Fighting Feathers

When I was a young girl, my mother filled my world with amazing sayings and adages that remain with me still. If she was angry, which was rare, she had some interesting ways to express it. Profanity wasn’t in her vocabulary! “WTF!” was out of the question.

With her southern accent in full force, my mother stated her upset in other ways. “Why, he makes me so mad, I could spit!” she’d say when my Daddy was in one of his rants. “I’m gonna give ya’ what Patty gave the drum!” my brother and I were told from time to time. “Why she’s got me on my ear, spoutin’ that nonsense!” or “He doesn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain!” she might say of someone. The saying that became one of my favorites, however was, “I feel like I could fight a feather!” She would utter those words under her breath, not willing to drag anyone else into her temporary distress as she plowed through the day managing the duties that lay in her path.   

For the past few days, I too have felt as though I could “fight a feather”. It’s been an underlying feeling of anxiety and fretfulness that I couldn’t discern for awhile. Something had me ill at ease though. Yesterday, I figured out what it was. May is here. May of last year was the worst month of my life, and while it is behind me, the recollection of it sneaked up on me like a bad boy and has been following me like a shadow. Knowing, truly understanding now, has freed the feathers to float away. I have been able, finally, to hold those sad, sad memories in my hands, head, and heart. I’ve cried a bit. Now I can go on.

“Everyone has a story,” she said. “Even I do.”

Mady welcomed the first hint of daylight, the sky slowly lightening from black, to grey, and then to a pale blue that certainly would darken as the day progressed. The fog had pulled back to the ocean well before dawn and not one cloud could be seen in the sky. The crystalline blue above would be a welcome canopy for the woman for she had not slept all night, the hours spiting her like a bad friend. Her mind had twisted minute after minute with muddled memories that took her back in time to places she had hoped to escape forever. Life had not been served up on the proverbial silver platter for Mady Miller. It had been, instead, a struggle from the start. Yet she had gotten this far -- forty years and counting. When she was awake she could push her impoverished childhood aside; she could forget the harassment served up by insensitive students who stalked her schools; she could squash the seemingly unstoppable abuse from a father steeped in anger that was fueled by whiskey as strong and bitter as he was; and she could forget the untimely death of her beloved mother, shrunken to a skeleton before she died of cancer diagnosed too late. The abortion was behind her. The date rape too, stuffed into deep pockets in her weary brain.

No one knew. Mady was sure of that. She functioned beautifully during the day, a smile playing on her lips, a giggle in her voice. Adored by her colleagues, she flipped her jet, black hair, flashed her ebony eyes and honed in on anyone who wanted her help or attention. Listening was her forte and she did it without pretense, giving the gift she had always so wanted herself.

Mady knew. Stored inside everyone was a story. Unlike Mady, though, who harbored life’s journey like a secret, others did not. Instead their emotions tumbled out in irrational, unexpected ways that made the world a messy place sometimes. It was a certainty to keep in mind. She could do that.

A Glimpse of Another Character

John was going bald and it didn’t bother him for one flippin’ second. In fact, he embraced the fact that he had been losing his hair at an alarming rate since he was sixteen. When he was eighteen he shaved his head clean. “Easy to take care of,” he chuckled, his bright, blue eyes glistening and his smile wide. He was a handsome man, one who oozed confidence. It just came natural.

If there was one thing John had learned as a child, it was that his self-esteem did not hinge on the absence of a head full of hair. He had learned that lesson in a most unusual way, however – from his now dead father who had instructed John in ways he could never have fathomed.

John had watched his father years before face the same fate, baldness, but his was not without resistance. His dad had grown the few strands that existed to enormous lengths and swept them across his naked pate in hopes no one would notice. In front of the cracked, bathroom mirror, the old man combed and primped, pressing the hair into place and spraying it for good measure. The result was a thin helmet of fine fluff, the lacquered mat conspicuously sparkling in the sun. In time he gave up, resorting to caps and hats to conceal what he could not accept. John’s father went to his grave distressed by his appearance, and for that, John was a bit sad.

Yet John was satisfied too. He had avoided the trap that had ensnared his father and he had done so by watching. The old man had not needed to say a thing . . .

Press Release Below!

MAY IS NATIONAL BRAIN CANCER AWARENESS MONTH!

TUMOR ME – THE STORY OF MY FIREFIGHTER

written by local author, Judith DeChesere-Boyle, is a new memoir that chronicles the nine-year battle of her son, Alex Stevenson,

a CAL FIRE Fire Apparatus Engineer, who served in Napa County, CA.

Alex Stevenson died at the age of 39 on May 24, 2013 of job-related brain cancer. He was awarded full honors by CAL FIRE, his firefighting “family” and was further honored at the IAFF Fallen Firefighter Memorial in Colorado Springs, CO in September 2013 as well as by the California Fire Foundation in Sacramento, CA in October 2013. The “blurb” on the back cover of the memoir introduces the story of a man who had been living his childhood dream of being a firefighter until he was diagnosed with the brain cancer that took his life. This 500-page memoir chronicles the journey and includes an appendix with “words for Alex” from his CAL FIRE colleagues as well as others. The author is donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this memoir to the American Brain Tumor Association. It is available on Amazon.com.

Contact Information:

Judith DeChesere-Boyle

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 94952

(xxx) xxx-xxxx  Home

(xxx) xxx-xxxx Cell

jdechesereboyle@yahoo.com

More on Earth Day On The Day After!

It seems to me that every day should be Earth Day. I know so many people who have absolute respect for our planet. They recycle; they conserve; they admire and value nature; they actually seek and enjoy places of beauty that still exist around us.

Conversely, too many folks seem oblivious to the fact that the Earth’s resources are finite. Many simply will not accept responsibility for the incredible place we live and, indeed, share. It’s clear that for some, global warming is a joke or a hoax of some kind. The idea that greedy, careless corporations, ignorance, and blatant disrespect are compromising our world is disheartening to say the least. Sadly, politicians use the concept of global warming as political fodder; incredibly, some are unwilling simply to listen to scientific reason. Instead the issue is used to crank up the volume on the arguments, that contrary to our world’s resources, seem infinite. How sad is that!

A posting on Facebook by my friend, Dave, caught my eye this morning. The words speak for themselves. I cannot help but believe that we owe it to ourselves, and certainly to future generations, to do our part, however small. The problems that threaten our Earth unquestionably appear overwhelming for one individual, but each of us is capable of doing something . . . one step at a time. We need to get going, though, before it’s too late; I hate to think that maybe it already is.