her father told her he was so proud of her for being so strong and confident.

She never forgot that moment  and now siting under the stairs she tried to be so strong and confident.  Charlotte imagined herself riding a beautiful black horse, with a white diamond fluff of fur on the top of his head, up and down the beach staring at the ocean and feeling like she could hear God talking to her in the roar of the waves.  She imagined God was telling her “Charlotte, everything is going to be alright, just keep listening to the universe.”  Charlotte opened her eyes and there in front of her by her feet was a stick of pink chalk.  She must have missed it when she first crawled underneath the stairs.  Charlotte picked up the pink chalk and drew a giant heart in the slanted concrete where on the other side the staircase came down to the walkway that opened up to the driveway.  In the middle of the heart she wrote “Charlotte and love”, she then went over the top of those two words with the pink chalk over and over again.

Thirty years later Charlotte was driving down that old street with her husband and children.  Charlotte asked Steve to stop the car and she found herself standing at the front door in front of that staircase.  In the background she could hear Steve and the children yelling out the car window; “Charlotte, mom, what are you doing?”  Charlotte had learned many moons ago to block out noise she did not want to hear.

As if in a trance, she walked toward the side of that staircase and pushed her way past the overgrown bushes, that were  just little twigs thirty years earlier, ducked her head underneath that staircase and sat with her legs crossed as if she was seven years old again.  Staring at the slanted piece of concrete she could see the faint pink chalk writing shaped like a heart and in the centre she could make out “Charlotte and Love.”   Closing her eyes she pictured herself on that beautiful black horse with the white diamond fluff of fur on the top of his head riding down the beach and she took a deep breath to smell the salted air feeling the mist of the sea dripping down her forehead, arms and legs.  Charlotte’s Mother and father were long dead and sitting under that staircase looking at her chalked heart, “Charlotte and love” she had written so many years ago, she realized the survivor tactics she taught herself so long ago had many times saved her from herself over the years.

Opening her eyes she could hear Steve’s footsteps, sensing the motion of Steve pushing away the overgrown shrubs, she waited for him to look in and find her in that grey, cold inhabitable space.  “Should I ask what it is that you are doing and why you are sitting under this staircase with your legs crossed as if you are practicing Yoga moves?”  Charlotte made a move toward Steve and gave him a big kiss on the lips and said “no honey, just know that I love you and the children more than anything on this earth and that love sprouted from this grey, cold inhabitable space many years ago.”

Johanne Fraser

Puppies Behind Bars

 

I usually re-blog recipes – this is such a great story and  I think everyone would benefit from reading it –  especially all you dog lovers – I’ve already seen what dogs can do for the human soul – read for yourself – double click below:

Puppies Behind Bars.

CONNECTIONS

We all have a connection with our moms.  Some have more connection than others, but most of us have a connection.  I’ve always been close to my mom, not that we didn’t fight, we did fight, like cats and dogs.   The fighting was part of our connection.  My mother was very outspoken and she didn’t care who you were and if she had something to say, she said it.  I tend to be the same way so the two of us butted heads quite a bit.  However, we were each others best friend, always in each other’s corner.  If I needed her she was there, if she needed me I was there, we supported one another, we loved one another.  We shared many fights, but many more laughs.  We laughed all the time, sometimes until our guts hurt and the tears were streaming down our faces. About ten years ago I noticed the laughter slowly subsiding and mom seemed to be constantly pre-occupied.  Something felt wrong, she could not remember where she put anything and she seemed to be mad at me all the time.  When she couldn’t remember certain things, I would think we all have bad days  Maybe she is just having many  bad days, but the problems were consistent and what started off as every now and then became more and more frequent and then the laughter seemed to stop.  I said to my husband one night, “when was the last time you heard mom laugh” and he said he couldn’t remember.  Slowly the connection between mother and daughter fell away.  At times I felt like I was talking to a stranger, taking care of a stranger.

It was obvious to me that there was something seriously wrong with mom.  Mom and I shared the same doctor.  I phoned the doctor one day and relayed all of my fears and concerns about mom.  The doctor said she would talk to mom the next time she was in, but she felt that my fears and concerns were nothing to worry about.  She said that she had just seen mom recently and felt she was fine.  I kept saying to the doctor that she was not fine.  My mother was the best actress around, she had everyone fooled.   She learned little tricks, and manipulated everyone around her to the point that when I said something is wrong, people were thinking that I was being a negative daughter.  As time moved on, I pleaded with my family and our doctor to do something.  Finally my doctor saw that something was seriously wrong and we had mom properly tested.  Four years ago the medical community finally agreed with me that my mother had Alzheimer’s.  I wanted my mother to come and live with me, but she accepted my brother’s invitation to live with him instead.  My brother lives across the country in Niagara Falls and I couldn’t understand why she would move all of that way.  To be honest it hurt and it was a blow to me.  All I wanted to do was take care of my mom as I hope one of my sons would do for me.   My brother wanted to do the same thing, and I voiced my concerns of sending our sick mother across the country but he insisted that he wanted to do this.  So I stepped aside, I packed all of her things, shipped what she needed across the country, put her apartment up for sale and drove her to the airport and put her on a plane with a one way ticket to Ontario.  It was one of the worst days of my life.  My husband couldn’t be there that day so I had my two boys with me.  My oldest was seven years old at the time and my youngest was five.  As I watched mom walking with an attendant to the plane, mom turned to me to wave good bye and the tears were streaming down her face.  It took everything I had not to run up to her and grab her and tell her that she was coming home with me.  I turned to my seven year old with tears streaming down my face and said to him, “I think I’ve made a mistake.”  My son said to me ” mom Granny won’t remember who we are next year, it’s time to let her go and be with the other part of her family, and you haven’t made a mistake”.  Needless to say his comment stopped me in my tracks, my mother had two sons, one daughter and six grandchildren back east and my son was right, it was time for her to go home.

Due to work and just everyday life, it was  a full year before I saw my mother again.  My son was right, we got off the plane in Toronto and drove straight to Niagara Falls to be with mom.  She walked into the room and I could see it in her eyes, she had no idea who I was, no idea who my children were or who my husband was.  The actress part came out of her again, she did her best to try and please everyone and pretend she knew who we were, but everyone in that room knew that mom had no bloody clue who we were.  It was a weird two weeks, no connection to mom at all.  I tried, we all tried, we saw her every moment we could and it was like I was sitting with the woman down the street, the woman I hardly knew.  The day I left Niagara Falls, I drove by myself to the home where my mother was living.  It was just the two of us, I left the children and my husband at my brother’s house, I wanted the time alone.  Three hours and both my mother and I hardly said a word to each other.  We just sat outside in the garden just being together, the connection once again lost, lost a long time ago.  On the flight home I was trying to remember the mother that I once had, the laughter the arguments all the connections that I had with mom, but I couldn’t get the Alzheimer’s mom out of my head, the woman who didn’t know her daughters, her sons, her grandchildren, once again the connection was gone.

This past Christmas, my brother phoned me to tell me that my mother had taken a bad fall, broken her ribs and one of the broken ribs punctured her lung.  We didn’t think she would make it and sure enough she survived, at one point the doctors thought she might be getting out of the hospital.  One night my mother asked about me, my children and my husband.  My brother called to tell me that she asked for us all by name and he said for the first time in such a long time he felt like he was talking to mom.  My heart went cold because I knew that this was God’s gift, the clarity, the recognition, mom hadn’t remembered who I was for two years.  I remember my brother was so happy, I told him that I was thrilled that she had some clarity, however, I didn’t think it was a good sign.  The very next day mom fell into a coma and no one knows why.  The next 48 hours was a strange time because I was living across the country and not sure what to do. No one knew how long she would be in a Coma and I was torn, should I fly back east now or wait?  That night I felt the connection of mom come back to me,  I dreamt of mom and she came to me in  my dreams as my mother, not the woman I hardly knew but my mother,  I could almost smell her and she told me I needed to stay where I was.  I woke up with peace in my heart and I told my husband I would wait to see what happened.  Twenty four hours later, my husband and I took our children to a movie, on the way home from the movie I fell asleep.  I’m not sure how to explain it, but it was as if this energy moved through me.  The feeling was so abrupt, I woke up immediately and I said to my husband, mom is gone!  The connection was there and then it was gone.  When we got into the house I went to the phone expecting to see a message on the answering machine, there was no message but I knew in my heart that mom had moved on.  Ten minutes later the phone rang and it was my sister-in-law, mom had passed away.  I asked her at what time and she told me what I already knew about a half hour ago, the precise time I felt the energy move through me.  Mom had managed to re-connect with me after all.

by Johanne Fraser

Published in Miraculous Messages from Heaven – October 15, 2013