5- Interviewing Pierre on his no drinking, smoking, drugging, and overeating policy in the afterlife

Pam thought it would be fun to interview Pierre, and Doc wanted to go in that direction, too, so he wanted me to ask him questions. I asked him a few but to tell the truth I have not got too comfortable interviewing a spirit on camera. Maybe later on when I get used to Pierre being around without thinking he is here to take me, I will be able to interview him further about what he is doing.
Today we learned more about him because we played a video of the last Halloween karaoke party we had. We watched the New Years one yesterday. In this Halloween one Pierre sang a lot of songs, and I sang quite a few with him but I was very nervous and did not do too well of course. I had on this black flapper party dress for my costume. It was a great dress but my legs looked like logs.
Well, after watching that Doc was determined he would outdo Pierre, so we sang karaoke this afternoon. The best one he did was the Ella Fitzgerald hit On the Sunny Side of the Street. Since Doc loves jazz singers he loves Ella Fitzgerald. He is, of course, a lot more flexible singer than Pierre, but Pierre would never go out in public drunk when I knew him. So Pierre looked more impressive that way. He looked like a man who could take charge of a party and did. He, in fact, used to cook a lot of the food, too, since he liked to cook.
Pierre says he feels comfortable coming back to practice singing in the last place in his life where he lived and was responsible for so many karaoke parties. He said my struggle to get the talented Doc more active with his music has had his attention.
Tomorrow Doc has promised that he will get out his keyboard and play some of the songs in my 3 big songbooks. Yesterday I got to sing Bye, Bye, Blackbird. He said why do you want to sing that dumb song. I said, "Are you kidding, our Salt Gulch Ranch was blackbird ranch. And that song is saying goodbye to ranch life and the flocks and flocks of blackbirds." Doc is a great guide on a song because he is always reminding me to find and stay on the melody and he will come in and hum if I can't seem to get on tune. I have very little tonal memory, that is the melody does not stay in my mind very well, but songs I have heard many times I do remember fairly long parts of the melody sometimes.
After Doc saw the struggles of all the other people at the karaoke party trying to sing he decided I was just one of the crowd. He said I must say you are a persistent one. He admires me for that! When we have had a lot more practice I may put another video up of Doc singing something at least as he plays his keyboard.

Summing up at the start of the New Year

I am starting with this graphic which is one of Connie's creations of Windswept Whispers, because it reminds me of my past on the ranch with green grass, horses, and butterflies. I like to watch golf partly so I can look at the grass that reminds me of home. I am also posting it because Pierre, my former companion, knew hnow to be a good friend and to be grateful for whatever people did for him, and I got a big kick out of what happened in regard to him this past week.
He came in a dream and conveyed to me that he would be here to take up some of the lonely hours I have spent when I would leave Doc to his drink around noon. He is an ideal addition to my life since Doc can't see him to insult him and Pierre is interested in singing and these videos. He thought it quite unique to get a relationship going again with one of us in each world. I thought it was, too. I would never have thought of it if I had not had that dream and felt like I was in prison to Doc's alcoholism.
This was quite a wakeup call for Doc who has been impervious to anyone's influence in this world, but realized he could not scare Pierre off with insults, so now he is already acting like a better boy.
We have been singing every day and watching ourselves on camera to see how we do, at his instigation. Today I sang 16 songs, old ones, that have the vocals so I can follow along. Doc said I did much better with those and got on the melody better.
People wonder why I am trying to learn to sing when I have so little singing talent. Well, because Doc is musical and he takes an interest in singing. And he is now showing more interest in trying to teach me. I think we should keep learning as long as we possibly can and have opportunity. But he has just been very apathetic about doing any practicing on a regular basis.
Pierre and I used to have many many singing sessions during his sober days, and I am so happy because Pierre told me that all the ghosts who inhabit the Westward Ho, most of them having lived here a long time and died here, are getting together to have singing sessions. He said that he has found people with Doc's caliber of musical talent to help them, and that is just what Pierre needed. He had found people like that in California when he was managing big complexes with his wife. But he said his ex-wife was jealous and soon wanted to change jobs, go to some other state, anything to get away from where he was having fun. He said that she comes to the Westward Ho quite a bit now, but he has told her very firmly that their marriage is over. Her temper is much worse than his and I think that is probably what separates people in the other world as much as it does in this one. If you have been miserable in a marriage in this world, you sure aren't going to want to continue it in another world.
Doc has only been giving me a half of measure in this relaationship, expecting me to put up with his all day drinking. Pierre never expected that, and knew staying drunk was no good for him, but Doc has not got to that swearing off alcohol stage, so it was getting to be too miserable which is what I think caused Pierre to act. He has sent me warning dreams several times, and I was surprised that he had nothing to say about Doc, but I see he has been studying the situation and deciding what he could do to help me.
I know this all might sound strange to you younger journalists, but this is what seems to happen as you get older, some unusual developments as that world and departure comes closer. I hope you will find all this of interest!

3- Gerry never got around to sprinkling Pierre's ashes so she sent them to his ex-wife

Pierre had a good sense of humor so he probably laughed to think I trucked his ashes to his ex-wife because he tried to sell them to her before he died for $700 which annoyed me. I said, "Pierre are you going to be happy in an urn beside her in her family crypt?" He said, "I am going to be dead. I don't give a damn about my ashes!" I said, "I don't think she will ever send $700 for them." She did not, but she told me when I called to tell her Pierre had passed away that she still wanted his ashes. I was annoyed at her nerve, so I kept them for a year. Doc came along and insisted I needed to do something with them. I could not sprinkle them among the saguaro because Pierre always said he did not like the desert, so I finally sent them to her, and she was very happy, her daughter reported. When she died they comingled their ashes, so they are together in the crypt, but not in the after life, Pierre insists. I thought it served Pierre right for trying to sell his ashes.
By the way Doc has been so perturbed at me bringing Pierre to be in our video and saying he has come back to me, that he insisted I stay down there and sing all afternoon. He vowed he is going to treat me better, so I won't need Pierre. I said, "as needed."

1- Gerry brings spirit Pierre to be in New Years Series

Yes, I took spirit Pierre pictured with me in the big photo down to Doc's which startled him to say the least. But Doc cannot resist anything unusual so he accepted Pierre's presence in this video series. I had to tell him what Pierre was saying, but all in all I think they got along quite well. I explained that Pierre was with me now, since he, Doc, had taken just too long to sober up I knew I could not find a new man at my age in this place, so when Pierre offered to come back and take up our relationship again, I accepted. He said he has been coming through the walls for a long time anyway. I did not realize that the dead could get so involved in your life again, but he says he will be around now until I die when I need him. I could not tell who he thinks will die first, Doc or me, but I rather think it must be Doc due to his more poisonous diet. However I do know I will have to get my dying done at some point. I can't get out of it. Anyway, you will learn more about Pierre in this series.

Pierre pays a call tonight

This was a photo taken of me here around the time I met Pierre. Pierre has been around throughout the holidays, but tonight I had a dream that someone was trying to get my attention. I was in an upstairs bedroom of this old house (this old hotel). Finally the person pounded on the door so insistently I finally went down to talk to him. I could see he was not going to go away until he got through to me. He said he had been waiting there for quite a while trying to get my attention. He said he wanted to make sure I was all right, as I had been feeling kind of disconnected, but did not know what this meant. I still don't quite know, or why Pierre was so insistent in reaching me. But here is my guess. It is Doc since he is in far worse shape than I am. Pierre has come to warn me, because he knows from experience how hard it is to go through the detachment of someone close.
I had probably the most complete and best relationship with Pierre that I have ever had with a man. Pierre was kind and would not hurt anyone even when he was in pain or drunk. He would hurt them by being drunk and doing things that you did not like but he was never physically abusive. He was not in as bad a shape as Doc has been ever since I have known him, until just the last year when he was hit by lung cancer.
It is strange how people detach from life. Doc has never come back at all from the severe detachment from his feelings through alcohol. He is about as detached as a man can be without showing signs of dying, not yet. He does seem more afraid now, and has started saying he does not have long to live, but whatever he is experiencing he is hiding it.
Pierre being here is the biggest sign I have had that something is breaking. Doc must be moving into the narrows, and of course, before the illness manifests, you don't know who is in trouble, you or the other person, especially when you are both seniors.
Pierre can help me just because we were so close physically. Doc and I do not have a physical relationship at all although he does everything possible to act the part. It is hard to believe that a man who looks as good as he did in the last photo I took of him could possibly be on his way out But I know he is a hollow shell of a man. Eerie.
At this writing, Pierre is more physically connected to me than he is, although I know that Pierre has come to warn me and help me during the next few months of crisis. I know things cant go on like this forever with Doc and so does he. I have gotten over Pierre's betrayal the last year before he died. He said tonight that he is one of those men who became addicted to homosexual feelings, but did not want to be homosexual, so he took steps to move away from those feelings when he met me, but did not altogether succeed. He said tonight that my quitting the relationship when he strayed proved to him I was serious when I said no infidelity. I realized I had not really forgiven him untl tonight. He said it was very humiliating to have to accept my help during his final illness after what had happened, but I had been kind and he needed me. We were still too attached for me to cut him off at that point.
Pierre was a vigorous very intense man, which was part of his great appeal. He was also still some attached to his ex wife. It was too soon for her to let him go even though she had initiated the divorce. I think she did it because she was humiliated by the complete absence of a physical relationship with Pierre. She told us all one night in a kind of frank open chat she used to have with residents that their physical relationship had been over for two years. He told me after the divorce it was a lot longer than that, it had been ten years, but she still highly valued him, so was not willing to let him go. It was almost like she wanted to kill him so he could not be with anyone else. He acted like he was a little bit afraid she would do just that, hire someone to kill him, if he tried to cut thngs off with her completely. So she called all during our relationship atleast once or twice a week, and he always took her calls. She had made threats to have him killed which I did not take lightly, so I didn't say anything. I had never heard a woman threaten to have her husband killed that many times. Indeed that was a first. I thought that eventually she would accept their parting. She died around two years after he did, so now it sounds as though he has finally been able to sever their relationship over there. I know he no longer loved her. He said she was unfaithful to him. She helped kill the relationship as much or more than he did. But it had lasted 30 years.
We had a long talk tonight. It was very natural. We went over the past and resolved some of our troubles. He said he would be waiting for me to come. It is strange that he would be the one, but Doc and I have always been more creative partners than anything else. It was like his life with women was already over and done with when I met him, whereas Pierre's was not. There was always a strong attraction between Pierre and me, sparks, and for two years there was satisfaction, but at the same I knew that men had some attraction for him, and that could easily get out of hand. It was like I had gone my whole life in preparation to meet a man who had been corrupted into these practices, not born that way, and was willing to work to try to move away from these feelings which did not give him as much satisfaction as a relationship with a woman. Pierre proved my theory that there are some men who can move away from those practices if a woman is understanding and willing to help him do it. And also believes he can which is another very important part of the process.
Pierre quit school and went to work when he was 8 years old and here is where I think that he discovered that he could earn money if he responded to men's desires for 'boys.' I don't know the whole story because he was not ready to to tell it to me. I hope he will tell me some day, but his family was desperately poor and I think he was ready to do about anything for money. His mother could not work. Her health was too bad, and his father had abandoned the family after nearly starving them to death for years. Money had to be gotten from somewhere. I donot think his family ever realized what was happening with Pierre. But I had grown up with a lot of examples around me of boys being corrupted into these practices, so he always acted like I understood him in a way that his sisters never did or could.
His wife was living with a woman when he met her, so she had lived the lesbian life, but he said she went back to it during their marriage whenever she wanted to or felt the urge. She also had affairs with men he resented. They were similar to other couples I have seen, both straying with members of their own sex, but basically with each other, but this is a slippery slope and Pierre eventually got outraged over affairs she had with women the last few years of their marriage. He had become disabled so I think he felt powerless, and she lorded it over him with her working power. That is when I think the relationship went completely sour. At any rate he said he could hardly tolerate her anymore and was not happy. Whereas once he had quite enjoyed her.
I know that most women could not have stood this kind of drama surrounding a man but because of my background I could tolerate his troubles. Now we will see how this all plays out with Doc. I feel better now that I know that Pierre has come to be supportive. Life and death matters require intervention. That is when he could come in and be of help, and I know he would want to do it to pay me back for how I helped him to enter the other world when it was his time to go.