Suffering

Losing family is hard enough, like a grandparent, sibling, or parent, but to watch them slowly die before your eyes with nothing you can do to help kills you inside. Worse still is for them to remain alive physically as a statue of themselves--as though dead, but somehow still moving and talking. Dementia or other catastrophic neurological trauma or physical disability that leave the person a shadow of themselves haunt their victims' families and loved ones.

I know now the pain of seeing family pass away, but still remain to haunt us as phantoms of themselves--you spend your every waking desire to catch that last glimmer of the phantasm, but it escapes your reach.

I clutch, verily, to what remains of my sanity tonight.

Today is my father's birthday. He turned 63.

I was to go and visit him again in Salem today, but I cannot bear to bring myself to go. I don't have the strength anymore to do it alone.

I'm tired of all the suffering. How people older than me can keep their sanity is a miracle. I cannot fathom their devices or means. I am overwhelmed by grief--grief I cannot express, but which hides behind false smiles and hints that all will be well so long as I bear onwards. I must endure! I must survive! Why? I know not...

Maybe, this is all we "survivers" have to keep our course steady?

While this may sound absurd for someone my age, twenty-six, but I feel in these moments as if I need the caretaker--not just my parents.

My mind trickles away from me--slowly fading into sunset as the daylight of my life escapes my fingers, merging into shadow.

"Where am I headed now?", a voice calls, "Where am I to go, and what am I to do? What purposes am I to set my course? What am I to navigate by? Where is my light? Where is my tinder box?"

[Nothing.] An emptiness.

I turn, "Oh, fate! Oh, cursed plight of heaven! You cast me aside so easily, and yet, you demand everything! You leave me here, alone, abandoned, forsaken on this cursed Earth to tend my days! For what?! For what am I to do? God, you have foresook me! Am I alone? Am I no longer worthy of your graces?! Am I a husk of flesh, meat, and bone--broken sinew to be cast aside when no longer a need you can find through me? Am I contemptible to thee? In your eyes am I broken an not worthy of repair?"

I stumble. Crashing down hillsides I cry, "My God, why hath you forsaken me?! Why have the promises been undone in me? Why am I to suffer so without reproach, without relief, without reward, without peace until my final breath does leave me?"

"If I die before I wake, I pray my Lord my Soul will take. But, if E takes to cast aside, better to fade away and cry for better days spilt here, for trials evermore will curse me till I'm gone."

"As my ship sets sail, today, I cast aside my mooring. I am to die, begone, away! Lest ye fade away with me!"

Castles, sunsets, and memories of childhood

Twenty years ago, I found myself in a new world--an ancient world of wonder, filled with gargoyles, great monoliths of stone and masonry--where castles were not just found in story books, but instead were as common as a grocery store. Our town had its own ruins--barren and gray, decaying from years of neglect and misuse. The towers crumbled, and if you climbed the precarious spiral stairs, you would find yourself upon the tower--the ancient ruins of Guilford Castle.

Rich tapestries of childhood blanketed my waking dreams. Pictures of battles, wizards, and worlds afar. As one looked out towards a setting sun, you could witness the mothers filing out of centuries worn shops like little merchant fairies attending a yule ball. The smell of baked goods wafting effortlessly through a chilly Surrean gust.

Near my small and racing form stood the still, pensive figure. It was tall, yet not too much so. Short, bobby-like brown hair fell down upon a graceful smile, articulated by that fierce, yet loving, gaze. The figure was my mother, holding aloft her graceful form, casting a warm glow on the misty sunset from days long past by conscious memory and into history and legend.

Were Lady Hildebrand or Lady Guinevere to have stood aloft, I imagine they would be impressed with my own queen's vigilant prowess.

Like a cloudy visage peering through Louis Carol's looking glass did the eyes gaze upwards and over the timbers of brick forests, chimnies awaiting the good luck's a sweep, and his lady friend too.

In a pause the kindly figure turns, "It's time to go, Christopher."

"But, mom..." the little boy chides, "can't we stay for just a few more minutes? I'm having ever so much fun."

Smiling with the grace and poise of Gretta Garbo or a Hepburn, she turns, "Five more minutes. We have to get home or your father will begin to worry."

"Awe... Alright. Thanks mom! I love y'a."

Kissing the figure on the cheek, the young boy in his red jacket and blue wool uniform he hated, but beared as a talisman against angry headmasters who disapproved of hyperactive little American boys who lacked British modesty and discipline.

As the minutes enrolled onward, the boy, sensing the appointed hour, wandered slowly from his cryptic perch and slowly descended the spiral encasement towards the figure in white. Mine own Galadriel.

Slowly, I crept into the misty depths of my tower, freshly abandoned yet again for another season as the young returned to school after the holidays.

My own journey, however, was not to school, at least not where itchy wool and long socks were the required dress code or bad food the daily menu. Instead, I was to travel many leagues to my first home, Seattle. Back to a world now unfamiliar. Fear crept over my waking thoughts. Will they like me? Will I fit in? What about Jack or Victoria? Will I ever see them again?

My fears were quelled in a wash of warmth as the familiar arms grasped about my chest and held me still. My mind turned to the last sparkling shimmers fading out across the distant horizon as dusk enveloped its patrons.