If I Die Before I Wake

by Barb Rogers

  Six hours later, I am walking back to my hotel. My thoughts rest on the homework assignment our teacher Don McQuinn, a best-selling science fiction author, handed out. Suddenly I hear a voice say, “I wish I'd brought my bibs.” I turn to see a woman standing in front of one of the thatched coffee huts near the beach. Surely not. She is wearing a tee shirt with an AA logo and the slogan EASY DOES IT emblazoned across the chest. I approach and say, “Are you a friend of Bill W.?” That's AA code for use when we are in a public place. She smiles, makes a sweeping gesture with her hand, and says, “We all are.” There are three other people sitting at a table behind her, drinking coffee. Within minutes, that strange instant bond we friends of Bill W. have has us talking like old friends.

  I'm sweaty but thrilled by the time I reach my room. I'm going to a meeting with the two married couples tonight. What a day it has been. I found a common bond with the nine others I'll be attending class with each day. It's a wonderfully diverse group, both ethnically and as writers, although we are all writing fiction, or at least attempting to do so. Mr. McQuinn is an older man, tall and broad-shouldered, with thick white hair and bushy eyebrows that sweep up, giving him the appearance of a wizard. He impressed me with his years of knowledge of the writing and publishing business. He really wants us to learn, to do well with our projects. I like him and look forward to the week ahead. I have to call Tom and Donna to share my good news of the day.

  ——

  It's Labor Day Monday, and I'm on the plane winging my way back to Arizona. I want to sleep, but my mind is too full with the glorious experiences of the past twelve days. Leaving the island was surreal, like waking up from one of the best dreams I ever had. I not only learned a tremendous amount from Don McQuinn; I made a new friend. When I discovered him sitting in front of the meeting room early one morning, we began to talk, and afterwards it became our habit to spend that time together before the others arrived. Once, toward the end of the week, Don said, “Barb, there are a lot of good writers here. Some of them will be better than you, some not as good, but you're going to make it because you're a pit bull.”

  The meetings I attended at sunset at a pavilion on the beach ruined me for church basements, old schoolrooms, and meeting halls. At the second meeting I attended in Hawaii with my new AA friends, I was asked to be the speaker. Perched on the top of a picnic table, I shared my story with a group of about thirty people. Halfway through my story, much of which revolved around the deaths of my children and the pain I carried with me so long, I noticed a young man weeping. Afterwards, he stepped up to me, wrapped his arms around me, hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear, “I know God sent you here for me.” On the ride home, the couple I rode with—who lived in Maui a portion of the year—told me that the young man and his wife had recently lost a child, and he hadn't been able to put any sober time together since. At that moment, I knew exactly what this trip to Maui was about. The writers retreat and the conference were simply the catalysts.

  All the way home from the airport in Phoenix, I can't stop talking, sharing my experiences with Tom. “After that meeting, with the guy in such terrible turmoil,” I say, “I stopped worrying about anything else. I realized whatever I got from the writers thing was gravy, so I could relax and enjoy myself, and I did.” Even though I discovered I wasn't a very good fiction writer, Don and others in my group taught me what it meant to find my voice in writing. It will take me in an entirely different direction.

  I am not putting words on paper now, but writing in my head. With the cooler weather, Tom and I have been doing a lot of hiking, finding new paths, new mountain areas to climb, and have even ferreted out ancient boulders covered in petroglyphs. Having studied the symbols of rune stones and tarot cards for many years, I'm fascinated by the crude drawings etched into stone that have been there for centuries. They speak to me. I begin to research the symbols, ask around town where others have seen them. It's an exciting adventure going out to the desert, into the mountains, hunting for the treasure that is knowledge of the past. For the first time in a long time, I bring my tarot cards out to study them.

  20

  In the Cards

  IN FLORIDA, YEARS AGO, during my brief marriage to my fourth husband, I had a tarot reading from a woman I'd never met before. I was stunned at how dead-on she was about me and about my future. Intrigued, I inquired about how she learned to read cards. “Books,” she said. I can read books. She went on to tell me that she believed everyone had the ability to predict their own future, that the cards are simply a tool. I bought a tarot card kit, studied the meanings for over two years, and began reading, amazed at how accurate the cards could be.

  Years later, after reading for hundreds of people and using my cards for everything from meeting men to abusing those I didn't like when I was drinking, karma came back to bite me in the ass. My friend Rita showed up one day and asked for a reading with the death house. Although I'd studied the various layouts for readings, I rarely did an astrological layout with the cards because it was the only one that had a place for serious illness and death. I'd seen enough death to last me a lifetime and simply didn't want to see it in someone else's cards. Rita said she was experiencing an ominous feeling that something bad was going to happen, and she begged me to read her cards. If I hadn't known her so well, I would have refused. I laid the cards out. In the death house fell a light-haired, light-eyed child. The news would come from a brown-haired, brown-eyed man from a distance. My friend was convinced it was her sister's child. They were about to embark on a cross-country move.

  Sure enough, less than a month later, the dreaded phone call came. It was from a brown-haired, brown-eyed man, calling from a distance away. My brother! The child who died was my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. My brother called Rita because I didn't have a telephone. She couldn't bear to tell me, so she called Tom, who drove to Sullivan, knocked on the door, and delivered the blow that nearly killed me—and ended my card reading for years.

  The self-centered, egotistical fool that I was, I thought that when Jon started having problems and behaving badly, I could handle him. I'd studied psychology all those years in college, been through therapy myself, and knew all the answers, or so I thought. Of course, knowing the answers and applying them to my own life were two entirely different matters. It was one of those do as I say, not as I do situations.

  At age 13, Jon began to ask questions about his father. I'd lied to him for years, telling him his father left us and didn't want us. In truth, it wasn't Jon he didn't want. When I divorced Jon's father, I had child support and alimony put in the papers, but told his dad that if he never bothered us or tried to contact us, I would never ask him for a penny of it. He didn't, and I didn't. I continued to lie. Jon kept asking questions.

  Offended that he wanted to find his father after I'd taken care of him alone all those years, I argued with Jon. I told him I'd try to locate his dad, and every time he asked, I told him I had some feelers out—another lie.

  Like me, Jon turned to drugs and alcohol. I couldn't believe that after all he'd seen me go through, he would do that himself. However, I had watched my mother drink and drug herself right into the grave and did the same thing. Jon became sullen and angry, no longer satisfied with my explanations about not being able to find his dad. Still, I didn't get him the help that might have saved his life.

  By age 15, Jon was out of control and decided to take matters into his own hands. He stole a car with the idea of going to Arizona and finding his dad himself. He got caught by the cops. Tom's attorney cut him a deal. If he agreed to probation and a long-term treatment facility, there wouldn't be any jail time. He accepted. Sadly, I packed his clothes and dropped him off in Springfield at Gateway, the treatment center okayed by the judge. The judge told him that if he left, the original charge of car theft would be reinstated and he'd do his time in jail.

  Within a couple of weeks at Gateway, Jon broke his leg playing basketball. As soon as the cast was removed, he disappeared.
He got a message to me to call him at an unfamiliar number. Using a pay phone, I punched in the number, sure I could talk him into returning to the treatment center. He'd hitchhiked to Florida, where he had some friends. As soon as I knew where he was, I should have told the police, but I didn't. He said he was going to Arizona. Fearful about him hitching rides with strangers, I asked him to wait until I could make some arrangements. After begging money from Tom, I called my brother. Jon was to take a bus to Phoenix and stay with him.

  He made it to my brother's house and begged me to come to Arizona. He said we could start over. Everything in me wanted to go, to be with him, but for the first time, I thought I would do the right thing and try to act like a real parent. I told myself if I went, if I gave in to him, I would be following him forever—and sooner or later he'd get caught and we'd both go to jail. I refused. That was the day I uttered that prayer, asked God to take care of him. Shortly after, I read the cards for my friend. Not long after that, Jon was dead. The cards wrapped in cloth, I placed them in a box and put them in the top of the closet. I never wanted to look at them again.

  ——

  Tom finds me sitting at the table, shuffling my tarot cards. Surprised, he says, “What are you doing?” What am I doing? What am I thinking? Can I really do it? “What if,” I say, “I do a fortune-telling kit using petroglyphs?”

  21

  Life

  IT'S AN UNSEASONABLY WARM FEBRUARY AFTERNOON in 2006 when we drive into the parking lot of the small animal hospital. Sammi, our Italian greyhound, on a leash, we walk the hilly area specified for dogs to relieve themselves. Business completed, we start toward the building. I feel my feet slipping. I lose control and fall on some loose rocks. The loop of the leash drops to the ground. Sammi's loose. Frightened, she runs toward the highway. Jumping up and putting the pain in my back aside, I chase her. Tom heads her off in the parking lot. He hands me the leash. Heart pounding, I hold her close, thinking of what might have happened.

  Sammi hasn't been acting like herself. Recently, when we pick her up, she squeals as if in pain. We're here to get her checked out. In the waiting room, after the X-rays, we wait. Wrapped in her favorite blanket, Sammi looks at me with her big, brown, trusting eyes, and I pet her back to assure her that everything will be all right. I know she's old, but she's healthy. I pull her close to my chest.

  We're called back into the exam room. The vet says she's got a growth on her spleen. It must be removed. Reluctantly, I hand Sammi over. Even though the vet says it will be a while, that Tom and I should go get something to eat, I can't leave … to abandon my beloved dog in a strange place alone. Back in the waiting room, Tom and I sit in adjoining leather chairs. Tom's hand covers mine. He squeezes. He can say more with the touch of his hand than anyone ever conveyed to me in words.

  In all of my life, I've never had another person who I knew was there for me no matter what. Tom has been there through so much and never questioned, blamed, or shamed me. When I got in trouble, made the call, he always came through—paying for my divorces, bailing me out financially, giving me cars, helping with Jon, paying for lawyers. I jumped from one bad situation to another, always searching for that elusive something that would make me happy. And though I had many brief encounters that I called marriage, Tom never married, insisting that we would end up together one day.

  We've been married for over twenty years, which is a miracle considering my track record. I'm not sure why, but in the throes of my drinking and drug use, my solutions consisted of moving, changing jobs, and getting married. I only stayed in new places for a short time for fear that others would figure out the truth of who I was. I couldn't hold jobs any length of time because I was always on the run. And marriages … well, one of us always sobered up, reality hit, and at the first sign of trouble, I was planning my escape. I called them adventures, but they were disasters. I lived in a state of excited misery for years.

  By the time I dragged myself into the first 12-step meeting, I was tired—tired of running, tired of living the way I did, tired of dreading every new sunrise. I wanted to stop, to rest, to find a moment's peace. It took finding peace while living in the garage, staying sober, working my steps, and not asking anyone else to bail me out of trouble before I was ready for an honest, lasting relationship. It took opening myself to a Higher Power to understand what it means to love and be loved, to feel worthy of a good life.

  I had an epiphany at a 12-step meeting for women many years ago. New to sobriety, I sat through it listening to other women talk about their devastations over husbands cheating, leaving them alone, driving them to drink. I recall thinking, what a bunch of whiners. I got divorced all the time. What was the big deal? It didn't dawn on me until much later that they actually loved their husbands. I kept marrying men I didn't even like that much so that when it ended I wouldn't feel the way those ladies did. I wasn't willing to put my heart on the line, to risk the pain. That's probably why I didn't marry Tom. I was in love with him. He could hurt me.

  I look over at Tom. He's worried too. Without any children or grandchildren, our dogs fill a hole in our lives. As a child, my best friend was a dog: Pedro, the tough little Manchester terrier. He was whom I went to with my secrets, my fears, my tears. When my children died, dogs filled my empty arms that ached to hold a baby. Georgie, who's at home waiting for us, saw me through the loss of my son's dog, Angel. Sammi, who's in surgery now, helped me get through the suffering caused by being housebound with Graves' disease for so long.

  The vet is coming toward us. I don't like the look on his face. Breath held in, I stand. Tom puts his arm around my waist. All day I've been trying to use the eleventh step … praying “only” for God's will and the power to carry it out. The vet motions us to follow him into another room. As we walk in, I look over his shoulder through a glass barrier. Sammi is laid out on an operating table, still under the anesthetic. The vet says, “Sammi has cancer. It has metastasized. I can bring her back if you want, but the kindest thing you can do now is let her go.”

  An old, familiar knot begins to form in my gut. Unable to speak, I nod. He says, “I'll take care of it and get her ready if you want to say good-bye.” Pictures of my babies dead in my arms flood my mind. I can't do it. I shake my head, look to Tom who I know is as upset as I am, and, as always, he knows what I need. I have to get out of here. He ushers me out the door. By the time we reach the car, I'm convulsing in pain, strange sounds coming from deep inside me, tears flowing unchecked down my face. He wraps me in a gentle embrace.

  My eyes red and swollen and the end of my nose raw from wiping at it with a paper towel by the time we get home, I wonder if I have enough left in me to walk up the hill to the house. Tom helps me. Inside, I'm reminded of the day I learned of Jon's death as I weep into Georgie's soft fur.

  Something's wrong with Tom. I don't think I've ever seen that look on his face. He slams out the door. I follow. He says, “He should have told us. I didn't even get to hold her before he took her. I just thought it was some little operation. He shouldn't have taken us back there … you know, where we could see her laying there.” I've never seen him so angry.

  Quickly, I realize that because he can't deal with the pain of loss, he's gone directly to anger and is placing blame on the vet. I say, “It wasn't his fault. He tried to save her. He might have handled it better, but it is what it is.” Tom begins to break down. I wrap my arms around him as he had with me earlier, and we mourn together. This is what a real marriage is about—being there for each other through whatever life throws at us. We'd made it through my disease, Tom's bout with prostate cancer, the loss of two brothers-in-law as well as Tom's brother and sister, and we'd make it through this. “We still have Georgie,” I say, “and she needs us.” I glance at her dancing around our feet, glad we're home, and know that soon we'll be going through another loss. She's nearly 20 years old.

  I bring the eleventh step to mind as I weep softly into my pillow, missing the feel of Sammi curled up next to
me. I know that I must keep this conscious contact with the God of my understanding or I will be swallowed up by the pain of Sammi's loss and of the past. I can't allow myself to go backward. I'll get up and write in the morning, as I do each morning. I'm working under a deadline on my new book.

  Thinking of the new project, an inspirational book based on the Serenity Prayer, makes me remember all the good things in my life. Tom and I have had quite a run for the past twenty-one years. Considering the kind of lives we led—drinking, screwing around, doing sometimes unspeakable things—I am in awe of the life we've had together. I never knew it could be like this. With Tom's help, I realized my dream of becoming a costumer, ran a successful business before I got sick, and now he's happily retired and I'm an author. To date, in addition to my costume books and the fortune-telling kit, I have three inspirational books published and am about to finish another. But what I count as the greatest achievement in my life is that I've become a genuinely decent person, a trusted friend to many, and a devoted wife, thanks to the help of a program, people who cared for me when I wasn't capable of caring for myself, and divine intervention. A person simply can't get to where I am, from where I started, without divine intervention.

  Late into the night, I pace the floor. I smoke. I cry. I try to obliterate the image of Sammi lying on that cold metal table, her side cut open. When I begin to feel a twinge of pain in my right side and back, I take to my bed. Totally exhausted, I sleep, only to awaken a few hours later in agony. Every time I move, sharp pains slice through my side and back. It must have been the fall. After a hot tub soak and some arthritis cream rubbed into the sore areas, I'll be fine.