Aloha!  I’m  here!  In the South Pacific!!!!  I love this island the very best. I’m here on assignment to find out once and for all if sharks can be good pets.  My hand feels much better today. (As of now the answer is no to the above question.).  I’m  holding a Shark Seminar today in the cove, they need a little attention and guidance.

Kind of  a weird plane trip over, next time I’m taking a boat.  I got on a packed plane and was lucky enough to get the middle seat in the middle aisle.  I was sitting next to a mom who was holding her 11-month old baby the whole way.   That part was fine, he was a sweetheart (when he was asleep) but her 2 and 4 year olds were in the seats in front of us and liked to stand up and look over the seat and drool on my laptop. 

No complaints though, they were good kids and actually stayed in their seat!  BUT, the lil’ darling two seats up kept running up and down the airplane aisle.  It was the strangest thing.  No one said anything!  I tried to give him a dirty look, since his parents wouldn’t,  but all he noticed was that I was looking at him, and it kinda energized him.  (By now the lady to my right split, she couldn’t take it anymore.  I think she moved to the back of the plane, or she jumped out, I’m not sure.)    I got to move over to the aisle seat.  So every time the kid ran by, he’d knock my shoulder.  I tried to trip him, but got a dirty look from someone watching me try to trip him.  Then he crawled up on the top of the airplane seats and slid down to where his cousin was sitting, over and over and over and over.  Not all terrorists are jihadists.  I don’t think he was undercover, it’s possible though cuz he terrorized a whole plane.  No one said anything.  Just a few dirty looks and an occasional foot in the aisle (which was mine.)

It gets worse:  mom to my left is kinda a free spirit, and she was nursing her baby, and she and the baby fell asleep (that’s when he was a sweetheart) except her, uh, her, hmmm, her milker was out, the whole thing!  I didn’t know what to do, should I cover her up?  The whole plane could see her.  So I just looked forward.  At the back of the seat in front of me…and saw drool slowly drip down.

I landed in warm beautiful Oahu to change planes, quickly changed shoes (so I wouldn’t be identified as the tripper) and waited for my next flight which would be in a very small plane with very big people.  I was lucky enough AGAIN to get the seat next to the emergency exit, and could stretch out my legs,  cuz I’m so tall, you know.  And the very grumpy and disgruntled steward of our flight came up to my row and asked all six of us if we were strong enough and willing to open the exit doors and let EVERYONE ELSE out first if the plane went down. I guess, you know, a price you have to pay to stretch your legs. 

He really didn’t even wait for my answer,  I was thinking, “Hmm, stretch my legs, save strangers and go down with the plane? or ….”  I was just ready to tell him since I was short and not really benefitting from the extra 2 inches … but before I could tell him, he was gone, or so I thought.  I did tell the other tall guy that was really benefitting from all this extra space that if this plane went down, it’s every man for himself. 

But GRUMPY heard me, turned around and marched back, and yes, he did march!  He reprimanded me and told me if I couldn’t do it, I could move.  I stone-faced him, but instead my head was screaming, “Now I’m  the bad guy?????? I’ve just been in a plane for 5 hours with a 3-year old terrorist and a boob!  Give me a break!  I’m sorry I don’t feel like saving a plane load of people right now.”    But since Grumpy raised his voice,  the plane got quiet, and I noticed people were now giving  me dirty looks!  Just cuz I wouldn’t go down with the plane for them.  As I  exited the plane, I had to watch my step…making sure no one was trying to trip me.

Okay, CUT, CUT, CUT.  WOW, I look back at that up there…boy, wasn’t life easy!!!   I was on assignment in Hawaii to do an article on Shark Obedience from The Unlikely Pet Magazine, and the worst worry I had was whether people on the plane were going to trip me?  How I wish that is all I had to worry about now.  So much has transpired since then!  I had to quit the magazine to deal with this crazy story that has fallen in my lap.  Literally. (It fell outta a black boot onto my lap.)  First off, the story I’m going to tell you is 95 percent true.

I can’t say it’s 100 percent true.  I’ve had to change names to protect the guilty.  But the story is true, one you are gonna have a hard time believing ever happened.  It started a long time ago.   Of course, the place and names of the characters in this story have been changed, (Oh, trust me, they’re characters)  but it’s a true story.   I have had to research some of it and risked my life doing it,  chasing shadows, hearing squeaky doors at midnight and peering through trees.     Bare with me in the beginning, I have to set the stage for you and show you who is who…or who was who.

First, let me introduce myself.  Up there when life was simple in Hawaii I was known as Rascal Robbins with The Unlikely Pet.  (Yeah, you’ve probably seen their reality show.)  I was a reporter that got to interview a lot of animals that weren’t your granny’s cat.

My real name is Kitty O’Heart.  I have three sons, Pony, Crock and Dux.  I’m long-timed married to a robbery detective, Primo.  He’s a tad paranoid, so I gotta keep a lot of this under my hat.

I lost my mother when I was relatively young.  I remember kneeling on my mother’s grave, tears streaming down my face.  I had pretty much lost it that day.  She had only been gone about five weeks, and the reality that I had lost my only true earthly advocate was beginning to sink in. 

 

 I knew Mama was in heaven, she loved the Lord.  I knew He whispered,  “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  I held onto the fact that she was dancing with Him now, free of all this world’s troubles, but the loss of her on earth still seemed more than I could bear.

But this new revelation, the diary I had found, left me in complete despair. I didn’t even know Mama had kept a diary! The secrets that she had been forced to keep locked up in her soul ironically were now freed, yet she died with her heart heavy with them. 

My vision was blurred through the tears as my hands ran across the cool stone tombstone.  Grief had seized my very spirit and soul and rung them out like a dishrag.  The strangest thoughts danced through my head like who would remember that I always wanted a lemon meringue pie on my birthday? Or who else would think my kids were as wonderful as I did?  Surely not anyone that knew them.  

Our family’s encourager and supporter was gone, she left us alone in a world that suddenly seemed very cold and impersonal.  But the deep primal pain that I could actually feel in my gut came from the new knowledge of what she had known and had lived with.   That bag of rocks that she drug behind her for all these years was so incredibly heavy, and now that broken bag laid at my feet screaming out the hidden secrets.  I didn’t know what to do with them.

Kneeling at the grave that day, my eyes had been so swollen and my head pounded, and people were staring, staring at me as my trembling fingers met the coolness of the granite that had mama’s named eternally etched in it.   Good bye, Mama.  Good bye, friend.

Grief has a way of dropping in on you unannounced like  a new acquaintance does when your house looks like a bomb went off…unexpected and shocking.   I lived in that cycle for quite awhile, stunned at my own complete undoing and the depth of the hollowness that was beginning to swallow me up.  It seemed as though my soul had cracked open and my innards were pouring out into an abyss.  There’s really no other way to describe it.  There was a constant aching in my gut, a continuous buzz of anxiety right on the surface, and a trembling of my spirit. 

But the haunting reality was that my immense pain was due to undone business.   I would never know why my mother kept all these secrets for other people for all those years.  I would never know — and this hurt the worst, why my mother never shared any of it with me.

Looking back on those dark days, I’m glad I didn’t know everything I know now.  I’m not sure I could have stayed sane, (assuming I was  sane to start with.)  God gave me what I could handle. The rest came bit by bit.

It all started when I had finally gotten to the point where I could go over and clean out her home.  It was then that I found a hidden diary down in the leg of a size 9 relic black patent leather boot.  It literally fell out of the boot onto my lap as I was going through her shoes.  I could not believe my eyes!  I never knew that my mother kept a diary!  I remember sitting cross-legged in that closet on the itchy carpet reading that tattered old book. That’s how this whole saga unfolded. 

 

Sometimes I wish I had just tossed out the boots, burned em, ran them over with the car, or threw them in the sea with all their secrets.  But the truth wanted out. It was undated, but many of the memories came flooding back to me from my childhood.

My mother had been the secretary at The Shepherd’s Gate for most of her adult life, and obviously from the diary she knew too much…  way too much.  My mother was a vault.

I sat in Mama’s closet devouring every word of her diary until the light became so dim, I realized the sun was setting.   I stood up, my knees aching, and clutched the little book to my chest.   My mind  was racing because at that point I didn’t know the end of the story.  I was desperate to finish her diary and put the puzzle pieces together.  Little did I know then, there would be no piecing.  Mama had it all down, right to the end.

If there was one lesson I learned during that horrible time was that you must embrace the grief, let the dark cloud envelop you and realize you are devastated because you lost a lot.  Grief is like a phantom that will wait for you as long as it takes, lurking in dark corners patiently plotting its surprise visit upon you.  You will never ever outrun grief, so it’s best to turn and face it, and only then will it eventually transform itself into a dim shadow canvassing your memory.

Okay, enough for today!  Wow, didn’t that  lighten up your day? Nothing like a good ‘ol dose of grief to get your day going!  Geez, I kind of just threw up on you.  Sorry.  Here’s a napkin.  Anyways, as I tell my dear ‘lil darlings… “Buck up!”  This is nothing compared to what’s coming!

 

 Since we’re just getting to know each other, I’m going to give you a million dollar recipe.  I won FIRST PLACE with this at a bake-off! (Never mind I was the only adult competing against 6th graders, I still won.)   This was my mom’s famous pie.

I only take little tiny bites because there’s something about it being non-caloric because it doesn’t mix with carbonation or zinc, something like that, so it doesn’t count as calories.  Don’t quote me on that.  Anyways, I personally guarantee it to be the hit of the party.  If not, you can get your money back.

Mama’s Apple Sour Cream  Pie

1. Mix Well:

3/4 cup sugar

2 Tbls flour

1 egg

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt

2. Peel and slice 2 cups (at least) of green apples

3.  Mix with mixture above

4. Pour into crust (you can use a Pillsbury crust already made in the freezer dept at store.  If you make a crust by hand, the key to perfection is to not handle the dough very much!)

Bake 15 minutes @ 450 degree  (I take strips of foil and cover the crust edge so it won’t burn.)

Reduce heat to 350 and continue baking for 30 more minutes.

Topping:

1. Blend

1/3 cup sugar

2 tblsp. flour

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 cup butter (softened)

Sprinkle over top of pie and put back in oven at 400 for another 10 minutes.

Remember, people would riot to get this recipe, and you’re getting it as a reward for reading all the way down the blog.

I know we didn’t get too far in this story, but the ground work must be laid!  Chapter 2 will have a pop quiz on the characters and you must score at least an 89%  on it to be able to read on further.  

Come back next week and we’ll talk story.