Flying with Broken Wings is about the life of Charlotte Jean Murphree. Charlotte was not a famous person, in fact, not too many people knew her, but those that did knew there were many facets to her life. The book tells of fifty-two-years of daily testing of her will to carry on and the misfortune she faced. As a baby and young girl she was made fun of by schoolchildren, her progress was slow but she never gave up the fight to overcome her disabilities. As an adult, she fought Cerebral Palsy, Living with Bipolar, Depression and Schizophrenia disorders. Charlotte lived not only with herself but she endured the “Voices” that lived within her for over thirty years. This book is about her beginning, her middle and the end of her life.
Other books of poetry by author:
Somewhere outside everyone’s door is the gateway to the city of doom; the door leads to another sphere of everlasting pain, mentally and physically. If you walk willingly, and confident you may be able to handle the tragedy waiting. Tucked deep inside your confidence is fear; within the fear are secret things, distrust and lies.
The darkness is the most evil; or a blood red moon framed by the stars. Strange tongues are heard frightful and shrill, filled with anger. Fear fills souls, even the depths of hell may refuse them and they will be lost forever in the darkness.
Is there hope in death, will there be memories of the earth of the lives that remain behind? Souls cry loudly, their tears flow like the waterfalls of time. Will there be rebirth, blaspheming is terrible in the wailing of fate.
A bitter flood rushes the consciousness of nearing doom. It is in darkness that some are given a second chance to feel the love of God upon their faces. If they refuse the ground breaks from beneath the feet of lost souls, they sink into a senseless dark dreadful shore.
It has been one week since the passing of my little four-legged baby and constant friend Mason, the pain in me remains. I know death, its finality! My body I can feel, whereas for days afterward, it felt numb. I walked yet I could not feel anything beneath my feet. I washed, and the cloth could not be felt as I ran it across my face. The numbness has left me and I still feel the hole, that the void. My heart is swelling, filling up my chest cavity, so much so that I wonder if it will burst. The lump in my throat will not go away. I can hardly breathe, air flows toward my heart then stop abruptly, all reminding me that Mason is no longer with me.
He was my constant companion for almost nine years. My mind whirls with visions of him, the walks where he must inspect each tree, the belly rubs, and the wonderful kisses. The storms that he sat at my feet. Last but not least, running into the bathroom for a butt wipe after each poop trip outside. Mason was so intelligent that I expected him to start talking at any time; he walked to his own drummer.
He went so quickly I did not have time to think about the situation, one day he was watching my every move and smiling, the next day he was gone. My home is now silent, a place where death came and left just as quickly. Death has done this to me many times, each time taking a piece of me with it. Why did Mason not show some clue that he was so sick, no he showed nothing until that last day? He was faithful until the end, wanting only to be with me at any cost.
I am sorry for showing this weakness with all of you, however, the loneliness is thick and menacing, and the light has gone out of my life. It left with Mason. I took very good care of him; he did not even know that he was a dog, was he? My mind void of thought as it chases the shadows inside as I continue this walk alone.
Down by the Creek…
The children and I walked by the creek where nurture’s canvas spread across the land. The children skipped and danced in the tall grass, paper and paints in hand. I could see in my mind’s eye an image of you as I stood looking where there is a bench engraved with your name. I watched the children laugh and dance, I knew that my life would never be the same.
I must apologize
to all of you wonderful followers I have not been on site for some time.
I have been
on a rollercoaster ride. I took a two-week
vacation on beautiful Lake Michigan, the two cabins were quaint and they transposed
me back to 1950. My family just thought
they were old! I was quick to say that
at $1,000 per week they were “charming” and old.
The vacation
was fun to watch the family goes boating, skiing and tubing; I sat near the
dock and worked toward finishing my latest poetry book, which is now on
Amazon.com. After the two-week rest, I
found myself back in the hospital; a liver problem, no it was not cause by
drinking. I was prepared to come back to
Wordpress and made yet another stay in the hospital when my sugar levels
spiked. It appears that “600” is not a
good number; I dodged another bullet cheating death, stroke or both.
Oh, by the
way…Mason my four-legged companion does not like it when I am away, he pouts and
I hope that we will not be torn apart for some time.
I am
currently on R&R, this diabetes problem has set me back and I am working on
a new book of fiction. What good is it
to sit or lay around if you cannot accomplish something? I did a drawing of the countryside, birds and
all; I may try to get out the watercolors.
Thank you so much for continuing to visit The Last Chapter…your support is greatly appreciated.
My latest book “A Passage into Madness… A State of frenzied Activity.
This book of poetry has been ten years in the making; my daughter passed suddenly; my mourning has been hidden within the pages of life my pain constant. I found myself in a place of inner darkness, the threat of madness crouched above me; and it does not go away. I was in fervor to put the word down; what begin as writing, an accounting of me, turned quickly into “Poetry”. I felt like my spirit wanted the accounting, an apocalyptic writing begin; an it closed with shocking revelations into my personal life.
The voice on the other end of the line
was distraught, yet the sobs were recognizably those of one of my adult
children. An individual, a father figure had gone from critical to a “comfort
care” situation. When your children’s hearts are breaking, so does yours,
helpless to take away the pain that is in the forefront.
The first call was laced with a magnitude of denial;
of course, the medical professionals do not “help” the journey to reality with
taking extraordinary measures under the conditions and the age of the patient.
Ever costly method available to them is considered, having worked in the health
care industry at one point in my life, the term “getting another day” became
more than familiar.
Although I cannot express enough my belief in a
“Living Will”. The end results in many of these situations will be the same,
only with the coffers of the industry getting fatter at the expense of a family
whose frightened with the prospects of death and they agree beyond their
“knowing” and maintain the denial vigil.
I do not “deny” this process to those who need the
time, I have always had to deal in reality and I have never had the possibility
to go through a systematic dying stage. I have confronted “anger”! No why me,
but angry because the time was too short. No one is to blame, we are born dying
and that is life, but I become angry at time, wasted time.
I have never tried to “bargain” with God, I tried
once but Jesus did not come down and raise from his deathbed the most important
person in my life, my father. It will not prolong life, it is a waste of
precious time with the person you love, the person that is about to leave from
your realm of existence forever.
The demon depression is always there, quickly to
pounce on its prey, rob senses and again precious time. I cannot say grief will
get better with time; the answer to this question is in the hands of the
depressed. Grief itself is an abuser and a killer; it will take you to the
depths of hell and back before it will release you from its talons of doubt and
angry denial.
Acceptance is an individual choice. You can chose to live life with deep and wonderful memories of life or you can accept weakness and live in a void for which there may be no return. Choices! I believe those who are passing on chose to face reality long before those who love them do.
Today, I waited for the call that would tell me the suffering
has ended that of my son and that of the “father” that he chose to accept
rather than his own. I pray for a release from life that is no longer
sustainable and a quick entry into another realm of existence. I pray for the
hurt my child feels today to end, for the grieving process is much harder and
lasts much longer.
There are no words to ease the pain, take away the hurt, but silently being there ready to pick them up when they have fallen, wipe away tears, reinforce God’s plan. This is all we can hope for, that and continued prayer. The last thing is for me to accept my son’s love of a father-in-law over that of his own father. Death is hard on everyone.
There are times when I am dreaming outside my door is the gateway
to the city of destiny; nevertheless each night when I dream I open the door
walking into another sphere of everlasting pain, mentally and physically, a
bright light gives me hope. No one
pushed me through the gate, I walk willingly and I feel confident that I can
handle the tragedy that I know will be waiting there for me. Tucked deep inside my confidence there is
fear, within the fear there are secret things, distrust and lies that over
shadow happiness and joy.
The darkness is the most evil; a blood red moon framed by the
stars hangs above me. Hearing strange
tongues frightful and shrill, filled with anger, strikes fear into my heart,
they go beyond goodness. Sometimes I
weep as the outcries reach my ears, as I do not have a stainless claim to my
own life. I fear for the souls, even the
depths of hell may refuse them and they will be lost forever in the darkness. Don’t they see the light, the glow of wonder
and joy?
I question, is there hope with death, will we have memories of the
earth and of the lives that remain when we are gone? The souls that I hear are loud, their tears
are blood red, and each is crawling in vile mud. I lower my eyes, on this path to the end will
they have rebirth, if they lived in blaspheming is this terrible wailing their
fate. Have I done enough to feel the
light on my face?
A bitter flood of doubt rushed over me as each pass going to their final resting place. They seem conscious of their nearing doom or happiness. It is in this darkness that each was given a second chance to feel the love of God upon their faces, many refused. At the entrance of another gate, the ground broke from beneath their feet, and I seem to be sinking with them to a meaningless dreadful shore and I am afraid that I will not wake from this nightmare. Will I be given a second chance?
Wonderful simplicities are a means to keep the soul alive. I continue to exist year after year, as the
mind and soul continues on the journey to where it belongs; the locality eludes
me still. I plant and tend to life’s
garden, at this old age I reach for impossible dreams. I ask that my mind seek what it envisions,
look beyond all of the tomorrows. I try to drink in the aromas of life hoping it
will bring back memories that were born of my youth. Maybe I was too blind to see the abuse, the
lack of love, passed from abuser to abuser.
Maybe my Soul is dead and I do not know it.
Some of us live in a bubble of pride, immense loneliness, and at times both burdens to bear; somewhere along the way, many of us find that, there is not a reason to care. From the nursery floor to walking upright, the goal is to soar like a bird in the tallest tree. Many of us will forever stand alone, and alone we will fall from the darkest valley to the highest hill. Somewhere in the night a shot rang out in the darkness, did anyone hear, does anyone care. The only blood spilled was mine
Love
and Peace
Elizabeth
Author’s
Note: My “bucket list”, I have written a
simple line. “Write a Mystery”! I am not
under any spell that this is possible, yet I have the desire to try. Next to that line is the paragraph above…it
speaks of pride, loneliness and burdens.
Of wanting to soar like a bird…to get away from it all, it all covers
the abuse, the threat of being killed,
and the final act of being killed. A
paragraph to build into a story. Sometimes
mystery books are nonfictional. “Mystery fiction” can be stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle
or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. The title “Free” and its contents is based on
fact and fiction.
I sit
looking at the deep snow and the trees burdened with ice. My eyes have fallen on this scene for many
winters, some more destructive than others.
I cannot get outside for the fear of falling. I am trapped in this my last home and there
is no place to run, even if I could run.
I walk the halls of the building where my apartment is located to heal
myself, to collect any energy that I can in an effort to, not get to where I
was in my health before, but to get to a place where I can return to being self-sufficient.
For those
who are joining this journey in the “Last Chapter”, welcome! I recently, two weeks ago experienced a shocking
fall. One week in the hospital and one
week at home now. I managed to reach
eighty years of age before obtaining “Life Alert”. I am leery of its use; will it work outside
the home? Is it my badge attributing to
old age?
Therefore,
as I sit here a captive audience with the outside world, I begin to think of
Charlotte, the precious daughter I lost nine years ago. The loss devastated me it broke me inward, and
then within days I lost the second daughter.
I continue my fight to survive as I have three other children.
Do not let anyone
tell you that grief has a timeframe, it cannot be planned, you are stopped lifeless
in your pathway the moment it comes into your life. Your mind is taken over as if in a caged
sleep, a tear shed, the thoughts of others is false, caring is edging upon destruction
as most portray a lie. The words they
are in a better place does not meld into my thoughts, there is no better place
accept with me.
You feel as
if you are the only person in the world to know grief and those with their
caring falseness does not know your grief.
I do not dislike them; they like many other have not experience
grief. Spitefulness in my thoughts is held
captive even the sleeping mind that at times is not allowing me to wake.
There are
those that cannot be trusted, they show concern for their own selves and their
own greed. Forgive them; they cause pain
to the minds of the blameless and some find in it joy, you feel that their tongue
of fire knows not the truth. If grief should
touch your life, it will never be the same; all you want to do is…
Run, Run, Run,
You will
momentarily lose touch with yourself and with others we fall into a robot like
way of seeing and thinking and doing. You allow yourself to be truly in touch
with where we already are no matter what there is we have got to stop the
experience long enough to let the present moment sinking in, long enough to
actually feel the present moment, see it in its fullness to hold it in a
wariness and thereby come to know and understand yourself better.
Sometimes we
accept the truth of others as to be our own we do not learn from it yet we move
on. We are occupied are preoccupied with the past what is already happened, or
with the future has yet to arrive. We look for a place to stand and grieve,
where we hope things will be better, happier, more the way we want them something
gets in the way. We are aware of it all, or partially aware, our lives and
affects that our actions have on others, our thoughts have to be what we see
and do not see, what we do and do not do.
Most of the
time we fall, quite unaware, and to assuming that what we are thinking, the
ideas and opinions that we harbor at any given time, or the truth about what is
out there in the world and in here in our minds most of the time it just isn’t
true. We pay a high price for the mistaken unexamined assumptions for a touring
of the richness of our present moments.
Life
accumulates silently coloring our lives without our knowledge it or being able
to do something about it. We may never quite be where we actually are never
quite touched the fullness of our possibilities. We lack to look at ourselves
and to a personal fiction that we already know whom we are, that we know where
we are and what is going on and that we know what is happening.
All the while, we remain enshrouded in thoughts, fantasies and sudden impulses, mostly about the past and about the future. We have our own ideas of what we want and like, and what we fear and do not like, which out of continuously control others lay our direction and the ground we are standing on changes, but not for those of us clinging to “The Last Chapter”.
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
The Last Chapter 