From the journal of Rebecca Martin, June 21

June 21, 2017

     I can't believe we lost Brad. It's like a century of time just disappeared and things that used to kill us that we thought we'd conquered are killers again. The flu, pneumonia, water born illnesses, food born ones, too. Illnesses that we were able to cure with antibiotics and other medicine. We were able to keep people alive with machines through illnesses until they got passed the worst symptoms and were able to recover. We had pills for high cholesterol, heart disease, intestinal tract diseases, hell, we even had pills for people who couldn't sleep or people who couldn't stop falling asleep.

     Now, you can die of anything and everything! Any disease or illness someone had before all of this began could be deadly. A small cut could get infected and kill you. You could drink bad water and die of a intestinal bug that dehydrates you to the point of death. It's like being back on the frontier and have no modern medicine. And even if you do have some medicine, it's only good for so long.

Marvin Alexander

     Our elderly have been really helpful to the rest of us since they lived in a time when some of the same things were deadly, before modern medicine. Marvin told this horrible story of his neighbor as a child who died from bad water. He saw his neighbor basically shit himself to death and it took a week for it to kill him. He said the guy raved near the end, when he was so dehydrated he was out of it, raved about seeing all the people he knew who'd died. He said they visited him when he was alone and talked to him about what was going to happen. It was traumatizing to Marvin, especially since during the same time his family was dying of tuberculosis, one by one.

Walter Mandel

     Walter told us about his aunt who drank bad milk and died milk sickness. It's when dairy cows eat white snakeroot. It causes appetite loss, weakness, vague pains, muscle stiffness, trembling, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, severe constipation, bad breath, coma and possibly death. Some people recovered from it but not completely and a lot of people who got milk sickness never got better at all. His aunt died from it but and she lived in their house, so he watched it all happen.

Ginger Leigh

     Ginger talked more about losing her mom, brother and sister to tuberculosis. She talked about playing board games with her siblings while they were in bed, because it was all they could do. They couldn't run and play, they couldn't even play on the floor with dolls or blocks. They had to stay in bed and keep warm and not over exhaust themselves. She remembered that her mother was the first to get sick, but outlived both her sick kids. She talked about her loss and her mothers heartache that she watched the two young kids die. She talked about her father being broken after the three of them died and how she was sent to live with her mother's sister because her father never recovered from it all.

Ralph Stephenson

     Ralph talked about other family members who died of illnesses that became treatable. His aunt who died of the flu, his cousin who died from milk sickness, his pastor who died from cholera. He spoke about watching people die in the home before there were hospitals to take them to. He talked about his father, who probably had congestive heart failure, but there was no doctor to treat him.

     Then we all talked about loosing people and how long it can take to get over the initial grief. We are probably going to stay here tomorrow as well, then we'll figure out how we're going to approach the Greenbrier. Please, let there be other good people surviving there!

As a writer and artist, I appreciate any readers and their comments. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan collective, Raven's Castle Creations, on our website at www.ravencastlecreations.com. It includes posts on art, the mythology of symbols we use in our art, history and more! Also, come see the art we produce in our Etsy store at etsy.com/shop/RavenCastleCreations. Follow us on Twitter at @ravencastleart and on Facebook at @ravencastlecreations.