JOURNAL 2001 The Flood; The Tear.
29 June 2001, Friday Houston, TX
I wonder if the mourning
will ever start. This year alone there would have seemed to have been events enough to sorrow over, to grieve over . . .
In January, I lost the use of my right shoulder—thus, arm and hand. It was the beginning of a struggle to recover from the surgery that, ultimately, would give me back (almost completely) a full-functioning body. It required the sacrifice of my last month riding my horse.
In January, I tried to force Nathan to re-enter the school system on the system’s terms. In May I officially withdrew him from school, having been the cause of his implosion back into mania and terror at the thought of having to associate on his own with any group of children his own age. I sacrificed Nathan so that I might have a chance to regain the same life I had enjoyed before he was diagnosed bi-polar.
Three weeks ago, thou it seems like just last night, I lived calmly through a hellish fever of grabbing-pushing-packing-climbing-saving-leaving-climbing in the wet-dark-mist of morning-before-it-is-a-morning. So good to not move; so tired, so wet, such a smell and stickiness that climb. Finally I am still and I have finished living the nightmare. And then it is light. I was asleep in the hallway upstairs, Brent was gone, the light is day, it’s time to—they’re coming back in five minutes, Brent is gone; it’s time to go. I come down the stairs to an endless, black mirror. There is no floor. There. Is. No. Floor.
My house, dedicated to the service of the Lord. Is no more. We are adrift on the second floor. My heart is as empty as the gutted rooms beneath us. There are windows and walls. There are pipes that run here and there between the two-by-four studs—like errant blood vessels, cut off at the delivery point; nothing left to deliver.
My heart. Dedicated to the service of the Lord. Feels no more. I am adrift. Though I am always, ALWAYS, always surrounded. I am the empty rooms around which the two-by-fours stand guard with the pipe veins would pump nourishment to. I am the space—that used to host strangers and friends—that was promised to be a pillar of righteousness; but who now sits in the shadow by the street corner holding out, hoping both to be ignored or pitied by a drop of kindness fallen into a cup that used to be running over
I looked into the mirror tonight. I smiled and I saw the wrinkles of 42 years gather around my eyes. I wondered about grieving. I don’t know that I have ever grieved for my mother’s death, 4 years ago this August. I see her and hear her and think of questions I would like to ask her over and over and over again—more often as the years pass. I have lost time. I think of those eyes, my eyes, tonight.
. What have they seen me do that would mark the passage of half a lifetime? There are a few cross-stitch pictures. There are three good, honest children that the Lord has lent to me for a time. There is a closet full of saddles and pads and riding boots and bridles that are the remainder of countless hours I have tried to snatch to ride horses.
And then there is my horse. Aggie. Agraciada. Too much money. Countless headaches and worries. Never enough time to ride. The rear between home and horse between Brent and the wind between Nathan and physically exhausting satisfaction. The tear.
I think that I keep trying to grieve. Perhaps I already have. Maybe my entire life is a process of missing something, feeling a pang of sorrow for it—and not because it is gone so much as because I am now without it—perhaps it is just that I do not know how to let go of it, of the sorrow, I mean. I want the memory of it—but I want to have the hurting pass away, pass on. Maybe I want to be able to forgive myself for missing it so. After all I know I will see my mother again and that she is well and happy now. My life is not mine to direct, to parcel out—this time I give to the Lord, this time is mine. And the house? Well, the house is just a thing.
Most have never had as much to lose. Most never will.
And yet I do ache for closure—to hunt for the hurting time and then to be cone with it. It cannot be done like purchasing a pair of shoes—need them, see them, need them, pay the price . . . and then wear them out in the service of your fellowmen.
I still, tonight, even though I know selling Agraciada to be the correct thing to do—for the family, for me—a part of me still pulls back. The tearing. The tear. And although mother Nancy Kathleen Burton Wagstaff is gone and her body was worn out and everyone was relieved when she didn’t have to endure her suffering body any longer—a part of me still pulls back . . . and I don’t want her gone yet . . . I want to be able to visit her in the summer . . . and talk to her on the phone . . . and show her that I have finally learned how to be a friend to her instead of an independent icon that floats serenely on the horizon. I can be a friend. I can. I could.
I am tired.
Very tired.
