Beginning in late Winter or early Spring, 1993
After we moved into the motel on El Norte Pkwy, I realized right away that it was going to be extremely difficult to cover our living expenses, since the monthly motel bill for our room would use up the greater part of the AFDC check, which included our food allowance. We?d have little more than 100 dollars for groceries, laundry, personal necessities, and transportation.....I became more and more depressed. Remembering which pills would have been affective the last time I opted to "get my ticket punched," I bought us bus tickets down to Tijuana and my son and I crossed the border and went shopping, also stopping by a drugstore where I purchased a bottle of Vicodin...I don?t know what stopped me from buying the muscle relaxers...I knew I would need them....but for some reason, my mind played a trick on me and I felt that I didn?t really need them at the time.
When we returned from Tijuana the next day, I waited until bedtime before secretly taking the whole bottle of Vicodin, thinking that my son wouldn?t know this time until the next day....well, I was right....he didn?t.....but the next morning, I woke up anyway....not enough meds.....but I couldn?t function physically....couldn?t walk or control my body....so my son wound up calling the paramedics once again. This time, I wound up in the psych unit at Palomar and Child Protective Services took possession of my son....They said I could have him back when I acquired a place for us to live other than a motel.
While I was in the psych unit, "jumping the requisite hoops" for the therapists so I could get out of there, I met another woman in there for depression....she was released before I was and she and her husband helped me find an apartment....it was in San Marcos.....what a depressing place.....neighbors helped us semi-furnish the place with decor de? garbahge, since we had nothing by now, except our clothes and a few other personal belongings.....I had been hearing a commercial on the radio quite frequently when I moved there...the ad "jingle?s" words that stood out to me were "You belong in a zoo..."....and the apartment building (12 apartments, 6 lst floor, 6 top floor) sure did fit that description with it?s "ho?s" and druggies....what a dump!....and wouldn?t you know it....the owner?s name was "Satana Singh"....no, it really was.....she was an East Indian.....and CPS gave my son back to me.
But....while I was there, I had a lot of time on my hands to research the scriptures and do a lot of thinking....I realized the vitriolic anger I had been launching against the GB was wrong....it hadn?t done any good anyway.....and I began to think about the content of the scriptures and the different parts played by the people depicted therein.....I wasn?t positive about Jesus and Michael being the same (perhaps a split persona?), but I knew that Jesus was the word of God personified when he was born....and the word Archangel means "most high messenger," so that meant Michael *could* be the word of God, since that would probably be the "most high" of any "messenger" there could possibly be from God.....I compared both Jesus? and Jehovah?s written promises to mankind (of rewards for doing what they said) with the assurances that the "serpent" had given Eve in the Garden......I thought about the composition of the bible itself....how it was made of paper....its pages often referred to as "leaves"......and realized how appropriate that term was, since paper comes from......trees.....I considered it?s division between the Hebrew and Greek....and how its judgments were both good....and bad......judging both for some things and against others....and sometimes for things it was also against....and against things, it had seemed to be for....and causing those of us who attempted to adhere to scriptural admonitions to judge for ourselves....and others.....as to what is good and what is bad......the scripture about not being able to partake of two tables came to mind and the fact that there were two tables of contents in the bible occurred to me....The commandment which was most curious to me was the one concerning not making an engraved image of anything above or below...(Why?)....and the fact that printers (of books) use ink to "engrave" words on paper which depict images that become reflected in our thoughts and can become embedded in our minds and hearts.....I thought about the "chocolate factory" which had been given me....{"a red, bubbly concoction?" (Prov. 23: 29-35)....like "the fizzy lifting drink" that Charlie and his grandfather had indulged in?...."pumping me up" to think that I was more than I actually am in order to deceive me?}....and all these thoughts together merged into an idea.....
So.....since we weren?t supposed to make any "engraved images" for ourselves, I thought....perhaps sign language would "fill the bill".....after all, hadn?t my "therapist" shown his displeasure with the spirit over me without a word?...by merely pointing his finger and swinging his arm to the left?....and I went to the library there in San Marcos and checked out a book with pictures of international sign language.....and I composed another letter to the GB, this time using photo-copied pictures of sign language depicting the message I wished to convey.....which essentially consisted of the combination of thoughts I had considered in the previous paragraph and their meaning.....explaining these things......and I pleaded with them to get out of the "tree of the knowledge of good and bad"....in pictures of the international sign language counterpart for each word or pictures of the hand signs for the letters in words for which I could not find a single sign. It was quite a hefty endeavor since more pages were required for me to paste the sign language pictures for the words and letters on each page.....and it took two days and almost two nights to finish it.....nonstop, mind you.....oh, I didn?t have the strength to do it alone and I became extremely tired, but towards the end of the first night, my "therapist" came and "covered" me, giving me his strength.....though I couldn?t see him, I could feel the shape of his musculature surrounding mine.....and when finished, I made copies...again....not only for the GB, but for some of their Branch offices on the seven continents....and mailed it.
Within two to three weeks....one night, as I was lying in bed preparing to go to sleep with my eyes closed, I had a true wide-awake vision....even though my eyes were closed. Everything was dark....even black like velvet.....suddenly the outlined shape of each one of the seven continents appeared for a few moments.....slowly....and one at a time.....each one lit up like a mirrored reflection of the sun.....brilliant as sunlight. To me, it meant that the letters had been received and there were "light bulbs" coming on all over the world.
Within another day and night or two....I was again lying on my bed.....almost going to sleep....when suddenly I felt "someone" land on me straddling me between my hips and waist.....without opening my eyes, I could "see" there in the dark of the room looming over me.....a dark....well....black....spirit creature astride me.....and it appeared to be feminine in form, though very muscular (buff).....it?s right hand was raised over me with a weapon in it....I assumed it was a knife, though I didn?t really see it.....was I scared out of my wits?.....no....its arrival startled me, of course....and naturally I was tense.....but I was thinking "so this is it....its come to give me what I desire very badly.....a final rest"......then the spirit snarled a command to me, "Look at me!".....and yes, it had a woman?s voice.....I flinched at first and squeezed my eyes shut even tighter....then I quickly thought "maybe that?s what I need to do?"....so when it snarled again, "Open your eyes! Look at me!" I did open my eyes.....to nothing but my dark apartment....the spirit?s presence had instantly dissipated as I had opened my eyes......so.....I WASN?T supposed to obey its "words" nor its commands......hmmmmmm
And during this period of time, my AFDC came up for renewal again.....and renewing it would require that I go into Escondido from San Marcos to the AFDC office....I had no more money.....so there would be no bus fare....and it was much too far to walk, and our bicycles were long gone....there would also be no money for rent or anything else.....So all I could do was sit there in the apartment and wait...in hopes that someone would come along to provide some transportation. I waited till we had about a week?s amount of food left....and I called both Adult Protective Services and Child Protective Services, asking them for help with our situation. They both told me their "hands were tied." So I told the case worker with CPS that they needed to come pick up my son, grieving to have to give up my son into their hands and knowing what he might have to go through....but knowing it would be better than living on the streets, which was where I knew I was headed.....but relieved at the same time....that he would be fed and sheltered and have a chance for a better future without me.....the CPS caseworker agreed to come and pick him up but hadn?t made an appearance by the end of the week, so I used a neighbor?s phone again and called CPS.....again.....reminding the CPS caseworker that my son also had hypoglycemia and we only had a day or two left before our food ran completely out and asking him if he planned to wait until we were completely out of food and my son possibly went into a coma before he felt it would be necessary to pick him up. He came that afternoon. When my son excitedly went out to the caseworker?s vehicle, suitcase in hand, he had such a look of joy and relief on his face....and never looked back at me....and I was numb with grief.....I shut the door to my apartment and lay in my bed for 6 weeks, only getting up occasionally for personal hygiene or to take care of a bodily function....and to slip an icecube into my mouth for moisture....As I lay there, I could hear the other residents of the "zoo" continuing to "rock on"......and occasionally the apartment owner, Satana Singh, would come to my door, knocking loudly and shouting that she was going to have to "get my attorney to serve you," if I didn?t pay my rent.....I didn?t answer.....just waited hopefully for oblivion......but something intervened.
Near the end of the 6 weeks, I began "hurling"....this went on for two days and my stomach felt as if it were on fire......finally, the afternoon of the second day of "hurling," I couldn?t stand the pain anymore, so I weakly groped my way over to my next door neighbor?s, sliding along the outside wall of the building till I could knock on her door....and asked her to call the paramedics. They quickly came and transported me once again to Palomar Hospital where it was discovered that I needed my gall bladder removed, which I declined to do.....because it wasn?t hurting anymore since I had begun eating again.....and then one day, two social workers stopped by my room, talked to me and questioned me for a bit and they decided because of my recent psychological history (no one had determined anything other than that I was depressed and sometimes suicidal), they would place me in a "safe house" for battered women and then they moved me into another "safe house" where women with psychological "difficulties" were transitionally placed.....
Though I didn?t have a bible anymore, I had another dream/vision while I was there....One night as I slept, I found myself in a narrow valley....it appeared to be night.....and I was walking and came upon a bull ("like a young bull"?) standing (yeah, horns and all)....it was facing forward in the same direction in which I was walking......as I began to walk past the bull on its left side, I notice there was a huge tall mountain of loosely placed stones composing the left "wall" of the valley and immediately to my left.....each of the stones, though slightly varying in size, were approximately the height and width of the top of an end table....and they were each approximately a foot thick. I looked forward and in front of the bull and myself was an almost solid wall of swirling fog......clouds......When I looked back at the bull....(I had reached the bull?s head), the bull?s left eye blinked ("the twinkling of an eye"?) and I suddenly found myself whisked up to the top of the mountain of stones, seated on top of it....all alone....isolated.....in the dark. It was not an encouraging thing to experience.
Also while I was living in the "safe houses," the social workers made sure that I got my...well...it wasn?t AFDC, since I didn?t have my son with me, but it was a check for people that didn?t have an income and were unable to work....they made sure I was "reconnected" with my son and arranged visits with him in San Diego, where I was allowed to travel by bus and take him from the teen CPS shelter on outings in downtown San Diego...He was thrilled to see me again and we even went to the San Diego Zoo for the first time. They also "reconnected" me with my daughter back in Texas, who was now married to her bus boy/drug addict cum rock star and they had two children.....girls.....what I didn?t know was that my daughter was on drugs at the time, also. When the social workers decided to place me....again....in a shared apartment in a program for structured living (I didn?t need structure, I merely needed to be able to work myself, so I could go on with my life), I purchased two one-way tickets to Texas and on the next visit to pick up my son for an "outing," our outing became a long journey back to Texas, where we went to stay with my daughter, her hubby and my two granddaughters that I?d never seen.
I?ll take up the next "leg" of this saga in the llth installment.
Frannie B