Dixie Bibeau:
CLASS OF 1962
Central High SchoolClass of 1962
Capitol heights, MD
Suitland High SchoolClass of 1962
Forestville, MD
Forestville Elementary SchoolClass of 1956
Forestville, MD
Dixie's Story
Life
I have 4,000 characters remaining, I'm told. That's about how many people I know who are characters....
OK. With advanced age comes bragging rights: I got married to our beloved music teacher, and we had two children. Yep, both are musical, though they don't earn their livings at it. Luis died when they were young, so I raised 'em by myself, pretty much. I think. Anyway, and in spite of me, they grew up successfully and got married successfully and I have 1 grandson,and 3 granddaughters. the grandson is married and I have a great-grandson, 1 year old.
I'm a widow, twice, have a Master's degree in English literature, and 45 hours in art. Taught college-level writing for 8 years, sold insurance for over 20 years, messed around deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up after a bout with cancer 8years ago, then went back into the classroom at the University of Central Florida six years ago. I teach writing and research.
I went into the funeral industry about this time last year and a lot of odd things happened there. I was on speaking terms with the ghost of a dog that lived in the shrubbery outside the back door of the funeral home. It yipped happily and smelled like it needed a good bath. Completely invisible. Of course, I hadn't mentioned this to my 8-year-old, 18-pound, standard Pomeranian (Reynourd the Fox, aka "Foxie"). I figured I'd wait til Hallowe'en to tell him. And this is the first time I've mentioned it to rational, intelligent adults. Rational. Intelligent. Right?
Well, during the spring term just past, I was teaching one class and working in the funeral industry when a lot went wrong in the cemetery and I just walked out , never to return. Sorta gave up my primary job for Lent--and what we can give up for 40 days we can give up forever, right? Two days later, I couldn't even remember what my office in the funeral home looked like, I was so far outa there. Got extra work at the university, and now I'm just there full time. Life is easier and more fun. I don't pray over a lot of dead bodies anymore (haven't killed a student--yet) and compliment the embalmers over how good dead people look. They're dead for Heaven's sake (literally)--how can they look good????
Seriously, I've concluded that life is precious and sweet, and worth every minute of every day. My advice, a word of wisdom? "Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God." Rejoice!
Last October 31, 2007--Ok, I told Foxie about the ghost dog, even told him dramatically, with the proper spooky tone of voice, and he just looked at me. Then he told me the dog was his ol' drinkin' buddy Schnapps, who got plastered one night and decided he was SuperDawg. Jumped off the roof of the funeral home, flapping all four legs and both ears (he was a beagle). That wasn't what did him in, though. According to Foxie, his girlfriend beat the livin' crap out of him and as he tried to get away from her, he ran headlong into a parked car. The official funeral notice indicated he died while chasing big game. That was before I started working at the funeral home, but we have all been known to turn a few words creatively to sorta, you know, cover each other's boo-boo's. Foxie tells me Schnapps doesn't care if everyone knows the story 'cause the girlfriend took up with an australian cattle dog and they have 6 puppies now. He doesn't think she even remembers him, but I wouldn't bet on that.
January, 2009
A jolly postscript to the saga is that I left the funeral industry and now just teach writing. Foxie is thrilled because I'm home more and that means more trips to the dog park, but it also means I'm home more and talk to myself, especially when I'm writing--I tend to act out the parts as I write and when a character is undergoing metamorphosis, I often become an eggplant. Freaks the little guy out! He channels his old buddy Schnapps and he goes drinking together. Which is why I have to keep the toilet bowl so clean. Which is hard to do if you're an eggplant, but then you're never an eggplant so you wouldn't know. It's not really a problem, going away as the condition does in about 24 hours. During that time, I just put on a red hat and masquerade as a member of a certain society. No problem. The last time, I actually went on a cruise with 'em; pretty cool: no one expected an eggplant to buy a ticket no matter what kind of hat it wore. I'm gonna start hanging at the airport and hopping into unsuspecting travelers' carry ons. Who's gonna question an eggplant, unless it's going out of the country? I'll limit myself to domestic flights and pray I don't turn back into a pumpkin before the plane lands. Timing is everything. So now you know.
N...Expand for more
ovember 2009
Time flies when you're having fun, and you'll discover that they fly faster when you've had a few beers. That's because they light on the neck of the bottle and take a swig themselves. They fly looped, and you're pretty cross-eyed too, so by the time you realize he's zipped by, that fly is back on the bottle and it just gets worse from there. Sooner or later you're whimpering that something's buzzing around your head that's on a different frequency with the buzz inside your head and if you weren't standing in the middle of it there'd be a hell of a Doppler effect. That's when someone asks if you'd like some crackers with that whine, and you take it as a personal affront to your Native Florida residency (not really, but you've been here so long....)By the time you've told whatsisname he's a croc o' crap, you're up to your eyeballs in alligators. And you don't give a rat's patootie how fast that damn fly travels, just before he falls into the bottle. You drink it anyway. Hoo boy! what I write on lonely November nights!
February 14, 2011
On January 6, 2010, I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and given 2 weeks to live. I wasn't afraid to die--I'm not afraid of anything--but I didn't want to. Nevertheless,I contacted the university to assign my classes to someone else, had my daughter call the church, and put both of my children to work breaking down my home and taking what they wanted. With access to my accounts, they paid my bills while I signed the necessary paperwork and began my preparation to die. But that night, I had such an overwhelming sense of so much more that I could accomplish. How could God say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant"? Reluctant to call my failed obligations SINS of omission, they were omissions still, and my heart broke for what I had not done. I prayed to live and fell asleep, aware only of a single tear that dropped onto my pillow.
My stunned priests annointed me, and my sisters and brother came from Maryland the next day. Friends and circle sisters began prayer chains, visitors made what were tp be the last days of my life bearable filling the wall facing my bed quickly with cards, letters, pictures. Couples I had married in my capacity as an independently, non-denominationally ordained minister brought their children to visit me. My life, it seemed, was being played out befpre me.
Several days later, the head of the medical team came into the room to tell me that except for the cancer I was perfectly healthy and the doctors wanted to try aggressive treatment. I knew the answer to prayer when I saw it, so I was on board immediately.
A total of 8 weeks of hospitalization and 6 months of chemotherapy (I taught the summer term while completing chemo), and I was ready to haul ass for the Fall term. Doctors were calling the recovery a miracle, and I knew intimately my God who had said yes to me. Every second of my,life was, and is, in his hands.
A week into the Fall term, after the last chemo session had hit pretty hard, I decided to take a second medical leave to rest and just take care of myself. Students cried, colleagues cried, I cried--but I promised to return, and so I have. I can look forward to more years--whatever God allows--time to teach and write and praise. I don't know what age means. I'm 20, 30, 40, 50==-passionately interested, still, in shaping young minds and hearts to write, to live in the green fields of their imaginations and to share with the world the wildflowers and the cow patties they find there. Thanks to the Internet, they can share everything with the world. Sometimes (but only sometimes) I worry about that.
Foxy? He lived at my daughter's house for nearly a year. I resurrected my own house and recovered from post-chemo surgery before he came back joyously to live with me. He sometimes channels his old buddy Schnapps, who was waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge but got impatient and went for a drink. Came back and fell off the bridge. It's that parallel universe and reverse image thing, I guess. Me? I learned that the relationships we build throughout life come back to us later. I learned that things are not important, people are. And, as has been said, ya never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. I treasure most my family and those who prayed so unceasingly for me, who look at me today and see a miracle that points to the glory of God's faithfulness to his children.
We are not sinners. We are the children of the King. Sometimes we mess up, and he says to us, "Ok, it's over, no problem. Now, go clean up your mess. And there's a hot fudge sundae waiting when you're finished." In the words of Charles Dickens' Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one."
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