What Lies BelowSitting on the beach so very long ago, he said with just enough concern, just enough caution, just enough respect.
Concern. Caution. Respect. I guess Creedance Clearwater Revival and the myriad of lawyers entrenched in the never ending battle to fuck with people wouldn't approve of abbreviating.
So what. We travel through, around, and with the people on the bus with the wheels that go round and round. Just as easily, we wiper blade away all those that cause us fear, rejection, dismay; disappointment. The rain from those will continue to fall, no matter how far we try to distance ourselves from them. Because they have alighted your life.
No matter the scars that my eldest son contiues to provide on my wretched soul, being, heart; I cant fathom wiping away the person. He has walked out on his family, my grandkids, his children. He has stolen money, valuables, years from us. Removed the possiblity of having or exsisting in any kind of normal life. The lies, manipulations, curses and demands continue in a never-ending yarn of bulsshit and butterflies that die in the damn heat of a bright light.
I dont mind having to be the Dad. I just wanted to be the grandfther first. Thats pretty fair to ask, eh? But fair doesnt exsist. No, fair does not. Why? Because fair would mean that everywhere, everyone gets treated evenly, and that aint gonna happened. Asks the victims of any and all discrimination, hate, bigotry, whatevers. Fair wont come, because fair is 29% interest rates when you aint never late, fair is OK you are approved, ooops, sorry you aint. Fair is 88 hour work weeks nudged ever earning to nothingness due to a lack of respect, common decency, and truthfulness.
So many stares into the abyss of blackness that is what ends. What ends? The end of being. I dont claim to be the first nor the last that will assert that in doing anything you take chances. I guess having a kid is a chance taken; having one that forever breaks your being is one of them. I remember charging into waves that I cant describe, the feeling of just edging into that abyss, and controlling it, as well as the abyss consuming me. The happenchance of surviving a hold down; getting yet another set of stitches or what else I happened to fuck up on out in the blue.
Holding someones lifeless body under my care; and the what if's of the carnage that surrounds it. I stand in awe of the human spirit to survive. How many compressions in CPR before you crack the ribs of an elderly male whose exsistence is fleeting away? Not many. The dead stare. That one eye, dead stare from a young girl. Haunting my brain forever;and yet i think I have problems.
On days when boredom and regularness were aborted mid-shift by the call of a apartment on fire, and dragging a person out of that inferno only to feel the seared flesh ripping apart in my hands. But if he didnt die, all of us would have when the godamn Oxygen tank exploded right after the door closed after removing him. And the fucking door had a auto-close feature; what if it didnt?
After being awake for 24 hours wondering where the hell my son was, since he was 17 and high and drunk, having to go to work; and the first call is a childbirth. deliveing that child in a home where I dont know who lives there, and bringing anotherhuman into this world while mine begins a decent into hell?
Sucking the vomitus out of a baby whose parents were clueless to as to why their child was blue and not breathing? What of that persons life now? Are they happy? I pray so.
I want to quit so badly; I want to escape the damn taped images of shit-i-dont-want-to-remember. I hate to admit the jealousy I feel when I see such happy people/unions that I cant get to occur, no matter what effort I mount. It really disturbs me to feel that way; what the fuck is wrong with me? How can I feel that animosity to unknowns?
I guess I have lost respect of self in the life of living this.
The immense feeling of joy, happiness, complete and utter fascination with the grandkids only (yes, and Maile too) provides a respit to the challenges. I fear greatly that these small journeys will not hold up the onslaught of continued disappointments. Yet, they must.
Whats in the mirror now looks and walks; talks like me, but is nothing of what I am inside.
Time to go to work yet again, to earn to labor for what?
For love.
2 comments:
Mark, you are in many of my thoughts.
I too have a child that has truly messed with my mind over the last 5 years or so. Know that people give a shit, brother.
I've been feeling really messed up lately. I'm sure what I write shows it, maybe, or maybe I'm still pretty good at hiding it. I don't know.
Then I kept getting this compulsion to go visit this kid, a former student, I've known his family for over thirty years, been friends with them, hell their mother, the kids grandma even taught me how to can vegetables...he had an accident a couple of years ago, and suffered severe brain injury. The family was told that he had about a three percent chance of coming back, being able to function like we function. He's recently been moved to a care center close to where I work, and I finally got my worthless ass to go see him.
I know he was glad to see me because the nurse came in shortly after I got there to check his vitals and she said his pulse was up. I can't tell you what seeing that boy did for me, I just only hope he got at least a fraction of the good that he gave me. He made me know what's important, and he made me feel...he made me feel.
God Mark, life, it can so fucking painful, so awfully hard, I guess that's why we have to be thankful for the things that aren't. I don't know, I deal with beautiful smiling kids all day long, and that's probably a really good thing, well I know it is for me, but I can't imagine dealing with life and death, tragedy, all the time, every day, like you do, and like my friend who goes to see her boy every morning and stays there all day long, working with that son of hers to get him better. Determination, hell she could write a book.
It's only when I force myself to feel and to think of things that you deal with daily that I am humbled, and mortified, when I let myself feel.
I should have been visiting that kid all along, and it shames me that I haven't, but I can't do anything about that now.
I realize that you have to distance yourself from your work or you would go insane, that's why it's so important that things at home at least be mellow. I
hear you when you say you cannot distance yourself from your son completely, I wouldn't be able to do that either, and mostly I'm thankful that those babies who bring you joy and who you love so much, have you and Mrs. C.
I don't even know if this makes sense...but I'm hitting send and hoping it does.
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