NanaBiker's Spoke 'n Arrow

2011-06-08T12:19:00.001-04:00

This is to announce that I am now the National Animal Advocacy Examiner at Examiner.com. Please visit my website and read and share the articles there that you find interesting.

Bless you all.

www.examiner.com/animal-advocacy-in-national/bonnie-snider

2010-06-19T10:28:00.002-04:00

June 19, 2010

The Decisions About Life

Yesterday I received the most devastating news possible, short of hearing that my beloved husband had died. It took all that I could do to hold it together until I reached home, at which point I literally fell apart.

As background, last year my congestive heart failure, which had been compensated for a decade, returned with a vengeance. I began to retain massive amounts of fluid in my body, putting on about 40 pounds. My cardiologist told me that he believed it was the result of a very weak mitral valve that had more regurgitation than actual forward pumping motion. He told me it would need to be replaced. In my desperate attempt to hold on to my FMLA days at work and preserve my job, I tried to postpone it.

Things were so incredibly bad that both my husband and I believed that one day he would come home and find me slumped over my desk, dead. I was weak, I had periods of memory loss, I was swollen beyond recognition, and I knew in my soul I was dying.

On New Year's Eve, December 31, 2009, I went to the emergency room. I was emergently admitted, and my husband was basically told I wouldn't leave the hospital alive. I had massive swelling from my toes to my abdomen and into my arms and hands and face. I was gasping for every breath.

I honestly don't remember the first 2 weeks of my hospital confinement. I have what I call my "slide show" of that time, with flashes of faces or moments of conversation, but I even had to very invasive tests that I don't even remember having. A beloved cousin died during that time, and I don't remember calling his wife and daughter. I don't remember the visits of scores of friends. I'm told I requested a consult with a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon for his opinion, but I only have memory of one sentence.

It was decided to put me on emergency temporary dialysis to remove the excess fluid quickly. I had 3 dialysis sessions prior to my heart surgery, and then 2 afterwards. Dr. Still performed a mitral and tricuspid valve repair and a double bypass. The surgery was as successful as could be expected. I had a hard time coming off the ventilator because of panic attacks, but nobody knew I had those. Finally one very perceptive nurse realized one of my long-term medications was Xanax for anxiety/panic attacks. She asked my surgeon if she could give me Ativan and try again to get me off the vent. It worked.

For that first week I felt alive again. My memories began to function again. I had hope for a much longer life for the very first time. While even having a considerable amount of surgical pain and weakness, I still felt stronger than I had in a year. My hope returned.

I started my required walking every day, which at first was amazingly good. But after a few days, I once again started gasping for air. That was the reason for the 2 additional dialysis treatments, so that fluid that had had to be added to "prime the pump" for the heart/lung machine during surgery could be removed. I was transferred from Coronary ICU to the Step-Down unit. I did well the first few days, but then suddenly the swelling returned and I couldn't even walk from my bed to the door of my room without feeling so weak I couldn't stand, and gasping desperately for air. The news was that my kidneys had failed. They hit me hard with 24 hours if 3 kinds of IV diuretics, which pulled 40 liters of fluid off of me during that time. I could breathe again.

My surgeon and my cardiologists along with my Internal Medicine doctor of 25 years believed that it was temporary. They told me that it happens sometimes, and that it would come back. I was discharged on heavy doses of diuretics.

But, the required walking in my home got began to get worse and worse. I couldn't go to the bathroom from the den using my walker without having to stop to breathe again. That was how it had been before I ever went in the hospital. I had to go back in the hospital.

The nephrologist, with whom I simply could not communicate because he just didn't want to truly TALK to me, told me the IV medications were failing and I HAD to have dialysis. I fought it for days, but my FMLA time was running out, so I had to give in.

Thus began my life of hemodialysis every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of every week. I started at 3-1/2 hours, reduced to 3 and finally to 2-3/4 hours of actual dialysis. But what you need to understand is that added to that time is the waiting for the dialysis chair to open up, and then being at the mercy of some technician to hook me up. Some of these people have zero sense of urgency about that process, not giving a damn about the people who want to get it over with quickly. It ends up being around 5 to 5-1/2 hours of time actually at the clinic, plus the time to commute to and back. On those days, my shift at the hospital (even though I work from home I have to work an actual shift) is from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (with no actual lunch break on those days. I literally clock off from my job on the computer, spin around and grab my keys and dash out the door to drive to the clinic. I don't get home until after 6 o'clock. I have to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get prepared mentally and physically for my shift, so that makes for an incredibly long day for me.

Also tied into this is that I'm desperate to ride our motorcycle with my husband again. It was our passion. But physically because of my chest being cracked open, I was not allowed to even think about it until this month. I had been far too sick to ride with him over the past 12 months. My "eye on the prize" for surgery had been to get back on that bike with him. Then the dialysis began to slowly take that away. We can't go on our "let's just hit the road and end up where we end up" trips for a long weekend, because of the damn dialysis on Fridays and Mondays. Leaving at 7:00 at night doesn't leave any time for a anything.

You have to understand that 99% of the people at this clinic who are on hemodialysis are what I call "the zombies." They are half alive. They shuffle into the clinic, they snore through their treatments and then shuffle back out. Some actually seem to look forward to it, as their "outings". They don't talk, they don't smile, they are like machines. I stand out like a sore thumb, because I'm the opposite of that. I'm ALIVE. I WANT to be alive. I want to TALK to people. But it doesn't happen. I see in their hollow, expressionless faces what my future will be, and I cannot do that. I simply cannot.

So, I decided to embark on peritoneal dialysis. While quite the pain because it has to be done every single day, it's far more gentle on the kidneys and allows the freedom to go places, since it's just a matter of packing up the dialyzing solution and supplies and heading out. I'd have to do what they call continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) for 4 weeks, and then could go on a nighttime "cycler" machine that does the exchanges while I sleep. CAPD is a matter of putting the solution into my belly, letting it sit there for a few hours, then draining it out and putting in another bag. It would make me look pregnant while it's in there, but the knowledge that the cycler would come a month later and my days would be totally free was worth that.

I had been warned that if I had too much scar tissue from my prior abdominal surgeries, I wouldn't be a candidate. So, I found a surgeon who would be willing to cut down the scar tissue and make room for PD to work. I had the surgery on the 10th. But, he encountered massive scar tissue. He took down all that he could find and got the catheter in. It flushed and drained just fine in the operating room. But I had so much bleeding from my years on blood thinners and from the massive cut downs, and so much pain that required IV morphine, so my plans to only take off one day for the surgery and go back to work the next morning went out the window. I was forced to stay an extra day.

In between all of this I had lost more FMLA time due to having to have my PermCath in my neck replaced when surgery had been scheduled and then cancelled due to a lack of actual cardiac clearance (though I DID have clearance from my Internal Medicine doctor who has treated my heart for 25 years). I had had to withhold my blood thinners for 5 days, and my PermCath had clotted off. So I lost an entire day getting that new one put in. For the second surgery, I got them to agree to allow me to use Lovenox injections at a renal dose to try to keep that from happening again.

I'm now down to 10 hours of FMLA, until August when I regain 8 hours, and then October when I regain a few more. The bulk of my FMLA time won't come back until January and February of 2011. If I run out of FMLA, I will be terminated on the spot. They don't WANT to fire me, but will have to because of the rules. I'll then lose all of my medical, dental and life insurance coverage. I carry that for both my husband and myself because it's far less costly than what puny benefits he has at his job.

We've already lost our home and our land in Tennessee that was my passionate dream for retirement to foreclosure because of all of this. The lack of income from so much sickness and running out of my PTO time that we're forced to use when we're out for any reason cost us both.

My precious coworkers did donate PTO time of their own to me, which did end up giving me enough to cover the cost of continuing my benefits during the time I was out. They are such a blessing to me. But our disability plan at work is based on 60% of our base hourly wage. It doesn't include 60% of our incentive income, which is where about 90% of our income is derived. What I got for 10 weeks of being out was barely what I'd have cleared in 2 pay periods. It pays about $54 more than the cost of continuing the benefits. Once I'd have to go on COBRA if terminated, it wouldn't come close to paying for that. We simply can't survive on that, plus I'm not disabled to the point of permanence. I wouldn't qualify for those benefits or Social Security disability if I'm terminated. We would literally go under. My husband and I both lost our careers in mid life after 26 years for me and more than that for him. Neither of us have college degrees, so it's just not possible to get jobs that pay anything at all close to what we made at our former careers. We are making now what we made in 1982. That tells you how far off we are from the 2010 economy crisis.

I went through absolute agony to get this PD catheter inserted into my belly, and threw the dice on the gamble of my job in order to do it. To me, it felt worth it. That is, until this week.

Twice they have tried to do a flush of the catheter. That's a process of putting in about 500 mL of the Dialysate and draining it out. The infusion was so incredibly slow the first day and they couldn't even get in the 500 mL. Some of it drained, and then when she did a manual syringe flush, she pulled out a 3-inch clot. So, she put in some heparin to try to break up any clots in there and we tried again yesterday. It was worse yesterday. The fluid would go in, but still slowly, but would not drain or even manually withdraw at ALL. She talked with my surgeon, who said more than likely the PD catheter simply will not work. He wants me to try a couple more times, in hopes that maybe it's just swelling (thought that should have been gone more than a week out from surgery) or that the scar tissue he left in would "relax" enough to allow the infusion. But neither the PD nurse nor the surgeon have much hope.

This was the absolute worst possible news. It means that my life will remain defined by Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. When I got home yesterday and saw my husband's face, I fell apart in his arms. I simply can't live like this. It isn't living. It's just going from that dialysis schedule and never having any control over my life at ALL. I want to be a wife to him again. I absolutely despise what this has done to HIM through all these months. HIS life has been just as hamstrung as mine. He has no partner for riding. He has no ability to take those trips that mean so much to him and to me. I can't even sleep in the same bed with him anymore, because I'm not allowed to sleep on my right side due to kinking the PermCath, and that's my favorite position. The only way to keep from doing that is to sleep on the couch so I am not ABLE to turn over. He is my caregiver, my chef, my personal shopper. He has lost himself in all of this.

So now I come to the place where I am today. I want off of dialysis. Period. My Internal Medicine doctor had told me that I could live with the kidney function that was left when they did a trial off of dialysis for 5 days to see if my function was coming back. It wasn't. My creatinine jumped from 3.5 to 4.9. The second time it was a bit better, from 3.5 to 4.4. But normal is no more than about at highest 1.5. My baseline before this nightmare was around 2.0 to 2.3, so this is double that. But, he had said that I could survive off dialysis at that level, but we just don’t know the side effects from it. I had gotten so excited when I learned that my level was 2.8 when I went in for surgery, but the nurse yesterday told me this week's value was back up to 3.3. I even question their lab, since their values are always higher than the hospital or my other doctor's labs.

I want to live my life on MY terms. I honestly would rather let nature take its course and die an early death, but after having actually LIVED during that time. I absolutely cannot define my life by this dialysis and its schedule. I can't. I won't. The hemodialysis will destroy what's left of my kidneys and I'll die younger anyway. So, I'd rather die in a couple of years, at least having truly lived the way I want to for part of that time. In the process, I'll leave my husband with death benefits from both my life insurance policies and my Social Security and the pension annuity that's puny but still something that my former career employer provided when they threw me out into the street. He will have the great memories of our short time of living, and be provided for when I’m gone.

I now understand those people who make up a Living Will saying they do not want heroic measures or machines in order to live. They do that because anything short of that isn't living.

So, I'll be talking to my regular doctor on Tuesday to find out what my options are, and to find out how to come off of this nightmare ride that life has forced me to live on. I want to know what to expect as far as time that I have left if I do that, what my death will be like, and if I might still qualify for a transplant if I do come off. That last part really doesn't matter, since I can't take the time off to undergo the workup to get on the list, because I'll lose my job. I can't even get these catheters taken out until August because of that as well. I can't even try to get on the list until after February 2011.

But I want to choose a short, but real life over this mere survival tethered to a machine 3 days a week for 6 hours at a time. I want to be able to clock out of my job and go to the store, or visit friends, or just take a nap. I want MY life back. If it goes quickly, then so be it. At least I will have that precious time truly WITH my husband instead of just outside of him. HE will have reason to look forward to what time we have left. He will miss me, but he will have the memories that he SHOULD have, instead of longer years of nothing until I become one of the zombies. I can't do that to him. He is my heart, my soul, my very life. I love him far too much to put HIM through all of this anymore.

I'm choosing life on my terms. Maybe it's wrong, but I see it as the only road that has any real merit to me. My heart aches over all of this. I'm a good person and I don't understand why I'm being dealt this deck of cards. But, if that's what I've got, then I'm going to walk away from the table and not play anymore. I'm choosing my life. It is still mine after all.

NanaBiker

2010-05-25T09:01:00.004-04:00

I have a little garden area on a side porch of my house, which is half covered and has concrete, and half is soil with various plants, closed in by a stone wall. Out there live 4 box turtles. Two of them were ones we rescued from the road on a trip to Tennessee, one a turtle that someone gave to my daughter, who is a director with a major pet supply store since they couldn't keep it, and one is a 2-year old baby from the older ones. The older ones have lived out there for over 25 years. Turtles, when living properly and in the wild (or in this case as close to wild as I can make it) can live decades. The cycle of iife out there never ceases to amaze me. I have a chair out there where I go and sit to just watch it sometimes.

The turtles love fruits and vegetables. We will toss out to them fresh melons and grapes cut in half, various kinds of lettuce and their favorite, tomatoes. I'll watch them meander out of their burrows in the leaves and dirt from the far side of the enclosure, and eat the food I've put out there. Oak leaves fall from the overhanging trees, holding in moisture and cultivating earthworms. I'll watch them use their front feet to dig through the leaves to find the worms, and then lap them up with such excitement. I actually fed the baby during his first year with meal worms I bought at the supply store, since he was too little ( about the size of a quarter) to eat the more complex foods. I guess some of those worms also survived, to multiply in this rich soil.

The fruits and vegetables attract fruit flies and regular flies. This attracts lizards, who will crawl with such stealth to get to the gathering of flies and swipe out their long tongues to grab a fat fly. They'll crush it wtih their tiny jaws and then sit and dine on their freshly-caught meal. There are so far 3 different varieties of lizards that I've seen out there. The last one was a gorgeous little thing. He was the color of shiny steel, with a shorter, fatter belly that the green lizards that abound out there. The fly was almost bigger than his mouth, but he was able to eat it, albeit in small bites. It took him awhile to actually crush the fly in his mouth, and it was fascinating to watch him do it.

This year, I've been blessed by the arrival of a baby banana spider. It breaks my heart when I see people tearing down the lovely, intricate webs these spiders build. This must be this tiny baby's first season, because she is barely visible. The mature spiders are huge and gorgeous in their colors. She built her web between the leaves of the tallest plant, the wall of the house and an old grill that was left out there. Each day she has woven more and more of this web, and with the glistening morning dew shining on it in the early hours, it's truly a wonder to behold.

The flies and a few small wasps have so far met their demise in her web. Just now I watched as one of the small hornets got caught in a new strand of this web, which seems get bigger with each passing day. This strand hasn't had all of the little intricate connections added yet, and is basically just a long strand of spider silk. The wasp was trying to fly away, and it was like watching a tightrope walker at a circus. He literally was bouncing up and down on that strand, as he tried his best to fly away. It's amazing to me just how strong the spider's silk strands are, because it held that wasp and there was no way he was going to fly off of it, nor break it. As fragile as the strands look, you would think a wasp trying to fly with all his might would snap it. But no, it held him fast. The little spider was watching from a safe distance in the main part of her silken mansion, I suppose waiting for him to wear himself out before coming closer, so as to avoid that deadly stinger.

Other people might see all of this as just ugly nuicances, and would be spraying poison on the flies (or never keeping turtles and putting that food out there in the first place). They'd keep some kind of little pristine atrium out there, raking up the leaves and most definitely ripping down any spider webs that caught their eye. But to me, it's nature and the cycle of life at its miniature finest. I can't get enough of watching it all, and every day brings a new surprise. It's better than any television show, and I will tell them all that they are welcome at my own, but the flies and wasps should come knowing the risk. Some will fly right past the silken trap, but some won't be so lucky and will serve up a feast for the baby spider, while she grows and matures and most likely produces her own offspring soon.

Take time to stop and look closely at the beauty around you. Sometimes things on the surface might look to be things you don't want around you, but when you really look, mother nature is an amzing thing to behold.

2010-05-16T14:47:00.004-04:00

This week I have watched the man I love more than my own life emotionally destroyed over something HE DID NOT DO. He didn't even know there was somehing wrong until he repeatedly tried to get rehired at a company he loved more than anything else. Finally after being repeatedly told he "wasn't a candidate" with no explanation, he got a phone call from the woman doing HR telling him to stop applying for jobs, because he was NEVER goihng to be considered for one, and then promptly hung up on him. She refused to take his calls or answer his emails when he tried desperately to ask why.

We finally went to talk to a friend whom we trusted there. We went down the laundry list we had desperately put together, trying to figure out just what horrible thing he had done. When I made reference to 4 other people having his password for the computer, stating that he had tried in vain to get that situation changed and had repeatedly tried to tell the Director at the time that he really didn't like that situation at all, I was telling it as an example of his integrity. But our friend jumped on that, stating he NEVER should have GIVEN his password to anyone. Outraged, he explained that he was FORCED to do it because there weren't enough passwords available. Even at that, he was NEVER told exactly what horrible thing happened under his password that caused him to be black balled from this company.

Our friend did get him another job there, albeit at a HUGE cut in the income he was getting at his current job. When my husband stated he didn't want to spend his career doing that job, our friend said it was just to get him in the door, and then he would be considered for the next promotion. But, those promotions came and went and he was told over and over again various excuses about why he didn't get the job, but was told he WOULD be considered for the next one.

When the latest one came up, he was finally told that he will NEVER be given an opportunity to advance. He will NEVER be doing anything other than what he is doing now. Why? STILL no answer. Just the statement that it had come "from the owner on down". He pointed out that even this man who was telling him this had been one of the 4 others who had his password! To this day, he has NEVER been told what it was he is being accused of having done, and now will be stuck forever in a job that he never wanted.

This man will always give 150% to whatever it is that he's doing. He simply can't do a bad job. So yes, he's doing a good job at what he's been made to do. But he did it with the understanding that some day he would move up. To be told that something he has no clue about is going to be held against him, and that he will be stuck there forever, blamed for this unexplained horror has literally destroyed him emotionally. He is the most ethical man I know. He will literally sever a friendship if someone lies to him and he absolutely cannot abide someone who steals. I've watched him never speak to someone again who has done either of those things. He despises it. He values truth and honor above all else. So to know that others believe him capable of those very things he detests the most, and will crush him in his work becase of it, has cut him to the very core.

How is it possible that people can just make assumptions and judgements and NEVER offer the opportunity to even TALK about it??? How is it that they can lie over and over and say it's in the past, and then dredge it up and use it like a sledgehammer when it suits them? How do they sleep at night treating someone who has so much integrity that way??? How to they destroy a man's self esteem, and then just go about business as usual???

I'm outraged beyond belief. To see this man that I love more than my own life beaten down for something HE DID NOT DO, has broken my heart, because I also trusted and believed those people. That cut in pay has caused us to lose our home, our land that we were buying for our retirement and trashed our credit. We believed the promises of raises that never came, and promotions that we now know will never come to pass. We've lost everything tangible, and now he has lost his pride.

Those are things I cannot forgive, because they are based on lies. Like him, I cannot abide liars or thieves. I can't just let that go, since they have managed to destroy the man who has been my soul mate for most of my life. I ask every day.......why????.......and every day there is nothing but silence.

2008-08-09T17:28:00.002-04:00

Where Do We Start?

The task so daunting.
Where do we start?
Every second of every hour of every day
They die in terror and agony.
Some part of the livestock “food chain”.
Some for their coats.
Some for the delicacy of their meat.
Some for “sport”.
Some for the satisfaction of a sickness that defies explanation.
Some react with no reaction.
“Better not to know.”
Some react with knowledge, but wear blinders.
“What I don’t know won’t hurt me.”
Some react with disgust, but beyond that - just words.
Some react with horror and it’s just too painful to see.
Some react with outrage and soul-wrenching pain and say
We must do something to stop this!
And then the inevitable
Where do we start?
There are the shelters and rescues that never have enough room
Who face day in and day out the need to choose
Who lives another day to hope
Who dies because hope is now lost
Or are run by the very evildoers we need to fight
Monsters dressed as doers of good.
There are the poor ones who live in the streets
Fighting for the tiny scrap
Terrified to trust
Always on alert
Targets of the most brutal of abuse, torture, death.
There are ones born and seconds later ripped from their loving mothers
Tied in crates to make pale flesh.
Impregnated over and over until the body breaks down
For the milk intended for that precious torn-away baby
That billions consume.
There are those whose lives are spent never stretching legs
Never being able to turn around
Chewing at bars and hoping to find a way out.
There are those who live having tubes rammed into their throats
To make their livers sick.
So some even sicker “humans” can have the “delicacy”.
There are those who are crammed in wire boxes
Plucking out feathers, breaking legs
Hearing only the constant noise
No soft nest to lay the eggs
There are those skinned alive for their fur or hides
So someone can drape it over their body
And feel as if they are something above everyone else
At the cost of so many beautiful lives.
There are those stolen from their homes
Or bred on farms whose only aim
Is to provide the labs with those creatures they can control
So they are able do nightmarish experiments
These current day Mengele types.
Our animal holocaust, growing every day.
There are those who are bred to run
Dogs and horses from fine lineage on paper
Culled out to keep the fastest ones.
The others expendable.
Easily hacked up and thrown away
Shot, starved, mutilated, hung.
The mighty beasts upon whose backs so many countries were built
Bred for light and fast.
Fragile legs that shatter and it’s over in an instant.
All the while the other offspring or too-soon-spent
Loaded onto trailers out back of the stables bound for Canada or Mexico.
Thousands of miles over days
No food no rest – only fear.
To be sent off overseas to satisfy the palates
Of the ones who don’t want to see what they are causing
There are the ones in homes that were supposed to grow trust and love
But instead are a pulsing business grown on forcing
A gentle giant to lust for the blood of another
Because they want so much to please
Any scrap of kindness gobbled up
And they do what they are told they should
To the death.
I see this.
I feel this.
I want to run from this.
I know it’s not in me to run.
And I think to myself
Where do we start?
The answer is really simple.
We start wherever we can gain a foothold.
Whether it be music that reaches both the mind and the soul
Sprung from the hearts and talents of those who truly care.
To the rescuers whose life’s work is to try to save
As many as can be saved with whatever they have to save them.
Or the ones who take the pictures that can blister the eyes
Of those who have never even looked.
To the ones in power who haven’t been tainted.
Who will fight where it has to so that people sometimes pay
For the horrors they commit.
Or the ones who make the choice to eat a compassionate diet.
Personal, individual choices that still hugely impact
The bottom line of numbers of those for whom we are too late
But for whose offspring we might not be.
Or those like me
Whose bodies won’t allow the physical
But whose mind can somehow spin thoughts into written words
For others to take in and ponder
And sometimes say, “That’s how I feel!”
Creating a tiny bond.
We were made for this.
All the guardians of the precious, voiceless ones.
Armed with a sparkling prism of ways
To start.
With every small victory that I find, I cheer, regroup, and get ready
For the next round.
Until then I know tomorrow brings
Another wretched list of the daily results of the holocaust.
I will see the visions in my mind, which shrieks at me to stop looking
But knows I can’t.
The visions of complete helplessness, inability to even try to fight back or even know if should.
I will hear the screams as they ring in my head
Echoing so loudly as if I am right there.
The witnesses of their confusion, terror, burning desire to live
As their blood gushes the life away.
We will look into the eyes of our own beloved animal companions
And see there reflected back their total immeasurable love and devotion
Their only desire to be everything they think we want them to be
And know that to some they would be seen as a pelt, dinner, or an object to inflict pain upon just for a momentary thrill.
And we will hug them close and let them know
We are fighting the good fight.
We are trying.
We are looking for that foothold.
We are making noise.
We are being heard more every day.

That, my friends and fellow warriors, is where we start.

NanaBiker
©08/09/2008

2008-07-29T15:23:00.003-04:00

The Kindred Soul

Our world is made better because of her grace.
Her words so powerful, so strong and true.
Her voice rings like angels’ wings flying high on the clouds.
She asks nothing in return, gives all of herself for those
Who have no voice of their own.
She tells each story from her heart and with each haunting song
Come the tears for those whose lives have been lived and ended in pain.
She tells their stories lest no one ever forget;
Of those who might have passed into oblivion’s night without her.
She takes the pain she feels from the stories of these precious ones
And turns them into beautiful music for our ears and souls to take in.
She feels their pain and takes her gift to give us all an understanding
Of what might be impossible for some to even begin to see.
She loves with her entire self those creatures who need us so.
The words flow from her mind, her heart, her soul
Until we all can hear that pain and feel their need.
Until we all can realize this horror we humans have created.
She is a kindred soul to the large and small,
All as one in her loving heart.
She lifts us up with her music, takes us down the roads trodden with pain
And the unspeakable suffering of even just the smallest of them.
Those who might never have known more than a few while alive
Are now known throughout the world because of her undying devotion.
Mercy, Biko, Triton, Regina
Just a few of their names emblazoned into our hearts now forever.
Without her, would we ever have known them?
We all know the answer to that.
Their deaths would have been just another in a never-ending line
Of suffering, unspeakable cruelty, anguish, terror, fear and pain.
Alive she made them, even though their lives here were cut so short
Thanks to the cruel hands of “man”.
Yet they achieve a sweet peace and immortality now, thanks to her.
She is an earthbound angel who has a special place already reserved
With her name and words from those whose tiny hearts she blessed,
Saying in their own ways the gratitude they feel for what she does
Each and every day for them and those like them.
She will cross the Rainbow Bridge one day with multitudes following close.
They are waiting for her, because it is she that gave them life
When life was being ripped and torn from them here on earth.
They will dance with glee when that day comes.
Until then, they are her guardians; the ones she saved with her song.
I am blessed to call her “friend”.
I stand in awe of her words to me saying I was a kindred soul to her.
How blessed am I to have even heard her voice
Never mind feel that connection of friendship from so far away.
If I can make even a tiny difference, it is because of her.
Her music spoke to my soul and made me want to stand and help.
Like so many thousands of others just like me.
She has touched so many souls from one corner of the earth to the other.
She is the torch of change.
She is the voice of millions.
She is grace personified.
She is the guardian angel of the hopeless and the helpless.
She is the singer of songs that bring life to the lifeless.
She is the bearer of the messages we all must hear.
She is the hope for all those who need her so.
She is Maria.
Her light of love shines like a beacon for all of us to follow.

Thank you, my friend, for all that you do.
With all my love.

NanaBiker

2008-07-23T11:41:00.002-04:00

This was an open letter written in 2004 about my husband's stolen biker vest. I am posting it here to memorialize that painful time for him.

TO THE PERSON(S) WHO STOLE MY "MEMORY VEST" ON FRIDAY 10/22/04

At around 10:00 p.m. my bike, along with the bikes of my son and my friend, were parked in the advertised "guarded" parking lot for Corbin. It seems I paid for the honor of being robbed.

It was one thing to steal the Panoptx that my wife worked endless hours of overtime to buy for me as a special gift. It was one thing to steal my prescription glasses that will do you no good at all, but which I desperately need to see on a daily basis. It was one thing to steal my special cigar given to me as a gift from a friend. But it was quite another to steal my vest.

This wasn't an ordinary vest. This vest represented 33 years of my life. My wife bought me the vest the first year I owned a bike. Having a bike was my lifelong dream. I had to wait until my children were grown and gone to be able to afford it, and it took me a very old Suzuki Cavalcade and a very old Honda Goldwing before I could work my way up to my beloved Harley Davidson Fat Boy. That vest started out with my 82nd Airborne patch. I earned that patch as a member of the 82nd Airborne during the Viet Nam era. I had held onto that patch for 32 years, waiting for just the right time to put it on something. Since my dream of having a bike had finally come true with my first one, that was the time. I added patches for the POW/MIAs, something very near and dear to my heart, since my wife had known a POW who had spent 7 years in the "Hanoi Hilton" and lived to come home. She had worn his bracelet during those years, helped keep his wife's spirits up and was there the day he came home. My own cousin lost his leg and his mind in that war. That patch cannot be replaced. Sure, I can buy an imitation, but I can never get the original one back. You took that from me. You took the one tangible thing I had from the time I served my country. I ride in the POW/MIA charity rides and the ride for Scott Speicher every year.

My greatest love besides my bike is my grandchildren. I cherish being a grandfather more than anything on this earth. My email nickname is GrandpaBiker. My oldest child, who at the time was battling drug addiction to crack cocaine, had almost nothing in her life to be proud of, other than giving me the gift of 2 of my 3 beautiful grandchildren. She was working in a shop that did silk screens and embroidery. As a surprise, she had my wife sneak my vest out to her and with her own hands; she embroidered in huge gold letters that nickname across the back of my vest. Her fingers bled from the work. But she wanted that vest to have something from her, something symbolic of something good and decent she had done in her life. She wanted to make that vest like none other, just for me, so that anyone who saw me in it would know how proud I am to be a grandfather and a biker. Her eyes filled with tears of pride every time I wore it when she was with me.

My wife has nerve damage in her leg and cannot walk very much. A friend of mine paid for a trip for us to go to Atlanta to the 100th anniversary Harley Davidson tour. I had only just that year bought my Fat Boy. My dream come true. We took my wife's wheelchair and went to that tour. I got my first ever HOG pin at that show. I got my cannot-be-replaced 100th anniversary pin. My wife tells me the joy in my eyes was beyond compare. That pin served as the memory of a trip we can never make again. It was very physically painful for my wife to make that trip, but she did it for me. She bought me that pin. There were other pins and patches, not the least of which was the gold biker's angel pin my wife bought me to keep a guardian angel with me all the time.

That vest was rich with the memories I've held since I was a young boy of 19, to the 52-year-old grandfather I am today. It represented all the struggles my wife and I have been through in raising a drug-addicted child (who is now finally 6 months clean and sober at the age of 27 at a Christian retreat for addicted women). It represented the love of my wife of 31 years, who loved me enough to help my dream of a Harley come true, who has known me since we were 14 years old and who saw me go off into the Army. She knew how much the 82nd meant to me. She knew exactly what that patch represented.

Yes I was a fool to believe that bikers are different. I assumed that because for 10 years I've been able to leave things even ON my bike and they were never stolen, that something lovingly tucked into my saddlebags would be safe, especially in a lot I paid to park in that was supposed to be guarded. Bikes all around me were untouched. Why you chose mine, I have no clue. I only know that you chose my bike. Were you watching me? Did you like that vest and decide to steal it, figuring I could afford to replace it so no big deal? What I do know is that my wife has cried endless tears over its loss. It meant as much or more to her as it did to me. What did you do....rip and tear all the patches off of it to keep or sell? Once you realized that GrandpaBiker could never be ripped out of the leather in that vest, did you merely throw it in the trash once you got my memories off of it? I can replace glasses. I cannot ever replace the things that were tied up in that vest. Not ever.

To add insult to injury, the policeman I spoke with told me he would not file a report because only a theft of an entire bike would warrant a formal report. I have since called the police department there and learned that was a lie. Maybe, just maybe if that police officer had cared even a little bit, he would have walked into that parking lot and found others who had been robbed. Perhaps someone saw it taking place and knew which way you went. It's too late now. I'm sure my prescription glasses are in the landfill perhaps along with the remnants of my vest. It only mattered to me and to my wife and my oldest child. But, it REALLY mattered to us. All I have left are my pictures of it. My favorite with my oldest granddaughter, as we knelt side by side at last year's Biketoberfest. Me with my vest on, her with hers at 3 years old, both of us taking a sip of water as we squatted down side by side. Never again can that picture like that be taken. I have to go tell my oldest child when she has visitation next week that her bloodied fingers and the product of her hard work were taken from us. It will break her heart, just as it breaks my wife’s and mine.

If you haven't destroyed it yet, please give it back. Even if all that is left is the vest with the embroidered letters, please give it back. All I want is that vest, my Airborne patch and my pins. Those are the things I cannot replace. Not ever. If you are reading this and you know who stole it, please ask them to give it back. We will not press charges. We are not vengeful people. We do not want revenge. We just want that memory vest back. You probably aren't even from around here and will never read this. But, I had to try. My email address is grandpabiker@hotmail.com. (As I said, that truly is my nickname.) I will come and pick it up. Please, if there is any way this can be returned to me, we all will be forever grateful. If having a vest means that much to you, I will buy you one of your own, if it will mean you will return this one to me.

Daytona has been like a second home to me. I'm close enough in Jacksonville to visit almost monthly. I could not believe that after all of the years I've spent going there, that the police were so unwilling to take the time to help, that I was lied to. I did at least get an apology when I telephoned them today just to ask why I got that kind of answer. It won't change anything. It's far too late now for it to do me any good. I'll come down on Saturday and get my report for no other reason than my vision insurance will not pay for my replacement prescription glasses without one. If you are from Daytona, I will meet with you if you will only find it in your heart to return this vest to me. I will chalk it up to an impulsive act and I will ask God to forgive you for it.

Thank you for your time. Please find it in your heart to make this old grandfather's faith in bikers be restored.

Grandpabiker)

Letter written by NanaBiker for GP's signature.
©2004

2008-07-23T11:36:00.002-04:00

Something I wrote for my Shorty, my sweet boy, when I had to send him to the Rainbow Bridge to wait for me.

JUST A DOG

People keep saying “he was just a dog”.
He was the one who got up with me every morning, no matter how early, to help me greet the morning.
He was the one who stood guard over our home, our family and the loneliness of my days.
He was the one who acted as the best alarm system around, letting us know when someone or something was approaching outside the door.
He was the one who slept at the door to the bedrooms, to make certain everyone was safe.
He was the one who loved the children. From the babies who would pull and tug at him and use him as a brace for wobbly legs learning to crawl or walk, to the older ones with whom he would sneak into their bed at night and cuddle close.
He didn’t rest until everyone was home safe and sound.
He was the explorer who wandered through the bushes in the yard, hunting for lizards or the scent of the woodland creatures that might happen by.
He was the guardian who would chase away those woodland creatures lest they harm one of us.
He was the one who came to lie on my feet or close to my chair at my desk, sensing the times when I was in pain either emotional or physical.
He was the one who looked at me with sparkling, happy eyes, a happy smile, a wagging tail, who wanted nothing from me except a kind word and a soft stroke of his head.
He was the one who never asked for anything from anyone except to just be near.
He was the one who cleaned up the crumbs from the babies or lived for that scrap of leftover supper.
He was the one who staved off the loneliness, the fear, the emptiness of a house whose children had grown and moved away.
He was the one who looked at me with guilty pleasure when they came to visit and let him get on the furniture with him, knowing I would not fuss.
He was the one whose only fear was the rolling thunder of a storm and who never wanted me to know he was afraid, but who would sit close until the storm was past, hoping for a reassuring pat or soft word.
He was the one who greeted me at the door when I returned from an errand, with a body language that let me know he was happy I was home, happy to be with me again, proud that he had done his job of guarding our home while I was gone.
He was the one who lived with his aging pain, not wanting to let go for fear of leaving me alone, leaving his job as my protector, my companion, my best friend.
He was the one who took one last look into my eyes as his grew dim, looking to make sure I was okay as his life slipped away, worried that he was leaving me alone.
He was the one whose soft hair I stroked and softly whispered to that he was going home, that it was okay to let go, that I loved him enough to send him home to God to wait for me at the Rainbow Bridge.
He was the one whose grave is close by so that he will always be near to the home and the people he loved so unconditionally and protected with such loyalty.
People say “he was only just a dog”.
To those I say, look closer and see the truth of who and what he truly was.

Nanabiker
©2003

2007-08-02T06:01:00.002-04:00

The Forgotten Soldier's Story

I have tried so hard to figure out how to put into words what this precious man that I have spent almost all of my life with went through during those dark days before we married. Maybe I can do it, maybe not. I want to do justice to his nightmare and make it real, so people can know what he had to endure. He is just one man; one of the many "forgotten" from the wars. Thrown away like yesterday's garbage and made to feel for his whole life like it was his fault.

I still don't know the whole story. He gives it to me in bits and pieces since the demons started to slither out of their box a couple of years ago. How in the hell did he hold it all in for so long?? For 34 years he was the "good soldier". He kept quiet. He didn't tell their "secrets". He felt ashamed for what he had to do. He felt to blame.

I have known this incredible man since I was 14 years old. For 41 years he has been a part of my life, 34 of them married to each other. In all that time, I believed that he had never had to experience war. He was in the 82nd Airborne. They were stationed stateside during Vietnam in the 1970s. After his cousin lost his leg and his mind over there, I thanked God every day that he had been spared. I had no idea what he had been through. But, here is the story as I know it. I pray that God guides my hand so that I can tell his story as it needs to be told, deserves to be told. He is a hero and should have been honored, not scorned. But, that's what our government does; it sends it's youngest and brightest into their wars and when they make a mistake, they blame the soldiers and hide the truth from the world. This is just one lie out of thousands, perhaps millions over the years. Shame on them. Shame shame shame.

These demons shoved open the lid of their box because of something I did. I didn't know it at the time, though. Would I have done things differently if I had? Who knows. He is a biker. A Harley man. Grandpabiker. At the time this happened, I wasn't a part of it. I am now....Nanabiker...and I love it as much as he does. But at the time, it was just him.

My best friend was my hairdresser. He passed away from AIDS 2 years ago, just before I got on the bike for the first time. He used to beg me to ride with my husband, and I never listened. I will never forget my first ride. I looked toward heaven and shouted from the back of the bike "Look at me David!!! I'm doing it and you were RIGHT!!!" I cried so much that day.

He owned a small house in Ormond by the Sea. He used to let my husband have it for the whole week for Bike Week and Biketoberfest at no charge. He gave us our own key so we could use his house any time. Everyone just knew that he would leave that house to us in his will. But, bless his heart, he never wrote a will. He knew he had HIV, but he was so determined to beat it. The AIDS hit him so quickly, caused by flying with a friend to see her dying brother and exposed to a viral illness. He just went so fast. His family sold everything and none of the things he wanted given to his loved ones made it that far. But, that's another story.

During Biketoberfest 4 years ago, my husbands biker vest was stolen right out of the bike. I had always known that POW/MIA meant a lot to him, though I had no earthly idea the depth of the "why" of it. The back of his vest had had a huge POW/MIA patch on it. It had his 82nd Airborne jump wings and his original patch. It had his father's pin from the USS Montpeilier as well. Things that just couldn't be replaced. Our daughter had had the vest embroidered in huge gold lettering "Grandpabiker", because his two greatest passions were his motorcycles and his grandchildren.

I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper in Daytona about the stolen vest. They ran a whole story about it. My letter was also posted on the web site for one of the local biker saloons with a link entitled "Brother Biker Needs Help". They wanted to help us get the vest back. In my letter I had written about him being in the 82nd during the Vietnam era and how those patches and pins meant so much.

Before we knew it, he was receiving hundreds of emails from across the entire country. They were from bikers and veterans. They told him their stories. I would find him out here on the computer, crying. I watched him as he sank into a depression and I had no idea why. I was helpless to do anything to help him.

I replaced the vest. I found patches and pins online. I had the embroidery done. Another story was written in the Daytona newspaper and another in Florida Bikers Digest about it.

It was at this time that our marriage started to fall apart. After so many years of being best friends and lovers and parents and partners, I felt like I was battling smoke and fog, because he was shutting me out. Another woman was involved. She had been married and had 2 daughters. But she was now living with her lesbian partner, who was my husband's best friend and riding buddy. I knew they were having an emotional affair. So, I put my foot down and I demanded that he choose. I had no idea what the true hell was that he was going through at the time.

It was then that he told me this dark secret from his past. We were driving down the road one day and he started to cry. This is a man who never cried in all the years I had known him. He said he had to tell me something, but he was afraid. He was afraid I would hate him and leave him. I asked if he wanted to pull the car over, but he said no. He didn't want to see the horror in my eyes when he told me. I took his hand. He told me that on January 15,1971, he was in Cambodia. It took me a minute to understand what he said. Cambodia? How? The 82nd was stateside. He hadn't been to war.....had he??

In 1970, he joined the Army. We were deep in it in Vietnam. His cousins had joined the Marines. But his neighbor had come home from Airborne training and he fell in love with his uniform and jump boots. He wanted so badly to be an Airborne Ranger. He wanted to fight for his country, for our freedom, to do what was right. And he wanted to do it in one of the most elite outfits of the armed forces. No draft for him. He joined up.

It seems that when he graduated from jump school, he was approached about having Ranger training. But not official training. An abbreviated training for a covert mission. Of course he said yes. It was his dream. But it quickly turned into his lifelong nightmare. He and 5 others were sent to Cambodia. They jumped into Cambodia in the middle of the night. According to the government, we were not IN Cambodia at ALL. Their mission was a search and rescue for POWs. They crawled through the jungle on their bellies, killing whomever came into their path. Then, they found it, the POW camp. They couldn't believe their eyes. They waited in the dark and started ambushing and killing the guards. Finally they were all dead. Then they went to find the POWs.

There were 9 of them being kept in cages. If you think of torture, real torture and then multiply it by 100, you can come close to what these men had been through. Every bone in their bodies was broken. They had been shot, electrocuted, sliced and diced. Rats had been eating their flesh. They were barely conscious.

Once all of the guards were dead, they radioed for backup air support to get these incredibly brave men out of that hell. At first there was no answer at all. They kept on calling for help to get these men out. Still nothing. Finally they got the answer. There would be no air support or ground support. They were to leave the POWs where they found them. Obviously the Army had never expected them to find any, or if they did, they'd be killed in the process. His unit leader was beside himself. There was no way for them to get these men out. No way at all.

The POWs begged them to please not leave them there alive. They knew what would happen. More Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge would come and torture them more until they died a slow, agonizing death. They begged and pleaded for that one act of grace that one soldier would give another in a hopeless situation such as this. I can't spell out the words about what happened next, but later on, his unit leader took their dog tags to take back to their families. Then they had to figure out how to get out.

They started the slow crawl on their bellies out of there. To their horror, a plane flew overhead and the next thing they knew, the prison camp was napalmed into oblivion. The Army, covering up what had happened.

Here is an excerpt from my husband's journal that he has just begun to write:

"I see me covered in blood & death everywhere, but I'm standing. Why? After the first shot, it was easy. Why? So much death. Why me?"

He told me that they had to bury themselves in the mud to hide from the Khmer Rouge. Then they had to fight them in hand-to-hand combat to take their weapons because the ones they had ran out. The best assassins on the planet and he lived to tell about it.

When they got back, the Army wanted to Courts Martial them for what they did. But they said that if they did that, then it would mean admitting that they were there. So, they told them all to "just forget it ever happened", and sent them back to the 82nd. Just forget? Oh my God. How do you "just forget"??? His unit leader took the dog tags to the families, but they had to swear they would never reveal how they got them. I told my husband that at the very least, he delivered these men from the jaws of Satan and had given their families some kind of closure, where so many thousands of others had none.

He tried to forget. He truly did. He snuffed it out with heroin and became an addict. But that didn't kill the memories. He ended up getting out of the Army. He couldn't do it anymore. He kicked his drug habit before he left and then he came come. But he never told a soul. He kept it bottled up inside for all those long years, until it finally couldn't be held in any more.

The VA refused to treat him for his PTSD. Why? Because no record of combat on his DD214 Discharge. More of the coverup. He was falling apart before my eyes. Thank God our doctor, who has been our doctor for over 20 years, had a patient who was the head of the Psychiatric Unit at the VA Hospital here. He cut through the red tape and got him in. But we have to pay for it, because it's not considered "combat-related". Dear Lord.

It has been 2-1/2 years and he still has the nightmares. I wake up with him punching me in his sleep or hearing him scream. He is back in the jungle, fighting his way out. I wake him up and I hold him and love him back to sleep.

I tried to get his military records. It looks as thought 1971 didn't exist for him in the Army except for the discipline when he got home. Even more horrible was to see that they had taken away his Honorable Discharge. The records claim that they notified him. The address they had is where his sister still lives. She got nothing from the Army. They knew what was going to happen, so they took that away from him so he can NEVER have disability benefits or be covered by the VA in any way. More lies. More coverup.

Once all of this started its slow crawl out of his soul, he lost his job. He made the fatal mistake of telling his boss so that his boss would understand that things were bad for him and he would need time to see the doctor and that sometimes he might be withdrawn. Instead of helping him, they laid him off. Our world began to crumble. He has been through 5 jobs in 2 years. His income has been cut in half.

We are on the brink of hitting the wall and losing everything. I could handle most of it, except the loss of a tiny piece of property in Tennessee that we have been paying on for 4 years. Tennessee is home to both of us. Our dream was to one day have just a tiny cabin on a creek up there. We found the little piece of land and we've been making the payments. But, they only do loans for 5 years and then want a balloon payment, and they refinance it to get the current interest rate. If our credit is shot and we don't have the money for that balloon payment, we will lose our land. With that goes our dream and any hope of having that heritage for our children and grandchildren. I can handle losing our house, car, whatever else. But please God, not that. Not the one place on earth where he has felt safe in his life and where I feel the only peace I've ever known.

I'm working 2 jobs right now to try to make up the difference. But his income was slashed so badly I can't make it up. I have nerve damage in one of my legs and it swells so badly I can't do my work. I spend what little time I have with my leg in the air to try to get the fluid out. I eat pain pills like candy. But I have to try to save us. I'm so terrified, but I can't tell him that. He is so fragile. The one time I did talk to him about it, his journal was full of self-loathing and feelings of suicide. I can't lose him. He is my life. He is my soul. He is my heart.

He did what he was told to do and has now spent his entire life paying the price for it. But when he needed THEM, they turned their backs and slammed the door, locked it, and pretended he didn't exist. We may end up on the street and they simply don't care. He made a mistake; he found the POWs they didn't think he'd find or that he'd live to tell about it.

This is only a tiny tip of the huge iceberg that is his story. All of my life I have written stories; funny stories, a chilren's Christmas book, musings. Testing when I was 11 said I should be a writer. I am, but nobody knows it, and I guess they never will. Well, that's not exactly true. My letter to the Daytona newspaper was so compelling that it became a news story and it elicited so many emails to my husband that this is why all of the demons came out. So, I suppose in some sense I have succeeded, just not the way I had dreamed about, where I could see and touch the covers of a book with my name on it. But, it doesn't matter. I will reach the ones that I need to and maybe someday when I'm gone, someone will find my writings and my grandchildren will touch those pages the way I always hoped I could. I've done here what I set out to do, and that's to put down on virtual paper the internal agony that my sweet husband has lived with his entire adult life.

Our bike honors the men and women; the 9 spoken of here, and the thousands more from all wars, like my uncle who is MIA from WWII. It is covered in POW/MIA hand-engraved chrome insignias. His vest has his "GrandpaBiker" embroidery, but now with blood drops that drip down to the POW/MIA patch that adorns the back of it. He got his first tattoo this year...jump wings with 4 red blood drops for "his" 4 POWs and the words "Freedom.....isn't free."

It certainly isn't. It comes at great cost. What is so sickening is that in his case, it wasn't freedom he was fighting for at all. It was just another war, like Iraq, that we didn't belong in and in a country whose soil should have never soaked in the first drop of American blood. But 55,000 died and thousands more are like my beloved husband. How many from this unholy war in Iraq will be like my husband? How many will have stories like this. How many will end up 35 years from now just like this man I love so much? How many more will become......the forgotten?

NanaBiker

2007-06-01T12:50:00.001-04:00

That new Harley-Davidson video really made me think about things. (Dangerous, I know.)
I loved the statement in that video - "Some of us believe in the man upstairs. All of us believe in sticking it to the man down here." That's as on point as it gets. "The man down here" is that very man whose word means nothing and for whom a handshake is just something you do because it looks good. That's not a biker, a true "brother", and it sure isn't anyone who paid any attention to the teachings of the "real" men of past generations. We should all take heed from that before we offer out our hands to shake with someone. We should be the kind of men and women our forefathers (the real bikers) were.....men and women whose word truly means something and that we can count on when it really matters.

GrandpaBiker has had a motto for his entire life that he was taught by his grandfather. That is, "All a man has is his word." It's pretty simple-sounding. But when you think about it, it's really very deep and very true. In days of old, contracts were made by a simple handshake between two men. That was as binding as any loophole-free contract in today's times. Once that word was broken, the man that broke it lost every ounce of respect from both the man with whom he gave his word and from any other man who knew about it. It was just as simple as that.

Even in today's complicated world, that premise really still applies. If a man makes a verbal promise to another man, then it's binding. If he doesn't mean what he says, then he shouldn't say it in the first place. But even worse, if the man he made the promises to comes from this old school of thought and calls him out on it when it appears that it was all a bunch of hooey, then he should be a man and own up to it and admit it. If he doesn't, then any chance of regaining the lost respect turns to dust.

I've found that true bikers (not the ones who "play" at it because it's cool, or who are the "weekened wannabe's" or any of the like) are of that old school. When they give their word and shake hands, it's binding and it means something. In today's world where trust is valuable commodity, that makes it even more important.

GrandpaBiker's grandfather was a true biker. He rode in a biker gang in Elizabeth, New Jersey when bikers weren't "cool", but feared and revered. He rode with some pretty well-known famous and infamous men. But each and every one of them was a man of his word. When he gave it, it meant something. Art's grandfather raised him for a good part of his life, and that was one of the biggest lessons he taught him. He has never forgotten it and he never offers his hand to shake unless it's for something that is true. He raised our girls to follow those same basic beliefs.

Just my thoughts for the week. Ride safe and keep it real!

NanaBiker
©2007

2007-06-01T11:35:00.001-04:00

Thanks For Letting Me Just Be Myself

One of our dearest friends said those words to us a couple of weeks ago, and it has been on my mind ever since. Anyone who knows me knows that when something is on my mind, I just have to write about it. I haven't been inspired to write much lately, since life seems to have taken great joy in giving us some really swift and painful kicks in the gut. But, were it not for the bonds of friendships formed in the recent past, I might not have survived any of it.

This same friend and I were talking recently about how friendships wax and wane, progress and evolve. People change. Life changes us, or situations, or just sometimes for unexplained reasons. And sometimes, the sun, the moon and the stars align just right and magic happens. I've experienced it a few times in my life and have felt very blessed when I have.

I used to sit and wonder what the heck was so appealing about climbing onto some piece of formed steel and hurtling through space; so much so that everything else is left in the dust in order to do it. I'd watch GrandpaBiker leave every weekend to go riding and I'd just shake my head and go back to doing whatever it was that I was interested in at the time. But finally we were able to overcome the physical barriers that had kept me from even trying to ride, and I got my first taste. I have told him that he is the one who created this monster, this NanaBiker.

That saying, "if I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand" is so true. Only someone who is a biker can understand about it. With being a biker comes a kinship, a brotherhood and sisterhood of sorts, so that no matter where you go, other bikers will wave or smile or talk to you. No one is a stranger when it comes to bikers. It's an understood bond that goes so deep that it just can't be defined. Sure, there are what I call the "weekend wannabes", or the "one-day wonders", who pull out the bike, go for a ride and then put it away. That's not being a biker. That's just riding a bike. Kind of like going to a movie on a weekend, it certainly doesn't make you a movie star. It makes you an observer. But when it's in your heart and your soul, that’s' when you can call yourself a biker.

Along with all of that comes the closest of the friends that you want to share this bond with. It's almost like a love affair, in that something that you've seen from the back of your bike isn't quite as marvelous if you haven't shared it with that small group of people that matter the most to you. Your extended family, if you will. We have large circles of friends that are fun to be around, fun to laugh with and joke with and ride with. But if we get really lucky, we find that small, intimate group that makes our lives complete.

It is with those few that we are able to share our lives, truly share. We let them into the deepest corners of our hearts and of our souls. They are privy to the secrets that have made us who we are; where we have been, what dark roads we have had to travel, what joys we have known, what makes us laugh or cry. It is with those few that we can just be ourselves and not worry about being judged or worry about what reaction might come out of some revelation we share. We know and trust that our deepest secrets are safe in their care. We know that it's ok to just be quiet when we need to, yell when we have to, laugh as much we can when we can, because with that trust comes the ability to just "be".

When we share all of this along the back roads of the world where the sights and smells are like nothing else on earth, that's something rare and precious. Not everybody gets to experience that, but I'm so grateful that I do. I watch our little band of bikers from the passenger seat of our bike and it just brings an automatic smile to my face. It is some of the most incredible time spent in my otherwise sometimes very stressful life. I know that it goes unspoken that I am accepted. I'm accepted regardless and on some levels, because of, my shortcomings. I know that at the end of the road will be time to talk, time to enjoy the company of that small group of friends and time to just be myself.

We have to put on a lot of faces in life and hold back a lot in order to get by. If we are fortunate enough to have found the love of our life, then we get to share all of that with him or her. But to be able to share it with a group of friends is a wonderful gift indeed. It's a gift I treasure and value and never take for granted.

So to those friends I repeat those words said to me by my wonderful friend. Thanks for letting me just be myself.

NanaBiker
©2007

2007-06-01T11:29:00.001-04:00

I don't know how many people have the privelege of actually witnessing a man go from being a guy who likes to ride bikes to a real biker....a Harley Man. I am one of those rare individuals who saw the exact nanosecond when it happened to GrandpaBiker. The day we bought our Fat Boy from someone who was to become a wonderful friend, I rode behind him while he drove it home. I saw his eyes light up when we pulled into J's driveway and saw that gorgeous hunk of chrome and steel sitting there glimmering in the sunshine. I felt his heart begin to pound in his chest while he thought "could this really be happening??". I watched him settle into the seat, crank it up, let it warm up while he gently goosed the engine a bit. As we rode down the street, I saw him snuggle down in that seat, lean back and "assume the position" as I lovingly began to call it. In that moment, he became a true biker and a Harley Man.

I learned that same passion when I climbed on the back of our Classic. I learned how incredibly exciting, exhilerting and even how sensual riding two up could be with this man that I have loved for as long as I can remember. Added to that was now this group of friends who also shared that same passion and love of the bikes and the journeys. It's like this rich gumbo, steeped in spices of all kinds and all flavors, but enticing and intoxicating in its attraction.
I'm lucky to have witnessed the "birth" of a true Harley man. And best of all, he's mine. I look forward to every day that we get to share that passion and I love so much the sight of him as he "assumes the position" and morphs into that Harley Man right before my eyes.

NanaBiker
©2007

2007-05-29T07:16:00.002-04:00

Back in the saddle again.

Well so to speak. I had gotten away from the blogging, but have now decided that I really need to get back into it. It's a way to vent, and boy do I need to vent these days. Life just seems to enjoy giving us that swift kick in the gut on a regular basis, and it just seems to never get easier.

Since I love to write...sometimes funny stories about our adventures, sometimes sad things, sometimes just observations on life........this is my outlet. Take if for what it's worth. If you don't like what I have to say, then step away from the page. Nobody has superglued your eyeballs to this blog, nor would I begin to think about doing that. This is about me and my life... NanaBiker..... where I've been, where I am now, and where I'm hoping to end up.

Until next time.

NanaBiker
©2007