I have distilled what I have left of hope for
You and me
Into
I used to think you were home
The dog-eyed woman
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Category Archives: grief
Pieces of a Story
The woman should be dressed in black, the color of mourning, sure, but also the color of the charcoal outline of her once too solid flesh turning quickly into whatever charcoal is made of, burnt things, carbon, dust to dust…the man the groom the former love turns to choices made willingly in digital time, ushering in darkness through every door, every window
Their home now
They are….home now.
Winter Storm
Over my shoulder I hear the PBS lady tell my sons about blizzards, how they are just snow storms unless the wind is strong and fast. Here in Texas we have driving rain, not driven snow, and it is the percussive light which wakes the dogs in the night. Poised for a fight. Hurricanes have the eyes of Quint’s soulless sharks as they roll across the landscape of childhood and wakefulness I will momentarily regret the home I left in fear. Regret what I did not leave there. Regret what I did, but not the winds. The winds around the eye, the deceptively calm eye, of every storm that changes the landscape
Of who we once were.
Darling-I-Count-Sheep
This started as a break up but ended with old friend, Wakefulness here in the dark, in the storm
It was a dark and stormy night! But it was the dogs that kept me up
Dogs of the past
Dogs of war
That dog whose name* I can’t remember who re-enacted classics like The Prince and the Pauper.
When names and sleep elude you, there are sheep. They start out chalky, outlined, and two dimensional, but they elaborate
In depth, complexity, and general fluffiness, but also about the weather, dogs barking at night, and all the ways it was and wasn’t my fault this chance we took hurt so much.
*Wishbone
Thigh-High Hell
Lauren Duca, famous for “thigh-high” politics and damning people to hell, has reminded me of a very old joke-
A person is ushered into hell and told to choose between two rooms. In one people appeared to be stuck head-first in a solid foot of manure. In the other they are standing, with coffee mugs, in several feet of manure. Upon reflection the newbie chooses the second option. As soon as soon as the choice is made, a disembodied voice says, “coffee break over, get back on your heads!”
But in all seriousness, hell is no joke. Neither is death or AIDS or anti-semitism, or abortion or sexism or segregation or war.
Lauren’s comments about Graham illuminate her anger and her politics. Calling anyone an epithet like “shit” or “bitch” is an act of dehumanization and should elicit questions about why the speaker is that angry.
So I read Graham’s biography. He was just a guy. He did some brave things, he made some big mistakes. He was flawed and occasionally made public comments he regretted or private comments he regretted even more. A public figure of mixed repute who said or did things he sometimes regretted–not that different than Lauren Duca.
By my estimation Duca is in her 20s, which means she is a cool three-quarters of a century younger than Graham. She is young, young and apparently angry.
I wonder if Duca would have said what she did had she been older or done some research on literal hells.
I am a lot older than Duca and a lot younger than Graham. At fifty my regrets come back to me, chalky outlined ghosts of all my squalor, all my terrible, ordinary sins.
What if hell were just that? No fire and brimstone, just all our dead deeds come back to us forever. Just all our paid-for-with-this-glib-t-shirt dead.
We would wish for what Graham claimed to have–
An unequivocal Redeemer.
Job 19:25 NIV
[25] I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
The Weirdest Thing
The weirdest thing how brave not knowing makes you. Not knowing the crash. Not knowing the presence of wrong. Not knowing the feral son has been a monster all along. He will not turn into a real boy instead he will be ever-so-carefully excised from the picture of the ordinary house, where trees have grown a rampart around all
who survive him.
Tim Davis’ Inexcusable Excuse
No doubt an abuse victim himself?
Tim Davis either has inside information about someone abusing Salling as a child, in which case he should report that immediately to the authorities or he has just perpetuated the kind of ignorant, baseless assumption about abuse victims which makes it so difficult for the victims to heal.
Again, if Davis knows Salling was abused he better call the police.
And if he does not, he owes every last victim of sexual abuse (including Salling’s) a retraction and an apology.
Sexual abuse victims are not de facto abusers, and to insinuate so in order to excuse the inexcusable is, to borrow from Davis–a cruel comment.
Signs of Famine and Pain
Like most people I was appalled and distraught to read about what the Turpin siblings had to endure for nearly three decades. I will continue to grieve for them and pray for healing, justice, and recovery.
But I am angry as well. I am angry because despite (perhaps partially justified) calls to lay this abuse at the doorstep of homeschooling, there were so many people who interacted with the Turpin family, who saw at least some of the signs of abuse and yet no one ever reported anything.
At least two of the children went to public schools….
no one reported anything.
Neighbors saw odd behavior…
no one reported anything.
The children went to a doctor or two at some point in their lives…
no one reported anything.
Former neighbors found hard evidence of abuse and animal cruelty…
No one reported anything.
This is not the first time terrible crimes have been perpetrated by caregivers, ostensibly behind closed doors, but it is remarkable that the abuse intensified in severity and lasted so long because
No one reported anything.
Yet we hear them all now.
Note: if you suspect abuse or neglect you can make anonymous reports either by withholding your name or by relying that when you give your name to authorities your identity will not be shared in an investigation. Not one person who lived in proximity to the Turpins risked anything by making an anonymous report about signs of neglect or abuse.
Thing One and Thing Two
There have always been problems with The Cat in the Hat-
- Why the heck does the mom leave two young children home unattended?
- Why doesn’t anyone heed the fish?
- Why does the Cat come off as jovial instead of super creepy?
- Which leads me to this:
One day he reads the story with his older sister. When he gets to the part about Thing One and Thing Two he has a few horrified questions. Who are they? Why do they live in a box? Do they ever get to see their mother? Why does the Cat/protagonist/ersatz guardian keep them in a box?!
His questions are so good and true and terrible and she cannot really answer them adequately. When she tries he says, in grief and anguish–but they are children, little children!
In the picture they took of you we strain to see your numbers, strain to see your faces. Look for something, someone to tell us it will all be ok.
As the last few lines of this children’s story
Indict us all.
Eldest Child
Something about Elvis impersonators, well-fed dogs, and raffles for them rattles around my head–keep asking myself what what can I give them? What can I do? When you were born I was still in college, George HW was president, both Princess Diana and Mother Theresa were still alive.
So many years of hunger.
I wish I could make it all better, like one of those chubby, diminutive fairy godmothers–change the immutable curse into a deep slumber, when you wake up
Wipe away all the tears from your eyes
Prepare a table just for you,
Things any decent mom would do…
Psalm 146:7 NIV
[7] He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free,
Carrying Light 