NaPoWriMo - Day Six - A Valediction

Wednesday nights are church.
Storms crash overhead but
there is no hail, no rain,
no blue white lightning to
pierce the veil of darkness.


I have to get ready, but
there is nothing there, the
closet is empty and I stand
naked, crying
not knowing why.


Sirens sound, doors open
and close. Reverberating through thunder.
I see everything and nothing
because everything is too much
and nothing is not enough.


You’re there though
work clothes in the street
angry water swirling
around your knees
face to the sky


i want so badly to scream,
the water…it’s hungry tonight
lapping at your flesh,
torrents raining down from the sky
chanting, “hungry, hungry, hungry”


I try to understand,
watching helplessly as you
skim the overhead power lines
with the buzzing edge
of a chainsaw blade.


“What are you DOING?”
“Don’t you KNOW…….?”


FInally, the blue white flash
of storm, of electricity untamed
and suddenly, you’re just….
not there. Gone.
Wiped away in a second.


“Daddy?”
“Dad……..”


Tears roll unchecked, tracing
lines of grief, of pain
mourning all over my face
horror in my heart,
soul empty.


I’m still talking to you, as if you never left
and nothing here makes any sense
except that you’re still gone
and I just woke from nightmare feeling
seventeen all over again.


In loving Memory.
Edwin Sutton Pond
Father, Best Friend, My Everything.
2/15/1934 – 6/15/1981





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When God answers prayer

It's 6:30 in the morning.  I can't tell you the last time I was up this early in the morning.  
Last week, I stumbled across an old bottle of Ritalin I'd forgotten all about.  I looked at the expiration date and realized it's about a year and a half past it's expiration date, but I didn't want to throw it away so I put it in my night table, figuring I might try it sometime or other and see what happened.
Well, I've been sleeping a LOT lately.  More than usual even which is saying something.
Recently we started going to church again.  It's been a long time and I'll be honest, getting up in time to make it even to the 11:00 service has been difficult.  Last night I went to bed early and knew I'd still have trouble getting up to get dressed and ready in time, so I figured I'd take a Ritalin right before I went to sleep.  
Now, it's been almost three years since I was on medication.  I took them for seven years and they'd stopped working completely.  My sleep doctor recommended I go off medication for three to six months to see if my body would "reset".  It didn't.  He suggested a year.  Still didn't reset.  The Ritalin worked for about a week and then I reverted right back to sleeping my life away.
I knew that if I took one, one of three things would happen.
I'd still sleep all night.
I'd go to sleep and wake up and not be able to go back to sleep again, or
I wouldn't sleep at all.
The second was spot on.  I slept for about an hour before Molly kitten decided to snuggle up against my face and woke me up.  As hard as I tried, I couldn't go back to sleep.  Since I always fall asleep while I try to say my prayers, I figured that would be a good time to work on that.  While I was praying, I remembered one very important prayer I'd once uttered.
I was very involved in church since childhood.  I don't remember not going to church until the past four or five years.  A story for another day.  My dad though, he refused to go with us.  I always wished he'd go, as a child I was worried about what might happen to him if he died.  I prayed and prayed that one Sunday morning, he'd get up and go to church with me and Mom, but it never happened.
Well, one particular week, we were having a revival at our church.  The minister preached about prayer.  About the power of prayer and how we should be careful what we pray for.  I remember him saying exactly "If you pray "whatever it takes" be prepared for what might happen."
I thought about it and at the time I thought I could handle whatever might happen.  I wanted my Dad in church.  I wanted him "saved" so if anything ever happened to him, he'd go to Heaven.  I was sixteen years old.  I prayed the "whatever it takes" prayer.
My Dad went to church that Sunday.  First time in my entire life.
On Tuesday, he was dead.
When the doctor came out and told us he was gone, the first thing I thought about was that prayer.  The next few days while we were planning the funeral, accepting people at the house with food, while I was trying to sleep, a week later when I went to work at my first job all I thought about was that prayer.  
On one side, I felt this preternatural peace about my Dad.  I knew then as I know now without a doubt he's in Heaven.  On the other side, I felt guilt.  I still feel guilt sometimes.  I lost one of the most important things in my life that day, and I'll always feel like it started with a prayer.
I'll wrap this up by saying, that yes, God answers prayers, and yes, always be careful what you pray for.


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Grieving Until Morning - Prompted by a ....prompt.

If you're familar with WeBook, some of the writing challenges use prompts.  This particular prompt was the word black.  Since the work I posted hit me pretty seriously, decided to share it.

_______________

Black. The color of mourning. Ironic isn't it? The same pronunciation of two different words. Morning. Mourning. One elicits new beginnings, brightness, life; the other sadness, grief, death.


I've mourned a lot in my life. People, animals, friends, jobs and a thousand other notions that may or may not have warranted mourning. I wonder though, if maybe we approach grief in the wrong way. Funerals, it seems, have become more of a social exclamation than anything else. Too many times I've been there and had my heart break for the person who has three people in their room while the funeral guy is coming in asking if they can take some chairs for the room across the hall that's overflowing with people.

We worry about how pretty the casket is, making sure all the flowers are breathtaking, can easily spend 30 or 40 grand on a funeral with all the bells and whistles. Why? It is really honoring the deceased or is it part of our grieving process?

It's a conundrum for me as I've had the discussion with my family on numerous occasions. I'm just superficial enough to not want to rot in a box underground. Maybe I'm just an overly morbid person, but I think about the people I've loved and buried and I can't get the image of those skeletal remains out of my head. Perhaps it's the advent of NCIS and CSI and Law and Order and the multiple exhumations they air that have caused it, but I don't want to be buried in a box.

My daughter and I have gone back and forth over the topic and some of the conversations have ended in tears. I don't know what the right answer is. Do I sacrifice my wishes to make it easier for her to grieve, or does she succumb to my wishes and know that she's done what I want and thus, help herself with the grieving process? I never want to be remembered as a halloween decoration. I want to be cremated, and put in a jar that will make people smile. Rocky and Bulwinkle, or Hello Kitty, or something with some old world goddess with huge boobs and seven eyes.

I suppose maybe grieving is as individual as the person experiencing it. I just can't help that think we'd do well to forget all the black and make loss something more meaningful and less full of the symbolism of times long ago. Have you ever really thought about it? Back when our country was brand spanking new, how many people had brightly colored clothes. They had work clothes and often a single "good outfit". Granted I haven't done any research on this, but I'd assume that homespun lacked the variety of colors we take for granted and that black would be easiest to keep clean and would continue to look nice long after the other colors had picked up dirt from the road and the rather less clean surfaces we have today. Maybe, black has carried through the centuries not as a measure of respect as much as a practical solution to a physical environment.

Another irony comes to mind. Women all have or most have a "little black dress". Again, a dress that's intended for social gatherings, parties, celebrations. Most tuxedos are black and definitely NOT worn to funerals. So why people does the first mention of black bring to mind death or grief?

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm often wrong. I just think that in most any situation where we lose a person we love, there is SO much more to think about that the pain that they're gone. I've always had my own little mantra for getting through this game we call life. "If you can't change it, try not to worry about it." I know, it's not always possible, or even practical, but in most cases it works.

How does that relate to grief? Well, we can't change it. People die. We mourn. The end. Grieving is the process of accepting that and going on with our lives. I don't mean that to sound heartless, but we've all heard it. "They'd want you to go on with your life. To be happy." It's cliche, but it's true. Would it be easier if instead of thinking of our loved ones with the whole "black" frame of mind, we looked at it a bit differently? Not mourning, but morning. A new day, one without a person we loved in our lives, but definitely in our hearts.

I've stopped wearing black to funerals now.

I wear grey. I remember the funeral pyres of old. The flames licking the sky, pyres draped in flowers, the stunning visual of a body floating out into the black of the ocean, into the sunset and it's beautiful. And then comes morning.