“…I look at you: all of the love there that’s sleeping
While my old heart gently weeps…”
“A problem shared,” they’ve told me, “Is a problem cut in half.” I open up to my sponsor here and there—yet less to my loved ones. It’s hard, since we all, through our own prisms, feel pain.
Some predicted it, but not me.
One warned “You’ll be next”. I didn’t buy it. Another said “You keep moving the goal posts. I didn’t see it.
Not even the Saturday they abruptly dropped me off after lunch. I was sitting in the backseat, a difficult but civil conversation being had, when all of a sudden from north of my face wagged the driver’s finger.
“You call yourself a father?” he demanded derisively. (“Who speaks that way—even to a quasi-parent?” was my impulse). “You really should go” urged the blonde…softly… tearing.
—Still shaking as the car pulled away.
—Numb.
I walked a lap around the condo…even sat in the lobby a bit-…before going up.
Then I let time pass. Quietly. Don’t like me? OK. Don’t respect me? Your issue.
“What happened?” people wondered.
(To this day no one knows).
“What did you do?” others asked.
(Told the truth, I suppose).
“What are you going to do about it?”
(What CAN I do about it?)
“Give time time”, I’d respond. “Pray”. “Wait”. “Reach out.”
…I don’t know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love…”
It all blends together these days:
Sitting in the Justice Center cafeteria, lunchtime the Friday before CInco de Mayo:
“ ’Don’t want you to come out when the baby’s born.”
“It’s my grandchild,” I said.
“It’s not that simple,” she replied.
“…I don’t know how someone controlled you…”
I’m good at acceptance, except when I’m not. Weeks I can go without dwelling upon it. Life, indeed my life is so bountiful that internally I let God handle it—
Until I can’t.
Until I see a picture or hear a song or just think….
“…I don’t know how you were diverted…”
It was two years ago, the night before Kol Nidre. I couldn’t not share it.
“You’re not calling first?”
“No,” I asserted, “Just showing up.”
“What if she’s not home?” asked one.
“What if?”
“You’ll never get in,” said another.
—Yet I borrowed a car and I drove.
And I got to the door.
But not through it.
“You’re not going to let me in?” I inquired, (still not believing).
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“…I don’t know how you were inverted…”
I did kiss the elder that day. Draped on her mother’s right shoulder were her big blue eyes. (At least I think they were—blue that is). Leaning forward —Godforbid I brake the plane of the entrance—I gently kissed my granddaughter’s forehead.
“May I at least come look at the crib?” I wondered, (since her brother was sleeping).
“I’m sorry,” I heard. “You just can’t.”
“What do you mean?” I shot back, a major key change to my voice.
“It’s not that simple.”
Actually, I told myself driving off—it really is. That simple. I pulled in the parking lot of a store nearby and just sat. Didn’t cry, just sat….
My phone rang, but I abstained. Then my phone rang, and I abstained again.
Two years ago, this Yom Tov. Two years.
“…I look at you, see the love there that’s sleeping
While all our hearts gently weep…”
Naïve I was not when my calls fell to voice mail. Return messages? Usually. Live voice? Never.
Sometimes I wish I were angrier. Sometimes I wish I had fire in my belly to lash out in outrage with a passion commensurate to the love I still feel.
But I can’t. On a good day, as most are, I still leave it to God, and I’m OK.
(That’s just most days. On others, like today, I bog down).
A problem shared may well be a problem cut in half. It is NOT, though, a problem solved.
…”I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my old heart gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my old heart gently weeps….”
(Adapted from G. Harrison)