James Randall Chumbley's Blog: Alabama Snow

“A lie cannot be untold—and for that, I will have my glorious revenge. Then, I will bathe my soul in the blood of my enemy. But remember, as the cold sharp steel of my justice pierces your heart while you look into my eyes, it was that lie, like the others that made me into this monster.”

James-Randall Chumbley

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Ownership: James Randall Chumbley
Soon to be released.
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Under My Beautiful Flesh: a journey out of darkness
James Randall Chumbley
Not yet released

Excerpt: Bang, Bang You Shot Me Dead

I was five and he was six.
We rode on horses made of sticks.
He wore black and I wore white.
He would always win the fight.
Bang bang; he shot me down.
Bang bang; I hit the ground.
Bang bang, that awful sound.
Bang bang; my baby shot me down.
Bang Bang
by Sonny Bono

The first week of June felt like summer had already set in for weeks, but that was no big surprise — I’d spent so many summers in the South — too many, for that matter. Spring had been cut short by twenty-one days — exactly the number until the summer solstice, and my fifty-fourth birthday. If you know anything about the South, you are aware the summertime air hangs palpably hot and dense with humidity. For that, this early June day, already felt like the middle of August, with daily temperatures hitting the nineties.

I felt thick, sweaty, humid, and physically sick. With each breath, I struggled to find oxygen in the viscous-gummy air — more like chunky mucus, I laboriously inhaled it through my nose, down into my lungs. The crying I’d done, on and off, that morning didn’t help, stopping up my nasal cavities like a feverish summer cold.

By stark contrast, walking through the doors leading into The Superior Court of Fulton County, State of Georgia — the sudden swoosh — total envelopment — of blessed electromechanical air conditioning — without which invention and proliferation, the South would be neither populated, civilized, socialized, nor commercialized — brought immediate physical relief and mental clarity to this day: June 9, 2009 — the very day that would send my life spiraling downward, out-of-control, changing every fraction of it forever.

All rights reserved.
Ownership: James Randall Chumbley

“I know we all see many things differently or to varying degrees, but there has to be a rope of consciousness of what is authentically right and what is wrong that circles the world; there for any of us to grab a hold of — when we are of the mind knowing we must do what is right not only for our souls but for the good of all people.”

James Randall Chumbley

Recent Reader Reviews from Amazon.com on "Alabama Snow."

I'm so appreciative of those who have read my third book, "Alabama Snow." I hope by sharing my mother's story and a bit of what happened to me in early 2009, I have helped other people who deal with mental illness. I know from numerous emails, Facebook messages, and letters there are many people out there that struggle every day in silence and are afraid to let their family members and their closest friends know what they are dealing with due to the many stigmas associated with the disease. Those false stigmas prevent some people from even seeking help which can lead to a disastrous end.

5.0 out of 5 stars
Such revealing honesty and laying it all out for others to see is not an easy task. I am sure others can empathize with ...

ByR. Hortmanon January 12, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition

James Randall Chumbley's heart-wrenching portrayal of his mother and family dynamics is not for the faint of heart. Such revealing honesty and laying it all out for others to see is not an easy task. I am sure others can empathize with the dysfunction he brings forth and the lost desires we have for our departed family members. My soul resonated with the author as he closely mirrored images of my own family. This is a powerful book that can stir your own life. This book is evident of the great love that a son and his mother possess no matter the circumstances or what separates us in life or death.

5.0 out of 5
starsMental Illness is very real!
ByAmazon Customeron December 12, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

There are so many things I can say about this book but you have to read it to really appreciate the honesty and rawness that the author put into it. Anyone that is willing to bring a story like this out of the darkness gets 5 stars!!! This book is an eye-opener into the dark and painful world of mental illness, alcoholism and much more. I applaud James for his courage. He tells his story with no apology as he should. Mental illness alone is still so taboo in our society and it should not be. Almost everyone I know has or knows someone that has had or is currently dealing with some type of mental illness. It is very real and education is the first step in bringing this out of the closet so to speak. Again, a book that MUST be read.

James-Randall Chumbley


Why do the birds fly so high
How is it that the waves never cease to wash the shore
I dreamed of you last night
Why
We once lay side by side
That was so long ago
I was young
You were so strong
So many things we planned
I never feared the dark until you left

The snow fell so gently that day
And all through the night
So quiet and white
All seemed to be okay
But, I guess not
You left
I stayed
But your footprints remained

Three days
In the snow
I saw them through the window
On the fourth day – they were gone
The sun melted them, as if they were never there
I did not miss you until then
Until
Until your footprints were gone

Now, another morning looms
The night has almost gone
I can breathe a sigh of relief
One tear rolls down my cheek to the corner of my mouth
Just one
I seldom cry anymore
No point

Spring will be here soon
Perhaps I will spend it by the sea
The birds will come again
Everything will be fresh
It is life’s way – to start anew
But I still wonder
Where you have gone

I’ve done a lot of emotional healing over the past eight years. In the process, I barely made it to this point alive and breathing. The important thing is: that I’m still breathing. There have been several different psychiatrist and therapist over that span of years, as there have been medications. Some of those Mental Health Professionals have been worth their weight in gold, while others have no business trying to help anyone get through or around a trauma. I’ve always asked each one of them two questions before I was willing to share any part of what’s harboring in my soul.

1.) Have you ever suffered from depression or any other mental health issue?
2.) Have you ever thought about and/or tried to take your life?

A few told me they didn’t wish to share that with me, while others had. Needless to state, the few that wouldn’t answer my two questions — didn’t get the gig. Why did I want to know? Because, regardless of the diplomas hanging on their walls I knew if they were fortunate enough not to have had to face a mental health crisis, then no matter how many years they spent on getting those diplomas and how many case studies they had read and patients they counseled, they would never truly know what living in darkness was like and I had to be sure they understood that — that they didn’t personally know, but it didn’t mean I didn’t think they couldn’t help me. In fact, two Mental Health Professionals that had never known such darkness helped me greatly understand a lot about myself.

Over those years, I’ve shared some of it on Social Media as I have in my first and third books. There are those who have questioned why I would be so open and thought it was TMI (Too Much Information) and I’ve shared too much. But, that’s okay. Those that have thought as much can think that but I know in sharing, I’ve helped other people and that was the point. Being so open was never for wanting any one to feel sorry for me or for attention — it was to be a voice, especially for my mother whose voice, as her dreams, were silenced and destroyed by my father’s reign of terror. It’s because of what I witness her endure, and my own pain that I wanted to save the world. Of course, then my world was very small and it was my mother. That little boy’s desire to save the world has been wedged in my heart to this day.

When my fourth book “Under My Beautiful Flesh” finally makes it to print, it will be the last one I write that has anything to do with the four darkest years of my life beginning in January of 2009 or the dysfunction of my family or the violence and abuse I managed to live through as a child and how all of it has shadowed me and is one huge knot in my gut. With that stated, I know nothing that has happened to me hasn’t happened to other people — but again, it was to be a voice in the crowd.

If I’m on the earth long enough, I’m actually going back to a book project I started before I wrote my third book “Alabama Snow.” Ironically, it’s a love story spanning twenty-something years between two men. The irony is that I’m not by any means an authority on love but it’s a fiction write, so I figure I will just make it up as I go. There will be no details or truths to stick to, just fiction on what I think love is like for two people. “Under My Beautiful Flesh” however, will shock some people to the point they may see me in a different light — certainly one of varying intensities of how they may have once thought of me as a person to the degree their opinion of me will most likely be different when and if they make it to the last page.

I started writing so openly because I got to a point in my life — in my early thirties — that I couldn’t keep up the façade of a golden boy with a good childhood in my rear view mirror anymore and I couldn’t keep all the ugliness pushed deep down inside of me. It was coming up and out one way or another like a hardy dinner after a drinking binge of mixing wine, beer, and Diet Coke. Don’t do it — the mixture that is. Just trust me on this one. It’s not pretty.

All the pain and trauma from that childhood had begun eating me alive from the inside out. I started writing in hopes of getting all of it out of me. It became my first book, “In the Arms of Adam: a diary of men.” I never planned on that diary filled with anguish and sex and blood ever becoming a book. It was because of the encouragement of a dear friend, Susan — with whom I shared my writing. She told me, after getting over the shock I’d kept so many bad experiences secret, to keep writing because she believed by doing so it would help some people. It was also because of another friend, Charlie, who before he died from complications of AIDS, told me to let more people know the real Randy Chumbley. In fact, Charlie is the glue that holds my first book together. I no longer go by Randy anymore because of one of the things I learned about myself in therapy: Randy is that scared little boy who never got a chance to grow up but James-Randall is grown up or almost, and again he’s still breathing. I’m still figuring out if I want or need a hyphen between James and Randall.

During those four darkest years, friends had tried to counsel me, and in the process ended up saying the wrong things for the right reasons. The right reasons are they wanted me to get better and to find myself again. But, telling someone things like: get over it, buck up, don’t be so weak, find your courage, and move on are not. We are all affected by trauma in different ways that are unique to us as we process things and there is not a timeframe for the healing of those wounds — we mend differently as well and in our own time. Then there is the — “I know how you feel, but ...” No, they don’t know how someone feels until that someone’s heart is beating in their chest — then and only then will they, doctor or friend or family member truly and completely know that someone’s soul and what that someone has gotten over and left behind, and what stays with them and why. We all share analogous heartaches, but regardless of how similar they may be — they are idiosyncratic to each of us and they belong to no one else.”

The one valuable thing I have learned through the long process of finding myself again is: Sometimes it takes great courage just to breathe and nothing else. It’s okay to just breathe for a time until you can find it in yourself to get to a better place — a healthier place.

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful young woman with a delicate smile

ByCalifornia Dreamin'on June 6, 2017

Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

With Alabama Snow, author James-Randall Chumbley has written a very powerful book, one that tells the story of Mary Ellen Rushing, a beautiful young woman with a delicate smile, growing up poor on a cotton farm in rural Alabama. She holds fast to childhood’s innocent dream of promises yet to come, of someday escaping her life of rural poverty, of attending college and perhaps becoming a singer. Instead, an early marriage to a handsome Army soldier leads to a life of suffering, tormented by extreme physical abuse, alcoholism and a heart-wrenching, lifelong struggle with mental illness. That beautiful young woman with a delicate smile, Mary Ellen Rushing, is the author’s mother.

Alabama Snow is a riveting and honestly brutal testament of dreams, hope, strength, courage and personal pain. James-Randall Chumbley’s writing style is realistic and clear when the trauma of life-changing events occurs and when buried family secrets are revealed, including those tragic events in Mary Ellen’s life that led to her being institutionalized and enduring electroshock treatment and drug therapy. There are strong, vividly clear scenes in the book where emotions will catch in your throat because of the impending premonition of what is about to happen, or where words on the pages become blurry because of welled-up tears.

Alabama Snow illustrates how the pain of emotional and physical trauma can impact not only an individual but also the extended family, as in James-Randall’s own emotional journey in retelling his past. James-Randall Chumbley is a man with an amazing heart; Alabama Snow is his gift of hope to his readers of the book as well as to those individuals and families who have been affected by mental illness. I highly recommend it.

Hello Everyone!

I'm starting a scholarship foundation in my mother's name: The Mary Ellen Rushing Chumbley Scholarship Foundation. It is to help students in the state of Alabama with college expenses that are studying in the field of Mental Health. All my royalities from the sale of new copies of Alabama Snow go to the foundation. The book is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com and also in ebook. Thank you so much for your support!

James Chumbley.

5.0 out of 5 stars
ALL PRAISE
ByAmazon Customeron October 27, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
All praise to the book Alabama Snow by Author James Randall Chumbley. It kept my attention for a long time. It was a deeply moving emotional story about James Randall Chumbley's family growing up. I would highly recommend it to my friends.

Love Miss Marsha Clogston
Montgomery AL

5.0 out of 5 stars
Alabama Snow a very good Book!
ByTerion October 23, 2015
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Alabama Snow is a very good read about a family's struggles and tragedies. It brought tears to my eyes several times. This was written from the heart by a boy who loved his mother and she her children. She did the best she could under her circumstances as a lot of our mothers did. Anyone who has dealt with mental or emotional illness in themselves or family members can relate to the pain he writes about in this book. One person's struggles can impact so many others.

James goes back to his mother's childhood and uncovers family secrets that impacted her life as well as the next generations. I hope in writing about this he has found some peace with his past. I am sure his Mother would be so proud of him and his accomplishments.

I will be reading James Randall Chumbley's other books soon. and recommending this one to my friends.

5.0 out of 5 stars
Honest, raw, and impactful!!
Bywallison April 27, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This may be the most impactful book I have ever read. I could not put this book down until I finished reading it, and then I read it again. My head and heart are still spinning! The author reveals a riveting, honest, and raw story of his family, focusing on his mother and her lifelong struggle with mental illness. The relationships in the family are complex and the bond and love between mother and son remain well after her death. It provides tremendous insight into the workings of the mind and relationships, while bringing up even more questions. This book needs to be read!!

Three new recent reviews on amazon.com.