Where is Home? Redone

Where is Home?

By Lori Finnila

Walking into the library today I was met with the vision of droves of dirty, poor, ripped-clothed people piling into a just opened double library door. I had many mixed emotions shocking me staring me straight in my face. Fast back to a time when I sat on my grade-school front lawn with remembrances of creamy devil cakes in my lunch box and smiles on the playground at lunch time now this being the only place I had for quiet to sit and think. At that time most of my belongings were scattered, some in friends’ basements - embarrassingly now somewhat unorganized to the previous detail of a home in a sound mind; I found myself a woman of no profession or skill to support myself. I had no home but was being offered a nestled bed in return for breakfast in the morning by men.  My dad, where his taxes had no need for me to apply for financial aid now, now offered assistance for college. But where my seven years from exhaustion trying to survive had run me out of any strength I had and of any sound mind what he said to me had no meaning at all. I couldn’t think straight at that time to make any rational decisions. My mind and body was at its weariest.

My last night sleeping in a safe, solid foundation left me on a floor of my ex-boyfriend’s (who threw me out for what expectations he thought we had and what aspirations he felt I should have) wrapped in the drapes he left behind. My head had been banged hard against his SUV (paid in cash) in our last argument.

We played a single game of darts to be the only thing we had in common that day. I enjoyed it because I remembered how skillfully my hand would throw the dart to the thin board that it barely caught upon. It brought back warm feelings growing up of a heated cellar and the overly brightened tiles that didn’t hold the end of the point of the dart well because the depth of the dartboard was too thin. My head tightly pressed against the expensive cushions of my father’s speakers, music searing gratefully into me in our living room, I rest assured because I knew where my next meal was coming from. I could still smell my mom’s clean, crisp sheets as I lay in bed with thought, yet bypassing to grab the light, white sheet and lay it upon me on a summer’s night after she took them off the clothes line from hanging them the morning before. The 45’s spinning while my brother and I go-goed on beds and toy boxes using hair brushes and combs as microphones singing backup to my sister as she took the lead in our bedroom. I guess the homelessness in my mind was the mixed emotions from what I had missed and feared the most in my life.

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The Miracle - Redone

The Miracle

By Lori Jean Finnila

I plunged both hands of mine into the water; it was shallow with darker sand than normal. The hands were face down with not one inch not submerged in the water. With little bubbles from the water that was rushing further out from me, I felt the release coming through my body - magic flowing through me as my body could feel relief. I don’t know if it was exactly all emotional or both physical and emotional – but it was definitely relief. I wondered if anyone could hear or see what I was doing. I could see some people from far out but I don’t think they noticed. I would always try to hide further into the woods along the river when I would do this. I would probably be put away if they did, but I had to do this. I knew this now. I reached someone.

My angels, a CIA matter, I don’t know, I was searching for a miracle and water always brought it. I was taught that water was freeing. When you’re so far out from others, as I was and felt everything matters, every little thing. I would see the angels coming in and out so often now flying through me and all the cracks in my head almost in full figure now. Sometimes I felt so superior to others; I wondered or at least was sure at times that dying is a goddess thing because it brings you closer to heaven and all the power in charge, and now I had it with me.

I kept getting sicker; my head kept throbbing. There seemed to be nothing anyone could do. That’s when the angels started to come. We conversed often too, me and the angels. I was friends with so many it didn’t matter to me anymore. It used to; I didn’t know who they were. Sometimes, if them, when they would come in they would look like aliens and suck and zap as they would draw energy to me by putting something down my throat as I would feel some sort of relief. I was so mystified, though I couldn’t belief I had the strength to even feel this as this instance of happening was taking me away on such a magical journey. I was always told to close my eyes so I wouldn’t get scared. Sometimes I would peek to see such large bug-like looking eyes that loved upon me and brought me hope of life. They always told me where to go.

The last and final time would be Amsterdam. I made that day with the boats in the river, the clothes on lines, my granddad’s presence being there. As I submerged my hands for life in exchange for a soul trapped the transformation of his body came through me, my hero transpired to a more powerful place, where he would always be – and here where I would remain. 

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Hours to a Coma

Hours to a Coma

By Lori Finnila

There was nothing around me giving me clues to the presence that I was in life. I remember the low glare of the fluorescent light of the time of day as I stare at the ceiling from my gurney.  I tried to guess the time of day; I made out it was probably two or three in the afternoon. I panicked at the amount of time that I had been in the operating room. The numbness of my body and the smell of chemicals through cold air breathing in through my nose scared me. I had already had an emergency C-section and now I was waiting my fate of seeing my son and to be sewn up. I look down at my white robe on me as it is distant from me as a person. It’s funny how you not become a person once you enter the hospital being so detached from people you hardly know. I suppose as hard as the help tries this happens anyway.

Is my body revealing too much as I worried feeling naked and inferior. I don’t know. I could feel the fogged path I was going down next; I knew it all too well – I had been there once before, in a hospital too. It was a similar situation too as this one where I was about to lose all consciousness again. Remembering the fog of waking up to a knife cutting me and then my head thrusting up and down upon the gurney fighting for air. I lost too much and ended up with a brain injury. Now my fate rested in God’s hands to this happening again and even worse this time.

I looked to the doctor’s strong glass frames for hope in his eyes and his stern look drew me away. I got nothing…, nothing from him. Did I say something he didn’t hear? I needed his feel, I needed this for comfort. But again …, I got nothing. Eyes so brown and so beautiful cradled in a tight white wrap were now brought out to me. The cold and emptiness around couldn’t take away the igniting feeling between me and my son and what was happening between us now.

But I was still too aware of my insides that I was told were now laying on the gray, dull, steel tray next to me as my son was taken away - I learned this from my ex-husband. The rustling commotion from my cousin and the staff left too much confusion for me to understand what everyone was talking about now as my cousin addressed should he be brought in now, or should I get him? So who was she bringing in I thought as my baby was now gone, my abuser? It is scary right now. How could my cousin do this to me I thought? I pushed my weak body to connect a short while. But this would not last. I would drift off into a state of prolonged unconsciousness of scares and odd sounds for 6 hours and never know what happened to me when I awoke. I was by now fast in a coma.

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