Buzzard Roost – Part 1
Author © Scott D. Zachary
Today is Monday, April 15, 2019. The time is 4:02 a.m. How would I describe my life at this moment in time? Fulfilled. Joyful, overflowing with delight. Resentless.
Interesting, “resentful” is in my editor’s dictionary, but not “resentless.” It’s true, though; I have no resentment toward anyone or anything—none, none whatsoever. And just plain happy to be alive and to give praise to my Lord, my God for making all these wonders possible. And most certainly, blessed beyond measure. Exalted, and yet humble.
Thank you, Yahweh! Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for this opportunity to sketch my dreams for one year. ONE YEAR!!!
Yes, beginning two weeks and two days from today—May 1, 2019, I will devote one year to reflecting upon my existence, sketching the temples that I’ve built and their ruins, the lives that I’ve decimated and those whom I’ve lifted high.
I woke up this morning in a grand hotel, The Empire House Hotel, first opened 204 years ago. I woke up to Reflections, profoundly beautiful scriptures overlaying glimpses of His magnificent creation. I couldn’t imagine a better frame of mind in which to begin my newest and brightest sparkle: Writing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today is Monday, May 13, 2019. The time is 7:29 a.m. How would I describe my life at this point in time? It sucks. I’ve got a big nasty goober in my craw.
“We have become strict with our policies. You will be required to attend therapy sessions at least once every three months like everyone else.” I can’t seem to dispel those words from my new psycho-analyst. I cannot see the silver linings around them. I’m filled with negativity. I can’t generate any motivation to write. RiverValley killed my initiative to help anyone, including myself. Nothing I do matters.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today is Monday, June 3, 2019. The time is 6:40 a.m. How would I describe my life at this moment in time? Fulfilled and joyful, yet determined to write, to help others, and to excel ... like a dog with a bone. Top of the world!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This story is going to be a bit turbulent, so bear with me. All aboard for destinations unknown.
What is the difference between the three Mondays that I’ve briefly described above? What changed between their occurrences? What tilted the bubble of my outlook from super-positive ... to down-and-out negative ... and back to top of the world?
I’ll explain it to you. This is one of the most valuable lessons that I can share. If applied, this could vastly improve the quality of your life. It’s up to you. To give you a little background, I will first briefly summarize the previous stories leading up to those three points in time.
“An Amazing Person” is a short story about my most recent psychiatrist at RiverValley Behavioral Health (RVBH), Dr. Perry. She filled me with inspiration by sincerely telling me what an amazing person I am for helping thousands of people around the world who have no one there for them.
“Your Care Is Precious” is a story in which I presented Dr. Perry a symbolic expression of my profound appreciation for her uplifting care: a cute little ceramic wren perched in the center of a cupped gilded-glass maple leaf and a postcard containing the following Haiku poem:
Trussed upon the leaf
The simile found my eye
Your care is precious
My memoir “KERSPLAT!” describes how three weeks after that last appointment with Dr. Perry, a previous psychiatrist at RVBH, Dr. Harmon, sent me a form letter terminating me as their patient because: “During a recent review of your mental health record, it was discovered: you have not scheduled or kept appointments with your therapist or psychiatrist as recommended over the course of your treatment. At this point, it appears that you no longer wish to have your mental health conditions treated by RiverValley Behavioral Health.” In fact, I had never missed a scheduled appointment throughout the ten years that I had been treated by RiverValley Behavioral Health. (Years earlier, I had been exempted from having to see a therapist between visits with my psychiatrist due to my extraordinarily responsible behavior.) I then sent a letter to Dr. Perry, requesting that she look into this misunderstanding to preclude my care being terminated. Dr. Perry never responded to that letter, so I assumed that they had archived my records and terminated my care as they had threatened.
Dr. Perry’s only instruction at my last appointment was that I call the desk in April to make an appointment to see her in May under my “six-month plan” as she called it.
Though my treatment had been presumably terminated, my wife, Bobbie, encouraged me to call RVBH and try to make an appointment as Dr. Perry had asked me to do. I called their reception desk toward the end of April, and they told me that Dr. Perry no longer worked there. They allowed me to make an appointment with someone called “Audrey.” I said, “I’m used to seeing a doctor. She’s not a doctor?” The girl on the phone replied, “No, we just call her Audrey.”
On the 7th of May, 2019, I walked into RVBH. A girl measured my blood pressure. Audrey then came out and escorted me to her office, where I sat across from her. Glancing over notes in my file, Audrey commented, “Your blood pressure is high.”
“I assure you, I’ll be on top of that. There are three reasons why my blood pressure might be so high now: One, I took a long nap late yesterday evening, so I didn’t get to sleep until four o’clock this morning. To rev my engines, I took an energy shot a little while ago—B-12 fires me up! Two, I began training yesterday with an intense seven-mile bicycle ride around the outskirts of Lewisport. That probably threw my metabolism a bit out of whack. Three, the biggest factor is probably that I get keyed up when I’m going to be meeting a new psychiatrist.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist.” Audrey proceeded to tell me her official title, whatever it was—it was too long to bother remembering, but it wasn’t “doctor.”
I began our discussion. “I’ve always treated my visits with the psychiatrists here at RiverValley as show-and-tell time. Dr. Harmon told me, ‘That’s what it should be.’ ” I opened my folder of documents on the corner of Audrey’s desk. She leaned forward to get a glimpse of what I was about to show her. I pulled a document from the stack and handed it to her. “This will catch you up on the past nine years from when I was in the Crisis Stabilization Unit three times at the end of 2009 to the time of my last appointment in November with Dr. Perry. I started providing these summaries to the doctors seven years ago on my own initiative to account for what I had done with my life, much like I did as an Air Force officer. As I told Doctor Perry, even if I could get my lithium without seeing a psychiatrist, I wouldn’t want to, because I like being held accountable, as long as it’s not overbearing.”
Audrey concentrated on reading that document, and I watched her as she read the following:
Scott D. Zachary
Summary of Accomplishments
January 2010 – November 2018
(Since my three visits to the Crisis Stabilization Unit at the end of 2009)
· Quit drinking on September 28, 2009 to present.
· Quit smoking on May 12, 2012 to present.
· Prepared for going on Christian medical missions:
o Attended EMT and Nurse Aide schools in Louisville. Graduated top of the class in both.
o Studied optometry at Kendall Optometry Ministry in Louisville.
o Taught myself Spanish to fluency.
· Went on nine Christian medical missions to Nicaragua and Honduras. Served as a dental assistant on the first mission and Team Lead for the Optical Clinic on the other eight:
o The optical teams I served with gave away thousands of prescription and reader eyeglasses.
o During those nine missions, I also did the following:
· Paid for strabismus (crossed eyes) surgery for an 8-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl.
· Led seven Nicaraguans to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior in their language.
· Sponsored 12 Project Life patients (Paid hospital costs for these patients who could not be treated in the field).
· Donated 432 hardcover bilingual children’s Bible storybooks, 132 walking canes, and 1,000 Frisbees embossed with “Jesús te ama” and “Para Dios no hay nada imposible!”
· Gave four mission presentations to three churches in Florence, Owensboro, and Lewisport, KY.
· Worked as a systems analyst/programmer for ZirMed in Louisville for three years.
· Kendall Optometry Ministry:
o My wife (Bobbie) and I sorted, repaired, cleaned, and measured prescriptions of 2,737 pairs of used eyeglasses and packaged them for distribution to Christian mission teams around the world.
· Worked as a systems analyst/programmer for Gardens Alive in Lawrenceburg, IN, for six years:
o Three years as an employee and three years as a contractor.
· Created and remotely maintained K2 Marine’s manufacturing and accounting software in Knoxville, Arkansas, for 23 years since 1996.
· ChildFund International:
o Sponsored Natalia Chusquillo, Emily Mideros, and Maria Fernanda Cuero (Mafer) in Ecuador from October 2011 to present. Assisting Mafer with her college costs from October 2017 to present. She is studying to become an architect. Her goal is to design low-cost housing for the poor of Ecuador.
o Promoted sponsorship of children for ChildFund at Thompson Square concerts in Kentucky and Indiana.
· Clean Water Ministry:
o Sponsored drilling of two complete water wells in Africa through Life Outreach and two more in India through Alpha Ministries.
o Donated two M-100 Chorine Generators to WaterStep for mine and Bobbie’s water treatment mission to Costa Rica. Each generator produces at least 10,000 gallons of chlorinated water per day.
o Donated seven M-100 Chlorine Generators to Owensboro Christian Church’s East Africa Mission.
o Attended training for water treatment technology, sanitation, and hygiene at WaterStep in Louisville.
Toward the bottom of that page, Audrey exclaimed to herself, “Wow!” It’s a pity that we couldn’t have ended our session right then with her uplifting response. That would’ve given me more than enough inspiration without the eventual downside. Instead, she flipped the page and continued to read the bullets outlining my accomplishments for the previous nine years:
· Sponsored 25 young girls’ escape from sexual slavery through Life Outreach’s Rescue Life Mission in Thailand.
· Visited Hospice patients throughout Louisville from September 2010 through December 2012.
· St. Benedict’s Homeless Shelter for men in Owensboro:
o Volunteered to oversee the shelter on the midnight shift for six months in 2010 and six months in 2012.
o Provided and served many meals to all the residents.
o Provided reader eyeglasses to all the residents from October 2016 to present.
· Catered several meals for all the women and children at Crossroads to Hope Homeless Shelter in Owensboro.
· Helped serve meals at the Mary Rose Mission in Florence, KY.
· Provided companionship to elderly and disabled residents at the Bridge Point Nursing Home in Florence, KY.
· Ran five official half marathons (Derby Mini Marathon in Louisville four times and the Hatfield and McCoy Reunion Half Marathon in Goody, Kentucky) and six unofficial half marathons, along with many 10-mile, 10K, and 5K races.
· Jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet three times.
· Writing my autobiography of short-story memoirs, No Iguana Business, from November 2014 to present:
o Purpose – To share my journey through alcoholism and bipolar disorder to serving Jesus Christ as a Christian medical missionary.
o Bobbie instigated and has collaborated with me in writing my memoirs.
o Completed 659 pages thus far (173,002 words); 57 stories done, 64+ to go.
Audrey looked up at me and declared, “That’s something you’ll never catch me doing—jumping out of an airplane!”
“I was terrified the first time.”
She set the papers down. “You’re a perfect example of someone with high intelligence, mania, and good intentions.”
Like a puppy dog, anxious to please and equally as anxious to be praised for being a good boy, I continued to share my accomplishments with Audrey by giving her my “Accomplishments and Plans” document covering the six months since I last saw Dr. Perry. As she read, I said, “After my recovery from alcoholism and bipolar disorder, I felt drawn to help others who have no one there for them. All of the psychiatrists before you—Doctor Vance, Doctor Basit, Doctor Harmon, and Doctor Perry—played a part in eliciting what you have read. They all inspired me tremendously. I like being inspired!”
She glanced up from the document, saying, “I hope I won’t be a downer for you.”
And she wasn’t—for the time being.
When she finished reading the document, she asked, “You plan to celebrate your second fifth anniversary in Mexico?”
“Yes, we divorced in 2009 after seven years and remarried in 2014, so we are going to celebrate our second fifth. Our divorce was all about my alcoholism and workaholism. I didn’t realize that alcohol was my medication for my bipolar disorder that I didn’t know I had. Alcohol chopped the top off my mania episodes and prevented me from completing the cycle into depression. My alcoholism also ensured that my mania didn’t get totally out of control. I never experienced depression. Then I stopped drinking and plunged into suicidal depression. I just wanted to die. Nine years ago, Doctor Vance prescribed lithium for me, and my metaphorical F-16 has cruised smoothly and swiftly ever since. Bobbie and I have a fabulous relationship now. We have a blast going on Christian medical missions together and working on my memoirs.”
I went on to tell Audrey all about how Bobbie called me at Cocoa Beach from Commonwealth Aluminum for software assistance back in 2002, how she became the editor for my first book, how I fell in love with her from the inside-out, asked her to marry me sight-unseen, took her to the Bahamas in my boat, and married her in Freeport.
“After reading those lists of my accomplishments, I’m well aware that you may be skeptical,” I supposed.
“I’m not skeptical about any of it,” she emphasized.
“Just in case...” I handed her my distinctive design for the cover of my book of short-story memoirs titled, No Iguana Business.
“No Iguana Business?”
Click here to read the conclusion of “Buzzard Roost”
Ron