So much is going on so fast, but I love it. I am happier than I've ever been in my life, I believe to my soul. I'm where I'm supposed to be, about to be doing what I'm supposed to be doing. How many people can say they feel that connection with their calling so strongly? What a blessing when it happens.

I don't know what later brings, but if it gets better, I might just explode.

For one, I know Mom is at peace. Stephen is happy and feeling secure doing that male providing thing, Devyn is on the road to becoming the active and engaged little boy he's supposed to be and he's about to be put into preschool. Everyone is taken care of.

Apparently, the Energy we otherwise call God has blessed me with significant people in my life, essential people :) I suppose, the path has been laid before me to just GO. So, I will.

Some of the most bizarre coincidences have been happening... artworks in my head I may never get to, realizations of past, present and perhaps future have come into clear focus to show a masterpiece in the making.   

Read more about whats going on later by clicking "read more" below

First day I'm getting back to gratitude journaling. The idea is to find 5 things to be grateful for every day. So much magic is going on recently and it needs to be kept up with. Psychologists call it "magical thinking", but the rest of us call it coincidence or Universal Consciousness or... God.
Today, I am grateful for
1. The sweetest email from a friend who volunteered to "peacemake" in a group to help someone. Its so wonderful to know someone who would do such a thing. The email he sent me contained insight about an issue I've dealt with forever, people being afraid of me. Now, I know why and it is much sweeter than I had thought.


2. My son, after seeing the above picture and listening to the song I heard last at 16 or so, saying "There's Mama." My jaw dropped! (Sweetie, I wish. But maybe there is an ideal of how face proportions match up? Eyes to nose to chin ratio?) It sure was sweet.

3. Stephen surprising me with take-out Mexican. It was GOOD. How thoughtful is that :)

4. Dancing to old-school music and still being able to move like a liquid (ha)

5. Starting the finishing touches on a painting that means very much, which will be traded for a painting from a friend that means very much.

  
 

I can't believe I didn't write the Stag Dream down in this blog. Well, its not like my mind has been clear. But tonight, I have to get the story down so I can go to sleep. 

On September September 12, Stephen and I had the same dream about a White Stag. Here's what I put on facebook: "Y'all know metaphysical isn't unusual for me/us. If you're around me long, you know weird stuff happens, its part of my normal life and always has been. OK, so yesterday morning, I wake up from a weird dream and wonder what it has to do with anything. 

It fades into the daytime and I don't think much about it. Stephen said later: I had a weird dream as I was waking up, but i was awake. We took Mom home where she could "go" and not be in a hospital. We took her to her back porch. A huge stag, a buck was bowing down in front of Mom and he had does around him." 

I cut him off and asked "He was white or really light, too. Did yours have fuzz still on his antlers?" his eyes got big and he said yes. I asked if he was huge, I mean enormous and healthy-- and also welcoming her? He said yes, he was bringing peace. I said... and the antlers were rounded on the tips and there were does and babies around them, too. I know, I had the same dream. Something in the dream told me that it had something to do with Jesus."

I look up stags, white deer and found that they are messengers from the "otherworld" in Celtic tradition and also are symbols for Christ. Other names for the stag is "Hart". Her doctor's name is Hart and the trauma doc is named something like Hartlong. Here's what else we found: "Allegory/Moral
The stag is a symbol for Christ, who tramples and destroys the devil. As the stags crossing a river help each other, so should the Christian crossing from the worldly life to the spiritual life help others who grow weak or tired. As the stag is renewed and sheds its horns after drinking from the spring, so those who drink from the spring of the spirit are renewed and shed their sins." Here:http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast162.htm

They gave her a breathing tube, a feeding tube and new antibiotics to give her all the resources available to fight this bug. So, lets hope the Stag opens a can of you know what on that devil ♥"

OK. Backstory: It was as if All of nature was welcoming her. The Stag wasn't Christ himself, but a manifestation of Christ Energy. Gosh, that sounds so weird, but thats what it told me. It was Majestic, frightening in the awe it carried. Light eminated around it and we were aware what a treasurable gift this was to experience. . 

Allright, so here it is October 28 and so much has gone on since then. If you continue reading FB (or this blog, lol), you'll see that there were ups and downs, denial, contradictions, declines, changing diapers- adult and a baby's, doling out morphine, dilaudid, atavan, a weeks worth of diarrhea diapers and MEDS that didn't touch it, nausea, throwing up, itching, with trial and error. I had told her over and over it was OK to go, we would be allright. She was so weak. 

Warning, adult language and really weird subject matter ahead. Stop now if you're not an adult or are either so narrowminded or conventional that information from "sensitives" scare you. You've been informed. 

Something odd happened tonight and, admittedly, I needed it :) I had a rough day. My Mom is awake, but she's not eating, she doesn't feel hungry. She says no to a feeding tube, says no to wanting to die, but says no to food by mouth. I mean to tell ya, it is a full time job making sure she eats something. 

Ok, so after today, I ended up pissed off. Most of the day was spent force-feeding mom, literally, with a syringe and ensure. I didn't want to do that, it felt disrespecting, but I kept asking her if she wanted to be ill from not eating (no), if she wanted to eat (yes), if she wanted to fix her low blood sugar (yes). She was so hypoglycemic that she was cold. I wasn't mean, I was stern and loving.

Good news is that after doing that, she was more alert and felt better. I just took the syringe and wiggled it in her mouth, through clenched lips and all, and gave her a squirt to the inside of her cheek. I'm used to this stuff with dealing with Devyn's GERD and that NAAAASTY meds the docs gave him. He had quit eating at all when he was 7 months old from the pain that esophagitis had caused due to the acid repeatedly burning his throat.

So I get home and I'm mad. Maybe it was justified. Maybe it was a pity party. How long is it going to be for me to have a life of my own? Am I willing to continue this at the expense of my little boy? Haven't I suffered enough by saving her life over and over? Hasn't she suffered enough? What fresh hell is this to work so hard to get someone to survive when they say they want to, but all their actions are going against survivability? And finally, just open your mouth and eat, dammit! I don't deny I want to spend the time helping her survive or saving her, but get with the program. (And, yes, I know that her mind is inhibited by toxins, but it doesn't make the feelings any better.)

Knot in stomach, heart in vice, I go to paint. Dev's having some sleep, I start writing all I feel and what I want to say on the canvas and start getting ideas of what its going to be. The letters' lines are going to cue me in on color change. Plus, I'm letting the poison out onto the canvas so it doesn't mess with me later. 

I take a break and walk outside and hear a bell, one sound, over and over. It feels like someone is trying to get my attention. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I feel someone there. All of a sudden, I was compelled to say "I know you're here, I just wish I could see you." I then started to feel the other person's protectiveness and that I'm never alone. They don't want this dilemma for me or us. But I get the distinct impression it isn't one of my blood relatives. 

I ask Stephen who it might be on his side: the person is protective, not to the I'll take your head off extreme, but by way of getting in between an experience and the person and shield the person. He said that sounded like his Mom. "the person is also very "polite" and would never invite themselves in... they're waiting on being welcomed in. They're not boat rockers, but they wouldn't hesitate to be fierce if they needed to" so, I said it outloud... "hey here, Mom Hill, go ahead and come in. I hope you know you're always welcome here."

With that, I went to get a cup to make some putty and didn't think any more of it. While I was getting the cup, I was overcome with motherly love, all these feelings at once just flooded in like a tsunami... all for Stephen and what he was doing with his life, how he was handling things, how well he loved, what kind of father and husband he was. I was so full of sentimentality, pride and joy (like he was MY son!) for him that I started crying. For me, thinking of my husband as a child, my child, just doesn't happen.  

I stopped what I was doing and went to tell him I was sure it was his Mom and couldn't get out what (I?) she was feeling for him because I was crying too much. I AM NOT A CRIER. I listen to slipknot, I take blows like a champ- get ticked off about situations, not hard, but not mushy, either. Sensitive, yes, empathic and compassionate, but not this.
 
Finally, all I could do was hug him and tell him how wonderful he was and that she was so so so proud of him. She was proud of his choices . He was just a good man. 

I got ahold of myself and told him that was why she was outside, she didn't want to intrude (thats one of the feelings I got) and that if he wanted to be alone with her, he could go outside. Seemed fitting that was where she was "concentrated" seeing as how he was taking out the garbage a minute or so ago. 

Stephen got some things and went outside. And, apparently, so did she... because the tidal wave was gone. I was done and was by myself to do what I wanted and my mind was quiet. What was left in her wake was contentment, gratitude, serenity. Something I'd needed all day long. What a huge gift to the both of us.... she is still mothering both of us :)

I've always considered, probably because of my upbringing and the shame surrounding that-- that I was not the kind of girl one takes home to mama. But oddly enough, as blunt, wild, bossy, outspoken and fun as I can be, but I got the distinct impression she did approve of me :)  I am honored. 

Well, here is whats going on: Mom woke up. After almost 2 days of being silent, her main concerns were 1. I have canvases and I want to paint... will you bring me my stuff? and 2. I'm in hospice? What the hell for? 3. There is decisions being made for me? And its not me? WHY is THAT?! 

I have to laugh. As a fly on the wall, from an objective standpoint, its damned funny. Yes, we went through the gut wrenching series of grief stages, crying for hours, getting good and ticked off, meeting with doctors, being tired, wanting to just go hide, cry some more, call off all engagements---- all to come to this place. She's awake and is wanting to return to the rollercoaster, meaning that she wants all the life-sustaining devices she can get. This is what I wanted, to be out of that loop where I may or may not make the right decisions for her. 


And- I got to hear her say I love you one more time. I got to hear my Mom's voice again. Thank You, God. 

I understand what she wants, but there comes a time when what you're surviving/fighting for isn't worth it, imo. Maybe it always is? Is it the devil you know verses the one you don't thingy? 


Anyway, I can't say for her what that line-in-the-sand will be, as its not my decision. Like I told the doc, Dr. Weiss, she hung on for 20 years with a man who treated her as sewage, so there is no telling what she's willing to survive for.


Either way, the kidney dysfunction is causing severe nausea and other symptoms, in which she is unwilling or unable to eat. Everything, apparently, tastes like crap. So.... she's not eating. Which is what got us into this state, anyhoo. Yes, I did call her on it: eat or else you will get sicker and go on machines again and your brain will tap out. You will die. Eat and potentially puke or...... die. Those are your options. (Nausea meds don't touch this kind of nausea). No matter how much I love someone, I can't sugarcoat or placate. 

For Mom's fight and ours, this is my dedication to all of us (plus, it was an awesome experience when Charlotte and I saw them and this at Ozzfest ;): 

Grief is a complicated thing and people vascillate between deep despair, denial, anger, making "deals" <--I never did that one, back to one of the ones just mentioned and over and over. About anger... they never really tell you why you're angry or what its going to be directed at, do they? I guess it could be anything.  

Day before yesterday, I saw Oil of Olay bodywash Mom had gotten me for Christmas and I just bawled. For 2 hours. The thought that I didn't do enough for her, make her feel loved enough, just kills me. Since I had Devyn, I didn't have the patience I used to and the thought I'd hurt her feelings, kills me. Not being able to call her to tell her this weird mix of haircolor I concocted looks good, kills me. Not being able to hear her blather away about dumb things breaks my heart. 

Last night, we go there and she's not waking up at all. They'd done a CT scan and there is nothing wrong with her head that she can't wake up... she's just sick. Its not pain meds, its not a high fever, she's just checked out. Hell, I've been sick as a dog, had 105 fever and saw things, yet I could still say hi. WTF?

Then I got angry. I'm actually relieved, anger feels better than that despair. 

A long time ago, a couple built a house. They didn't have everything that they really needed to make it as sturdy as they should, but they wanted one anyway and they built it where they wanted to. It turned out to be a really good house. In the early years of its "life", a hurricane came along, Camille. The house still stood, most folks were surprised given that the hurricane had 200 mph winds. Sure, it lost its shingles, shutters and porch, but somehow the little house made it.  

Other things happened throughout time, additions had been built onto the house, new rooms, renovations, celebrations, births and birthdays. More hurricanes came and went and the house creaked and moaned and the superfluous parts blew off, but the main structure still stood. The couple was proud of themselves and their construction and maintained life as usual, thinking that all is fine. They tended to the outside, the gardens, the furniture, but never thought to check the bones of the house.

Later on, a small but compact storm, category 1, hit the house and this time, it started to shake more than usual, making crumbling sounds. No one understood: its withstood the biggest and strongest of winds, why would it now begin to crumble? The winds are coming from a different direction, its a small storm comparatively, so why is this happening? 

No one heard the support beams splinter in initial storm's torrential rains because they were so busy mopping up the superficial water on the floor. So now, people are shocked that this small category 1 is about to take out the small, seemingly sturdy house. 

The ones living there even get mad at the house: this is a completely different situation! Why are you crumbling??

How stupid is that?? Well for someone seeing the situation for what it is, there are a few choices... strengthen the support beams, move the house away from the hurricane-habitat or watch it blow over. 

Such is the life of someone who is an ACOA when they live long enough to revisit situations that remind them of initial childhood insults. Even long after sobriety and the choice to live a better life, the structural damage remains. In my situation, I've saved my Mom's life over and over and over-- whether it was through hiding her booze so she wouldn't drink into oblivion and drown in the bathtub, begging her to leave a man who would eventually kill her, all the warnings I gave her to behave differently when Dad (if he knew what she was doing) would beat her for what she was doing, hiding her in my closet when she came back after "running off", to actually sitting on her lap as a human shield when he was going to shoot her. 

Today, I am tired of having to make life and death choices for someone who isn't present. 

No matter how many times Stephen tells me that the situation is different, I can't help but feel tired and resentful. Yes its different, but the effect is still the same. I don't get a life, I get sadness and fear and loss. Whether its by choice (alcohol, a husband) or by nature (Nocardia), I am fucking tired of this and angry. I want her to suck it up, wake up and make a choice between life and death and not leave me to do it for her, like most of my life.     

But as unfair as it is, thats not going to happen. And I'm still left here to look at limbo with the thought that something else could be done to snap her out of this. My heart still breaks and yearns for the person she was before the illness. I still see some fucking olay bodywash somewhere, all day every day. God, I miss her and I'm mad and I don't want to make this decision. But here I am. 

My beams may be wobbly, but my foundation is strong. So fuck you, storm, bring it. Blow the house down. I'll rebuild.  

This is so not what I want to blog about, but I've got to get some of this out. I'll let friends know a little bit at a time, but thats about it. And, just to let them know why their stuff isn't done yet or I'm late for something. I just had to take a minute.

Life's been hard recently and just when I thought it can't get any harder, it did. Mom had been chronically ill and on her last days/weeks/months, but I had to put being with her on the backburner to work at what I could to make ends meet. I worked my ass off painting, promoting, etc. The day that Mom got really sick, I broke and told Stephen to do what he had to do to get whatever job he could. I literally told him to stalk the HR people where he's sent resumes and meant it. 

Then, good news: we got relief when Stephen got word that he was hired in Seattle. I can't even remember the name of the place... Its going to be a drive, but I am so relieved. I'm just worried for him travelling that much and being tired. It is so hard to be ripped apart by having to choose between making a life for your child/family or spend your last experiences with your Mom. I chose and now I don't have to. Thank you, God.  

Tuesday, Sept. 10, Mom was admitted to the hospital with with colitis- caused by the serious chemo-type antibiotics that is supposed to help win the war against Nocardia pneumonia she contracted in June/July of this year. Long term steroid use (which is sometimes just one course) creates vulnerability to Nocardia. She had to go to the hospital... they took her off the antibiotics for the colitis. The Nocardia had no speedbumps and then took off like a shot and sepsis ensued (the infection is in the blood then).

Then septic shock. Seeing her there, swollen like a blimp and leaking fluid from her extremities and on a ventilator, was too much. There is a point in illness when you had rather bear the huge loss of a loved-one rather than see them hold on through suffering for you. You can let your loved ones go much easier than watching them suffer. I think that is how parents of terminally ill children survive the aftermath. I could survive Devyn's passing better than seeing him suffer- oh God. Just please don't ever put me, him, us through that, please, no part of that. No parent should.

So, these days are filled with getting up with less sleep under my belt than I'd like, trying to take care of Dev as best I can, grabbing a minute for computer work and chores, trying to keep more patience than I feel like I can handle at the moment, going to the hospital and loving Mom, coming home, doing dinner, staying up late and working. Its hard and sad, but its supposed to be. And I'm not doing it alone, Stephen is here and doing the best he can, too. 

I'm so grateful to love what I do and have a passion for it. Graphics, promo for the Stanwood-Camano Arts Guild, painting, loving people through what I do. As a gift from God, it has been my saving Grace. 

They took the ventilator out today, but her other numbers aren't looking good, but we'll see how that changes with this new antibiotic. She woke up talking about Mary, Mary, Mary Magdalene. Her mind isn't here and she's in between places and the Angels, Spirits, Guides are helping her to let go here by forming relationships there. They know she won't let go because of the love she has here. That is what I think is going on. I really think they tried earlier and it didn't work- she's a clinger and she wouldn't let go. This time, they're taking their time and easing her into it- but that means her body feels more pain than we here want to see her feel. 

I can't wait to share the dream that Stephen and I had. It'll be a painting, probably one of my best. Just when I think things can't get more beautiful, rich, mysterious or unbelievable, it does.  

 

I really think I dreamed about the Oklahoma City tornado last night before it happened. Proof, I even posted about it here on facebook before it happened. Yes, call me a kook, but I do believe in paranormal perception, 6th senses, esp, whatever you want to call it.  I think its one of God's gifts that we all have to some degree. Read about brain wave activity and what is linked to psychic things here.

I watch Theresa Caputo on Long Island Medium and she's helped me so much to realize and guide whats going on sometimes, much more than when this stuff was hush-hush. She's incredibly gifted and I wish I knew how to "let it go". I translate too much. I need to just describe and shut up about it.

Anyway, I had a terrible dream last night/this morning or so. It was so vivid and here is what was in it:

There was some huge cataclysmic event in which people were grabbing other people's kids and "hiding them" because they knew "it" was coming. It seemed important that I know that they knew "it" was going to happen.

The thing that was happening was so bad that sheltering really didn't matter. What was coming, I didn't know. (I do lucid dreaming in which I can actually "think" in my dream and I thought it was a world war, a volcano or an asteroid because people were running to bunker-type bomb shelters.) I've never lived in tornado prone areas, so basements and bomb shelters are foreign to me.

The devastation was going to be so huge that most wouldn't survive, and the ones who did survive were walking around in disbelief that they did. All these people were just walking around, looking at familiar objects like.. zombies or something.

I kept hearing, or being infused with the knowledge that "There were two storms before this one".

Anyway people were trying to hide children so they would be safe.
We, this couple,  weren't "supposed" to be able to survive, but the children were because they were in this other area (we were separated and I didn't know why).

I then turned into one of the children at a school (I somehow turn into all characters in my dreams and see their perspectives) and I was a child, one among many, in a room with cinder-block walls. Water was coming in and I got hit from behind by what I thought was a wave, but all I knew was I was catapulted toward the wall and remember thinking, "Please God, let me go through that one window to the high left because I don't want to go straight through that cinder block wall.

These children were there in that space (it felt like "on purpose") so they would go quickly. I didn't know why they should go quickly... my brain made up some excuse why in that they didn't want them to suffer. I don't even know who they are. 

I turned into another adult who couldn't figure out why people had their hands in the air and dry dirt was puffing and flying around in the air (again, I thought this meant an eruption of some sort, after all, ash is dirt and we live on the west coast.) I saw a black wedge shaped thing that I thought was smoke or an ash cloud.

Anyway, I switched back into the child in the cinder block building area. Water came into where we were and I was trying to hold the hand of another child. That "chapter" of the dream ended abruptly and I was another character. I didn't get anything else out of that, no last moments, no nothing.

Onward, I turned into a parent (myself?) and saw fire, something on the ground was hot and coming "up"(gas lines?) and cars crumpled and mangled and abandoned. My vehicle was gone, nothing worked and I couldn't figure out how to get my child. Everything was obliterated. I saw a car that was in shape to perhaps drive, noticed that the seatbelt had been ripped and there was blood on it.

I felt the seatbelt and then started screaming with the realization that someone had been strapped in it when it was torn apart and knew that it had to be an immense force that could rip that kind of material. I thought that the person wasn't in one piece because the chances were good that he or she ripped before the belt material. It was obvious that the person wasn't alive anymore.

I turned into another child who managed to hide in a cage-like area with other children at another school. He was warning other children to not go "out there". I don't think this one had a shelter or they managed to get out of the group. They weren't supposed to survive, but they did. They were in a small, enclosed space, forgotten storage behind the school.

I saw wood panels, something that looked like boxes or wooden crates and chicken wire. It was perhaps part of the school, perhaps not but so close it could be an outbuilding. Dogs came... they were afraid of the dogs and didn't want to say anything. Some dogs didn't seem tame. One had black inside his mouth as he was barking at me.

We were afraid of how we would survive AFTER having survived the initial onslaught. They thought their parents were dead and that the dogs would bite them, so they remained hidden and quiet. (I hope there are no children who are hiding, afraid of the rescue dogs out there. I never thought of them being big and scary to kids before.)

I then turned into that other person who had seen the seatbelt. I started screaming to find my child, that I had to get "where" he was because I knew the people who had him would keep him safe, but I just couldn't get there. 

Somehow, then Moss Point popped in the dream??? And then something about the importance of the survival of the children under the age of five. (I guess that would mean preschool kids, who WEREN'T in school would be ok.) Then I was running through New Orleans and people, survivors, were sleeping outside because it was hot and they had no electricity.

I heard Devyn running upstairs and I woke up.

Two storms before this one. Two storms before this one. What keeps getting me is that there really WERE two storms that took this path, almost exactly, before this one. One in 1999 and the other in 2003.

Its so hard to photograph one of these kinds of paintings! The glare is from all the transparent glass-like sheen, a killer to photo, but thats why I like it. OK, at the top left going clockwise, is his little brown hen's portrait. She was always on his mind, like the Elvis song, and is therefore over his head, and is always held to the highest like in her life. Her background is Mona Lisa's background. The image in front of The Good Man is also his hen, showing how he sings his love song "Unchained Melody", probably one of the most danced-to songs ever, and is probably what he felt after she passed away before he did. (Yes, animals do grieve.) He wraps her in his song. Above her head is written "She knows she's loved." This might be about her, but its more about me :) When you find a "good man", you know you're loved.

The music goes into his chest and becomes part of him because he makes it--- a creator cannot make something that isn't of him/herself, you cannot give what you don't have, as they say.

The lower right image is his bright, strong, stout legs that defended nests, dug food and showed both boundaries and kindness. In person, you can see the various shades of green at different levels of depth through the clear resin. The barbed wire is the barbed wire I wish we'd had when the neighbor's dogs had gotten loose.

The last image, the lower left, shows me really trying to capture all the colors in his feathers at once, capturing time in one glance. The only thing I could think of that held that many colors simultaneously is glitter. His feathers dangled down like earrings sometimes, like leaves and fruit from a branch, hence that odd looking decorative deely-bob on his tail.

His feathers are also referenced in the interference and iridescent colors used in the resin-glass pieces. If you look at it head on, you can see green, move to the left and you don’t see that one, but a purple sheen showing up somewhere else. The song wraps and creates both of them.

All in all, the entire color scheme is a suggestion of the time of year in which energy picks up: spring! Early spring has the chilly, frosty mornings and sunlight afternoons. Lil’ Dood was so happy around this time of year, full of himself and doing more dances and running around chanting “butter butt”.

The only thing I regret not doing was adding the chicks, but I suppose early spring is not the chick-time, so it can be overlooked. I may put a chick or two in there somewhere later.

New Painting update! Meet Lil’ Dood, "The Good Man". He is the subject behind a true story and Candie Tallquist’s inspiration. Candie needed something for the Great Northwest Glass Quest here in Stanwood/Camano Island, and since I needed something glass-like, I experimented with various layers of resin. The paint and objects between the layers of resin symbolizes the iridescent colors in his plumage.

Candie's need was the first inspiration, this supernatural story is the second. My Dad passed away March 19, 2006… a few months after Katrina and a week after my 33rd birthday.

On the anniversary of his death several years after he passed away, I was standing outside thinking about him and the wisteria plant he had given Stephen and I. My thoughts wandered to how he had this oddball love for bantam chickens and how he appreciated the spirited little things. I thought it was funny because they were supposed to be cross and territorial.

That afternoon, I kid you not, my Mom called and said that a chicken was walking around her apartment complex parking lot and asked if I wanted it. It’s a residential neighborhood and NO ONE kept chickens. (I didn’t know Moss Point, Jackson County, MS had laws against owning chickens, so I said “Sure”.)

So, here she comes, bringing this small bag- like the ones tree huggers like us use instead of plastic grocery bags. I asked “Well, where is it?” and she said, "In this bag". So, she takes this little skinny thing out and it walks around the kitchen. We didn’t know for sure if it was a chicken because it looked scrawny, like a roadrunner… but the minute “it” saw our pet Duck, he “bowed up” making the gender and message quite clear. I complained, “Oh, no, it’s a little dude!” because they are notorious for being mean-spirited. Great, I thought, now we have this little thing to kick our butts all the time. I can't not love any animal, so, he had a home and his new name, Lil’ Dood, stuck.

We kept this little guy, crowing and all, a secret. He didn't beat us up. He did dances when we clapped our hands and sang, but he was so lonely. He followed anyone and everything around the yard, mumbling “butter butt” to us, cats, other birds and the grumpy duck. He had even gotten to the point where we could pet him and he’d let us pick him up. This doesn’t sound anything like the mean, feisty little bantams I’ve heard from old timers’ stories.

So, we get him a hen. While she was being acclimated to the yard in a separate pen, Lil Dood tried to show his appreciation for her beauty—to which, she tried to open a can of whoop-ass on him. Good for him there was at least a barrier to save his physical feelings. His emotional ones? Not so much.

She continued to whoop him at every opportunity, so we got him another one. This one must be THE one :) It was love at first sight.  Pretty soon, he was scratching the ground and offering her food. What?! This is the mean little cranky breed everyone talks about?

Later, came the chicks. He was an even “better” father than he was “husband”. During the “pregnancy”, he was a wonderful husband and doted on the hen whenever she came out and, often, scratched and danced inside the nest box at her. Just about the only time he was cantankerous was when she bumped into him while he was asleep.

After the bantamlets hatched, he would scratch and point out bugs and food, not eating it himself- instead, offering his finds to the chicks. One grew up to be another “Lil’ Dood” who often tested his boundaries, yet Lil’ Dood, Sr. never pecked him, although he did put him in his place.

I can’t remember what happened to the little hen, but he was sad and lonely after she passed. He had a good life, although one without a mate, afterwards. Eventually, loose neighborhood dogs snuck into our fenced-in yard and that was the end of Lil’ Dood and a few of our other pets. I miss him and he continues to live on in a story I love to tell.

What makes Lil’ Dood supernatural?

First, the way and day we got him, exactly on the anniversary of my Dad’s passing, on a day when random, wistful thoughts turned into a funky walking reality. This tells me that God (whatever name anyone chooses to call “It”) has both a sense of timing and humor. Secondly, in relation to my Dad, I suppose this little bantam embodied the characteristics that he wished he could have been in his life: gentle, doting and vigilant. In my Dad’s sober times, this is what we had (on occasion). I suppose this is why we mourned his alcoholism so much.

Either way, we appreciate the time we spent with such a comic relief that was Lil’ Dood, and we know we gave him a good life while he was here. Just like my Dad.