The Dead We Know

I wonder what happened to my Canadian friend. She used to visit me often here, and sometimes on my LJ as well, but I haven't seen her in a while now. Something I said? Busted computer? Just busted in general?

I miss people when they're not around anymore, and I take people for granted when they are. I miss my mom and my dad, though I did not miss them when they were here. But that's not quite right, honestly. I think I always missed my dad, from the time I was a little boy and unto this very day. I failed to take heed of the passing time, the opportunities which came and went along the way. So did he.

I miss my brother. Twenty-seven years gone now. I still dream of him. Those are good dreams. He seems most often to enter into the dream that is confused and troubling and somehow take command of it, defusing anxiety, dispersing the fog, leading to the path, the purpose, the light. I am glad I still dream of my brother.

I miss my children. My step-children. Ex-step children. All grown up now, scattered like so many marbles to the corners and under the tables. Only two or three years ago I would speak to them nearly every day.

Most of all I miss my son, abducted by schizophrenia so long ago, lost to me in lands of his own, which I can neither enter nor name. And yet my heart continues to search, day after day, remembering when we held hands on the way to school, remembering how he rode on my back, remembering the games we played, the places we went, the stories we told. My heart remembers the fierce love of its youth, the panic in thinking for a moment that we could lose him, the solemn and unbreakable promise of a parent to never leave, never forsake, and never let harm get past his guard.

So it happens that tears so readily come to my eyes. So it continues to happen for the first time, over and over and over again. My mother, my father, my brother, my son.

Hold tight to what you have, cherish and adore, for tomorrow keeps its secrets to itself, and takes no council in determining its course.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

This morning I talked to my long lost daughter. One of them anyway. We talked via e-mail, as I had sent best wishes for the holiday. She mentioned that Christmas is not the same anymore. And of course it isn’t. It never is.

I can identify, because for me Christmas hasn’t been the same for decades now.

What Jamila is missing, of course, is her own childhood, a feeling of familiarity and security, a foundation that seemed permanent, yet proved transitory. Children count on their parents at the deepest level—and even though I was not her biologic father, I was nonetheless the closest thing she had known to a father. Twelve years is a long time to a child. Twelve years is equal to permanence.

And then the whole thing crashed, as she said in her e-mail. The whole thing just disappeared.

What is Christmas? What is family? Where is home?

It is what we remember. It is the elusive set of feelings and smells and tastes and faces and voices and times and journeys emanating yet from the past like specters out of Dickens. The bell above the door tinkles, the knob turns, and no amount of locks and bolts can keep us from the visitation.

What is it by which we find ourselves confronted?

It is love, of course. Pure and simple.