The charity dropped off over a dozen planters (aloe vera spikes) at the local VFW yesterday. There were only a couple of people at the bar there. Place still smells like cigarettes... But those folks fought for our country. Let 'em smoke.
The planters are never very extravagant, and I suppose the veterans of foreign wars would not want them to be. They are made out of plain old love. And given away for free.
This is the monster, my sister, who poses such a huge threat to our county government here in Kalama-who? Why, she's practically Grendel's Dam, only with Grendel having died of an accidental hanging while playing in his front yard, and Medical Examiner Joyce deJong then wrongly determining Grendel's tragic and untimely death to be a suicide.
Let me tell you what it's like to be around Charlie's Mom anymore:
She'll be having a great day. Painting her rocks, tending her gardens, fussing about the house as time slogs past. In the middle of her new normalcy, suddenly, the corners of her mouth will turn down, showing the creases in her skin that will be permanent. Both her face and her eyes will point beseechingly at the ceiling or sky, like there's something there. Then she'll start to cry.
Not just over Charlie, but also other friends and family members and pets who have gone down in a cascade of grief over the last five years. We have both lost so many loved ones that it's hard to remember them all in one setting. And it all started with her boy, the one she loved the most, out of all the people in the world.
That's plenty bad, yet unlike other places, bad isn't bad enough around here. The way she has been treated by her own public servants is nothing short of sickening. And if they get away with doing it to her, they'll get away with doing it to you, if you're foolish enough to live here with anything to lose.
This could have all been taken care of, the right way, a long time ago. But we don't have the sort of fortitude in government that other places have. We have grubby little rung-grabbers who do not give a shit about my sister, or your sister, or you, or me.
I would rattle off the list of names again, but by this time, it is clear that they do not care. You cannot shame those who will not feel it.
But I can act as a beacon. Or, rather, an anti-beacon. A warning. I can raise an orange flag with a black spot.
For you.
pH 1o.o1.2o
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