Joy anyways.

   I need help. It has been 5 months and 14 days since Willow died and I have become something I never saw coming. I have always been happy. I have been so stupidly happy that I earned the nickname  Dopey and it stuck with me for 4 years. I still do a pretty good job of showing that side from time to time. I have tried everything I can to show a happy person, a person who rises above my circumstances and finds joy anyways and inspires people through my resilience through such hard times. Tripe. Its not me. I am broken and full of anger and at times hatred. I don't want to be mean to anyone. I don't want to be impatient. Sometimes, when people are rude to me I just want to grab them by the sides of their heads and scream at them "She's dead!!!! Don't you get it! How in the world can I give two shits about your stupid problem when my entire being is collapsing from the inside and all I want to do is die? How can you go on like life is okay when my baby girl is rotting in the ground!!!?!?!??!?! Hit me! Shoot me! Beat me until I breath my last but for God's sake shut up!!!!!!" I find myself at times, be it in a supermarket or restaurant, doing my job and taking care of my customers when I want to just fall to the floor and weep openly and wretchedly. I want to scream and pound my fists and beat my chest and not care in the slightest who sees it. I want them to call an ambulance to take me away and lock me in a padded room where I can live out the remainder of my days in a straight jacket, rocking back and forth and reciting her precious name. I can't do it though. I have a son who needs me and a daughter who needs to know that someone is holding it together so she can have something to cling to. She needs to know that she can make it because I can make it. My son WILL NOT see me in and out of mental hospitals like I saw my dad. It wrecked me as a person to see how little of a hold he had on sanity and I will not let him see it. My son will see me as a rock who can be clung to when he has no control. My daughter will see me as strong and secure in the midst of this storm. I hear myself saying this but I know it isn't true. Not yet. I need help. Tomorrow I am going to go to a doctor, or a psychologist, or whoever might be able to help me. It is certain that I will not let go. I will not allow myself to go to that dark place that has its claws in me and is tearing at my flesh, trying desperately to get me to fall. I will not allow it, but I can no longer fight it alone, so I am reaching out. I am finally admitting what no man wants to admit. I am completely and utterly unable to fight this fight. I don't recognize myself anymore. I am committed to not being this version of myself. This creature that I do not recognize. I won't let it consume me.

Every Girl's Dad

There are two of me, maybe more. This much I know is true. There is the me that you know based on our interactions, our conversations, the things you've seen me do and the things you've heard about me. Add it all up and that is who I am in your eyes. That man is different to everyone who "knows" me. There is nothing I can write or say that will unite the me that I am with the me that you know me as. It is in this respect that I have learned that there is no one who can truly judge me as a person and certainly no one whom I can judge or claim to know. There are aspects of me, known only to me, and even aspects of me that I do not know as I am still just an observer, even of the things I do and say, but seen through the vision that is mine. I am biased, and as such will see my actions as right or wrong based on what I believe is right or wrong. Since my Willow died, everything has changed, or maybe nothing has changed but the way that I see things. I know nothing. I have no way of giving definitive answers as all I truly know is that I do not know, and I could be wrong about that too. Aspects of me. Who am I? I used to laugh at that question. "I need to find myself." I have only recently come to realize that there is such a possibility. How can I be the one who knows who I am the least? Aspects of me.
   Here is a quality of mine that I have recently come to terms with. It is a quality that makes me who I am in your eyes. I have a strong desire to be appreciated. Maybe saying that it is a strong desire does not do it justice. I need it. I need you to admire me. I need people to say that I am the best milkman they have ever had. I need people to say that I am kind. I need people to say that I am selfless, and when they do my selfish goal has been attained. Hypocritical. If I have ever done anything for you, gone out of my way to say or do something that is a pleasure or a service to you, you need to know that I did it because I want you to appreciate me. I am insecure. I am weak. I live my life to find purpose, to be purposeful, to mean something to someone. Today my greatest success was when I was showing my son a card trick. He was amazed and laughing. He could not figure out how I knew his card, even when I never saw it. Even at the point of showing him his card, telling him it was his card, being right, I still did not know what his card was. He was amazed. He laughed. He had to know how I knew. I didn't know, I knew what the card before his was. In doing so I appeared to be amazing. In doing so I brought wonder to his young mind and made him admire his old dad. Then with a simple explanation of how the trick worked the amazement fell away and the wonder was gone and he saw how simple and foolish it all was. I laughed with his laughter. I was overjoyed that we were having such a great time and enjoying each others company. He was appreciating me. Then I lifted the curtain and revealed that there was no magic, just a small man pulling strings. One day the curtain will be lifted even more and he will see that the man he sees me as today is not the man that I am. I believe that this great disappointment is why children rebel. One day you realize that your parents do not know as much as you thought they did. One day you realize that they have been fooling you with a facade of tricks to make you believe they know right from wrong and good from evil. One day you realize that they do not know what lies in the cards for you, only what lay in the cards for them in their past. I can guide him as best I can through his teenage years but the guidance is based on what the cards held for me. He has been dealt a very different hand. In many ways I am so jealous of the life he has. There has been none of the tragedy and abuse that I suffered. He is not poor. He gets regular doctor and dental check ups. He has a nice bike. His dad has a job. Without revealing too much of my family secrets I will only say that he is blessed with something I never had. But he has had tragedy. He knows suffering. He lost his niece, who might as well have been his baby sister. He saw the terror in his household as he woke up to the screaming. He saw the paramedics take her out on a stretcher and into an ambulance, then into a helicopter. He saw her lifeless body in a hospital, hooked up to life support machines. He saw her body in a casket. He served as a pall bearer. He carried her to a hearse. He has seen his father break, fall to his face and weep. He has seen his strong man, his wise teacher, his rock...... he has seen me fall. That veil has been lifted and my ruse has been discovered. I am not strong. He knows that now. I don't have all the answers. He sees that too. He also knows that sometimes when it seems like I am amazing, like I have a way of doing something that seems so far beyond his comprehension, that I simply know what card has fallen before his and that there is no mystery. He knows I am weak and flawed, but he still loves me and thinks that I am the greatest man who ever lived and his best friend. Time will change that and I will become the one to rebel against until the day comes when he realizes his own fragility and begins to love me in spite of mine.
    I need people to know that I appreciate them. I love people. There is someone who works at a coffee shop that I take care of who has inadvertently helped me to realize something about myself. She has recently graduated college and is struggling to find her place in this life. I have known her for over three years and have always felt very empathetic towards her. I came to know her at a time when my daughter's life was falling apart. Shelby was so young and pregnant. She had no idea what the future held for her and was scared. My heart was changed in an instant when I found out she was pregnant. I was not angry, I was none of the things that a parent would think they would be when they learn such a thing. My heart melted. I fell instantly in love with this little soul and knew in that moment that as long as I lived this little baby would never want for anything. I lost who I had been prior to that moment and instantly changed into her protector, her provider. My life's purpose changed to be the man who supported Shelby in every way to give her as many opportunities as I could to provide a life for this baby. I knew I would work my bones into the ground to provide Shelby a way to provide for Willow on her own. I was the sentinel standing at the gate keeping away anything that could possibly cause the slightest discomfort to this little baby's life. I became a protector. In this time in my life I began to see these kids at LSU as something so sweet and precious to me. These girls who were away from home and having to deal with the struggles of life without a sentinel, without someone to care for them and protect them. Of course some had strong families, some had a support system, but there were those that did not. One girl, and I don't know her story well enough to know if her family was there for her or not, but she tugged at my heart strings. She could have been Shelby. She was about the same height, brown hair and brown eyes. Just like my Shelby. One day I noticed she was sick. Not a serious illness or anything, just a bad cold or maybe the flu. A few days passed, then a week, and she was still sick. I finally asked her if she had seen a doctor and she replied "I don't have any money." I asked if she had been taking any medicine and her answer was the same. I couldn't not do something. I left that coffee shop and went to a drug store and bought enough cold and flu medicine for her and her two roommates who were also sick. I needed to take care or her. Of course, I was very nervous not to give any kind of wrong impression but my heart really went out to her. I started to wonder if I thought I was every girl's dad. The guys at the dairy would always ask about the "scenery" at LSU. All of those young girls. To them it meant something totally different than it meant to me. These were someone's daughters. These were young women who were dealing with having to pay bills and get an education, obviously trying to make a better life for themselves through the struggles that accompany getting your life established but with the added pressure that young men put on them. There is so much pressure on young women. TV and movies tell them that they are sex objects. The internet has taught our young men that women are to be used for their gratification. There is so much bad out there to influence this up and coming generation. The things I've heard people say sadden me. "Blow jobs are the new kissing." "If she doesn't sleep with you someone else will." Is it really so cheap? Are we really so debased that we only value these young women for what they look like? Or, is my view off based. Is it really as bad as I think? In this age where equal rights for women is a phrase you hear almost daily and something that is on the forefront of social change, are they really so much better off? Maybe the idea that women used to be respected more than they are today is one that is off base. I feel like there is nothing I can do but the little things that I can do for the few that I know. I want them to know that I appreciate them. I want them to see the true beauty that they have based on who they are, not what they look like. I told Shelby just the other day that there is a huge difference between a boy liking what he sees and liking WHO he sees. I fear that in my wanting these people to know how much I appreciate them, my wanting to know their story better that I will give the wrong impression. I don't want to be misunderstood.
   There is one aspect of me that I now know beyond any reasonable doubt. I am a broken man. I tell myself that my sweet Willow doesn't ever have to deal with these pressures I've mentioned and more that I haven't. I tell myself that she had a perfect life. I tell myself that she got all of the best that this world has to offer and then got to leave before she ever learned of the bad. But still, I want her here in this God forsaken world so that I can hold her, protect her, make sure that everything is okay. I want to give her everything she needs and alleviate even the smallest discomfort. I want to make things better. I want my baby girl! So now I find myself wanting to make things better for the rest of them. For my daughter, for the coffee shop girl, for the girl who works at the gas station counter. For the girl down the street who doesn't know her dad. She needs a positive, safe male figure and I want to be him. For the little girls next door whose parents don't have time for them. I want to push them on the swing anytime they ask. I want to let them all know how beautiful they are and how amazing it is to have been someone that they trust and have merited to be worthy of their conversation and their smiles. Maybe I do feel like I want to be every girl's dad. Maybe that is sick and I need my head examined. Maybe there is a real shortage of men in this world who want to be dads, even to their own children. Maybe that shortage needs to be filled with men who will take up the slack and love the fatherless as their own. Maybe I am arrogant. Maybe I'm a frickin saint. All I know is that I don't really have a firm grasp on anything and that I am holding a deck of cards, slowly holding the attention of whomever I am engaging and waiting for the moment when they see something they can appreciate. I hope they see that, and I hope they know that their attention is everything to me and I feel unworthy of it. Oh God, there is something wrong with me.

Half as much as I

   Writing has become hard for me. I over think things. I wonder how much of what I am writing is for myself and how much is for whoever might be reading this. I guess that is what comes with an online blog. I'll just jump into it then.
   Today is a day that I will never forget. I got a call from Oak Lane Memorial Park saying that the deeds to the burial plots were ready to be picked up. I went out there after work but the lady I needed to talk to was not there. I went out to Willow's grave site, brought water for her flowers, and sat down on the grass next to her plot. It is a sad sight to see. The grass still has not grown in, 3 1/2 months later, and her headstone is still two months away from completion. There is a small plastic sign with her date of birth, date of death and her name. It is a beautiful place though. The huge hundred plus year old live oaks and the ancient barn, the white cross tie fence surrounding the property, the as of yet undeveloped fields surrounding the estate home which is now the offices for Oak Lane. This was once a plantation. It is so peaceful, so tranquil. It was hot out today but there was a nice heavy breeze blowing through the place. Such beauty in a place of such tremendous sadness. That word doesn't even do it justice. This goes so far beyond sadness. Anguish. That is the best word I have found as of yet.
   Sitting there, thinking of my lovey girl, I pulled out my wallet to see her pictures. It is all too much. Every time I go to visit her I break down. I always go alone, maybe so I can let my true self out. I always have to put up guards around everyone. I cannot lean on Shelby or Carpenter for obvious reasons. I need to be strong for them. I suppose I need to be strong for Alice as well, but it would be so nice to be able to let my guard down around her and just cry without the certain reprisals. I have no one whom I can just hold and cry. It is a strange feeling, being a 35 year old man who so desperately wants to hold someone and cry. I have no one.
   Maybe an hour passed as I sat there with Willow. I always break down when I am there. I tend first to the care of her flowers, then sometimes I walk around and straighten anyone else's flowers that have fallen down. I always bring a gallon of water and what I don't need for Willow's flowers I use to clean the statues and toys that have been left at others graves. The rain falls and splashes up mud onto these ornaments. There are several little white cherubim throughout the place and they usually need attention. Maybe I busy myself so that I can put off the inevitable, the break down. Once everything else that can be done is done, I walk over to my Willow's grave. I sit next to the disturbed earth and know that her little body is below me. I know she is not there, but still when I know that I am in the presence of her vessel it wrings me out. I weep. I grieve violently. I rock back and forth. I make sounds that would certainly shock any passersby. I ask why. I repeatedly call out for her. "My baby! My baby!" "It's not right!" Why these phrases seem to be the only thing I can think to say is certainly something that deeper people than myself could read a lot into I suppose. Frankly I don't care. I don't care about anything while I'm out there with her except for what cannot be. I want her to sit on my lap. I want her to call me Pawpaw. I want to hear her try to say "I love you" and hear it come out "I shushew!" I want to play chase with her. I want to hear her call for me to "Get in!" as she hides under a blanket. I want to fix her a bottle. I want to change her diaper. I want to hold her hand and go for a walk which will inevitably end in me carrying her half of the time. I want to see her play with the birds. I want to see her hug our dog. I want to hold her and sing and dance her all around the living room as she tries to sing with me, repeating only the last word of each line. I want to bury my face in her curly hair and breath in that fresh life. I want to tickle her and hear her squeal with delight. I want to see her get out of my lap, take two steps and then turn, put her hand out in a "stop" motion and hear her say "be back, kay?" Hold my spot Pawpaw. I've got something to do that is terribly important in my two year old mind but I need your lap and your hugs and you need to reassure me that when I come back that you will pick me up. Be back, kay? Willow, you're not coming back. The best I can do is go to visit your grave site and lay down and bury my face in the dirt and weep for you. How do I put this into words! How can I write out what is going on in my soul and make it seem even halfway like the real thing? I can't. I just can't.
   I started writing this with the intention of describing a meeting I had in the cemetery today. There have been many young children, even newborns buried in the same section as Willow since her death. When I had first arrived, during my rounds tending to the cherubs I had paid special attention to a very small mound of dirt. A baby boy, birth date the same as the death date. Now, having prepared myself to leave, I noticed a woman standing there staring down at the tiny name plate. No one understands what I am going through. So many well intentioned people have tried so hard but they just don't understand. I walked over to this woman, careful to not startle her. She was his mother. Three weeks ago he was born with a non-liveable condition. She told me that when they cut the cord the color drained from his face and he was gone. She got to hold him for a bit before he died. We shared stories of our lost little ones, our different situations linked by a horrific sense of loss. We both made the point that no one understands. We both are going through the same thing. She knew in advance that he would die. Willow died unexpectedly. She had a few minutes with him, we had two years. There were differences but the grief is the same.
   After a few minutes of talking she said she needed to go back to her car. Her daughter was in her car seat, blissfully watching Barney and enjoying the cold A/C. She was 2 years old. She had been born one month and five days after Willow. I wanted so desperately to go and pick her up, give her a big hug and just breath in her curly hair. Obviously I did not, but that yearning to see what Willow would be like now was so strong. What would her language development be? How much more coordinated? What fine motor skills would be sharpening? What would it be like to hold her again? Desperately sad people have desperately sad thoughts. The mother's name is Brooke. She told me that she was so glad to meet me, as she has seen so many little graves in our section and wondered about the families. I felt very much the same. We agreed that although it was in one way a terrible thing for so many little ones to be buried so close together, it was also, in a macabre way, comforting to know that not only were our little ones not alone, but we as grieving parents were not alone. Somewhere out there are mommies and daddies, Mawmaws and Pawpaws who are going through this same grief. I only hope that they loved their little ones half as much as I loved Willow.

Willow spoke to me yesterday.

   So this is going to be the entry where you are going to start wondering if I am losing my mind. Let me start your wonderings by telling you simply this. I had a conversation with Willow yesterday. I will alleviate your minds by telling you that no, it was nothing audible and no, I did not see her face but the conversation we had, well. in the same way that God speaks to you, Willow spoke to me. If you want to get the full effect of what I am trying to tell you then it would be best to go to youtube and listen to Jono Manson sing "I'm almost home." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhjSScAIylo  There, I even gave you the link so you have no excuses.
   Yesterday was like most days have been. I woke at 2 A.M, checked my email, showered, went to work and slung milk all over Baton Rouge. I did have one unfortunate incident when a customer who only receives an order on Mondays called me and asked me to bring 60 half pints of milk to her. I told her that i simply couldn't right now as on Friday mornings I had three grocery stores waiting for their weekend deliveries and she was at least a 30 minute drive one way and I couldn't put myself behind by at the minimum one hour to bring this to her now but I could come between 12 and 2. She replied by telling me that everyone is going through a hard time in their lives and that I needed to get off my little pity party (Willow) and bring her some milk now! Obviously she did not get any service from me that day. It was about 3:15 when I finally got back to the dairy and began to unload my returns, wash out my truck and prepare to load milk for Mondays deliveries. For any of you who have known me for 5 minutes or longer you know that I sing a lot. The song going through my head as I was washing out my truck was "I'm almost home" from "The Postman" sound track. I was singing loudly, I really have lost the ability to care about what people think of me, and I had one of those moments that plow through me like a freight train. Everywhere there are reminders of Willow. Sometimes I see a school bus and hear her scream out "school bus!" with joy. She loved seeing them and I was always on the look out for one, at times driving out of my way to where I knew one was parked so she could see it. There are so many different "land mines" out there as I call them, things that I come across blindly and am suddenly blown away by the surge of emotion that overcomes me. Yesterday, on the back of my milk truck I stepped on one such land mine. (I shall not create a paragraph break in honor of Adam Smith.)    :-)
   The lyrics to the song I was singing, which I had probably sang through ten times at this point go as such. "Well its said that you can never, never go back home, and if you're bound to wander, you're bound to be alone. You say I've got no right to feel what I feel when I look into your eyes, but that I dream of you most every night comes as no surprise. But I've been out on this road for so long. Far and wide do I roam, but something in your smile tells me I'm almost home." That is the first verse anyways. As I was singing through it for the umpteenth time, and I cannot tell you how real this conversation was, not audible, but as if my soul was conversing with her soul Willow spoke to me. "You don't." I was stunned. She was referring to the lyric that says "you say I've got no right to feel what I feel when I look into your eyes." I cannot look at a picture of Willow without being overcome with grief. Her eyes were so beautiful. They were brilliant. The day before I was trying to change the picture on my facebook away from her so that I didn't have to step on that land mine as often when I came across one that I dearly love but had forgotten about. Her hair was in these little balls on the side of her head, she was wearing a yellow dress and her head was slightly tilted down and her eye brows furrowed as if she were mad at me. It is the most beautiful picture. I remember taking it because the look she was trying to hold she just couldn't and I broke out with laughter at how cute she was, although she was "chastising" me at the moment and she broke out with laughter too. "Willow?"
   "Why do you get so sad all of the time?"
"I miss you baby!"
   "There is a shepherd here that I talk to a lot." He says you know Him."
"I used to."
   "He said that you don't talk to Him much anymore."

   One of my land mines is the thought that although Willow and I spoke a lot, we never had a thoroughly developed language conversation. She wasn't there yet and still here I was, seeing her in my heart and she was speaking to me as if her language was developed to the fullest.

   "You shouldn't cry so much."
"But I miss you lovey. I miss you so much!" I was fully weeping by now and completely overcome. Still, she smiled and had none of the looks that other people give me when they see me break down. There was no pity, there was no sadness, just that twinkle in her eyes and that contented smile."

   "The Shepherd wants me to remind you of something He told you a long time ago."

   This is where shame crept into the moment. I don't speak with Him anymore. That is a relationship that I have let slide as I sought out answers from pastors, books, creation science, evolutionary theory, anything I could get my hands on to give me solid, concrete answers that were not arguable. Proof. I was talking to and seeking out everyone except Him.

   "Do you love me?"
"Oh! Willow! Baby! How could you ask me that? Of course I love you!"
   "Feed my sheep."

   Willow loved sheep. They were her favorite. The one she clung to the most, dirty and missing an ear, the one I nick named "Van Goat", was her favorite. I could've sworn she was wearing that yellow dress, sitting in a green field with Van Goat in her lap. Again,

   "Do you love me?" She had this look on her face as if she were searching me out, trying to bring me closer to a truth that was so very necessary for me to see.
"Of course I love you Willow! I love you so much and I miss you! (Tears streaming by now.) I miss you so much that I can hardly go a minute without thinking about you. I'm so lonely for you!"
   "Feed my lambs."

   I was so lost. So confused. Here i was speaking with my baby whom I missed so much, and she was calm as I've ever seen anyone, not a hint that she had missed me or was even capable of any type of sadness and she was speaking to me. Not just teaching, but the roles had been reversed and I was sitting at her feet waiting to learn and she was a teacher with more wisdom than anyone else in the world.

   "Do you love me?"
"How can you ask me this Willow? I love you more than I can possibly say and you have to know that!  I love you! I love you so much!"
   "Feed my sheep."

   At this point I just stopped. My head was swirling and I needed to get a hold of myself, stop crying and really listen. I needed to know what she was asking me or telling me or trying to tech me. I just stopped talking and I calmed myself, and I listened.

   "My mommy needs you. Mawmaw needs you. Carpenter needs you. Feed my sheep."

   There was no question now. I knew exactly what Willow was telling me and I knew exactly at that point that there was a change that needed to happen now. All of this time I have been embracing my grief, my sorrow, my loneliness. I have been keeping myself busy so as not to have down time when I would inevitably revisit my grief. What I had not been doing was assuming my position as the shepherd in my home. My sheep were lost and I was lost and I was not looking for them. It was time for me to stand up, dust myself off, and go find my sheep. It was time for me to lead them to their safe place. It was time for me to stand watch at the gate and keep the predators away. In the Bible, John 10:10-15 says "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired man, since he does not own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired man and does not care about them. "I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they follow me, as the father knows me and I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep."
   So this was my message from the shepherd. His example to me of who I am needed to be. All of my life I have sought out what it truly means to be a man and a good father and never could understand it until Willow sat down and asked, "Do you love me?" and then passed on a message from the shepherd that she has come to know.
   I don't even know what to write now. After relating what happened yesterday, what Willow said, what the Shepherd said, my own words seem so hollow and pointless. There is no way that I could add to the message I received yesterday so i will just stop now.

The many tears a man can cry for what he'll never know.

   There is so much to say, so many topics, but today I found myself stunned upon remembrance of something I wrote a very long time ago. When I was in high school, one night I was sitting next to my mom, she was playing Tetris, and I said, "I never realized the many tears a man could cry for what he'll never know." It was just a line, just the start of a poem that had no inspiration, until the day I was walking down commercial street in Springfield, Missouri. I don't know what it is like now, but back then it was where the homeless congregated. I saw a man, likely insane, perhaps just drunk, sitting in an alley, rocking back and forth and hugging his knees, talking to whoever he thought was in front of him. I couldn't stop thinking about that man and what life had dealt him to get him to this place. Then, this poem.


   I walked down a lonely avenue, seeing faces no one knew and asked this huddled, dirty man why he was crying so?
   He looked at me, he dried his eyes, and said "I never realized the many tears a man can cry for what he'll never know."
   He said "I miss her more today than the death I died for her yesterday. My love and I, my darling May, our life was short but sweet.
   For here is where she ran to hide. I could not help her, though I tried, and in my arms my true love died down this empty, lonely street.
   And ever since she went away, tomorrow's just another day. I look back on my yesterdays unsure of what I see.
   Confusion is the path I chose. I'll walk along this winding road, not quite content to walk alone. There is no love for me."
   And as he spoke I soon remembered, cherished moments, quickly embered from when I held you last December as we sat beneath my tree.
   The lights reflecting in your eyes, when all at once I realized the folly and perish of the so called wise. My guilt and pain in harmony.
   You are the one I love the most, and though I've tried to kill your ghost, my mind's eye still plays host to these cherished memories.
   And years from now, if I survive, I'll sit alone, I'll sit and cry, and through my tears they'll hear me sigh, there is no love for me.

   Certainly it is in need of some grammatical and punctual corrections and is the ramblings of a teenage boy, but the words are haunting to me now. In the poem I was the observer. In my life now, I am the "huddled, dirty man." The phrase, "I never realized the many tears a man can cry for what he'll never know." In my last last entry I wrote a lot about the things I'll never know. There is a whole life full of memories that will never be, and I have cried so many tears over them. I never realized the extent of the sorrow of losing such a deep love. My first thought is to say that I have not lost the love but the loved one. Sappy people will say that I've not lost her if she lives on in my heart. Tripe. I have lost her and the question now is where has that love gone? It is no longer an active thing. I cannot show her my love and I cannot feel her love in return. It has been turned into a memory, but it's still there. Maybe it is like the huddled dirty man said when he said "although I've tried to kill the ghost my mind's eye still plays host to these cherished memories." Then there is the line, "I could not help her, though I tried." One thing I will never forget is finding Willow lying in the floor, lifeless, lifting her body and feeling her as fluid and limp as a newly dead body can be. I could not help her, though I tried. She was already gone. When you are deprived of oxygen your lactic acid in your blood rises. At a level 7 you are critical. She was at a level 17. She was gone, I could not help her, though I tried. I called 911, I stood aside as Alice did CPR and I ran next door to get my neighbor, a paramedic, who was not home. I jumped in my truck and raced up to the main street to meet the ambulance to bring them back as we have no land line and I had called from my cell phone. I raced back and tended to my family while the EMTs and first responders worked on little Willow's lifeless body. I drove my family to the hospital where Willow had been flown to. I prayed, but I could not help her, though I tried, and in my arms, in her room, on the floor, my true love had died.  "And ever since she went away, tomorrow's just another day. I look back on my yesterdays not knowing what I see." Every day seems to be a blur. I could not tell you what I did a day ago or two days ago had I not written about them in this blog. My yesterdays, the days I shared with Willow, I just don't remember them. I try and bring her back in memories. I try and look at this part of the house and think "what did she do over there?" That other part of the house and think of what she may have done over there? Sometimes I think I see things, sometimes I think I have a memory come back but am unsure if it is real or if I am creating it. "I look back on my yesterdays unsure of what I see." How terribly prophetic. How could I have, maybe 20 years ago, written so clearly about the man I would be at 35, about what that man would be like? How did I know what to write to describe how it feels to have lost someone I love so very much and in a similar way. Holding her dead body in my arms. "Confusion is the path I chose." If that doesn't describe me at this point in life nothing does. All I am certain of is that I am not certain of much at all. God, Jesus, the meaning of life, why we are here, why we live, what or who we live for? Mysteries. I never seem to have an answer for any of those questions. I don't seem to be able to accept anything on faith, I need evidence, and I do not accept the evidence I do find, so I end up confused. Is confusion the path I have chosen? "Not quite content to walk alone." At this point I am far from content in any way. I cannot imagine that I will ever be content to live a life knowing that Willow is dead. I will learn to deal with this. I will establish a new normal and will someday face the choice of life again, as a friend put it to me today. I am not ready to face that choice yet. I need to embrace my grief. I need to find a way of working past the times when I want to just quit trying. There really are times, less and less frequent, when I want to just lay down and never get back up. That is an option I have all but put behind me by now, but there are those times. "There is no love for me." When I read that last line from the huddled, dirty man, I think that maybe he is right. Then, I think that there is no way he could be right. Then, I know that I am not the huddled, dirty man. I know that there is love for me. (Ironically, Shelby, who is sitting in the next chair doing Calculus just let out an exasperated, "I love you" to me.) There is love for me. My daughter loves me. She is one of the few 18 year old girls who wants to spend time with her dad. She went for a walk/jog and my son and I rode along with her on our Schwinn Stingrays. Oh yeah, his favorite bike in the world is his original blue Schwinn Stingray and yesterday I bought myself, okay him, a brand new reproduction Schwinn Stingray, and we rode together. You should have seen the look on his face. He thought we were the coolest duo in the world! I have the love of my son. He is 11 and starting to hit those pre-teen psychotics but he still loves his dad. Then there is my wife. I can't say that I understand her or why she even tolerates me, the two of us being as drastically different as we are, but she's not going anywhere. I am fairly certain that someday I will be a Pawpaw again. Maybe I will choose another name to go by because that was what Willow called me and she will always have my very heart and soul. I am hers.
   The rest of the poem goes on to describe a man remembering his past love that he shared a Christmas with whom he let go of. I do remember this past Christmas when I was helping Willow open her presents. She did so love those lights and those ornaments. We had to keep them all above her reach because she kept taking them off. :-) She had this way of running her hands all over the wrapping as if she were tearing it as I was running my hands all over it too, mimicking her movements but slyly ripping the paper so that she thought that she was doing it. She loved that so much. She loved helping me. She loved helping me open my presents too! i will never forget how on the days when I would come home from work after she was already home, my first action was to sit down and take my boots off and she would run her hands all over the shoe strings as if she were untying the boots herself, as I slyly untied them while mimicking her movements. She would then carry my size 12 Doc Martens, one at a time, struggling under their weight, to the closet to put them away for me. I think of it every time I come home and have to go through that process all by myself. My boots never make it to the closet anymore. I sit and look at them and picture Willow bending over, struggling to find the right grasp so that she could pick it up, and then  stumbling all across the living room until she made it to the closet. No one ever told her to do it. She just loved being a helper. So years from now, if I survive, I'll sit with my family, my wife, my kids, their spouses and perhaps even more grandchildren, and through my happy tears they'll hear me tell them how blessed I am and how dearly I love them. They'll hear it everyday, every one of them. There is so much love for me.

No salve for my soul

I saw something amazing today. On www.wimp.com there is a video showing a time lapse of a girl from birth through 12 years old. I hesitantly clicked play and watched as she grew from a newborn, grew hair, developed her smile, thinned, chubbed, thinned again and grew taller. Just like Willow. I watched and as she reached her birthday a 1 would appear, then a 2, then a 3. I watched a little further but just couldn't continue. It's just not fair. It was so sweet to see this little girl turn two, and as beautiful as she is she doesn't hold a candle to my Willow. When the three appeared, I saw the phase that Willow would have reached. It is amazing the growth that happens between 2 and three and it makes me so mad that I do not get to see her there. WHY!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?! I want to scream it and run and pound my fist into something and scream why. Why do so many others get to see their children grow up and I don't get to see Willow? WHY!!!!!!! I want her back so bad and there is nothing, NOTHING I can do about it! I can weep in silence, I can look at pictures and watch videos. I can try to remember moments that I haven't brought back yet. I have certain scenes that play over and over but I want new ones. Ones that I have forgotten. I want them to come back. I WANT THEM BACK!!!!!!! I want my memories! I want to smell her hair. I want to tickle her and feel her claw her little nails into my neck as she squeals with laughter. I want to rid myself of this God forsaken emptiness, this loneliness and this ache I have that cannot be eased. There is no salve for my soul. There is only weeping, and wanting, and pain. Dammit its not fair!!!!!! Some whine about staying up at night with a crying baby. Some whine about their kids misbehaving at school. Some whine about the cost of this or that or the inconvenience of their children. What do I have? Take it! Take it all! Give me years of no sleep and poverty and deprivation of everything else in this world I want but give me her hand to hold! I don't care about writing anything that someone might get inspiration from. I don't care about being meaningful or insightful or funny or comforting or wise or anything! I want my baby girl!!!!! I want to see her hair grow down her back and hear her speech develop and have a conversation with her and hear her back talk me and anything, ANYTHING BUT THIS!!!! I don't want to learn to live with the grief. I don't want to honor her memory. I don't want to teach others how to deal with the loss of a child. I want WILLOW!!!! Why did she have to die? SHe died. She's dead. I don't want to hear about her being in heaven. Screw the streets of gold and crystal sea. I've got a back yard with a paralyzed tricycle. I've got a front yard with her swing hanging from it that no one can swing in. I've got a room full of play doh and Barbies and sheep, dear God the sheep and the Hello Kitties and the little clothing that only my little Willow could have fit into, that she likely would be outgrowing. I have money that should have been spent on diapers and Lucky Charms and cute clothes and more sheep. I've got everything except for my Willow, and everything means nothing. I don't want to hear about how I need to be there for my wife and kids. I know I have them and I will get my head straight before they get home and they won't read this and they won't know that this is happening and I will delight in them when they return but right now, in this moment, I am as lonely and full of bitter anguish as any man can be and all I want, all I want is my sweet little 2 year old who will never be three or four or five or a kindergardner or a best friend or a crush or a graduate or a wife or a mother or a driver or employed or anything ever again because she is gone. WHY!!!!!!!!!! Don't talk to me of fair or God's grace or heaven or grace. These might become real to me someday but right now, in this time and in this place, Hell is all I really know.

Thats wisterical

So hereI sit, needing to take a shower and head out to the KOA to see Uncle Dan and Aunt Kay but something struck me and I need to write. Please bear with me as this may seem like a long rambling gardening talk but there is something I need to say.
   I recently built a pergola for our Wisteria to keep it off of our telephone pole. Being addicted to building and a perfectionist about such things I decided that the Wisteria was too big and needed a second pergola to make it look right. Then more ideas took hold, decking the pergolas, building benches, a fire pit and more gardening. Today I set out to start the second pergola and I dug the hole for the first post. Having gotten it set and cemented in I took a good look at the Wisteria. It is a mess. The base cannot be seen due to all of the new growth sprouting out everywhere and there are so many vines coming off of it that I had no idea which were going to go to which pergola. I had an idea that I would take some of the younger vines, strip the new sprouts off of them and braid them to add the lagniappe (a little something extra) that I am always looking for. Having braided a five foot section I saw that the base of the vine was starting to become more visible. I imagined in my mind the finished product with the leaves and flowers at the top showing the delicate nature of the wisteria and the strong, rugged nature of the base of the wisteria showing how much strength is needed for so much beauty to develop. So I began to clear away more young growth. At this point it occurred to me that I needed to have Shelby there because as our resident master gardner she would be able to tell me if I was doing too much and hurting the plant or if it was all okay. The resilience of this plant though reminded me that in all that we have done to chop away at it I was certain to be okay. I found a second place where I could braid another section, about 4 feet long, and it looks just beautiful. I started to separate the vines as to which was going to go to which pergola and I had a moment that took my breath away. I stopped, stepped back about ten feet and looked at what I had done. The beauty of this plant was always there, but certain aspects were unable to be seen until the young life was stripped away. My family.
   I have a wife who drives me crazy. My daughter is so "hidden" in so many ways that it frustrates me at times trying to find her heart. My son, he is pure fun and adventure but when it comes to getting him to do something so simple as wash the dishes he becomes one of my biggest challenges. They all have at times frustrated me to the point of anger, acting in ways I never should have, saying things I never should have and behaving in ways that I should be severely ashamed of. I love them more than I could possibly put into words, every one of them, with all of their quirks and things that make them not like me, so very different and so hard to understand. Our family is beautiful. At our base we are strong, rugged, and at times in need of pruning. The further out we stretch, in our relationships with our friends and family we are beautiful but very few will ever see the strength it takes to keep us alive and flourishing. So many thing we never saw or never knew, only assumed, until our young life was stripped away from us. There are so many beautiful flowers that will never grow on that wisteria because the new life is gone. My pruning will make it beautiful and stronger, more beautiful than it could have been without the support of the pergolas and the tender loving care that we all put into its maintenance. My family.
   If we are to be successful, I need to be that base of the wisteria. The strong part that my family can glean from. I need to rely on an extensive root system of friends and family who will feed me and nourish me so that I can be strong for them. We all need to absorb the life giving water so that we can feed the trunks of the trees that we are intended to feed. In my family I am the trunk, but I may just be a root in your family tree that feeds you and helps you to be that strong trunk that your vines and flowers need in order to grow and be stronger and more beautiful. Perhaps God, the master gardner had to strip away our young life to make us what He intends for us to be. Properly braided, stretched in the right directions, and given a strong place to hold on to. I have been remiss in not saying thank you enough to my root system out there. Many have written and I have not responded. Many prayers are going up for me and mine. I want to say it now that I love you all for who and what you are and have been to me. I have gleaned so much from your thoughtful words. Ray, Dana, David, Tim, other Tim, Jackie, Frosty, Michelle, Dutchtown Baptist Church, and so many more stretching out over seas and countries, my root system stretches around the world. I love you all and thank you for being a part of my life and for hurting with my hurt and for learning from my pain. In all humility I ask that you continue to feed me and let me know how I can continue to feed you.