The Heart of the Matter

Mr. Henley has it right and I'm fairly certain that it took him a couple of decades to learn all of the wisdom that is contained in these verses.

"There are people in your life who've come and gone,
They let you down, you know they've hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby, cause life goes on
If you keep carrying that anger, it'll eat you upside,
I've been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness,
Forgiveness,
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore..."

Not everyone that I know and love is going to understand what I am trying to accomplish with The Truth About Whales. They will take from their own life experience and interpret or perceive their truth in my words. There is a ton of anger in that book because that was primarily the emotion I felt when I was writing -- that and regret. I was plowing my way through twenty plus years of wreckage of the past and explaining to myself why I did the things that I did. Not what they did, what I did. Not how they felt -- how I felt. So the book was selfishly, totally and unapologetically about SueAnn. It felt like taking the ragrug in my soul outside and whacking it so loudly I woke the neighbors. When I was finished, I knew there was something put to rest inside of me and I could live with the consequences of my book.

My father did not hear the amends within the book because, contrary to what I had been told, he hadn't read it. "I choose not to live in the past" was what he said on the phone and, you know, I applaud him that. He is not the same man I knew at five and six years old so much as I am not the same child he knew, I am an adult. What I was trying to tell him so ardently was that I made nearly every single mistake that I knew of -- that he had made -- and I understood. Blame has a very difficult time withstanding self discovery. For all of us, I think that is what age achieves. We finally know what it is to stand in someone else's shoes and go, "Oh, that's why."

Last night a friend emailed me and said, "I didn't like the book on many levels" and my ego immediately went, "But...but...but..." Today I'm waiting to find out exactly what it was she found objectionable (gee, there are SO many things that are downright narcissistic and rude about my book -- which one to pick). A couple of people who have known me for years and years said, "You were too hard on yourself about x, y and z." Well -- I was hard on the majority of the people who played any part of my life - still am. I always have questioned - and judged -- and will question some more, it is who I am as a human being.

What keeps going through my head and my heart is, "It's about forgiveness." Well, hell...that's the sequel, isn't it -- after all.

Collecting the Shells

Happy Mother's Day to all of the women who raised me. The short list includes: Dolly, Shirley, Margo, Leslie, Charlotte, Danielle, Jonna, Sarah, Kate, Mary, Barb, Bev, Elaine and Lorraine.

I woke up this morning at 4:00 and realized that I had to write. My muse is an early riser and she does her best between 3 and 4, so I knew exactly who it was. "Aw com'n..." I mumbled and attempted to nestle back into our newly foam covered mattress. No such luck. Then my mind started to whirl with the pictures and the glimpses of what I should be up writing about. I saw Dolly's picture in my mind, the one of her as a child. I think that is my comforting frame of reference because children are blameless. Right behind that I thought to myself that I had been beating her over the head and shoulders for most of my life -- and that's when the tears came. Rather than cry all over the pillow and cause my husband to wake from yet another night of sound sleep to entertain my muse... this is what I wrote.

~~~

It took me twenty years to catalogue my anger, to tell the story, to have it in my hands as proof positive that I wasn’t imagining it all and I really did have the right to be upset. At the end of the book, I was much as where I began, with a death that I could not solve and my own life to appraise, find the faults and the forgiveness… and move on.

I met an author on a website slush pile, a place for people to present their writings and back one another’s quest to become published, finally. She claimed to be a medium and I gave her the socially-acceptable amount of doubt and lit my candle quietly, sitting there hoping that she might choose me. She did. Her message back to me was that my mother, the same mother that I had skewered publically to all of my family, friends and complete strangers passing by, forgave me. She forgave me for my anger. Lorraine told me that when I got stuck writing, I could ask my mother for help and she would give me the words.

If I could go back and pick up the pieces of the eggs lying scattered on the slate floor of my memory, my hands would not go unguided. There would be hands that were slightly darker than mine with their nails manicured and painted in 1970’s green glitter. She would wipe the makeup that was smeared on my face with her tears and spit and I would flinch away giggling, “Mommy – ewwww.” When I asked her to explain the marks to me she would tell me the whole story, holding nothing back, and admit to me that she was in more pain than my child’s mind could fathom. I could hold her pain, for just a second, because she wanted me to find the catalyst for forgiveness. Then, she would reach for me and help me to stand up again from the floor where I laid waiting for the slap that never came.

For twenty years I waited and when the opportunity came to deny me the right to tell my story – she chose instead to guide my hands, picking up the pieces together.

Letter to Ben - March 4, 2010

Dearest Ben...

So I thought I was finished the book and wondered if our communication had come to an end because I ... finished the book. The anniversary of your death came and went without so much as a whisper because I was embroiled in the recovery from surgery gone amok...

...I'm not finished. I'll never be finished because I will never forget you... or put you aside. I want to. I want the grief to be at an end, to close the chapter, put the book on the shelf as Kegerreis wisely advised. It is not possible.

It is not possible because you lived. It is not possible because I have work to do in your honor -- in our honor, in the name that we chose at birth and will die with the same. Then we will enter into the next phase of learning. I wonder who you will be next. I wonder if I have already seen your eyes sparkling back at me, your mouth formed in a infant's hello. Or if you trotted past me wearing fur... it is possible!

I'm writing to tell you I haven't forgotten. I'm writing to tell you that our work is not over and I need you. I'm writing to tell you that I love you with all my heart and my life isn't the same without you in it -- so here you are, selfishly snatched from Heaven's embrace to walk the ghostly plane with your obsessive mother. Perhaps I am lingering, holding on to the wisps of your comet light. I shall be grateful for it, anyway... for having had you at all.

With much love...
Mom

What's Next?

I finished the book last week -- the one I've been writing for the last twenty years or so. I don't really have any rushing feelings of relief or joy. It's done! There's this sense of calm. Kegerreis was right. Just because the book is finished doesn't mean that it isn't a part of who I am as a human being. I've put it up on the shelf and will remove it to edit for publication and after publication, I'll bring it down to help anyone that asks.

February 1st is right around the corner. This will mark the 4th year that Ben is gone. Recently he came to visit and it was ... well, it was wonderful. I was preparing for surgery, I had a boobechtomy (fancy word I know) and I was afraid. I was having a major part of my anatomy reduced and didn't really know what to expect. I asked for God to give me a direct sign that everything was going to be ok. Reading Buechner's sermons inspired me to go directly to the source and say, "Puh-lease let me know this isn't a dumb decision."

I got up in the morning and turned on the TV to watch the weather/news and lo and behold Robin Williams was talking with Annabella Sciora in her version of hell, her doubt.

I grinned... "Hello Ben." What Dreams May Come was our favorite movie, mother and son. I sat there for a bit in silence, tears dropping... and grinning like an idiot. I had my sign. My angel was watching over me. I told Chris and Sarah and then resolved that I was probably just looking for signs. Man, it doesn't take long for doubt to creep back in, does it? Went to work, cleaned off my desk, said "See you soon" to my co-workers and went home carrying my feelings of generalized anxiety.

Went into the bedroom, turned the TV on to watch weather/news and hollered, "Sarah, come here, I'm not crazy!" Cuba Gooding Jr. was showing Robin Williams that he needed to move on.

So do I.

Have You Ever Seen an Angel?

Really a rough draft... submitted it today to "Soul's Code." Let's see what happens. I haven't written anything at all for months, really...

~~~

Did you ever see an angel?

Today was a rough day. Seems like every Saturday morning I show up lately there's an undercurrent at the mission. I only go every two weeks because that's all the stimulation I can stand at a time. There are so many souls,so many of them in transition, in stasis, so many of them trying to fend off whatever haunts the alleyways of their path. Today we distributed a little bit over two hundred plates. That could mean that one hundred people came up for seconds. And then again, we ran out of plates because there weren't enough in the cupboard to make the cycle of eating, dispensing, washing,steaming and back on the counter again to feed. So we started putting a hard boiled egg, a piece of bacon, a piece of a mozzarella cheese and two pieces of toast in pink plastic cereal bowls. It's very difficult to tell someone that they've already had two plates and they can't have anymore until after11:00 a.m. when we are fairly certain everyone has been fed at least once. You know they are ravenous, and not just for food.

I stood and served today even though I came in announcing that I was in a funk and didn't want to mess with people today. I didn't want to say, "Good morning, would you like a piece of cheese," I wanted to say, "Leave me the hell alone." That's what depression does for me; it pulls me back away from all of the chaos of living and sits with me, silent, watching. There are seasons where too many feelings circulate for my brain and my heart to process all of them; too many thoughts and not enough energy for them all. An empathetic soul is not without limitation or want.

The mission is a place where people in Sudbury come to be fed. The food is free, and some people argue that we're not helping people by giving them food. We should be giving them programs. Well, I've lived on the street before and there were days where all I wanted was an egg and a piece of bacon. The people who come are young, so young that they still have the arrogance of "I should have." Some are old, and they come not for the food, but for the company. I can feel their stories radiate off of them. Everyone is there for a purpose. Who am I to dictate what the purpose is? I'm there to serve.

It's very hard not to get attached to the people, even though the meager training I have says to keep my distance. Evidently, the professor who advised me against a career in social work was correct. I feel them and I can't tell you that it is always pleasant. I'm repaying a debt I incurred when I was nineteen and twenty years old, with the arrogance of "I should have."

Of course there are favourites. Of course there are people with whom you connect and you want to help them, to somehow make a difference. It's excruciating to watch them cycle in their moods or their psychosis. We have a young woman who has gone from hugging to wrenching and trying to pummel in two short months. She thought she was pregnant, and I'm certain she went off of her meds; only to cycle again into the disease of self-medicating. She lost the baby. Angry, she's walks up to the counter and steals a handful of napkins. She doesn't want food. It's like approaching a dog that's tied at the post. "Don't take so many, there are so many others." Do you come back with extra napkins in your hand or a hand at all? When do you comfort, and when do you fear?

After everyone was served, after the bowls and plates and discarded food was rounded up from the tables; washed, cleaned, dispensed of, we were alone to catalogue the goings on. Our friend, our favourite is banned from the mission for an indefinite period of time. She's smashing cups outside, she's defiant and angry. She's hurt and hurting others; threatening other customers who can't or won't speak up.

We look for angels in our midst when it is convenient. We offer to perform charity work for the self gratification or the repayment of debt. We serve to satisfy the hunger within our own souls.

Yes, I know, there are angels in our midst; but have you ever seen an angel?