Yesterday evening was lovely. My best friend ( Sharon/ Nightingale) came over for a while. It was an overcast day, perfect for memories. We were drinking hot tea and talking. We decided to pull out my "old stuff". Several file folders FULL of stories, poems, letters and pictures that we had sent to or given each other through all of these 30 years. I consider her to be the best poet that I have EVER read and over time, she has written many poems for me. WE read those aloud and read letters that we sent to each other. The good thing about a lifelong friendship is that we KNOW how we were feeling when we read the poems or the letters. There were stacks of memories. The letters that I sent to her from Florida two weeks before my husband commited suicide. The poems that she sent me when I lost K**in, the man that will always be the love of my life. Poems when she was in pain. Poems when both of our faith was shakey at times. Letters when other people had betrayed us. Letters from another old friend that had died. Things that NO one else could ever understand. Communication when we shared joys, death, hope and the trials and joy of raising children. The peace that comes from knowing, from being certain, that she will NEVER betray me. That she will never use my words to hurt me. WE have been each others hope, confidantes and cheerleaders. We have been each others memories. I pray that we have another 30 years. To drink tea, talk and make more memories.

They wrapped his tired, worn body
in a blanket that she made
and carried him gently down the hill
to rest there in the shade.

His children told the stories
with tears they couldn't hide
of visions that he once had shared
and the horses he could ride.

Of the days the land belonged to him
and the bison that had roamed
when he could ride a hundred miles
before he came back home.

They laid him down
beneath the trees, for this
his final rest...

"Great Spirit, take this warrior home
and let his sleep be blessed".

MY name is Leo and I have been in this cage for three years. I spend my days walking back and forth, back and forth. Humans stare at me all day. Sometimes they come very close to my cage. They have erected a barrier between the humans and me. A metal bar. I have a keeper named Susan who almost understands me. It took Susan one year to be able to scratch my head. Two summers ago, I lay in the corner of my cage and tried to die. I didn't want to live. I am the king of all the animals and these humans have me in a cage. To gawk at. Susan came in one evening and approached my head. She brought in a side of beef to tempt me. I tried to growl and was too weak. Susan looked at me with sad eyes and I knew that she wanted me to live. I just wanted to be left alone to die. In my mind, I was back in The Serenghti. The tall grass waving as I walked through. My mate was a beautiful lioness, four summers old. She gave me three cubs that summer. We roamed the plains, all five of us, the cubs rolling around in the grass. The other animals feared us and ran when we approached. I would roar and it would echo off the Mountains in the distance.
One spring, the men came with their guns. The littlest cub wasn't fast enough and they caught him. I went back to help him and they shot me with a gun that made me go to sleep. I saw them kill my cub before I closed my eyes. Stupid humans, killing for sport, my littlest child dead. I will never get to teach him how to smell for water or how to know when a storm is coming and seek shelter. I wanted him to know the joy of running across the land with his mane ruffling in the breeze.
Susan somehow knew all this when she came to me that day. She walked right up to me like a warrior, unafraid and strong. She put the beef by my head and began to talk to me. " Leo, please eat this. I know that it's not the same as before, but life never is. I know that you would rather be chasing your kill and bringing it down with your family beside you. I lost a baby too Leo. Several years ago, and I will never feel the same. I was young and scared and drank too much and the State took my baby away".
Susan stroked my mane when she told me this and it took me back in time. My mate would groom my head. She would pull out the brambles and the fleas with her teeth and lay my mane in place with her tongue. I saw a sorrow in Susan that day. A sadness that transcends time and species. She went on to tell me that we are all in cages of our own making, trapped by fears, grief and the bars of our own mind. She stroked my head and told me that I was regal, that no one could take that away unless I let them. She told me that she wanted me to live. To live and bear witness to my family and those wonderful plains of Africa. That if I died, I would let them win. She wasn't afraid of me. It was if she sensed the aloneness in my heart.
Susan stayed with me for hours that day, stroking me and making me feel safe. Feel loved. When she left she said " Leo, promise me that you will eat. I will come every day and talk to you".
The next day I roared.

A month ago I was coming back from a weekend in the mountains with Kevin. I dropped him off at the Atlanta airport and headed home. I had been driving about an hour and stopped to get gas and to do that thing that women seem to have to do more frequently than men. The gas station was one of those little stores that you can still see in the South. A jar of pickled pigs feet, some bags of pork rinds and a big old piece of hoop cheese on the counter. The "Co Cola" box was humming loudly and I just HAD to sit on the rocking chair on the porch and rest a minute. An old yellow dog curled up at my feet and shared my cheese. I rocked a few minutes then went to my car and saw the STRANGEST thing. There was a red dirt road running parallel to the store with a man walking down it. Now,THAT in itself isn't a big deal. There are always old men walking down dirt roads in Alabama. THIS man had two buzzards circling his head. Well.. I have never seen buzzards circling anything alive before. Usually you see them hovering and salivating over possums and armadillos that have lost their battle with an automobile. I stood there for a moment and watched it play out. This man had a big straw hat on his head and I couldn't tell his age, race or anything else. He just looked defeated, shuffling slowly and staring at the ground. I had to wonder what went wrong with his life. Was he dying spiritually, emotionally or physically? What happened to those babies that he bounced on his knee? Where was that girl that he spun around and around at night under a full Alabama moon? How many paychecks had he cashed on Friday at the General store before he went coon hunting with Cecil and the boys? I don't know. But.. I do know this. No one should ever be so alone that they end up with buzzards circling their head. I got in my car and headed home.

I doubt if this post will interest anyone. I am just blogging to get out anger. How do I even begin to tell this sordid story? I have ( correction HAD) a friend of many, many years. A couple of years ago, she needed someone to come and work for her. Both of the girls that were working there quit. I only worked there a week and understood why. She was the director of a non profit group that helped crime victims. Once I started working there, she would come in about 11 AM and leave at 2. Every day. She did nothing. PLUS, she was the dirtiest person in the world. Her office was filthy and I would find old checks just thrown on the floor. One day, I had just had enough and quit. Flash forward a month and she fINALLY had a board meeting. Bear in mind that for two years ( long before I worked there)she didn't keep up with any finances. SO...To make a long story short, she blamed me for everything. She was little miss innocent. I had a company credit card that we both used for stuff. Her daughter was married to a really nice guy but cheating. This witch even bought sexy stuff from Victoria's Secret for her daughter with the credit card. As it turned out, when we went to court, the judge caught her in several lies and she had a warrant issued for her arrest. That's not even the part that makes me the maddest though. However, I will never understand how someone could throw away a 30 year friendship to save herself. There was a man that was the love of my life and we had broken up. I am still not sure how ( or why) they started talking but they did. She told him lie after lie about me. Last night ( after all this time) I went to the store and ran into another woman that this woman tried to screw over. She asked me if I ever talked to K**in and I said no. She said " I can see why, he probably hates you because of everything L**ne told him." She said that this woman would tell him lies about me and then laugh about it. EVERYTHING that she told him was a lie. I am angry. I don't understand it. It all backfired on her anyway and she lost a friend. A real friend. I would clean her filthy house, I gave her THOUSANDS of dollars to help her out and she did this to me. Amazing. Of course, this man could have had enough balls to drive down here one more time and see that I wasn't lying. He doesn't have any though. I now know that this witch is living in San Antonio and I know where she is trying to get a job.
There is a part of me that wants to pick up the phone tommorow and call the company where she applied. Let them KNOW how she is and what she is. There is a part of me that wants to call this man and ask him why he was such a coward. He is missing out on so much now. I probably won't. I am not like they are. I will let them be and let karma take care of both of them. As I said, This post was for me to vent. Maybe tomorrow I will blog again about things that matter. Maybe.