Story by Jim Smith. Art by Raoul Pascual

Prologue

It is my intention to help readers to understand the plight of the poor, the homeless and the ‘mentally ill.’ With special attention; never showing your power over another with bullying. The people in the article are real, but their names are fictitious.

Color this cathartic: It is my story which will never change.

Chapter One

My psychiatrist and therapist told me that this personal narrative must be preserved.

The back story begins seven months ago when I woke up to the sound of my wife’s scream. Here name is Laura. From that morning on, I knew I would never be the same again and take Laura, my wife for 42 years, for granted. I must become a REAL husband who loves his spouse more than himself. And will do everything in a power to help her, easing her from the physical and emotional pain.

Laura was experiencing intense pain in her spinal cord. The groans and muffled screams continued for five long months. She would wander around the house, bumping into the walls, sometimes saying that she thought she was dying.

We went to the hospital many times and had many different examinations. It was determined that she had a pinched nerve in the base of her spine, but no specialists could determine why the relentless pain would not subside without triggered shots of steroids. Once the triggered shots had run their course, the excruciating pain would continue. But later, a bone density examination revealed seven cracked ribs and a broken one. Since then, Laura decided not to have further trigger shots, and through diligent stretching, exercise, and prayer; the pain has almost dissipated.

Laura is very private and not an exhibitionist; in particularly, she did not want her siblings to know about her spinal pain. Some of her siblings live in small farming areas in in Central Washington State, and some are religious cultists. As Laura and I have completely different values; we attempt to approach a person with equality, regardless of race, career, and religion, we are despised. Often a U.S. Hispanic person would be simply dismissed as a Mexican of the migrant variety by some of Laura’s relatives.

These relatives – two sibling and the cyber bullying brother-in-law – view Laura as an anti-Christian, a wayward liberal urban elitist who moved to the big godless city of Los Angeles. Even worse, she is married to me, Jim Smith; a native Seattleite, who was trying to ‘make it’ in Hollywood. When we visit them in Central Washington they pray loudly. Laura privately prays, aware that praying out loud is more of a performance, seeking praise as an actor, rather than expressing true words of thanks to God.

The debacle

As Laura is a very private person, she did not want anyone besides me and her doctors/specialists to know of this ordeal. I broke my oath to her. I needed support and prayers from close friends and family who really do love her and even those who don’t.

It was a heavy load for me to carry on my own

Against my best intentions, I also informed each of her four Christian siblings and three in-laws of her unrelenting pain, begging them to privately pray for Laura. This was difficult, requesting that they pray without her knowing it.

Laura’s immediate relatives live under a code of silence, where nothing negative is ever said. Occasionally we do overhear whispers about us, but generally just eyerolls and silence. It is well understood that we are not considered true Christians or even humanitarians.

The siblings have a thing called a PRAISE THE LORD. It is a thread for anyone in need of ‘Christian’ support, even though it may be someone who you have no knowledge of. The PTL chain can range from the serious – Covid and cancer to a bad cold and even praying for a kitchen appliance to be healed. Yes, faith healing a dish washer out of repair.

The spouse of Laura’s oldest sister, Joshua, is an unrepentant bully and a narcissist. He took exception to my requests for everyone to pray for her. I was stealing his thunder. He believed that he was head of this new adoptive family, and all attention should go to him. Everyone who meets him is aware of his narcissism and self-worship. His long tirades at the family tale are overbearing, how he changed someone’s life, how many pushups he did at the gym, glorified by self-videos and memes sent to us via FB or on the PTL app.

A nation of Elvis impersonators

Joshua’s two favorites: dressing in a costume of a fierce Chinese warlord, and a video of him waving a U.S. flag, while charging up a hill, inspiring citizens to follow him in battle. It was an unintentional emulation of the Aryian Übermensch, an example of the master race, climbing an Alpine Mountain with Nazi with swastika imagery. It proved to be effective with the Nazis, but for this man of ignorance who had never been in a battle, the absurdity provoked annoyance and irritation for many who were actually be in battle.

My father dropped out high school at 17, joined the Marines, and participated in D-Day the Battle of Iwo Jima and D-Day Battle of Okinawa, often said flag-wavers are jingoists, not patriots. If you’d been in a battle, it is the last think you would ever want to talk about,

Just as worse, my father was a devout Roman-Catholic, not considered a real Christian by Laura’s religious cultists siblings and in-laws.

We all felt pity for the bully, Joshua

But everyone is afraid to say anything negative about Joshua for it might hurt the feelings of the oldest sister, Delila. She is regarded to be weak, sweet and kind, but it’s easy to notice her short comments and side-glances to Joshua in condescension of us. A farewell back to Southern California generally closed with; “Will pray for you, John.” But, strangely never to Laura; only to me, a non-blood relative.

For Joshua, silence meant free reign for more boasting. Sure, this has been happening for 42 years, since the marriage to the oldest sister, Delila. This has been the main problem; silence so it doesn’t cause hurt feeling to the sister, Delila, even though she brought him into ‘the family’ – a family who offered unconditional love. The only love he had experienced prior to that was self-love and self-admiration.

So, as my prayer requests came in for Laura, the bullying brother-in-law, Joshua, posted a photo of himself, bare-chested, staring with vengeance and with threats of rage on Laura’s FB page.

I believe what set him off, his banishment from my wife’s family’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day family tables in Central Washington. This is where she generally holds court as the de facto head of Laura’s Washington family. He had no choice to spend the holidays at his rental home in Idaho. Maybe the message of his ill repute was beginning to unravel.

The Sunday attack happened in the evening on a Sunday night when Laura was suffering with unrelentless spinal pain. I had just helped her into bed, set her up with an ice pack, and suggested she should relax and look at her FB account. As she clicked her account on her phone, her body jolted, and her spine hit the wall behind the bed when she saw the unimaginable photograph. She quietly deleted the photo, hoping I wouldn’t notice it. I managed a quick look and realized it was Joshua’s way to get me to stop with updates about Laura progress to her family.

It was the photo of Joshua, bare-chested, staring with vengeance and with threats of rage on Laura’s FB page.

I have only seen reincarnations of the Devil in magazines, cartoons, TV and in movies. But to see someone you know such as Joshua, taking on that personification was horrific. I mean, he wanted to be the Devil. The bullying meme was pathetic, but also powerful for this person would think it would silence me from updates and pleads for everyone to pray for Laura.

I did my best not to appear upset. So, after Laura finally slept, I quietly went into our living room at 11 PM, sending messages to her siblings, demanding to know how they could allow such a terrible thing to happen. How could they admire and respect such a dubious man. His history is dreadful, almost unimaginable. But the unimaginable code of silence remained.

I called (what I thought) the more sane brother … the executor of her family’s will. He’s a busy guy, who works midnight hours. I stayed awake for 46 hours waiting for an answer that never came. I then phoned Laura’s’ youngest sister and husband, who answered my call. Once they made sense of my erratic outrage, they said they would consider flying down to our home in Los Angeles to protect Deb. I said it was not necessary; all that was needed was to stop the cyberbullying of Joshua, but that was not even considered.

During the long wait, I wrote a 40-hour narrative on my mobile phone of the recent event, exclaiming all what had happened to Laura, asking for some kind of mercy, sanity. But all I got back was a virus on my phone from the narcissistic bullying brother-in-law, Joshua, who had managed to cripple my phone so I could not send the testimonial and contact anyone in the PTL chain.

In the morning, I contacted Laura’s youngest brother. He said he was not about tearing anyone down and spoke with admiration of Joshua. I begged him not to tear anyone down but help build a wall to protect Laura. The call abruptly ended.

This was crushing. As it turned out, Laura’s siblings and in-law had more sympathy for Joshua, the cyber bully, than for her. I was stunned by this. They were all raised the same way with the same values of their Christian parents. How could they side with a manipulating son-in-law, Joshua, with his crude prose and pantomime over the honor of their true sister.

Was I going insane?

Stay tuned for Chapter Two.