- - When . . .

Lost in years of memories, dust, and, yes, lonely eons of time without shared minds, hearts, and meaningful conversations, one's family, home, love, and belonging die in agony of emotional costumes, a facade of make-believe healing, and eternal need to deflect the cries from wounds that reach and damage far more than flesh and bone.

Tonight, after returning from a visit with my recovering loved one, and wife, again my heart turned its attention to realms of the past, where my childhood formed much of who I am, and to twenty five years of marital fantasy, where nearly all the current post separation trauma stems from, to what at least I imagine, now, was missing and led to those separations, and the ensuing wounds that Time refuses to mend.


For some reason, this song came up, as I was looking through a website for sound recording codecs; "

Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi ft. Vanessa Carlton 

Like another memory-inducing song, "The Deer Hunter," this song says, "Heart, "Life" is. Simply, it just is.

 "So, yes, maybe if you'd thought, said, or would have done things differently in the past, and maybe those who left you would instead have understood you, and still love you, the fact is, you do not know this for a fact. Could be, Heart, that no matter how differently you would have been, they would have abandoned you just the same, for they do not have to do what is right by you; not even what is right for themselves, like you've done for yourself!"

You know, that song is right. I was blamed by those who made personal choices to abandon me for their leaving, but the truth is it was their responsibility that failed, and their being gone is not my responsibility - I didn't leave! 

"Big Yellow Taxi" speaks about abandoned hearts. It compares paradise to a parking lot, because, for one, in that parking lot you can park and keep all those people who've abandoned you, and hang onto the relationships each shared, like old relic cars kept in a parking lot. Or, another comparison is the temporary nature of relationships of people coming to you as an attraction - "Hotel" in the song - where the relationship may last a night, or even twenty five years, but all of a sudden, that person just up and drives off, with no care for your welfare, just like parking lot patrons treat their host.

Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtJPs8IDgU

Sad

 

Then another song, also from the same sound codec site entered the picture I was touching up; 

The Deer Hunter

 This song touches me very close; I was in its theme, the raging battles of Vietnam, both those with flying metal projectiles, and battles of heart, mind, soul, and relationship. There, my new-born marriage was forming, and it developed with major deformatives in it structure, and walls between the one I loved and I that we found no means to scale, conquer, or tear apart. The Vietnam War itself, represented enormous walls between peoples who would have much rather had love, understanding, and camaraderie between them; not the diseases of treachery, greed, forgiveness, all the relationship busters that cause WAR, between them, and between my lovely, beloved bride and myself.

But, our marriage was built upon the same issues Vietnam's War was built upon, so, like that conflict, our relationship was trashed, and lives lost, maimed, and broken from its failure.

Having all that passing upon my mental theater screen, as I came back home from visiting my recuperating wife, after we finally spoke at heart-level about her soon return home, and our immediate need to restore and repair and replace damaged and worn out parts of our relationship, and go on to plan and create and build new, and better structures for our relationship to grow and expand in, seemed to be verified by these two songs. Could it be that others also might discover new ways to go over their relationships, to uncover damaged parts, and then to work together to mend the brokenness, replace the failed with strong resolve to persist and overcome the hurt, and then make new places for their relationship to grow and expand in?

But, that brings me to another question; this one: "Having this experience in my own life, but not having the blessing of my children around to witness the miracle of repairing and rebuilding and restructuring my marital relationship, so they can also be encouraged to do the same for their own marriages, is there no way for me to share this discovery with them? After all, isn't my life best lived when it shows a good way to go for my children?

Words to ponder

 

Do Memories About The Past Make Us Run Away?

You know, it's good to reflect upon one's living now and again. Presently I'm investing the long hours required to move files from a failing hard drive on a new computer I recently commissioned - read; just finished building, after two years' time to research a killer setup, buy what I could afford to on a monthly basis, and finally assemble the parts last February, into a beautiful system! - so, it's given me time to reflect and go over important things in my life.

I think lots about my children, and the ways that they have chosen without realizing they are doing so, to follow in the exact same steps of my life, to run madly away from their parents, and from the home-life that could make all the difference in them having a cherished memory of home, and all the good things that home provides. Instead, they do exactly what I did, and hide behind memories of events, places, and people, which they have bad memories of, but never faced those memories, places, and people with sincere desire to get to the bottom of the facts behind those bad memories, so that they can then make informed choices about who those people really are, what makes the places so terrible, and what memories are actually not true, and founded on reality.

But, just how does a parent encourage his child to not follow his steps through life, and to go home, go back to haunting memories, and to fears that have driven that child away from home and form real love, to discover new ways to make new, cherished memories about his nativity, and those intimate with his life beginnings? This question plagues my heart and thoughts, for it is the very thing that my own children need most.

Here's a little something I shared on my youngest child's blog. I hope it opens her, and other children's minds, hearts, and lives, to love.


"Question: From my own experience, I know that people go to any length to escape from unwanted things and memories of their pasts, even from those things that others have convinced them exist in their past, that in truth, never existed, or were vastly different, or far less important than what the mind bender said they were, and convinced the person by such lies to run away from the memory(ies), place, or person connected with the unhappy event.

So, this is the question I have for those who go to great personal effort and sacrifice to escape their past; Is it really, really important to trust what others tell us about something they say is bad for us, or that we have decided is bad, WITTHOUT ever going right up into the face of that event, person, or place, and confronting it/him/her with well-planned questions about the badness of the memory(ies), and a true desire to discover and learn the Truth about that actual situation?

My reason to ask this comes from my own tragic experiences with my trusting memories and things and people and my own fears, that made me want to NEVER return to those persons, places, and events, out of fears I kept inside, to actually confront each one with sincere purpose to retrain myself to understand and to take the situation into my own thoughts so I could make my own, informed choices about each bad memory.

When I began to go back and confront people, events, and memories I've kept alive that bring fear, I discovered a simple truth that changed my life, and set me free of all fears for unproven and distorted memories about people, places, and events of my past.

It's very, very difficult to accept that people who we trust do tell us things that make us want to run away from our past, whether they mean harm or even good to come from making us believe what they say is not a lie, or a distorted fact. We even make falsified memories of people, events and places in our own precess of reasoning, and then spend many, many years running away from what often is a good thing, a good relationship, or even, a good spanking that changes our whole bad perspective on an important part of our life!

Vietnam was one of my worst twisted realities that caused me much fearing, So was my fears of my childhood rearing, where what my parents seemed to teach me about life and loving made me angry, resentful, and I simply reacted by running away. Had I faced my memories, parents, and others related to those days of my past, with a sincere desire to learn the true reasons that caused them to say and treat me as they did, then I would have discovered a whole lot of love for me they had till their dying day, for me, and for my own success in life.

But, since I tend to be a stubborn, willful little boy, I missed out on a wonderful experience of living close to my nativity, and those who actually cared the most for my successful living. Now, all I have is a grieving heart, for my lost family experiences. Had I simply faced those monster fears about my family life, my life would have an abundance of wonderful family events to remember and cherish. Instead, there is a very, very large, vacant space where those memories should be.

Ho can I redirect people who follow a similar path of running away from the wonders of a loving family, and the people in it, to return, to face the memories and people, and events, with sincere desire to know the facts, and to reconnect with some of the most important things and people they will ever have?

I will put this comment on my own little blog, in hopes that someone in this world will be guided to read it, and to make the choice to return home, and desire to understand the people of home that they are running away from because of fears that have not been confronted with Truth, sincere desire to uncover what and why those fears exist, and get to know those people, places, and events in the light of personal knowledge, love, and the personal acts of forgiveness that are the basis for real friendship."

Sincerely,

Your dad.