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The Rancher

This morning was a very troubled morning indeed…

To sum it up the morning from hell partially consisted of a car that wouldn’t start, a bathtub that was very difficult to scrub, a bottle/can recycling session that resulted in a typical “sudden Oregon downpour” and the inevitable fall on a freshly washed floor that is now covered with mud, blood and lingering swear words. The rest of the morning, I will leave to your imagination.

Any who… A completely irrelevant story came to mind. It has in no way any connection to my morning but it was a story I always wanted to tell the world. Yes, the story you are about to hear is true and entirely not connected to the passing of my morning stress.

The dear friend of mine whom told me this story is third person, as the person who was driving behind the main character of this story and decided to stop her car to watch it play out. If there is a truly unique mystical way to the universe the Rancher will either read this some day and feel appreciated or has won the lottery, I am sure he would prefer the latter.

My friend was driving on I-5, north of Sacramento, Ca and witnessed a large truck hit a dear and send it flying to the side of the road, my friend, in shock pulled over in front of a pick up truck that had pulled over immediately after the accident. Needless to say the actual truck that hit the deer did not stop, as far as I am concerned, they never do. People suck, I hate them..Wait, I am telling a story. I will try to keep the emotions in check. Seriously, this story is one of the only reasons I have a VERY small amount of faith in humanity.

Ok, so she pulled over and and ran towards the pick up that had pulled over to find a man and his wife emerging from the cab. This is what she told me.

The man and his wife ran up to the deer to investigate while my friend watched and apparently, others pulled off the road to “see” what was happening. The man checked the deer to see if there was anything he could do, I think this is when they found out he was a rancher. The doe was pregnant and very far along my friend said. The Rancher proceeded to get a knife and his wife, a blanket from the pick up. My friend said, right there on the side of the busy freeway with growing spectators he proceeded to cut open the doe’s belly and then womb to remove the baby fawn. The fawn showed no signs of life, and get this, the Rancher proceeded to do CPR on the fawn, mouth around her little muzzle and pressing on her chest in rhythmic motions.

Apparently after several minutes the fawn started to breathe on her own. He had actually saved it. The Ranchers wife came in with the blanket and swaddled the baby fawn. My friend said everyone there clapped for the Rancher and a dozen questions came fourth but, my friend said, the Rancher and his wife were eager to get home to see if with a bottle and time they could get help the fawn survive. And so, they were off, as was my friend with a huge smile on her face.

This story for me came at a time where I can honestly say, I hated humanity. I can also honestly say that if not for these events, I would have even less faith in humans than I have now. I hope that this can bring some contentment to someones heart. At least if you are a person who is tired of selfish, cruel people and “road kill” as they call it. As for the man who killed the deer without stopping to at least acknowledge it, well, if at all lucky the Rancher one the lottery and the deer killer got a call from the IRS.

Thanks for listening.

Wait. I remember now. Soaking wet, on the way home I saw a deer in the graveyard we live across. What da ya know?

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My son’s naked butt

The morning is always a unclear time, before the coffee kicks in and the brain starts to function I am always confused. What will the day bring, what will we do, how often will I call my husband at work? I wake and am greeted by three black cats, one whom presently has his paw in my mouth, a moaning, drooling husband and a child who has shed his diaper and is going commando around the house. Did I really think it was going to be like Doris Day? I think I did. Where are the singing birds? Why isn’t my hair and make-up perfectly done? Plastic scrambled eggs and a house that shows no evidence of a family ever having been there. No, not for me. Runny scrambled eggs, burnt toast, hungry cats, confused husband and my son’s naked butt.

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Dec. 10. 2008. StarDate3490.804.20080.12

Dear Dad;

I really, really fucking miss you. I am so mad at you for leaving I can barely control it anymore. Did you really expect me to be able to hold this family up? I mean, what the fuck were you thinking? You don’t talk to me for years then you come back to me and tell me you always loved me then you travel up to see me and die! Really, what the fuck was your soul thinking? Did you really think mom and I were going to leave the hospital and be OK? Did you really think she and I would survive your ignorant death? You know that it is seven years later and it is still the same for her and I as that night you died. You die everyday for us, over and over again. Do you have any idea what I went through? Do you have any idea what she went through?

Let me tell you, you absolute asshole.

After years of longing for our damn relationship to return to normal, after years of self hatred at the thought I had done something so wrong as to lose your love, after years of lingering around your bedroom door waiting for forgiveness you come back to me. You decide to forgive me (much to my shock) for being a crappy teenager. You travel your ass up here with my mother in tow, not once but twice, back to Oregon where we should have stayed. You forgive me, acknowledge me, hug me, cry, tell me you are proud of me, tell me you love me. Then you fucking die. You have some stupid heart attack that kills you while your on the fucking road.

So here it is you jerk. This is just me remember, mom has some words for you too.

My fucking day at work, I begged and begged my boss to get off early so I could spend as much time with you and mom as possible but there was so much to be done that I had to stay all through my shift. By the time I get home, so excited to plan our night together before you get back to California, I give mom’s cell a ring to check status on our plans. Let me tell you now how you destroyed every moment of my life, for the rest of my life.

Panic on the other end of the damn phone. I had no idea. Mom was on her way to the hospital with you. You were already dead. I didn’t know you were dead dad. I got in my Honda in a fury and started to drive in your general direction. You should have died in Portland, not so stupid town 30 miles away. You could have done the damn antique shopping in Portland. I had no idea where I was going, stopping at a Les Schwab in screaming tears to ask where the fucking hospital was in a town I had been to only once before and only in passing.

Oh, let me tell you about the traffic, see you decided to die right before rush hour. I was trying to get to you, putting cigarettes out on the floor of the Honda in panic screaming, no God, you won’t take him, he will be fine, it was just a heart attack, he is alive and we can get his heart fixed, no God, you would not take him from us, no God you just would not do it, never take my daddy, not now, not now when I just got him back.

You see dad? I thought you were still alive and it was too close of a call. Even though my panic was so bad I think I knew you were gone. But I did not know. After an hour in panic in traffic some miracle guides me to the hospital in a town I didn’t know, off of roads I had never travels to rush, crying into the hospital asking for you.

Listen up dad, it gets better.

The nurse did not tell me you were dead. She put her skinny arms around my shoulder and lead me to you.

See dad, she didn’t tell me. I ran to you on that hospital bed, telling you I was there and it would be ok from now on. You just had a heart attack and now we could get your heart fixed and you would be ok and we would be a family again and I loved you, God how much I loved you.

See. You were dead and she didn’t tell me. I really didn’t know until I had stopped talking to you and looked at my mother. You left us there. Alone. You left us for dead. It gets better still dad, see the Grim Reaper may not have taken our bodies but when you died he took our souls.

I screamed my way out of the hospital and put three beautiful dents in my baby Honda. They called the police on me dad. The stupid nurse, shit she probably called, “some crazy girl in the parking lot kicking a white Honda and screaming”. Lucky for the cops they didn’t even touch me. I was ready for the gas chamber.

After that the nothingness set it, not the good kind of no-thing-ness but the empty silence of absence.

I got in a fight with the clerk at the hotel you and mom had been staying at. That son of a mother fucking, ignorant, bastard. When my mom had stated (still in shock mind you) that you had just past away he did not care and demanded that she pay extra to have her room unlocked because she failed to check in. “Sorry, I thought, her husband was busy dying and she had just lost her entire world” but of course, pay the extra damn fee.

I threatened to kill him. If I had had a gun dad, I would have. He told me it wasn’t his fault you had died and I agreed but when I screamed that he could me more compassionate to a widow he just stared ignorantly with a supreme smirk on his face. He didn’t understand. I wish he was in the grasp of death, even now.

Dad. You left us for dead. Now it is Christmas time and you are not here. Oh, you ruined Thanksgiving too. You just had to die Thanksgiving Eve so we eat pizza on Thanksgiving and cry.

I have made every attempt to end my life. Life has little value. Even my beautiful husband, special son and enduring mother cannot convince me to stay. I am coming for you. It was all I ever, really wanted. Just want my God damn daddy.

-Cass