Dear C.L.

I’m reading a message from a friend and I’m furious. How DARE she flippantly suggest suicide

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in such a casual way. Guess what, it is NOT funny in any way. Hey, lady, you know that my father died, 12 years ago on New Year’s Eve. Did you ever think of what I would give to spend 5 minutes with him again instead of you faking your suicide attempt saying “good-bye all.”

YOU didn’t say one word about taking a break from Facebook so that’s all kinds of bullshit and yes, my son gave me your message but I am not calling you back tonight. Maybe sometime but not yet.

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I’m not laughing, C.L. Not only that, I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for this. Really, now you are joking about suicide and saying “good-bye?” WHAT THE BLEEP IS WRONG WITH YOU? How dare you? I wrote on your message  if you are serious, someone should please call 911 because I don’t know the town you live in. If you AREN’T serious, they should be called anyway, to teach you that life is worth living, that life is Precious.

There is steam coming from my head, sparks

 

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that I feel, oozing anger like fireworks. Is this what you want your children to see? That mommy is threatening suicide when people hurt her feelings? You have a job, to be a mother and they come first, before you, always.

I want to rip the book I gave you out of your selfish hands, I want to shake  your shoulders. and tell you to wake up and grow up. I am so mad and so sad and angry at life and death that if I started crying now I could not stop.The word for me is Inconsolable.

How dare you take life for granted? Grief is no fun, trust me, I know and it lasts forever, it will be 12 years tomorrow that my dad died. It does not get better every year. At certain times, anniversaries or birthdays, the pain is ripped apart, raw, bloody, new again.

Thanks for all that you have done for me.

I can’t think of you as my friend now..

 

I’ve calmed down a bit but I’m still mad and angry and very sad so I will be in touch NOT on the phone but when I can and do not Bullshit me. There wasn’t a word about FB on that post. You know it and so do I.

Thanks for ending 2014 just the way it started, in the trash.

 

 

 

Three Fake Holiday Cards

 Dear Bill C,

I know, right?

Yes, Karma IS a Bitch.

View image | gettyimages.com

Here is a new cigar.

Let me put this cigar where I want.

Now sit down, and smoke it.

It is fresh, I promise.




______________________________________________________________

Dear Kelly,

Are you SURE you don’t have an eating disorder?

How can you be superwoman all the time?

I’m more than a little worried about you.

Please have Mark or Regis call me or even the new guy.

You look high strung, very high-strung.


View image | gettyimages.com

 No, you can’t do it all, all the time.

Your body and your mind can only take so much.

Please, slow down, you’ve already accomplished enough.

Enjoy life, just turn down the speed, turn the speed down WAY LOW.

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Dear Robin,

You are the one we can’t forget, even though we didn’t even know you. We thought we did but you were deep beneath your laughing exterior.  We admired you, you made us laugh, you made us cry. We are still crying at the loss of you, suicide is so angry, so shocking to your fans. I remember gasping out loud and I couldn’t breathe when someone told me the devastating news of your death. By hanging. I’m even shaking my head now, as if was new all over again. It will always be new.

We are so sorry that you had to go through with MS but hey, couldn’t you have talked to Michael J. Fox first? I guess not, it’s a moot point, Robin, I hope you are not in pain, I hope you are romping around Heaven making people laugh, you are probably the best comedian up there that they have seen in a while. Say hi to Joan Rivers from us, the world is a much sadder place now. We miss you and Joan.

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“Nobody Bothered To Even Listen”

Dear Dr. Nancy,

It’s me, Amy, I hate you, I hate you. You lied to me and you said you never would. You told me that I was going to stay at an Inn, I thought it was like a Bed and Breakfast and it turned out to be a damn mental hospital. It’s been a long time already and I’m still here at the hospital and I want to get out. I am mad at you, you broke your promise. You said it was only for a few weeks and it’s been a ton of weeks now, like months. How could you do that to me? I trusted you.  You betrayed my trust and you were the only person I trusted.

You sided with my parents and I will never forgive you or them. I was not a danger to myself no matter what anybody says. I sure don’t think I was, besides I know myself better than anybody. You should believe me, not them. I’m in a room all by myself in this stupid, antiseptic smelling hospital, it is very small with thick green padded walls. I couldn’t hurt myself in here if I tried. I think about trying all the time but only sometimes.

I told you and everybody else that I did not want to kill myself, I know what it LOOKS like but I am telling you the truth. Ok, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Happy?

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I know that there were open, bloody slits on my arms, I know I cut myself but does that mean I automatically wanted to die? Nobody even asked me. Nobody cared enough to ask.

I was so alone and had nobody to talk to and then four men shoved me into a van wrapped with an old flowery blanket around me and locked my arms in back of me. I tried to scream for my parents but they ran in the house like the spineless snakes they have always been. Precious older sister Julie of course was spared the scene.

If people would have just listened to me instead of ignoring me, putting me aside because I was “different.” Yeah, I was different, I had to be different. Everyone gave Julie all the attention with her blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect scores in school. Yes, she did get the academic award every year, so what? Wouldn’t you know she even played the piano like a saint? It was always Julie, always, My parents never had time for me, they never MADE time for me, so I had to get attention some how.

When I got my first tattoo my parents didn’t talk to me for a good month, well, at least they noticed, I sure got attention even though it was negative attention. It felt good. So, I continued

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and did all the bad stuff that I knew they would hate. I did drugs, I drank, drugs, took all kinds of drugs, yeah, I even shot up heroin, I did whatever I could. shooting up whatever I could do, I did.

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That angelic older sister of mine, Julie, would never even try anything bad, the goody two shoes,

My mom and dad never saw me as a person, they looked away from me, I was just Julie’s little sister. Julie was the only one they cared about. But, I thought you were different, Dr. Nancy and now I know you were not. You were part of my family’s plan to destroy me, to wipe me out and extinguish my flame in this world. Hey, why am I talking about a flame?

Maybe you are right because I plan to extinguish myself one way or another, the last remaining spark that is alive. So help me God.

By the time you get this letter I will be dead. I swear, I hope this makes you and my parents very happy. PS Tell my sister that I really did hate her.

From,

Amy D.

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY

I’m horrified. I knew all about Invisible Illness Week and wrote about my chronic pain and Fibromyalgia but just found out today that its National Suicide Prevention Day? Something is so wrong here. Why didn’t I know this day was coming and if I didn’t know, I bet you many people didn’t either. That’s shameful.

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I feel embarrassed and I also feel ashamed for the people who put this together for not advertising it better. This is NOT something to take lightly, I think we need a RE-DO here, maybe another one next month? Actually, how about one every month? Now, that, is a great idea. We need more prevention and mental health funding!!!

I’m here now and I’m begging anyone who is contemplating suicide to please stop for a second or two and take a deep breath. Thanks. I’m not asking for your whole life but how about a minute? Just read one more sentence.

Think about the people who love you, truly love you, who you will leave behind. People  who WANT you in their lives in any shape, in any mood. They love YOU, the way you are, unconditionally. I’m a mom, I know about unconditional love.

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Depression is no fun, we know. We’ve all been through it but there is more help now and different medications and I’m positive that you know at least one good friend or one sister or brother, husband, wife, lover or cousin that would stay with you and help you. There better be, because they would have to answer to me if they don’t.

Instead of taking your life, write your thoughts down, put them on Facebook, email a friend. Email ME. I will listen. I will hold your hand, at least through the computer, and I’m no genius or therapist or doctor.

I’m a regular, really nothing special person, that loves dogs more than people, adores jelly doughnuts, hates to exercise, am technically clueless (ask the people at the Invisible Illness Week) but somehow muddle through things, through life. My life hasn’t been easy, you need to trust me on this one. I can’t lie, it shows on my face in a second.

So, do me a favor, take a few deep breaths, walk away from wherever you are and call a friend, or a hotline, listed below, TELL SOMEONE YOU NEED THEM. ASAP.

Communicate and reach out. But, please, don’t harm yourself, it won’t solve anything and will destroy those that love you. I don’t know you but I know you are worth it, you are worth another day, and the day after  and many days after until you can wake up one day and think back and say “Wow, that was close but I’m so happy I didn’t go through with it.” Then, you too, can help people step away and to live their lives as they should. You will be their hero. I can see it now. I just know it.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 1-800-273-TALK

Crazy Looks Like Me, Crazy Looks Like You

It’s raining sheets, like unfolded plastic wrap falling from the sky. The clouds overhead are not dismally gray or black, nor are they white and cheerful, they are just the background for the rain, a neutral color of uncertainty.
.
My younger sister, Shelly, sat at the kitchen table in the dining room, alone, her head down, her eyes unfocused. She had a tiny silver spoon in her hand and she was stirring her coffee, over and over again. I don’t think she even realized she was still doing it. I said “Good Morning” to her but she never answered.” She wouldn’t speak to any of us.

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Shelly was wearing her same  blue striped pajama bottoms, the dingy white tee-shirt and a pair of thick, pink socks. She hadn’t brushed her hair, it seemed, for weeks. She wanted to just stay in bed and be alone, the only thing she would say was “I’m not crazy, do you think I’m crazy, because I’m not.” I bit my lip.

I wasn’t trying to be mean, honestly, but I had begged her to see a therapist and our parents forced to talk to someone and she went with them once, kicking and screaming the entire time. She never even went inside.

 

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I didn’t know what to do, but I did know that this was not helping her. Staying in bed all day, getting up only for coffee or her one meal, a bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise  that our mom would leave her in the fridge. Shelly told all of us “it was none of our business” but of course it was our business, we loved her and hated seeing her fall apart, a little more each day.

I didn’t know how long I could take looking at the shell that was my little sister, curled up in bed with the light off and no life coming from that room. She slept all the time. Once, I started playing music in my room, music I loved and thought she loved too. I thought she might enjoy it but she screamed and moaned for me to turn it off in such a violent, out of control way, that my parents immediately came and scolded me, they turned my music off. It was upsetting Shelly.

She needed help, she desperately needed help, she was getting worse and my parents and I couldn’t handle her anymore. Now, she was not sleeping at all and roaming our apartment at all hours demanding attention. I had a full-time job as a Customer Service Representative and I was already in trouble for missing too many “sick” days. Our parents were older and not in good physical shape and our little brother, Josh, was just eight, a mere baby himself and, of course, troubled and confused.

For a week we whispered among ourselves to arrange for an intervention, we knew something had to be done.  Time moved quickly, it was 4 pm on Tuesday and the day had come. I sat in the corner, biting my nails. I wanted my sister to get better but I did not want to be part of the intervention. My parents made me so II also felt like an accomplice and hated that feeling. I hated being in the middle of everyone.

We were all assembled in the living room, Shelly was in her room, sleeping. The people from Edgehill Hospital were waiting right out side the door. They decided that our dad should approach Shelly gently by first calling her name and asking her to come out of her room. She refused.”I’m tired” she murmured.”Maybe later.” After several more attempts and being exasperated, our dad asked her to come out again but I could hear the strain in his voice… Finally, in a fit of rage, he broke the door down, and started yelling at her. He screamed for a couple of minutes, his patience worn and suddenly stopped to find Shelly on the bed, still, not breathing, and cold. He called 911 immediately but we knew she was gone.

She died from an overdose of pills that she had accumulated for many years. We found two empty bottles of alcohol on the floor next to her bed. The note that she scribbled with a purple pen said this: ” I hate my life, it’s all black an” that was the end. She couldn’t even finish the sentence about her young life.

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No one could speak after the initial gasp of horror, we each sat in our own corner, after the ambulance came and pronounced her dead. No one  spoke to each another, harboring our own guilt, our own excuse, our own irresponsible part we had in Shelly’s life.

All of us thought we killed her. I know I did, for sure.

 

 

 

The Day After Robin Williams’ Died

I sit in shock even as the news about Robin Williams’ death is sweeping the country on every possible news outlet. Shock moved to sadness and even though I didn’t know this marvelously talented man or his demons, I am feeling his pain. Everyone’s pain. The world is so fragile right now, you can feel it in the the heaviness of the air, the full moon,  in the tension of the world. For some of us, called Empath Intuitives, we feel more deeply, we take on other people’s pain as if they were our own but I am trying hard to separate this one.

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I wrote this in response to my friend, the great Jenny the Bloggess, aka Jenny Lawson on her wonderful post about the death or apparent suicide of Robin Williams. Please take a look at Jenny’s site (I reblogged it here if it worked) to read the whole thing, if you don’t know Jennifer Lawson, you really should. My goal in life is to be mentioned on one of her side bars one day! She will cheer you up, crack you up and has been one of my inspirations. She has really creepy (sorry Jenny) habits/hobbies like taxidermied animals but she also does beautiful things for others and that makes you want to be as awesome as she is.

Not to mention, you have never really met the true Beyonce that we, in the Jenny Fan club know. “Knock knock Motherfucker.” You’ll see. It makes perfect sense.

Jenny wrote a heart breaking and heart warming post about suicide and mental illness and all of our challenges in life. This was my reply to her:

I’m usually good for a laugh or a witty response but sorry, I just can’t this time and that’s okay. I know I will get it back but Robin Williams’ suicide hurts in a place where childhood was, we grew up with him. WHY DOES MENTAL ILLNESS STILL HAVE SUCH A NEGATIVE STIGMA, IT SHOULDN’T. WHAT IF CANCER WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR MENTAL ILLNESS? I don’t understand. It is an illness like any other illness and needs to be treated by a professional. I have an anxiety disorder and take meds for it, like Jenny, and it is treatable. Sure, there are some bad days but there are some bad days for everyone. Isn’t it time that mental illness can come out of the closet and be accepted by everyone instead of being a hushed secret? Come on, people, give those of us who struggle with something different, ( I have an anxiety disorder) an encouraging word, a smile, a chance to say “I feel sad/anxious today.”

More money is needed for mental health providers but I’m sure Robin Williams could have provided that for himself. PLEASE, talk to each other or call a suicide hotline. If not for yourself, then for your children, your mother, brother, best friend, your partner, your pet, for me and for Jenny. There’s always someone waiting to listen. I promise. Signed, your friend, Laurie F. hibernationnow.wordpress.com

Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-8255

Search results

1. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

   www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

   “Because Hope Is A Marvelous Thing” by me.

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FWF, Kellie Elmore. Fire.

 

 

HER

 

Everyone says that teenagers are moody.  I’m not. I’m depressed or nothing. My shrink says I’m in a “Clinical Depression” my parents say I’m very depressed. I don’t care what they call it, I just don’t want to live anymore.

I’m 15, I hate my life or well, I used to, now I just want to leave and not exist. I have no friends.

 

Her (Photo credit: Forty Photographs)

 

Not that anyone would miss me, my parents just wanted to commit me to a crazy hospital and lock me up or drag me to church, every single day and night. My little brother, Billy, well he is okay, he’s five and to him I am,  everything, silly jerk. He didn’t think I was as crazy as a bat but what did he know, he still sucked his thumb.

 

I wasn’t the shrieking, breaking- glass bloody kind of crazy you see on television, or the raging mad screaming in the streets throwing knives and pulling out my gun, feeling ugly angry. Nope, It’s like I lived in the air. I existed, I blended in with the beige lockers in the middle school hallways.

My secret plan kept me going, it was the only thing I had looked forward to for over six months now. Today was November 11th, my favorite day and I knew where I would be  tonight. I knew where I would go tonight after dark. I had the place, I had the alibi, people didn’t care about me and I didn’t care about them anyway. I didn’t feel loved or hated. I didn’t feel anything at all. I read that’s the worst kind of crazy-bad or maybe it’s something my shrink said. I don’t remember.

She once said that if I could have cried, “released my inner emotions” maybe it would have been better but I had no inner emotions that I knew about, nothing that I was hiding, no conflict or cover-up, no tragic past. I felt nothing, bad or good, I didn’t complain and I didn’t want attention. I was just empty, all the time.

All I wanted was to go to sleep forever, and I loved playing with fire. I wanted to leave this world in a way that made me disappear for good. I wanted a quick death so months ago I stole a can of lighter fluid from the hardware store. My plan was to spray my clothes and jump, go poof up in flames.

The fire was still burning strongly, I opened the can of lighter fluid, smelled it and it made me cough. I hadn’t squirted it on my clothes yet. I walked closer to the fire, just a tiny bit. The long hem of the left leg of my jeans caught on fire as I edged closer accidentally but instead of jumping in all the way I instinctively fell to the ground and smothered the flames.

What the hell just happened?  I didn’t know, why did I do that? Why didn’t I just go into the fire as I had planned 1,000 times and burn to a crisp? Couldn’t I even get death right?  I really was a loser, I couldn’t even succeed in offing myself.

 

I had been waiting all along for a sign WHEN to jump in. Could that have been the real sign? I told myself, that if I was supposed to die I would have. I wouldn’t have instinctively dropped like my old doll, Raggedy Ann, on the ground to get rid of the fire and save my life. THAT was the sign! I started feeling strongly about this. I moved away from the fire and after sitting there a while, I made sure the fire was out. I was not feeling happy but I was feeling something. It was a lot more than what I started out with.

 

I felt like I was in a daze, confused but I knew deep down I think that I wanted to live. I started walking up the hill, eating a granola bar that was in my pocket,to get to where I parked my car. I sat there for a few minutes.  I took a few deep breaths and drove home really slowly. Before I got to my room, I opened Billy’s door, he was wearing his favorite cowboy pajamas and yes, still sucking his thumb. I tiptoed over to him and ever so gently, kissed him on his head.

24-Hour Crisis Hotline – The Samaritans

samaritansnyc.org/24-hour-crisis-hotline/

• The Samaritans of New York

   

  Samaritans 24-Hour Crisis Hotline (212) 673-3000. With the goal of helping people in distress and preventing suicide, Samaritans free, confidential.
  

•  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Name Is Nobody

When my sister and I still lived at home, many years ago, we would look at each other sadly and randomly say: “Nobody cares.” It is in fact, true on some level. People don’t seem to care the same way anymore or maybe they are just too busy. Too busy to show that they care? Yes. Sorry.

Life (Photo credit: bitzcelt)

I used to be Somebody but not anymore, I don’t feel like Anything or Anyone anymore. I just Exist.

A very long time ago I was a little girl who played dolls, went to school year after year and I was a Student. I was known for always Smiling by my teachers but I seemed invisible to my classmates.

When I was in college I became a Young Woman, an excellent student, also able to cut a class for an outdoor concert with good friends, under the sun. My camera draped around my neck like jewelry, it did not get better than that. Of course I didn’t appreciate it then, does anyone? No, there is no frame of reference until you look back. Those WERE the BEST years of my life.

I always worked, every summer during high school,  I started working right after college but my world was still centered around Me. That wondrous place in time, the narrow window of fun, between college and the real world, now in today’s world fraught with unemployment. I had my apartment, I learned from good experiences and bad; mice running over my arm and leg at night or crawling in the walls and utter fear to getting frozen at knife point by a gang and the guardian angel who saved me. I learned that sometimes it is easier to say no, than it is to say yes. Eventually, I moved.

English: Portrait of old woman sitting by a window. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I used to travel for barely nothing, to visit a friend, to fly across the ocean, to visit different countries. I was lucky, Dad worked for the airlines. Then, I was a Traveler, a Tourist. I learned to eat new food in Greece, jumbo shrimp staring at me with watchful eyes, lemon-egg soup, and everything tepid, I loved that. Food was not served burning hot. I walked up winding white and blue steps in Greece on a tiny island, where there were no cars, just donkeys. My family traveled to Portugal and I refused to eat sardines that the fishermen just caught. But, our family drank wine together outside in a beautiful garden, near a forest.

I learned to trust MY instincts, not my sister’s, the daredevil, with no common sense. We ended up on a canoe, going to on an island with two fishermen.  I had never been so scared in my life. No big deal, she shrugs it off, grinning. Yeah. Right.

Then, I was a Working Wife and Mother, I had a title again, a meaning for my Life,  the most special one. Being a Mother did not feel like a job but it fulfilled every one of my dreams, it was all I wanted to do my whole life. I wanted to have two babies, a boy and a girl and bring them up to be good, conscious, wonderful people. In that, I know I succeeded; I did my job well, I am proud.

My life has no meaning anymore. You can’t argue with something that is true. My kids are adults, they don’t need me anymore, my husband and I are very best friends, he could manage. My friends, the real ones who care, are sincere but have their own lives.

I need a new Life. I am so sick of the old one. I want to peel off my skin like I peel bananas for the banana bread I bake. I need to do something new with the second half or even quarter of my life. The end of my life, where did the first half go?

It left like whispers in the air, silent passages of time, I blinked.

 

Love Grows, Life Changes

Toothbrush, photo taken in Sweden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It takes but a minute for everything in your life to change your life completely.  It hits you with a tremendous blow, shock, grief but you can get used to that since you have no choice, you are completely unaware. No choice is not a world I want to live in either.

When I travel now, I usually forget to bring my blue toothbrush and white bristles, so too, the tooth paste. I never needed it before, it was a silly tradition, I know, but one that delighted me. Knowing that I could always use your toothbrush when we were away together. That was the type of intimacy that I knew about. Silly things like that.

Now, I can’t. I understand that you didn’t want to leave me, that your heart was very sick,  clogged arteries that were too far along to be saved but I wished for it anyway. I was in the in-between place of hope and reality. “Please, please, please” I would murmur under my breath in a chant as if maybe God would tune in faster or adjust his schedule but nothing changed.

It was your time, my love, and you knew it as well as I did. Imagine, trying to cheer me up when you were about to die and leave me hanging here like a piece of dangling thread blowing softy in the sunshine, back and forth, back and forth.

We came in together, arm in arm, walking slowly through the mushy gray snow and yet when I left there was nobody beside me, nobody to take my hand, nobody to put their arms around my shoulders, to reassure me.

Our children called but they were not here, they had their own families and excuses now. I understood completely how their husbands and wives did not want them to cross to the other side of the country as well, to get soaked up in my misery and the lost of their daddy. Nobody knew that more than I.

Yet, I thought death would come, most certainly, in the middle of the night, my naïve silence and undisturbed sleep, awakened by the shrill of the old yellow phone I still used by the bedside. But now, in reality, it didn’t work that way, I was right by your side, as you took your last breath and calmly closed your eyes.

English: Portrait of old woman sitting by a window. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“That’s it?” I thought to myself? Death could slip in on soft kitten feet and steal away my husband with no big fanfare at all? Steal his loveliness, the color of his lips and cheeks and joy for life in a matter of seconds, while I stood there watching, watching the blood drain from him?

I put my head on his cold chest and I cried but I knew his hands couldn’t comfort me, or hold me like they had. From now on, I was no longer part of a couple, I was alone. My name was now “Widower.” It stayed that way for a very long time until I too decided it was time enough to join your father, there was nothing useful about me without him. He was my life.

I said goodbye to all the children and grandchildren with a long good-bye and gave each special hug.

It took too many weeks to get my affairs in order but I would know when the time was right. One day they all came in for Christmas, I saw each child and grandchild. After they left, I knew it was my time to go.This has been planned before the death of my husband Harold, he would do the same if I had died first.  It wasn’t hard at all but it was something we needed to do, I was only sorry that I had postponed this day for so many long weeks. Let’s face it, I had no regrets. Ever.

I had no interest in living a life without my other half. It was like living empty, physically here yet without a soul. No, I didn’t want that at all.

FWF Kellie Elmore

Annie looked beautiful when we first landed in the Caribbean for our honeymoon. We did nothing but eat and drink, and relax in the sun. I had worked 80 hour weeks back home, this was heaven.

We went snorkeling in the afternoon to see  glowing yellow and orange striped fish, in the aqua water. The only decision we had been what to order at the swim-up bar in the pool, a lime drenched mojito or a sweet mai thai served with a wedge of pineapple and a fake red cherry.

Dinner was late and I ordered a bottle of champagne and we ate roasted vegetables,  chicken with spices and loaves of thick, crusty bread. There was dancing so we decided to join other people.  Annie wore a bright flowered dress and soon after Annie suggested we go for a swim, we both loved water, especially Annie. We raced into the water, holding hands.

I admit I wasn’t as good as a swimmer as she was, I loved watching her as she laughed and I could see her head, like the flash of an automatic camera, her blond hair in the warm waves, happy she was having fun.

After about twenty minutes I called to her to come back in, I was getting tired of waiting and started yelling for her to come back, I still heard her laughter but it wasn’t funny anymore to me. “Annie, come in,” I shouted as I was approaching the shore.

Scuba diver. Found at Plongée sous-marine & obt’d Image:Plongeur bouteilles.jpg id’d there as (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I sat on the sand, I saw other tourists looking puzzled and  they pointed first to me, then to Annie. The tide was getting rough.  I kept yelling over to her but she would wave and keep going.

I talked to the people on the shore and told them my story. Someone went inside for help, I was getting nervous. The manager offered the use of his own boat and lifeguard. I knew Annie would be mad but I was so worried that they raced into the water on their boat, if she ran into trouble or was possibly sick.

I sat on the beach, like a statue, rocking back and forth. I could not stop crying. Someone offered a blanket, another endless cups of strong black coffee. I saw the coast guard and his team looking with flood lights.  A whole day went by. Finally, the coast guard said they would have to end the search. Someone had called the police as well as emergency vehicles. I was so weak from crying and not sleeping, I could barely speak.

“I’m sorry Sir, there is no body in that water.” We searched everywhere, scuba divers with advanced equipment came and we found nothing. She was not on the property at all, last night we did not let anyone in or out of our community and she definitely is not in the water. I’m so sorry, Sir.”said the head of police.

Finally, I let out a blood curdling scream, “she’s out there, you have to find her” but they shook their heads firmly. Later, everyone walked me to our room and the manager unlocked the door. I looked around, inside, there was not a single item of Annie’s, not her clothing, her make up, her tooth-brush, nothing of hers was there. I saw them look at each other, frowning.

“What did you do to her?” I screamed to the hotel and the police. She WAS here, ask anyone, at dinner, at the scuba diving lessons.” They started to cuff my hands.

“We did, Sir, we did that last night, there never was anyone with you named Annie, you arrived alone checked into this room alone and stayed by yourself. We even called the airlines and you were flying alone there was not an Ann or Annie on the flight.”

I fought with them, I told them she HAD been here but they insisted on taking me to the hospital to get checked out. “But what about Annie? I sobbed. “Perhaps she is waiting for you at the hospital” one police offer said, they gave me a shot and I let them take me, to see Annie, so that they would believe me.

I’m still at a hospital, a different one. Here they also said Annie was not real, over and over again. They call me delusional but even now, after all these months I know that Annie had been with me, for real, even if she had only been in my mind.

That counts, right?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia