The sun reflected on the lake’s rippling surface. In the distant glass buildings of downtown. In the sunglasses of toned joggers. In the tricycles of small children. Light played all around me. It was enjoying the first beautiful day since winter.
Just like the neighborhood kids, pedaling into the light, on a quest to find the perfect day. Running through endless forests, fighting ethereal creatures. They almost found it today.
It is days like these that one goes outside, to stroll, to sit, to meditate.
Like the grown man who had large glasses and messy dark hair. Thirty years old, he sat and sat, feeding Canadian geese as if they were his only friends. As if they were the only ones who relied on him. Just like he relied on his controlling mother who sat behind him.
Some come there to be alone.
Like the teenage girl dressed in a black hoodie, reading the latest vampiric novel. She felt the darkness seep through her, become part of her. She would sit in the light for hours, hoping all the time that some passer-by would recognize her, feel her darkness, and take her away from her non-existent life to the sunshine that was her only hope.
Some came to be with someone.
Like the only other teenagers there. Two girls who leaned on each other with such force it looked like they were drunk. They laughed and screamed. Flirted and dissed. Funny thing though: they were seeking the same thing as emo girl. Someone to care.
Families also came to relieve their children’s anguish of not being outside on such a glorious day.
A mother walked while her two daughters rode their bikes. One on training wheels, the other weaving in and out of other exercisers. “HEATHER!” “STOP!” The mother’s face turned red for some other reason than the heat, some reason I couldn’t understand.
Another family was there to enjoy each other. They wandered here and there studying everything, examining the little things. And as the little ones were trying to catch grasshoppers or climbing a tree, their Mom and Dad watched on with pleasure and awe in their faces, strolling while hugging each other, their dream realized in their beautiful children.
Various others were there for various other reasons. The homeless composers, so they could play their instruments freely, walkers who just wanted exercise and to gossip about office scandals and incompetence, rollerbladers training for the coming roller derby, couples to bask in the light, both of the sun and their love.
Park days. They bring many people out of their solitude to enjoy the pleasant days.
It forces mankind together. It forces different types of people into camaraderie.
I don’t know to what extent, but these people have something in common. They all are flesh and blood. Whatever you see on the outside, whether it be ripped jeans, or a suit and tie, they still have desires and fears. The girl reading about the Edwards and Bellas will one day become like a jog/walker, or the man feeding the geese.
Another point I have learned. Don’t take a moment, A MOMENT, for granted. This is your life. A moment to be sinful human before eternal glory. Break free from your chains that keep you from encouraging, from talking, from introducing. Do not let this meaningless barrier prevent you from learning to care for others. Whether they are like you or not. They need you. And we need each other.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Uncontrollable Goodbyes
The lights inconsistently flashed, paining my eyes as they stared out the foggy glass. Two hours in the car with an emotional barrier between us all, the pressure started getting to me. My forehead bled for the coolness of the window to sooth the burning I felt in my stomach overflowing into my throat. It started tightening when
I thought of her form unmoving on the hospital bed: limbs stilled, heart rate slowing, breathing faint. If only the car could go faster.
At the same time, I (with all my will) wanted to escape, run to a warm bed to be comforted, knowing though that the stiff, chill wind would hunt me down. My mother was quietly weeping in front of me. I wanted to turn from the heartbreak.
Hope hurt even more. I wanted desperately to think that she would make it through and live for another twenty years. That she would see another Christmas, another grandchild, another summer. But my logicality knew better. Eighty. Lung cancer. Pneumonia. These words kept revolving like a merry-go-round in my head. Like my Dad when it was time to go, death was ready to end the ride.
Through all the sadness, despair, and premonitions, I felt a strange exhilaration. Thinking of the strangeness of hospital rooms, and the clean smelling hallways. The thought of that time when grandma helped me and my sister rake the leaves in the chilly, face-burning fall. These hand-in-hand inspired a strange calmness, a bubble of solitude. Near excitement.
That bubble ripped and turned into falling dust as soon as my Mom’s cell phone rang.
Five minutes away: “Sis, I’m sorry, you’re too late. She’s already passed.”
The hallways didn’t smell clean, but rather like putrid bleach. The rooms weren’t exciting, but dull and dead. Just like that body that lay where my Grandma took her final breath. Where Grandma’s soul left her body to meet her Saviour.
I couldn’t cry. It felt like I was dreaming. I was dreaming. This was a nightmare from which my Mom would wake me up; we would travel to Grandma’s warm home. She would sit us down with the feast she would always make (according to the unspoken rules of Southern comfort); no matter how much my Mom would argue. She would think of us as we were, kids running around the yard ten years ago. She would love us when we were unlovable; encourage us when we were discouraged.
It wasn’t till I sat in a room full of strangers and people I recognized but didn’t know; when my Dad started crying when he explained the first time he met Her; my Mom when she talked of her childhood; when I realized that not again in this world could I sit with her and dwell on her every word; when I thought of all the times I was a disappointment and she cherished me still; when I thought of all the times that I was too busy to talk to her, talk about her life, her feelings; then, I started to weep.
When they lowered her casket into the dirtiness of her grave; the clean perfect casket into the mud, I could almost scream for them to stop. So that I could breath magical breath into her nostrils and she would rise like a Lazarus. But I would have to be God. And He wasn’t going to raise her, at least for now.
I sat in my room again, hugging a pillow that wasn’t a replacement for Her fragile self, and hid from all the “Don’t worry, everything will be ok”s, and the “She’s in a better place”s.
I knew that, I believed it too, but right now I could only dream of the past. Tomorrow I would deal with this passing life. For tomorrow, or the next day, I would die too. And my grandchildren would mourn me.
Life is so short…but so precious.
All we can do is have a trusting HOPE.
I thought of her form unmoving on the hospital bed: limbs stilled, heart rate slowing, breathing faint. If only the car could go faster.
At the same time, I (with all my will) wanted to escape, run to a warm bed to be comforted, knowing though that the stiff, chill wind would hunt me down. My mother was quietly weeping in front of me. I wanted to turn from the heartbreak.
Hope hurt even more. I wanted desperately to think that she would make it through and live for another twenty years. That she would see another Christmas, another grandchild, another summer. But my logicality knew better. Eighty. Lung cancer. Pneumonia. These words kept revolving like a merry-go-round in my head. Like my Dad when it was time to go, death was ready to end the ride.
Through all the sadness, despair, and premonitions, I felt a strange exhilaration. Thinking of the strangeness of hospital rooms, and the clean smelling hallways. The thought of that time when grandma helped me and my sister rake the leaves in the chilly, face-burning fall. These hand-in-hand inspired a strange calmness, a bubble of solitude. Near excitement.
That bubble ripped and turned into falling dust as soon as my Mom’s cell phone rang.
Five minutes away: “Sis, I’m sorry, you’re too late. She’s already passed.”
The hallways didn’t smell clean, but rather like putrid bleach. The rooms weren’t exciting, but dull and dead. Just like that body that lay where my Grandma took her final breath. Where Grandma’s soul left her body to meet her Saviour.
I couldn’t cry. It felt like I was dreaming. I was dreaming. This was a nightmare from which my Mom would wake me up; we would travel to Grandma’s warm home. She would sit us down with the feast she would always make (according to the unspoken rules of Southern comfort); no matter how much my Mom would argue. She would think of us as we were, kids running around the yard ten years ago. She would love us when we were unlovable; encourage us when we were discouraged.
It wasn’t till I sat in a room full of strangers and people I recognized but didn’t know; when my Dad started crying when he explained the first time he met Her; my Mom when she talked of her childhood; when I realized that not again in this world could I sit with her and dwell on her every word; when I thought of all the times I was a disappointment and she cherished me still; when I thought of all the times that I was too busy to talk to her, talk about her life, her feelings; then, I started to weep.
When they lowered her casket into the dirtiness of her grave; the clean perfect casket into the mud, I could almost scream for them to stop. So that I could breath magical breath into her nostrils and she would rise like a Lazarus. But I would have to be God. And He wasn’t going to raise her, at least for now.
I sat in my room again, hugging a pillow that wasn’t a replacement for Her fragile self, and hid from all the “Don’t worry, everything will be ok”s, and the “She’s in a better place”s.
I knew that, I believed it too, but right now I could only dream of the past. Tomorrow I would deal with this passing life. For tomorrow, or the next day, I would die too. And my grandchildren would mourn me.
Life is so short…but so precious.
All we can do is have a trusting HOPE.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Prodigal Effect
Day, heaped with day. Month, on month. A life souring in the black, a soul rotting. Light in the semi-darkness. Then tar returns. Cole lit up again.
Getting high was the only way he could escape life for a moment, a moment that has lasted almost two years.
It wasn't his fault that he is like this, though. His father sent him away from their suburban home after finding a stock of cough syrup hidden in the box springs of Cole's bed. It was lucky his dad didn't look in Cole's pillow cases and find the 100 dollars of dope hidden there.
His Dad just couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the pressure, the weight of teenage life. People like him didn't have TV's, and if they did they probably gathered around to watch Leave It to Beaver. They couldn't understand the burdens thrust upon kids here and now. The feeling of dirtiness that couldn't be wiped clean. He hated his father for not understanding. For not giving him a chance.
And drugs were so good, so capable of clearing away everything, everyone.
Staring at the perfectly planed ceiling, the charcoal colored encasement, Cole thought of Lee's face when they found his stashed Robitussin. Three years her senior, it wasn't easy for Cole to watch the disappointment color his little sister's face. They had always been close. Sharing each other's secrets, talking about what life had in store for them. She was so...real. So happy and joyful in her life. Comfortable. Now...now they both knew what lay in store for them. For one denial, refusal, bitterness. The other held pleading, and more disappointment.
A backhoe shattered his reverie. If there was an upside of living by a landfill, it was finding useful stuff among the refuse. Partly broken TV's and ragged clothing were a common find. But the ultimate discovery was the inconspicuous snowglobe.
Inside the globe a child puttered around a perfectly crafted snowman. The child's face bore an expression of joy, half hidden in a tightly wound red scarf.
Cole always saw himself as the little guy. Joyously wandering about, finding hidden happiness around him. Procuring glee from the gloom of the attic nooks. Loving the snow. At least, he used to.
Lee said he was changed. He was not joyful. Not exhilarated. Maybe she was right. Maybe years of sloth have paralyzed him, making the thought of happiness unbearable.
That couldn't be true though. He was happy when he watched the styrofoam snow fall onto the hardened snowman. He was happy when he looked into the child's gleaming face. He was happy in this cold hard room watching the cold hard winter through his cold hard window. He was happy when he lit up.
A knock at the door missing its hinges. "Cole?" and anxious voice called out. It was Lee on her daily mission of proffered deliverance. In the two years of Cole's absence, Lee never missed her weekly visit. Usually they would sit on his grubby sofa and endeavor to think of a few chatty words to communicate to each other. And they always failed. It consistently ended with Lee bursting into tears and begging for him to come home, to escape this sty, to find their love. "I know Dad misses you. Your breaking his heart slowly and torturously. Mom cries every night and Dad can't comfort her because he feels the same way. Your tearing us apart. Why won't you just come home?" And Cole just stared with a slate face at her misery. "Is this what you get from your drugs? Ignorance! How can you do this to us!" And with that Lee would leave.
She, of all people who could, didn't understand. She was like all the others. She didn't understand how much hurt he felt. How he couldn't show it. How he didn't want to.
Again, the persistent knocking, now more insistent. "Cole? Cole! Open up. I know you're there. Cole!"
Not today. Not again. He would let her beautiful voice be disappointed.
Cole curled up on the dirty sofa and cradled his snowglobe. He stared at the shiny snow, the shiny painted face, the shiny happiness. He couldn't stop the shaking. So he tried to flow through the spasms by rocking gently back and forth. And soon, he could not hear the knocking anymore. The joint was completing is purpose. Absolute indifference.
"Cole! Cole, if you can hear me, listen to what I am saying. I'm not coming back. Ever. You did what you set out to do. Mom left. Dad's not talking. I don't know what to do. Can't you help me? Comfort me?" Her voice was more frustrated. More saddened.
Silence.
"That's what i thought. I came to say goodbye. I can't forgive you anymore.
I can't wait for you to catch up. I can't wait for you to break my heart, too. If it already hasn't happened."
With that, Lee passed a note under the door, turned, and never came back.
Cole peered at the little boy's face. He was unhappy. The snow had stopped falling. It was piled around his feet.
Cole shook the sphere, but the snow wouldn't fly up like it always did. He shook it harder. Then harder. Finally, with a shout of frustration, he lobbed it at the closest stony wall. It shattered into a thousand little specks of snowy glass and water. The snowman didn't survive the fall, but the little boy did. He lay on the floor staring at Cole with the little black dots that were his eyes.
He was angry with Cole.
"What! WHAT!! What do you want from me! What can I do!"
He rolled off the couch and stumbled to the child.
"I hate you! I really do!"
He crushed it under his shoe. Then started sobbing.
He crossed to the note his sister left.
It was written in big neat letters:
Cole,
I hope you are happy.
Happiness was not what Cole felt.
Getting high was the only way he could escape life for a moment, a moment that has lasted almost two years.
It wasn't his fault that he is like this, though. His father sent him away from their suburban home after finding a stock of cough syrup hidden in the box springs of Cole's bed. It was lucky his dad didn't look in Cole's pillow cases and find the 100 dollars of dope hidden there.
His Dad just couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the pressure, the weight of teenage life. People like him didn't have TV's, and if they did they probably gathered around to watch Leave It to Beaver. They couldn't understand the burdens thrust upon kids here and now. The feeling of dirtiness that couldn't be wiped clean. He hated his father for not understanding. For not giving him a chance.
And drugs were so good, so capable of clearing away everything, everyone.
Staring at the perfectly planed ceiling, the charcoal colored encasement, Cole thought of Lee's face when they found his stashed Robitussin. Three years her senior, it wasn't easy for Cole to watch the disappointment color his little sister's face. They had always been close. Sharing each other's secrets, talking about what life had in store for them. She was so...real. So happy and joyful in her life. Comfortable. Now...now they both knew what lay in store for them. For one denial, refusal, bitterness. The other held pleading, and more disappointment.
A backhoe shattered his reverie. If there was an upside of living by a landfill, it was finding useful stuff among the refuse. Partly broken TV's and ragged clothing were a common find. But the ultimate discovery was the inconspicuous snowglobe.
Inside the globe a child puttered around a perfectly crafted snowman. The child's face bore an expression of joy, half hidden in a tightly wound red scarf.
Cole always saw himself as the little guy. Joyously wandering about, finding hidden happiness around him. Procuring glee from the gloom of the attic nooks. Loving the snow. At least, he used to.
Lee said he was changed. He was not joyful. Not exhilarated. Maybe she was right. Maybe years of sloth have paralyzed him, making the thought of happiness unbearable.
That couldn't be true though. He was happy when he watched the styrofoam snow fall onto the hardened snowman. He was happy when he looked into the child's gleaming face. He was happy in this cold hard room watching the cold hard winter through his cold hard window. He was happy when he lit up.
A knock at the door missing its hinges. "Cole?" and anxious voice called out. It was Lee on her daily mission of proffered deliverance. In the two years of Cole's absence, Lee never missed her weekly visit. Usually they would sit on his grubby sofa and endeavor to think of a few chatty words to communicate to each other. And they always failed. It consistently ended with Lee bursting into tears and begging for him to come home, to escape this sty, to find their love. "I know Dad misses you. Your breaking his heart slowly and torturously. Mom cries every night and Dad can't comfort her because he feels the same way. Your tearing us apart. Why won't you just come home?" And Cole just stared with a slate face at her misery. "Is this what you get from your drugs? Ignorance! How can you do this to us!" And with that Lee would leave.
She, of all people who could, didn't understand. She was like all the others. She didn't understand how much hurt he felt. How he couldn't show it. How he didn't want to.
Again, the persistent knocking, now more insistent. "Cole? Cole! Open up. I know you're there. Cole!"
Not today. Not again. He would let her beautiful voice be disappointed.
Cole curled up on the dirty sofa and cradled his snowglobe. He stared at the shiny snow, the shiny painted face, the shiny happiness. He couldn't stop the shaking. So he tried to flow through the spasms by rocking gently back and forth. And soon, he could not hear the knocking anymore. The joint was completing is purpose. Absolute indifference.
"Cole! Cole, if you can hear me, listen to what I am saying. I'm not coming back. Ever. You did what you set out to do. Mom left. Dad's not talking. I don't know what to do. Can't you help me? Comfort me?" Her voice was more frustrated. More saddened.
Silence.
"That's what i thought. I came to say goodbye. I can't forgive you anymore.
I can't wait for you to catch up. I can't wait for you to break my heart, too. If it already hasn't happened."
With that, Lee passed a note under the door, turned, and never came back.
Cole peered at the little boy's face. He was unhappy. The snow had stopped falling. It was piled around his feet.
Cole shook the sphere, but the snow wouldn't fly up like it always did. He shook it harder. Then harder. Finally, with a shout of frustration, he lobbed it at the closest stony wall. It shattered into a thousand little specks of snowy glass and water. The snowman didn't survive the fall, but the little boy did. He lay on the floor staring at Cole with the little black dots that were his eyes.
He was angry with Cole.
"What! WHAT!! What do you want from me! What can I do!"
He rolled off the couch and stumbled to the child.
"I hate you! I really do!"
He crushed it under his shoe. Then started sobbing.
He crossed to the note his sister left.
It was written in big neat letters:
Cole,
I hope you are happy.
Happiness was not what Cole felt.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Emotional Evaluations
Emotions. Distilled in a jar, nicely placed and horrifyingly decent, looks like perfectness in its infallibility. Never extreme, but always UNemotional. COLD.
This is not human life. Is it bad to move, to be moved, to love, to hurt, to be scarred? Is it possible to be sinful when your first love has left you desolate and you cry out to God in your ashes and salt?
Look around and your reality will be shaken. No matter how big you make your structurally secured bubble, you can never engineer it to surmount the basic need for outlets. Fear, reassurance, sadness, inexpressible joyfulness, love. But instead try to murder it with a pre-manufactured facade, a facade filled to the brim with no emotion. No love, no joking, no happiness...but also no sadness, no desolation, no fear. In its place neutrality. A neutrality that is capable of sucking the universe into its fuzzy, unreal depths.
Seek reality! Please, seek reality. We live not in a plastics warehouse, but a world full of color, life, living and breathing people. You can't form it to what you want yourself, but what God has ordained. He ordained laughing. He ordained that moment, like a rollercoaster, when the world falls completely from your foot's grasp and sends you hurtling into infinity. But He also ordained a baby's birth. The pain, the tears, then the shining, beautiful eyes. The sudden growth. The tricycle accidents, the first bloody tooth tied to a doorknob, the puberty, the meeting a "sweet" guy, the marriage, the next birth, then death. Something we call life. Something that we have no control of. Something we cannot escape. Something that is good.
So before you decide to become that solemn monk, that no emotion escapes from except a hypocritical glance of scorn at others for their happiness, take a look at your little siblings, your children, your parents, and see God's handiwork. A bundle of emotions and child-like faith, but something God all-knowingly created, realizing our insufficiency, but creating us nonetheless. Praise God for being our God.
This is not human life. Is it bad to move, to be moved, to love, to hurt, to be scarred? Is it possible to be sinful when your first love has left you desolate and you cry out to God in your ashes and salt?
Look around and your reality will be shaken. No matter how big you make your structurally secured bubble, you can never engineer it to surmount the basic need for outlets. Fear, reassurance, sadness, inexpressible joyfulness, love. But instead try to murder it with a pre-manufactured facade, a facade filled to the brim with no emotion. No love, no joking, no happiness...but also no sadness, no desolation, no fear. In its place neutrality. A neutrality that is capable of sucking the universe into its fuzzy, unreal depths.
Seek reality! Please, seek reality. We live not in a plastics warehouse, but a world full of color, life, living and breathing people. You can't form it to what you want yourself, but what God has ordained. He ordained laughing. He ordained that moment, like a rollercoaster, when the world falls completely from your foot's grasp and sends you hurtling into infinity. But He also ordained a baby's birth. The pain, the tears, then the shining, beautiful eyes. The sudden growth. The tricycle accidents, the first bloody tooth tied to a doorknob, the puberty, the meeting a "sweet" guy, the marriage, the next birth, then death. Something we call life. Something that we have no control of. Something we cannot escape. Something that is good.
So before you decide to become that solemn monk, that no emotion escapes from except a hypocritical glance of scorn at others for their happiness, take a look at your little siblings, your children, your parents, and see God's handiwork. A bundle of emotions and child-like faith, but something God all-knowingly created, realizing our insufficiency, but creating us nonetheless. Praise God for being our God.
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