Much belated Thanksgiving wishes to the Buzzards, and a happy birthday wish to Moon (I think I should know you, but I can't quite place you).
I had a relatively traditional Thanksgiving, Family at both elbows: my brother, his wife, my 83 year-old mother, my nephew Michael and his girlfriend.
Notably absent was my sister, who breathed her last a few years ago while resting between hedges outside of a Riverside, CA storage rental establishment. She was 56 and homeless, suffered from a multitude of physical and psychological ailments, not the least of whichyou guessed itwas drug abuse.
Her boyfriend had gone in search of foodTwinkies, Coca-Cola, Fritos, anythingand found her still and in peace on his return.
The only peace in its perfection, I suspect, she'd ever known.
The story that led to that is exhaustively long and complex; That she abused drugs was the bobbling tip of an emotional iceberg. I'll spend the rest of my life trying to untangle the split ends. I'll never get there. I'll never excuse myself for not lifting the index finger that might have turned her inertia another way.
Ann, Angie, Annie: she went by various. The Riverside homeless community knew her as Annie.
Are you there Annie? Can you hear me, hear the contents of my mind, of my heart? If you can, you know I'm inviting you to the Buzzard's Thanksgiving Party. To the best of my ability to do so, to put aside the trash that gave me license to permit your fall, I loved you.
Too much information, Buzzards?
Yes. I'm sorry.