A MERRY-GO-ROUND OF EMOTIONS

I hope that you have a wonderful, relaxing, weekend. Today we spend time with Ann in New Jersey as she settles herself into her new surroundings. Tomorrow, being a day of rest, I will blog only some of my poetry, but continue with Ann's life game on Monday. I pray that all is well with you and your family and friends.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 37                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                               
I was so glad to be with Becky and the children; Becky and I developed a close relationship and of course there were all the children to love. Then I found it difficult to watch Becky stumble and fall and get hurt from the over-use of prescription drugs and I found it difficult not to interfere when Becky was treating the children unfairly. We found each other fighting more and more and I began to be very ill both physically and mentally. David set out to find me my own place which was difficult because my income was very low, $650.00 a month. Coming to New Jersey I had lost $300 in S.S.I. money that I was eligible for in California, because the cost of living was cheaper in New Jersey. 

Anders reached out to me by sending me brand new music CDs, and his emotional support; we became very close over the years to follow.

I signed up for Jewish Family Services and received a counselor named Jane-Marie. She was a wonderful woman and very concerned for my mental health.

My mental health was definitely unhealthy, and one day I figured to end it all by taking an overdose of my psychiatric medications. I called Jane-Marie for help and then went to sleep. Jane-Marie came and knocked down my bedroom door and then called 911. I was transported to this lovely mental hospital in North Hampton quite a long way from home. I was there for two weeks and met some marvelous people. One young woman, named Julie Ann, became a close friend, really like a daughter. She considered me to be her mother-Mama Ann she called me and we still write, and talk to each other over the phone.
                                                                                                                                                             
I learned a lot about myself in the hospitalization, which would be my last hospitalization. I came to grips with my loss of Ed and I learned a lot about how the past was affecting me now. I looked those things straight in the eye and found solid ground to walk on.

I had had to stop driving after being in two automobile accidents, over about a two month period, when I had been in Jersey for about a year. It turned out that I had cataracts on both of my eyes and my vision was impaired without my realizing it. I gave the children's other grandmother, Loretta, the car and stopped driving. A few months later I had an operation to remove the cataracts and miracle of miracles I was left with 20/20 vision in both eyes, although I had to wear reading glasses to read or do close work.

Without a car for transportation, I learned the bus routes and went all over the county as I needed to. Of course David took both Becky and I shopping for whatever we needed, but I had to get to doctors by myself and if I wanted to go somewhere else special, like the casinos, I went by bus and jitney. I found the bus rides to be marvelous, you meet new people and hear about their lives and problems and you go home feeling better about your own situation.

Shortly thereafter, David found an apartment for me that was close to where Becky and the grandchildren lived. It was a beautiful little place in a seniors-only complex. It was so peaceful and beautiful in the area that I felt like I had moved to heaven. It was the first time in my life that I had ever lived alone and I loved every moment of it. Now my spirit began to blossom and I felt free for the first time in my life. Because I was happier and less stressed, my mental health improved markedly, and between Becky and I all the fences were mended and we became closer than at any other time in our lives.

Anders sent me the Sedoma Method, which is a method of releasing which sets you totally free of old business in your life and helps you to grow and develop spiritually by realizing who you really are. This helped me more than any other method I had ever tried and I became strong and wrote a book of poetry for my children and grandchildren called, Heartfire 2007.                                                                                 

Tomorrow I will share some of the poetry from Heartfire 2007 with you...                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

SOULS CAN TOUCH OTHER SOULS

INEVITABLE RECKONING

When you understand that this present life is only one day in your long life, and that at the change called death you simply disappear unto the next plane, to come back again later on-perhaps several hundred years later-then the events of this particular life appear in their true proportion, and then you begin to have dominion. The events of this life will not appear less important because of your new knowledge, but they will no longer intimidate you, because you will know that you can control them. No seeming misfortune will any longer have power to break your heart or weaken your courage. You will understand life as the wondrous opportunity and the glorious gift that it it. (Emmet Fox)

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 37                                                                                  

Trust me, when left to our own devices we can tear ourselves apart.

Every moment of Ed's and my life together I relived to try to see if I could have made a change so that he wouldn't have died. I kept seeing his pleading eyes the night he died. Oh, if I could only have lifted him. Oh, if I could have made him stay in the hospital that night. I beat myself up on the idiocy of being on the streets, living in the wilderness when we were in our sixties. What was I thinking of?

How could I have allowed him not to seek better care? I should have been kinder and gentler. I should have been more loving and forgiving.

In the end I relived each day for the wonder and love of it, and I remembered your eyes my Ed, your eyes so beautiful and expressive. I danced with you to "Harvest Moon" and I felt the delicate pressures of your hand in mine, my head against your chest, the warmth of our connection. For there is the reality of energy forms meeting, even if in slightly different dimensions. Souls can touch other souls

I was in grief, angry at Ed for leaving me and in denial that he could possibly be dead, but I had to put off experiencing grief because of the pressures of having to make a big change in my life.

I drove to Debby's home and rested there. I took the truck back to the car lot that we bought her from and pretty much just dumped it there. I still owed the bill for her that I would pay for a long time, but I couldn't take two vehicles to New Jersey. I decided that the little Saturn was the most suitable for my current needs. Then I sent boxes of things that were important to me, and that wouldn't fit in the car for a trip, along to New Jersey; to Becky's house in Pleasantville. Everything else I owned, but didn't have the money to send, was packed into boxes and landed on Debby's patio.

David arrived from New Jersey and he spent a couple of days talking to Debby and the children, and going around to greet old friends. Then we were ready to start up across the entire country. Pain at the loss of Ed wiped me out physically as we started across America.

We stopped at Charlie's home in Iowa and it was good to see Charlie again and I got to meet Lindsey and Mark for the first time. I treasure those few hours that I got to spend with them.

When we got to Michigan, we got to spend time with Jared and his new wife, Shannon, and their little boy named Drake. He was a beautiful little boy and Jared had chosen the most perfect wife who was a great cook and fed us wonderful meals.

Then as we departed Iowa, and headed to New Jersey, I fell asleep on David for the rest of the trip. Poor fellow had to drive the last thousand miles alone.

I was so glad to be with Becky and the children in their lovely big house. They had set a room apart for me and David had furnished it for me. It was really lovely and being with the grandchildren was wonderful.

At first Becky and I got along well together, but I was in a very bad way spiritually and spent most days alone, locked in my room. I could not listen to any of our music CDs for over a year. Instead I listened to Vh1 Classic on the TV and learned more about rock music, heavy metal, and punk, and this distracted me from my negative thoughts. Jimi Hendricks, AC/DC, Twisted Sister, the Doors, WHO, Queen, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, amongst others, all made me forget the pain for a little while.

I loved New Jersey itself, all around me was water and beaches and beautiful trees and flowers, it is called the Garden State and it really is. I had the car so I was able to get around easily and began learning the city and country around me. I went to the casinos once a month and that was a real treat, there are so many in Atlantic City, so many venues to try.

I found a little synagogue on Brigantine Island that was beautiful and had the finest people imaginable as congregants. They accepted David and me with open arms and we feel a great deal of gratitude for their friendship; belonging to this congregation helped ease the pain of losing Ed; the pain of loneliness.


Tomorrow Becky and Ann have some struggles in their relationship and Ann gets her own apartment. Alone for the first time in her life...

ANN STRUGGLES WITH GRIEF

IN MEMORY

When I'm weak and I'm tired,
I think of you.
When I'm sad and lonely,
I think of you.

I remember how we drove in the car
To go to watch a falling star,
And when the times were bad,
You'd smile and make my heart so glad.

I remember how you'd hold my hand
When I cried,
When I couldn't understand things at all,
And just your presence made me smile,
Made me know hard times would pass us by.

And when we had no money at all,
You'd hug me and I'd know we were rich.
Nothing in the world,
Nothing in the world
Brought me joy like you.

And now that you are gone, I still smile.
The memory of you gets me by,
And I love you,
I always will, I love you, I love you still.
I'm still in love with you.

Davalene Hirsch

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 36                                                                                

Now what would I do next? My total income was $900 a month and that would hardly cover rent alone in San Diego or Bishop. So I called my children David, Becky, and Debby and we had a conference over my future. I still had two weeks paid in rent at the motel in Bishop so I decided to stay there for the first two weeks.

The children planned that I would drive to Debby's and stay with her until David could take a plane out and come and get me and drive me to his home in New Jersey.

I was in serious heart pain and I could not stop crying. I longed to just hear Ed's voice again or see his dear face. What I saw was Ed's pack of cigarettes on the dresser. I went straight for them and lit up a cigarette, it was the first cigarette I had ever smoked. I was hooked; the memory of Ed was so strong while I was smoking his cigarettes that I could not stop for three years. I spent the next two weeks going back to all of Ed's favorite places in Bishop and taking pictures of the places so I wouldn't forget them.

Then I took a really daring step. My hair was down to my waist and I had let it grow long to please Ed. I really hated how much work it took to keep long hair nice so I had it cut fairly short. I kept enough of my long hair to save for my children, then I took one swatch of my hair and one swatch of Ed's hair and entwined them together to represent our love and commitment forever.

I allowed myself to grieve totally all day, every day, but I did it by reading all of our long "love" letters and going over all of the things that Ed had taught to me over the years. We had spent so much quality time together that I could recall for hours at a time.

The pain of his loss was overwhelming; he had been my one true love in life. I talked to him for hours, as if he were still in the room. I poured out my love to him. ONE really blessed me with the two weeks that I could continue to spend in our little motel room. I had time to get out all of my anger and denial by screaming when I would go out in the woods to walk on his trails. I felt like a brick was residing in my stomach. My body and mind ached. I rested and ate like I should, and bathed and took long walks. Then one day I went out to the mortician's to pick up Ed's ashes in preparation for the memorial service. It was very comforting to have his ashes in the same room with me; I talked to the ashes as if they were really him.

However, two weeks was long enough, and I had to get back into the swing of life again. Besides, Debby, Laura, James and Sheera were waiting their opportunity to try to make me feel better, and I needed to see their beautiful, loving faces. So I packed up the car and drove back to San Diego.


Tomorrow Ann struggles with grief, but gets on with her life and moves to New Jersey.

OH DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?

                "There Is No Death"

There is no death! The stars go down
To rise upon some other shore,
And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown
They shine for evermore.

Time is no death! The dust we tread
Shall change beneath the summer showers
To golden grain, or mellow fruit,
Or rainbow-tinted flowers.
And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear immortal spirits tread,
For all the boundless universe
Is life-there are no dead!
                 -John Luckey McCreery                                                                                                  

One night, Ed was eating his dinner sitting on my bed watching the television when he suddenly could not move and fell over on his side. I grabbed the food away from him and then tried to help him get upright again. I could not get him to his feet so I called for an ambulance. The ambulance took him to the Bishop Hospital and I followed him in the car. When I got to the hospital Ed was still unable to get up by himself and the nurses were talking about admitting him.                                                                                              

Suddenly, Ed pushed himself upright, swung his legs off of the bed, stood up, and began walking around. The nurses and I were amazed and stared at him as he was proving himself. He said that he did not want to be admitted and that he was all right; just had one of the "little" seizures but was fine now. The nurses looked at me and shrugged their shoulders and said that they could not admit him as he seemed to be dramatically improved. Ed was very happy and walked out of the hospital and got into the car and we went home.

Once we got back home Ed sat down on the bed again and was watching television. After an hour, he tried to stand up and could not get to his feet. He asked me to come and help him up and of course I did. I put my arm around his waist and we heave-hoed him up. He then seemed able to stand and he walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water. On his was out of the kitchen he suddenly stopped walking and fell flat on the floor face first.

I ran to him and ascertained that his face was all right from the fall, and it was. The he asked me to help him to get up again. I put my arms under his arms and around him and pulled  to get him onto his knees then I tried to pull him to a standing position but had no luck. He fell flat onto the floor again. He felt like dead weight. I could not get any leverage to lift him up. I tried picking him up under his arms again and he looked straight into my eyes and his eyes begged me to pick him up, but I could not get him off of the floor.

I said to Ed, "Honey, I can't pick you up; you're too heavy for me, but maybe in the morning I'll have more strength. I'll get you a pillow and a blanket and you'll have to sleep here tonight."

I got him a blanket and spread it over him, then put a pillow underneath his head and kissed the top of his forehead good-night. Then suddenly a wave of pure exhaustion hit me and I could do nothing but crawl to the bed and lay down on it. I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.

The next morning dawned bright and clear and I could feel the sunshine and hear the birds singing. I got dressed and opened up the window. Ed was still asleep and I knew that he needed all the sleep he could get, so I began to fix breakfast. As I cooked breakfast, I was looking down on Ed's prone self, so sound asleep. Then as I watched him something seemed different. He seemed so still. I bent down to check his breathing and could not detect a breath. I slipped my hand under his shirt and he still seemed slightly warm, but not as warm as I thought he should. I went around to the side that he was facing and felt the arteries in his neck.

Ed had passed away in the night.

I called 911 and asked for an ambulance, then I called Anders and told him what had happened. Anders said that he would be right there. The policeman came and then called for a coroner and an ambulance. He was a very kind policeman and told me that I could spend time with Ed until the ambulance came. I took the time to tell Ed how much I loved him and how he had enabled me. I told him how much I would miss him and thanked him for all that he had taught me. I also cut a lock of hair for his children and myself. After the police and the coroner had left and taken Ed with them, I broke down and cried my heart out.

Anders came a few hours later and was so kind and gracious to me. We went to the funeral home and made arrangements to have Ed cremated. The mortician was especially kind and allowed Anders and I plenty of time with Ed. Anders said that we would have a memorial service for Ed at a beautiful park in Los Angeles-sort of a halfway mark for people coming from San Diego and Bishop.

At the memorial service, I got to meet Ed's other two children, Scott and Jennifer. They were beautiful young people, and I also got to meet Linda for the first time. Linda gave me a piece of jewelry that Ed had once given her and I thought that was a very gracious gesture. Larry came all the way from Colorado, and Ed's oldest sister, Melvina, came from Texas. Ed had been a loved man.

Tomorrow Ann learns to live without her beloved Ed...

                                                                                                                                                           
 

BISHOP OR BUST!!

We keep hearing about the possibility that world-wide catastrophes will hit us on December 21, 2012. While we are taking suitable precautions and are preparing for some kind of disturbance at that time, even if it is a relatively small event, by storing food and water and other needs. We have decided to confront the situation by doing the following: JUST In CASE of any traumatic events occurring at the end of the year we believe the following possibility: "The entire scheme of civilization could be profoundly altered by focusing the power of love at a very specific point. Whenever this has happened, history branched out to new roads." (David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.) 

Let us create a "specific point" on 12/12/12 at 12:12pm, Greenwich Mean Time, and each person on the planet think love and unity between each and every one of us...Let us transform the world together! If we spread love together at that particular moment we can avoid the worst of any trauma we must face. World Unity Festival 12/12/12.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 35                                                                                

Ed got into the motel room just in front of me and I could see his body convulse and grabbed a trashcan for him to throw up in. For several days he ate nothing and drank little and threw up all day long. When he threw up it was bile green. I was so worried about him, but there were no doctors or hospitals in the area so I just nursed him as best I knew how and gave him reflex therapy on his legs and feet. We stayed in that motel room for many days and did nothing but work to make poor Ed comfortable. I knew by then that he had done a heroic deed and had saved my life by protecting me with his body from the blowing sand. We learned later that it was not salt I tasted along the side of the road, but borax. It was borax and sand that blew in Death Valley and that filled my Ed's lungs. To me he was a hero, but then he'd always been a hero to me.

One thing we decided was that we were going to call a lady who had been his friend when he had last lived in Bishop and had owned the motel he had stayed in. We wanted to ask her if she had a room to rent for three weeks before the first of the next month. If we could get a room with her, we could look around in Bishop, Big Pine, and Lone Pine for a place to rent and possibly rent an apartment by March 1st when our money came in. When we called, she had a room left and would rent it to us if we could get there on the next day.

We called Larry again and asked him to loan us the money to get into this room. Larry said he would and thus saved our lives again. We could pick up the money at the Von's store in Bishop the next morning. So we packed and said good-bye to Beatty and drove on to Bishop; it was a several hour drive. One thing I knew now was why Death Valley was called Death Valley. You really have to be cautious to camp there.

CHAPTER 36...

We got to Bishop about 5:00 p.m. and immediately went to the Von's store to receive the money that Larry had sent to us. We thanked Larry in our hearts for being such a good and understanding friend and pledged to make it up to him one day, as soon as possible.

When we got to the Lakeview Motel the proprieter was as good as her word, really a lovely woman. She was glad to see Ed again and gave us room  "F", which was a one-bedroom, one bath apartment with another bed in the living room. It also had a kitchen and dining area. It was heavenly to us and Ed almost danced with joy.

While at Von's we had shopped for food and so I was able to cook Ed a proper dinner. We made plans to explore Bishop the next day.

The next morning was beautiful and after a nice breakfast we set out to see Bishop. Ed took me to his old stomping grounds, the streams he had followed, the paths over the fields, even the casino that the town had. He refused to play at the casino but was satisfied to just look around and try to see some of his old friends there.

Bishop is beautiful; all around the town are the towering Sierra Nevada Mountain Range and there was snow on top of the mountains, so everywhere you turned the view was spectacular.

We had rented our room for three weeks, or until the first of the month of March, and we just kicked back and relaxed and watched television. We were hoping that we could find a place to rent before March Madness-College Basketball playoffs-began and so we watched every basketball game that we could; which was another gift Ed had given to me, a love of basketball. We rooted mainly for the University of Arizona, coached by Lute Olson, but watched all of the teams across the country play.


Tomorrow we come to the end of the Ed saga and find out how we both fared...

DEATH VALLEY LIVES UP TO HER NAME

This is the hardest time so far in Ann's life; even harder than living in the mountains with Bruce. It is the greatest test of her strength and love.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 35                                                                                 

We spent September 2004 to February 2005 on the road, usually in campsites; renting rooms when Ed would get really ill. He had been comped many rooms at several casinos in San Diego and Las Vegas so we used these comped rooms in between camping outdoors. As I look back now, whatever were two semi-elderly folk doing out in the rain and damp of fall and winter, particularly when Ed was so often sick. We felt backed into a wall. Ed was sure that if we could just get to Lone Pine or Bishop that we could find a place to rent, but we had sent for the Bishop newspaper before we left our apartment and there was nothing listed there for renting so in the end he hesitated to have us try it. We were going through our money each month just surviving and we knew that we had to be some place at the first of the month in order to have a chance to have money to get into another apartment. January and February of 2005 found us in Death Valley at a camping spot five miles from Scotty's Castle.

It was beautiful in Death Valley. In the mornings it was glorious as the sun rose and warmed everything up, and in the evening there were billions of stars to see in the sky. We spent the day finding pictures in the walls of the valley, and in the clouds. Ed slept most of the time but would get up and go on walks and soak up the warmth of the day. On the weekends, people would come and fill the campground around us, but during the week we were blessedly alone. The coyotes were very friendly and the park rangers would warn everyone not to feed them or to go near them. They said that if you fed the wild animals they would lose their ability to find food on their own.

We had an experience with the coyotes on our first day at the camp. We had been so tired when we had come into camp that we just put up the tent and went to bed. When we got up in the morning we found that our truck had been raided. We had left everything in the bed of the truck and not worried about it, but the coyotes had had a field day with our food supplies. They had actually jumped high enough to look into the bed of the truck and grab whatever was in reaching distance. We found a five pound can of coffee two fields over; rice and oatmeal in a gully about 100 feet away; honey over everything, and just a jumble of confusion with the rest of the supplies. It took us about half a day to gather everything and wash everything up. We didn't really lose too much but we really learned a lesson to tarp the back of the truck and weight the tarp down with boulders at night,

We stayed the longest time at Death Valley and really had a good time. Ed seemed to perk up and we went on several driving trips to see all of the Valley and the surrounding areas. We seemed to gravitate towards Scotty's Castle everyday to make phone calls or just to take our lunch in the gardens around the castle. I went to the top of the hill behind the castle and sat and watched the sky change colors as the day passed, and reminisced about the possible adventures of the men who had built the castle and the outbuildings. There was much that I was familiar with as it had been a gold mining operation when it had been built.

When we left our camp we would leave the tent set up but took all of our belongings with us. One day we took a trip to Beatty, Nevada the next closest town for supplies. We had a really good time that day and we considered living in Beatty. On our drive I kept seeing patches of what looked like salt on the sides of the road; being curious, I had to get out of the truck and taste it to see if it were indeed salt. It tasted salty at first but then had some metalic taste to it that wouldn't leave my mouth. We wondered what it could possibly be.

By the time we left Beatty to go back to our camp it was getting dark and the wind seemed to have blown up pretty good, we wondered in what condition we would find our tent. When we got about 20 miles from our camp the wind was blowing about 50 or 60 miles an hour and the visibility was just a few feet. When we got to the camp there were no people around; it was totally deserted. Our tent was no longer standing but had blown into a gully about 200 feet from where it had started. We finally found it and wrestled it back into camp. It seemed to have its poles sticking out in every direction. For a half hour we wrestled with that tent trying to get it to set up properly but one of the poles had been broken in half and we could make nothing of it. Ed said, "Ann, get out of there, (I was inside the tent trying to hold it up from inside-we were crazy), we've got to get into the truck!" So we dropped everything and got back in the truck. I had rescued some of our blankets as I ran, but could not get the air mattresses. We sat in the truck for a short while, but the sand seeped through the cracks in the cab and Ed thought we might be safer inside the adobe brick bathrooms. He had me take some blankets and we ran for the restroom. There were no doors on the restrooms but Ed put a trash can in front of the door to hold back some of the blowing sand. Then he had me lay down on a blanket and covered me with blankets and lay down on top of me to shield me from the sand. We lay there for a long while all the time Ed breathing in the sand and trying to save my life. I could see what was happening to him and insisted that we had better try something else. By this time something was making me very groggy, but Ed acted like a man on a mission. We made another run for the truck and Ed tucked me in with the blankets and told me that he was going to drive us back to Beatty. I fell asleep on the ride but Ed used all of his strength trying to drive through the sand storm and stay on the road. I woke up about ten miles out of Beatty and Ed told me that he was very ill and really needed to get into a motel. He had me place a call to Larry on our cell phone and ask Larry to pay for the motel room as we did not have any money left until the first of the month. Larry saved our lives again, and when Ed pulled the truck into the motel he got right out and went into the motel and had Larry talk to the proprietors. Larry paid for us to stay there for four days. (In case you are wondering, the cell phone could not reach out of Death Valley so we could not use it to call for help.)


Tomorrow Ed is very ill so we head for Bishop, California. Will we get there in time?
 

A POSITIVE PERSON COMES FROM LOVE

ON LOVING OURSELVES:

If we do not love ourselves, love is not drawn to us.

We are our own worst enemy. We do not allow ourselves to love ourselves. In our culture it is deemed arrogant to love one's self or to have a good deal of self worth. Love of self is equated with standing in front of people and admitting that you are a good person; it is often felt that feeling good about oneself is the height of conceit. And who pushes that idea? The negative people in power, or high on the social ladder, to whose benefit it is for people to feel lousy about themselves so that they do not have the will nor the courage to rebel against social conditions that are negative or oppressive.

Each of us is a good person when we come from love. Then should we not come to ourselves in love and accept that while we may have many flaws, that we are a loving person and thus a good-positive-person. Good being defined as a person, or act, that comes from love, or in other words the positive flow of life.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN...HOMELESS IN AMERICA

I hope that you are enjoying Ann's Earth life as she travels through "hell." As I have shared with you before, Ann's story is a true story and her life demonstrates what one life form goes through in her life game-one lifetime on Earth-that demonstrates why I feel that HELL is truly our daily lives as we face challenges and triumphs on our trip on our way back home to HEAVEN.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 35...                                                                                

We knew that we were going to be evicted and would be on the streets for a while until we could save up enough money for two months rent, plus security deposit, which was what was required to get into another apartment. Ed insisted that we try to find a better means of transportation than my old Saturn so we went to Pearson Ford and bought (payment plan) ourselves a small truck that was in both of our names. It was a used truck, but very clean and it had a CD changer which was important to us. We left the Saturn with my friend Judy, and put all of our belongings into storage except for those things that we absolutely needed. We brought along all of our music CDs, bedding, clothes, our medicines, camping equipment, and food.

The first night we slept at a rest stop. We took all of our boxes out of the truck and put them on the ground around the truck and then slept in the bed of the truck. It rained the first night out and soaked us. It also soaked everything that we hadn't covered up with a tarp. The next morning a Park Ranger came by and told us to get out of the rest stop and not come back.

We found a campsite a few miles away and rented a space for a week. Ed lasted a week, then he was so ill that we had to rethink our plans. We spent the next nights in an inexpensive motel until Ed could get back on his feet. Then we headed out to Nevada, specifically Las Vegas. There we were able to find cheap rooms from Sunday to Thursday, but the weekends we had to spend in campgrounds.

We had a particularly bad incident not long after we had been out. We had rented a hotel room at Barona Casino and when Ed got out of the truck to go into the hotel he seemed to have trouble walking. We got into the registration desk and Ed got us registered but he looked as if he had been drinking, something he never did. The people at the desk understood that he was having a problem and got a wheelchair for him and a nice young man wheeled him to our room. Ed lay down on the bed while I got things unpacked. I asked him if we needed to go to a doctor but he seemed clear and stable and absolutely refused to go anywhere, he felt that with a little rest he would be a-ok. I lay down to get some rest and Ed got up to use the restroom. When he came out he stood near the foot of my bed and started to try to talk to me, instead, all that came out was, "dit dit dit, dit dit dit dit!" And suddenly he fell face first onto the floor and then turned over and began to have severe seizures. He bit his tongue before I could get a piece of plastic into his mouth and save that, and then he began to convulse terribly. I called for help and an ambulance was there within 15 minutes. The ambulance took him to a major hospital, Grossmont, and I followed behind in the truck. I had put in a call for Anders, and Anders met me at the hospital.

Ed had several tests done and they had to take out two pints of fluid from his abdomen, which was very painful for him. The doctors wanted Ed to stay for further evaluation but Ed refused to stay. Anders and I tried to get the doctors to keep him against his will because we knew there was something very wrong with him, but Ed refused, and the doctors could not hold him. Ed looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I am getting out of here whether you want me to or not, are you going to help me?" I could see the steel resolve in his eyes and knew that he was very capable of just getting up and walking out against medical advise. So I gave in and helped him get out of bed and ready to go and we left the hospital and went back to the hotel. I was scared that Ed would have another grand mal seizure and Anders was also frightened and told his dad that he was very disappointed in him for not staying in the hospital and warned him to think of me as well as himself. Nothing we said had an effect on Ed, he was sure he could push on without any further consequences.

Barona Hotel became a very special place for us. Outside of our window the casino had built a lake with a little island in the middle of it, and on the island they had built a wedding chapel. They conducted weddings there but you had to sign up for your wedding in advance. We were looking out of our window at the wedding chapel, watching the swans that they had swimming there, when Ed said to me, "we could be married here." "That would be wonderful," I said. Then Ed looked at me straight on and asked me, "Ann, would you marry me?" "Of course I will," I replied, "but we'd better get you well first before we do that."

I regret that I was not more romantic in my reply, but I did not feel that I could put any more stress on his shoulders. I love him more than words can say and I always will.

"Well," said Ed, "at least now I can say that you are my fiance!"

"And now I can say that you are my fiance," I said, "and that makes me happier than anything on earth!"

We might not have had a lot, but we had each others' love and commitment and I felt like the richest person on earth.


Tomorrow we end up in Death Valley and found out why it is called "Death" Valley...

SHOOTING STARS FROM THE BOTTOM OF A WELL

Today is a mixed bag of sorrow and joy as Ed and Ann work on their relationship.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 34...HELL                                                                     

Ed's oldest son, Anders, had put out feelers to his father and had invited him to go to see concerts with him. This was the happiest that I had ever seen Ed, he just beamed when he talked about Anders, he was so proud of him. Anders is a professional musician; he teaches music in the schools and at Band Camp near Big Bear and Lake Tahoe, he is also involved in various orchestras around the county. Anders is a marvelous human being and he began to give us all manner of CDs and DVDs of our favorite musicians, and also new artists as they came out. He was also a philosopher and brought us new books and fresh ideas. We began to talk about how wonderful it would be to have Anders around more often, and then the opportunity came about where Anders was looking for a place to live, and Herb had moved out. I had moved into Herbs old room, but the living room was empty, as Herb had taken all of his furniture with him. So Ed and I invited Anders to come and live with us and, happily, Anders accepted our offer and moved in.

I came down with salmonella poisoning in 2003 from eating poorly washed alfalfa sprouts. I was so ill and if you can imagine, I had non-stop diarrhea. Ed rushed me to a hospital and saved my life. I was two weeks in the hospital recovering and while I was in the hospital Ed took care of cleaning up my mess and washing all of my linens and clothes. Ed was my hero. I know this sounds gross, and it is, but that is the whole point. Ed took care of me when I was ill and saved my life. He would save my life again a few years later.

One evening, in 2003, while Anders was away from the house and I was in my bed asleep, there was a terrible crash coming from Ed's room. I rushed into Ed's room to find him lying on his back, unconscious, and with a terrible split in his head. I screamed, "Ed! Ed!" and he opened his eyes but he was very drowsy. I knew that I should get him to a hospital but when I suggested that, he sat up and told me very emphatically that he was not going to go to any hospital. His eyes cleared and he stood up and walked over to his chair and sat down. Then he gave me lecture #10 that I was never to call an ambulance for him and that he was just fine and dandy as he was. I assured him that I would follow his wishes.

The split in his head was down to the skull and about three inches long. It took months of cleaning and bandaging to resolve the head wound and heal it back up. Unfortunately, Ed began to have small seizures, and I took him to all of his doctors but they could not see what I was talking about and did not give him medication for his condition.

Ed and I, sometimes with Anders, had a lot of fun besides the casinos. We went to several rock concerts and also to several of the orchestral productions where Anders would be playing the clarinet; Anders was really talented on the clarinet and several other instruments.

Ed and I would often just go for rides in the car into the mountains and desert. We would drive into the mountains at night anytime there were to be meteor showers, or an eclipse.

Sometimes we would go out into the desert just to watch the night skies and look for shooting stars. Ed once told me that when he was a boy they had to muck out their well once a year to keep the good water flowing. His father would send him down the well, about 100 feet deep, because he was skinny and tall and did the job well. Anyway, Ed said that when he was down deep in the well (it would be broad daylight outside the well) he could look up at the sky and see thousands of stars; more than he could normally see in the night sky when he was above ground. He did not know the explanation for this, but it was one of his favorite boyhood memories.

Ed had one goal, to get back to Lone Pine and Bishop, California. His favorite place on earth was the Portals at Mount Whitney as he and his family would camp there for two weeks or a month every summer. So many times I would buy the food and pack the car for a trip to the Portals and then when I was done he would not be able to gather the strength to go anywhere. However, one time we made it. It was almost the end of the season, late September, and we camped in camp #4. Ed was ecstatic that we had made it, but it was bitterly cold and he was most uncomfortable. We spent the night sleeping on the ground in sleeping bags, or rather, I slept. Ed could never get warm enough to sleep so he spent the night in rapture, gazing at all of the stars and an almost continuous stream of falling stars. I built him a fire in the morning to get warm by and we had breakfast watching trout swim past in the creek. Then Ed set up the boom box and played a series of CDs that he had brought from home. So we enjoyed the concert as we watched the beautiful Mount Whitney. As we sat on the bench gazing at the mountain, we noticed that the boughs of two pine trees formed a frame around the vision of the top of the mountain. It was one of those moments in life that you replay the rest of your life. We made a goal to come back to the mountain permanently and live in either Lone Pine or Bishop.

Ed's health began a long, slow decline. He had a lot of trouble with his teeth and they had found, and operated on, a large cancer on his nose. As his health declined he became more irascible and started to have some personal problems with our landlords and some of the tenants at our apartments. Ed always had to say everything he thought whether it was positive or negative and he was rarely soft-toned when he said it. Eventually, in the Autumn of 2004, we were evicted from our apartment and hit the road to live on the streets until we could find another place to live.


Tomorrow Ed and Ann are evicted and go to live on the streets...

PLAYING GAMES WITH TIME

Today Ed and Ann play games with time and then help Herb get approved for the P.A.S.S. program.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapters 33 & 34...HELL                                                          

We played games with time. We would glance at the clock and notice the time and if it said say 5:55, or 1:23, or 12:34, or any other set of numbers that had a certain relevance to each other at that particular instant, and we would then say that we were "in the flow." If the numbers were say 5:49, or 1:43, or any other combination that did not make sense, then we knew that we were not in the flow at that moment. If the clock said 2:36, then we could stretch things a bit and say that 2x3 = 6 and therefore we were on the edges of the flow. If the clock said 11:11 then we were in the middle of the flow and all would be possible for us to accomplish. We had a lot of fun with our game and I play it now and think of him.

Ed had a wonderful friend named Larry who had rescued him many times over the years when Ed had been ill and down on his luck. Larry and Ed had worked at the same bio-tech companies together, usually as President and Vice-President. They were both electrical engineers and inventors, and Ed was a wiz at time management. Ed had graduated from the University of Arizona, where he had met Linda, and took his Masters at Arizona State University. Ed also had, for a short time, his own radio show on which he had discussed the principles that governed L.A.M.B. International. L.A.M.B. stood for a Loose Affiliation of Millionaires and Billionaires, which he had taken from a Paul Simon song that he loved.

Now I will recount for you some of the adventures that we were involved in, in the six years that we spent together.

CHAPTER 34...

In the year 2001, Debby's apartments were converted to condominiums and Debby needed a place to live so I suggested that she move to La Mesa and into our apartment buildings. Ed had a close relationship with the managers and so they were predisposed to renting to Debby because they liked to see family members renting in the same building. Our old neighbor, Lois, helped her with a down payment and she was in. I rejoiced to have Debby so near, and now I could see the grandchildren more often, I could simply walk a short while and I would be there whenever Ed was having one of his quiet days. Also, the grandchildren could come and visit me when they were so inclined. Ed pretty much stayed away from my family; they brought back memories of his own family, but he always insisted that I write to my children in other states and return all of their phone calls. Also, I made a bus trip to New Jersey twice while we were together to see Becky and David. I got to be present when William was born to Becky in Philadelphia, PA. I would always invite Ed to the family functions, such as Thanksgiving, but he never would want to get involved, and never wanted the holidays celebrated in our own home so I would always go to Debby's alone. Ed always loved it when one of the children would come over though, he thought they were well-mannered and intelligent; Ed loved children but was reluctant to socialize with adults.

Herb, our roommate, was a very intelligent man, but even more depressed than Ed. He would not come out of his bedroom except to get something for dinner and most of the time even that we had to help him with. However, he had one enormous talent, he designed and built luxury fishing rods. Ed had a brilliant idea, we could create a P.A.S.S. program for Herb to start his own business and thus make him self-reliant. He also had Herb apply to receive Section 8, which was a federally funded housing assistance program. What Ed really wanted was to get Herb back onto his feet and out of the apartment. So I worked for two months writing a business proposal for herb for the P.A.S.S, program. The proposal was approved, it took about six months, and section 8 came through at the same time, so in 2002 Herb was officially moved into his own apartment and started in his own business.


Tomorrow, Anders moves in with us. Ann gets salmonella poisoning, and Ed took a fall and broke his skull.

ED, A PRINCE WITH A TORTURED MIND

Today, Ann discusses life with Ed, a great teacher of philosophy and slot machines.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 33...HELL                                                                    

Ed thought of himself as a bad man, a man who had hurt irreparably the people he had most loved in life. He carried a heavy burden. He thought that he had an evil twin and I have seen that twin, but even when he was roaring like a wounded bear and uttering deprecations, I saw the wound, and more, I saw a man weeping in extreme pain, so that even as he yelled, my heart was tender towards him.

Ed was ferocious in his fear of being rejected again; as a result he needed to be in control of every situation. He needed constant updates of where I was and what I was doing; I recognized that he was like Bruce in that manner. He watched over me like a mother hen sometimes, always worrying that I might become ill or get hurt in some manner. He said that we had a co-dependent relationship and as far as I could tell, we did.

Ed asked me to move in the second day that I visited him. After that moment of weakness he never again asked me to stay but then I never gave him the option. None of us had regular beds, except for Herb; we slept on the floor on sleeping bags and blankets. I slept at the far end of the living room behind the couches. I made that little area my own. Little by little I moved out of Debby's house and into Ed's.

My music and philosophy classes were very important to Ed; I think the most important thing, and I soaked up everything like a sponge. Ed communicated his moods to me through music selections. Every day he would line up the albums to listen to that day. Our song was "Such a Woman," by Neil Young on the Harvest Moon album. That song was played very few times and was his highest compliment to me. "Harvest Moon" was our favorite dance music. When he was really angry with me he would play Neil Young's "A Man Needs a Maid" and I would get the hint, and if I were blowing him away, he would play "Hurricane," by Neil Young. Yes, I guess you could say we talked Neil Young, and that as a result, Neil Young is my favorite musician of all.

I was a very hard pupil to teach and I sorely tried Ed's patience. It took me years to get all of the artists and their albums, and the songs on each album, and the words to each song, down pat. We would have drills every day and I never knew when he was going to pop a question to me, so I had to concentrate pretty hard all of the time to keep up with him.

The most important talks we would have would be philosophy sessions. He had a sharp, incredibly accurate memory, and he could discuss various forms of belief without the aid of any books, however there were stacks of books that he had me read. Each book brought me closer to an understanding of the flow and how to relax into the flow and let go of all preconceptions. He taught me how to relax my brain and my body through Yoga exercises. He taught me to center myself and merely wait. He taught me for the first time in my life to experience joy and a feeling of self-worth. I love Ed.

Then there were other things he taught me that were of a very different nature; Slots. Yep, slot machines and a love of gambling. Now sometimes he won a great deal and was very sure of a certain system of the moment, but then the system could not be replicated and we would lose. I have never known anyone who could stay at a machine as long as he could. When he was in a manic mood he would think nothing of spending 24, 48, or 72 hours in a casino. There would be a terrible aftermath of such a marathon casino binge. Sometimes he would sink into such a deep depression that I would not see him for days afterwards and then he would spend sometimes weeks afterwards hardly speaking. He never enjoyed gambling as a game, for him, it was more like a war of wills. His mind would spin a hundred miles an hour as he tried to devise various new strategies for winning. I must tell you that I memorized all of the methods that he came up with and today I am able to gamble for fun yet not lose more at any one time than a monetary value that I select before I ever go to a casino. So I may not be a big winner, but I can have a whole day of fun on $40.00 eventually-unless I'm lucky and get a winner-but I will have played for hours and I usually come out about $20.00 ahead. He didn't teach me a system as much as a way to play with caution, but for himself he could not hang on to it.


Tomorrow, Ed and Ann play with time...

THE BEGINNING OF THE ED SAGA

Today Ann is finally reunited with Ed and talks frankly of their relationship.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapters 32 & 33...HELL                                                            
However, it turned out that Herb was unable to care for himself totally and that Ed always read through his hospital papers to make sure that he knew how much of each medication to give Herb daily. So when Herb got settled back home, Ed went through his papers and found the letter addressed to him.

About a week later the doctors decided that I was all right to go home again. I had been stabilized on medications. I had only been home a day when the phone rang and it was Ed for me. He asked me to come over to his apartment and visit with him and I said "sure!"

Ed had fared badly since we had seen each other last. He had had to go back into the hospital so he had come to San Diego from Bishop. When he got out of the hospital he had no place to live, so Herb-whom he had met at the hospital and who was also Dr. Laurence's patient-asked him to come and live with him and Ed accepted gladly. It was a nice apartment complex but the apartment that Herb had, had never been cleaned by Herb or his last roommate and there was trash and garbage three feet high all over the apartment. Ed plowed right in to the job of cleaning the apartment and he did a wonderful job, when I came to visit it was really lovely inside. It was a large two-bedroom apartment with two baths and a huge living room.

When I saw Ed for the first time again my heart flipped over and I knew that for the first time in my life I was truly, deeply, in love. It hit me so hard that I spent weeks praying to make sure that this was ONE's plan for my life. I was so happy that I could not keep from grinning. I, of course, did not let Ed know what was happening inside of me. It turned out that Ed was as excited as I was at being together again and we talked for hours and then made plans to be together again as soon as possible.

When I left for home that night, Ed took me in his arms and gave me the sweetest kiss I had ever known; I was shaking from head to toe afterwards. It turned out that that was the only kiss that Ed ever gave me until years later, but it sure was a wonderful kiss to keep in your memory.

CHAPTER 33...

Ed was a very handsome man. He was six feet tall and very slender, although I managed to put quite a bit of weight on him over the years. He had dark auburn/medium brown hair that was very long-below his shoulders-and a well-trimmed mustache and beard. His eyes were hazel green and could go from clear emerald green, with flashes of brown and gold, to a cloudy opal green when he got mad.

Ed had rapid-cycling Bi-Polar Disorder. He could go from a deep depression to a laughing mood several times a day. This did not happen often. Many days he would sleep for 22 hours and wake only to drink a soda and use the restroom. Sometimes he would hibernate for three or four days in a row. These times I knew to spend in my own area and used such days to visit with Debby and the children, but most days Ed and I would spend 12 to 24 hours just talking and listening to music.

I love Ed for so many reasons. He always showed me the greatest respect for my ideas and projects. When I would start to talk to him, he would immediately turn off the television or CD player and give me his total attention. He trusted me with his forecasting program for S&P 100 Index Options trading. He enabled me to grow and develop spiritually by teaching me great truths and ideas. He opened up the world of music to me: Neil Young; CSN; Paul Simon; Brian Wilson; Moody Blues; George Harrison; Tom Petty; Bob Dylan; Woodie and Arlo Guthrie; Mozart; Beethoven; and so many other wonderful composers and performers that it would take all day to write. Most of these composers I had never heard of before and I was just stunned at the amount and quality of the music that had never crossed my path before. This music turned my entire spirit around and opened up a whole new world that grows every single day of my life. He taught me about ONE and that each of us is part of a whole. He taught me to be my brother's keeper and he reminded me that Jesus said that the greatest commandment of all is to love one another as he has loved us. He taught me to care passionately about the hungry and dispossessed; the goal of L.A.M.B. International was to feed the hungry.

Our relationship was celibate for many reasons. The most important reason is because we didn't believe in having sex before marriage. (In my case that reflected my true beliefs despite some of my actions in life.)

This is the way of my love: he was extremely handsome, intelligent, and charismatic. Wherever we went women were drawn to him, but I was never jealous because he had a pure mind. He still loved his first love, his ex-wife Linda, and he was true to her all of his life. He told me that he was emotionally  unavailable however he was certainly emotionally involved in our relationship and was a little angry that he was.

Stories Ed told, many times, of the women who had entered his life. They were very interesting stories indeed. Ed could talk. The man could talk nonstop for hours, but he was always interesting. There were always fresh insights and new revelations.


Tomorrow the saga of Ed continues with a search for knowledge and slot machines...  

ANN LOSES ONE BATTLE BUT WINS FOUR MORE

Today we see many changes for Ann; some positive and some negative, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 32...HELL                                                                     

There are so many different pains in life, but the one that really got to me was the loss of the grandchildren. We had built close relationships with all of the grandchildren and I felt the loss of those beautiful young people. There were Alana and Helena who had spent so much time with us in the mountains, and there was Jessie who had written his grandfather and me such a beautiful letter of love and only wanted to be told that he was loved. Well, I do love you Alana and Helena, and Jessie, Jason, and Matthew, and of course Justin and Sara. I will always love you and remember you, and you are all probably grown adults by now. I wish you the best in life and always happiness.

I was saved by summer school. I took Logic and another cross-cultural class on Latino history. It was wonderful just to be at Debby's house and be involved in Laura, Sheera, and James lives. Becky had moved back to New Jersey on a permanent basis and David had moved to join her, they shared a really nice home together.

The Sheriff had told Bruce's family that I had to be allowed to go to the millsite and remove my personal belongings, so one day Jared and I went up in his truck and got the rest of my personal possessions. Brian and a friend of his, who had a car, were watching our every move, and they let us know that they had their weapons on. There were actually very little more of my personal things at the mountain. I learned that my parent's silver had been put in the semi-truck that Buzzy was watching for Bruce. I was told that I couldn't get it back until after probate, so I never saw that again. I lost many little personal treasures as Bruce and I had stored all of our little treasures in a safe he had made in the floorboards of the house. The family took all of that as all of their own; oh well, at some point you just have to count your losses and smile and know that things are not really as important as they at first seem.

Fall semester started out as a blast. I had run in the school's election for members of the Board of the Student Council and had won a position on the Board. It was not a paid position but there was a lot of activity involved and it was just what I needed to sweep the gloominess out of my life. I loved Grossmont College and thanked ONE everyday that I got to go to school there. Then I started to get sick. Every movement was painful to make, and I did not have the energy to even sit up in my seat in class. It seemed as if I only had five minutes of energy at a time. I called Dr. Laurence who told me that I had to come into the hospital right away. I went to the Dean of the College and explained that I had to leave school and go into the hospital for an undetermined length of time. I was very fortunate that I was able to get out of all of my classes without any demerits on my record. I did have to leave the school for the entire semester.

I was in the hospital for several weeks as Dr. Laurence brought in specialists to see if they could determine what the matter was with me. After many tests, they brought in an excellent Endocrinologist who asked for more tests and spent a lot of time questioning me as to my symptoms. As it turned out, I had metabolic problems caused by an under-active thyroid gland and an over-active parathyroid gland. I was put on medication for the thyroid, and my calcium level was watched in case it got too high.

While I was in the hospital, I asked Dr. Laurence about Ed. Had he heard from him, and where he might be now? Dr, Laurence told me that Ed had returned to San Diego and lived in La Mesa with another of his patients named Herb. He also told me that Herb was in the hospital right now and that I could probably see Ed since he came to visit Herb often. Then Dr. Laurence smiled real big and walked away.

I learned that Herb was indeed there, but was going to go home the next day with a different friend than Ed. I hurried up and wrote a letter to Ed telling him of all the events that had transpired and giving him Debby's phone number. Then I gave the letter to Herb to give to Ed, he was very happy to do such a favor for me. Herb was a very nice man. Trouble was that Herb put the letter amongst all of his other hospital papers and then forgot about it.


Tomorrow we answer the question about the future of Ed and Ann...

ANN IS THROWN OFF THE MOUNTAIN AT GUNPOINT

Today, Ann is thrown off of the mountain at gun point by Bruce's children.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 32...HELL                                                                        
Everybody took their own cars up to the mountains and all of the adults in the family were there to make sure that everything would be taken care of properly. One of Bruce's best friends, Buzzy, took all of the guns and ammunition into his truck and took them down to a semi-truck that Bruce had been renting, to hold some of his surplus guns and ammunition. This truck was parked on Buzzy's ranch and all of this had been planned by Bruce long before he died so Buzzy was given no problems. It was decided that everything would stay there until after probate decided where everything should go.

After all the guns and ammunition had been taken care of, and Buzzy had left to take everything and get it put away, then things changed; Brian-who considered himself to be a black warlock-suddenly appeared in long robes and a wand and began to order everyone around, telling us that if we didn't obey him that he would put a curse on us. This didn't go over very well. According to Brian, he had been disowned by his father that very day. It seemed that Bruce had woken up with chest pains and had asked Brian to go to the doctor with him. Brian said, "hell no, I'm not getting up for you. Go by yourself!" Then as Bruce began to drive out of the driveway, Brian suddenly ran out of the house and offered to go with his dad. At that point, Bruce told him, "f--k you, you are no longer my son!" Then Bruce had driven off of the mountain alone.

Bob came up about an hour after Buzzy had left in order to help out the family as best he could. Despite the fact that for years Bob had been supporting some of these children as he helped out Bruce and I, and the mine; as soon as his truck came on the property Brian ran at him with a loaded gun and ordered him off the property. Bob had no choice but just to turn around and leave. About an hour later, Jared decided that he had to leave the mountain also, and left myself and Sheera-who had wanted to come up and help the family of her grandpa-alone with Bruce's family.

And that was the moment that the family that Bruce and I had built and worked so hard for split apart. Suddenly I was the odd man out. Guns were pulled from holsters and pointed at Sheera and myself. We were ordered to get off of the mountain if we valued our lives. I was in shock; at first I thought that I was misunderstanding something. I loved these children, surely they couldn't think that I would keep them from their belongings, their father's belongings. Then the guns were cocked and we were told that this was no longer my home or my belongings and that I'd better get off of the mountain if I knew what was good for me. Sheera and I got in my little car and left everything behind.

Later I talked with the Sheriff and the BLM officers. The Sheriff said that Bruce's family had said that they now owned everything on the millsite and that I was a trespasser. The BLM officers knew that I owned the millsite as it had been in Bruce and my names only, but they had this to tell me, "Ann, let them take over the millsite. We are not going to let anyone remain on the mountain at all anymore, least of all this family that knew nothing of mining and BLM regulations. Let them "own" the millsite and mines because we are  going to make them take down all of the buildings and return the entire millsite and mine back to its former state; if they want to own it, good, then we will make them-not you-clean up the mountain." I was very grateful for the understanding of those fine gentlemen because it would cost thousands of dollars to return the millsite to its original condition.

Sheera and I left the mountain and it is a wonder that I was able to get back to Debby's house without having an accident. I have never been angrier in my life. All of those years of striving to give all of those children a good life; of loving them as my own; of the years of struggling just to give them better lives, all for naught. They hated me and I did not even have a clue. True, I had been a disciplinarian and insisted upon a structured home, and I guess they had hated that from the day I had moved in, or rather when they had moved into my home. I was not what they had wanted in their lives, and now that their dad was gone they could get rid of me. This caused me extreme pain on top of just having lost Bruce.

Bruce's family had a beautiful service for Bruce at the cemetery in Julian. I was not allowed to sit with the family, but Tony and Mike and their families were there, and they had me sit with them. As it turned out, none of the family bought a headstone for Bruce, and I did not have the money for one, but his friends, Tony and Mike and their families, built a beautiful Indian headstone for Bruce. It is the most beautiful marker in the entire Julian cemetery. I thank them for all of their love and support, and their deep understanding.


Tomorrow (Monday) the loss of the grandchildren, and then I return to college and that helps me to get back on top. A horrible illness strikes and I am hospitalized once again.

THE DEATH OF BRUCE IN 2000

Today Ann's mother dies, and then two weeks later Bruce passes away.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 31...HELL                                                                    

Bruce and I struggled with our relationship the first semester of college. I still had love for him in many ways, but I knew that I could not live in the mountains anymore. Bruce said that he would never move off of the mountains and we were at an impasse. Then the day before my finals for my first semester, Bruce surprised me by being at Debby's when I came home from school. He asked if we could sit down and have a serious talk about our relationship. No one was home except for Laura, and she went upstairs and left us alone. Bruce first asked about my relationship with Bob in the past, and I admitted to him that I had been unfaithful to him. I asked him to forgive me and he did, and then he asked me what it would take to get me up to the mountains again. I told him that I could not live with Brian anymore and that I could not stand the cat's messes. Bruce promised to have Brian move out, and to take care of his cats properly and not let them into the bedroom. The upshot of it was that Bruce and I made up and we decided that when I finished classes the next day that I would come home until the next semester started.

It had been a hard time for me without seeing Bruce daily as my mother had passed away just two weeks before, and Bruce had been my strength ever since. Momma had lived to be 91 years of age and had gone to sleep one night and not awakened. We had a nice funeral for her and I had sung "In The Garden," and "How Great Thou Art," for her. After the funeral, as we left the cemetery and were about to get onto the freeway to go home, I suddenly broke out in cold sores all around and inside of, my mouth. I guess there was a lot more stress in the situation than I had reckoned on, and I don't know what I would have done without Bruce's support at the time.

I went to school the next day with a song in my heart for the first time in a long time. I was glad that all was right again with Bruce and I, and that the future looked bright. I could still be off of the mountain and go to school, and yet there were always the mountains to go home to on the weekends and holidays.

I was on my way to my final exam, walking as fast as I could from my previous classroom, when I looked up and saw Jared coming towards me in his Naval uniform. I thought, how great that Jared should come to visit me at school, and then I saw Debby coming towards me also. I stopped in my tracks as they both came towards me. Then Jared took me and led me to a bench and had me sit down. Debby sat down beside me and Jared told me that Bruce had suffered a heart attack as he was driving towards Ramona and had swerved his truck to avoid oncoming traffic and had plunged down a ravine by the side of the road. He had died almost instantly.

I was devastated. Bruce was gone. I couldn't imagine a world without Bruce, we had been together for a total of 21 years; we had raised nine children together and now shared 16 grandchildren. Jared and I went immediately to be with Kelly and Janice, and Belinda and Brian, they were all suffering terribly. We all made plans to head up to the mountains immediately to secure all of Bruce's guns and ammunition, and to try to think of what to do next.


Tomorrow Ann is thrown off the mountains at gunpoint by Bruce's family.

THE END OF ANN LIVING IN THE MOUNTAINS

Today Ann learns about the Social Security P.A.S.S, Program, earns a little car & goes back to college.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 31...HELL                                                                   

The doctor began to quiz me about my previous schooling and learned that I did not yet have a degree, even though I had completed my major at Coleman College, and some of my other course-work at National University. He asked me if I had ever heard about the Social Security program called the P.A.S.S. Program, or Plan for Achieving Self Support. If you were on S.S.I., a program for low-income disabled Social Security persons, you could complete a business proposal to set up a business of your own and you would be loaned a certain amount of money against your future Social Security earnings. Under the terms, you could set up a business, or go back to college and use the money for transportation (a car) and books and other school needs. My ears perked up and I asked him for more information. He gave me the number for the P.A.S.S. program and the man who ran it for San Diego County. Then he turned to Bruce and said that he had listened very closely to him today and that if he tried to stop me from pursuing this program that he would go to the Sheriff and file a complaint against him. He suggested to Bruce that he support me to do whatever it took to write up the business proposal.

I called the man at Social Security and he asked me what I would like to do. I told him that I would like to go back to college and get my degree and then get back into the work force. I told him that I would need a car to get off of the mountain to go to the nearest college, Grossmont College in El Cajon. He said that he would send me the paperwork and that we would discuss it after I had read through it.

For the next two months I organized, planned, and created a business plan allowing me to buy a car of my own to go to Grossmont College. I enrolled in the college with a major in Sociology and a minor in Cross-Cultural studies. I signed up for financial aid to buy my books, and I received tuition free because I was on S.S.I. I had to show the reasons that I needed a car in order to go to college and as there was no transportation off of the mountain and into town. I was able to meet all of the criteria to get a car.

Ed sent a letter asking me to call him in Bishop and giving me a number to catch him at. When we talked, he asked me if I wouldn't just get in the truck and drive up to Bishop in it. He said that he would take care of me and that we could get the business started up together. I said what about the truck? It was Bruce's truck only and he would have me arrested if I should run off in it. Ed said that he didn't really think that Bruce would do such a thing. I told Ed that I was sorry but I was too afraid to do that and anyway, I was going to get a car of my own soon, and I told him about the P.A.S.S. program. He was supportive about the P.A.S.S. program and my idea of college and said that yes that would be better for me now, but in the future I would be able to drive the car up to Bishop and see him. We left it at that.

It took about three months from the time that I learned about the P.A.S.S. program until I had completed the program and had actually bought a little car. How I loved that little car and how I loved the idea of going to college again. It was a miracle that I should suddenly be able to get off of the mountain on my own. It was almost too precious that I suddenly had wings and could fly; I could direct my own life now. I hardly knew where to start. I drove to Debby's and asked her if I could live with her while I was going to school during the week. She said that I could and I went home and started packing into the car all of my precious books and my most precious memories and began taking them to Debby's house. James let me use his room to put my books and belongings in.

Bruce began to get very worried when he saw me taking my books off of the mountain because he knew that they were my single most important possession and that if they were leaving then maybe I would be following soon. He became very conciliatory towards me and stopped trying to force me to stay. I reassured him that I would be coming home to the mountains on the weekends and on some weekdays, but I wondered to myself what the truth would really be. It had been some time since I had been in school and I did not know how much time it would really involve for me to do all of my assignments and go to the library, etc.

I started Grossmont College a few days after the start of the new millennium, in January 2000. I had wonderful classes and teachers, It turned out that there was a lot of studying and research required in most of my classes and I soon realized that I would not be going to the mountains during the week. Then I realized that I needed part of the weekend to study for my classes also, and I started going to the mountains less and less.

Bruce became very depressed and although he kept up with the mining end of the business, he did nothing in the house. When I would get home from the college on the weekends, I would have to clean up all of the dishes, and washing of the clothes, and the cleaning of the house. Brian and Jim were living there with Bruce and they drank beer all day long and I would come home and have to wait on them and clean up after them. It got very old very quickly. Bruce's cat population had risen to about 15 cats and Bruce never cleaned out the cat boxes, so the cats would go to the bathroom all over the house. Then he began to let them sleep in his bed at night and they would go to the bathroom there also. It was a horrible mess to come home to every weekend. One weekend I went home and the cats had so polluted the bed that I had to change everything down to the mattress and then wash the mattress and cover it with plastic sheeting. I slept in the bed that night and it was the last time that I slept at the mountains, it was more than I could take.


Tomorrow Bruce and Ann negotiate the mountain stays, make up, and then Bruce passes away...

ANN IS "DYING" TO GET OFF OF THE MOUNTAIN

Just a personal note...or two...I'm going to have another new little great-grandchild on December 14, 2012; I am so jazzed! My dear Sierra's first child; we don't know boy or girl yet, either is just fine and dandy.
I am going to be attempting to get my new blog up every morning by 10:00 a.m., EST. Some mornings have emergencies that come up so I cannot promise every single day, but you have my word that I will get it up at least 98% of the time, and I will let you know if I am too sick to write (so rare) ((Thank God!)).
And again I want to thank you for your faithful friendship, I appreciate you more than I can say!

Today Ed and Ann build a life-long friendship and Ed visits the mine and meets Bruce. Ann is dying to get of of the mountain...

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 30...HELL                                                                

I remembered the dream and my mind and heart did a flip-flop. In the letter Ed expressed an interest in pursuing our friendship after our hospital days were over, but he also said that he would never be the one to break up another relationship and so he said that he would like to become friends to both Bruce and myself.

I invited Ed to come up to the mountains if he could find a ride and see what we were doing there and meet Bruce. Ed said that he would write letters to both Bruce and I, and I suggested to Ed that he might like to stay at the mountains for a while-he had no home to go back to once he got out of the hospital. I told him that Bruce always needed help in the mine. Ed assured me that he would find a way to get up to the mine.

Ed was as good as his word. Once I got out of the hospital I started receiving letters from Ed addressed to both Bruce and I. Bruce of course was very unhappy about the letters and figured that Ed was really writing just to me, but two weeks later Ed had found a ride up to the mine with a friend of his and he met, and really liked, Bruce. Bruce showed off the mine and all of his mining equipment and guns to Ed and they became friendly. Laura, James, and Sheera were visiting the mine at the time so Ed got to meet them also.

Ed's letters became the strength that I needed to try to straighten out my life. As Bruce became more and more uncomfortable with my receiving letters from a man, I knew that I had to make some changes in my life. I demanded the use of the truck for short periods of time so that I could go to the library and grocery store in Julian by myself. Because of the letters from Ed, Bruce got wise that maybe he had better look at how he was treating me, and loosen up a little. I added to those thoughts by rebelling and telling Bruce that I needed a little freedom or I would walk off the mountain. I got the truck for an hour and went to the post office and got myself a post office box so that Ed could write to me there.

Ed asked me to come and visit him in San Diego where he was renting a room. I told Bruce that I had to see Debby, because Charles and Arleen had come from Iowa to visit her and the children, and I wanted to see them for a while. For the first time in 14 years I was allowed to drive the truck off of the mountain and away from Julian. I did go to visit Debby, and Arleen, and Charles, but I then left them and went to a park in downtown San Diego. Ed and I had a picnic and he asked me if I would like to have a job working with him in his company, L.A.M.B. International. He was a licensed stock broker and his business was trading stock options, especially the S&P 100. He felt that with my mastery of EXCEL I could write a program to forecast options. I was wildly excited by such a proposal and said that "yes," I would like to do that. Ed told me that he was going to be moving to Bishop, California to live since he could not find an affordable place to live in San Diego. He said that I should come and see him there, and that we could start the business up. In the meantime, we would write to each other.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE:

Suddenly my mind began to come alive again. I had a friend who could talk to me about ONE, and actually understood things the same way that I did. My mind became like a sponge, and I looked around at what the mountain had become over the last four years. The mountain itself had not changed of course, it was still the serene, beautiful land that I had fallen in love with, but after 14 years-most of them with my being very ill both physically and mentally-I realized that if I stayed in the mountains much longer that I would go stir crazy. I absolutely realized that if things did not change I would die; I could not stand the status quo any longer. I sat down with Bruce and told him how I was feeling and asked him if we could consider getting off the mountain and going to live somewhere else that would be his choice.

Bruce looked at me as if I were crazy and told me flat out that he was never going to leave the mountains, and that I was never going to leave the mountains either, that is, alive and well.

Well, that just made me angry and my rebellious spirit decided that I was going to find a way off even if I had to crawl down the mountain at night. On our next visit to our psychologist, I told the doctor my feelings about the mountains and what Bruce had had to say to me. The doctor called Bruce's bluff, but Bruce said I would never be able to use his truck to get off of the mountains and that he would never help me to get off. Bruce was even against my being able to go to visit Debby for a while.


Tomorrow Ann hears of the P.A.S.S. program and gets her own car and starts Grossmont College.

ANN MEETS ED IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOISPITAL

Today Ann is given the wrong medicine by the pharmacy and almost dies. She is hospitalized and meets Ed at the hospital.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 30...HELL                                                                 

After a couple of years had passed, I realized that I did not love anyone except my children and all of the grandchildren. I knew that if I did not get off of the mountain soon I would never recover my mind or my physical health. I hated Bruce and I hated Brian and I hated being controlled to the point that I could not talk freely with another human being. I was sick of being kept a virtual prisoner by a man that-although I respected his many abilities to mine, and weld, and build, and do anything mechanical-I had come to have absolutely no respect for him as a person, He had many, many male friends and many female friends as well, and I became aware of a special relationship he was having with one of Janice's friends. I guess that turn-about is fair play, but all of the tangled relationships that were going on in the mountains were just another reason for me to be free of it all.

I took a prescription into my usual pharmacy one day in May of 1999. It was a new prescription of a drug I had taken for years, but for a higher dose, and I did not know what to expect the pill to look like; this medication was my chief psychiatric drug. The pharmacy gave me my prescription and I noted that it was a pretty-shaped medicine. Two weeks later I began to feel very physically ill, throwing up all of the time, and hallucinating. We were up in the mountains of course, and it was not easy to get to town, but finally I got so sick that Bruce bundled me up into the truck and took me to the psychiatric hospital to see Dr Laurence. What had happened is that the pharmacy had given me the wrong medicine. First, I was getting the maximum dosage of a drug I had never had before, and second, since I didn't have the correct drug to take, I had abruptly stopped taking a powerful psychiatric drug and that gave me terrible drug withdrawals also. I almost died before they could get the wrong drug flushed out of my system and start me back on my usual drug. After I got well, Dr. Laurence requested that I get a lawyer and sue the drug store for giving me the wrong medicine. He said that it had happened many times to his patients who used the same pharmacy as I did. This pharmacy was one of the largest in the United States and I had never sued anyone before and didn't believe in suing. Dr. Laurence said that unless someone stood up to them they would continue to hurt and kill other people by being lax in their dispensing of medication. So I found a lawyer and we were successful in our lawsuit and I received $14,000; after about a year of waiting for them to see the merit of our lawsuit.

I was in the hospital for three weeks recovering from the medication side effects. One day we were having community meeting for our hospital ward. The issue came up of choosing a movie to be watched that night-for our weekly popcorn and movie night. There was a gentleman sitting across the room from me who suggested watching the movie, The Game. There were several other suggestions for movies but something inside of me said to choose The Game, so when it was my turn I also suggested watching The Game. As I said my choice for a movie, the gentleman who also wanted to watch The Game, turned around in his seat and stared at me; he was very tall and handsome, and he mouthed, "Thanks!"
                                                                                                                                                                 
After the meeting was over the gentleman came over to me and introduced himself as Ed, short for Edmond. We began talking and never stopped for the next two and a half weeks. We thought the same about ONE and had the same life goals. We discussed religion and I found out that he was a jack Mormon-a Mormon in name only, not practicing. We found out that in our entire life spans we had been close to each other many times. He was born and raised in Prescott, Arizona to a very old Mormon family, while we had moved in and around the Phoenix area when I was a girl. He had once had a home in Poway, California, but now he was going through a rough spot after going through a divorce that had ended a thirty-year marriage. He was still very much in love with his wife and he missed his children so much that he asked me to get the word around not to include him in any Father's Day events or rewards. Holidays brought him incredible pain as he dreamed about and remembered all of the events he had shared with his family over the years. Now, he had not seen or talked to any of his three children in some time and he ached to see them and have them forgive him for all of the mess and pain he had caused them.

Ed and I were both patients of Dr. Laurence and Dr. Laurence was very happy to see us talking to one another. He felt that we had a lot in common-Ed and I had the same Bi-Polar Disorder-and we both had compatible minds and backgrounds. So I spent blissful weeks talking with another human being about ONE and about theology in general. He introduced me to so many new ideas and we seemed to concur about almost everything. We had been born two months apart; I was two and a half months older than him.

One night I had a dream and in the dream a man came up to me with a letter he had written. As I took the letter, I heard a voice say, "When a man brings you a letter you can know that he is the one that has been chosen for you. Have no fear."

Two evenings later, I was writing in my bedroom when I heard a knock on the door. I went to the door and there stood Ed with a letter in his hand. He handed me the letter and I said, "Thank you so much, I was just writing you a letter. When I finish it I will bring it to your room." He said how great that was and that he would be waiting. Then he left-the rules were very strict about bedrooms being off limits for the opposite sex.


Tomorrow, Ed visits the mountains and Bruce, and our friendship grows. Ann is "dying" to get off of the mountain...