Deeply I Must Climb -The Truth Awaits
This climb is dedicated to Josephine.
While many see only the vast, ‘uncharted territories’ of Mississippi’s landscapes, Josephine saw a cage. This part of the journey is for her—to honor the strength it took to survive the back alleys of power and the calculated malice of Joe Smith.
We write these words so that her suffering is no longer a hidden tally in the dark, and so that the truth of the Epstein legacy, and those who continued it, is finally brought into the light.
Josephine, you are no longer invisible.“
DEEPLY I MUST CLIMB
The first time I heard Michael W. Smith was sometime in the fall of 2009. It was during my stay at the Wayside Cross Ministries. I was brought there by a pastor I met that summer during my alcohol-induced homelessness.
One morning, one fine morning after our Chapel mass, the deacon slipped into the CD player a disc. And then…..
As I am listening to this beautiful song I am overcome with emotion, so much emotion that I began sobbing profusely. I put my face in my hands and at that moment, that very moment I felt a hand on my shoulder. I knew from which arm, from which body this hand came…
I was touched by God (again). After the song ended I cleared my eyes, rose from my chair, and went over to the deacon.
“Who sang that most beautiful song?”
He replied. “Michael W. Smith and if you want to borrow his CD you are welcome to it. We have a few copies in the library!”
“Of course I do!’
Every night for the next month I deposited that magical disc in my little portable CD player with the headphones and drifted off into heaven…
Serendipity, synchronicity
mysterious ways, God speaks to me…
the world before me
its wonders and too,
somber bouts of reality
Me, but a child of time
Mountains and valleys
Oh, how deeply I must climb
Serendipity and synchronicity
Hidden messages revealed to me
Oh, how at times
the truth uncurls from its mystery
And deeply I must climb
to unwind the strands of reality
Part II
I received a call from my older sister and she related to me that “Mommy is in the hospital!”
“What happened?”
“They don’t know yet! It could’ve been a stroke!”
“Oh no! What hospital is she in?
“Lutheran General in Park Ridge!”
After hearing the news I thought it best if I furlough out of Wayside Cross Ministries – secure a train ticket and travel to Park Ridge. It’s Christmas Eve and I really should be with my family, especially Mother who I pray will be OK.
I obtained the conditional three-day pass from the Administration and packed a small suitcase with an assortment of second and third-hand clothes.
To go to Park Ridge I would need to take two trains – the first one from Aurora to Union Station, Downtown Chicago – about an eighty-minute ride.
And then – walk from the Union Station over to the OTC to catch that train into Park Ridge, oh about twenty-five minutes.
All Aboard….
As the train snaked and twisted its way into the city I, at times, looked around at my fellow passengers, some of them in familial glee, perhaps to spend Christmas with their extended family. It brought back a few memories – one when my entire family was together – a one-time deal, really! It was my brother’s wedding. You probably couldn’t tell by the picture but (shhh!) I was homeless then. The suit? I had to borrow it!
Yes, I looked like a rock star then. Maybe one day I would be, I thought then. I could sing a bit… I could dance a few good moves if in good enough cheer.
After a long trek I had finally made it here – the Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. My sister, her husband, and their kids live here in Park Ridge. As does my Uncle Johnny and where my beloved Aunt Dorothy lived until her sad and untimely death by the ravages of lung cancer.
Park Ridge is also where Hillary Clinton grew up. Just think of what may have been had she won the Presidency instead of Trump.
I entered the hospital. Went to the main desk and stated my nature of business. Was given the room number. I got on the elevator. Got off the elevator.
I felt like the dutiful son, the son of the reformed mother. Though Mother may not immediately recognize me or she may have forgotten my name due to her dementia and now stroke, I knew that she’d be glad to see me. I just knew it, I really did!
I followed the long hall to Mother’s room. Familiar surroundings. Familiar activity. Unknown nurses and unknown doctors and unknown orderlies and concerned family members amidst the reminders of long ago days…days nearly forgotten. But I know… the nearly forgotten must be remembered and remembered well enough if I was to ever finish my memoirs.
I turned into the room. My brother-in-law Danny who was sitting in a chair next to the bed waved “hello.” And then a smile as big as the biggest smile I had ever seen catapulted me into euphoria – for this was confirmation that Mother recognized me and was so happy to see me.
“Hello, Ma!”
“Are you my husband?” she asked.
I kissed her on the forehead. “No, I’m your son – Ricky!” She began to cry.
“Ricky?”
“Yes, Mother!”
Though she didn’t truly recognize me at first I was satisfied – for Mother was still able to speak and smile and sit up. Perhaps her condition was not as bad as I thought it might be.
After a while, the nurses came into the room and asked us to leave the room for a while - about fifteen minutes.
As my brother-in-law Danny and I were walking past one of the nursing stations, there were a couple of nurses talking amongst themselves.
Danny heard one of them say, “Working me too hard!” So we stop in our “tracks” and Danny says to the one dark-skinned nurse, “Who’s working you too hard – your husband?”
She walks over to us. “No, my husband had passed away. I was referring to the doctors and some other staff members.”
And then, out of the blue, Danny says, pointing to me, “Well, he’s single!”
She looked at me and said, “Well, I’m Josephine. I’m the Charge Nurse on this unit!”
“And I am Janet’s son!”
“Yes, and it is a pleasure to meet you.”
After the proper introductions and a bit of chitchat, Josephine looks at me with a glint in her eyes.
“I’m having Christmas at my house tomorrow and I’d like to invite you if you want to come over.”
I really didn’t know what to say at that moment. She didn’t know that I was on furlough from a Homeless Shelter. She didn’t know that I didn’t have a car. She didn’t know that all I brought with me was a few pair of second-hand pants and shirts.
Part III
The morning came! After sleeping a good night’s sleep, only to be interrupted a few times by the nurses coming into the room to check on Mother, take her vitals, and whisper another, “If you need anything, just push this button, OK!”
After our breakfast, I spend a couple of hours reading – reading to myself, reading to mother, and reading to one of the nurses who came in the room to see how everything was going. “What are you reading?” she asked me.
“Just one of my short stories I had written a few days ago!”
“Can you read a little bit to me? I love short stories!”
The time was nearing. What should I do? Should I not do anything, not call Josephine? Should I just forget about her invitation? No, that wouldn’t be right. I should just call her, be honest!
I dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon, Josephine…this is Rick, you know…Janet’s son!”
“Oh hi! So are you going to come over and have Christmas dinner with me, I should say us… having a few friends over!”
“Well to be honest I don’t have a car here with me. I took the train in to see my mother!”
“Well, I live in Niles, only five minutes from the hospital… I can come and pick you up.”
******
Outside the front entrance, I stood. For Christmas Day, it was relatively warm, and sunny. I was in a brightened mood, mother seemed to be doing OK and I was to be in the company of a woman, it’s been a while. Soon the vehicle she described to me on the phone pulled up – a goldish BMW X5.
I entered the vehicle, sat down, and extended my hand.
“Cold hands, warm heart,” Josephine said. Her hand was kind of cold but I didn’t put too much thought into it.
Before long we were at her townhouse, and I was a little nervous but you could tell so was Josephine… so much that after we were inside her doorbell rang and it was one of her neighbors relating that she had left her car door open. We laughed about it for a bit. She then offered me a drink.
“I bought a bottle of Gray Goose vodka for the occasion.”
Although I hadn’t had a drink in five months, not since the day before going into Wayside Cross Ministries, I figured I’d make an exception and eagerly accepted. I would forget, at least for a while, that I am an alcoholic and forget Wayside’s rules and policies about drinking while on leave.
After a few drinks. loosened up, feeling good and enjoying each other’s company Josephine and I kissed a bit, not too deep, just enough to secure our bond.
It wouldn’t be long before Josephine’s guests would arrive so we decided to get the dinner started. Most of it was precooked so it was just a matter of warming it up. With foresight, Josephine had roasted the turkey the day before…
Seeing that Josephine’s tolerance for alcohol was far less than mine, and after she burned the gravy, and dropped the salad into the mashed potatoes I decided it best that I take over as Chief Preparer and after her guests arrive, Dedicated Server.
About an hour later the doorbell rang. Ushered in was a van full of folks – Josephine’s best friends from her Junior College Days – the Obama Twins, one of the twin’s daughter, the other twin’s husband (from Turkey), and his two nieces (also from Turkey). They brought some supplies, thank goodness, the vodka was just about gone. A case of beer, a couple bottles of wine, yes, let’s get this party started.
Feeling very comfortable and more than that, I truly felt I belonged there… It seems as though I had been there before. It started to feel like home.
I took over as host and began serving “our guests.”
After dinner, after a few glasses of wine or a few bottles of beer, with one of the Turkish girls leading the way we traipsed into the living room for some Karaoke.
Gulcin, who had learned English at an early age back in Turkey, took the microphone and man, could she sing, the voice of an angel. She sang some Celine, some Gladys Knight, and some Aretha. Very impressive.
After a while, I got to choose a song to sing. I chose “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis.
Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day?
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
After singing it everybody wanted me to sing it again. I would admit that my voice did sound good, relaxed… and my Elvis vibrato was in fine stead. I sang it again and everybody insisted on an encore.
Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare?
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?
Is your heart filled with pain, shall I come back again?
Tell me dear, are you lonesome tonight?
After the guests left and after I helped clean up, me and Josephine decided it best if I just spend the rest of the night there….
The morning came. We were sitting at her kitchen table having coffee when she asked me my birthdate.
“September 13,” I answered. Just then her head fell. “What’s wrong?”
“That was my husband’s birthday!”
“Are you telling me your husband’s birthday is the same as mine – September 13?”
“Yes! You know that he died just over a year ago from a brain aneurysm.”
‘I am so sorry, Josephine.” Thinking of all the synchronicities in my life, perhaps this was just another one but to think about it deeper I had come to the conclusion that it was God who brought me and Josephine together. Yes, it has to be the answer. We were brought together through fate, through divine intervention.
Part IV
Fifty years ago today, a mule train left the small town of Marks, Miss., bound for the nation’s capital. They were answering a call to action the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made just days before he was assassinated.
“We’re coming to Washington in a poor people’s campaign,” King announced at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1968. “I was in Marks, Miss., the other day, which is in Quitman County, the poorest county in the United States. And I tell you I saw hundreds of black boys and black girls walking the streets with no shoes to wear.”
How A Mule Train From Marks, Miss., Kicked Off MLK’s Poor People Campaign]
Dear Dr. Martin Luther King,
I highly commend you and praise you for your great work toward trying to end this egregious racial and economic divide in this country. And all the suffering, oh the suffering…. I will cry now!
I, too, see all those beautiful children in Marks, Mississippi walking the streets with no shoes to wear. I want to cry again, so I will….
Oh, Dr. King, and too, if you only knew what was happening on the other side of the tracks, where the mostly white wealthier folks of Marks live…. Oh, I want to cry but now I am weeping, weeping so heavily. I can feel the suffering! I can feel her suffering…. I can feel my beautiful Josephine’s suffering!
[Yes, the Emancipation Proclamation – the dream, the dream, the dream but why do many of my so-called countrymen and countrywomen still insist on creating these nightmares? Get off my land!
I look around, the year barely into 2021 and I see some positive movements, some doors opening and for this I am pleased, But I know, too, those of the demonic cloth are still being interwoven into our fabric of goodness and tranquility. Because of this, I must carry with me the golden thimble.]
Marks, Ms. (cont.)
The norm was for blacks to live on one side of the railroad tracks and whites on the other.
“So, these railroad tracks here, the blacks lived on that side and the whites lived on this side. And it was beautiful homes,” said Wilson. “As far as the restaurants and all that, we weren’t – they were segregated, and we weren’t allowed to go in them.”
Food was scarce for African-Americans back then in Marks. So scarce, Marks was the starting point of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign in 1968.
[But there was a home on the “White Side” of the tracks where food was plentiful. The family there lived on 300 acres of bountiful farmland. Wealthy by all measured standards!
On this White Side of the Tracks lived Mr. Joe Smith – a powerful, wealthy black man. On this side of the tracks lived Josephine – Joe Smith’s stepdaughter. And her many half-sisters and half-brothers- all well-dressed with plenty of shoes and coats and, and, and….
I am looking into this house on the farm on the “White Side of the Tracks” now and I am crying… Oh, my Heavenly Father…. ]
There on the “White Side of the Tracks” on that 300-acre farm behind the curtains, behind the façade, unspeakable acts were being committed daily. I want to cry! So I will!
To be raped, beaten, tortured, spit on, burned – pretty much on a daily basis, oh I want to vomit! So I will!
Josephine received most of the abuse, maybe because she was the stepdaughter. All the suffering, all the abuse, all her suffering. My heavenly father, please….
Ricky J. Fico