Dyke in the Heart of Texas

Happiness, what a concept.  We all seek it on a daily basis, and we all achieve it, albeit in smaller increments than some of us would want.  In my continuing quest for happiness….not helped by pharmaceuticals or through illegal means, I again pick this topic for today’s blog.

When I started this blog about seven years ago now, I had all sorts of stuff to throw out into cyber-world.  I labeled it back then a “cathartic purging.”  It must have helped because at some point last year, I just plain ran out of stuff to write about.  I guess the happy pill, aforementioned pharmaceutical help, keeps me pretty even.  This “even” feeling keeps me from getting really pissed about a political matter and adversely really sad about something…..no more roller coaster.

I can hear you applauding to my chemical balance and I thank you.  I may not be as funny as I used to be, but I still search for that elusive thing called happiness.  Being “even” is a far stretch from feeling joy, but I have the belief that joy awaits me.  (please don’t post a note about finding Jesus, I get it brings you happiness, I really do)

My holiday wish for you all is to find your happy spot…to feel joy and happiness in things and people you surround yourself with…to feel joy in those small moments of life I have written about before on this site.  Even if you are as low as a snake’s stomach as you read this…there are moments of life’s beauty around you today, open your eyes and truly see them.  Some are very small and fleeting, their beauty and perfection are too great to last more than a minute or so.  Ever had a PERFECT minute?  I have.

I did something really shitty to someone in June of 2014.  I have apologized and received forgiveness, although the hurt will never leave and my pain of having  done it to the person still persists.  The love remains too, on another level, but it is steadfast.  I add this to today’s blog because I think that person has found happiness again on different levels….big and small moments.  Put one step in front of the other and happiness will find you again….that makes me happy too.

I have learned the art of patience in the last two years.  I am a type “A” person that has embraced my ability to be patient.  Some of us have to wait to find happiness after it eludes us.  I am preaching to myself today…because I relish every day in the small, fleeting perfect moments, and I know the ultimate prize of life-long happiness awaits me, if I just work on myself and let it come to me.

Happiness likes happy people….kind of a catch-22 for sure.  Haven’t you seen nauseatingly happy people that happy stuff just kept happening to?  Some people might stand on the street in front of my house, look in and say “Enough already, you whiner!!”  I get that.  It’s okay for me and you to want the brass ring of life.  Whether you find that peace and true happiness in faith or the warm hug of a loved-one…we all should go for it.

I choose happiness.  I have figured out what brings me joy.  I have figured out my future and the happiness I see that will envelope me….I am working hard to achieve it and being patient until it happens.

“Enjoy every sandwich.”  Warren Zevon in response to a question from David Letterman.  He was reflecting on his life before his cancer diagnosis and in finding happiness.

I am getting dizzy on the carousel, but as it rounds another corner, I can see the sparkle of that shiny ring….I am leaning out and my right arm is extended to grab it.  Until my fingers take it, I think I will go have me a ham and cheese on wheat.  Thanks Warren.

The frantic mother dialed 911, “Please come help me!  My son has a butcher knife and I am afraid he is going to hurt himself, he is mentally ill.”

Dispatcher to 221.  221 go ahead.  Proceed to 2435 Highland Park, 10/96 (insane) subject, armed with a butcher knife.  His mother is on the line with me, the front door is open.

I proceeded to the call and knew my back-up would arrive about the same time I would.   I turned onto Highland Park, a beautiful tree-lined street, in the affluent Dallas, bedroom community that I patrolled.  We ran to the front door and into the house.  The elderly mother motioned toward her kitchen and there I encountered a white male of about 40 years of age.  He was wildly swinging a butcher knife back and forth…there was a large kitchen island in between us.  My partner was behind me and pulled his weapon, holding it discreetly behind his back.  I did not draw my weapon, but began to slowly talk to the man.  He moved to within ten feet of me and said his name was Jesus.

Jesus began quoting scripture and said he wanted to go home, the angels were calling him home.  I asked him several questions about the scripture he was quoting, engaging him in a prolonged discussion on the bible.  (I could hear on the radio, that the ambulance had pulled up in front of the house)

I told Jesus I needed his counsel, that if he put the knife down, I could ask him more questions and perhaps he could help.  Isn’t that why you are here?  To help us?  “Yes, Jesus responded, I will help you my child.”  Jesus threw the knife into the kitchen sink.  I walked over, took him firmly by the arm and made him walk with me into the living room.  My partner and I spoke with him for about 10 minutes until we could convince him to lay down on the gurney to go the Parkland Hospital psyche ward.

It wasn’t easy, I talked myself into being handcuffed to Jesus Christ in the ER of Parkland for 3 hours, but it was worth it to save his life, and possibly mine. As a police officer, you have to mentally prepare yourself to deal with all types of individuals on 911 calls, especially the mentally ill. You have to plot it out in your mind, play scenarios in your down time, think over your play by play as you are enroute to each call. Patience goes a very long way with proper officer safety procedures.

That call for service was about 20 years ago for me, but I remembered it quickly when I saw the following video this week. ***Warning**** video shows Dallas police killing a man. (click on link) I was so sickened upon watching the video, I felt compelled to write this blog. Notice the Tazer gun on the officer’s duty belt.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/03/family-releases-video-of-dallas-police-fatal-shooting-of-mental-patient.html/

Every day there are headlines concerning abuse of force and shootings involving police across the country.  The spate of unarmed black men dying because of police bullets has people on their feet marching in several cities as I write this. I must admit, with a couple of those I have been on the fence post with my opinion on the use of deadly force. While others that I have viewed on television have appeared to be outright murders. These killings will not stop until police departments take real efforts to increase deadly force training. They will not stop until we all agree that all lives matter, black, white, and the mentally ill.

Mentally ill subjects are different, not all alike. But guess what? Police officers could be trained to deal with them in like kind, with proper training. The Dallas cops in the video knew a mentally ill man was going to come to the door. They didn’t know he would have a screwdriver, but why did they immediately go to deadly force when a lower level of force was on their belts? Wasn’t the man’s life just as valuable as their own? Why did they stand at the doorway with a car right behind them? Why not back up onto the yard and began a conversation with the man, much like I did with Jesus?

Could I have walked into that kitchen in 1994 and shot and killed Jesus…and it be justified? Yes. He lunged with the knife in my direction a couple of times as I spoke to him. He would be dead 20 years and I would be writing about the time I killed another human being. Instead, he got to a hospital and got back on his meds. I checked back on patrol after a very unusual evening talking to my “savior.”

I just wish the two Dallas officers would have taken a pause…a very brief pause, about approaching that door and the man who walked through it. Now they must go on in life knowing they took one….if only they had been mentally prepared.

January 6th is the day of failure. I am a half-empty kind of gal, and January 6th is an annual holiday of failure for me, I have grown to own it and love it. You see, my New Year’s resolutions have a six day life-span and it goes something like this:

Day 1: I am cutting out sugar and white flour as my New Year’s resolution!! Look at me!! I am friggin awesome and so disciplined. (Throws all sugar and white flour products into trash can) Mildly disturbed to find out even ketchup has sugar in it.

Day 2: Feeling a bit cranky, and bouncing off the wall because of increase in caffeine intake. Stared at half eaten brownie in the trash can like a black bear looks at a fat, sweating hiker.

Day 3: Not feeling guilty at all about screaming into the Starbuck’s drive-thru window. I said Stevia, not Stevie Nicks damnit! Do I look like I want a 70s rocker in my latte??

Day 4: I have the shakes and would saw off my left arm for some Skittles.

Day 5: Looking at myself in the mirror, feeling somewhat svelte. I think I have lost an inch in my chins. The waitress brings me a croissant with my garden salad. I have restraint…literally, my friend has me in a snot-lock as the waiter takes it away. I start to weep, the salt from my tears makes me want sugar…have always enjoyed the combination of sweet and savory.

Day 6: I should be full by the gi-normous rationalization I just swallowed…along with the donut. I am a failure on a massive scale….no, that’s just my massive weight on this scale. Today is annual failure day and I vow to celebrate my achievement with a toast….and some grape jelly.

There’s always next year.

It is that time of year once again when people tend to smile more readily, you catch them humming a holiday tune. The driver that flips you off for daring to be in the lane they want at the mall, even they have those delightful (insert sarcasm) antlers attached to their Dodge Minivan. Everything you eat has a hint of pumpkin or gingerbread flavor…the drunks in front of the courthouse are sipping peppermint schnapps. You have to love December, right?

As I have learned this Fall and Winter, it just takes one morning for your life to change. I will add this caveat at the beginning of my tale. I merely dipped my toe into the deep lagoon of cancer. There are thousands of people fighting a battle today that is all at once tragic and triumphant.

The doctor entered the room smelling of cigarettes and said, “Well, that’s a bad biopsy, but don’t worry, I know a good oncologist.” I had uterine cancer. The doctor went on to say that uterine cancer is the best cancer to have because it has about a 95% cure rate…we just take everything out. I told him he just ensured me several weeks of worry…had it spread? The doctor said to not worry and began to throw dates at me for the surgery.

I was all at once in a fog. I responded to the doctor’s flippancy with this comment, “What if you came into my office and I told you that you were facing 2-20 years in jail? Do you go home thinking you are a lock for 2 or do you worry constantly about the possibility of 20?” We humans usually worry about the worst thing that can happen to us. The doctor laughed, but got my point.
He told me that uterine cancer spreads first to the lymph nodes and lungs usually. I immediately started coughing as I walked out to my car.

So I went to the hospital for all the pre-op tests, including a full chest x-ray. I told the tech, “Hey, I didn’t do this in 1996 when I had my gall bladder out!” The 20 something tech responded, “Ma’am, we do this on all ladies over the age of 50.” Nice. Two days later one of the nurses called me at my office to say I had a nodule in my right lung, I would need a CT scan with dye injection. Wait? What?? Should I be worried?? The doc and Google says that uterine cancer spreads to the lungs in lots of women!! Long pause on phone…”Ma’am, we will call you back with a date for the CT scan.”

I had the CT scan the day before Thanksgiving and waited seven long days thinking that I now had cancer that was spreading. My gynecologist had already helped me get an appointment with an oncologist and further tests and a possible second surgery were going to be discussed. Dr. Google told me I was basically screwed if the cancer had spread to my lymphatic system. I choked down a turkey dinner and nervously waited…for seven days.

You start thinking about your own mortality. You think about the ups and downs of your life. At no point during the waiting period did I ever get scared of dying. However, I was petrified of having to wage a battle with the Big C…and eventually losing it. It just pissed me off, I was supposed to drop dead of a massive heart attack one day…not die of uterine cancer!

You want to have a dark season and strain to see the light? Try going through a divorce and getting a cancer diagnosis all at once. I tried to focus on good stuff, like the possibility of being so sick that I saw size 12 again. Tremendous friends and family members circled the wagons around me for which I am eternally grateful. I waited.

The doctor’s office called and said the lung nodule looked benign…two doctors agreed. Just come back in 3 months for a follow up scan to see if it grows or starts to look, my term, “cancery.” I stopped coughing.

I had the surgery, a full hysterectomy. Not such a tragedy at my age…although I felt the pain of the younger women I saw in my same situation. They were fighting cancer and saying goodbye to the possibility of biological children.

I consulted with the oncologist, she reviewed my pathology reports and decided after reviewing the size and location of the tumor in my uterus…that I had about a zero chance that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I am going back to the oncologist in a couple of months for some follow ups, but she basically has declared me cancer free.

In the grand scheme of things, looking back now, it was indeed just a quick slap to the face. I have such empathy for the women I sat with, in the waiting room, at the local cancer treatment center. Such strong women…I knew as I sat there I was not a member of their club. I am a complete wimp.

If I had the misfortune of having the cancer spread…of dying of cancer…I would not have engaged in a “courageous battle” as the obituaries say. I would have whined, bitched, and moaned all the way to the end. It would not have been pretty with me. What is that saying about people getting what they can handle? I got the “Wimp/Level 1” version of a cancer diagnosis. I respect all women facing a cancer diagnosis. If you are reading this and in a battle with the Big C…be strong….I am in no way making light of your fight.

So, I dodged a bullet. I find myself smiling when the stranger in the elevator is humming Frosty the Snowman and my pumpkin latte tastes just a little bit sweeter this year. I am going to appreciate those small moments I preach about this December. Life is fleeting and can change in an instant.

My gift this year didn’t come in an envelope or a box. It wasn’t tied with a pretty red ribbon around it. It was two words uttered by an oncologist during a conversation I thought I would never, ever have. “Cancer Free” What a gift indeed? I think I’ll go be jolly…’tis the season.

The two teenaged boys decided to cut through the woods that separated their subdivision from a busy strip mall, in the middle of the small suburb of Fort Worth.  As they were talking about a possible pepperoni pizza, after looking at music CDs at the Kmart, they both saw Ida May at the same time.  Starting at a pair of pink house slippers, they scanned up to see her abused 83 year-old body, laying on a bed of weeds, under the hot Texas sun.  The two boys ran screaming towards a chicken wing restaurant on the edge of the shopping center.

Ida May had  been murdered the previous night in her own home. The murderer, was her next door neighbor, Charles Simpson (pseudonym).  Simpson was a transplanted felon and violent offender from New York.  Ida May had befriended him and had grown to really like Charles after he did a series of  small repairs to her neat, ranch-style house.   Charles had committed the sexual assault and murder with careless abandon.  Leaving so much evidence that it led swiftly to his arrest and just two days later he was in my department’s holding cell, waiting on a transfer to the county jail.

What I saw at that crime scene remains with me today, many years later.  What Ida May suffered through, before her heart just couldn’t take it anymore, was unfathomable to me before this case.  I don’t know if I have ever fully processed it, just how evil one human can be to another.  I cannot express here in this blog exactly what I saw, only to say the level of torture the victim endured was at a level none of us on my police department had ever seen.    Hannibal Lecter would have run screaming from this crime scene.

Charles Simpson was evil incarnate. I walked into the holding cell area, looked at Simpson the first time, and it just didn’t compute.  He looked a little like George Constanza on Seinfeld. As I walked towards him, he was standing with his head squeezed between the bars, screaming about …now get this…..”Inhumane treatment.”   It had been 5 hours since lunch was served and “You fucking dyke!  You better tell the kitchen staff to bring me my dinner!” I leaned in and spoke ever so softly to Charles.  “I was at the crime scene.  I saw first hand what you did to Ida May.  The unfortunate thing for you tonight  is that this fucking dyke is responsible for your dinner.”

This was a small department and we wore many hats.  One of my jobs as the officer in charge of the shift was to come to the jail once on the evening shift, dispense dinner, then get back to patrolling my district.  The dispatchers monitored the jail camera feeds at all other times, for the four cell jail. Simpson knew he was in for a terrible dinner after our first encounter, he just didn’t know how terrible.  I walked into the department’s kitchen, pulled a frozen chicken pot pie out of its box, jammed a plastic fork, right in the middle of it, and proceeded back to Simpson.  “Hey bitch, this is frozen!!”  “Well, I told him,  the Chief said to give you dinner, he didn’t tell me I had to heat it up!”

I checked with the Texas Department of Corrections a couple of years ago and found out Charles had died in prison, a slow agonizing death as a result of cancer.  I actually smiled, that was more punishment than the lethal injection that had awaited.

Ida May didn’t deserve to die that way.  Her resting place was never supposed to be in a field behind a Kmart.

I write this today, because I ran into one of the teenaged boys last week. He remembered me because after that long ago, awful day, we would occasionally  chat whenever he was about town and flagged down my patrol car or I saw him at the high school ball fields.

I often blog about very small perfect moments in your life that you should hold onto..snippets of perfection, to tuck away.  The moments sustain you and make your life a memory bank of happiness to guide you down your path, especially when times get very hard.

Well, this now 40 year-old man told me he was a forensic pathologist. The terrifying moment at first eyeing those pink slippers had changed the trajectory of his life. He chose a career that allows him to contribute and help prosecute the Charles Simpsons of the world. He chose to never forget Ida May. He chose to never forget a day that most people would surely block out. My practice of small perfect moments yielding goodness was now being joined by a moment of darkness…darkness turned into light.

Ida May lived a long, productive life. She had a family, including ten wonderful grandchildren. She loved thy neighbor and believe that all men acted out of the kindness of their heart, not at the call of their inner demons.

Life is weird. A kid going to buy a Nirvana CD sees something that will become the catalyst for years of good work in his community. What a great thing he has done. What a great legacy for Ida May. A woman, I too, shall never forget.

The round-house punch came from the left and hit me squarely in the left eye.  My head wobbled back and forth, think Wiley E. Coyote when he gets hit with a frying pan, then his head snaps back to original form.  Only I wasn’t in a cartoon.  I was wedged in a druggie’s bedroom between his bed and a dresser.  A 17-yr-old was tripping out and his parents had called 911, unable to contain his violence.

Me and my back-up and good friend, Dave, had arrived at the house about the same time and approached the front door.  The kid’s father was totally frustrated and alarmed.  “My son is high on something and very violent, he has locked himself in his room.”  An ambulance was called and the goal was to get the kid on a gurney and to the hospital to be checked out.  Neither parent said they had been harmed, so arrest for assault/family violence, was not considered.

I got permission from the Dad to “open” the bedroom door and Dave did so with one good kick.  I entered the bedroom first and quickly scanned for weapons within the kid’s reach.  He stood there and spewed obscenities as I scooted sideways between the bed and dresser…wanting to get my hands on him.  Dave was right behind me as we moved to get control of this potentially dangerous situation.

I inched closer to the kid as he was screaming a diatribe fueled by dope.  I was about to latch onto him when the punch hit me.  Feeling pain, anger, and embarrassment all at the same time….I wobbled.  Being wedged as tight as I was…I did not go down for the count.  He was a good sized teenager and the punch came with a great amount of force and adrenalin.

Dave lunged for the kid as I grabbed him with both hands and we threw him backwards onto his bed.  The fight was on for a couple of moments, with both his parents watching from the doorway to the bedroom.  We drug him out to the front porch of the house.  I had one handful of hair and with the other I grabbed him by the belt of his jeans.  We secured him on the gurney and off he went to Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

I could have charged him with aggravated assault on a peace officer, but I did not.  The parents thanked us for our help and off we went to the next call in our district.  Dave laughed at me after he saw I was okay.  Hell, he laughs about this till this day when we start talking old “war stories.”

A very small and somewhat routine call got me punched, it could have gotten us killed.  You never know what you are walking into when you answer a call for service as a cop.  The kid could have pulled a gun and the story would have ended quite differently.  He was out of is mind…we were careful, it still happened.  The kid needed to go to the hospital and we had a job to do.  We did what his own parents could not do.

Why do I blog about this today?  Well, because I had a bad experience with a police detective recently.  I found myself cursing my local police department and generalizing all of them as cowards and idiots because of this one guy.  We get caught up in generalizing people, groups of people…cops especially when we see news stories like Ferguson, Missouri.

I post this today to remind myself and my readers that there are thousands of good cops out there.  They are on the front line, doing the grunt work, much like my call to help the druggie’s parents. They do the job everyday, mostly without complaint.  It is a thankless job and it is done for low pay and with terrible hours.

Every call to 911 is a cry for help.  The caller never says, “Hey, send over that asshole that gave me the speeding ticket the other day!”  No, they say, “My son is out of control!!  I need help now! Please!!”

Pause and be thankful a complete stranger stands ready to take a punch for you today.

So, October is fast approaching and with it will inevitably come the 29th. That day will be the 93rd anniversary of my mother, Jewel’s, birth.  On the 30th, I will probably feel somewhat better.  You see, my mother died on October 1, 2004…she was 82.   I think she got screwed over; her mother and her mother’s mother lived to be 93.  I know that sounds weird, but Jewel would agree with me.  We always counted on her living till 93.  The fates didn’t allow it and I have been angry for 10 years.  I am vowing right here and now to let it go on October 29th.  You might argue that Jewel would not have wanted the anger and sadness to be in me for 10 years…and that would prove you didn’t know Jewel.  She would be kind of happy I have been tormented and pissed on her behalf.  Okay Jewel…I carried the anger for you, but I enveloped it in a cloud of love.  I am letting it go this next month.  It will take its leave and what remains will be pure love, wrapped warmly for years in our genetic code that yields seething temperament, but pure love.

The truth is that most Americans don’t live to the age of 93. Jewel would love that I carried the torch for her, but would have been the first to point out that thousands of her peers never made it out of the war theatres in the Pacific and Europe alive. Never making it out of their twenties, let alone living to comb grey hair. “The Greatest Generation” had a bunch of self-indulged people we call the Baby Boomers. I don’t think we are dealing with our parents’ deaths too well. I am not a 52 year-old orphan, I am a middle-aged woman whose parents are dead.

I have been going through a life-changing event the last several months. I was accused of being a different person since Jewel died. The accuser meant that I had changed to my detriment, I would have to agree. Just as births change the patterns of our lives, death leaves its carbon print all over our psyche. I have toughed it out…I have made it, probably in error, without the help of drugs or counseling. I cannot believe I am typing these words, but I choose to be happy.  I vow to work on it with the same due diligence I gave to the resentment these past years. If you see me you might not see it on my face, as I have a frown wrinkle between my eyes, of which Jewel once remarked, “That big crease makes you look bitchier to people.”

So this is it Jewel. I’m letting it go. I am releasing myself of the anger. It is exiting the weathered door with its collaborator, grief. I would have loved to have had you in my life for another decade, for sure. But you had me at the age of 40 and that ensured that your exit would leave me with years of my life without you. It’s okay. You did a good job and I thank you. Can I tell you though that I am mildly irritated that my target year is now 82? Well, hell.