Fifty years ago my older brother, Billy, came home and found me drunk out of my mind.
Billy, you made me walk the neighborhood, on a snowy night, kicking me in the butt every time I stopped.
You said you were gonna walk me sober. It would be another ten years before I stayed sober, but you gave it a damn, good try.
I remember crying and crying and as I sobered up, asking you, “Where do we go from here, where do we go from here?”
Big brother, you were my first hero.
Mom wrote in my baby book that when I was a year old, I followed you everywhere, pulling your hair and teasing you, wanting you to play with me. And you told her that it was okay.
“She thinks I’m her toy,” you told her.
You taught me to ride a bike when I was six, and you set me free at the top of the hill that I felt was a mountain, on Pratt Street, because you knew I was ready before I did.
You taught me to ice skate on the Shawsheen River, in spite of my fear, because I always knew I was safe with you. You would catch me before I hit the ground.
I was afraid of everything back then, but you always took my hand and shared your courage.
I don’t know why you were so brave and strong, living with a father who tried to crush you, but thank God he didn’t succeed, and you were my hero.
Me and Cherie and Suzanne will never forget the year you saved Christmas from Dad’s rage. You came and you even packed up our Christmas Tree and drove us all to your house.
You threatened my first love’s physical existence when he left bruises on my arms. He laughed about it afterwards, but he stopped grabbing and shoving me, at least until I married him. That one’s on me.
You saved my daughter and my grandsons on a really bad night, when you could have walked away.
You and I stayed close for so many years, and it was only in the last few years that we lost touch. I had a meltdown and I shut out most of the world and if you were a casualty of my depression, I’m sorry.
We just stopped calling each other.
Maybe we got lazy, maybe we just took each other for granted, maybe we just got old.
Maybe I thought you would always be there when I needed you.
Now, you are so sick that you can’t even hold your head up for more than a minute.
The doctor said two weeks to two months.
We faced-timed today and I watched your courage once more, as you struggled to talk, to think, to connect.
We reminisced about our trip around the old neighborhood on that snowy night so long ago.
“Where do we go from here? You kept asking me that,” you said.
“Well, I guess we’re there now,” I said.
Once more, your courage shines through as you prepare to leave this world behind.
I told you I’m putting you in God’s hands and you could like it or lump it.
“Go for it, ” you said. A few weeks ago, you would have given a different answer.
I will play with you in Heaven, dear brother. Save me a place in the family mansion.
You taught me so many things, but this…this is the hardest lesson of all.
To Jeanne, from Mum 1987
My mother, Grace, wrote this poem for me after she read about fifty of my poems for the first time.
Time
An old woman
Sits by herself,
Staring at her past
Arranged on a shelf.
Time is money
Or so they say,
Time stands still
Then slips away.
A baby is born
His first sound
An angry cry.
A rose in bloom
is ready to die.
Time waits for no one
Then it just marches on,
It goes by too fast
Then it takes too long.
Love Erased
Am I holding on or am I letting go?
I can’t tell anymore.
There is no roadmap back to
where I used to know.
Now that you’re gone, it seems…
I’m mostly missing the woman
love erased, she, who used to be.
I feel shards of her remaining
I just can’t seem to find the glue,
did it perhaps slip into your suitcase
and fly out of my reach with you?
Ice
by Grace Christine Doucette (My mom)
It’s cold in New England, ice is King
The flowers are sleeping, waiting for spring.
In my heart, memories are deep
Waiting for old promises to keep.
I planted seeds of love early in life
They’re not dead, buried by strife.
Just waiting for the big thaw when
I’ll see blossoms as never before.
The rose in a grandchild’s smile
The bloom in a hug that stretches a mile.
Yes, my seeds have sprung into life
And bloomed in my garden
Through all the icy strife.
Life goes on, it never will end
When you plant your seeds
In the heart’s of your children and friends.
Catching Sunsets While The Moon Watches
Follow Me…I See Pink Michelle Marie
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Now She Has The Time…
Now, She Has the Time
by Grace Christine Doucette
Mother, I wanted to visit you today
But I was too busy,
other things got in the way.
I knew you’d understand and not complain
You never want to put me under a strain.
So, my days slipped by without seeing you
But, I knew you were there, in plain view.
Now, I have the chance
to come spend time with you
But you’re not here. “Mum, where are you?”
God had the time so he took you away
To sit and talk to Him and quietly pray.
He fills your time with companionship
That I unaware, had slowly let slip.
I missed seeing your smile
and feeling your loving touch
And I forgot to say, “I love you so much.”
Now I have the time, “Mum, where are you?”
Inside Out
Caught the moon…
Pink Wall
Deadly Friend
A young girl picks up a drink
Her fear and pain melts away,
She found a magic cure
She found a best friend today.
She takes that friend with her
Where ever she has to be,
The friend gets her through,
But she’s no longer free.
Hiding her new friend from the rest
It’s true, somehow she always knows,
That this friend is dangerous
But caution, to the wind it goes.
Years slip by, and some begin to see
That she prefers this friend,
People criticize her drinking
And other friendships end.
The bottle becomes her center
It directs her every move,
But what once brought her relief
No longer seems to soothe.
The friend who helped her through
Now cripples, and blinds her sight,
Alone she drinks and she cries
Dreading tomorrow, hating tonight.
She gave up all her friends
To keep the brown liquid close,
Now she has lost them all
Betrayed by what she trusted most.
She reaches out to God
During a desperately lonely hour,
He sends her back His love
He fills her with His power.
She ends the deadly friendship
Stands strong and free again,
The black fog begins to lift, and
Sobriety is one fight, she does win.
Jeanne Marie, 1979
The Last Rose
1989
You Say
1989
Would I?
1989
My Son
If love hurts…
Roses are my favorite, 1989
Roses are my favorite, 1989
I Want To Be A Cloud
Above the clouds
the sun is
creating paintings
with yellow streaks
and puffy pink wisps.
Moving, reshaping, shifting
blending to form images
ever-changing
ever-moving
never stagnant
never the same.
I want to be a cloud.
Dance of Anger, 1989
My New…Old House. June, 2018
June, 2018
Mold, black mold; not Texas Tea Black Gold, but in my closet black mold, growing behind four layers of wallpaper, scraped off one at a time, layers of black mold in between each layer, black mold, all the way down to a cement wall that had black mold. We did pay a home inspector, but this was a hidden mess.
When I first saw the closet walls, gunky stuff was on the outermost layer of wallpaper. I decided to scrub down that wallpaper because I was thinking, maybe somebody sprayed a can of Pepsi all over the walls. That took a few hours that I will never get back because as the wallpaper got moist from the warm dishcloth and fell down, I found my first identifiable layer of black mold. Thick and thriving, unaware its life was about to end.
Spraying each layer with bleach, returning when it was dry, scraping each layer off with a knife/chisel, vacuuming, spraying bleach again, not just because black mold is toxic, but because I am blessed with OCD and then me, showering. Often.
I bought a ventilated mask when I began this week long, no end in sight project and I dutifully put it on for every adventure into the closet from hell.
I couldn’t breathe for the rest of my adventures without inhaling hot steam that I’d exhaled just a second ago, but it made me feel safer somehow.
I say somehow because I hadn’t thought about getting safety glasses or a hat and the black mold showered down upon my head and in my eyes pretty consistently.
So after each adventure in the closet, I stepped into the shower with everything I was wearing and it all got washed.
I decided after the first day that I needed more safety equipment and my husband was delighted that we needed a trip to Harbor Freight. I bought safety glasses, some better scrapers, a worker’s jumpsuit and a huge straw hat.
We also stopped for a gallon of Salted Caramel ice cream.
A week later and one gallon of Kilz and that closet was the cleanest space in this century-old house.
There was only one fatality. The vacuüm cleaner choked to death.
Dandelion Wishes
Along our travels, we made a pit stop for food and I walked outside to get some fresh air. I found a field of dandelions gone to fluff and I picked a bouquet.
I spun around and around in my butterfly covered sun dress and let the fluff cover me as I made wishes.
I could feel the magic surround me.
The magic didn’t come from the dandelion fluff, it came from believing in dandelion wishes.
I’ll never forget that moment.
I tucked it in my heart to save for a rainy day…
A Good Wife
I am my own wife now and I’m finding out just how good I’m going to treat myself.
Am I going to be a good wife or a bad wife?
I didn’t start out very good. I almost starved to death.
I forgot to eat because there was no one to cook for and I didn’t have anybody asking me, what’s to eat, what’s for lunch, what’s for supper, do you want to go out to eat, do you want me to go get something?
I was in a food vacuum, food just didn’t exist.
What I noticed was my deodorant wasn’t working, so I changed brands several times and when that didn’t help, I started to do some research on Google to find out what strange illness I might have that was causing an odor deodorant couldn’t manage.
I found out that I wasn’t putting enough food into my body and that my body was burning muscle to survive. The odor was from being in a state of starvation. I was shocked. I knew I had to eat to live, but I didn’t know I could die from not eating enough.
I had been wasting away and I hadn’t even noticed.
I took off my clothes to take a look at my body and it wasn’t good. Skin and bones.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had been hungry. I had already lost too much weight before my husband and I separated and the scale reported that I’d dropped ten more pounds and I hadn’t even noticed.
I had been eating yogurt and an egg once or twice a week, a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter every day, but my body was not happy and it wanted some real food.
I learned that once you are in the starvation mode, it gets dangerous. I had to start to eat slowly because starvation damages the heart and I could actually have a heart attack if I started to eat too quickly.
I went to the store and I bought more than just peanut butter, coffee, milk and dog food.
I searched for food that I used to like, so I could tempt myself to eat. I stood there crying because I could barely remember what I liked.
Just shopping for groceries was traumatic. I hadn’t shopped for groceries since my husband retired. We used to joke that he was the wife now and he said I could just write while he took care of cooking, shopping and helped with laundry.
It wasn’t really funny. I stopped shopping a few months after he retired because whatever I brought home wasn’t right, wrong brand, wrong price, wrong flavor. I stopped cooking because he would disagree with the what, the how, the why and the end result. I wasn’t even able to feed the dogs the way he wanted, and if I made my own coffee he would ask why I didn’t have him make it for me.
To some, it looked like I was a pampered princess, but I was actually removed from my kitchen. His at home-ness led to my retirement as a wife. He took over the bills, the kitchen, the shopping and the dogs and I allowed it. I gave up.
So I am my own wife now. It’s been five months, and I am treating myself much better, but it takes awareness and effort. I spoiled my husband and my kids forever, so I know how to do it, I just have to turn that love towards myself.
I started eating slowly. I started cooking for myself for the first time in years. Actual meals. My daughter and grandson come over for supper at least twice a week now and that motivates me to cook. I’ve only gained a pound, but I’m back to my favorite deodorant and it works.
The dogs are happy and well fed, so it turns out that I do know how to feed them. I haven’t cried at the grocery store lately, so I believe I am learning to be a good wife. To myself.
A Note From Grace (My Mom)
A NOTE FROM GRACE (My Mom)
When my children were growing up and got into their “teenage problem” years, I’d become exasperated with them. I’d think, “They’re just like their father!”
Then, one day the light dawned on me, (Marblehead) because after taking a hard, honest look at myself, I realized; they were just like me. The me I had suppressed and hidden deep inside, where no one else could see. I was as wild and rebellious as they, but I had put up a shield of adult perfection, striving to become the perfect mother that everyone expected me to be.
I have now learned that I need to let this child in me come out to play, or the adult becomes a cold hard shell. I must confess, now that I’m older, I have to do this through my books, and old TV movies.
My mind wants to run through fields of flowers with all my clothes flung aside, but my body slows me down to a stroll through Wal-Mart, wrapped in warm sweaters.
The Pond
THE POND,
By Jodie Lynne
Soft baby ringlets sweeping across her face
Glancing but once to make certain
he’s still in his place.
Her shining dark eyes smile from afar,
So confident, this angel who hasn’t her own fear,
For fear there’s no reason, her goal is quite clear.
Till the slip of a sneaker sucks her foot in the mud
And his arms reach around her,
As he sweeps her up in his hug.
He lets out a sigh, saved her from this fall.
She wiggles out of his tender embrace
Now more than ever she runs with such might,
Determined to catch the quacker
Who’s just taken flight.
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