Time is a funny thing. So real to us that it dictates the tempo of our lives, yet so ethereal that it can slip away between your fingers like grains of sand at the beach. Both it and we have no meaning, no context for us before we are born, it has none after we are gone, and we can never get enough of it while we are.
I found out today that someone from my past, someone that, at the time and in my own, poor way I cared about, died. I don't know what killed her, or anything else except that at the time it happened I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't even notice her passing.
I don't know, maybe that's a good thing given my track record, maybe it's not. I've had friend die in the cold, bitter mountains and arid deserts of far-off lands, but there's a distance to that, both physical and emotional, that buffers the blow. But this one . . . this one strikes somewhat closer to home, literally and figuratively. There's that one small part of my soul that examines what I am, and doesn't like what it finds.
The sins of our past, our sins of commission and omission, always come back to haunt us, ghosts as ethereal and as real as the time we grapple with. We can seek refuge from them in our friends, in the arms of our lovers, in whomever we please, but that is only an illusion. We can't redeem ourselves from ourselves.
She died, and I had no idea she died. Just another ghost to stand in silent accusation, to show no mercy in my fevered dreams. The man who said that it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all was a dreamer, and a fool. Is it really? For if one never loves, than one never has to feel the exquisite pain of loss, that sharp knife that cuts so cruelly. Yet if one never loves, then one can never really call themselves human, and loss is a part of the bargain. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.
Would it have been better to have never known, to have gone on deluding myself that she was living a happy life somewhere? I truly can't answer that. All I know is that it feels like another part of my life has been chipped away, that I should have paid more attention before it was lost beyond recall.
Ultimately, we can't hide from the sins of our past. No matter how many times we stand before those ghosts and plea mea culpa, there is no judgment that will satisfy them and wash away the guilt. The evil we do under the Sun comes back to inhabit our nights, and all that we do is all that we will ever do.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday's Child
Friday is finally over. Goodbye, and good riddance to it.
As hard as I try to wish that day away, it just keeps coming, like some nemesis out of an old, dusty myth. And, like that nemesis, it is as equally unforgiving. There have been thirty-four of these days so far but, I think, the ones that arrive on their yearly date on a Friday are the most poignant.
My father died on the third Friday of May in 1976, a Friday just like yesterday. Thirty-four years and, somehow, the scar tissue never formed, that wound is just as raw as the morning I found his body in our living room. Since I looked into his eyes and saw eternity staring back at me, the impossible, bottomless emptiness of forever.
That morning he taught me the last lesson he would ever teach me, and perhaps it was a lesson that no child should ever learn. As God wills, insh'Allah, maybe it's all just random chance, maybe it's not. When my friends and peers were still safely living out the last days of their childhood, I was pondering the last of our days. Personally, I would have preferred to remain blithely ignorant for a while longer.
All that remains of my father are a few old photographs, and a warm, vaguely comforting sense of great warmth. I remember specific incidents, but I have long ago forgotten what his voice sounded like, the smell of his aftershave, even the features of his face. I remember him holding me in his arms on the deck of a car ferry travelling to Michigan, the irrational fear that he would drop me over the side, his reassurances that he would never do that. I remember sitting in a back room of his office suite as he saw his patients, surrounded by model kits to keep me busy. I remember him walking me to school every morning and that day, shortly before he died when, with a wisp of nostalgia in his voice, he lamented the fact that I was probably too old to kiss him goodbye. And I remember talking to him on the phone every night, before I went to bed.
I talked to him the night before he died, too, and the bitch of it is that I knew what was going to happen. It would be easy, I suppose, to write that off as hindsight, as the confusion of a long-ago memory, but for the fact that when I hung up that phone, I knew that I would never speak to him again.
I wanted to call him back, to tell him, to plead with him to do something; what, I don't know, and what exactly does a child say to a parent at that moment? I wanted to call him back, to hear his voice just one more time, but I talked myself out of it, shook that cold feeling of dread off, and went to sleep. Perhaps the last peaceful night of sleep I ever had, for the next morning, on that Friday, the world irrevocably changed for me.
I should have done it; I should have called him back, and I will bear the burden of not having done so until the day I, too, shall end. Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not, but it is real and just as heavy as the one Atlas bore. My father would have been 91 this September, and maye he would have been if only I had been a better son.
Thirty-four years, and that knife still twists just as exquisitely as the day I found him. I miss him terribly, and I've spent a lifetime trying to redeem the irredeemable. But, somehow, I've found that while I can put the broken pieces of other people back together, the shards of my own soul have been shattered beyond recall. My father would have hated that, which means I've failed him yet again.
Of all the days in the year, I detest this one the most. Some people wonder what they would do if they only had the time to correct just one mistake. I've never had to ask myself that question. I love you, dad, and I miss you, and I'm sorry.
As hard as I try to wish that day away, it just keeps coming, like some nemesis out of an old, dusty myth. And, like that nemesis, it is as equally unforgiving. There have been thirty-four of these days so far but, I think, the ones that arrive on their yearly date on a Friday are the most poignant.
My father died on the third Friday of May in 1976, a Friday just like yesterday. Thirty-four years and, somehow, the scar tissue never formed, that wound is just as raw as the morning I found his body in our living room. Since I looked into his eyes and saw eternity staring back at me, the impossible, bottomless emptiness of forever.
That morning he taught me the last lesson he would ever teach me, and perhaps it was a lesson that no child should ever learn. As God wills, insh'Allah, maybe it's all just random chance, maybe it's not. When my friends and peers were still safely living out the last days of their childhood, I was pondering the last of our days. Personally, I would have preferred to remain blithely ignorant for a while longer.
All that remains of my father are a few old photographs, and a warm, vaguely comforting sense of great warmth. I remember specific incidents, but I have long ago forgotten what his voice sounded like, the smell of his aftershave, even the features of his face. I remember him holding me in his arms on the deck of a car ferry travelling to Michigan, the irrational fear that he would drop me over the side, his reassurances that he would never do that. I remember sitting in a back room of his office suite as he saw his patients, surrounded by model kits to keep me busy. I remember him walking me to school every morning and that day, shortly before he died when, with a wisp of nostalgia in his voice, he lamented the fact that I was probably too old to kiss him goodbye. And I remember talking to him on the phone every night, before I went to bed.
I talked to him the night before he died, too, and the bitch of it is that I knew what was going to happen. It would be easy, I suppose, to write that off as hindsight, as the confusion of a long-ago memory, but for the fact that when I hung up that phone, I knew that I would never speak to him again.
I wanted to call him back, to tell him, to plead with him to do something; what, I don't know, and what exactly does a child say to a parent at that moment? I wanted to call him back, to hear his voice just one more time, but I talked myself out of it, shook that cold feeling of dread off, and went to sleep. Perhaps the last peaceful night of sleep I ever had, for the next morning, on that Friday, the world irrevocably changed for me.
I should have done it; I should have called him back, and I will bear the burden of not having done so until the day I, too, shall end. Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not, but it is real and just as heavy as the one Atlas bore. My father would have been 91 this September, and maye he would have been if only I had been a better son.
Thirty-four years, and that knife still twists just as exquisitely as the day I found him. I miss him terribly, and I've spent a lifetime trying to redeem the irredeemable. But, somehow, I've found that while I can put the broken pieces of other people back together, the shards of my own soul have been shattered beyond recall. My father would have hated that, which means I've failed him yet again.
Of all the days in the year, I detest this one the most. Some people wonder what they would do if they only had the time to correct just one mistake. I've never had to ask myself that question. I love you, dad, and I miss you, and I'm sorry.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Over the Rainbow
My mother would have been 83 today.
Somehow, I doubt that she would have enjoyed being that old, or at least being reminded of it, but I thought it appropriate that someone should remember. Someone should, after all, bear witness to such days. I have a brother somewhere, and, perhaps, he remembers this day, too. Or perhaps not. All I know is that I do.
My mother died when she was 59, having made it two years past the age my father was when he died a decade earlier. Practical joker that He is, in both cases God managed to arrange things so I would be the one to find both of their bodies after they were done using them. My father may be chalked up to simple fate and bad luck; but my mother, well, that's not so simple. She had gotten ill and was progressively deteriorating and, rather than shuffle her off to a home as my brother wanted to do, I moved back home to take care of her. I had an idea, I suppose, that things would not end happily, even if I wasn't able to admit that to myself. But what else was I supposed to do? Does not the child bear an obligation to his parent? At least she was in her own home when the end came.
There are metaphors everywhere around you, if you care to look for them. My mother died on a night when Nature herself seemed to be in a rage, over what I can not say. Pure nihilism? Spite? A desperate, hopeless cry against the unjust and the inevitable? Take your pick. The wind beat furiously, uselessly, against the unyielding glass and steel of our apartment building, and Lake Michigan herself spilled out from her confining bowl to wash out the Outer Drive. Perhaps that is just the way of it when a star sputters out as it falls into the black void.
One of my mother's favourite movies was The Wizard of Oz, a movie from her childhood, from a simpler time before her father and her brother went off to war. When I was a child, whenever it was on television, she would gather my brother and I together to watch it. And, when the time came, she would break into an intentionally over-the-top falsetto and sing along with Somewhere, Over the Rainbow.
Which is where she is now. Or maybe not. Perhaps there is nothing after this life except the silence of the grave and the weight of eternity. For my part, at least, I hope that she has finally been reunited with my father, the great love of her life. But I can only hope, and only she knows for sure.
They say that God gives people no more weight than they can bear, but I'm not so sure. If that's true, then He must think I have a soul of adamantine. And He's wrong. Somewhere along the line, I gave up. I've spent so much time living with the dead, I've forgotten how to be with the living. Too much time, I suppose, wading through the blood and wreckage of other people's lives to worry about my own.
Why did you leave, mom? Why was I unable to keep you alive? Dying is easy, everybody can do that; living is what's hard to do. Did you give so much of your fire to me that, when you needed it the most, there was nothing left for you? But I did what I was trained to do, I fought for your life, and I lost. It's no easy thing to admit that my best just wasn't good enough.
My mother should have been 83 today. But she is not, and I miss her terribly. My mind tells me I was playing a game I never could win, but the mind does not always rule the heart, some wounds just do not heal. And I can't even tell you how sorry I am, for so many things. But I will remember this day, until the time comes when I, too, can remember nothing at all.
Somehow, I doubt that she would have enjoyed being that old, or at least being reminded of it, but I thought it appropriate that someone should remember. Someone should, after all, bear witness to such days. I have a brother somewhere, and, perhaps, he remembers this day, too. Or perhaps not. All I know is that I do.
My mother died when she was 59, having made it two years past the age my father was when he died a decade earlier. Practical joker that He is, in both cases God managed to arrange things so I would be the one to find both of their bodies after they were done using them. My father may be chalked up to simple fate and bad luck; but my mother, well, that's not so simple. She had gotten ill and was progressively deteriorating and, rather than shuffle her off to a home as my brother wanted to do, I moved back home to take care of her. I had an idea, I suppose, that things would not end happily, even if I wasn't able to admit that to myself. But what else was I supposed to do? Does not the child bear an obligation to his parent? At least she was in her own home when the end came.
There are metaphors everywhere around you, if you care to look for them. My mother died on a night when Nature herself seemed to be in a rage, over what I can not say. Pure nihilism? Spite? A desperate, hopeless cry against the unjust and the inevitable? Take your pick. The wind beat furiously, uselessly, against the unyielding glass and steel of our apartment building, and Lake Michigan herself spilled out from her confining bowl to wash out the Outer Drive. Perhaps that is just the way of it when a star sputters out as it falls into the black void.
One of my mother's favourite movies was The Wizard of Oz, a movie from her childhood, from a simpler time before her father and her brother went off to war. When I was a child, whenever it was on television, she would gather my brother and I together to watch it. And, when the time came, she would break into an intentionally over-the-top falsetto and sing along with Somewhere, Over the Rainbow.
Which is where she is now. Or maybe not. Perhaps there is nothing after this life except the silence of the grave and the weight of eternity. For my part, at least, I hope that she has finally been reunited with my father, the great love of her life. But I can only hope, and only she knows for sure.
They say that God gives people no more weight than they can bear, but I'm not so sure. If that's true, then He must think I have a soul of adamantine. And He's wrong. Somewhere along the line, I gave up. I've spent so much time living with the dead, I've forgotten how to be with the living. Too much time, I suppose, wading through the blood and wreckage of other people's lives to worry about my own.
Why did you leave, mom? Why was I unable to keep you alive? Dying is easy, everybody can do that; living is what's hard to do. Did you give so much of your fire to me that, when you needed it the most, there was nothing left for you? But I did what I was trained to do, I fought for your life, and I lost. It's no easy thing to admit that my best just wasn't good enough.
My mother should have been 83 today. But she is not, and I miss her terribly. My mind tells me I was playing a game I never could win, but the mind does not always rule the heart, some wounds just do not heal. And I can't even tell you how sorry I am, for so many things. But I will remember this day, until the time comes when I, too, can remember nothing at all.
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