The Beautiful Damsel and the Paralyzed Man

Barbie and Ken got married on Saturday night. It wasn't hard to tell they meant everything to each other. She, a beautiful damsel. He, a paralyzed man. Not completely paralyzed. He'd done a lot of physical therapy and, now, it was mainly just his right side and, in particular, his leg.

He'd suffered a stroke following a chiropractic neck adjustment. Three times, he died on the chiropractor's table, finally being revived and hospitalized. A very small percentage of the time, a manipulation can split the inside walls of the vertebral arteries, causing the walls to balloon and block the blood supply to the lower part of the brain resulting in a basilar vertebral stroke.

But, this story isn't a treatise against chiropractic. Quite the contrary. Although I worked in the field and knew that a stroke was a possibiltiy, in over 12 years I never saw or heard of one case. I have two nephews and two neices who are chiros. In our family, we know, firsthand, how the techniques can aid healing. Besides that, even a simple thing like extending your neck back over the basin for hair washing at the beauty salon has been known to cause a stroke.

Rather, it is more about the good and bad that happens in life. The unexpected. Ken's neck adjustment was performed by his friend who was trying to do him a favor and make him feel better. His friend was a healer; this was the last thing he wanted to happen. In an instant, both of their lives were changed forever. Ken has yet to forgive his friend.

But because of his fateful injury, he met Barbie, a physician's assistant. The time came for their first dance as man and wife. With white satin, pearls and tule crushed against a black wedding tux, they swayed, not moving one inch on the floor, to a love song. It was the most beautiful dance I'd ever seen.

Bye, Bye Baby

"Hi, Ronda."


I turn to see this soft speaking, young woman. My first thought is that I don't know her. I have no recollection of ever meeting her. Even if I take into account her clever disguise of little packets of silvery tin, layered with wisps of long, brown hair standing all over her head, plastic protective cape topped by a salon hair dryer, I still don't recognize her. Her Hershey Kiss colored eyes stare back at me awaiting my response. Lord, what am I going to say? I don't have one. I go to the well.


"Hi. How are you. I haven't seen you for a long time," I say. My neurons are rifling through the files in my brain, hopping dendrites, attempting to make connections to a memory.


"I'm back to work," she says.

"Well good for you. How is it going for you?" Keep the general responses coming, I think to myself, until you figure out her name. I'm starting to think I really don't know this girl when she sets me straight.


"It is going okay. I've seen B, but not J or T. "


At this point, I know I am stuck. She knows too much about me for me not to know her.


"L is going to rent our house," she says as she points to the obviously happy hair stylist attending her. "I just can't stay in that house any longer. Not since what happened to M. I just can't," she says as tears overspill the rims of her eyes and run down her cheeks and down her protective cape.



And the dendrites and neurons connect and hit a grand slam, outta the park homer in my brain as the memory of the story I heard about this girl shatters the light in my heart.



"Oh, M," I say. "I hardly recognized you. You look like a little girl." And, indeed, she does look small and dwarfed by her surroundings. Right now she looks like a 15-year-old rather than the 25-year-old she used to portray.



"I know," she says. "I don't wear make up any more and I let my hair go back to its natural dark brown instead of keeping it blond. You know, the autopsy showed that there was nothing wrong with him. The doctor said that with SIDS, his brain didn't fire right and he just forgot to breathe. D got us one of those really good infant monitors. I could even hear when he rolled over or wiggled. But I knew something was wrong when he went longer than two hours for his next feeding."



I asked, "Were you the one to find him?"


"Yes, and I knew. I knew right away that he was dead. The room. The room was cold and dark. No life in there. It is funny how it feels so different when life is gone. We tried for three years to make him and we only got to have him for one month and 20 days. I was never supposed to be able to get pregnant in the first place. And now...he's gone. It's just not fair. Pray for us," says the small, foil covered head with the pale, tear stained face, "Pray for us."


Not even bothering to wipe the tears rolling down my face in tandem with hers, I say, "I will, honey. I will," as I walk away.


There are people in life who do harmful things to other people. Not killing or maiming, but being party to acts that are less than honorable and to the detriment of other's lives and careers. This girl is one. Oh, not my life directly, but the lives of ones close to me. I could go into how karma, or right action, balances our deeds. Or how each soul chooses life on this plane to fulfill its own purpose, but I won't. I'll simply do as she asks and pray and ask forgiveness for all people who were a part of this story.

Forgiveness is as much for the healing of our own heart and soul as it is for the ones who wronged us.

And the Winner is...

Okay, so this is my nominee for Actress of the Year to date. Dalia Dippolito, in the Boynton Beach Babe. A newlywed, she allegedly hired a hit man to kill her husband, Michael. I know that marriage can sometimes be a drag, but really, do you need to take a hit out on the schmuck? I think she paid somewhere around $4,000 for someone to cap his a**. Turned out the "hit man" was an undercover cop. Where did she find him? Craig's list? In my opinion, bargain shopping for a hit man is like bargain shopping for eye surgery, just not worth the risk. The price point should have been her first clue that things would not go well. I don't know the going rate, but I would think that a top-rate killer, who can get the job done AND keep his mouth shut, would charge at least $10,000.

Now, I'm not saying her husband didn't deserve it because I don't know. More information is coming out about him and he's not so squeaky clean either. He did a couple of years in prison for Grand Theft and Organized Fraud. Right now, his lawyers are saying there is no connection between the hit and his priors, but it certainly makes me wonder.

I have been married over 30 years and I can honestly say I've never thought about putting out a contract on my mate. There are times he makes me feel passionately in love, just in love, in like, lukewarm, indifferent, ticked-off, thinking about how nice it would be to show him the door, wanting to send him to the moon, and then back to passionate again. Sometimes my emotions can range through these levels in a matter of hours. I'm sure that R feels the same way about me.

Really, what would it take for you to send out a hitter on your mate and what is the going rate these days? Holy Moley, I know we're in a recession but, she paid four grand and is surprised when her stair-stepping buns get hauled to jail? Nice try Boynton Beach Babe.