Structure and Reason....Or Chaos and Chance? 1/31/2010

 
Age-old question, brought into prominence in my world
this past week as I see most of the members of my
community struggling to make sense of a horrible car
accident. The accident claimed two lives, including an
11 year-old girl.

So, is there a structured rationale behind our lives, with
every atom and molecule accounted for? Or is everything
random and chaotic, with attempts to interpret it via
limited comprehension resulting in a need for crutches
and easy answers?

Who's to say that either extreme is necessarily accurate?
Why not a world that is mixed with both random, meaning-
less occurrences as well as preordained

Maybe the application of either set of discordant lenses
or their middle-ground are assuming that there is either
pattern or significance to any of it. Think of the things you
felt were of importance 10 years ago; Do many of those
things still exist today? Are they relevant? What about
what you hold dear now? Does it really matter?

A stranger asked me my thoughts on the girl's death, not
really wanting to hear what I had to say. "Isn't this just
horrible? But don't you think she's in Heaven with God
right now?"

How do you answer such a thing?
First, my thinking--or anyone else's on the planet--is a
terribly moot point, especially now. What someone else
needs to do to reconcile this event in their mind should
have nothing to do with the opinions of other people.

Yes, a young person is lost; that is terrible for the people
who knew her. Death is horrible; it is the end of life, and
that's frightening for us. When someone young dies, we
are made all the more aware of our mortality, and of the
precariousness and fragility of life. That's what has hit
most people outside the immediate family.

There's also the reality that different people's lives do
matter more than others (in society's eyes, not reality.)
Simple fact of the road. Not condoning, not condemning.
This was a pretty, blond-haired, sweet little white girl
(by all accounts; I never met her) from a popular, well
off, large, popular local family. I doubt that the town would
be blanketed in supportive ribbons if a poor black child
with no extended family was killed in a horrible wreck....
or sick with a tragic disease and needed bone marrow or
blood. It's all about perspective.

(This is not a slam against this little girl; it's about how we
'value' lives. Hardly a person has said anything about
the older woman lost in the crash. Our thinking is such
that it isn't the same; she had lived a long life. Why do
we assume that a child is destined to have a long life?
Why do we dote on children so, only to abandon interest
in their lives and welfare when they reach an age where
they think for themselves?)

My heart goes out to the parents and other family. I
know grief is a terrible force. Grief is natural and normal,
but it can grow to be a demon that overtakes our life and
distances us from those that are still living.
Can keep us trapped in the past. Keep us focused on what
can no longer be, instead of what is. Young people dying is
a shock to our systems; it throws all of what we believe
and hope for to be ripped apart. As if it were a condemnation
or brutal payback for some prior bad act.

Life is hard. It's scary and rough and lonely. But Shit just
happens. Sometimes it's what we consider good shit....
sometimes bad shit. Sometimes it's just mediocre.
Sometimes, horrible shit happens. But it is still just life.
A hurricane doesn't have an agenda.
A child doesn't die to punish the child or the parent.
People don't get sick for past sins.
The moralizing and justification we apply to life
are a dangerous business.

We like to build up ideas to give the illusion of protecting
ourselves. Ideas like;
-A job is our lifelong career that will sustain us.
-A family member will always be around.
-A love or marriage relationship is indestructible.
-A house can withstand any storm.
-A schedule fills a day with meaning.

We use the constructs of time, communities, families,
beliefs, and more to distract us from the truths that
exist. That we're stronger than we are. That we're
permanent. That we're powerful. That we
are important in the scheme of things.

Was the shock of that young girl upsetting to you?
Really? Then what are you going to do besides wring
hands and gossip about it? Will you commit yourself
to being a better person, so that your life is not wasted?
...Will you volunteer to help people in need in the here
and now, rather than offer lip service to how pitiful
their situation is?
...Will you recognize that life is a precious gift that is not
a given or a constant?
...Will you show the people you care about how much
they mean to you, while you have the chance?
...Will you recognize that are no distinctions between
young and old, rich or poor, and that all life is valuable
and blessed?
I hope so.

I have heard people say that "Nothing happens in
God's world without reason or planning."
Really? If you ask about this, people usually get
very defensive. But I would like to know; if everything
in "God's world" is approved by God, that means that
every murdered child is approved? Every raped
child is prearranged? Every horrible incident is a part
of a plan?

So the response to that is that "Man has free will.
The bad things are not of God; they run counter to
His desires." So, why is that?

just bark :"God's will is not to be questioned!", hinting
that they might feel their will also shouldn't be
questioned.

I truly mean no harm, though. I realize that the
insertion of a notion that "all is happening according
to a Master Plan" is something that allows many
people the comforts of sleep at night. It gives them
the strength to trudge on through tragedies, problems,
questions, or even the annoyance of jerks at work.

We all have different means of getting us through
the night. My assessment of yours as a 'crutch' doesn't
negate the positive impact that your beliefs
have on your life. I'm jealous of the serenity.

(To be fair, though; a majority expressing belief
in a concept or faith doesn't support that there is in
fact a rightness or support of said belief's tenants.
Sometimes the stray knows how to survive.
Personally, I'd rather people focused on making
'Heaven' in the here and now, where actual need
can be discerned. Rather than expecting and
anticipating a Netherworld of Hope in the afterlife.)

I feel like it's a strange mix, for us to be here on this
Big Blue Speck, hanging out killing each other, slandering
each other, forming committees to dethrone
each other...and then try and impose order on it all!
To try and make right, or make sense out of what
(for me) is clearly mostly senseless.

If we are to embrace the randomness and insanity
of things, why are we blessed with reasoning and
rational brains? The ability to question and explore?
Why do we not fully utilize that which sets us apart?
Why do we have such a tremendous
weapon and yet use it so incompletely and so rarely?

I don't profess to have all the answers. Don't even
claim that the ones I cling to are rock solid. But I
think that unless we are willing to explore and navigate
uncertainty, we will surely be consumed by it. I think
it's entirely possible to extract value and purpose from
even the most tragic of circumstances, but please don't
ask me to believe it was intended.

Another variety of Grief, part 2

I left a large portion of loss out of the first part of this because it tends to alienate so many. But I'd be remiss if I pretended that the loss of my animal companions through the years has not been especially difficult. They are devoted, loving, and spend more time with us (typically) than the average human. I don't call them pets; they're my babies. That pretty much says all there is. think of it what you will.

So there I was, dealing with this horrible sense of loss and emptiness, and most everyone I know killed or dead (or gone because my constant depression was too much to handle.) I had often felt like I would not live to be older than 25. I had what I would later come to know as Survivor's Guilt, and I didn't know how to proceed.

I gave up on life. I went through the motions, but I didn't care about anything. The only thing that kept me even halfway pulled together at this time were my 12 step support groups, and my grief support group (The Life Center of Tampa Bay.) I was in counseling too, and was in relationships that came and went (including an ongoing that continuously came and went!) I was a veracious reader and read all the death and dying manuals and self-help and grief books I could to see how others had coped. The words got in, even if it took a long time to register.

But only through dealing with other people who could relate to what the hell was going on--or at least allow me my craziness to express it regardless--was I able to cope with the mess my life had become.

I felt empty and alone, and my abandonment and security issues were full throttle (or 'wide open' as they say up here.) The things I was using to 'help' were doing anything but, and I really had no interest in my own well being. I was just sleepwalking.

I couldn't make sense in my head how 5 year olds and 20 year olds and 16 year olds could just be gone. I didn't know why I had been given a miracle of 'making it through' situations and people and illness that should have killed me a dozen times over.

I gave up on life. I couldn't even deal with the memories of the dead and gone anymore; I was too easily overwhelmed by the loss. It made me want to be here 'alone' even less. I took down pictures. I boxed up personal gifts and cards and letters. I didn't want any reminders that I had been open and vulnerable and hurt. I lived like a refugee, much to Tom Petty's distress.

The week before my 25th birthday, my adoptive father died in front of me in his home, where I was living at the time. I watched with a mix of detachment and satisfaction and horror as his body twitched and turned blue. My Mother was on the phone with 911, and when they arrived and started working on him (for her benefit) I knew he was gone. His abdomen was so puffed up from all the air they were pumping into him, and you could read their expressions. The ride to and from the hospital that night was the longest I have ever had. I gave his eulogy, too, although I'm sure many were stunned by the fact.

(The day after the funeral, I was in a bad car accident which re-injured all my knee and hip problems from the first. I really thought it was going to be the 'One,' but once again...)

I continued to see loss around me all the time, and my sense of it being a disproportionate part of my life remained a painful assumption, rather than a learning opportunity.

After making contact with my birth family, I became close to several members and we have remained so. I have lost several of them in a relatively short period of time, including a great aunt, an uncle, a cousin, a second cousin and more. But I gained a lot of strength from my one Aunt, who is adept at living life 'on life's terms.' She grieves, she questions, she hurts, and then, at the end of the day, she moves on with life. It takes strength, courage, work, a positive outlook and chutzpah, but you do what has to be done. And you don't forget the dead.

Several of the older women that I looked in on and cared for passed in the time after I moved up to Southwest Georgia. Just a part of things, but sometimes seeing someone so regularly at the end of their journey, knowing it's coming, can be a strange sensation.

Two years ago, I experienced a loss which turned me upside down. I felt pain and heartache like I have never known. And it started me on a (further) downward spiral that lasted nearly all of those two years, leading to the point where I truly believed the only answer was to take my own life. This time, not in an emotional fit or a half-witted stab, but as a legitimate, well planned decision that would be carefully executed every step of the way.

But the Universe intervened, and at that critical moment, I asked for one last chance. Just a little hope. And I received it. Now don't do this and expect some damned 'Touched By An Angel' tree to come crashing into your trailer and knock a gun out of your hand. You still have to take action. My spirit told me to make a call. I made four for good measure. What I found on the other end of the line gave me what i needed for just one more day. And slowly, with just the effort to take a chance, things got a little better.

My fervent belief that I had no chance transformed. Slowly, but surely. Tiny things happened. Despair lessened. I kept trying new things, changing thoughts, meeting with people, improving diet. The more work I did, the better things seemed. Even a minute of relief was welcome. The crazy thinking got a little better. I had new voices to listen to instead of the same old negative, condemning, pessimistic ones. Just leaving the 'comfort' of my home was a monumental challenge at first, but I continued.

It took me a long time to realize that stuff just plain happens; it isn't 'happening to me.'

I have slowly become better at keeping alive the memories of those important to me. I have learned to reopen myself to people, life, love, relationships, and the future. I have learned to let go of pain as an excuse to keep from risking. I have let go of behaviors that were continuing my
cycle of distrust and self abuse. I have let go of guilt and shame that have been regular parts of my world for 4 decades. It isn't easy; but Just Do It.

I have come to know that nothing is promised, and that's part of the randomness and chaos of life. I can't exert control into a place it doesn't exist; trying to manufacture a pattern or reason for things happening. Expecting a life extinguished to make sense. The only sense it holds for me is that a life is a precious thing. Our lives are precious in spite of what we do to pretend otherwise. Life has value when you value it.

As I have been able to get outside my own dark thoughts and explore new and more relaxed ways of thinking, I have become more able to enjoy things. To see good that exists; to simply be content with having a life and believing that there is a future for me. For a long time, there was no desire or faith or hope. Now, I have seen and experienced first hand that I can make a difference in my own life. I am not relegated to being depressed, despairing, or worthless. Those were labels I was given and that I manufactured to make sense of my interpretation of the world. But it's not 'who I am.'

I have choice in every area of life.

Whether or not I live it.

Whether I live it well or not.

Whether I excel or just am content to get by.

Whether or not I experience the miracles that are around us, big and small.

Whether or not I reach out to others, or constantly await them to seek me.

Every person I have ever known has given me some gift. Whether a blessing that lifted my heart, or a curse that made me stronger. I know that I can do what needs to be done. I am not an accident, a mistake, or a problem. I have had accidents, made mistakes, and suffered problems, but those things to not make up who I am.

I am a survivor of many cruelties, and still I stand strong. I have been blessed to know many beautiful people in this lifetime, and now I see what a treasure that is. I am able to accept and appreciate even a slight joy in a world of misery, rather than wasting time bemoaning the misery. I have experienced much of what all people experience, and I may be able to help another cope with part of the normal ebb and flow of life.

Whereas once I saw loss and abandonment....now I am grateful for the time shared, and the lessons learned. I look forward to the possibilities of what new people I may meet, and the current relationships I hope grow stronger still.

Another Variety of Grief

When I was a kid, I didn't have much interaction with other people...period. But the interactions I did have were always with much older people.

My adoptive parents were on subsequent marriages, were both a good bit older, and all of their friends and coworkers were similarly older. So when their relatives, coworkers, or the rare friends were present (which wasn't often,) I learned how to communicate in Old people lingo.

I learned to think like an old person, dwell on old people concerns, and attach to old people. I had no friends my age.

So when I eventually started school and had no friends and no skills for making friends, I stood out like a fish out of water. My concerns and interests were different anyhow, but the social barrier really accentuated it.

When I was just 6, my grandfather died in the line of duty as a Hillsborough County Sheriff's officer. I didn't understand death, but it scared the hell out of me. The fact that Nana was so sad and everybody was acting so weird really freaked me bad. And the corpse at the funeral was too much; I just stared and stared and stared while the voices droned on.

I got used to death at an early age; accustomed to its regularity, seeing as I knew so many old people. I was confused in school that other people had never lost anyone and thought I was weird because I talked about it incessantly.
In 5th Grade, I think it was, a boy in our class (of 20 students) died unexpectedly in a skiing accident. That was super bizarre.

One day soon after it occurred, I had come to school late as a result of a funeral in our family, and I encountered the boy's Mom in the doorway to the offices. It was one of those strange, strained, uncomfortable dealings where there was nothing whatsoever to be said and the silence was deafening. I just recall that look of despair; how it looked like this previously vibrant and loving person had just disappeared. What on earth was she thinking? What would happen to her now? We passed, nothing spoken, and my heart ached for her. That helplessness of watching people suffer has stayed with me.

My paternal grandmother died when I was about 14 years old. I was in the midst of a meltdown, being booted from school, leaving home and other nonsense when it occurred, and I'm sorry to say that all I really remember of that time was the selfishness of feeling more abandoned and alone in the world. She had been good to me, even though she supposedly had not been around for my Dad at all. (You can imagine the resentments there.)

I lost two good souls to suicide at this time. That was devastating, especially in the midst of teen hormones and my own failed attempts. I had precious few friends to begin with, and this started the idea in my head that I was plagued by Death. That those close to me were being picked off. That death was the one thing that people who knew me had in common. It sounds absurd, but it's the thinking of a troubled mind. Especially when more than half of your world is in the ground at age 14 and most people you know still haven't lost a single person they know. (That sense of not being able to share my loss, or have other people relate to it was equally isolating.)

A brilliant young man whom I admired and had a huge crush on was responsible for a drunken driving crash that killed a little girl. The senselessness and insanity of all aspects of the tragedy shook me greatly. To know that such despair could come from a moment of stupidity was mind-boggling. I don't believe in destiny and predestined lives, so it was just a colossal damned waste of possibility.

I would later find out (12 years later) that my birth mother, Mary, was killed on Christmas Day of 1985. While I didn't know her at the time, I was staying alone at my parents' house while they vacationed across country at the time (1985/1986 school holiday season.) I was miserably depressed and bottomed out and suicidal once more, but I focused on my writing and produced a poem which still helps me to this day. I don't believe in coincidences, so I'm sure that was my mother reaching out to me) When I learned that she was dead, and how, that realization that I would never get to see her or hear her voice was devastating. I had searched for my birth family for about a decade, and to have that truth revealed was hugely painful.)

This being the mid-Eighties meant one thing for a young and sexually active homosexual male; the HIV-A.I.D.S. crisis. The only real place of belonging I had found was in my fellow outcasts, and all the people I knew were dying horrible deaths. Withering away, unrecognizable, depressed, tossed aside by family and work and church and friends. It seemed like all we could do for a while was hold hands and bury the dead. Some chose to kill themselves rather than face the unknown. Many disappeared from the 'Scene,' choosing to lose themselves in the church, marriages, or denial. I don't blame them. It was a lonely, frightening, brutal time.

Relationships became harder to establish. People were scared of any kind of intimacy. The deaths I had experienced made me retreat even further from other people, emotionally. It was just 'too much' to go through over and over again.
And it always seemed to be good people suffering. Not just dying, but suffering and dying. After being placed in an evangelical school where they regularly condemned me and harassed me verbally and physically about my sexuality, I made another suicide attempt. I crashed my car, but something prevented it from being fatal. I feel the effects of that crash every day I am still alive.

One morning I awoke around 6 a.m., having been touched by a messenger. I sat and waited. The phone rang, and I dressed and went out into the house. Mother was on the kitchen phone and started breaking down into tears. I knew I had to be the one to maintain, as the voice had guided me, so I went over and took the phone as she grieved then loss of her Mother.

My Grandmother Grace is probably the single most influential figure in my life. She was the only person who has ever shown me truly unconditional love and kindness. She was a nurturer, a role model, a friend, a comfort, a confidante, an ally and an inspiration. She cared for me and raised me and lived in the next room for many years. She alone knew what the reality of life in that house was. We were bonded forever. I helped with plans, and I gave the eulogy as she had requested. I just got through it. My aunt told my Mom at the funeral to "Stop crying..it was gonna be all right." I don't recall what I said, but I know the comment created rage within me.

People are always trying to control and suppress and invalidate our emotions. And grief is one of the most personal matters around. Possibly the deepest hurt we will ever experience. At least it has been in my experience. While driving along the highway a week later, I nearly crashed when I burst into tears without warning. It was a deep, guttural sobbing that I couldn't stop, and was so intense that I couldn't see through the waterworks. Something guided me me to the side of the road safely and I cried for the longest time before I felt spent.

Not long after I lost my best friend Todd. Shortly after having left the hospital, I called back up to check on him. The nurses would only say that "You need to get in touch with his family." During his funeral, the preacher (who didn't even know Todd) started doing Hellfire and Brimstone for the sake of his parents. They had showed up out of nowhere in Todd's last days to condemn him to Hell and 'convert' him, making his last moments on earth wretched and scary. No one spoke about Todd or his life or his spirit or loves during the entire spectacle. When it turned into a tent revival, I walked out. The preacher made the mistake of singling me out for his disapproval. I have avoided all but 3 funerals since then.

My friend John was pretty sick for a good while. He had Hospice and was pretty ready to go. I think he had time to make peace with a lot, which is good. He was a friend, as well as the brother and brother-in-law of two other close friends, so when he went at least there was some support in place. We even had a celebratory dinner for John's 'real' family after the service, which I truly enjoyed. (I sat under a tree and communed with nature and John during that service.)


more to follow.....

Losing A Loved One

The following is a great poem written by a Connie Farmer. It came to me via THE LIFE CENTER newsletter, LIFELINE. (The LIFE Center of the sun coast, Inc., is a grief support and counseling center that has operated out of Tampa for the last 20 years or so. They offered me immeasurable assistance when those around me could not help me through the loss of friends and family. They have a great website, too.) http://www.lifecenteroftampa.org/

I hope that someone who is in need will find this helpful. And please pass it on to anyone you know who may be hurting. Grief is necessary to experience, but it can become a bottomless pit if we descend into it unassisted. Never be afraid to let someone you know that you care for their welfare. Better to be thought overly concerned than unconcerned.

Peace, Robert

*****

(title unknown...by Connie Farmer)

Looking back, I remember your curious smile;
The peaceful calm, the quiet knowing,
That emanated from your eyes.
There's a strange longing in my heart
To hear the sounds you heard,
To witness the things you saw,
To experience the miracle of living between two worlds.

We shared unnameable fears, cried ceaseless tears,
And tried to comprehend the pain of leaving behind
The world you knew so well.
In the end, though, you were strong-
A wondrous strength sustained by the surety
That all is well with this world
When we are gently ushered into the beyond.

For what you so patiently taught me, I am
eternally grateful.