Barbara's Birthday Party

Dave and  Barbara at Applebee's

David R Long
I am so sad to say that after 7 months of not being able to see Barbara or even to talk to her, on Saturday, January 16th my darling Barbara passed away.  I never did get to talk to her but I know that she knew that I loved her and that she loved me.  On Thanksgiving day of 2025 I received a voice mail from her and she closed with I Love You.  That was the last thing I ever heard from her.  I know that she is looking down on me and that she is with GOD and waiting for me to join her.  God Bless her and may she Rest In Peace!

In August of 2024 Barbara decided to visit her daughter in El Cajon, California which was supposed to be for a week or so.  Well it didn't work out that way because her daughter Cindy got an Order of Protection from the Arizona Court placed against me and claimed I abused Barbara which was totally unfounded.  Subsequently, on September 4th the Sheriff showed up and served the Order and gave me 15 minutes to leave the house.  As I had nowhere to go I had to spend the night at a VA shelter and on my Birthday, Sept. 5th I flew to Indiana to temporarily live with my daughter Stacey in Charlestown Indiana.

For the next 7 months I was unable to contact Barbara either in person, or call her on the phone or even text her or write a letter to her.  Cindy took Barbara's phone away from her, would not let her talk to any of her friends, or go to Church or speak to her minister, or any of her neighbors in Arizona. On March 25th, I got a call from her other daughter Shell and she told me that Barbara had passed away.  She gave me no other information other than to say that she could not talk to me and hung up.

The interesting thing was that I called to Superior Court in Arizona and they told me that the Order of Protection had been dismissed way back in January 16th but did not say why.  So, not knowing where she died or why she died or what happened to her after her death, I spend 3 weeks on the phone with every Coroners Office  in El Cajon, San Diego, Las Vegas, Prescott Valley and Prescott, Arizona and none of them had heard of  her which was strange because when a person dies the coroner is the first do know of it.  But after 3 weeks I tried one last time and called the Mericopa County Coroner's office and finally found out that Barbara had in fact died in Tempe, Arizona.

They also told me everything about where, when and how she died. which funeral home she was send to.  After all of that I also learned that the Order of Protection had been dismissed on January 16tth and now I know why,  That was the actual day that Barbara passed away, and it took her daughter until March 25th to call and tell me about her passing.

It is a sad day when people can treat another human being with so much disdain but that is what her daughters not only did to me but to their Mother. They did it to get me out of the house so they could sell it and get the money.  I know no other reason.

February 21st was a significant day because that was the day that we had arranged to me to fly to Arizona for 5 days to retrieve all of my personal possessions, including all of the tools in the 3 car garage. I was there for the 5 days, and had to stay at a hotel, and while I was there I asked Shell how Barbara was doing and she only responded with two words, "She's fine" and that was all she would say about her.  That day was significant, not because I had arrived on that day to retrieve my things, but I found out from the information that the county coroner's office gave me that February the 21st was the very day that Barbara was CREMATED and I know now that Shell and Candy and Cindy had lied about everything to me, and to the courts, and to the funeral home.

I also learned the in Arizona you can get an Order of Protection issued without any proof or abuse or misconduct but only request it and it will be granted,  That certainly is not the case in Indiana where you have to prove and document the allegations or the Order will be denied.

I miss Barbara terribly and I think of her every day.  We lived together for 18 years and we Married for 8 years and we were very happy together until Barbara started to exhibit signs or dementia which at the time I did not recognize it happening to her.

A lot of this is behind me now and I'm living in my own apartment in Charlestown, Indiana only minutes away from my family, Stacey, Angie, and Rodney so I will go on with my life and pray that when it comes time for me to follow her I will see her again.

Here is the last message that Barbara sent on Thanksgiving Day 2024. It was the last time I heard her voice after 7 months of being denied calling her, or texting her of seeing her.  I will never forget how much this message means to me. I could not call her back because of an Order of Protection that her daughters got the courts to impose on me so I had no choice but to wait until the Order Of Protection was removed or I could have been arrested to violating it.

Not calling her back was the hardest thing I could have endured and I never did get to even talk to her before she passed away.

This issue is not over. People can't treat another person this way with lies and deceit and expect to get away with it.  I assure you, they won't get away with it.

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So now, on with my story about my life.

I  started thinking when I was in grade school that I was not really capable of much because my grades were never very good. That continued all the way through High School. My best subjects were Art, and Music. All the other classes were seemingly too difficult for me and thus my school record was pretty bad. I think I graduated with a C average and was linked over 100 out of a class of about 120.
I just had so much trouble doing my homework that I usually took books home to do the homework but I would either fall asleep or get so frustrated I would just close the book and not do anything until the next day.
I would do most of my homework before class started which only gave me a

bout 10 minutes to do all of my work for the days lessons. I didn't realize it at the time but that w

as to be the norm for me to learn at an accelerated pace and not be slowed down by a day's routine toward learning. It totally changed my life but not until much later after I had graduated.
Also as I now know and remember that  since I was born on September 5th and school started on September 6th,  that meant that I was a full  year younger that most of my classmates. That fact alone put me in learning environment that I don't think I was quite ready for but that also turned out to be a blessing later.
When I graduated from High School in 1959 from Washington High School in Washington Indiana I joined the Navy instead of even trying to go to college

because I thought college was totally out of the question for me.
I was sent to Turkey for my duty assignment and the base was very small and required a top secret clearance to even get on base. I was assigned to copy Russian C

ode. I had a lot of time on my hands and there was not much to do on base so I enrolled in some college level classes through correspondence courses and much to my surprise I did very well. In fact I did great. I aced all of the courses and completed them in just a few months

instead of years.
What I discovered was that my study habits in high school was so bad that it was caused by having to study at the speed of the class. In the Navy, and studying subjects like Algebra, Geometry, and other subjects that I skipped in high school because I thought that the would be too difficult for me turned out to be very easy because I could study at my own speed. Instead of trying to learn things that in high school that took days to cover I could learn it in one or two nights of study at my own pace.
What a revelation and a surprise.
After that experience when I got out of the Navy I went to work for my Father in Louisville, Ky driving

our little VW delivering processed film from my Dad's Photographic Processing Lab to various drug stores around Louisville. I went to Radio School and became a Radio Announcer and was hired on at the local radio station in Washington, Indiana WAMW/WFM

L.
I worked there for a few years and then one day I was driving through the countryside and saw a sign that said AIRPORT and turned in and little did I know that trip to the Airport would be a life changing event for me.