… and none perhaps to come for some time. Not that knowing will change anything; I realize this.
After the Coroner’s office told my daughter that our Bishop wouldn’t be released for up to 2 weeks, and we elected to just wait… not to call and be frustrated and angry with the official processes, rather to put our faith and trust in the hope of a system that cares why babies die…
They called my daughter this morning to inquire as to why we hadn’t made arrangements, as he’d been released for some time. Fucking idiots. Today they are saying he was released on the very same day they told us it would be up to 2 weeks. They say we misunderstood, that they meant for results, yet in the same breath we are told that results will take up to two months.
I hope that the bumbling fools on the phones are not representative of the proficiency levels of the investigator- medical examiner-whatever.
We’ll need to go down to Riverside now; to the Neptune Society, who will have the care of his body for cremation.
I went to a meeting last night. An intimate little “Rainbow” (Gay), AA meeting held at a home a few blocks from me. I was asked to lead the meeting, which was difficult under the circumstances. Still, I was raised up in an AA that suggests that one “Never turn down an AA request”, and if I’ve learned anything in 19- almost 20 years of sobriety, it’s that I must give it away to keep it. I acquiesced and did my best to tell “how it was, what happened” but I kinda lost it when I came to the “how it is today” part.
As I shared my story, and heard myself speaking of the Gods, (Higher Power) and reflecting on the blessings that I have had in my life, my willingness to embrace Deity and that there is a greater meaning, I found myself carrying on an inner dialogue; a critique of my thoughts and beliefs that made me realize and better understand why there are so many atheists and existentialists who simply cannot give any credence to the possibility of a Higher Power of any sort.
After all, what is my tiny loss here but a single tear in a flood; no- an ocean of despair?
Countless pointless deaths and myriad sufferings which serve no purpose- which can be assigned no “greater good”. No pious self comforting delusions here of “everything happens for a reason”, or ignorant Christian blatherings of “the lord works in mysterious ways”.
There is no comfort for this- this pointless, random event.
So how do I fit this into my “faith”, my “belief systems”? The same way, I suppose, that I fit all the other random and insane cruelty, and tragedy and horror into it.
The Random. Chaos. Nature. She’s cruel, Nature is (like a cat with a mouse). And random (like the “Big Bang”). And pointless (like rainbows). And there is ebb and flow and change; order and chaos. And somehow it’s magickal and beautiful despite it all.
My AA sponsor says “We’re not humans having a spiritual experience, we’re spirits having a human experience.”
So with that awkward segue I’m back to the AA meeting, and the “how it is now” part.
“How it is now”, I said, “is fucked beyond belief. I thought I learned about powerlessness when I got clean and sober. It was slow going for a control freak like me, but I learned. Or I thought I did. When my daughter was raped; another lesson in powerlessness. When she attempted suicide; yet another. Still; there were things I could do to help her. Counseling, therapy, psych meds. Then at 10 years sober I lost my Jerry. My husband, love, partner, friend- my “soulmale”, and I realized yet again that my previous understanding of “powerlessness” was bullshit. I thought that his death taught me the truth of being powerless…”
*(He was too young- only 45; my sweet man. Still, he’d been sober and we’d been together nearly 10 years, had the opportunity to love and be loved- to be a father to my Fawn- we’d healed each others hearts and I was grateful for the blessings I had. When the Coroner told me that he had a congenital form of arteriosclerotic heart disease and it was nothing short of a miracle that he lived to be 45- that men like my husband die often in their 20′s- I managed to find some solace in the thought that our love and what we were to each other was indeed somehow “meant to be”.)
“… but this; this loss, that precious baby- my daughter’s loss- now this is powerlessness.” I went on, sobbing and blubbering to say that even though I do have room in my philosophy for “the random”, I have no will to turn to any sort of Gods for solace or help right now. I’m not pissed, exactly, more that I don’t want anything to do with anything that would allow this sort of random devastation to touch my family. If there are energies available to those who turn to them, for today I eschew their so-called “help”. I eschew their hollow “comfort”. And today, I am grateful that sobriety, for me, has become a habit. A habit that is so firmly established in my life that not even a passing thought enters of using or drinking anything that might even for a moment soften or even dull this choking, crushing pain.
So I cried there, in my tiny meeting with love and compassion and acceptance and empathy surrounding me, while I shared my heart. And somehow, as we alcoholics are blessed to do in our fellowship, these lovely people heard me when I said,
“I was told in my early recovery that the time would come when there would be nothing standing between me and a drink or drug but my Higher Power. I want to tell you all that that may be true, but if you stay sober long enough there will also come a time when no Higher Power will do it for you, and that’s the time that sobriety better be second nature; a habit, something you do without thinking.”
And that’s where I am today. Lost, angry at this fucked up acceptance that seems to be ingrained in my very soul, grieving and powerless; but sober.
“To be wounded by your own understanding of Love
and to bleed willingly and joyfully”
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
