After spending the day wiring and re-wiring all 3 bikes and trailers and deciding to leave the flatbed, Bert tried to start his bike to make sure he had not run the battery down. It started up just fine, but the idle kept getting higher and higher. Bert was pissed! He had spent around $2000 on this bike to fix this problem and get it looked over so it would be ready for this trip.
We were all hot and frustrated. Bert said to hell with it, he was going to fly to CT to see Johnny graduate and then just go back to Israel. Dad told him to take his bike and I offered him my bike. This trip started out as his graduation present to his son. I was heartbroken to not be going on the trip, but it was the right thing to do. Dad and Bert started getting the trailers matched to Dad’s bike and my bike. I walked off and wallowed in my self-pity for a bit. I didn’t want to cry in front of Bert. I didn’t want him to feel bad about taking my bike.
When I get myself under control I went back to see if there was anything I could do. Dad and Bert suggested that we all go. Four people on two bikes… it would be crowded, but we could do it. At first, I was resistant! If I couldn’t take my own bike, why go?! But as I thought about it I realized that I was being hard headed and I really didn’t want to miss this trip. When we went to bed that night, the 3 of us were going to finish wiring things up and get head north the next morning on the 2 bikes.
When we got up the next morning, we got my bike wired for the trailer. Bert started his bike and it still was idling high. He thought about it and decided that he would ride it any way. The thought was that if it would make it to CT, he could get it fixed there. We loaded the bikes, hooked to the trailers and headed north.
We rode out from the cabin with a great hope in our hearts that all the bad luck was behind us now and set our sights on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The ride was beautiful and exciting. In some places the sharp 25mph curves would make me nervous, but with each one I felt better and better. Not only was I getting over the fear caused from my accident, but it just seemed that everything was finally going to start going right. I think we all felt that way.
Because Bert’s bike was idling so high, he had to maintain a certain speed. Because I had laid my bike down just a month ago in a gravel filled curve, I was not comfortable with running his speed. So from time to time he would get far ahead of us and stop to wait for us to catch up. But finally we made it to the highest point on the Blue Ridge parkway and got a picture.
We hit some construction on our little detour down to South Carolina. Bert shut off his bike every time it looked like we were going to be stopped for any length of time. We made it to the NC/SC line, took our pictures, and rode back up to US64.
As the day went on, we started to realize that Bert’s bike might not make it to Putnam, CT. We had to jump it off twice. Once in the middle of a town at a stop light. (That was lots of fun!) While stopped, Dad put on his 4-ways and heard something pop. Now he had no turn signals on his bike or the trailer. We got Bert’s bike running and changed plans. Surly there was a Honda shop in Ashville, NC. We would ride US64 over to Ashville, grab a room for the night, find a Honda shop the next morning, get Dad’s bike fixed and carry on.
We jumped on US64 and hammered down, me in the lead, Dad’s second and Bert bringing up the rear. Bert was the only one that didn’t have a trailer and wasn’t having lighting problems. We were scooting along when all of the sudden I saw Bert make a right turn behind us. I knew what had happened… his bike had died again. Dad and I went down the road a bit. We found a place to turn around and Dad went back while I waited. When they didn’t show up in a few minuets, I rode back as well. They had tried to jump the bike off again and it just wouldn’t start. Bert was pissed and was cleaning the bike out. There was nothing we could do right then, so we might as well go on to Ashville, get a room and start again the next day. I found a place to turn around again, Bert hopped on the back of Dad’s bike and we set off to find a hotel room.
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 08:59. Add a comment
I thought that some of ya’ll might find this interesting. I have Google Latitude on my phone. It ia a very cool app! For those that would like to follow along on the trip in real time, you can come to my blog and find it in the left side bar.
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago at 07:29. Add a comment
I do believe that Murphy has set up shop in one of our pockets! Would someone PLEASE get him out and shoot him! Grab a cup of what ever ya like to sip on, sit back and get comfortable, because recounting the last few days is going to take a bit and you are not going to want to miss it.
Saturday morning we finished that last little bit of packing and hit the road, 3 bikes pulling 3 trailers. We rode over in to Alabama, picked up a skinny road, (two lane road), and went down to the Alabama/Florida line. We crossed into Florida just far enough to say that we entered the state and took a picture.
We then made our way back to the big road, (interstate highway), and hammered down to Georgia. Our plan was to make it to Blue Ridge, GA to my Aunt & Uncle’s cabin. We would spend the night, get up the next morning and ride on up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. But Murphy had to stick his nose into the mix and it just didn’t happen that way.
I had added a handle bar mounted speaker system to my bike so I would have some tunes for the ride without having to put earphones in my ears. It came with a usb charger for my iPod. With all that wired into the bike, the new break modulator and now pulling a trailer that has lights…I started popping fuses. I popped 2 before we decided that eveything I had on there needed a bigger fuse. Once we put a 20amp fuse in place of the 15amp, I have not had any more problems with blowing them. But that was not the only problem going on.
Bert bought a new shinny trailer and it has 4 wires where all our bikes have 5. We got tail lights and break lights working, but no matter what we did, we could not get turn signals. The trailer Bert was pulling had tail lights, one break light and the right turn signal. The trailer I was pulling had tail lights, break lights and left turn signal. We figured that we could re-wire everything when we got to GA for the night. We had spent all day the day before trying to get them working and couldn’t.
The tempretures got up to around 97 going down the road and by the time we got to Blue Ridge we were happy to see it! We decided that if we could get everything re-wired in the morning and get out of there by noon, we would be ok.
Yeap! you guessed it, Murphy struck again! We spent all day there working on trailers and bikes. Bert fried my break modulator and we had smoke curling up from it for a few minuets! We took it off the bike and started again with a different trailer. Nothing was working. Dad & Bert bought lights, drilled holes on the new trailer, mounted them and ran the wires to make them the turn siglals. Whoo! Hoo! We had one trailer wired to two bikes, Dad and Bert’s bikes. My poor bike was left sitting for a while.
Bert decided that they would go ahead and totally re-wire the flatbed trailer I was pulling. He cut out all the old wires, ran the news one and wired the pig-tail……nothing! Not one single light worked no matter how he wired the pig tail or what bike it was hooked to. So the decision was made to leave it.
It’s 0445 in the morning and I am excited about this trip. I can’t tell you how many time I hear people that ride motorcycles talk about how they would love to take off for a month or two, live off their bike and ride all over the country. Well, I am going to do just that…starting today. A few months ago my brother, Bert, said he was going to be coming home from Israel and wanted to criss-cross the country on his bike. One of his sons, Johnny, is graduating from high school in Connecticut and this would be his graduation present. Bert planned giving the Ultra Classic that he has now to Johnny and buying another bike. With him going to be in Israel for a few more years, I thought that was crazy. The bike would only be ridden once a year when he came home on vacation. My Dad, Albert, said he was going to go with them and how great it would be if I could go as well. OH I agreed, but both of us were worried about whether my wrists could hold up to a 10,000 to 12,000 mile, 45 day trip.
For those that don’t know, November 19, 2008 I fell off the top of my loaded flatbed and shattered both of my wrists. That fall ended a 20 year truck driving career. I had pins and external fixators in both arms for 10 weeks. It took me 6 1/2 months to be able to get back on my bike and that was after I added a clutch assist. For months I would walk out to my bike and see if I could pull the clutch lever. I figured when I could pull it back and hold it a few seconds, then I could try to get back to riding it. Five months after the fall I was beginning to wonder if I would ever be ab;e to ride my bike again, did some research and found the clutch assist. By Memorial Day weekend of 2009, I had it on the bike and rode to Gulfport for the All Harley Gulfport Blowout Rally. It was painful but I was happy to be back on my bike. (The old saying where there’s a will, there’s way is one of my favorites.)
In August 2009, I rode to Sturgis, SD for the big bike rally there with my trucker/biker group that I co-founded, Road Dogs on Hogs. By the time I made it to Nebraska and met the main part of the group, I was popping pain pills like they we candy an in tears by nightfall from the pain in my wrists. I put my bike on one of the guys trailer for part of the last day into Sturgis and rode behind other people almost all week there. When the rally ended I only made it about 300 miles out of Sturgis when I decided that I was in to much pain and taking to many pain pills to be safe. I called my Dad and he hooked to a trailer and came to get me. It broke my heart to put my bike on a trailer and realize that I could not do what I had done just a year before.
When Dad talked about Bert’s plans for this trip and everything that he was doing, I really wanted to go. He asked me if I really thought I could do those kind to miles in that many days. I told him I could. “My wrist have healed a lot since last year. I will be fine,” I said. In the back of my mind I really wasn’t sure. Then I got to thinking. Johnny would be getting his motorcycle endorsement in May, and this would be his first big trip. I wonder if Bert would be open to the idea of him, Johnny and me teaming up to keep the two Harley’s going. It would save him from having to buy another bike, give my wrists a break and not put so much pressure on Johnny who is a new rider. Dad talked to him about it and he liked the idea.
So here we are, a couple of months later and will be leaving out on this once in a life time motorcycle trip in a couple hours. It has not been easy getting here. I am going to college at the University on Southern Mississippi and my boyfriend lives 500 miles away in Dover, AR. I had to finish the semester, get to Arkansas to see Danny, the boyfriend, get the bike looked over, got a cat sitter, help Dad get Bert’s bike and all the trailers ready for the long trip and be ready to roll by today. This has not been an easy task. Bert’s bike would not stay running and we took it to the shop. After finals, I rode mine to Dover, AR and put it in the shop there to have a 50, 000 mile service done. One thing after another happened and things were found on my bike that needed to be fixed before this kind of a trip was made on the bike. I got it out of the shop and in less than 24 hours later, laid it down. Luckily, the shop I had it in are great people and they had me back on the rode with a new custom paint job and a bunch of bling in a week and a half.
Dad had picked up Bert’s bike while I was gone. We decided to take it fro a ride and it had problems, the idle was to high. I called the shop it had been in and he told me some thing to look for. I could not find anything wrong with just a look over, but we decided that we would take it back to him on Thursday. I washed and polished my bike and thought I would do the same on Bert’s bike. It has been sitting for a year and really looked like crap. When I went to pull it out of the garage, it wouldn’t stay running. Dad and I loaded in on the trailer and took it to the shop. That was this last Tuesday, we got it back on Thursday and it seems to be running great now.
Bert flew in from Israel yesterday and the 3 of us got the new trailer he bought to pull behind his bike re-wired. We did the last minuet checks and started packing. I think, after we get the last minuet packing and arranging done, we will be ready to roll. I will be blogging as much as I can from the road and taking pictures. We will have cameras and a cam-corder with us. So check back often to see how the trip is going and to share in the ride!
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago at 05:33. Add a comment
I have been told many times that there are two categories of motorcycle riders, those that have laid it down, and those that haven’t yet! Well, I am now a member of those that have. On May19th I was in Arkansas visiting Danny, my boyfriend. I was on my way from Russellville back to his house on a skinny back road. I have run this road several time when I have been up there and it has some very nice curves to hang in to on the bike. But luckily on this day I was taking it easy. I had just gotten my Harley out of the shop and had a new triple tree and it was steering a bit different than what I was use to. So I was having to get use to it again. I was only n 3rd gear when I started into the curve. Good thing, because the county had laid tar and covered it with gravel. As soon as I hit the loose gravel the back of the bike started getting squirrely on me. I tried to get it under control, but nothing I did worked. I steered it toward the grass should on the other side of the road in hopes that I could keep it up that way. The back tire kept trying to go on down into the ditch. I steered it into the ditch thinking that if I guided it there I might have a chance of keeping it up. No such luck! There had been a lot of rain in the area and the ground was soft. I went down and slid about 75 feet on the right side of the bike.
After I crawled from under the bike, I checked myself to anything broken or bleeding and called the shop. Shelby’s Custom Cycles is where I had a 50,000 mile service done and the new triple tree put on. I knew they would help me get it out of the ditch and look it over. Robert answered the phone. I told him what had happened and where I was. He jumped in his car and came right down. He looked the bike over and said that he could ride it out of the ditch. I told him go right ahead because I was not going to do it. My right knee and hip were already hurting and I was still shaking a little. We called the Sheriff and they arrived a few minuets later. A couple of guys had stopped to check on me before Robert got there and they mentioned that there was no warning sign coming from that direction. So I walk back to check it out. There was a sing, but this is what it looked like…..
The officer that showed up was very pissed when he saw the sign and called the county judge. I don’t know what he said to the judge, but he he told me that the judge said he would be out that afternoon to take a look at things. After the usual questions and answers the officer left and Robert hopped on the bike and rode it to the shop. Once there, and calmed down, I could see the damage a little better.
I called my insurance company, State Farm. They said they would have someone get int touch with me. Shelby said to not worry about it, he would have my bike back to me “better than it was” by time I was to head home. It took till the following Monday to get an adjuster out to the shop. They started tearing the bike down before she left and had everything that needed to be painted down to Russellville to the pain shop that afternoon. Shelby explained that I had a PGR mission on the following Monday and he wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss it. They brought paint chips by Danny’s house that evening so I could pick the colors. They told me to just relax, the bike would be fine, I would get home in time for the mission and my big 6 week bike trip with my Dad, brother and nephew.
Friday morning Shelby called me about noon and told me that they got the paint back that morning and would have the bike ready for me around 1600. At 1600 he called again and said it would be another hour. At 1645 his wife showed up to pick me up. I was excited. State Farm had totaled my bike and I had bought it back. Shelby asked me how much he had to work with on the pain and other thing that the bike needed and for “bling.” I told him and he said that I could not see the bike till it was ready to pick up. He said he wasn’t to surprise me with the paint job and everything else.
The bike was sitting out front when we pulled up. If not for the fact that I had picked the colors and know the stickers on my windshield, I would not have known it was my Harley. I was very pleased with how it looked. Shelby had chromed out the motor, put the brake mod in my back break lights and the paint looked great!
To say that I was surprised and pleased with how it came out is a BIG understatement! Shelby, Robert and the paint shop did a great job is a very short time. I was treated like family the whole time. Let me tell ya’ll this, I will take my bike back there any time that I need something done that I can’t do myself.
If you find yourself up in northwest Arkansas on hwy 7 north of Russellville, go about 10 miles north of Dover and stop in and say hi to Shelby and Robert. Tell them Cindy sent ya!
Even though I have not reach MMI with the plastic surgeon, and Dr Waguespack has not released me, (She did say I was MMI), my lawyer and AIG/Chartis have started the back and forth or trying to work out a settlement. Of course, nothing can make up for all the pain of loosing a 20 year career as a truck driver, but we had to start some where. So, my lawyer made the first demand of $79,000. That was two months ago. The other day they came back with an offer of $47,000. I keep telling my lawyer that I am not asking them to support me for the rest of my life, I just want to be able to make it through college without loosing everything I have. He made a counter offer of $68,000. I know they are not going to agree to this either.
I have discovered that Workman’s Comp is really not set up for someone that is hurt as bad as I was when I shattered both my wrists. It is not set up for people are injured so bad the they loose their career. It is set up for more minor injuries. Something really should be done about this. I am not sure where to start, but I plan on doing some research and see. I know it is not going to help me right now, but it may help someone else down the road.
In the mean time, I will just have to try and fight with them and see what happens. Sadly, I know I am going to get screwed!
My Dad, brother, nephew and I are planning to criss-cross the country this summer on the motorcycles. Since I know my wrists wont be able to handle 10,000 to 12,000 miles in 5 weeks, Bert (my brother), Johnny (my nephew who is a NEW rider), and I are going to swap out on the two Harley’s. We will all be pulling trailers and will camp out almost every night we are on the trip. We will have two camcorders, several cameras, and one laptop with us on the trip. I hope that I will be able to post something every night or every other night that we are on this trip. Of course there will be the mobile shots that I upload to Facebook and MySpace during the day. So be sure to watch out for those.
To my truck driving and biker friends, please stay in touch while I am on this trip. If we are going to cross paths maybe we can stop for a few minuets and visit. If anyone would like to ride part of the trip with us, you are more than welcome to. Please just understand that we are going to be on a bit of a schedule. My brother is flying in from Israel on a certain day and has to fly back on a certain day. So if you want to ride with us, you will need to meet us some where on our route. We will be spending a couple of days in the northeast for Johnny’s graduation and down around Del Rio, TX to see my niece, Taylor.
Here is our schedule:
Saturday June 12: Drive from MS through AL and FL to North GA
Sunday June 13: Drive from GA up to start of the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC and into VA with short trip to SC
Monday June 14: Blue Ridge Parkway takes us to Harpers Ferry in WV and into DC Maybe
Tuesday June 15: DC Area into MY and DW and up to PA to Dutch Country
Wednesday June 16: PA to NJ and NY and into CT to the Boys House.
Thursday June 17: Day trip from CT through RI, MA and NH and into ME for lunch then back to CT
Friday June 18: Dinner with the Boys
Saturday June 19: Johnny’s Graduation
Sunday June 20: Day with the Boys
Monday June 21: Drive from CT through MA and VT then into NY to Cooperstown
Tuesday June 22: Baseball Hall of Fame then down to State Park outside NYC
Wednesday June 23: Trip into City to the Statue of Liberty
Thursday June 24: Drive up to Niagara Falls
Friday June 25: Drive from Niagara to Detroit through Canada
Saturday June 26: Leave MI drive through Waldron MI into OH then over to Waldron, IN and down to Louisville KY
Sunday June 27: KY to Cave in Rock IL then over to Paducah and down to TN Maybe in MO but at least to AR
Monday June 28: AR down into LA and over into TX
Tuesday June 29: Over to the Alamo and into Del Rio
Wednesday June 30: Camping with Taylor
Thursday July 1: Camping with Taylor
Friday July 2: Camping with Taylor
Saturday July 3: Camping with Taylor
Sunday July 4: Camping with Taylor
Monday July 5: Up to El Paso and maybe into NM
Tuesday July 6: NM to AZ
Wednesday July 7: AZ to Hoover Dam Area and NV
Thursday July 8: Death Valley up to Lake Tahoe CA
Friday July 9: Out to the PCH
Saturday July 10: PCH up into OR
Sunday July 11: PCH inward to ?
Monday July 12: up into WA or over into ID
Tuesday July 13:through ID and up to Glacier Park in MN
Wednesday July 14: drive toward WY and Yellowstone
Thursday July 15: Yellowstone
Friday July 16: down to UT
Saturday July 17: UT over to Denver CO.
Sunday July 18: Drive through NE and into KS
Monday July 19: KS to OK
Tuesday July 20: OK and Mo then into AR(I will be splitting off at Harrison, AR and going to Dover, AR for about a week then will ride home)
Over the last 3 days I have had the sad but honorable duty of riding escort for KIA SPC Anthony Blount. This was my second KIA mission, but this time I was able to participate all 3 days instead of just the day of the services. I am thankful that in a weird twist of fate, even though I can no longer drive a big truck, I can still ride my bike and am able to give these Heroes my support and stand a line for them.
Thursday morning around 1020 a small jet landed at the Hattiesburg/Laural Airport with SPC Anthony Blount’s body. This was the first time I have met a plane at the airport and it was so very hard. I stood beside Kim and Wilma and let the tears roll down my face. Kim and I were lucky that our sons came home safe as they can, both suffering from PTSD. But Wilma is a Gold Star Mom and I know this day was very hard on her. We stood there arm in arm to comfort each other as they brought the coffin off the plane with the family standing at the edge of the flight line. I can only imagine their pain and feel a hint of guilt for being thankful for that.
There were 76 bikes there to bring SPC Blount home to his family. Not all were PGR, some were from Camp Shelby and a couple of other motorcycle groups from the area. As we made our way into town and around the High School, I was amazed and thankful to see so many people out on the side of the road to support and honor this Hero and his family. Once again I had to fight the tears as we made our round of the school and the age of the kids there went from High School to the Elementary, younger and younger. At one point I remember seeing a boy scout troop on the side of the road holding the National Flag and saluting. My goggles filled with tears; it made it very hard to see where I was riding.
On Friday night there were about 25 PGR that stood the Flag line during the viewing. Taking turns every 15 minuets for 3 hours we did our best to make sure the family knew that their loved one was honored. Several time family would come out and thank us for being there. My response was always the same, “It is our honor to be allowed to be here.” And that is how I and many other feel. At one point, after standing the line, as Kim and I walked back down to the resting area, SPC Blount’s Aunt stopped us to thank us again. She had flown in from up north and was full of great stories about Anthony. We listened to her talk about Anthony and how he wanted to become a preacher and how surprised she was when he told them he was going into the Army. She was very proud of her nephew and you could tell that she loved him very much.
Saturday morning we gathered again at the Funeral Home, this time to escort SPC Blount’s from the funeral home to the church to the cemetery. We had around 80 biles this day. We had the honor of being lead by SPC Blount’s brother-in-law and his cousin rode with my Dad at the end of all the bikes. Once again, the route we took was lined with people showing their love and support. Once at the church, we stood a flag line for the family to enter and then waited for the services to be over.
With my left wrist hurting I decided I would go ahead with two others to the cemetery to help set up the flags and wait for the procession to get there. We set up flags in a U shape around the tent and a few others on the entry road to the cemetery. The the color guard arrived. A few minuets after that, the first of the PGR came rolling in.
I stood there directing them through the route they were to take. Then when the bikes had past, I rendered my honors to SPC Blount and his family.
We then stood a flag line during the grave side service. Ed, our State Capitan presented the family with a flag, a plaque and a bear with a medal for the unborn daughter.
I am so proud to be a part of such a great group of people that now matter where we come from, what our beliefs are, or our political views are, we love, honor and support our Troops. I like many others wish there was no more mission like this to do, but we know better. So as long as there are KIA, Veterans, Troops deploying overseas to combat zones, we will be there to make sure that they know they have love and support back home. That what they are doing DOES matter and that we DO applicate their sacrifices.
To SPC Anthony Blount: Thank you for you service and making the ultimate sacrifice.
To his family: I can not know your pain, but you are in my prayers. Anthony will NEVER be forgotten by any of us.
I have a Philosophy class that, at times, brings up things that I have not allowed myself to think about in a long time and some of the readings touch me very deeply. I realize that the purpose of the class it to open the mind to new thoughts and ideas, and for us to apply these lessons to our own lives, but some times it is not easy for me. Being one of the older students in the class and having experienced twice the “life” as most of my other class mates, I know I bring a different perspective to the discussions. Prof Morgan has told me and the class time and again that he enjoys my being in the class for that very reason. But at times, I wonder if I should keep my mouth shut, more because of how talking about it will affect me rather than how it will the class.
The reading we have for Monday’s class is from Philip Hallie’s essay “From Cruelty to Goodness.” In the essay Hallie demonstrates several types of good and evil, cruelty and kindness. He also states that good or kindness does not always negate the evil or cruelty. As he goes on he talks about the French town of Le Chambon during WWII and how they risked their lives to saved 6,000 Jews from the Nazis. At the end of the text he tells the story of a woman that was at one of his lectures. At the end of the lecture a woman stood and asked him if the Le Chambon he was talking about was in the Department of Haute-Loire? When he told he yes, it was, she said, “Then you have been speaking about the village that saved all three of my children.”
The following is from my text book, “The Moral Life” by L. Pojman & L Vaughn.
She then asked to come up and say one sentence. There was not a sound, not even breathing, to be heard in the room. She came to the front of the room and said, ” The Holocaust was a storm, lighting, thunder, wind, rain, yes. And Le Chambon was the rainbow.”
In this class Prof Morgan requires us to pick 10 of the 35 readings to write a one page paper on. The first half should be a recap of what we read. (so he knows we read it.) And the second half is to be our thoughts and feelings about the text. We are to apply it to our own lives as well. The following is what I wrote in the second half of my paper.
I agree that in many instances, the good in the midst of the evil can make the evil far worse. Having been in two abusive marriages and been sexually assaulted while in Iraq, I know about physical and mental pain. Abuse is abuse. Mine is in no way on the scale of the Holocaust but the basic principles are the same. Just as the Jews were told they were going into a shower that was really a gas chamber, I too had my own chamber of death. In a vicious cycle of abuse and love, a person learns what is ok and what is not. To keep from experiencing the pain, mental or physical, you go out of your way to make sure you do the right things at the right time. When you find that it was not “good enough” and you have to suffer the pain again, you reprimand yourself for NOT being “good enough”. Over and over as this cycle progresses, the abuser gains more and more power over you till you do not know how to function without the pain. You begin to believe that you are the “bad” person and that they are the “good” one. Your self-worth decreases to the point that the abuse is what defines you as a person and gives meaning to your life. When this happens over and over again with, different people wielding the power, you set yourself up as a victim for the world. You become the door mat that they wipe their feet upon.
But once in a while a person is lucky enough to run across someone that is truly compassionate in heart. They help you pick yourself back up, dust you off, set you on your feet and stand beside you whispering in your ear that you are “good enough”, that you can break deaths grip on your soul, if only you will believe in yourself. That is what the town of Le Chambon did for the children. The woman that Hallie talked about at the end of the reading that only wanted to say one sentence summed this up very well. In stating that Le Chambon was the rainbow, she is saying that they gave them hope; hope that the pain would end, hope for a better life, and the reassurance that they are worthy of both. Without that, we never are able to dust off the residue left from the abuses we have suffered and will most absurdly allow ourselves to be over-powered by another. In the end, we are walking our own death walk to the chamber. Our spirit dies, our will dies, our soul dies, and all we have left to wait for, is for our body to die.
As I said in the beginning of this post, many times what we read in this class touches me very deeply. I don’t always know what to do with those feelings, because for me, showing them or talking about them leaves me open to attack. It is such a deeply touching subject it leaves me open to be hurt by those that I trust enough to talk with about it. I realize through many of the things I have read in this class that I have come a very long way from being that 2 time abused wife that I was many years ago. I have taken back my power from my abusers. But I have also realized, that in some small ways, I still give power, to hurt me, to those that I care about. Is that avoidable? I don’t think so. For to truly never give anyone the power to hurt you would mean to totally shut yourself off from everyone. My, my, wouldn’t that be a very lonely, pathetic life? So I guess I will take the risk and care enough about someone to give them a LITTLE power. Because loving someone means to trust them to not misuse the power you give them over you.
