After a week or two of being shuffled from motel to motel, because the Salvation Army and the Red Cross could only do so much, and the churches who help (God bless them!) can only help with two days and nights each, and the calling process would begin again...I would be required to go through the whole, truly agonizing story to new churches every two days. The stress was unimaginable, and watching Kipling crying, searching, unable to console him...and then my own grief, so overwhelming. I didn't know it then, but I was suffering from an intense Post-Traumatic Disorder from the extreme shock and sudden losses. I don't doubt but that Kipling (who has been with me now for 12 years) also suffers from this. What the Fire Investigator never pushed onto the Detectives was that I had told him what I knew...that Pamela was addicted to something...something all of her neighborhood friends knew she was into, and committed this crime over... Crack. Her friends let me know after the fact that she had told them this herself, and that her boyfriend found out, and had refused to give her more money. So, after telling her friends living nearby (who never saw fit to warn us) for two solid weeks that she was going to "torch the place", she burnt down the house with everyone ELSE in it. Please forgive me. I don't mean to sound bitter...but I have suffered for over three years, so badly, because of this woman...and I feel betrayed, because my own homestate, Virginia, where I was born, raised, and paid taxes my whole life, and always loved enough to come home to, plea-bargained to get Pamela Barrett a lesser charge than she should have had to face with a jury, which I was told, she would have just been excused from due to her 'mental condition'. The Department of Corrections in VA told me last week, she is serving only a couple of years in Fluvanna Correctional Facility for Women She is due for release OCTOBER of 2003...THIS little bit of time...after taking 5 LIVES!!! After the fire, I could not function at all. The Salvation Army did help me get an apartment, but after a couple of months, I could not keep it going. I was in the pits of Hell, in my mind, and could not function even enough to save myself and Kipling. The apartment too was, again, very old and inexpensive, in a predominately minority neighborhood where animals ran about infested with enormous amounts of ticks and such all over them, starving. Again, people who did serious drugs lived around me. I could not sleep at night with the nightmares and fear of the same thing happening again, only a couple of months after it all happened. I had no gas for cooking, or heating water. No A/C in the hottest summer I can remember, and I lived upstairs....melting in the extreme humidity. About 5 months after the arson, I was finally forced by my growing, untreated illness to go to DC to live with a friend for a couple of months, and then made my way out to Texas to a dear friend who knew I would not make it without intensive emotional support at that point, alone as I was in the world now. My depression was acute, and I could not sleep at all. When I did, it was sitting up, at the computer, or falling headfirst into the monitor. Five days was the longest I went without a wink, until I was delerious with fatigue, and hallucinating badly. I don't remember how long I finally slept that time. It normally was less than 4 hours at a stretch. The computer was the only thing that could keep the demons of my own memory away, from torturing me more than I could handle. I disappeared into it. Like Puff the Magic Dragon, I sadly slipped into my cave, and I would not come out except to eat once at day at the Denny's in the parking lot of the motel I stayed in in TX for 9 months...then, I would promptly return to the motel room, where I would remain closed away until dinnertime the next day. Then after that self-isolating 9 months in Texas, after I'd started to heal a little bit, my friend Lazarus, who lived in New England, said the radio market was rife there, and I would do well if I decided to try the area. So, I took my leave of kind Texas, and came to Massachusetts. The only thing I could afford once we got here, was another ancient apartment, in a city which, I didnt know it then, is so economically-depressed that very few people can get anywhere here, or get out once they do discover this unfortunate fact. Many infirm and those on state aid do live here because it is so cheap. It is a depressing town, though the people are lovely. It's also where the infamous (and I believe, innocent) Lizzie Borden was born, raised, and supposedly committed the murders of her parents. She is buried not a mile from the place I called home for two years. Well, now, I have known from the time I was 4, that I would be writing and illustrating my beloved and fascinatingly whimsical, educational childrens' books for kids who have little exposure to wildlife and the happy life one can find in the country...and who need help to find that they can live in wonderful harmony with so many other species, through understanding and respect. Toward this end, I have moved here to Ohio to be near my co-illustrator, so that we might get this project done. It's my most fervent desire. Nothing on earth could make me happier, and provide the happiest home for these 12 worthy little cats who live with me. You can go to the next page now if you like, and meet these new little angels on earth in my loving keep..*s* *To eMail*