I always wondered what my father would have said or done if he had been alive when we discovered that C had abused children. I will be honest, I doubt he would have moved mountains.
But I have come across a grandpa who is. In response to concern about a grandchild he has started an online protest, cold-called people warning them and posted hotline numbers.
I do not know the whole story. I just think this response is atypical.
Most of us go the quiet road…
A word on draco–um. Dragons. There are two branches of dragon ancestry–eastern and western. In the Middle country dragons are the ancestors of empire, the progenitors of kings.
They are, in short, our parents already.
The western tradition is entwined with the eastern in that the Mongols crossed the steppes and who knows what Marco said about them? But the western dragons are a chimerical bunch–they have arms, legs, wings that may or not be vestigial.
Their blood might be either immortal or toxic. They are the clear and long-sighted guardians of treasure, rivers, waters, and lairs.
They have fire in their nostrils. Armored skin. But who knows their hearts? Who knows their ancient souls?
It is your choice to believe.
The dragon might have always been a dragon and the story might have been the simple gift of a child.
Or…perhaps the dragon was once a woman who was robbed of her human form by the usual wizardly enchantment. Had she been foolish or proud? Had she refused the wrong man’s hand?
The dragon is not saying. She has wrapped herself in a mantle of smoke. She is thinking about what is to be done with the lovely small thing wrapped in a soft blanket, somehow sleeping next to the warm heft of her serpentine splendor.
Surely no child should be raised by a dragon…
She thinks
And yet how could she bear to lose him?
How could she ever bear to live away from this bundle of light?
What I would tell you
If we spoke a common tongue
Is that he plays for you
The music you gave him
Fills our beautiful house
He misses you
Only he could
Tell you
If he misses you more
Than the day you told him
He was no longer
Your son
Because of me.
I stay up too late. I am looking for meaning. I feel like an old woman rummaging through her things, longing for the people attached to them–
Tom’s chair
Ruby’s dress
The people I want back are mostly living. I want them to be braver or more honorable, kinder or stronger.
But they are not. So I rummage
For meaning
For hope
For the person I once was
This is my nightly vigil
My grief.
Last Sunday night I went to church. Nice church. Comfortable. Friendly. Relaxed atmosphere. Even stayed in the sanctuary for half the sermon. The rest of the time I hung out with the under 5 set in a very nice foyer. It was my best church experience in a long time.
A nice man said they had childcare. There was a moment when I thought about spilling my story.
I don’t leave my kids much because….
Because…
Well, once you realize you trusted a wolf in sheep’s clothing you realize you are a bad detector of sheep costumes
Everyone is except the other wolves.
There is a point in the cycle of loss when people come up for air. The tragedy at the heart of the universe is still there but there is the small hope that words may matter, when so much has been lost.
I tell one child to look up reactive attachment disorder and describe to the other the symptoms of borderline personality disorder.
I am leery of words. How do you describe the damage to a baby or a child of rootlessness and hunger and a world of cold loneliness punctuated by chaos and violence?
I hate what he did to the point of wishing with all my heart that I could unspool his childhood to the day he was born and undo the damage, hold and feed the wee baby to prevent the hours and days and years of pain he will inflict on others.
He has inflicted on us.
Only God can breathe life into the dead.
We talk short words
The argot of binary code
Words and symbols you know better than me
Girlchild
My other daughter
Wish I could keep you close
Through storms and sun and boredom
All the days
A reminder of things
Beyond my reach
build you a fort
of sheets.quilts
blankets–
counterpanes
A Comforter Stronghold
pillow masonry
fortifying all our flying
buttresses
around this cathedral
the artisans, all children
nobody hurt there
not allowed–
the very law of love
forbids it
and all the pain
of our collective
history
would unravel like a braid each night
healing all these grievous wounds
This happened years ago. She was very young and had a nimbus of curls. She was walking down a sidewalk holding your hand. She was clearly enjoying your company. She kept calling you “my robin.”
When I think of the ways you failed her and why you should have done more, done something–advocated for her–that is the image I see in my head. The last time I know for sure that your relationship to that little girl mattered.
At least to her.
Carrying Light 