You Were

You Were

You were a red-headed buzz saw and a wang dang doodle,

Another Steel Magnolia with an edge.

You sang like you were trained by Beverly Sills,

And then went home and trimmed the hedge.

You never took any crap from any pushy chap,

And you pushed the limit too.

You were an belle and a bully and a bit of a bitch,

But Sister, you were YOU.

You were the mighty oak that wouldn't bend,

And it hurt to see you break.

When the time had come to stop the fight,

You would never admit a mistake.

You never gave up on trying to will,

The world to go your way.

But that was all right. You chose your fight,

Sorry about these feet of clay.

I'll hear your voice in the music I play,

I'll see you in my dreams,

And I'll know your secret though you would protest.

Your heart was pure marshmallow cream.

I'm not quite ready to say goodbye,

You're still alive to me.

You're an important part, a piece of my heart,

And you WERE YOU. You'll always be.

Robin K. Westbrook (c) 5/20/2015

Susan was just about bald until she was around three. She was still cute. I am the one with hair.

Coming Full Circle

On the evening of the 8th of this month, I received a call I was both halfway expecting and dreading and hoping would not come this soon. My sister, Debby, called to tell me that our sister, Susan, pictured here in a photo taken quite a few years ago, had passed away, quietly, in her sleep. Younger than me by 14 months, she and I were close for quite a few years and then...then not. We grew in different directions and it was hard but I had to love her from a distance.

She had severe COPD and her heart was not able to withstand the strain and effort it took for her to draw every breath. I would check with our youngest sister or with my niece for updates on her condition and I did talk to her a couple of times. I also wrote her a letter trying to let her know that it was just the differences in our lives that had caused the distance. I certainly still loved her with all my heart. I still do. The love lives on. I miss her, There is a hole in our lives that will never be filled.

It was an experience, for sure, going back to the town I wanted to leave so badly 19 years ago. I was not cut out for a small, conservative, hyper-religious place like Spartanburg county or the little town, Drayton, where I grew up and learned hard lessons about life. I loved the hills, the lush, green woods and grass and the fireflies on summer nights. But the ugliness of bigotry and the arrogance of the "Miss Betty Lou Better-Than-You" religious folk threw a pall over all that.

Susan did what most of the kids did...she got tough. I didn't. My nick-name was "Cry-Baby." I can still feel the pain of little me, teased and tormented to the edge of my endurance with no one to understand, comfort or care. Even the bigger kids got in on the action. I never had it explained in a way that made sense to me. My youngest sister did her own thing and tried to stay out of the way of trouble but she got her share, as well. That's the mill hill for you. Susan was lovely, talented, athletic and a bit of a bully. NOBODY pushed her around. A middle child, she was book-ended by her favorite victims. We were cowed and handy. Because we were cowed, I suppose she didn't respect us. Hell, I didn't respect myself back then. I was so sure I was a changeling that would never belong. She really didn't want to hurt us. It was just important, for some reason, for her to be in control. Power over life and people was something she craved. She didn't accept weakness, feet of clay and never met a grudge she wasn't glad to carry. Forgiveness and the art of leaving the past in the past was not her strength. Yet, if anyone else ever gave us a hard time, she was on them like white on rice.

I am a member of a Facebook group of people from Drayton. I have been individually un-friended by most of them. They don't understand that they can just cut off notifications and not get any of my posts in their news feed and still be "friends." My son (also a liberal freethinker) and I are outcasts in our own home town. I find it funny that I can accept and appreciate people who are Christian and who are conservative, even if I do disagree with them. That definitely doesn't go both ways. There is something about an outspoken, liberal atheist that scares and angers a lot of these people. So I am, again, on the outside looking in because I don't care to be in the closet with either my politics or my free-thinking. I stopped hiding a long time ago. I spent too many years apologizing for who and what I am. No more.

I loved my sister dearly, warts and all. She was a rose who had her share of thorns. I'm sure the same can certainly be said about me. I was bowled over by a man who was alternately my boyfriend and my tormentor as a child when he, at the mortuary, came up to me and apologized for those childhood wrongs. I took that apology as my earned and merited due and accepted it and thanked him for it. I miss my home town, but I don't miss the narrow minds and the angry hearts that can't accept anything different from the rest. I can't even have a casual conversation about it with my youngest sister because she seems to fear that I am trying to impose my atheism on her. As much as I love her, I am denied being able to be myself even with her.

So here it is...I am as much an outsider now as I was then. My sister's passing has brought me full circle. I like who I am. I am a good and caring person. I don't need that old time religion and I will vote on the left for the rest of my life because I think it is the truly compassionate, egalitarian way to go. If you can't handle it, then click on "unfriend" because I am not going to shut up. I might, if I am able, move back up to the temperate zone just because I love the climate and the beauty of that area. I sure am glad I have a few friends who think along the same lines as me who live up there. I doubt that there will be a Welcome Home Party in Drayton. But my journey is my own and I like where it has led me. Really, you guys...I'm good.

I Has a Sad

Sometimes, even at my age, I find myself in the shoes of that sad little girl I was who didn't understand that "different" meant something bad to a lot of people. I have two friends from the Mill Village in South Carolina where I lived for most of my growing-up years. TWO. Most of the rest are merely civil or ignore me. In that hotbed of fundamentalist religion and strict, right-wing politics, I am not the most popular figure in the bunch.

The sad part about it is that many of the people are folks I like, folks I know have a good heart and want to do their best. I might question WHAT they believe and why they vote the way they do but I don't question their innate right to either.

I wasn't a very happy little girl. I was from a broken marriage and we were not well-to-do. Even on the mill hill, most of the kids had more than us, but we still had food, clothes and what we needed. I was old enough to remember when my father left and also young enough to feel rejected, abandoned and responsible. It was something I couldn't describe and my elders couldn't understand. I was just "over-emotional and moody."

When the kids on the hill found out that I cried easily, that was all it took. I became a target of cruel teasing, gossip and derision. I was never able to figure it out. I had friends that I really liked and I would find myself shunted aside, picked last and picked on. I didn't realize that the parents of those kids had a lot to do with it along with the fact that, to them, I was an exotic creature....a kid without a Dad who couldn't even say their father had died, honorably. My father was a pathological liar, a womanizer, a bigamist, and (*gasp) a Yankee! I went to the same church, I attended the same school but I was on the outside looking in all the time.

I guess I thought that, being all grown up now, even with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, that these childhood tormentors would be kinder, gentler and more tolerant. I thought wrong. They don't torment me. They don't call me names to my face. They just do not want to have anything to do with me. My politics and lack of religion are too foreign and scary and, in their eyes, just plain wrong. Then there is the fact that I make no bones about being a natural mother (birth mother) and do not apologize or feel ashamed for that...at least not now. When it was going on, I had enough shame for ten teenage girls.

So, though I have outgrown that need to be liked by everyone, and I have learned to respect and like myself...even though I no longer judge my insides by their outsides...every now and then, I think about some of those kids that I really liked and I realize that I Still Has A Sad.

Pseudoscience Didn't Work

13 months ago, in late November of 2013, my husband of 25 years was diagnosed with stage IV follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was found by our gastroenterologist during a routine colonoscopy. A small lesion had begun to form in his colon which was the earliest sign that the cancer was attempting to invade organs from the lymph system.

He had a bit of a painful bone marrow biopsy which let us know the disease had not invaded his skeletal system. Then we spent a long day down at the MD Anderson (now UF Orlando Health) Center in Orlando having tests after tests run. The entire time, my husband was convinced it was not a real thing..that it was a "false positive" until his results came back from the PET scan, MRI and blood work. His scan showed him lit up like a christmas tree with affected nodes in his neck, chest, armpit, abdomen and pelvis. He acknowledged the reality and we got to work. We were referred to a really great oncology group and Dr. Johnson and Dr. Sheikh began mapping out the battle plan.

In January, 2014, just 3 weeks before my husband was to begin chemo, I was rushed to the ER with acute pancreatitis. They told me that it was good I had come in because that condition could be life-threatening. I was put on an IV and given nothing to eat or drink for 3 days and then went into surgery to have my badly diseased gall bladder removed. My pancreas recovered. All I can remember is asking the doctors and nurses to please get me well so that I could be with my husband when he started his chemotherapy. I was lucky. When my husband walked into the infusion center at South Seminole hospital, I was right there with him.

For 5 months, every 28 days, he had two days of chemo. His treatment was what is considered the gold standard for this particular type of NHL, two drugs, Rituxin and Bendamustine. As the drugs built up in his system, the side effects started to really show and he would have what they called a "chemo crash" about 2 to 3 days after his treatment. He took his nausea meds and slept a lot and ate lightly and took short walks and, the entire time, he kept at his part-time job as a crossing guard at a local elementary school. I started calling him "Superman." After two rounds of chemo, they did a CT scan that showed the disease over 80% wiped out and, after five rounds, he was completely clear. We were ecstatic.

I need to explain that we are atheists and skeptical thinkers. We didn't pray, We didn't go on any of the many weird and outlandish diets that we were told we must because of very different reasons by people whose evidence of the efficacy of said diets was only anecdotal or the result of some very incomplete and biased "studies." We went with a balanced diet, light exercise, adequate rest, keeping to a routine as much as possible and we investigated and approved of the science used. He was told he shouldn't eat meat. That didn't go down well with him. He is not a big over-eater but he likes his chicken, fish and occasional red meat, his beer and occasional glass of wine and his sweets. He doesn't smoke. I will say that he did have a little bit of "herbal" help with the side effects but everyone, doctors, scientists and lay-people, know THAT helps.

We had the last of his every 4 month CT scans, today and it was clear as a bell. So now, he will go to every 6 months and then to every year. Are we grateful? Hell yes, we are! We are grateful to the scientists who did the research, the oncologists and infusion nurses who followed that protocol and monitored his progress and the emotional support we received from family and friends. We could not have made it through without that.

But no, we don't thank an invisible deity, of whose existence we have no palpable evidence. We did not indulge in pseudoscience and don't think that "healing energy" exists unless that's another name for love. We DO believe in love. My husband is well-loved. Knowing one is loved has a lot to do with our attitude when facing illness and adversity and it helps. It isn't a cure, but it helps us bear the worst of the discomfort and the bad days that come with any chronic illness.

Today, I learned that a young girl, a child, died after refusing, with her parents' blessing, to continue chemotherapy for leukemia. Rather than admit that refusing the treatment caused this little girl's death, they are saying that she died of a stroke because her system was damaged by the chemo she had prior to her going on alternative and "spiritual" care. I don't buy that for an instant. She was encouraged to trust superstition and pseudoscience and it didn't work. I will be willing to bet that behind every wild claim of such methods actually working, there is a rational, scientific reason why a patient survived or improved that has nothing to do with wheat grass enemas, massive doses of supplements, laying on of hands, prayer or christian yoga (I wonder how that is different from regular yoga).

There are a lot of people who fight cancer who will not be as fortunate as we are. Research is ongoing and early detection is making a big difference. Genetic research is opening new avenues for possible treatments and cures. But, it won't make it in time for some. Some might have some hidden well of physical healing abilities within themselves that will come in to play and will be hailed as a "miracle." I am all for that. But I am sick and tired of prayers and pseudoscience being chosen over the real science, especially when I hear that a child has died from such foolishness.

Like a friend said, who is going through this awful battle with a loved one, "If prayers and wishes were money and marijuana, we'd be doing better than we are." And no, there is no proof that weed cures cancer. It just helps make chemo and the other symptoms bearable and helps the appetite along. When you have cancer and are taking chemo, eating is not easy. Marijuana makes that easier.

We are celebrating because we have the right to. My husband, with the help of science, beat the beast. But we are  not forgetting those still fighting and those who lost the battle. If you want to do something for these people, support cancer research. A few bucks to buy a pipette for a research lab goes a lot farther than prayer for actually doing something.

Dear Mr. President, An Open Letter

I hope today finds you in good health and good spirits. I really care about that. I feel that you have been gloriously dignified in the face of a lot of garbage that most presidents have not had to face. I voted for you both times, and am still glad I did. I also admire Mrs. Obama who is a lady to the core and that core seems to be solid steel.

I am a senior citizen on the cusp of 70. My husband is 75 and, just this past year, he fought and won a battle against Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. The co-pays, even with our Medicare Advantage plan, were above and beyond our ability to pay and we had to appeal to the hospital to forgive the balance. That is one of the reasons I am writing this open letter.

The Republicans, now in charge of the congress, seem to have set their sights on our Social Security and Medicare...benefits we worked hard for and EARNED. For years, we have gone without proper COLAs and have had to pare down our lifestyles to the basics only. I don't know how much longer we can afford the Internet. We don't have a big nest egg because our 401K was pretty much wiped out during the Bush recession. We were basically blue-collar workers who didn't make a mint but we enjoyed a few tiny luxuries and a vacation here and there until the recession hit. Social Security, Medicare and the tiny amount my husband makes working 10 hours a week as a crossing guard for the county is all we have. I retired early on SS Disability and the Republicans are gunning for that in a big and very nasty way.

Oh, we have some equity in our home (we are still making a mortgage payment every month) and a few acres of land we were dreaming of retiring to in the mountains of West Virginia. That dream is dead and that land is not selling because that area is so economically depressed. We are stuck here, in crowded, hot Florida where the prices can be just a bit higher than other states. And Rick Scott (excuse me while I shudder) is our governor. No, I didn't vote for him. If the congress gets its way with their nefarious plans for what is one of the best things the government of this nation ever did, we will be out on the street. We have debts we are struggling to pay. We don't take vacations, these days.

Now I am reading your agenda at White House.com and reading articles on several online publications which state that protecting Social Security and Medicare is not a part of your plan or even one of your priorities. Mr. President, not all of us older Americans are curmudgeonly conservatives who vote GOP. I know that the Republican party has manipulated the less properly informed among us to vote against their own best interests, that their ignorance and racism have played into that, but that isn't us, Mr. President, and we are going to suffer. I don't think I will do well in a shelter or out on the sidewalk putting things in a stolen grocery cart. Please don't punish all of us for what some have done.

You have your veto pen. You can, at least, stall the raiding of OUR coffers. We earned our monthly pittance and, without it, we are toast. YOU CAN HELP. Please, Please, Mr. President. Don't forget us. Don't let it be open season on the elderly poor. Eighty years ago, longer than I have been alive, FDR signed Social Security into law. And for eighty years, the GOP has been trying to take it down.

Right now, seniors comprise approximately 12.9% of the US population. That's a lot of people, and a lot of these people are not doing well financially, due to either poor planning or unforeseen reversals in the economy or health crisis problems. Should we be kicked to the curb because of our age or bad decisions? I am not ready to die without medical care, in pain and in poverty. I still have a lot to contribute. If nothing more, I have an articulate voice for progressives and a left-leaning vote.

I can get by without a yearly vacation, a lot of new gadgets, or a new car every couple of years. Our old 2007 PT Cruiser is paid for and it runs. We are glad to have it. BUT I can't get by without food, shelter or healthcare and that is what the right wing is trying to take from us. It is OUR money. WE earned it. Reagan opened our purse and raiding SS funds has become a scandalously regular occurrence. Don't let it happen again. Rather than allowing more cuts, SS and Medicare should be expanded and improved. Coupon care is not going to work, either and that idea needs to go into the dumpster where it belongs.

It's very easy for elected officials to not think about the seniors when they are happily enjoying their large pay checks and their tax-payer supported health care. They don't have to worry about deciding between food and prescriptions and some of the co-pays on prescriptions, even with Medicare Part D, can be out of reach for many of us. Between the way this congress has treated women, minorities, poor children, the aging poor, and the environment they deserve some kind of trophy for being the most cruel, nay...malicious congress in US history. I am just asking that you don't add to the disillusionment I am already feeling. You CAN help if you just will.

Thank You,
Robin Westbrook

Giving Up

I wrote a blog, once, about the experience of mothers of adoption loss which got hundreds of hits a day. I even was in the top 5 blogs on the subject when they were doing that. Now, I get less than a whimper and a peep when I write about what concerns me most. I refuse to be a whore and go back to adoption.

This leads me to believe that, although many have praised my writing abilities, either they were prevaricating or I am dry as dust and no one wants to hear what I have to say. It has gone the same way on my FB page. Very few people follow me as opposed to when I was first active there.

OK, my time is over. Anyone who aspires to be a writer, even at my advanced age, knows that a writer is only as good as the size of their readership. I have had some nice people in Google Circles pass my blog URL around but I got a grand total of 14 hits, yesterday. What good is what I write if so few read it?

So I am not going to subject myself to any further disappointment. Bye, Y'All.

Karl Marx Got A Bum Rap

Contrary to the delusions of the educationally deprived citizens of this nation, Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 - March 14, 1883) was not the bringer of communism to the eastern Europeans and Russia. That was Lenin, I believe. According to Wikipedia, Marx was an economist, a philosopher, a sociologist, a writer and, yes, a socialist in the real sense of the word. His most famous quote, that is often taken out of context, is here, IN context; "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions."

The image that the word "socialism" brings to most people is Nazi fanaticism and Stalin-esque totalitarianism and cruelty. That's not the whole story and people would do themselves a favor to further investigate what socialism really is. There are a number of nations in Europe who have socialism heavily figured into their governmental structure and there is no repression of speech, opportunities or (unfortunately) religion. However, these nations tend to be more secular than most. Here in the US we have economic repression that boggles the mind of the First World nations and let's face it...we are on a greasy, downhill slide to Third World status. Socialism and atheism are dirty words to the true believers in god and the 'Murrican way. The current congress and their Billionaire Owners Club (BOC..my title and I like it) are spinning and using those words to keep the fear among their minions who vote according to the pulpit at a fever pitch...and they still don't know what they really mean.

Not all atheists are socialists and not all socialists are atheists. While I am not convinced this person ever really existed, the Jesus of the bible would have to be called a socialist in his views of our responsibility to the poor and suffering. I know political conservatives who are atheists. I happen to be both atheist and socialist. I am an atheist because I am a skeptic and require real evidence, not mythology. I am a socialist because I am tired of the poor being criminalized, the rich being made richer from our labors and because I like fairness and justice.,,,not exactly revolutionary values but it may come to that.

Right now, we have a bloc of voters who either stand to gain by siding with the fat cats or who cannot do their own thinking without someone behind a pulpit or a politician evoking the name of god. They are anywhere from smugly stubborn to dangerously fanatical. Christianity has become a monster as has Islam and any number of other beliefs. Perhaps Islam is the most dangerous, FOR THE MOMENT, because their call to violence against the non-believer and the "heretics" is most bloodily overt in their holy texts. But Christianity is catching up.

The world, and especially this nation, has a 2000-year (give or take a hundred years or so) habit. Some get their fix from church and some from texts and some from just refusing to question their own beliefs. But a fix it is..as real a fix as taking a needle to a vein and injecting the mind-altering poison, directly. A friend, Barry Groover, posted a chart that is a good representation of the drug-like effects of religion. It works for me.

I have a hope that we can see how caring for each other is not a bad thing and that a nation this size needs a strong central government with a genuine, legislative social conscience to balance out our technological advanced and thriving marketplace. Right now, without that social conscience, we are a table with three legs and are bound to fall. 

There is a group on Face Book called "Religion Poisons Everything." I was raised in the church. I am still detoxing after many years of struggling out from under the indoctrination I received as a child. I find much of worth on that group. I know what it did to me. I see what is does to others and I want to cry. Religion is being used to justify racism, violence towards women, minorities and the poor and to form an elite class. I shudder to think what will happen if this is allowed to continue with nary a challenge. That is where Charlie Hebdo was pointing us with their satire.

Face it folks. Supernatural solutions for secular problems don't work. In fact, they don't exist. I am a small voice in a big cacophony of noises. But more and more, voices of reason are trying to be heard above the din. The ones who come after us will have to be louder and stronger and more well-organized. I think they will be. I smell blood on the wind.