What good is Don Juan without women?

OK folks...everybody's asking me and I'm gonna bring it right out in the open.  Don Juan is NOT seeing anyone right now!  My buddies are all disappointed that I'm not running women and having any wild adventures of sex and absurd behavior.  They are truly astounded that I'm not going out and having drinks and meeting new and dangerous females.  What good is Don Juan without the women?  Their champion is letting them down!  Sorry, guys!!

I have been nursing a broken heart...putting my life back together and working on myself and my beliefs in love and relationships.  I am working more than ever and trying to write a blog as well.  I have been seeking myself lately...something we should all strive to do more of.  If you do not know yourself, how can you ever find the love of a lifetime?  Sometimes you just have to stop...slow down...and think about things.

I thought I had found 'true love' and it came fast and strong.  It was like a hurricane with winds that blew my senses away from the start.  It was great finding her, but it was all so sudden and happened so very fast...with the passion being hot as fire and rest and food being the only other things of importance.  She was living with me before I even thought things through.  Though I loved her, I found myself not being myself.
I was suddenly trying to be someone I was not.  I was trying to be everything she wanted me to be...and not being who I am.  I didn't take and constantly gave....which is not a bad thing...but there needs to be a balance.   I also didn't speak my mind and candy-coated everything to be sweet and loving, when sometimes I should have been strong and said what needed to be said.  I was weak and not the man I truly am...which is most likely why the relationship failed. 

I was devastated by this last relationship because we had said 'forever and a day' was going to be our motto and we would grow old together.  When it failed, the motto kept going through my mind over and over.  How could it be over?  Forever and a day is longer than 7 months, right?  Growing old together means 'growing old together', right?   It happened suddenly and without warning and I simply never thought it would end.....and I was wrong....and I was in shock...and I was hurt beyond measure.  I had let my guard down and let someone in to places near and dear to my heart and soul.  We were best friends as well and enjoyed spending time together and having adventures filled with laughter.  We had never even argued in the whole time we were together and suddenly, without warning, it all ended and she was gone. 

I did what most men would do.  I got drunk the first 3 weeks and drowned my sorrows with alchohol.  It made me tired...  I decided to take another approach and began working out and reading in my afternoons and it helped much more.  I decided to start writing again and it has been great therapy for me.  I began working another job to fill dead time and make additional money and it has been fun and challenging and my life is now filled with too many things to do.  I have very little down time any more.  I like it that way...

I am feeling much better now.  I am stronger and feel like I know what I want in life.  Though at some point, I may find 'the one', right now I am happy being alone.  I have friends and family that love me and my kids mean the world to me.  They have been my rock through this whole thing.  I am very blessed.

One day she will come into my life and it will be for good.  'The one' will be the one that stays...the one that truly loves me...who can see the bad traits and love me still...who can trust me...who can communicate with me because she knows it's the best way to make the relationship work...the one who seeks a best friend and a lover as well...the one that stays.  I know she is out there...I'm just not looking right now. 

Don't get me wrong.  DJQ has had alot of offers lately.  Some very interesting and tempting offers indeed.  However, the ignorant man continues to do the same thing and expect a different result....and I am trying to break the mold of Don Juan. That means no sudden sex and no drunk sex...period.

There is also one woman that intrigues me greatly right now.  She is different from the rest.  She is not pushy and is ok with taking time to get to know each other.  She is definitely one to keep my eyes on....beautiful,  sexy, intelligent, a very real person and sensitive as well.  As the Zen Master says..."we shall see..."

There also another saying from a Zen Master that 'if you seek it, you will not find it."....and this is a very true statement I've found in life.  The more you look for something, the harder it is to find.   So I have decided to wait awhile before letting Don Juan loose again on the world.  He is great at meeting women and finding lovers, but not so good at making relationships last.  Though I would love to meet 'the one' and fall head over heels in love, I know that a rebound relationship too soon would be destined for failure.

Through this recent transformation I have re-affirmed to myself that I'm a good man....one that truly cares about people....would do anything for a friend....and would die for a loved one.  I will make someone very happy one day and we'll live our lives loving and laughing till the end of our days.

Don't worry, guys and gals, Don Juan will surely ride again.  You may not be seeing him with different women at different times of the day anymore or having a new girlfriend weekly, but he will ride again.
He may not be the same as you remembered, but he will, as always, have a beautiful woman on his arm again...and he's ready for life again...

For now, DJQ is happy riding solo....and looking for a damn windmill's ass to kick.

Life, Money, and the Largest Wound...Part IV

My dream the night before my mother's funeral had come true.  At the funeral, as I tried to extend my arms long enough to wrap around my 3 children to console them, it hit me that the dream was coming true.  They cried their little eyes out...but I could not cry for Mama.  She had been so ready to go...so tired...so much tragedy at the end of her life that her will to live had been sucked out of her.  She was in a better place now...away from the hell her life had been the last 10 years.  I was happy for her and felt the joy of her spirit being in heaven now.

My father took her death hard.  He was so lost without her.  We talked alot at night about how much he missed her.  For many months, he would awaken and believe she was there....either on her bed next to him or in her rocking chair in the room...talking to him...and several times I walked in to hear him conversing with someone.  When I asked him who he was talking to, he would say "Marylee", my mother.  He has been on morphine since his accident and though I tried to chalk it up to the medications, at times he would be talking to her and having a conversation I could hear from the next room and it genuinely seemed like he was talking to someone.

I told him the first week of her death that things would change.  I would be there to take care of him, but I could not sugar-coat life like my mother could.  It would be tougher on both of us, but we would be alright.
I even joked about us having a 'bachelor pad'....not noticing that my sister and brother were both listening carefully...worrying about how this would play out in the end.

I have been a bachelor for over 10 years and have had many girlfriends come and go.  Everyone knows my nickname 'Don Juan' and though they think it's funny, I don't like it much....for my kids....or my reputation.
Within a month or two of her death, I met a woman who I cared about.  It was my first online experience with meeting someone and she seemed to genuinely care about me.  She brought clothes and started staying at the house with us.  Daddy liked her and thought she was pretty and it was nice to have a woman in the house to help ease the pain of our loss.  I was taking care of him, but after a few weeks of no sleep and continually running home to help him, I realized we needed some help.  I contacted the new guardian of the estate, my mother's brother, to see if we could get some home-hospice to give us a hand as he was now legally in control of the estate.
We got a really nice lady to come help during the day, which made it easier for me to work longer hours at work.  At first, my father told me he didn't like her and was ready to fire her like all the many field-hands we had gone through since his accident.  I told him he needed to give her a few weeks, and if he still felt that way then, we would try someone new.  She ended up winning him over to my delight and things went smoothly for a few months.  The girlfriend stayed with me and this new home-hospice nurse got along well with her.  We both were beginning to heal from my mother's passing.  Things seemed to be working out for us.

I was in real estate since my return and one of the things we had needed to do was sell the large lakehouse as my father was unable to go and enjoy it any longer and the family had grown tired of it.  I had begun marketing the property and continually drove to the lake to check on things.  We had an offer or two, but it was an expensive property and there was no need to hurry and lose money.  My first indication of the days ahead came when I drove down to check on the property and noticed a different real estate company's sign in the yard.  At first I thought it was a joke, then a mistake, then I drove home as soon as possible to find out what the heck was going on.  I found out that my uncle, the executor of the estate, had decided to take the listing of the property from me and hire an agent from the lake who worked at a much smaller real estate firm.  I was not even allowed to get a referral, a standard thing in the business of real estate.  I was not even given a reason why from my uncle....which concerned me greatly.   The property even sold with a couple of months from a family that had seen it in one of my firms advertisements months earlier.   It would be a sign of things to come...

About this time, the girlfriend ended up needing to go back to her home as she had begun to have bouts of depression and mental anxiety due to the fact she could not afford to get her medicine in the last year.  Though she had told me about this in the beginning, her depression was getting worse and I knew she needed help.  I got her enrolled in a free medicine program that would get her pills shipped to her home and took her home.  It was a sad time for me.  I really cared about her and though things did not work out, I still talk to her from time to time to see if she is doing well.  She was very beautiful and loving while she was with me, but we just weren't meant to be.  We both knew that...

A month or two passed and I had been staying up with my father at night trying to take care of him.  His colostomy was acting up and I was going without sleep alot and trying to work during the day full time.  I decided maybe we needed night time help as well.  I called my uncle and we got a home-hospice company to start sending people over for the night shift.  For the first time in many months, I was able to get a full night's sleep with no interruptions.  I also could still be there to help if any emergencies occurred.  Even though we had help now, my father would still call for me to do things as he had become dependent on me to do things for him.

A few months later, my father got ill and had to be hospitalized.  He was having heart problems and kidney problems and got to the point where he had to be sustained with an oxygen machine.  Because he had not put anything in his life will about sustaining his life with a machine, my siblings and I had to make the decision to pull the plug.  We all actually said goodbye and had all the grandchildren come in and tearfully say their goodbyes as well.  I remember my youngest telling me she couldn't tell her Papa goodbye and cried her eyes out tellling me she would not go.  I told her that it was ok and that her Papa had always loved her so much....and always would...and that he was going to heaven to dance with her Nana soon.  He would have his hand and both his legs and Nana would be smiling and waiting on him.  It made her feel better.

The plug was pulled and somehow, once again, he defied the odds and slowly recovered over a period of several weeks.  The doctors once again said he was a miracle man.....something we all already knew.  
However, when he came home the first week he was not himself.  He was very angry at times and even cussed Smokey out several times for no reason....telling him he was not his buddy anymore and to get the hell off his property and never come back.  Smokey was hurt and shocked, since he had been a loyal fieldhand and friend of the family for years now.  I pulled Smokey to the side and told him to just keep coming back and to not take what he had said to heart.  He did, but for several days my father continued to be mean and spiteful and act like a totally different person.  He acted like a mad animal enraged with rabies.  I remember how upset it all made me witnessing his change.  I wrote an email to an ex-girlfriend who had asked how he was doing.  In it I told her that as his oldest, most loyal child it was hard for me to idly sit by and watch him go into dimentia, which he appeared to be doing.  Somehow, a friend of the family got a copy of the email from her desk at work and took it to my Uncle, the executor of the estate.  He took the email and had a meeting with my brother and sister, who, with years of jealousy and the worry that somehow I may get something in the inheritance they would not, determined that I had to go.  They actually served me with legal papers to leave the home and my father.  My father was enraged by the audacity of it all.  He wanted and needed me there.  The problem was that after my mother's death, they had convinced my father that because he needed someone to pay his bills and keep up with his fortune, my Uncle should be given Power of Attorney over the estate.  My father now had no power over any of his property or money.  My uncle was now legally the decider of everything in his life and everything he owned.  My father asked me to fight them in court and I did go with his brother, who told them just how much I had done for my father, and I told them how I had vowed to my mother on her deathbed to take care of him,  but basically the Executor of the Estate can make someone leave for no reason whatsoever if he chooses....and that was that.   I was forced to move out.

Since then my uncle has done many things to exile me from the rest of the family....especially my father.  I think somewhere in my life he became very jealous of my relationship with my mother, the money of the family,  and the fact that he has never married or dated much and I've had many girlfriends he could only dream about having.....I really don't know of his motive....just that my mother is turning over in her grave with anger over it all.
I have gone from being my father's fierce protector to an exile who has to watch from a distance helplessly as his health goes downhill.  It is a sad ending indeed, to a great battle we both fought together....one that brought us closer than I ever imagined.   He never told us he loved us growing up on the farm...he was never a very affectionate man...he was a man's man.....but after his accident,  I will cherish the memory of telling each other 'I love you' every day and night and even kissing him on his forehead as I left to rest.  We became great friends through it all and got closer than I ever imagined being with him.

Here's to you, McCloud 'Mack' Robinson.....the survivor of the Largest Wound in history and the Largest Wound ever covered with skin grafts....you have been an inspiration to thousands with your courage and ability to survive come what may......I will always be proud to have been your son and you will always be my 'Daddy'...I love you  now more than ever...and it has nothing to do with your money.  

Life, Money, and the Largest Wound...Part III

Moving back to my small hometown was a huge adjustment. I had been living larger than life in Savannah with plenty of money and time to myself. It had become a place of refuge for me and I knew that leaving and moving back would be hard.

The place I grew up is a rural farming community. It's full of fields, farmers, and friendly folk who love to hunt and fish. I hunted when I was younger, but gave it up at the age of 15 after killing a doe one day when the older hunters were having a doe-day and everyone was supposed to kill a doe for population control purposes. She was a small deer and the guilt of taking her life overwhelmed me and made me sick with anger at the heartlessness of the men I once looked up to. I changed that day...I never went hunting again with my father and brother and the rest of the men of the community. It was about this time that I was beginning to shine in sports anyway and I decided to concentrate on being a great athlete and trained year round.

The farm looked the same as always when I arrived. Dry fields and lots of woods...a tractor in an old barn in the back that, ironically enough, my father and brother and myself had built out of railroad ties. The railroad ties have a lifetime expectancy of 500 years and will be here when my children's children have children and longer.
My father looked pale and had aged alot since I last saw him. My mother looked so haggard and tired...I knew that I had come when she needed me most. She was so happy to see me...it was like the cavalry had arrived.
I certainly didn't feel like the cavalry, but knew that I was young and strong and could handle just about any physical effort that would be needed. My father still weighed over 350lbs. and had to be manually moved from the bed to his air chair whenever he wanted to get up. The hardest part was his colostomy, which, on occasion, would fill up and overspill if his stomach got upset. I realized very quickly the job I was facing and longed to jump back in my car and haul ass back to Savannah, but I knew I couldn't...they were my parents...they had raised me, fed me, and taught me everything I knew about life. How could I NOT be there for them when they needed me most? My brother lived in a huge home not far from them, but he had re-married and had a new wife who kept him busy with a honey-do list. My sister was a psychologist married to a psychologist and didn't get along too well with my mother, so she stayed in her mansion and visited briefly when she did visit. My mother claimed I was the only one who gave a damn...though I knew my siblings did love them. I always felt a little bad for them because my mother made me into some kind of super-hero who did everything right and could do no wrong in her eyes...which was wayyyyy off base, believe me.
The move back changed my life completely. The culture shock of moving back to a town that didn't have the same modern conveniences of larger town was the first thing that hit me. I would miss always having somewhere to go and a new restaurant to try. I would miss always having a party to go to if I felt like it. I would miss my friends on Riverstreet and hanging out watching the ships roll in.
The sky did seem to be larger and the stars much brighter in the country and Blue loved being in the great outdoors. It was much quieter as well.
Life slowed down to a snail's pace and I took a deep breath of the fresh country air and thanked God that I could be there for my parents in their time of need. It was a good feeling.

My mother had begun to have fainting spells and when she finally went to the doctor for testing, she came back quiet and would refuse to talk about it. It made me worry about what she wouldn't tell us. It made me know that something bad was wrong. I knew it in my heart...
Taking care of one person is tough, but two people who are overweight and having to be moved manually is a tough job indeed. I would also have to get up in the middle of the night to help get medicine for my father if he was in pain or help clean up another colostomy mess...the worst thing you can have to do at 3 in the morning.
I went into Real Estate and started selling properies. It was something I enjoyed, though the money was not as lucrative as I was used to. I also had the freedom to come and go as I pleased and could help Smokey, our fieldhand, get crops planted in the manner that my father wanted. My father had always been a 'hardass' about his crops and how they should be done. We went through about 7 or 8 fieldhands after the accident because of this. Smokey was, and still is, the only one that has lasted.

My children have always loved the farm and enjoyed being able to spend more time with their grandparents. They would run through the fields barefoot...something I loved when I was a child...and I loved being able to share my childhood stories on the farm with them. They would never get tired of the funny stories and the adventures I had as a child. They would get me to tell some of the stories over and over again.

I had gone from being a playboy in Savannah with tons of money to the life of a farmhand once again.  It was like a bad dream that I had to live.  But I had always had a tenacity for the tough things in life.  I could handle just about anything.  I enjoyed being able to sit and just talk with my parents.  My mother talked non-stop and loved having someone to complain to....she knew I cared as well.  She told me many times she was so tired....she had seen the man she loved cut in half...she was prisoner to taking care of him....she had lost 2 grandchildren, with the last one dying on a 4 wheeler on the farm and her having to walk across the field with his brother to pull it off of his dead 8 year old body.  She talked about Ryan alot....she never got over his death....he was such a beautiful child and so full of life...we called him Ryan the Lion.  She had simply had too much heartache to bear in the last 10 years....she told me she was tired of this life and ready for God to take her.  The lupus always had made her tired before, but now she was never rested and felt more tired than most people could ever imagine.   I was proud to be there for her once again...and knew this would be for the last time.

We found out in 2007 that she had a brain tumor.  She knew for many months even before the testing that something was terribly wrong....and so did I.  The doctors said they needed to operate as soon as possible.
I knew the night before she left for the operation that she would not be coming home.  I remember calling my ex-wife and demanding she bring the kids over to see their Nana.  She thought my mother would be ok, but I told her I knew otherwise...I had a dream the night before and in the dream my kids were crying uncontrollably and I could not get my arms around all three.  They came that night and we took pictures of them and their Nana.  I fought back the tears and tried to be strong.  I knew she would not be coming back...

She had an aneurism during the operation.  She went into a coma and the doctors said there was no hope of reviving her.  Her living will stated that she would be cut loose from the machine keeping her alive.  I was at the farm taking care of my father...something she had made me promise I would do before she left for the operation, when my sister called to tell me I needed to drive to Columbia, SC to be there when she was unplugged.  They would wait till I got there.  I remember sitting in the car for what seemed like forever....feeling like the grim reaper knowing that my mother would die when I got there.  I walked as slowly as possible to the room...filled with her 5 sisters, her brother, and all the grandchildren...everyone crying and sad beyond compare.

Everyone gathered around the bed when they pulled the plug.  One by one everyone said goodbye.  She gasped for air for several minutes and then a glowing smile came over her face out of nowhere like she had seen someone she knew and loved...and then she passed away.  In my heart, I know she saw Ryan waiting for her with his hand out...or at least that's exactly what it looked like.   Everyone cried and sobbed....but for some reason I could not.   I knew she was finally getting her rest.....and her body would not be tired anymore....and she was with loved ones who had gone before her.  I was truly happy for her...

Stay tuned...this will be in more parts than III, part IV coming soon...