PESSIMISTIC/REALISTIC LESSONS IN LIFE
1. Don’t trust anyone.
2. Be smart!  Make decisions with your head - don’t listen
        to your heart.
3. Being loyal to someone will usually get you **** on.
4. Always try to figure out their hidden agenda.
5. Don’t let anyone know your weaknesses – they will use
        them against you.
6. Words are cheap – actions speak louder than words.
7. Always trust your gut feeling or first instinct – it’s there
        to protect you.
8. If it sounds too good to be true – it usually is.
9. Don’t let your guard down – not even for a minute.
10. If you run into someone who you think needs saving –
        save yourself and run away.
11. Try to make peace with the past so it won’t ***** up
         the present.
12. Never make someone your priority when all you are to
        them is an option – love yourself first.
13. What screws us up most in life is the picture in our
        head of how we think it is supposed to be.  Keep it
        real!
14. There is nothing wrong with letting yourself cry – it’s
        cathartic.
15. Never sacrifice your class to get even with someone
        who has none.  Let them have the gutter – always take
        the high road.
16. Be strong enough to let go and patient enough to wait
        for what you deserve.
17. Above all else – always try to maintain your
         independence, self-respect and dignity.
18. You don’t have to be with someone to feel complete –
         learn how to complete yourself.
19. What goes around comes around – karma will always
         find you and she’s a ruthless *****.
20. Try to find enjoyment in each day God has given you!

Locked

She gave him the key to her house
In addition, he had the key to her heart.
He used the first one often
However, the second he always left locked.

There is a saying that is well known,
“Don’t lose your head over a piece of tail”.
She used to make fun of this expression
Except now, she knows it all too well.

He played her like a fine-tuned piano
With disrespect and humiliation galore.
He told her that she was his soulmate
Although in truth, she was just his little *****.

To make someone feel better people will often say
There is a reason for everything.
The only lesson she learned from the experience
Is that she never wanted to hurt like that ever again.

So forever locked her heart will stay
For he never returned the key.
He has moved on to his next victim.
She wonders, “Is he finally done with me?”

Nov. 2, 2016

Bandita

I MISS MY DOG!!
I miss you, Bandita, so much!!
It has only been a week and the pain is still at the “hard-to-breathe” stage.  I hate walking into this house.  You are not here to greet me at the door.  Your absence is so palpable.  This house is just not the same with you gone.  It feels as if the life has been ****** out of this house.  It is silent and does not even seem like a home anymore just a place where I come to sleep.  

When I drive up to the house and pull into the driveway, I sit in the car and start sobbing – dreading to go inside.  I get out of the car slowly and reluctantly.  When I get to the front porch steps, I am still crying and my pace starts getting slower and slower.  I look up at the front door just dreading to go in.  When I finally do force myself  to walk in, I start sobbing and wailing as the waves of emotion wash over me that you are gone and you are not ever coming back.  All the memories of all the times you greeted me at the door or came running when I called you come flooding back.  It feels like someone is ripping my heart from my chest.  It is so intense.  The silence is deafening.  A feeling of hopelessness settles in.  Sometimes I cannot handle it and I have to leave the house.  However, this remedy is short-lived because I have to come back eventually.  When I do stay, I try to keep my mind occupied by doing mundane chores or losing myself on the internet.  That works to a point until it is time to go to bed.  I try to stay awake long into the night to avoid that time, hoping that when I do go to bed, I am so exhausted that I will fall asleep immediately.  However, the crying starts again.  You always came to bed with me.  If you did not beat me in there, I would soon hear the pitter-patter of your paws after I was settled.  You had your own bed next to mine.  I would always, and still do to this day, tell you “goodnight Bandypants, I love you baby”.  I am crying so bad at that point that I ask my guardian angels to help me get through the pain so I can fall asleep.  That usually works along with the exhaustion and I fall asleep.  When I wake up in the morning and look over to where you are no longer sleeping - the crying starts again.  

Dear Lord, it hurts so much – down to the core of my being – down to my very soul.  I did not think it would be this bad.  It was not as if I did not know this day was coming.  I put it off as long as I could.  Everyone kept telling me that I was in denial because you would have bad days and then good days.  I wanted to give you as much time as I possibly could.  I would want someone to do the same for me.  I took you riding as much as I was able since I had to work every day without a day off.  I hold a lot of resentment because that was my last little bit of time with you and I feel that I was robbed of that time – it is not anything that I can ever get back.    

At first, we could ride for hours, only pulling over when you let me know you needed to get out.  I could see your nose sticking out the backside window when I looked in my side mirror.  I used to get the biggest kick out of that.  Then, as time went on, the rides got shorter and shorter.  Still, we had our last ride at lunchtime before you had to go that day.  I can still see you in the backseat when Larry dropped me off at work.  You were sitting up in the back seat with your ears perked up looking at me as if you were thinking, “Where are you going mom?”  That is my last memory of you and I see it every single day.  Oh God, it hurts so much.  I know you wondered why I was not going all the way down to the vet with you and that kills me.  I am so sorry but I could not go with you.  I was too upset and did not want you to sense that, which you would have instantly.  I was a coward and I am so sorry.  I will have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.

I did not want you to get to the point where you were actually hurting.  I hope that was not the case.  The Lasix was not working anymore and the fluid had built up so much that it looked like you had swallowed two watermelons.  The vet told me that it would get to the point where you would drown in your own fluids.  When I could see that it was getting close to that time, I bought you steaks, beef tips, chicken *******, and turkey to eat.  Anything you wanted to eat that would not poison you was okay with me.

That last night, I could tell that you were miserable trying so hard to get comfortable.  When your breathing became more labored, I knew it was time.  I could tell from the look in your eyes that you were over it.

I am supposed to be thankful that I had you for as long as I did and I am thankful.  I took you for granted for a long time, which is also something that I will have to live with.  

If there is really a Heaven, which I have all my life fully believed with all my heart, then we will see each other and be together once again.  I hold on to that hope.  That is the only thing that keeps me going.  Every once in a while a thought will creep into my mind that I would be much happier in that other existence than the one I am in now.  If not, then Heaven, for me, is not real.  It would only be Heaven for me if I could see and be with all those I loved who have gone on before me – my furbabies included.  This is the only thing that keeps me going because some days, I do not even want to get up and face a new day without those I have lost.  One thing I have learned in my old age is that you cannot have anything great in life without the pain that eventually comes with it.


RIP: Bandita, my “Bandypants”
You are sorely missed.
March  2006 - October 27,  2016
Until we are together again …..

When I awoke from a nap today, before I opened my eyes, I knew.
I could hear her voice telling me that it was time to get up.
And then she told me “I want you to know that I am here and
I am watching over you.”

In my mind, I could see her looking so young and so ethereal.
As she started to fade, I cried, “Wait, I want to go too”
She smiled and whispered, “It’s not your time yet but always remember that
I am watching over you.”

She told me that the love between a mother and child still carries on even in death.
No matter what may have happened between the two.
“So always know that I am here and know that
I am watching over you.

When you are troubled, the world is dark, and you do not know what to do.
Just talk to me, you are never alone, rest assured
I am watching over you.”

She said, “When you lie down at night and whisper
‘I miss you momma’
And think that you are only talking to the darkness in the room.
It makes me smile for I realize you can feel me in your heart and know that
I am watching over you.”

Finally, she said, “When the world becomes too much to handle
And the smiles become too few.
When you are ready to depart this life, just take my hand
I have been waiting for you.”

“I Love You Bunches and Bunches”

In 2007, on Christmas Day, my brother told me “I love you bunches and bunches” and sent me on my way.
He died three days later of mesothelioma/cancer of the lung.
He was not very old at all, only 53 years young.

I was standing in his doorway and turned to say “good-bye”, as I had done so many times in the past.
He said “Hey”, looked at me over his glasses, smiled and said “I love you bunches and bunches”
I never thought those words to me would be his last.

I told him “I love you bunches and bunches too” trying to hold back my tears.
All the while, I was trying to hurry out the door before he saw in my eyes all my fears.

Eight years later when mom followed my brother, those words too were the last ones we spoke to one another.  

Two days before she passed, she told me she was ready and that she “just wanted it to be over.”
All I could do was look at her lovingly, nod my understanding and tell her that I love her.

Even though the child in me wanted to scream “No God, please do not take my mother!”
I knew she wanted to go, as she was never the same after the death of my brother.

They say burying a child is the hardest thing to bear.
After my brother passed away, something in my mom was just no longer there.

My sister and I hoped that our mom would snap out of it and come back.
We never understood what it was our brother had that somehow we lacked.

I have always thought that when I lost my brother, I also lost my mom the same day.
She just never had any more interest in me or my sister’s lives in quite the same way.

Life had no meaning for our mother no matter what we said or tried.
It was like that for eight more years until the day she died.

She is with my brother now in Heaven and I am glad she is no longer in pain.
I guess with him she is basking in sunlight but down here with us, it was always just rain.

“I love you bunches and bunches” was the last thing I told my mom as I blew her a kiss from the door.
She smiled at me and said, “I love you bunches and bunches” and would never to me say anything more.

You smile
as you mentally
slip on your disguise.

You smile
as you look deeply
into their trusting eyes.

You smile
as you put into words
all the things they want to hear.

You smile
with a voice
that sounds so incredibly sincere.

You smile
while reveling in the fact
that they do not have a clue.

You smile
because you know
that they do not see the malevolent you.

You smile
so clever, so witty
in addition, you pour on the charm.

You smile
since you have them convinced
that you mean them no harm.

You smile
and begin to lose sight
of what is reality and what is a lie.

You smile
at your power
to always make them cry.

You smile
as you continue to play
not caring that it is a sick, twisted little game.

You smile
knowing that when you are through
you will not even remember their name.

You smile
as you realize
that you own them body and soul.

You smile
at their ignorance thinking to yourself
“You fool, how could you not know?”

You smile
as you continue *******
every bit of life out of them.

You smile
as you zoom in on and start stalking
your next impending victim.

You smile
as you move on
feeling no guilt or remorse and certainly without a care.

You smile
as you take all your ill-gotten gains
with you back to your lair.

You smile
with conceit and arrogance,
“This is a game I always win.”

You smile
and laugh aloud assured,
that you will get away with it again.

You smile ……….

I thought when someone realized that he or she were dying,
That they would want to spend time with loved ones without trying.

Now my mother is gone and I know she was just preparing for her day.
However, it is still hard for me to accept my mother pushing me away.

That was our time together and I wanted to spend every minute with her that I could.
It was not until she had already gone that the dying process was something I understood.

But even though I now understand, it still hurts me to this day
Because the time we had left was precious to me, but my mother kept pushing me away.

She always told me that she loved me but then would ask me to leave.
It was heartbreaking to walk out the door as I found it hard to believe.

I feel as if I have been cheated, like a selfish child who did not get their way.
I keep telling myself to be grateful for the time I did get to spend with her and try to forget the pain of yesterday.

RIP Barbara Cheek
April 8, 1932 – December 31, 2015
I wish we had more time….

My mom passed away 4 days ago.  I feel as if I am out to sea in a boat all alone.  I am just drifting – completely lost without any sense of direction.

At first, I was numb and somewhat in denial that this had happened.  The sea seemed fairly calm.  Now, wave after violent wave of emotions slap against the boat relentlessly.  I am terrified of going over the side into the darkness of the water.  I realize that I have to hold on tight and not let that happen ere the darkness will envelope me completely and I will be lost forever.  It is as if they are waiting for me to drop my guard.  When I do, I am hit square in the face once again with another emotional wave of memories and then, finally, reality.

There have been plenty of other times in my life when the darkness had tried and succeeded in taking over.  I could always go to my mother no matter what the problem, situation or circumstance and she would always help me find the light.  She has pulled me out of the darkness more times than I can count.  I hate to imagine what I would have done without her wisdom and guidance through those dark times.  I have always told people that I could not have handpicked from God a better mother than the one I was given.

Now she is gone and the darkness is trying to creep in again.  What am I going to do without her?  I miss her so much; the pain is almost unbearable.  It hurts to breathe.  It is a constant knot in the pit of your stomach that never eases and a hole in your heart that will never heal.  Oh no, the darkness has discovered the hole in my heart, has found a way in and is slowly taking over.  I am doomed!


RIP Barbara Cheek (my little momma)
April 8, 1932 – December 31, 2015
You will be greatly missed!

Going to bed now is incredibly hard
When I think about how cold it is for her buried out in the yard.

At bedtime, I would pick her up and take her with me to bed.
I still have to stop myself from searching for her and then I remember - she's dead.

She was my sleep buddy for 21 years.
To this day, I can't lie down without being in tears.

She would snuggle up next to me and we would spoon.
Now I look out my window and say goodnight to her grave lit up by the light of the moon.

I feel as if my heart is being ripped from my chest.
How long this pain is going to last I can only guess.

I hate going to bed and stay up long into the night
Doing anything to avoid that painful space of time before daylight.

Vicki Cheek
RIP Smokey Cat
December 6, 2015

I know in my heart that God brought me here for a reason.
With you, I feel complete – as if I have always belonged here and have come home.  
I see my life and past experiences with clarity, everything in a pattern leading up to this time – a meaning for it all to have reached this point.
I have never been surer of anything in my life.

(My mother says)  Love is a compromise, all the way down the line.
Love is not easy or a “fairy tale” -  it is something that has to be worked at and appreciated.  
It is a fight with fate – probably the biggest fight of ones life.  One has to constantly ask oneself “Is this love worth fighting for?”
It is always easier to just give up and walk away, as long as you know you will not always be looking back or looking to replace the same.  
If you give up, do you really win or lose?

If you are not over it, your heart is like an open wound that hurts and hurts and never fully heals.
It might scab over, with time, but you will always have the scar.
Sometimes the scar will not let you forget.
I wonder if scars are God’s way of reminding us not to do it again,
Some, like us, are foolish enough not to heed this and go back (in) for more
Most only get hurt again and again but …
A very few are lucky enough to find the cure the next time around and heal the wound.
I am so glad God let you and I be two of the lucky ones.
They say, “There is a reason for everything”.
Was it worth the hurt to get to where we are now?  
I think so.  “Love cures people, both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it”.

Sometimes you have to let go, even when you don’t really want to, to be sure.  “If you love someone set them free.  If they don’t return, they were never really yours to begin with but, if they do come back, you know it was meant to be.”

“A relationship is like a rose, how long it lasts no one knows.
Love can erase an awful past, love can be yours, you’ll see at last.
To feel that love, it makes you sigh to have it leave you’d rather die.
You hope you’ve found that special rose, ‘cause you love and care for the one you chose.”

“Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists.  When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves.  We are incomplete - like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost.  That is what I imagine love to be; incompleteness in absence.”

With you, for the first time in my life, I feel complete.

I fell in love with a boy a long time ago
But, in reality, I fell in love with a vision of who he could be
I always knew there was a wonderful person deep inside
But he was filled with demons trying to take over his soul

Now, years later, he’s come back into my life as a man
And the demons appear to be gone
I can’t help but wonder what happened?
Is it because he finally grew up?
Did he find a way to “chase the demons away”… or
Did God realize this good man had been through enough and now could find the light?

And although I’m happy he’s finally found peace
As, at times, I was sure he would never make it this far
I can’t help feeling somehow that I’ve been cheated
Out of all those years and
Out of something that could have been deemed 'a wonderful life'

Where was this man when we were together?
All I got to see were the demons who were controlling him
And the demons that finally drove me away
Now, it appears that he has “calmed the beast” inside him
Twenty-five years later down the road

Years ago I fell in love with the man I knew he could be
There has always been a connection between us through all those years
And through all those tears, 'Soul mates'?
Now that he’s finally the man I knew he could be
I’m not really sure I know him at all…
Because all I had were the demons to go by

I’m scared to take the chance to get to know this “new man”
As I have been burned so many, many times before
Even though we have known each other for more than 25 years
We are still dancing apprehensively around each other…..
He, I think, because he wants me to realize he is a “new man”
Me, I think, because I can’t believe he finally is a “new man”

I wonder if it is because I’m too scared to trust it
As I have too many times before
Or too scared he might really finally be what I always wanted him to be
But only to find out now that it is probably too late.

Anyone who has ever loved someone in prison or in jail.
May not know what it is like on the inside but will go through their own hell.

They will tell you what you want to hear, which may be all lies, to survive.
Some who believe it all will get eaten up alive.

They call it "jail talk" so the listener beware.
Don't take it to heart because you may find out that they really do not care.

They will call to say you're wonderful, that they love you and want all your time.
They need to keep you sweet because they're really after your last dime.

They will call to tell you how lucky they are to have you and that they want it to be forever.
Then smile to themselves, as they hang up the phone, for being so clever.

People who have been through it may warn you; others will laugh behind your back.
They will say that you are stupid and wonder how you could believe all that.

You are in a fantasy world so snap out of it and do not be so blind.
I'm not trying to burst your bubble; just trying to be kind.

If you choose not to listen you will soon see.
That you were just being used and that they're not the person they pretended to be.

Your world will come crashing down and you will never be the same.
But if it happens again, you will be wise to this game.

I was told that there is a reason it is called "jail talk"
Because usually once they are free and done with you, out of your life they will walk.

I once knew a guy who got sent away.
We wrote each other letters and talked on the phone every day.

And while he was gone, we became best friends.
But who knew when he got out that it would come to an end.

I should have known it was all "jail talk" and that you had lied.
"What happened to my best friend?" I kept asking you as I cried.

Everyone tried to warn me but I just could not see.
I told them all that my best friend would not do that to me!

But they were all right when they told me it was just a play.
I could not believe that someone would go that far for a place to stay.

But people do and say things all the time that are not true.
I did not want to accept the fact that I was being used by you.

I cry everyday because I feel as if my best friend has died.
I have thought of ways to get even because you have lied.

I need to move past this and get on with my life.
Especially now since you are married and have a new wife.

You are still trying to play me but now I can see . . . .
That for all my wishing, you were never the best friend you pretended to be.

I wonder what it must be like to have no conscience, no guilt, no shame,
To not take responsibility for your actions but find someone/something else to blame.

To call it fun when you play with a person's heart.
To have no emotion as you watch them fall apart.

Your love at first so hot soon turns very cold.
You smile as you remember all the lies you have told.

They soon learn that any feelings you show are all very fake.
There is always an ulterior motive for the reasons you lie and take.

You cause destruction in most, if not all, of the lives that you touch.
Then move on to the next victim you will soon use as a crutch.

People call you psychopath or predator because that is what you are.
Once you are done with a victim their life will be scarred.

You will do or say anything to get what you want at that time.
Doesn't matter if it is their heart, their soul or even their last dime.

Life to you is one big game with different players to con.
You will use them up and spit them out once you have had your fun and move on.

Their tears and heartache will fall on your deaf ears.
When you are gone they are devastated and may stay that way for years.

They should be smart and learn how to read the signs.
You count on the fact that they will give you the benefit of the doubt and be blind.

It is easy to spin your web of lies because they do not know the real you.
They do not realize that you are very shrewd in studying their weaknesses and the things they do.

That is how you know the best way to worm your way in.
If they decide to play the game, there is no way they will win.

They may try to outsmart you but their rules and yours are not the same.
They forget you have no emotion and that is how you win the game.

Yes, I wonder what it must be like to go through life this way.
Since I was stupid enough to let you in my life and regret it every day.

They will bombard you with love and tell you what you want to hear.
They will tell you that they are your soulmate and that you have nothing to fear.

They will do or say anything to get what they desire.
They become quite adept at being a smooth liar.

Keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true,
Listen to your gut instinct – it’s trying to protect you.

They will torture you with triangulation and convince you that you are the crazy one.
Then they will devalue and discard you when they have used you up and they are done.

They count on the fact that you will keep giving them the benefit of the doubt.
They are actually reeling you in but you are so confused you haven’t quite figured it out.

They are pure evil - do not fall for their lies.
Sooner or later their mask will slip and you will see through their disguise.

They will make you miserable – you will tell yourself this is not how you behave when you love someone,
But you will never make them see it that way because to them it’s just a way of having fun.

You will start to realize when their true self begins to show,
But keep your guard up because you never know how far they will go.

They call it emotional **** and that is exactly how you will feel.
You will soon understand the love you thought you had wasn’t ever real.

Then they will move on to the next victim and leave you alone.
Don’t beat yourself up – just hope they stay gone.

They have no conscience, no remorse and you are just a pawn in their sick little game.
Once you have been the target of a psychopath, you will never be the same.

A psychopath’s bond is a hard thing to break,
But you have to be strong for your own sake.

Everyone has come into contact with a psychopath at some point in their life.
It could easily have been your mother, your father, your husband or your wife.

We have all probably been victims of a psychopath but some of us just never knew,
Until you start reading the information about them then you will know it’s true.

Being fooled and falling in love with a psychopath is very easy for me to see.
I know firsthand the horror of it all because, yes, it happened to me.

V. Cheek
9/04/2014