Shannon Benjamin 2022
The theatre behind my eyelids
Opens at eleven every night
Like clockwork,
The moment I hit alarm
Bright and bold
The marquee, the orchestra
The fanfare of everything
That is nothing.
As if it does not notice
These seats are empty.
This story’s been told
Everyone knows he dies in the end.
Shannon Benjamin 2022
I like to think they shared a look
A note and a half in the song
That they both knew the next words
And forgot about what would go wrong
The air in the room became thick
With the dust of the time that had passed
For a verse it seemed as if
Forever could have lasted.
Another’s hand was on his arm,
Another’s arm around her waist
But their eyes were on each other
In another time, another place
Age could tell the tale
Of what could have, should have been
But youth would lie forever
In the mystery of when
The silence in the years between,
His pride and pain had swelled it-
But he nightly raised his glass to her
And cursed the fist that held it.
This quarantine has gone on for 258 days. I suppose it has been a while since I last wrote. Life has gone on. The children have managed to adapt, as well as can be expected. I hope. They are working on school online, as is FGL. We have been living on one and a half incomes since April. It has been a challenge, but an opportunity to find ways to grow in confinement. To see if it is possible. If anything, it has forced me to take a good, hard look at myself and identify what I really can, and cannot, live without.
In addition to this remote-work-living-in-close-quarters situation, there has been the most ludicrous election of my lifetime so far, and the worst President in the history of the entire freaking Universe, probably. I’m proud to have hopefully stemmed that and helped to turn the tide. But I digress.
What this year has shown me has not been pretty. It has shown me how many people on my Facebook friends list are deceased.
It has shown me how many of my family members are no longer speaking to me because they finally understand – or refuse to understand – that my children are starkly different, and yet so much more like me than they care to face.
It has shown me how much my job needs me – and how much I need stability. My inability to adapt to change is a serious problem. It has shown me that there will just never be enough to go around, and I’m going to be the person that makes up for it, and that I can’t be satisfied otherwise.
It has shown me how much has changed in the place I called home for so long. For forever, even when it wasn’t. It has shown me that perhaps, you can’t change people who don’t want to change. Even if you love them more than they know how to love themselves. If you can’t see the same future, you’re never going to share the dream.
So, after some serious doubts and spiritual excavation, after several panic attacks over what my imaginary fans and followers would think, after gut-wrenching tears over the thought of abandonment, I’m breaking up with Bay City.
A new door has opened in a hallway I confess I haven’t visited in far too long. An opportunity to impact a community that has been the field of my family’s roots for generations, an offer I can’t refuse. Of all the titles I could ever hold, “Curator of the Family Home” has been the most prestigious in my eyes and I have been presented with the chance to have it. Frankly, the chance to continue the amazing work my grandfather has done and to uphold his good name is an honor.
More to come on that later, as we iron out details. This won’t be happening for a while. There are loose ends to tie up here. But it’s something to look forward to, knowing there is a bend in our road that will give us a new view.
This year has also shown me what happens when I step back and simply observe. I’ve muted conversations, I have refused a few calls. I have ghosted more than one person and blocked countless others. I’ve blocked some people I haven’t had the nerve to confront about it yet, but something tells me a missed Christmas might be the catalyst.
But here’s what really sparked this thought tonight: the friends I haven’t spoken to in a while. The friends I see all the time in my social media, but haven’t seen in years. The friends who forgot my birthday. The friends that never asked how things were going after my father died. The friends that read the cries for help and kept scrolling. The friends who LOL’d as I described a bullying incident…
Wait, dude. YOU were the bully. You still think that was funny? 20 years later and you think I’m still that kind of girl?
So AITA for thinking a good old fashioned manic purge might be in order? I have heard more music in the silence of the last 258 days than I’ve ever heard. I have cried my heart out as Phil Collins asks for it to rain down. I have cried in rage as Tupac tells me to keep my head up. I have cried in grief as Thad Fiscella has walked down a sunlit piano melody toward what I imagine to be the gates of Heaven where my good boy waits for me. I have lost so fucking much that I can’t help but feel like I can’t be put back together with so many pieces this time.
Start me over. Stop the ride, back it up. Start the track again, I want to enjoy it this time. No, you’re not invited. This one is for me. You wouldn’t like me anyway, I’m too spicy.
-xoxo
Recently, I was contacted by a reporter who wanted to talk about how I think my hometown is responding to the current pandemic and political turmoil. It quickly pivoted to a more personal response that became an organ of a story that encompassed a wider scope of my community in terms of neighbors working together to make sure needs are met.
We talked for several weeks. I haven’t been able to make a counseling appointment in many months, so this was a welcome and cathartic experience for me. Finally, someone interested in what my hometown had to say, interested in what we were doing about “all of this.” Finally, someone who was willing to sit down and let me tell the long story, the whole thing, about what pushed me to take one of my biggest leaps of faith so far: starting a community movement to save my city.
But I think there was a major point lost in all of this, and I would like to set the record straight on a few of my perspectives that could be potentially misconstrued after reading this (beautiful) article.
Please don’t call me the hero. She was.
I have always adored my Grama Barb. She influenced my life in countless ways that I cannot help but think have made me a better person than I could have ever hoped to be without her. In everything I have done, I have strived to impress her, to please her, to make her smile and make her proud. She validated me in ways other people in my life could not. I see the rest of my life as an opportunity to continue to return her kindness.
I came home to be with her, to be near her, to have as much of the missed time back as possible. I felt robbed when she died. Not by her, but by everything that had kept me from her in the last 20 years. By my father, by my bad decisions, by my ex husband, by life’s circumstances.
Giving back to my city allows me to take back that missed time. It brings her back to me for a moment or two, when I remember her sharing her cookie with me. “If I have two bites, then I have enough to share,” she told me.
I work for a non-profit organization that helps connect people in need to organizations that can help. I answer phone calls from scared and angry people who all have something in common – a crisis. I used this service before I provided it. I knew the system before I helped navigate others through it. For me, this job has served as a vessel in which I am slowly but surely finding the way toward forgiveness. Maybe we could call it karmic reimbursement. For all of the bad I have done, or perceive myself to have done, every good call takes a tally mark off my record. Every filled pantry is a tally mark erased. It’s a day I didn’t go see her, removed from the calendar of my should-haves. It’s a time I didn’t return her call because I was too busy, taken from the record of my missed calls. You can call it penance if you’d like, but it’s what keeps me from shaking shattered windows from this broken pane.
I don’t do these things because I want to be seen as a saint. I do not want to be remembered as a victim, or a braggart. I’m terrible at accepting compliments, I didn’t get a lot of practice as a child. I don’t want pity. I don’t want a pat on the back. I want you to learn something.
I want you to learn to love your life. Love it for what it is, not for what it isn’t yet, or might not ever be. Don’t love it for what it used to be. Live in the now and love every moment of it for what it is. Call your grandma back and tell her unabashedly how much you adore her.
Because if you do not, you may very well end up in the same place you drew your first breath, spending your life living for memories.
I will spend the rest of my life doing this, working to keep her alive in places where now, she only exists in my memory. I am terribly afraid it will chain me to the same few square miles she paced. Yet, with every act of kindness I witness, I feel more reassured that the seeds she reaped will continue to bloom after we are both gone. Maybe someday, I can move South and write that book like she told me to. I don’t think I can tear myself away from here until I am certain.
I recognize that there are some descriptions in this article that might not mesh with the memories other people might have of her. I know she wasn’t World’s Best Mother. I know there were things that happened before I did. I know she died with a heaviness in her heart that nobody could lift.
But CNN didn’t ask for your story, and when my role models were unable to be parents, she became my hero. She was better suited to be a grandmother than anything else, I think, and that’s okay. It’s the noblest of professions.
So. She raised me until I was six. By then, I was already living with my father. I’d already been shuttled back and forth in spans of time I don’t remember clearly, between my parents. I don’t remember much of my time with either of them, but I remember her, always.
And every day for the next twenty years, until I was 26, I thought about her and I thought about home. It was one of the happiest, most hopeful days of my life when I pulled into Bay City as a resident again. I screamed and I cried and I texted everyone I loved and hated just to tell them all my dreams had come true.
Now that I am here, I realize that without her, it feels very different. There is a remarkable void, a very obvious large chunk of missing pieces to this landscape. I wonder every day if my father was right, if I need to start packing those memories away in a safe place and move on. Maybe forward, maybe even up. Sometimes, I remember things he said and how I felt resentful when he said them. Now I understand it was his method of kindness.
But I digress. Back to Bay City, back to the story. It isn’t just about me. It’s about Bay City. It’s about all the people who responded to my question, responded to my need. It’s about all the people who have been sewing the constant tears in this community quilt the entire time since I’ve been away and back. It’s about Mark Morand, the man who encompasses the spirit of this town that keeps drawing me back. It’s about how the generation of good fortune has seen the boom and bust of it, and how they have stayed to pick up the pieces time and again. It is about resilience, and how no matter what, we have mucked through. Put on your raincoats and go play in the rain, this is what we are left with. Why? Because our grandmas raised us here and we can’t think of a nicer moment in our memory to relive.
Some things are worth preserving. Make sure you’re working to save the right things. Make sure you’re honoring the spirit you want to be remembered. Make sure you’re living your life for the lessons you want to learn, for the love you want to know.
One of the staffers asked if I still loved Bay City.
It flows through me like the Saginaw River flows through it: full of years of mistakes and memories and strewn with diamonds of hope on sunny days.
-xoxo
I wrote this tonight. I haven’t written in a while, but this worked its way out and I wanted to share. This one is for my Mom.
DON’T YOU WORRY ‘BOUT MY MAMA
Heaven knows, she’s not an angel.
She’s danced with the devil many a Saturday,
Skipped church many a Sunday,
Worked through his hangover come Monday.
Heaven knows, she’s not an angel.
She’s lied through her teeth to make ends meet,
Smiling through her tears,
Coming back for forgiveness later.
Heaven knows, she’s not an angel.
She’s never down without swinging
Or hurling the last word,
Seen and not heard is not for her.
Heaven knows she’s not an angel.
She’s bitten back and sprinkled salt,
She’s stolen hearts and lighters.
She might still have the pen from the bank.
Heaven knows she’s not an angel.
She’ll have Reese cups for breakfast,
Fuel up with a Pepsi, chugging on the
Marlboro Express to Ambitionville – ETA TBA
Heaven knows she’s not an angel.
Her shorts still show
She’s still got it.
Cut off like the crop top up top.
Heaven knows she’s not an angel.
She sings off key when she thinks you can hear
(But she sings it with conviction when you can’t)
She says what she means – fight her.
Heaven knows she’s not an angel.
She puts the pedal to the metal.
She’s served dinner by candlelight after the bill was due.
She’s pushed when the door says pull.
She’s passed around suckers before dinner.
She’s let the kids cuss, let the dog on the couch.
She’s changed lanes without blinking,
Said things without thinking,
Like love you, bye and wear clean underwear
And behave and be good and be better
Than she, who was never
Close enough to perfect,
Though she’d really like to be.
Thanks for letting me share. Have a good rest of your evening and stay safe. ❤
xoxo
The roots are being pulled out from under me, and there’s little resistance left.
I wonder every day why I stay. I wonder what’s left, I wonder if it’s worth it, if I’m holding myself back because I can’t bear to leave what’s left, behind.
I will always miss her. But everything we loved, is gone. Our places, the places that smelled like her, looked like her, felt like her, they have been torn down. Grass I am not allowed to walk on grows there now. A tree my heart aches to climb and hide in grows and provides shade to nobody. It is sitting there, taken for granted by a stranger as a place to park extra cars.
Cars, parked over the graveyard of my childhood. If I stood there, I could see almost around the corner to the playground, where almost nothing I remember remains. A walk that feels almost like forever to a four-year-old, about ten blocks away, a library stands on toothpick pillars of community love, just one hard decision away from being another memory. Every time I walk past the new branch, I see the ghost of my father sitting at his stool at the end of the bar that used to be there, signaling to the bartender for another.
The ghost of my father. I cannot believe that is… a reality.
It has been 361 days, and about seven and a half hours since that became a hard truth in my life. Believe me, I have counted – and felt – every single moment.
I don’t recognize the person I was then, and I can barely remember the person I was three weeks before then. Today is day 44 of quarantine and I am still working through the person I want to be when this is over. It’s hard to be introspective when you’re trying to continue life as is, as much as possible. Without being able to live life as is.
There are a lot of thoughts roaming free, grazing up my free hours and wasting this time while I wilt away of FOMO. The most aggressive of these has been this overwhelming urge to run away. To get in the car, to drive to the mountains, to walk through a forest, to come to a river and see if I can breathe yet. I just want to see the moon again, to stand under the stars where nobody can hear me cry.
Because the worst part of this has been finding a place to let it go. To let it out and scream, to say it still hurts, to cuss because I still say my prayers every night and he doesn’t come. The call I wait for every day, the sign, the message. The forgiveness.
There has to be somewhere it doesn’t reach, or some place I can reach. I don’t know, but everything I keep looking for seems out of reach.
I am unsatisfied. He told me to ask myself every day, if I was satisfied with my contribution to the world. Can I be if I am not, with myself? I am sure I am giving as much of myself as I can, but there has to be more to me than this. There has to be more than this.
I feel as if I am revving my wheels and going nowhere. Digging myself deeper into the mistakes I’ve invested too much time in because I don’t know how to say, “you hurt me.” My castles crumbled and the clouds I built them on showered me in pats on the back. I had good intentions. They knew I cared. They knew they were loved. It didn’t matter. Nothing became of it and there’s nothing left.
So what do I do with this? Where do I go from here? Is here where I go? Is here where I stay? Is there anywhere else in this life that doesn’t feel like this?
Don’t tell me to feel anything, or look on the bright side. Please don’t tell me my heart is too big for this. Don’t tell me I bit off more than I could chew. Love was supposed to come back and grow. Don’t ask me, I don’t know what the fuck happened.
I don’t know what the fuck happened.
Hello, friends.
I’m not sure I’m ready to write this. I’m not sure I’ll ever be. I’m not sure it will ever feel real. Something tells me it’s going to be real when I forget, and then remember. But it has been exactly 8 days, 2 hours, and 45 minutes since my father died.
I have his obituary hung on my refrigerator. I don’t know what to do with it; I just enjoy that smile every time I look for something else to fill this weird hole in my gut. Nothing tastes like anything right now. Nothing feels good. Nothing feels like it’s really happening. I’m starting to wonder if I’m the one they’re crying over and he’s still sitting in his cabin on the lake.
Except he is sitting in his cabin on the lake. It’s gorgeous and hand-carved, and later will hold the cremains of his dogs. His favorite daughters. It’s the prettiest urn, and I helped choose it. Within two days, I wrote my father’s obituary and shopped for his eternal resting place. Rewind two weeks, I was traipsing around Chicago, storing notes in my head to excitedly share with him about the hot dogs, the pizza, the steak – the only things he and I would care to visit the city for, anyway.
I never told him it was the best steak I’d ever had. I bought bananas to make banana bread, and promised him I’d make him some when he came home from heart surgery. I’ve choked down two pieces and it just tastes like regret.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was all a terrible mistake.
He knew what was happening. He knew. He wrote, “I’M DEAD.”
“No, Dad. You’re not dead. You’re not dying. You’re gonna be okay.”
Sad eyes, shaking head slowly back and forth. Scratching at the paper again:
“REALLY.”
Sadder eyes: “No, Dad. You’re just mad they’re telling you to lay down. You’re not dying.”
“WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?”
Because you’re dying, Dad. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Just like there was nothing you could do to stop from making it happen.
I didn’t know that then. I wish I didn’t know it now. I think if I could ignore the facts of alcoholism and pretend he chose to be a tyrant, I could take this feeling of sudden freedom and run with it. But I’m a lost prisoner whose warden has gone and left me to fend for myself.
Everything I was angry for, everything I held resentment over, everything I let in deep enough to hurt – it’s all a waste. It’s all a mistake. It’s all been a cruel illusion that robbed me blind of the last 20 years of my life.
If alcoholism is a choice, he could have chosen to stop drinking. The last two weeks of his life were the first two sober weeks he’d had in my entire life. They weren’t a choice, but were overdue. They were too late.
First, the heart attacks. Then the double – then triple – bypass. Then the withdrawal – what takes most, 5-6 days, took 12. Then the FUCKING compulsion to be FUCKING SPECIAL ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME and the development of a fatal allergy of Heparin, which only happens to less than 5% of all the OTHER COMMON REGULAR ALIVE PEOPLE WHO DO THIS EVERY DAY.
If he hadn’t destroyed himself for the last twenty years, he’d have had a chance. If he hadn’t lived for a good time, he could have been here a long time. And that’s what it came down to.
We weren’t having a good time anymore, and it was long past the point of the joke being funny. As I sat at the foot of his bed watching the monitors in the same exact sweater, in the same exact position as I’d realized it with his mother, my Grama – my world turned grey and it felt like whatever it is that makes the world go round, well, it felt like it had all just run the fuck right out.
He made a liar out of me.
What I’m going to say next is going to sound incorrect, but this is how I am able to piece it together right now.
I am proud of his death. It is the shining accomplishment of his fatherhood.
I let my dad down a lot, but he gave me one job he trusted me with. He made me promise that when he let me know he was ready, that I’d be his “George.” He’d hand me the rifle, lead me out back, and I was to tell him about the fish, tell him about running deer, and as he smiled at the sunset, I was to put two in the back of his head and take care of it.
But my dad’s not a quitter. Not smoking, not fatty foods, not drinking. Not life. He fought back as the blows kept coming. The clots, the stroke, the loss of circulation, the gangrene, the threats and necessity of amputation. For a week, I watched his arm turn black. I felt like ashes blowing in the wind, watching the amateur tattoo of a heart emblazoned with my mother’s initial, disappear. I saw gaping wounds and blood spattered across walls. I saw the crash cart in a now semi-permanent position in the corner of his room. I saw him split apart and crudely stitched back together, with more tubes coming out of him than a fucking straw factory.
I watched him rot and shrivel. I watched him suffer and knew that nothing I could have ever imagined, not even in my angriest moments of vengeful spite, could come close to what we were putting him through now. In the hopes of what?
He had no time left. Everything would have been used up with the false hope of a life after this. Keeping him alive would have sentenced him to a miserable, bitter existence of sitting on the porch in his wheelchair, looking at the stairs he could never climb, to a boat he could never take on the water he’d never fish in again. He’d never cast another line, never dance with his wife, never drive, never work, never never never never never and I just got sick of “never” being the extent of his current “forever.” Enough was enough.
He would never be my father again. He would have been our pet. I can’t imagine a more cruel and inhumane life sentence.
He asked me because he knew it was the hardest job, and he trusted that I could do it. He knew it was a two-part job. The first part was to play God and kill my father before he could kill himself. The second part was to live the rest of my life knowing I did it. I made sure to get his permission, of course.
He deteriorated quickly, and each day, could respond a little less than the day before. Soon, he was only responding to “MIKE!” and even then, a blank stare.
The doctors left the room, I had a moment. I held his hand, furiously trying to rub it back to life, to make it pink and warm again. I asked quietly, “Dad? Are you in there?”
Suddenly his eyes flew open, as if in a rage. They locked on mine and I knew he was in there. He grimaced and snarled at me like a rabid dog, as if saying, “FUCKING AYE, KID, I’M STILL FUCKING HERE.”
I cried. I admitted I was wrong. It looks bad, Dad. Real bad, and I don’t think we’re getting out of this one alive. But you know we’re trying our very best to not hurt you? You know we’re trying everything we can to make this easier, make this better? We might be going down, Dad, but we’re going down swinging.
But dammit, Dad, you’re dying. You knew it and I know it now. And I need to know if you’re ready. Because we can keep going and we won’t stop until you say so. But please, please say you’re ready because we can’t.
The snarl cut short, his head fell back against the pillow. The lines on the monitor went back to the regular, zig-zaggy pattern. His eyes stared at mine like a dog on the vet’s table for the last time. “Please,” they begged.
He fought, he fell. He fought, he fell. He was brought back 3 times. He could no longer fight without the aid of everything in him being fought by a machine. He had a team of amazing doctors that, if given the choice, would still be fighting for his life today. According to the lead doctor, “He is 51 years old, but okay, you give up on him.”
Fuck you, good sir. You don’t know what I’m giving. I’m giving you EVERYTHING. I’m laying down every loss, every win, every hug, every phone call, every rant, every argument, every saved day, every inside joke, every random song, every peanut butter cracker, every bird I can identify, every dripping cone of ice cream, every early morning sunrise, every party store pizza, every single thing I’ve ever had of him, I’m laying this at your feet and asking you to do no more harm.
I made his final stand.
On April 29, 2019 at 4:33 pm, the nurse finally turned off the machines. I watched as each plug became detached, the numbers on the screen steadily, rapidly, dropped to zero. Like a clock that had simply run out, he never even took a final breath. “Come on in, Dad. The water’s fine. The fish are jumping!”
Was my dad proud of me? It cost me the rest of his life to get the answer.
I don’t miss the alcoholic. I miss the father the alcohol stole from me. I had looked forward to getting my dad back. I thought we were going to stand on the bridge and watch the last twenty years float away under it. I thought my sister might get a chance to meet that dad, the one I remember, the one I wanted the latter him to compare to.
I’m not quite sure how to end this. But if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that when something is over, let it be over and don’t let it fucking rot to death. Call your dad and tell him you’re sorry for being a twat and that you love him more than you know how to say because you’re not those kind of people.
-xoxo
Hello, friends. It’s been a while, and I’ve not had much to say as I’ve been eyeballs-deep in work and school. I’m not sure how it’s all happened, it’s been a bit of a blur, but at least for the next few days, I have nothing going on except me, and my thoughts.
Today, a song came out. I haven’t written a song in years, but this one came to me like an old music box in the attic playing a song I thought I’d forgotten.
Of course, it was for her. Because she’s always on my mind. She’s always in the back of my head pushing me forward, reminding me to keep breathing and to keep looking up.
Barbara’s Song
I just wanted you to know
Even though you had to go
I’ll be waiting right here
Patiently
If you ever come around
If you find a way back down
I’ll be waiting right here
Patiently
Because I know you’re out there
Somewhere
In a space that I can’t see
But I know I’ll find you
Someday
‘Cause I know you wait
For me
I’m gonna be here
If you ever come around
I’m gonna be here
If you ever find a way back down
And I’m gonna be here
Because it’s where you
Brought me home
And I’m gonna stay here
So you’re never really gone
And when I look across this place
I smile when I see your face
Shining over everything I know
So even if you’re far away
You always have a place to stay
If you ever find a way back Home
I’d love to put this to music, so if I have any musically-inclined friends that can help me write this into notes, I’d be very appreciative. Thanks for taking a moment with me to remember the beautiful people we’ve loved, learned from and lost.
-xoxo ❤
I have dreaded writing this. It’s much too close to the hardest thing I’ve had to put down for permanence so far in just under 30 years of my existence. But if I am to let it go, and I am to really, honestly find my happy place, I must.
Let’s start at the beginning. First I must admit that this all happened (exactly 18 days ago) just after being forced to quit behavioral medication cold turkey. (Thanks, Medicaid! This is what I get for earning that promotion!) So let me first paint a picture of the state of my reality at this point:
I am living in a train yard where each thought, idea, memory and to-do list item is a train. Tracks are everywhere, going nowhere but criss-crossing each other all the time. I am standing in the middle of this train yard with tracks all around me, trains flying by at obscenely dangerous speeds. When I am awake, these trains catch me, like a stray string caught on a button. I’m yanked along on a train I didn’t ask to board. I reach out for any other train to get me off this one, and I am whisked away on something else. I am not choosing to catch these trains, they are catching me. They never stop, they never slow down, and they don’t really give a damn whether I am crushed under them or not.
Except one train.
I saw a Public Auction sign on an old, ugly house at the corner of S. Dean and E. Fisher. That sign said this train was headed toward Grama.
I jumped. I leapt with both feet, and held on tight with my heart.
I wanted that house so badly. I wanted to make it a home. I just knew, if I could fix it and put those broken pieces back where they belonged, everything would go back to the way it was and I could once again live Happily Ever After. I wanted to raise my kids in the home I was raised in.
My father can grow things. We always had clothes on our backs, food in our mouths (with permission, of course) and a roof over our heads. We grew there, in that older, uglier house in Leslie, but he didn’t raise us.
So I had a mission, and I gathered an army. In a matter of four days, I had volunteers willing to help me purchase and repair it. I had put this house on the radar of my city and county commissioners. I had put out a public appeal: help me save this house.
It was not, in fact, up for Public Auction. It had gone up for auction in 2016, three weeks after she was gone. I don’t remember much of those first few months except the feeling of wet pillowcases against my cheeks and a canyon-like void in my soul. I obviously was not in any condition to go bidding on the graveyard of my childhood. (We’ll discuss this in a moment.)
Had I purchased it, I would not be the same person I am today. To be completely honest, I am not sure I can imagine the person I would be, but I have a sad feeling I would be very small in a very big world and I would continue to wilt, smaller and smaller into the time-warped safe space of my memory.
To allow someone else to live there, could be bearable. I have recently met the lovely couple that lives in my great-grandmother’s home. A home much more loved in the older generations of the family, and one that perhaps is waiting for me to get my shit together.
But this one – this little piece of my beloved city – this is the one my heart cried for. And this one, this tiny piece of the world I wanted so badly for myself, is going to be demolished. Very soon, in fact. This will be the last summer of my life that I can ever sit on the steps of that porch and look at the stars, and I will be a trespasser.
To see it gone, to know a little girl will never run across that kitchen floor again, to know the things we scribbled on the bedroom closet walls will be lost forever, to know the great old stove in the parlor will never warm a set of toes again, these are things I struggle in coming to terms with. There are so many wonderful things that were said and shared there that I will never get back. There were so many wrongs done in that house I can never undo.
I said I wanted to try everything to save it. This time, I tried to listen to my father. I tried to understand how he felt. I asked him, and his answer was very clear. Continuing to cling to this home was a personal betrayal that I, of all people, should be able to understand.
But it angered me. His answer was selfish. His response was cold and cruel. It reeked of old grudges that had nothing to do with me and never should have hurt me as badly as they did. My house of horrors continues to stand – and another family has made it a home. I never got my revenge. Why should he get his? And why should he – as he always did – get it at my expense?
He never argues with his feelings. He simply tells you what you ought to think, and if you don’t think so, you’re an asshole that will figure it out eventually.
This time, he said please.
Please, he said, let that house go.
So I got a second opinion. Surprisingly, the answer was the same, albeit much kinder and explained the way it should have been explained the first time.
I have been so obsessed with putting the pieces of this broken puzzle back together that I have ceased to realize there will always be missing pieces. It will never, ever be the picture of home I have in my heart. The reason it feels like they are desecrating a grave… is because that’s all it is, anymore.
I cannot raise my children in a graveyard. I cannot grow from this pain in a place I never knew it, in a place where I cannot understand anyone else’s pain.
But I said I wanted to try everything, and I did. I had never tried to be that honest with my father before, and he had never been as honest with me. I had lost hope in finding compassion for him and on this train, I did. I wish I could not understand his sense of betrayal, but unfortunately, I do.
I don’t know that I will ever be able to forgive the last person to turn off the light and shut the door. I can only look forward, and hope I find where I belong.
Goodbye, Home. I’ll find you somewhere. Love you forever.
-xoxo ❤
The Saturday Evening Poet 