The Tree

 The unseen, the visible,  the porous thin Veil,  osmosis leaking. 

I have been thinking about my former husband recently.  As emotionally I try to retrieve my memories the attempt within itself is a struggle. For years I never thought of the man I had once been married to and had deeply loved. I was seated in an auto repair shop with a friend when the announcement came over the TV that Ted had died.  With my former husband having come from a prominent family and the fact that he had a high profile position in government caused any health issues or any others major issues considered news worthy to be reported by national media.  

I knew because of the media that my former husband had a very serious illness.  Ted had been diagnosed with brain cancer and the cancer was in an advanced state.  Almost daily the media would report on his medical progress or the lack thereof.   Because of MkUtra,  in August of 2009, I didn't know then any more than I know now how many years it had been since Ted and I had lived as husband and wife. When via TV news, I heard that Ted died, I didn't do as much as raise an eyebrow.  

During that period of time, I was registered with an international house-sitting service and was scheduled to leave on an assignment in Birmingham England in a few days.  By the time I arrived in England the thought of my former husband's death or any type of reaction therein was not present.  

I had no idea how many years had passed from the day the federal agents entered my home and  the year  2009 but I do know that from 2009 and 2026 that seventeen years have passed.  Seventeen years exactly come August 25th of this year. and it has now been less than a month that I have begun to think about Ted on a daily basis.  

I remember the fact that we spent our honeymoon in Canada. I remember that we had a son named Patrick and that Patrick brought great joy into my life.  Questioningly, I wonder why after so many years that I am now thinking of Ted, why after so many years am I now remembering that I once loved him and that I currently am missing him.      

                                                                The Tree

Metamorphosis, transformations, that reflection in the mirror.  The death of a brother, the disappearance of a wife, the destruction of the decency within. 

                                                               The autopsy

A dimly lit chapel, the quietness within. The coffin was closed,  the brother seated alone with a lowered head.   Another tragedy, is this a test? What are the expectations?  The emptiness, the loneliness, uncertainty, the hollowness of the unknown.  "There is something about to go down and we don't want you in the middle of it."

Oil pastels, a sketch pad.  sequestered hours of prayer.  "How could I have not known whose soft hand had covered my eyes," he stated. The prolonged kiss he placed in the palm of my right hand.  The loneliness which is not acknowledged nor mentioned.  Truth compressed stifles integrity. 

If you try to return to Iran we will kill your son and then we will bomb Iran.  

There is something there beyond greed, beyond the insatiable need to control.  What are they hiding?      

Boy! I thought I would  never see you back here again. 

I did not tell them to worship me.

Was it an ordinary day or just made it to appear that way.  It was lunch time and the children of the household were all seated at the dinning table.  A cousin of the family who visited often was also there for lunch.  I think that there were times when I heard the phrase, "They say to watch her closed eyes for any the slightest movement which probably means she is coming out of it." 

The missing time. Trauma and deception.  Can mental survivors mean keeping the painful truth from oneself.  If you go back to Iran we will kill your son then we will bomb Iran.  

It had been years since I had remembered my lineage.  The sudden forced separation from my parents, my culture, my five year old realized identity.

When the federal agents forcefully removed me from my home, my marriage, my motherhood and myself then the injection of Mkultra into my life did not allow me the processing of emotional grieving.    

 Because of Mkultra and its destructive methods, its removal of precious memories, its severing of vital connection with the perception of self. I was not able to process the devastating losses. Because of trauma based amnesia, a devoted mother did not remember having a son.  An accomplished woman is reduced to a zombie-like state while seemingly dazed within a mental vacancy due to extreme physical and psychological  abuse.

I could chronicle volumes of deceptive and inhumane actions taken against me but today I want to contemplate on the reasons I have to be grateful for the things I was spared.  

Survival of extreme abuse is an extraordinary accomplishment.