STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS

Do I have strength, weakness, or both? Do all of us harbor these two traits? I suppose it depends on what challenges we are faced with at the moment.

My moments of cowardice disgust me.

My moments of strength astonish me.

I've never considered myself to be strong or tough. When I was young enduring my father's insane violence and abuse, I cowered from a fear that was too terrifying to describe. My entire world revolved around his unpredictable brutality. I often said that I feared him more than God. And that fear lasted into my adulthood

I would cower in my room, trying to escape by reading books, praying that he wouldn't find me and ruthlessly interrupt my literary fantasies. Was this a sign of weakness.....? At the time, there seemed to be no alternative.

There was a horrid night when I was so emotionally overwhelmed from the torturous chaos of my father, that from FEAR I actually went into shock and was rushed to the hospital. The doctors back then were worthless when dealing with emotions. I was told to "get more exercise." Bullshit

Later, when I was 19 or 20, haunting the hardcore midnight streets of Hollywood, I feigned a toughness that I never truly had. Deep inside I was a sissy and a coward - but my faux toughness was so convincing that it actually astonished myself. I lived a wild, reckless, extremely dangerous, promiscuous lifestyle that would shock and stun those who are blessedly innocent and unaware.

In essence I was still escaping my father's destruction by devising my own. Strange? I had a secret death wish back then. Booze, drugs, sex, suicide yearnings...

I could tell you things that would seem beyond belief. I could reveal things that would have you gasping in abject horror.

Strength? I suppose so, because I survived. Perhaps I had a guardian angel back then.....

Much later, my devastating years in Texas revealed my cowardice and strength. How I got there is too long a tale to tell. Both my parents died there. After my father died in 2005, I took care of my mother until she passed away from a terrifying series of strokes in 2009.

Afterwards I had an enormous amount of medical bills to pay and I lost all my savings due to identity theft (too long to reveal the details). I couldn't sell my house for several years because it was in a tiny rural town where no one wanted to live. My elderly neighbor moved to live with her son and abandoned her dozens of cats that immediately migrated to my yard. I was completely financially wiped out and found myself eventually feeding over thirty cats (they multiply quickly). I very often fed them and skipped meals for myself.

In order to survive, I sold all my antiques, extensive coin collections, half of my art collection, furniture, dishes- - anything that the shyster dealers in nearby Lubbock would buy. I lost an ENORMOUS amount of money. And I generally had only about ten or twenty dollars a week for food....and cat food.

Strength? I think not. It was merely raw, desperate survival. Beyond desperate.

My worst moment of cowardice happened when my mother died. December, 2009 - the most brutally cold Texas winter I could ever remember. Snow, ice storms - - astonishingly abundant in the high Plains.

It was an incredibly cold early evening when I was told she was dying. I hurried to the small, shabby local medical Center. A nurse ushered me into a tiny dark room and told me "Hold her hand, she's dying."

My mother was unconscious - - the beautiful, brilliant woman who had been my most faithful confidant - who was my only anchor in a sea of chaos. She was definitely a woman of incredible strength - surviving my father's insanity.

I couldn't bear the agony. There's no way that I could watch her die. I hurried out of the room, out of the hideous medical Center.

It was getting dark, icy snow was blowing. When I got home I sat on a stone bench in the frigid yard for several hours - watching the snow fall. Disbelieving that she was gone, hating myself for being a coward.

Strength? Weakness? Who knows.

Now I've been given a new challenge which, I suppose, summoned my greatest inner strength. Two agonizing months in a hospital fighting desperately for my life. Now a battered relic in a physical rehab facility - - desperately trying to regain some semblance of physical strength, trying to learn how to walk again. Praying that by some miracle I can go home again. Home.....

Am I surviving from strength or sheer desperation?

Strength, I think.

Thanks for reading this haphazard, seemingly endless post.

Love, Jon

PS

I received all of your recent cards and postcards. Many thanks!!!

I'm late in replying to your comments, but I'll get there.