One Last Fight, Please

I’m in the frightful area of my mortality. I’m not too scared, but a little bit, sure. Mostly because there’s still so much to do, so many things I’ve learned that I can pass on, so much kindness to be done in a world losing its belief that kindness exists at all.

But I’ve got one more fight left in my battered self, and please, pray that God lets me have it. I have so many regrets when there’s no time for such things. So much guilt for things I can’t go back and change. So many people to apologize to. I need to tell you more of what an unfair life has taught me.

You see more of the news than I allow myself to see. You have more power than I to fight the overwhelming rage and depression that it plunges me into. You too feel it, I’m sure. You’re just stronger than me.

In light of recent news, what I know of it, the world seems a much more dangerous and evil place. Jeffrey Epstein did far more than we thought.

His crimes are so vile and so far spread out that he absolutely changed what the course of world history would have been. His victims know pain that even I’ve never faced. Oh, the trauma, the nightmares they must suffer!

Today I struggled. Not wanting to give up, which was my first reaction to what my doctor said, I walked out for some groceries ahead of a winter storm. Here in Maryland, I think it will snow far less than what forecasts warn, but even a couple of inches render me helpless and shut-in. The pain is too much for me but that’s just walking. Doing it in snow is unthinkable.

The fresh air and even the slow pace did me well, and for the first time in months I treated myself to a Starbucks Blonde pour over. It hit the spot. I can never drink a whole cup of coffee I make at home; no matter what brand or roast I get makes me sick. A few sips and I’m done, headed for my stash of Alka-Seltzer. But the Starbucks Blonde, made with genuine friendship by people I’ve come to love, tasted and settled very well, inducing a lighter feeling of heart than any I’ve had this year. After shopping, I stopped at a stand where moms were selling Girl Scout cookies. It wasn’t much, only twelve dollars, but I didn’t want any cookies; I said, “here, this is for the kids.”

Then I praised them for working hard and leaving the girls safe at home. And I told them what happened to me this past summer.

I was walking diagonally across the shopping center parking lot. At that time of day there was plenty of parking, so when I saw this guy, as I approached from his front left, he was talking to someone. It didn’t look right but I thought that he was talking on his WiFi.

Except he wasn’t, and I knew it. My experience as an abused child has given me intuition that I wish I could give back. There was a child with him. I knew it.

I couldn’t see the child. Down too low. I kept watching him as I approached, but I was going to walk past him to his left, beside a van that was parked to his left rear, when he moved the car directly behind me. “Hey buddy, are you okay?” he asked in a fake concerned voice.

I knew why he had done it. He didn’t want me to emerge behind him on the other side of the van, where I could see his license plate. It’s an old trick, you keep your side to someone so they can’t see or photograph your plates. It won’t work with cars, and it pisses cops off, and they don’t like being taken as idiots. But a man on foot can follow a circling car with his eyes and still never see the plates.

While he was stopped, in answer to his question, which was aimed at invoking gratitude in me, I flipped the bird at him. He made me angry and he made me sick.

He said, “Don’t make me get out–“

I knew he would never open the door because I’d see a child there. My hands went for steel: an eight-inch switchblade and a pair of knuckles. I didn’t show them yet. He got scared but used bravado to hide it. “You ain’t reaching for shit,” he said. But it was too late. I’d tipped my hand. I had no choice but to walk away. I’d messed up badly. He knew that I was armed. What could I do?

To make everything worse the guy wore a cap, sunglasses and to boot, I didn’t recognize the car. It was red and had a hatchback that didn’t angle down but was flat, perpendicular to the asphalt.

I couldn’t even call the police; what was I going to tell them? Guy in a red car, whose plates I never saw, with a description that would be so vague that he may as well have had a Frankenstein mask. The cops would have been pissed, if I tried that.

I tell this story to parents who let their little ones run in front of them. I tell them, “don’t let them do that, you don’t know who’s watching, and the most horrible things can happen in a second with no warning. This I told the man and women today. I begged them to spread the word. The man said something I found sadly true: “you don’t expect things like that around here.”

I said, “you have to.“

Epstein didn’t just do certain things to children. He did everything to them. Sold, bought, violated, and probably killed. And there still may be more.

The arrest of Andrew was a shock to many, but not to me. I doubt any name that comes up will surprise me.

In his Peace club meeting, Trump said, praising his new million-dollar members, “a handsome young man ..”

He then hastily said it wasn’t homosexual in nature, he had no interest in young men, but added, when it comes to “young women….”

You got that. He screws himself every time he opens his mouth or writes on Truth Social. That was an accidental admission. He didn’t even know he’d done it, in such a hurry he was to declare that he wasn’t gay.

Children. I worry so much about them. And I have things to say, things I know, and I need to share it.

Been so sick lately that I have neglected this site, but there’s still so much to say and do, and I pray for a rally and just a little bit more time.

Will you please pray for me? I feel ashamed, asking for such a selfish thing, but I can’t just leave without a fight. I’ve tried to give up before, but the Father wasn’t having it. I pray He will grant me one more fight.

Thank you for reading, and allowing me to be a small part of your day. Please remember to be kind, and take care of yourselves.