Seven years ago I was engaged to a man named Glen.  We were planning to honeymoon on the Baja in January. Glen and his two children then aged 14 and 16 were living with me. I was never able to have children of my own and I took those kids into my heart as well as my home.

Jarah, Glen's 14 year old daughter had been very much the wild child before she came to stay with us. Her mother was extremely controling, physically abusive, a fundamentalist Christian who left out the "Christ" part, if you know what I mean. Jarah had responded to this treatment with a great deal of rebellion and acting out, cumulating in an adventure where she and a friend stole a car and vanished for a week. When Jarah finally was arrested by the police and returned home unharmed (thank God!), we had a conference about what to do with her. Glen suggested that Jarah come stay with us and I could home school her for a semester. Glen said, "Quit your job, I'll take care of you!" Well, I loved Glen and I loved Jarah, and I wanted to put some energy into sending out professional resumes since at the time I was working in a job that was not in my chosen field. Plus, it seemed like a good idea to get Jarah away from the bad crowd she'd begun to run with on the other side of town, so I agreed.

When Jarah came to stay with us, she was a great kid. She was bright as a button and sailed through her home schooling workbooks with ease. She helped around the house without my even asking her, and, although she still spoke on the phone with her fellow desperado friend, she also began to make new friends in the local church youth group. I was very pleased with her progress. I adored that kid and she seemed to like me, too.

Glen was a building contractor/carpenter. It was amazing the stuff he could create with his two hands, a few pieces of wood and a hammer and saw. His skills were in great demand and he brought home a nice paycheck every Friday. We had developed a Friday ritual where Glen would come home, pick me up and go down to the local grocery to do the food shopping for the next week. Glen was a stereotypical guy. No comparison shopping for him! He'd prowl the aisles with the grocery cart, sweeping things off the shelves. If his son liked Gold Plated Cereal Flakes at $10.00 a box for breakfast, 4 boxes of Gold Plated Flakes were tossed into our cart. After we made a nice profit for the local Safeway, Glen would always take me out to dinner at a good restaurant. It had to be somewhere that served a proper steak because Glen had been working out in the weather all week, and he wanted MEAT! When he peeled off the bills to pay the waiter, he'd also give me the money for the next week's household expenses. There was always more than I needed, so the next day, I go over next door and give the extra to my Mother who I knew needed the cash.

Weekends, Glen would get out his on/off road motorcycle, a monster that he had nicknamed "Chopper" and Jarah and I would take turns being the one who sat behind him on the bike, exploring various dirt bike trails up in the foothills and mountains. If the kids wanted to see a movie, Glen would pay for us all to go to a Sunday matinee. When Jarah wanted new clothes, he'd hand her a $100 bill for a pair of jeans (she loved the "in" brand at the time - Genkos, I think they were called - and VERY pricey).and drop the two of us off at the mall while he went over to the Harley dealership nearby to drool over a replacement for Chopper someday. Once he surprised the kids and me by coming home with a large terrarium and a very classy looking African day Gecko. Glen  had been a lay minister back in California, and if there was ever a worry or concern that came up, he'd get me to hold his hands and pray together that God show us the right path. We said grace before every meal. In addition to his other accomplishments Glen was also a gifted writer AND artist with a great sense of the absurd. He was very witty and looked much like a younger Robert Redford.

What a catch! Happy, happy, happy Middle American family! So it seemed. For a while.

When I met Glen he claimed to have 5 years sobriety and faithfully went to AA meetings almost every day. He had a sponsor and seemed to be working his program. and most people in his AA group praised him as a good fellow member. At the very eNd though, Glen started acting very strange. I felt uneasy about some of his behaviors, but I brushed those feelings aside. I shouldn't have. Glen had started USING, again. On Friday October 30, 1998, my old furnace went out in the morning after Glen had left for work. The first cold front of the season also started to come through that day, and Jarah and I bundled up in sweaters, waiting for Glen to come home and take a look at what ailed the 50 year old dragon which was refusing to belch its normal winter fire. Glen was late getting back that night, and when he finally did arrive it was only to say to me, "I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore." Then he turned on his heel, walked out the door, got in his truck, and drove away. Just like that.

Glen had decided that drugs and alcohol were much more worthy of his devotion than his two kids, his fiancee', his job, his life. I was in shock. Jarah's face was white. On Halloween I had to drive Jarah back to her mother because I had no legal say in Jarah's custody and Glen had phoned her to tell her he was driving back to California with their son. His exwife was NOT pleased about her son been driven across the country by a man on God only knew what lethal combination of drugs and alcohol and she filed kidnapping charges against Glen immediently, and called me, as well, to demand Jarah's return. The Colorado State Patrol pulled Glen over just as he was about to cross the Utah statr line with his son and narrowly adverted the case becoming a Federal Kidnapping Charge.. As it was, Glen sweet talked the officer, let Jed get in the patrol car to be returned home, and vanished over the state line into the night. Jarah and I cried all the way to her Mom's house, and then I drove back home and cried some more in my cold, empty house.

A friend came by to check on me and found me in a crumpled up little heap on the floor in my freezing cold home. I had no money, no job, my family had vanished over night. I was close to being in hysterics. My friend called a couple of other mutual friends - guys who knew nothing about furnaces. They came over and coaxed my old furnace into putting out heat again, but unknown to any of us, it also began to pour out deadly carbon monoxide gas. The date on my disability paperwork is given as October 31, 1998.

In the weeks after this happened, I walked around like a zombie stricken by both grief and a deadly poison that I had no idea had crept into my air. The worst times were when I woke up and the realization of what had happened would hit me all over again. The pain was unbearable and I felt it like a punch to my gut every time. Once I'd absorbed that initial blow, I could function - sort of. I dreaded going to sleep because going to sleep meant waking up and being hit with that shock of pain all over again. I stayed awake for days on end to avoid waking up. I formed the habit of going to the local Walmart down the street because it was the only place that was open 24/7 and I couldn't stand wandering around my empty house alone. The aisles of Walmart became my refuge and I would prowl up and down them, staring with unseeing eyes at piles of brightly colored bath towels or women's shoes or the displays of car batteries and tires in the automotive section.

Somehow it had penetrated my consciousness that astronomers were predicting a banner year for the November Leonid shower. The Leonids were supposed to reach a 30 year maximum in on the 17th of November. One night I was wandering around the Walmart in utter despair, trying to decide between two options - going down and admitting myself to the psych ward of the local hospital or traveling down to northern Arizona to see the meteors away from the city lights and to "talk" with the Navajo's chief deity, Changing Woman. Changing Woman is responsible for turning winter to spring; she can make youth out of old age; she created all the plants and animals; and she created the Dine' or Navajo from her own skin. She has two twin sons called the Monster Slayers. The twins killed all the monsters that once inhabited the earth and made it so human beings could live there. If ever someone needed their winter changed to spring it was I, and it wasn't even officially winter yet!

to be continued...