Yet still I hope

My heart sinks every time I do this. I make the right turn, pull down the street and the house comes into view. I feel my brother stirring in the back, I wonder, if he is as anxious as I am. Does he feel like this every time he approaches the house and prepares to go through those doors. Anyway, as I slow the car and pull into the driveway there seems to be some other force pulling my heart out of my chest, like an angry gladiator thirsty for blood. My heart aches for me, for him. I try to smile, recap the day quick and slowly walk him to the door. This is what the unconscious is for I think to myself, I am glad he cant hear my thoughts. As we slowly walk up to the house I think how I just want to grab him and run, run like hell for a happier place, a place where little boys dont lose their caring mothers, a place where little boys dont have to walk into a house full of pictures of their wonderful mother who is no longer here, a world where little boys dont have to feel the immense weight of cold hard reality every day. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I can save everyone from pain? I know I can't and still I feel the urge each and every time I walk him into the house. The house full of Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, presents and a Christmas tree feels as empty as a dried up pool on a hot summer day. Is it me or does his heart sink like mine as I move in to give him a hug good bye, does he too want to run away? I look around and she is everywhere, and yet not here. The pain I feel at this moment, these few days I am home visiting when I come to the house. Is that his pain 365 days a year? The pain I sometimes feel I cant bear another second is that what he lives with? As I say my last goodbye,close the door behind me, and slowly walk to my car the feeling of apprehension and anxiety is replaced by sadness and worry as I carry the weight of these thoughts after every visit. I try to console myself with the thought that I cant change what is, that I alone cant restore innocence to a child, yet still I hope.

Life Cycle Intro

It is amazing how things suddenly enter our field of vision, often times we fail to see what is right there staring at us. It is only after much searching that the seemingly obvious becomes so. I had always thought this, or thought I knew what this concept meant until a trip yesterday I made to my mother's grave. As I was about to leave her grave, I spun around for one last look out at the trees and ocean and there it was, staring at me. After this revelation, I realized how time sometimes clouds what will become of us, but somewhere deep in the dark recesses of the moment are faint hints of the natural cycle of life. Where we begin and where we return, and who we are at these different moments in our life is constantly in flux. Over the past day though I was reminded of this eery nature of time in three different instances. To keep things shorter I have titled them Life cycle I, II and II....

Life Cycle Part I

We never know who we will be when we return to a certain spot, and sometimes when we return, without even knowing it we are exactly where we should be...

As I dropped Ali off at the ferry the months came rushing back. Here it was December and I was driving her back to the ferry again, but in just a few short months our lives had become dramatically different. In June as I was making this same trek to the ferry, I was dropping off the girl of my dreams, letting her go and fully expecting I would never see her again. As we waited in that parking lot, saying our last good byes I was flooded by sadness. I had met my match, the woman who I saw myself traveling the world with, going on adventures with and growing with. Six short months ago I was laying it on the line, telling her my dreams and asking for her to trust I knew we could make it work. As she stepped out of my car and onto the ferry I saw my dreams walking away. My stomach was uneasy and I did not know what would happen. As that ferry pulled away I had never felt so lost in my entire life, for an instant I held clarity in my hands and I watched it fade away into the horizon with each moment of the ferries movement. After the ferry pulled out of sight, I climbed in my car, let out a deep sigh and slowly drove home into the unknown.
Fast forward to yesterday. After spending Christmas with Ali, I am driving her home to the ferry. Those 6 short months ago seem unrecognizable. The words spoken, the time between and the people we are now are so very different. As I walked her on to the ferry I could not help but think back to that moment in June as I watched this very same boat pull away. Instead of anxiety and sadness I now felt happiness. The girl of my dreams was now the girl of my reality, and this same spot in which I had stood just a short time ago welcomed me with a new face. I had seen in a glimpse on that warm summer day, but it eluded me. Now though as I returned to the point of our fateful departure, I kissed her one last good bye and told her I would see her in a few days. If I could have seen into the future that day I would have never even recognized who I or we were to become. It is phenomenal to me that our bodies can be in the same place, but how time changes who we are inside when we arrive again at those same places. In a way we are always arriving and departing and while the places may seem the same, who we are is forever changing.

Life Cycle Part II

Time changes how we look at things, and sometimes we can not even see who we will become and where we will end up even though it might be right there in front of us.
Shortly after leaving the ferry I drove up to visit my mother's grave. It had been a long holiday and my visit was overdue. As I strode from the road down to her stone, I gazed into the distance. I was amazed at the beauty of the place, the ocean, and the trees swaying in the cold December air. I had made these steps many times by now, frequently coming to visit whenever I was back in New York. This time I made the same long timid strides, the ones that brought me to her resting place, the ones that reminded me that this was indeed real. Its odd as I think about those steps, its like in my head I somehow feel I might arrive at her grave and find nothing there, and frantically run to the car to go see her realizing it had all been a bad dream. Never was this the case though, instead as I took my last few steps the stone came into view, and it sunk in that this was very very real. There would be no epiphany, no waking up, this was it and I needed to breathe and deal with that fact. Slowly as always I crouched down to the dirt, silently telling her hello, wondering if maybe she was watching me at this moment, perched high above her grave maybe she could see me weep, my head bowed and think how I had changed since my last visit. After some time of silence I got up as I always do, peering out with my back to her grave to look out into the distance. Despite the fact that I had been here many times, I never saw what I saw at that moment. Gazing out directly from her grave was a clear view of St.Charles hospital, the very hospital I was born in some 28 years ago.
As I gazed out on to the hospital, and looked at the tiny windows I thought how odd this whole scene was. Here I was standing at my mother's grave, looking right at the very hospital in which she gave me life. Here in this moment stood poised the natural cycle of life, birth and death. This epiphany forced me to wonder what my mom was like nearly 28 years ago. I pictured her young and beautiful, about to give birth for the first time. I saw a 22 year old girl sitting in that hospital bed, just a few miles, and an eyes gaze away from her final resting spot. Of course she did not know this, we never the where and when, but to think that on that day as she gave birth, or as she held me in her arms, buoyant with the possibilities of the future I wonder if for one moment her eyes fell upon this spot that is now her grave as she looked out the window. In that moment of pure life, where the future seems so huge and impregnated with possibility and teeming with life, did her heart stop for a brief second as her eyes saw that spot, did something deep inside her know? And now? Does her soul pass over this spot, does she look down upon me here weeping at her grave and turn her eyes just slightly upward and see back into where she gave me life? Does she gaze back longingly at that hospital, at those moments of bliss and pure possibility and weep? Or does she look back at that hospital, gazing from her grave and smile at the amazing cycle that life is? I would like to believe she looks back with a smile. I know I do when I think that each moment we encounter is both tinged with the great hope of possibility life while also harboring the fact that at some point we will all meet our end. This is both the beauty and the tragedy that is life. So when I reflect upon this great cycle before me, it forces me to remember to savor those moments, every moment as hard as that it is. As my eyes gaze out into the possibilities before me, as I smile at the moments that bring me elation, I remember to be thankful for this very moment, for who knows when it may end.