Bastard Child

© Meesa Caudill

Well I was born a bastard child
in the summer of '79.
My daddy was a good ol' boy
so he stuck by my momma's side.
Two weeks later they were wed
in a small ceremony in town-
daddy became a family man
and never let momma down.
He held tight to the Bible,
almost became a preacher man-
wanted a country life full of God
but momma didn't understand.
He started sippin' on the bottle
in the summer of '95.
He tried to drown all his regrets,
so sad, he hated his life.

Daddy was a God fearin' man,
momma was a gypsy soul.
Daddy wanted to grow country roots,
momma was always on the go.
I'm the twisted child of that union-
I'm the two halves of that whole.

Momma was always wanting more
than what Daddy could ever give.
She wanted to have fun, a nice car to drive,
she wanted a nice place to live.
We'd move at least once every year
because Momma would get so bored.
Pack up our things and start over again,
Daddy knew it was more than he could afford.
But Momma loved him with all her heart,
she just had an unsettled side.
And Daddy loved her the best he could,
often swallowing his pride.
Then one day he took his own life
and tore Momma's world apart.
Things haven't been the same since that cold day
when Daddy ripped out Momma's heart.
But she holds the faith that he taught her
so many years ago-
she tries to pass it on to this bastard child
but that child has a long way to go.

Daddy was a God fearin' man,
Momma was a gypsy soul.
Daddy wanted to grow country roots,
Momma was always on the go.
I'm the twisted product of that union-
I'm the two halves of that whole.

So now here I am, the bastard child,
left here to find my own way.
My Daddy's pride keeps me grounded,
while Momma's gypsy side makes me stray.
Torn between the two halves of myself
that mimic them so well-
hoping to find my Momma's faith
but fighting my Daddy's hell.

It Could Happen To Anyone

It Could Happen to Anyone
© Meesa Caudill


I used to love my big little city, but now Lexington drains my soul. *sigh*

Every day I watch them, the homeless, as they walk past my windows at work, or as I pass them in my car while I'm on my lunch. Every day I see their worn faces, showing no trace of hope, as they limp up Second Street. As I watch them, I can't help but wonder who they used to be. The broken men I see wandering the streets now are someone's sons, brothers. Some of them are someone's dad, someone's uncle, someone's best friend. I often wonder what their story is, how they ended up in this place in their lives. Yes, quite often drug addiction or alcoholism is to blame- but what led them to that, even? A lot of them are veterans who get lost in the ridiculous system that is the "VA".

How many of you reading this automatically judge these men when you roll past them in your car? How many of you assume that if you give him a few dollars he'll go get a beer? How many of you assume that he's there because he's a loser/criminal/druggie and therefore deserves the misery? Have you ever truly LOOKED at some of them and wondered where their paths were lost and how they ended up on a gravel road of despair?

It could happen to any one of us.

Do me a favor and think about this, in depth, for just a few minutes. Allow me take you to another dimension where your world is the one flipped upside down... I'll even give you a few scenarios just to be sure you "get it".

You're a 30 year old man who has done hard, manual labor since you were old enough to work. You started out mowing lawns and working on cars in your spare time to working a full time job in the construction industry- building houses, roofing, painting, etc. Or you've worked in a factory since you were 18 years old and time is catching up with you. One day you wake up and realize you can barely move because your back is out. You go to the doctor and walk out with a prescription of pain pills and, because you cannot function because of the pain, you take them as prescribed. A 2 week prescription of pain pills and muscle relaxers isn't going to cut it- this is a permanent back injury- so you're on this medication for months. After a few months you realize the prescribed dosed just isn't cutting it anymore, you've gotten immune, so you have to take more and the doc won't prescribe you anything else. You need to be pain free in order to work to keep a roof over your head and to feed you and your family. So you start buying them from the street. Next thing you know, you're addicted. All because you were hurt. Now, your wife is leaving you because she can't take the lying about the addiction, the lying about where all your money is going, and being evicted and losing electricity because all your money goes to the pain pills. Next, you've been evicted- you're alone, you have no money because most of it goes to your pills to kill the pain, and now you have nowhere to go. You're homeless. You're a good, hardworking man but life dealt you a shitty hand.

OR

You're a hard working divorced woman, two children, and a stable, decent paying job. One morning you go into work and are called in to your boss's office for him to tell you that due to budget cuts they have to let you go. You've had no warning. Your parents can't help you because they are either broke or already passed on, your friends have their own problems and can't help you, and the father of your children does his legal minimum to help. Because of the economy, jobs are few and far between and because of your childcare schedule you can't just take any job offered because you have no sitter. You made good money at your job but unemployment doesn't cut it on paying rent, bills, childcare, and groceries. You can't get assistance because even on unemployment you "make too much money". Rent is due and so are all the utilities. Your utilities get turned off. You get an eviction notice on your door telling you that you have 14 days to move. In two weeks you and your children are now homeless with nowhere to go. You're a good, hardworking woman but life dealt you a shitty hand.

OR

You're a 25 year old man fresh home from Afghanistan. You were a normal, healthy teenage boy when you decided to join the military. Now you're aged before your time, physically disabled from the shrapnel in your leg, and you're suffering from PTSD. Dealing with the general public causes you anxiety, you can't physically do hard, manual labor and you don't have a degree or experience in anything other than military- so finding a job that pays more than minimum wage isn't easy. Your PTSD causes you to have night terrors which leaves you exhausted and unable to wake up on time for work, so any job you do find that you're able to do fires you because of excessive tardiness. You are on medication for your PTSD, you get lost in the cracks of the "VA", and you don't have the money to live in your own place. No family or friends that are able to help you out- you end up homeless. You're a good, hardworking soldier who fought for this country but life dealt you a shitty hand.

Yes, I know some of you will argue until you're blue in the face about how you think all homeless people are trash and why they deserve what they've got- but the above scenarios could happen to any of you. It happens every day, and now more often than you think.

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/Whois.pdf

According to: http://www.kyhousing.org/KICH/Content.aspx?id=2861&terms=homeless

"During the 2010 count, which took place on January 28, 6,623 homeless individuals were identified. The 2009 count located 5,999 homeless individuals, although a major ice and snow storm that hit the state around the same time of the count altered plans and prohibited efforts for the count.

• 1,460 homeless respondents were severely mentally ill.
• 2,032 homeless respondents were chronic substance abusers.
• 1,071 homeless respondents were victims of domestic violence.
• 564 homeless respondents were veterans.
• 15 percent of homeless individuals were completely without shelter across the state on the day of the count."

A lot of you look at these men and see trash. You see something you could never relate to. I look at these people and see wasted potential, faded dreams, and broken souls.

And that, my friends, is what breaks my heart.

You're My Karma... For You

I've always heard that Karma's a bitch
and I've learned that the hard way so many times...
so you would think I would have known better
than to commit anymore karmic crimes.
But then that summer night you looked my way
and I wasn't sure why, but I knew it was wrong...
but the feel of your body dancing against mine
made me want time to stop to a never ending song.
The smell of your clothes, the heat of your skin,
your strong arms around me all night...
there was something about you that made me cautious
and yet the butterflies still took flight.
I tried so hard to turn you down
but your magnetism was too strong to resist...
and I knew I was wrong but I was hooked-
addicted upon first kiss.
So now you're my weakness, you're my addiction,
you're my pain... I have to make it through.
You're my payback- my heart is the fee ,
you're my karma for falling for you.

Grave Colored Glass

He nurses a bottle
as his wife cries a flood.
She's trying to hold on
to the man she once loved.
But he can't see her tears
through the grave colored glass-
he's too busy thinking of things
that happened in the past.

But you can't drown the sorrows
of a life that's gone wrong,
cause when you sober up again
the pain is ten times as strong.
So when you say that this drink
is going to be your last
just think of all that pain that's caused
by that grave colored glass.

He just can't understand
that drinking won't get him far,
so with beer in hand and cigarette lit
he gets into his car.
He speeds along the slippery roads
when he loses control of the wheel-
and the pain that once was in his mind
becomes terrifyingly real.

And as the life drains from his body
his future becomes his past...
he could have lived to see his daughter grow up
if it weren't for that grave colored glass.

So when you say that this drink
is going to be your last
just think of all the pain that's caused
by that grave colored glass.

My Addiction

I know I should have never
inhaled you into my soul.
The taste of you should have never
touched my lips
or left such a tingling to linger
on my tongue.
In such a time as this
with all of the drama
in my life-
thoughts of you are
the only thing to put
a smile on my face.
If anyone found out
my little secret -
especially him-
it would drastically change
my life forever.
It could possibly destroy
everything I have worked
so hard for.
But knowing this
does not deter my feelings
about you.
Its as if you have given me
the emotional strength
to not see the negative
in what I am doing.
When I am awake
all I can do is think of you.
When I am asleep
all I can do is dream of you.
The thought of seeing you
takes my breath
and impure thoughts
start running through my mind.
Oh, to breathe you in again
and to have the taste of you
on my tongue.
You are my new addiction...
my cocaine.

Writing Is My Therapy, My Soul

Okay, okay... so going to see the sappy, tearjerker Dear John has my head spinning again. My mind is often in a tornadic state but with so much going on from day to day I can rarely figure out one thing to focus on in order to clear it out of my head. From the stress of dealing with work shit to trying to be there for friends and family to just trying to go into zombie mode so that I don't think about things- I rarely ever take the time to think about what the hell is going on with myself other than the stuff that is directly in my view on the day to day.

Doing things like watching a sappy movie suck because they make me do the one thing I hate...cry. But they actually help overall because they make me stop to think about things. Like tonight.

This is a weird week for me anyway. Those of you that know me very well know my thing with 22 and 222. Today was 2-22 and thankfully nothing crazy happened. (Whew!) I still have yet to figure out what significance that has but still weird either way.

I
"It's possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief . . . lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while it's not so overwhelming."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

This Saturday is the three year anniversary of my dad's suicide. It's so hard to believe it's been 3 years. Tomorrow is the three year mark of the last time I spoke to him. It was my ex's birthday and we were on our way to Olive Garden. I was pregnant and so hungry and my dad called me from my grandmother's house in London. He was talking about going into rehab and asked if I'd come see him if he did. He was being pretty repetitive, as most people are when they're intoxicated. I felt like I was being rude for staying on the phone on my way out for a dinner date with my boyfriend so I was trying to rush him off the phone. He went on and on about how proud he was of me. I remember asking him why because I felt like a complete failure. I didn't have a career- was going through a divorce- and was pregnant by a man who was not my husband. But he insisted he was proud of me anyway and told me about a dream he'd had about his grandchild I was pregnant with at the time. He had had a dream of taking him fishing and said he was definitely going to be a boy and was going to be chubby and be "Papaw's boy". Before we hung up he told me he loved me. I would have never dreamed that that moment would be the last time I would talk to my daddy.

He didn't say anything hinting to what he was going to do and even seemed like he was in a decent mood, but he had made suicidal threats before and I believed that bullshit about "if they threaten it they'll never do it, they just want attention". I found out 4 days later that it's not true. When someone threatens suicide they will do it at some point when they finally reach what they think is more than they can handle. On February 27, 2007 my daddy took his own life in front of his alcoholic mother with a .22 Ruger (there's that fucking number again). I was 14 weeks pregnant. He left no note.

So now, three years later, I sit here with tears running down my face missing my daddy and wondering if there is anything at all I could have said to make him change his mind. Did he feel like we didn't care? Did he think we hated him? Did he think his baby girl was too grown up and didn't need him anymore and that I didn't want to talk to him? Did I break his heart when I rushed him off the phone to go to my oh-so-important dinner date? The path of destruction from a suicide is an unexplainable one. A hole left in the souls of the people left behind that nothing will ever fill and a hurt in me no man will ever come close to healing. And none I have met yet that are brave enough or strong enough to even try.

II
"Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can."
— Nicholas Sparks (At First Sight)

February 27th was the end of the world to me. The man I always thought was superhuman showed me that it's not really true when people say God won't put more on you than you can handle. He gave my dad more than he could handle. If it were true that God wouldn't do that then no one would ever feel the need to end their own lives. And just when I thought I couldn't handle anymore my life took an even more tragic turn for the worse.

A few weeks after losing dad my doctor was trying to put me in a better state of mind for the sake of my health and my baby. So she did a 'sneak peek' ultrasound and I found out he was a boy. I was happy about that yet it made me sad because I couldn't call my dad with the great news that he was going to have the grandson he told me he dreamed about. I wanted so bad to pick up the phone and tell him that he was right- but I couldn't. But still, I was happy. I had been trying to decide between a few names and finally decided on Aiden Blaine. I thought it sounded so masculine yet modern and like a hero from a novel. I couldn't wait until my official 20 week ultrasound so that I could record it and show my mom and sister.

My son's father had to work the day of my official ultrasound so my best friend Mel went with me. It was Tuesday, April 10, 2007. Six weeks to the day exactly of when my dad took his life. After waiting for what seemed like forever in the waiting room we finally got called back. They don't do VHS recordings anymore so Mel had my digital camera and was recording the tv screen that the ultrasound was showing on. After a few minutes the tech asked her to stop recording and left the room. What seemed like another eternity passed before the tech came back with the doctor close behind her. Moving the machine around my abdomen again for a few minutes, the doctor got a disturbing look on her face and told me my son no longer had a heartbeat.

My choices were to either wait it out and let nature take its course or be induced and give birth to my baby boy at 20 weeks. I was admitted to the hospital and induced and my sleeping angel was delivered a little after midnight on April 12. His cord was wrapped. They estimated he had already been gone for at least a week so he wasn't even developed to the full 20 weeks yet. They called it a 'miscarriage' instead of a stillbirth so I didn't even get a death certificate or a funeral. It took weeks for him to be buried and for me to find out where. There was no closure. No chance to say goodbye. And the only photos I got are of his hands and feet because when the nurse asked me if I wanted pictures of his face I was too doped up to give it any thought. I was already crushed and this was the final blow.

I went back to work a week after losing my father so tragically and now I was going back to work a week and a half after losing my baby boy. I couldn't afford to take the time off I probably needed. When I went back to work I had an email that said "I know you're going through a lot but this is a crucial time and I need you to be on top of things." Yes, I'm serious.

So not only was I crushed and destroyed but I was angry and didn't even know who to be angry with. I had no time to deal with myself and no time to figure out how to grieve. Sure, I cried. But for the most part I did it when I was alone because no one else wanted to hear me. I was angry to the point of not even being able to be around my mom for a while other than an hour or so at a time because I couldn't deal with her talking about my dad. I couldn't handle her pain because I wasn't even able to handle mine. I felt like my son's father didn't really care and even wondered if he was relieved. Honestly, as time has passed, I've come to realize I was probably right.

What I would give now to hold my son. To know what color his eyes would have been or the color of his hair. To be able to kiss his dimples he would most likely have inherited from me. To be able to hear him say 'ma ma' or 'da da' for the first time. To be able to tuck him in at night. To have the 'boring' life of staying at home to cuddle with my baby boy and watch cartoons. He would be 2 1/2 now and although he'd be in his "terrible two's" and I'd be exhausted I'd give the world to have that chance.

III
"I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

Love. Undying, unconditional, real love. Most of us have had it at least once in our lives. And most of us let it go without realizing it until it's too late. We always think the grass is greener on the other side and that there's more to life than what we have at our fingertips. We always want what is beyond our grasp without realizing what we hold in our arms already. There is a part in the movie where John and Savannah are writing to each other looking at the full moon knowing the other is too- and thinking about each other so it's almost like they're together. That part of the movie took me back in time. I had a love like that once. But our 'full moon' were electric poles. (I know it sounds silly but think about it... almost all electric lines in this country are connected.) That love and I would talk on the phone when we were many miles away from each other and each go outside to touch an electric pole at the same time. That way we were connected physically and not just on the phone. We were young but it made perfect sense at the time. And to this day when the thought crosses my mind I still wish I could go touch an electric pole and know that I wasn't alone. At that moment I was home... and God how I miss that feeling.

But now, years later, past loves are happy in their own lives and are creating new memories. As for me... well, I'm not so sure. I've come to the conclusion that I have been going through a rebellious phase of some sort. I've tried to do some soul searching to try to figure out why I've turned out like I have but with no answers. I even question if I will ever be able to truly feel anything for anyone again. That is yet to be determined... I'm still waiting to feel 'home' again. I keep repeating in my head and it's become kind of common in my writings that "Home is where the heart is" and I know that until my heart is healed from whatever it is that keeps it in this state I'm destined to be a wanderer. Until then I'll just remain broken and live each day trying to put myself back together. I just wish I knew a better route than the one I've been taking.

IV
"When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)

I know that the more I think about these things throughout this week and the next few weeks, the more emotional I will get. The slightest things like the weather being the same as the day things happened will spark an anxiety type feeling and possible brief tears. I know that throughout these next few weeks I will carry on and laugh as I always do and possibly not even show if or when something is bothering me. This is why I write. I sit alone in my apartment and can cry if I want to without feeling like I'm burdening anyone with my emotions. I can blog on this note without worrying about what someone is thinking of me and my inability to properly deal with my own issues. I can rant and rave in writing without being interrupted or having to deal with anything else in the world except my own thoughts. There are no pitiful looks of sympathy, no cheap words of how 'everything happens for a reason', and no awkward moments of people not knowing what to say.

This is my therapy.

Psychiatrists? Who needs 'em?

I have a keyboard.

Two Years

It's been two years- two years ago today-
that you put that gun to your head and took your life away.

It's been two long years- two years that I have cried
because it was two years ago today that my Daddy, my world, died.

You left us no note, only hearts torn to shreds-
with millions of questions going through our heads.

We begged for you to get help- we cried, we prayed...
but I would've begged a million times more if it would have made you stay.

With two grandsons on the way you had so many reasons to live-
but instead you took your own life thinking you had no more to give.

You had no idea you were my hero, the reason I strived to do my best...
you thought you were a failure, couldn't see how you were blessed.

Your silly grin brought so much warmth and your brown eyes full of love-
especially when you talked about your family that you were so proud of.

Now looking in the mirror I see those same eyes but they're not as warm-
they're a bit cold, distant, unfeeling, the soul behind them brewing a storm.

I lost you, my son, my world, my life, my heart - just within weeks-
it takes every ounce of energy I have daily to keep the tears off my cheeks.

You could have never imagined the hole you left in me when you died-
one that can't be healed or filled up no matter how many tears I cry.

Not only did I lose you and my son, but I lost your family as well-
I think they blame us- hate us- think we put you through hell.

But we tried so hard to help you, loved you- maybe too much-
but you couldn't see past your demons, the alcohol was your crutch.

God- what I would give to go back two years and a day
so that maybe I could stop you, give you a reason to stay.

But on this day all I can do is miss you, cry, & pray that you're in Heaven...
it's been two years today- February 27.