- - 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