Joy in Sorrow

Beauty from ashes…

I’m not really sure why it hit me so hard. I wasn’t the closest to him. In fact, I hadn’t talked to him on the phone in a couple of months. I’d seen him at gatherings, but never had much of a conversation since the last one we had around November of last year.

Then suddenly.  Gone.

This morning I cried the cry I had been holding on to for a good month.  Not just tearing up, but the guttural, snotty, tsunami cry that physically hurt as much as it did emotionally.   And maybe that was why it hit so hard.  I needed the example of another life lived.

I’m not here to tell his story.  In fact, I didn’t know it well.  But I know he practiced a set of beliefs that I too have found life in.  Finding the ability to be present amidst the storms that we all face.  

And there is joy.  Tucked away in the loss and not understanding is knowing that there is no more pain.  That there is no more sorrow - except for what those of us left here hold in this moment.  In the moments we reflect on life.  Death.  The path we all have to trod.

I look at my feet.  I’m thankful for being able to be present in the pain.  I’m grateful for Gary and all the others who have shown that we don’t stop living, even when we’re faced with death.

There is joy in sorrow.  There is ‘beauty from ashes’.  There remains a hope for something more than just the day to day; if we decide we want what he had, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it.

Thank you Gary.  And for all the ones that are also grieving tonight.  

Prayers for us all.

~ Peace

The Burtle 

Gettysburg

Grief can be a deceptive monster, meandering through our lives in and out at different times stirring anger, sorrow, loss, longing - all the feels.

I was staying on the outskirts of the historic battleground in early September 2020 when I got the news.  I had already been in a state of my own self-imposed grief and trying to escape from reality as I knew it.  Everything was gone.  Everything was lost.  Or I thought so.  And then I realized there was more to come.

Life was coming.  At 2am I got a text saying that my best friend and his wife were heading to the Hospital… The birth of their daughter was eminent.

Then death.  At 6am I got the phone call.  It was my uncle.  My mom had passed.  Unexpectedly and suddenly - days after a questionable surgery and hospital stay.

Life and death work that way.  In conjunction; ebbing and flowing through the lives of those around us.  Through our lives.  Grief comes with that.

My own grief:

My past - a childhood with hidden demons. 

Excuses and not ever quite understanding my purpose here.

My present (2020):

The Toxic relationship that I worshiped.

And finally My mom.

I have grieved.  I’ve reached down and dealt with the passages of hurt and loss that bound me for years.

There are moments I wish I could go back, like the ghosts in the Christmas Carol and tell those who witnessed my chaos firsthand what was going on inside.  That my own selfish desires fueled an already fragile psyche into the abyss of self destruction.  That I knew he was going to show up (the abuser WOULD rear his head at the funeral).  That I was sure she WOULD show up at my side.  That I WOULD be able to make it through the day without the taste of spirits on my breath.  That I WOULD be able to grief… SOMETHING.

And in my mind none of it happened.  Well, I thought none of it happened.  My abuser did show up, to be spurned by my ‘fighter aunt’ who protected a man who didn’t want to be protected.  I wanted a fight.

The Gettysburg of my emotions, my grief; my pain.  And just like Gettysburg, it didn’t end well.

Today, I stand on another mountain that bears the carvings of soldiers of that same war.  I felt a tear form in my eye.  Grief can appear at any time.  We feel, we breathe in this experience that is life, and we all face loss - death.

I’ve forgiven Lee.  But I still have no desire to see him.  The spiral I went on was partly fueled by his rape of more than just my innocence.

I felt betrayed by someone who never showed up.  I know that’s NOT the type of person I want in my life now.

I wish I could tell my brother what I was feeling then.  What I’d been feeling for a long time.  That I needed help and I just wasn’t in a good place.  That I was sorry.  Maybe one day.

My daughter had to bear more than a child, no a young lady should ever deal with.  Watching her father start to vanish, knowing that she had already lost one parent, She was an unwilling participant in my roller coaster.  Though I have looked at her in the face and told her I was sorry, there will come with time where we have a deeper conversation about everything.

My sons both were shielded slightly from the wreckage, but they didn’t get through unscathed.

 

I’ve made my amends to my Dad.  He knows where I stand.  And not by words.  But by one day at a time living this life outside of the bondage of my head and a bottle.

And I’ve grieved my mom.  Not in the moment.  But in conversations over the last year and a half and a walk up a mountain.

I can rest now.  In each and every day and know that I am steady, present and truly alive.

There will be battles still left to fight, but they’re just minor skirmishes in a war that was ended November 19, 2020.

~ Peace

The Burtle

WRESTLING under STARS

I've been up late.  Can't sleep.

God has me wrestling with some things.  Well, maybe I'm wrestling with God.  But I'll come back to that...

Looked up and saw the stars.

Calming.

Makes me feel so small, yet here.

Underneath something so much bigger than I can fully comprehend.

a friend: I love the winter constellations. Seeing Orion’s Belt is a thing for me. Gives me peace somehow

me: They let me know that I can still dream

me: I didn’t dream for a long time. And then my dreams became so unrealistic. I’m learning that they can be part of life again. I didn’t have hope for a while.

hope.  stars.  something so much bigger than I can fully comprehend.

I don't get him.  God.

I'm stuck in Groundhog day.  I've been going through the same motions, getting the same results... over and over.  You realize that's the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results. 

I want to understand.  Life.  Love.  The secret to the best damn barbeque sauce...

I want to live the life I know he has for me.  

And most of the time recently, I'm doing that.  But then I look up to the stars and I feel alone again.  Even knowing that there are others looking up as well.  That God is there.  I still feel it.

Let's do a little recap - 

I've been blessed with over 400 days (445, not bragging - blessed).  This month will be 50 years on this rock.  I've seen my life grow, prosper, spiral out of control and then be rescued by the presence that has always comforted me.  Then repeat it all again.

Yet the one thing I've craved, yearned for since a kid is still elusive.  Someone who gets me as I am, not the broken man I was or the wounded child when I first believed.  See, I believed in a power greater than me as soon as I was sullied.  I had nothing else to hold on to.  And he walked me through the dark I hid, the terrors in the night that only ceased being a nightly occurrence in the last year, and the storms that I brought on myself in retaliation for the pain I carried.

And he gave me the stars - to get lost in on cold winter nights; autumn nights when the temperatures are just perfect in the south - on hot, humid summer nights when a fresh breeze might be the only way to cool my sweat-drenched clothes.

"God is with us".  It's a phrase my Dad used this morning as I listened to him teach a class at his church.  I truly believe that.  

And I'm wrestling with him.  I don't hate him anymore.  There was a particular night a couple of years ago when I did.  When I was so angry that he kept getting in the way of me making my own decisions about life and death.  I hated that he let the man-child take my innocence; that I couldn't handle it for so many years.  I just don't always understand.

I don't understand. 

I pray.  I meditate - the best a man with intense ADHD can.  I try to do good.  I am a good man.

And when I lay down at night, I am alone.

He's heard me tonight.  I love everything he's given me.  But maybe I'm selfish.  I just want a little more.  

So I'm going to walk outside.  Look up - see the stars.

And wait.

~ Peace,

The Burtle