The Purple Cigarette Case

As I walked into the cabin up on the Missouri mountain that first time, my ears still buzzing from the shock of learning about Ramona, the very first thing I laid eyes on was a purple cigarette case lying on the rustic wood coffee table. I took in the wood paneled walls, the striped earthtone olefin sofa set and briefly noticed the scent of the place. Musty, stale smoke, some kind of sour whiskey or beer... but my eyes kept going back to that cigarette case. I hadn't seen that case in a few years but I recognized it immediately. It was Ramona's case. I had this hysterical thought that they were wrong, they had to be wrong! Ramona was obviously just in the other room... there was her cigarette case right there on the coffee table after all. Oh and look here is her purse on the floor beside the couch.

I got up and wandered around a bit. Not my house but it didn't seem to matter. Ramona's mom, Nan and her cousin I had never met; CJ and... Ashley! Oh my god little Ashley...  with those big round eyes just like her mother...were there too, they were talking, everyone seemed excited and lost all at the same time and I just couldn't focus on them no matter how hard I tried. The house was small. Only 2 bedrooms. It was furnished like it had always been there. The furnishings and decorations placed by some elders in the family years ago and left to be attended by whomever happened to currently possess the house. But there... and there. A cigarette case, a purse, a calendar on the wall.  A doll on the floor of the bedroom, a sweater... my god that was my sweater! I had forgotten she had taken it so long ago. Notes scrawled and stuck to the refrigerator under a magnet. Little pieces of Ramona all around me. Somehow I knew they were her things even if I hadn't seen them in years or ever before. I could feel Ramona in every room. They weren't her rooms she had only been there what a month? Two? But she was there now big as life just the same. Any second she would walk through the door and laugh at all of us being so silly; crying and carrying on.

I sat on the couch and tried to focus on Ashley. Six years old, an orphan so young! My mind drifted again to a letter Ramona had written to me just a few years ago. Ashley must have been a baby then. She reminded me of her health. She had become a diabetic so young, at the cusp of her years of teen angst. She rebelled against her disease as hard as any teen ever did against parental rule. She had smoked cigarettes and weed and popped pills, drank and partied like she was fulfilling her destiny to die. They had told her she would not live to see 21 years old. But she was 21 when Ashley was born. The years of self abuse had taken their toll but there she was pregnant and hopeful for the future. She had written to me and begged me to take Ashley if she should die.

We were kids, she and I; 19 and 21 years old. What did we know about wills, lawyers and custody agreements? Yet there was Ashley before me. An orphan.
Reflecting on the events of the day, I thought about how crazy that I should be sitting here at all right now. That Ramona should be gone and I am here.  We had planned the trip haphazardly as we usually did things. My marriage crumbling, Ramona had run from hers and was now hiding in the mountain cabin with her cousin.

We had spoken on the phone several times since she had left Orville. She kept telling me, "These people have MONEY!" She had told me all about impromptu helicopter flights to the gulf for shrimp, and obscene money spent on booze and barbecue and everything under the sun.

"They work in oil, you know, THAT'S where the money is," she had said.

Looking around it didn't seem like they had money. Land yes, they had land. The cabin sat on I don't even know how many hundred acres. She had wanted to buy me a plane ticket to visit; hash it all out. Somehow I was sure that my visit would result in my divorce.

I had rushed to the airport in Hartford, Connecticut this morning; an hour drive from Groton where I lived with my husband, Aaron and three kids. unable to find my address book with the new phone number at the cabin. I wasn't able to call to verify our plans for several days before the trip. I was worried but ultimately I trusted her to know my flight information. She had bought the ticket afterall. In retrospect it seemed odd to me that she hadn't called me... but then I was under so much stress at home myself, and really Ramona was like that. How many times had we gone 6 months or more without talking at all only to have the phone ring at 3 am and there she'd be,

"Girl, I know you have a good margarita recipe, right?"

We never skipped a beat, every conversation left off was picked up months or years down the road as easy as if we were never apart.

When I had stepped off the plane into the terminal I was only slightly surprised not to see her at the gate. As I waited for my baggage at the carousel I wasn't really even concerned. I carried my bags to the payphone in the center of the airport and fussed around in my purse for a phone card or cash, I don't remember anymore in the end I think I just dialled collect.
When Aaron answered the phone I asked him if he'd finally found my address book.  Ramona wasn't here.

"Are you sitting down?" He asked me ignoring my inquiry.

"Uh... no, Aaron I'm standing at a payphone in the middle of the airport," I retorted in annoyance.

Then came the back and forth... god he could be like a dog with a bone! Telling me over and over to sit down because he has bad news.,. I was becoming more and more irritated with him as a sneaking dread began to come over me and I was suddenly positive that he was going to tell me that my mother was dead
when suddenly I noticed that Nan... Ramona's mom? Nan was walking toward me.

"Why is Nan here? Nan lives in Arkansas, this is Missouri..." my thoughts were swirling as I vaguely heard Aaron finally say,

"Ramona passed away last night."

"What did you say? Why did you say that?" I was suddenly furious! If he had been standing in front of me I would have punched him right in the face.
Then I saw Ashley trailing behind Nan and I knew it was true.

I dropped the phone and we hugged each other so tight right in the middle of the airport and I was screaming and crying. I think she was too. Ashley clutched at our legs. All the years that she had felt like enemy mom, vanished and she was holding me up. My legs quivered under me and I don't know how I didn't fall. I don't remember how we got to the car. I don't know how we did it without losing my luggage. All I really remember now is the long drive in the backseat, with Ashley leaning over on my lap and then walking into the cabin and seeing that purple cigarette case.

That afternoon we drove back to Jacksonville, Arkansas to Nan's home and the place where Ramona and I had become friends in high school. I spent my two week vacation helping to plan my best friend's funeral. I was grateful to be there, if she hadn't bought me that ticket I wouldn't have been able to get there. That was in 1995. I miss Ramona. Everyday.

Uncondtional Love

I wanted to tell you
What I've learned about
Unconditional Love

Right from the start
I knew that he never had it
Not until he met me

For so many years
I loved that man
I begged him to see
I was giving him everything
He ever asked for
Ever dreamed of
Everything he always wanted
He couldn't see it

I thought - I knew
That we would get thru it
That any minute he would
He would open his eyes and see me
And it would all be worth
The pain, the tears
The bruises
We would both finally have
What we always wanted

I was willing to bear it all
To have unconditional love
And to give unconditional love

Eventually, it all fell apart
The choices weren't mine to make anymore
Still I knew - if I had faith
and I kept on loving
That one day it would all be worth it

What I didn't know was that one day
My baby girl would be 5 foot something
And she would stand and look me in the eye
and say
"I wish you would die"
I didn't know that she could never appreciate
The sacrifices I had made for her, for her brother
For her sisters

I didn't know three angels would
Shut the door to heaven from me
And open their mouths to drench me with
Retribution

I didn't know my firstborn
Would turn her hate on herself
I didn't know that I would be
Forever locked in the hell I made

Because I had loved unconditionally

In the end he never loved me.
Love is a verb you see
And the verb he held in his heart for me was hate
He hated me with his words, with his hands

H edidn't know how to love me
Or anyone else
And he never cared to learn

In the end it was never worth it
Not worth my pain, my tears
Not worth my bruises
Certainly never worth my babies

And these will never learn this lesson
Because I never taught it to them

And now I see her trying to love that way
My baby girl
Giving away too much of herself
To a boy who will never open his eyes and see her.
And she doesn't yet know
And you tell her but she doesn't care

It was never worth it
It will never be worth it

History of My Heart (Part 3) by Victoria Meyers (26 of 30)

The history of my heart moves on to tell of escape from hell, and landing in the fire. Of horror high school and sweet first love turned sour. Of blurs of keg parties, and punk rock glimmers. School parades, and dances, and secret whispers. Of epic breakdowns and adolescent psychiatric wards. Of pills, and razors and sex, and weed. Learning to drive and stealing cars. Of the contrast of ROTC and uniforms. Of trying to change and being slapped back into my place, of growing away instead of up.

Teenage pregnancy and teenage marriage to a man who should have been in jail for our love. A black love that followed the course of slum and slime that my life had become,  had been but I didn't know. I didn't know who else to be. Reactionary actions on the part of a contract-uary obligation.

To the day when I walked into the baby's room in the morning light and saw that shining smile. My first light in a life of hell. She said HI. And she smiled a smile that melted hearts of everyone. No one could resist that smile and suddenly the weights of the corners of my own mouth became less and a smile snuck out of even my own heart. 

But not to be outdone, the darkness returned in full force, as I lay on the floor in a bloody beaten haze and watched the cop at the door's eyes meet mine before I fainted and heard the words from his mouth, “she's just fine, nothing to worry about” and just before the blackness took over and shut out the light forever the cop tipped his hat and walked away – the door shut and there I still lay. 

The history of my heart experiences escape again so very far away, to an island of sun and rain and palm trees.  To life and love and death and sorrow. Broken marriages and disco lights. Giant bats soaring through the night. Waves crashing against the sea wall in C condition weather and me, climbing over that safety wall to sit on the giants jacks and dare and hope and wish that the crash would be my head dashed against the sand. Slime surfing and rock climbing and a girl who would die from falling off of the most beautiful waterfall in the world. And I would take her place. 

To a new chapter, of adult life, playing house and white lace curtains. Return to the real world of snow and loneliness and booze and isolation and running away. To a house in the middle of no where where I would almost lose my mind and my life to a piece of stew one day.  Then back again where the nightmare began, Arkansas and Air Force and Ramona. 

Yet running again, again again. Self loathing and play acting and finally is it real? This time purple flowers on a fan and trolls on a cake- the guests refuse to show to witness the marriage of the golden boy   returning from the Navy. 

Babies and babies, and Avon calling and Tupperware parties and whirling life catching up to me even while the little girl quakes inside. Five long years of southeast Connecticut, and snow, and October beach parties and fresh fresh leaves. Rats across the road form the nuclear submarines.  Pretend, pretend, pretend its all real, its all right, that you feel.

Until that day, the darkness is back again and once again- now she became we -and we all return again back and back to Arkansas. Cursed place of my origins and hopeful play on relatives who just don't seem to care. And that plane flew away and the cloud lifted and I smiled. I thought I was free but I went home and enslaved myself one more time. 

To Be Continued.....

Regret by Victoria Meyers (19 of 30)

Regret is ageless
I don't like to blame
I am accustomed to taking responsibility
For my part in my life
For the mistakes I've made
For the trouble I have courted
I do take responsibility
I made a huge mistake and I accepted you
I made allowances when you told me of your past
I put your mistakes in my own perspective
As if they were mine
How I would move forward if they were my own
I made the mistake of thinking others are like me
You are not absolved from blame
You did hurt me
Your children
You did those things in the face of love
You had everything a man could ask
Unconditional love
A second chance
A third chance
Uncountable chances
You had me, you had us
You are regret

~Regret  by Victoria Meyers

For Knowing You by Victoria Meyers (8 of 30)

I still remember how it felt
 To walk into a room on your arm
As a tall woman, I always hated
That my dates were slightly short
But with you it never mattered at all
Something about you was larger than life
I always felt safe and secure on your arm
 When we entered an event together
We felt tall together, regal
People felt it too and they gazed at us
With smiles of open admiration
If we danced or laughed, they joined us
We were awesome together - in public
 No wonder it confused me to be alone
At home wondering where you were
Praying that each next set of headlights
 Would bring you home safely
The hours spent praying and crying and praying
And in the end I wish, I wish - I wish
So early on it could have ended
I could have gone on- Our kids too and we would have all been fine
But it didn't end sooner and we
Are not fine - none of us
We are all the worse for knowing you

~For Knowing You by Victoria Meyers