A letter to a Soldier

Dear J.,

Here are the books promised plus some magazines L. thought you might like. I don’t do very good letters. I love to write everything else, you would think letters would be easy but they aren’t. And word always makes those silly hatch marks under my misspells which I can’t stand so I am going back and correcting things constantly.

I hope everything there is as good as can be and that you are safe. Soon you will be back in the states and I do hope we keep in touch better than we did before you left. Everyone here is doing fine. Just working and living a normal boring life. I have been training new help for the last week and older lady who I think will do okay but it is tiring. Some days I like being the boss and others I really don’t. Most days I would rather just be rich and not worry about it.

Last time we yahooed and you asked me about the rule of three and whether I believed and I didn’t get to explain how I believed and I am not sure how you were considering it. I believe very deeply in God and that he gave us free will and that he loves us no matter what choices we make even if they seem bad at the time. This world is our school, we learn what we need to and then we go on. I don’t believe God is the narrow minded vengeful petty spirit that so many people make him out to be.

As for the rule of three I believe that in general we bring things into our life for two reasons, because we like them or because they have something to teach us. We have the capacity to learn from every situation. The lessons you take home from this war will stay with you forever but that is all they are is lessons. For the rule of three to be worked into this you have to understand that this rule applies to things you do with wanton disregard or delight.

Killing people in a war is not something that will bring sin and ruin down upon unless you start actively hunting them for personal vengeance. Or if you start raping pillaging and stealing just because you can. In every situation there is a high road, even horrible ones. If in your heart you are protecting your buddies, your country or even just yourself then killing is not going to bring down retribution. If you go into the any situation and give the most kindness you can then kindness will find you and your nightmares will be less.

Even the so-called innocents in a war aren’t innocent; the people on the other side make their own choices. They choose to blow up their own people and that’s not even counting the fact that their own people hate each other just because they are a different sect of the same religion. I find it very sad that the Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe in the same God and yet are willing to kill each other. It makes no sense and none of it brings God happiness I am sure. But like a child learning to walk. Mankind must fight these battles. The best quote I have heard about the war is that people have to start loving their children more than they hate each other and to me that is the only way it will ever end.

I can’t imagine the people in America side with one religion over another and allowing the corrupt government to brutalize and terrify the people without the people fighting back. I would like to think that what is happening in Iraq couldn’t happen here or that if it did the people would stand with the constitution and against the government to bring down our own tyrants. Not depending on outside forces to do it for us.

I have no doubt that it is horrible there and that all of you have done things you wish you hadn’t but these are not Rule of three things, these are survival things, not things that stain your soul unless you give them the power to do so. You are a great kid and you always have been. I would much rather have these conversations in person but letters are the best I can do right now cause I ain’t flying to Iraq no matter how much I love you.

As for spell books and other assorted things. Most of your ancient spells were for the most part herbal remedies and most of the people killed over the years were merely people who studied plants and their uses in medicine. They figure about 80% of the witches mostly female of course burned at the stake were local healers. A the time the church didn’t not want the women to have power and certainly did not want them to be seen as capable of healing ails. People talk about druids and witches in times past like they have a counter part here in today’s world and they don’t.

During the dark ages when most of this stuff happened the priests were bashing in sick peoples heads to let out the demons. Bleeding the bad humors from their blood, and don’t forget you couldn’t bathe regularly because that smell helps keeps demons away. They were primitive people in primitive times.

I believe wholeheartedly in magic and in miracles but you don’t need books or spells or candles. If you don’t want to be touched by evil all you have to do in walk in the light and know in your heart that God exists and will always protect you and that whatever happens it happened because you had something to learn from it.

If you want to make something happen you have to merely believe again that that’s what should happen and it will. Small magics are easier than others. Knowing what babies people are having come to me in dreams as does limited visions of the future. April or I can generally tell you if a house is haunted and whether it is good or evil and yet ghosts don’t bother us because they can’t. touch anyone that walk in the light.

Now you may think that you are going to believe the war will end tomorrow and you are going to make a million off the first lottery ticket you are going to buy and you can’t disprove magic because that doesn’t happen because no matter what you profess to believe you know the war isn’t ending tomorrow and as for the lottery ticket you probably don’t really believe that is going to happen so it won’t. True belief in the depths of your heart is what counts not words and most of the times not even actions.

With the rule of the three the saddest part is that people who don’t think clearly enough about this generally do themselves more harm than any silly curse ever could. Because they believe they did something bad and therefore deserve punishment. And as I mentioned on Yahoo we see only the smallest part of what is happening. We are not God we can’t see how the story is interwoven we don’t know when a death is a good thing or when it is bad and like ripples on a pond we don’t know the end effect any action may have. Therefore all we can logically do is be the best people we can be, and trust and have faith that everything will work out all right. The world has come far from where it was a 100, or 500 or even 2000 years ago when Christ walked upon the earth. With each generation we become less violent and less likely to kill for silly reasons, like you looked at me wrong, etc. Whole countries used to lay waste to entire generations and yet the most recent conflict in Lebanon lasted a few weeks killed a few dozen and everybody is pitching in to rebuild even though some of them still hate each other. It’s quite bizarre when you look at it through the lens of history. You are in the middle of the last (I hope) religious war. You are fighting for the right of people to believe, as they want for that is what democracy really is. You are fighting for the next generation of little girls in the middle east so that they can vote, wear what they want and not be beaten, abused and tortured by the men who are suppose to love them because they are nothing more than chattel in that country. You are fighting for rational law instead of religious terror.

These are all good things to fight for and in the end good will always win, yet we can not truly appreciate good until we have seen the face of evil.

Love you bunches
B


PS…. Read Illusions – For me if for no other reason

The Baby was Two Months Old Yesterday

This afternoon I went to the Doctor expecting them to slide a camera inside my body and tell me how bad the cervical cancer really is. It didn't happen for a myriad of reasons, but I was informed that this disease which I now have was directly linked to a case of Chlamydia I was given while I was pregnant. Because of this I now have HPV and of course it could not be a normal form of HPV, I have one of the only 2 out of 130 different strains that causes cancer. There is no cure, this will be with me for the rest of my life. This, to the best of my knowledge was your gift to me. Pregnant with your child living with you, in our house and this is what you give me. It was not something I needed. It is something I could have lived my whole life without, if only you hadn't been so stupid.

I am 20 years old. I was going to be your wife. I had your child. What I needed from you during the last year was for you to step up to the plate and become a man. I needed you to realize that I am not your mother. I do not exist to pick up after you, I do not exist to do your laundry, fix your dinner and take care of your child. I existed to be your partner, I lived honorably with you and knew no other man. I dedicated myself to the creation of our union and our future. I would have stood by you through thick and thin, sicknes and in health. All the promises lovers make, I would have honored. I would have followed you anywhere and supported you in any way. I would have used every resource at my disposal to help you create any future you desired.

What I did not need from you was an unwillingness to pull your share of the load, the lies, the women, the sheer indifference to my love.

Working nearly full time, going to College full time and being pregnant adds up to more than a 40 hour work week. Even if you weren't going to help me you could have at least acknowledged my work rather than disparaging and demeaning my effort. You could have helped me keep our house nicer rather than drinking beer and waiting for me to serve you and I will not live in bug infested squalor. I was not raised to serve, I was taught that husbands and wives were partners. My father did laundry, dishes, anything that needed to be done in addition to traditional male chores. My mother cooked but also helped roof the house. The children did whatever they were told. We were a family. This is what I know, This is what I understand, and this is what I want from my spouse. You have proven that you are not that person.

How could I forgive you, how can I bring myself to accept the fact that while living with me and telling me you loved me, that you decided that one drunken night of unprotected meaningless sex was worth the risk of killing me. Of killing the child I carried within my body, Your child. How could I ever trust you again and how could I love with no trust. I deluded myself once the baby was born. I thought you were worth another try, I thought we were doing so well. Talking about a new house, opening a business that you wanted. You are an accomplished liar. And I am a master of self delusion.

I go back to the doctor Monday and will spend yet another weekend wondering what the results will be. Do you have any idea what it feels like, what goes on in your mind when the word cancer is mentioned in a sentence. Watching my future drift through my mind and wondering if in my mind is the only place I will ever see it. Wondering what will become of my child, a child I have barely begun to know and love. Knowing in the midst of this horror seeping into my life that even during this last week when you knew what what happening to me. You still doshonored me and our child.

Knowing that after hearing of my condition you preceeded to spend the last week making plans to leave me for another woman. A woman from your past that you can not bring yourself to give up. A woman you have not seen in years, a relationship that exists only in your mind or as mesages on your cell phone, on your computer. Little pieces of nothingness. Love without responsibility, without requirements, because it is not real, it is not living in the moment. Yet you are unable to let go and to move on. You hold onto this tattered piece of your youth because you are afraid to face your future.

A future of Diapers, and dishes, and laundry and sleepless nights, of responsibilty of being an example for your children to follow, of being a grownup. Of knowing Love and Family. I understand that we are both still standing on the edge of adulthood. I understand how scary the thought of being responsible for a child and a spouses' entire being is, I share those fears also, but I will overcome my fears and I will go on. I will find a future that my daughter deserves. I will find her a father that will honor her and love her and want to be with her. You have it within you to become that kind of man and I hope some day you choose to do so. It is not the easy way but it is the right way and while difficult, it is the path that brings you love, contentment and joy.

I have to admit to a deceit of my own, at this point, In only one thing have I ever deceived you and while I admit it started off as a lark, a way to appease that small part in me that was afraid you no longer loved me. In this fear and in a desire to know your true heart I became Amy, A picture on Yahoo, a few friendly instant messages, a sincere desire to become your confidant. If only I truly could have. I wanted you to talk to me the way you talk to Amy. To tell ME your dreams, your fears, your desires. And you did, you told all those things you could never say to me to an anonymous voice at the other end of a computer. For some reason this makes it colder. Reading the gloating between the lines, the sheer uncaring about the fact that it was a real persons life you were shredding with your words. To know that you could blithly tell someone you have never even met that you slept with someone else in a moment of drunken haze. Yet you lied continuously to me concerning the same episode.

And to hear you pour out your love for your ex was heartbreaking,

But the heart you broke was mine. I had hoped to hear confirmation of fact that we were doing better I was hoping to hear you say something nice about being with me and the baby. But there was none of that. You complained I didn't trust you and yet you were telling me unknowingly that I was right not to.

I have no need to justify what I did, You justified it for me. I only wish you had had the courage and honor to be honest before, to have told me what was truly in your heart, to have ended this charade before it went this far. You can not have both and I will be lied to no longer. We are not 12, this is not grade school. This world we exist in now has consequenses.

Consequences you have yet to even consider. As bad as this is hurting me, it is also hurting our families.

Your parents who hoped you would choose honor and family over lust and lies. Who wanted to be around their grandchild and watch her grow up. I will not punish them for your stupidity. But yes they already know. Everybody knows. Your secret fears have been exposed. They can be fears no longer. They have become truth.


I have always heard "the truth shall set you free" And it will in so many ways.

The truth has given me the freedom to consider our relationship honestly, to consider what you have truly done. The truth has set you free. Free to discover whether it is the ex you love, free to remain a child for the rest of your life should you desire it. Free to make all your life decisions indpendent of me because I will not be part of that life.