Death – Site Title

RUN!

I was listening to Matthew Hussey, a well-known dating coach the other day. What he had to say was mind-blowing if not eye-opening. He pointed out that women fall for the wrong types all the time. He mentioned that quite often the red flags are there, clearly visible but we choose not to see it. Instead of putting a stop right there and then, we walk in with our eyes wide open.

He talked about seven signs that women should pay attention to and if those signs are clear and present, RUN is his advice! I’ve seen some of them myself and like those women he talks about in his podcast, I went in with my eyes wide open and was led to the slaughter willingly!

Here are the 7 signs.

1) I don’t want to hurt you or I don’t want to lead you on.

According to Matthew, he is giving you fair warning that it is exactly what he is about to do, hurt you that is, only he thinks that by being upfront about his intention, it will tamper the pain that is to follow. This line basically gives him the permission to mistreat you but with your consent! The ball is in your court and most women fall for it. He’s also telling you that he is not in it for the long run only for what he can get both emotionally and physically. If he finds someone better, he will leave in a heartbeat! RUN if you hear those words.

2) You deserve better than me.

Instead of saying, “You’re probably right,” we fall for this hook, line and sinker! According to Matthew, this is mental warfare at its best. What happens when you hear that line? You do the opposite and that is what he is counting on. It is manipulation at the smartest level and you can bet your bottom dollar that he has done it before. This opens up the field for him to use, abuse and mistreat you. RUN!

3) I’m not looking for anything serious right now.

Hmm…a good one and this one tells you what you need to know. Instead of running in the opposite direction and never looking back, this one has a certain pull and mystery about it. Let’s dive in and find out. You don’t really want to know because if he is telling you upfront that he is not serious, listen and keep moving. However, if you go in knowing what the outcome will be then you only have yourself to blame right? It is not as simple as that. These loser types know how to play the game, terrible though it might be. He is counting on you to accept what he is putting out there and in a way, he feels that he has been honest but in an insidious way. He is offering NOTHING from the get go. RUN!

4) You knew what this was.

What?!! Come again? The problem with this is that they expect the emotional and physical contact but with no strings attached. They’ll walk in a heartbeat if someone better walks in and it doesn’t matter if you’re holding your broken heart in your hands. It is all about them. The other thing is if it was nothing then they should have kept their emotions and hands to themselves! Try pointing that out to them but there is no winning with this one. He was never serious in the first place and it was all a manipulation tactic played like a pro.

5) I don’t want to ruin our friendship.

Hey buddy, if it was just friendship you should have stopped with the love scam you were pulling! Friendship is one thing and a relationship is another. If there are feelings involved and you played it to the hilt, then it wasn’t just friendship, it was something more. However, these losers are all about themselves so don’t ask them to own up to it. They never will. It’s a cruel game and they know it. RUN!

6) Why do we need to put a label on it?

According to them labels such as “girlfriend” which eventually leads to something more serious is unnecessary in the world they live and operate in. They want to keep it open so that they can walk when the time suits them. Here again, it is all about them. That line is meant to keep his options open. Labels are part of the norm in the normal relationship spectrum of things but as far as these guys are concerned, they march to a different drumbeat, it is one of using, abusing and discarding. RUN!

7) You’re different from other women I’ve dated.

Wow, how poetic! This one sounds like the ultimate compliment but there is deceit involved with this one as well. They hold you up as someone special only to make you complicit in their mistreatment of you. According to Matthew, it is done to hide their emotional unavailability. This tactic is psychologically damaging because you find yourself in a game of not knowing where you stand and that is part of the plan. They’ll keep you guessing as long as you serve a purpose, one of boosting their ego. The cruelty is that you cater to their needs hoping that they will see you as this caring person and they will eventually choose you. The truth is YOU ARE NOT THE ONE! Instead of being honest, they dance around and pull you into the fray disregarding the hurt they will cause when they take off in another direction later on. RUN!

Matthew is quick to point out that not all men are like that. However, speaking from experience, I say there are plenty out there who are. Take it slow, keep your eyes open, observe carefully and if you see any of those signs above, do not hesitate. just do this. RUN!

Have an amazing day.

I MISS YOU

I don’t know what brought this on but it seems like I’m grieving all over again. It could be the changing of the season where the days are getting shorter and darkness is coming in earlier and staying longer. Enough time has passed and it should have made it better but there are too many reminders that trigger those memories, ones that I have put aside in order to move on.

Your brother called and he checks in on me not as frequently as he used to do but once in a while. Today was one of those days. He sounded concerned about the test I had gone through and was really relieved that all turned out well. Then he said, “If there is anyone who deserves good things in her life, it is you.” It went straight to my heart but he didn’t see the tears rolling down my face. I got off that phone call and I felt the familiar strains of memories trying to fight their way back in.

Last week, while on my way to the fields, I saw a neighbor and she started up a conversation. It was strange because I never really liked her and we never made small talk before and yet there she was ready to strike up a conversation. It started off about our kids, she has a daughter the same age as my son. Then, it came. “What about …….how is he doing? I always liked him. A nice guy.” So I told her and her face dropped and then she gushed with sadness and condolences. I answered, “Thank you and yes he was a good guy.” Then I went to the fields and you were right there walking beside me, quiet and calm as you always were.

Then for some reason, the Teddy Swims song, “Let Me Love You,” came on and it took me all the way back. It was the third song you sent me and I stopped what I was doing and listened as emotions came rushing back up. Remember, the first Christmas when I invited you over for Christmas Eve dinner and I had my ex there as well? You showed up all dressed up wearing a tie but I could see the nervousness on your face. My ex was shooting daggers at you with his eyes because he felt you were encroaching on his territory but he forgot that he gave it up for a roll in the hay or two with someone who was the spitting image of Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend or was it his wife? Anyway….

Later, I asked you, “How did it go? Was it ok?”

YOU: “Oh I didn’t mind because I only had eyes for you!”

That one sentence catapulted my self-esteem back to where it should be after having felt “ugly” for months on end when he tossed me aside for everything that moved on two feet! My ex had grown out of his “nerd” phase and was ready to make up for lost time. He took the saying, “Too many women, too little time,” straight to the heart and practiced it religiously!

It has been a hard weekend. Thoughts of you still linger and sometimes it is a song that triggers it or a mere mention of you or just because and I am back to where I shouldn’t be. They say time heals all things but it sure is taking its time.

I wanted you to know that I MISS YOU.

An Ode to an Angel

“Angels appear in many different forms to hold your hand through difficult times.” Doreen Virtue

Three years already? Has it been that long? I can still hear your laughter, that soft raspy laugh and I can hear you saying, “You’re so bad with time.” I totally agree.

I lit a candle for you today. It’s just symbolic. It’s what humans do to show their caring and to say, “I’m thinking about you.” However, I think “up there” where you’re at, they’ve got much better things planned for you today.

What can I say that I haven’t said already? The “thank yous” never seem enough and the love you showed a broken heart and the healing you brought into my life was unexpected but it was needed. You swooped in and carried me on your wings and for a while, my world began to right itself.

Remember the first laughter that escaped from me? The loud and no holds barred kind that had me bending over till tears started running down my face? When it subsided, I looked at you with new eyes. There was something about you. It wasn’t just the good looks, the soft spoken ways about you but there was something special about you. I felt comfortable in your presence. I called it a feeling of home. I also felt safe in your presence but I couldn’t love you the way you wanted. I was too broken at the time but you took that in stride. Your love never wavered. We, my son and I, became a part of your world.

No, it wouldn’t last long but during the time you were here, you showed us what love was about. It was unconditional, it was focused and it was filled with caring. I didn’t see your wings back then, I only knew you were someone special.

I still talk about you and it is with reverence and sometimes I see anger because your shoes are hard to fill. I was told, “Not everyone can be like him!” I agree and I KNOW that those shoes can never be filled. They belonged to an angel and no earthly human is going to measure up. However, I’m not looking for someone to fill those shoes, just someone who will love me for who I am.

So, the candle is burning bright. It’s not one that you bought me. That supply has been exhausted. This one I bought myself. I still see you as you were. The tall frame dressed in a shirt and jeans, green eyes smiling, the same color as Chachi’s eyes, the quiet confidence that seemed to reach out and take me in its hold. I felt “safe” there and there are times when I reach out for that safety and there are times when I still feel you close to me.

I’ll say thank you again for all that you gave me in that short space of time. You showed me that there is a “better” love out there. You helped to mend those clipped wings so thank you my angel and I hope you have a fantastic day today.

“Angels never stay for long.”

YIKES!

I walked out the front door this morning and all seemed calm and beautiful. The sun was shining and the tulips are getting ready to bloom. It was a peaceful world until I turned my head to the right and there lying on the ground was something small and pink. Thinking it was a chewing gum wrapper that some kid had thrown, not caring where it landed, I bent to get a closer look and YIKES!

It was a baby mouse, pink and grey with a sweet little pink nose. It wasn’t moving and it hadn’t been torn to shreds by a marauding cat in the dead of night either. My mind started churning. What do I do now? My first thought, “I’m not touching it!” However, I also knew that I had to do something. Rotting on the ground where it lay was a no go and calling someone to help get rid of the poor thing was a no go either.

Walking back into the house lost in thought, I came across Chachi, the cat, watching me intuitively. Little Einstein knew something was up. I also knew that if I let him out there, he would take care of the problem or he might just pick it up and bring it into the house, lay it at my feet as a small gift from him to me. YIKES!

Walking into the kitchen with my mind made up, I picked up two plastic bags. One for picking up the little creature and the other to secure him and then to put it in the garbage can. The predicament. I didn’t want to feel his lifeless body beneath my plastic covered hand. There was no getting out of it, it had to be done. “Tia, you can do this!” I told myself. My mind made up, I scooped him up and closing my eyes I put him in the plastic bag and secured the top. Mission accomplished? Not quite. I quickly ran into the kitchen turned the water on, lathered my hands with soap and scrubbed several times before rinsing off. I can still feel the chills going up my spine.

Living in the country, mice are a problem. I’ve seen several scooting by in the backyard and neighbors have complained about them taking over the garden sheds. However, this is the first time I have made contact with a dead one.

“In race, between cat and mouse, the mouse mostly wins….

Because the cat runs for its food……

But the mouse runs for its life……….

Purpose is more important than Need….” Unknown

Unfortunately, the little guy lost out. So goes the circle of life.

All I can say is YIKES!

Have an amazing day.

The Brutal Beating Death of Bakari Henderson

Lest We Forget

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Nine men were arrested and charged with the intentional homicide of American tourist, Bakari Henderson on July 2017 on the idyllic Greek island of Zakynthos. It’s been almost a year since the brutal attack and killing of the young American outside a bar on the island and we have yet to see justice prevail in this case. The suspects are a 34-year-old Greek bartender, a 32-year-old British citizen of Serbian origin and seven Serbian men.

Why was Henderson attacked and beaten to death? According to reports, it was because he had taken a selfie with a woman of Serbian descent who had requested the selfie from him. A man nearby was heard saying, “There are a lot of Serbs in the bar, why are you talking to a black guy?” and proceeded to hit Henderson on the side of the head. This set-off the chain of events which led to the young man’s death.

Henderson was 22-years-old at the time and a recent graduate of the University of Arizona. He had big plans for his future and he was in Greece trying to get a new clothing venture off the ground. He was accompanied by some friends and until that fateful night, he had been having fun on the Greek island.

According to his mother, Jill Henderson, in an interview with Gayle King of CBS News, he was, “more comfortable overseas than in the United States. He just felt it was safer over in Europe and overseas in general,” referring to the racial climate against black men in the United States.

It could have been this misconception that cost him his life. After the altercation in the bar, a surveillance footage shows Anderson being chased out of the bar by a group of men, surrounded and then beaten to death. According to Greek police spokesman, Theodore Chronopoulous, “They kicked and punched him to his body and his head. His death came from hits to the head.” Henderson was on his own against the angry mob who pummeled him to the ground and there was nothing anyone could do except to stand and watch the incident take place. After the beating, his friends tried to resuscitate him but he died on the way to hospital.

In the same interview with Gayle King of CBS News, Jill Henderson had this to say about her son’s death. “What parents would raise such barbarians to do such an evil thing to another human thing.?” Perhaps that is the exact question that ran through all of our minds as we read about the beating death of this young man. However, could a more pertinent question be, “Was it racially motivated?” Was he targeted because of his skin color? The woman who approached him for the selfie was of Serbian descent and reports state that she knew the men involved in the attack. Could it have been a set-up right from the beginning? Why did she go up to a total stranger for a selfie and why did she pick Bakari Henderson? These are just unanswered questions that do need answers.

Coming back to the question of race, was Bakari Henderson a walking target because of his skin color? If so, nothing could have prepared him for the “hate” he faced on that July night, a potent force so violent that the end result was the loss of a life. This was certainly not because of one selfie with a stranger.

What animals will do this to another human being? The kind that have no respect for human life. The kind that refuses to see the human beneath the coating of skin color and the kind that decided he deserved to die because of a selfie with a Serbian woman. That is the sad reality folks.

Bakari Henderson was wrong in his assumption that it was safer in Europe than in the United States. The under-current of racism, hate and violence runs deep here just as it does elsewhere and from time to time it rears its ugly head when you least expect it like it did in that bar on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

A life lost but not forgotten.

Update:

Justice was not served in this case. The killers were initially tried on homicide charges in 2018 but none were found guilty of murder, instead they were convicted of lesser assault charges. In 2022, a second trial took place and it lasted nearly three months and here again to no avail. They were found not guilty of intentional homicide in a Greek courtroom. The original convictions of intended fatal bodily harm was upheld. One received a ten-year sentence, four received eight years each and another one received a five-year sentence.

How much is a Black man’s life worth? Would the outcome have been different if the victim had been a White man? What do you think?

A video showed the brutal attack in its entirety and it was perpetrated on an unharmed person. I can only imagine the terror he must have felt on that fateful night. If you ask me, I would have locked them up and thrown away the keys! Or given them the same punishment they meted out on Bakari Henderson. Inhumane? Not really, the animal-like behavior that the killers showed another human being was and still is hard to stomach let alone to see them get away with lesser charges. Unfortunately, we live in a world where “evil” has rights and innocent victims don’t and that is the shameful truth.

SHOOTER!

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

Here we go again! Another day, another shooting. The news screamed 4 killed and nine injured in a shooting at a Georgia high school.

The shooter is a 14-year-old boy armed with an “AR Platform style weapon,” which is a semiautomatic rifle and the dead were two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo and two teachers, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. The nine injured are expected to survive.

Shifting through the anger, mayhem, shock and sadness, the question arises as it always does after a shooting of this magnitude. WHY? What was a 14-year-old doing with an assault-style weapon in the first place? There are no clear-cut answers only that 4 more people have been killed and many others injured not to mention the psychological trauma that follows after each shooting. The shooter is in custody and will be charged as an adult.

According to livemint.com, “In the past two decades, the US has experienced hundreds of school and college shooting with the deadliest occuring at Virginia Tech in 2007, where over 30 people were killed. This ongoing violence has intensified the debate over gun laws and the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right “to keep and bear arms.”

High profile mass shootings are a norm in the US and gun violence has been on the rise but even though President Biden has taken more executive actions to reduce gun violence than any other president, the violence continues.

Increasing background checks before firearm purchases has not helped much.

Increasing appropriate use of extreme risk protection (“red flag”) orders and safe storage of firearms has not helped much.

Addressing the loss or theft of firearms during shipping and holding the gun industry accountable has not helped amongst other measures has not helped much either.

Here’s the shocking statistic. The Apalachee High School shooting makes it the 30th mass killing this year according to the The Associated Press and USA Today which brings the total dead to 131 people. Last year there were 217 deaths from 42 mass killings in the US making it one of the deadliest years on record.

Where do we go from here? It will be days of mourning followed by laying the victims to rest and asking the question “why” over and over again. However, getting “gun violence” under control is a whole other ballgame. It needs much much more than just lip service and you and I know exactly what is needed to get it in control, don’t we?

Enough said.

Murder in the First?

It should have been murder in the first but the woman who committed the heinous crime of killing my mother with seven blows to her head walked off with a 4 1/2 years prison term with time already served taken into account. It was a tap on the fingers for a brutal crime perpetuated on an elderly woman but criminals it seems walk to a different beat these days. Gone are the days when they had almost no rights but those days are somewhat of a bygone era. These days they flaunt what they have done and the justice system panders to their rights. This is my story or rather, this is her story.

It has been almost 15 years since her death. Some years the anniversary of her death goes by quietly without an onslaught on my memory but today it is a different story. As another anniversary draws near, thoughts of her cross my mind and my mood reflects that of the rain-washed streets outside and the grey and dingy skies above. A tear rolls down my face for the injustice she suffered not only at the hands of her perpetrator but the justice system as well. Even after all these years, it hurts.

She was a small woman but that didn’t stop her from giving birth to eight children. When I think of her, it is of a busy woman. She was always in motion. Cooking, cleaning, patching up a wound or simply being a mother. She didn’t have time to sit around and have a moment to herself. Her days were filled with us and we weren’t an easy bunch. I know because as a mother of one, I now realize just what a gigantic task she must have had of raising us. I never heard her complain and if she did, it was done in silence. I remember she didn’t have time to coddle us either with love and her voice was tinged with harshness but we knew without a doubt that this woman loved us unconditionally. She was a church-going woman, God was first in her life as it was with dad. They brought us up as God-fearing children and our growing up years were spent at church most Sundays learning how to be good god-fearing children. Somehow it worked. She managed to raise eight good and loving children but since there was no crystal ball to show us the future, we were unaware of the pain she would endure before she took her last breath.

It was a sunny day in May when I got the call. The voice on the other end was raw and all I heard was, “Come home, it’s mum.” I felt a chill run down my spine as I held on to the phone and gripped it tightly. I hadn’t seen her in almost two years and our conversations had been far and few in between. It was my brother on the other end and he didn’t tell me what had happened and I didn’t ask. In retrospect, it seems strange now. It was as if I knew without knowing that whatever had happened, it would tear me apart.

I managed to get a flight and flew home two days later. I remember it was unbearably hot as I stepped off the plane. I won’t say where home is because it is not important but what happened to her is. We, my husband and I, took a taxi to the funeral parlor and as I walked in, my eyes were drawn to the flower drapped casket close to the altar. It looked small and forlorn if not for the flowers. Roses, she would have loved them I thought, they were her favorite flowers. However, I was disappointed. I had wanted to see her face one last time and say my goodbyes and I felt anger towards my family for having a closed casket. Why couldn’t they have waited?

The service droned on as hymns were sung. I sat in the front pew and watched the casket as tears rolled down my face. All I could see was this little woman giving me her favorite advice and how I had huffed with impatience. “If you fall off a horse, don’t wait too long, dust off, pick yourself back up and get back on that horse.” I screamed silently, “Say that again mummy, I’ll listen this time.” Somehow I felt my shoulders straighten and I felt strength course through my body as I held my head up high, more for her then for myself. I was her daughter and those words of hers have stood the test of time.

After the service, I walked outside into bright sunshine and learned the truth about her death. She was found bludgeoned to death in her bedroom. My sister-in-law found her in the dark blood-splattered room. She had been dead for almost 8 hours according to the coroner’s report. Her skull was crushed with a blunt object which later turned out to be her telephone. She suffered broken fingers and bruises from trying to protect herself but this 67-year-old woman was no match against her 26-year-old assailant. The bedroom door was locked so if she had been alive at the time, there was no way she could have called for help because the assailant took the telephone with her as she left my mother bleeding profusely from her wounds, her life seeping away slowly. The murderer then went into the bathroom and had a shower washing my mother’s blood off her. In her words, “I was covered from head to toe with her blood.” She then proceeded to dress herself in one of my mother’s outfits, took the money, the jewelery, the murder weapon and left locking the door behind her. She took a taxi to a river close by and disposed of the murder weapon and later that day went to a pawnshop and pawned two gold chains for an undisclosed sum of money.

This demon was caught a week after my mother’s funeral. I was back home in Germany when I got the news. She was my mother’s maid, a woman who had come from a distant land and whom my mother had taken in as another daughter. The newspapers splashed pictures of the assailant everywhere but I refused to see what she looked like and to this day I don’t know what she looks like. I didn’t want to give her a face. I wanted to kill her with my own bare hands! These feelings of revenge shocked me. I am a gentle person and didn’t believe in such thoughts or the death sentence but I found myself wanting just that. She had to pay for what she had done. I wanted to see her die!

I had my own demons to fight. On that May morning, she didn’t just take my mother’s life but in doing so, she had set a chain of events in motion. I can’t speak for my siblings but I found myself on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. I would cry uncontrollably and when I went to bed, I would find myself facing off with her murderer. It was as if I was blaming myself for her death. Why wasn’t I there to protect her? Those words would haunt me for years to come. I found myself being afraid in underground park houses and afraid to let anyone in to the house. I was suffering inside and no one could help me. She had killed her so brutally but that was just the beginning of things to come.

The trial was a somber affair as trials go. I refused to be there because I didn’t want to see her and besides I was sure she would get the death penalty, I was dead sure. I was dead wrong. A week into the trial, the verdict was handed out. She walked with 4 1/2 years and hung her head in relief as the courtroom rumbled with disbelief. I got the message and felt the pain shoot through me all over again. All I could think was, “they killed her again.” I tried appealing but to no avail. It was a closed case and the message was clear, “We are sorry for your loss but the verdict is in.” Why? I don’t know and I will never know.

I mourned all over again. I could have been wearing sackcloth and ashes for all I cared until one day, my four-year-old turned to me and said, “Don’t cry mummy, I know something terrible happened to grandma but she is in heaven now,” and he hugged me tightly and looked up at me with those big brown eyes of his. He had only seen her once in his lifetime and I remember how she was taken with him. She spoke to him in English and he spoke back in German and I made a mental note to teach him English so that they could communicate the next time. Now, it was too late. I looked at this dear little boy of mine and knew that my life must go on, she would have wanted that. Afterall, she raised us to be strong individuals.

Three years after her death, I let her go. There was nothing more I could do for her. However, I won’t let her death go as just a case number. She was more than that. She had a name and it was Angela and she was a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a friend to many. She was a God-fearing person and didn’t deserve to die the way she did, alone in that dark room. She died because she had shown kindness to a stranger. Some may say she had been too trusting, perhaps they are right. She lived her life in a different world, in hers you help those in need and that was what she did when she took this woman in. Whatever the case maybe, victims have rights too. I think we forget that in our rush to protect perpetrators and forget those that lost their lives to them. This has to change.

In my opinion, my mum didn’t get the justice she deserved and her murderer is out on the streets again, perhaps to kill again. Why not? She paid very little for what she had done. A lesson learned? I don’t think so.

Rest in peace mum.