Pain that Never Goes Away

For those who did not know, my oldest child passed away when she was just eight years old. She will be a recurring theme here in "Still Savages," but this 31st day of  August, would have been her seventeenth birthday. This is significant to me. I have a much different perspective on death and dying than I think a lot of people do. Death, the grief process, and living life will be things we explore at length here as the weeks pass. This year however, marks the point in my life where Marissa Giovanna has been gone longer than she was here. The following is the update of a post I made a long time ago in another realm of cyberspace. I like to think that in this post, I am granting my daughter her seventeenth birthday present. Sharing with all of you what she taught me.

For a father, the death of his child is a relentless and exquisite pain. It is a torment unlike any other. It is a physical pain, there is no doubt, but it is also an unparalleled agony of the soul that no drug can numb, no bottle can hide and no God can deliver you from. It is a hole, right through the middle of you. It is not an imaginary one--just an invisible one. No one can see it but you, and only you can feel the cold wind blow through my chest every time I step outside. It isn’t your imagination. It isn’t “all in your head.” 

My late daughter, Marissa in her chair, playing with her
youngest sister, Kyra shortly before her death.

My first-born child, my beautiful daughter died in my arms, leaving wounds in me that should have been fatal. Yet somehow were not. Instead, I just wished I was dead. But, because I lived, over time I had the privilege of learning something remarkable, that I want to share with you now. I learned the meaning of life.

One day, I thought about my daughter and how someday I would be gone. Then only her sisters and brothers would be here to remember her. The next step in this thought process was that when my children were gone, many years from now, that no one would remember Marissa, and what she brought to the lives of so many.

In many Neo-Confucian societies where ancestral worship is practiced, it is believed that a person is not gone as long as there is someone to remember them. And so I had to then ask myself, "What will people remember me for when I am gone?"

My entire career has been spent in service to others in some way shape or form. The Warrior, who took an oath to defend our great nation and picking up arms in that service. The Teacher. Showing life and independent living skills to residents of a residential mental health program early on. The Mentor, helping young offenders reintegrate into their respective communities after their rehabilitation--and having their community accept them. The therapeutic friend, teaching young people how to be employable, how to solve life's problems with respect and dignity, not with fists or guns. The father, being the best "papa" and role model to my children that I can be. All of these things have made a difference in the lives of others.

I have received letters from kids I have worked with who are now incarcerated, telling me that something I have done made a difference to them in a dark time in their lives. I receive phone calls and post cards years after the fact from kids who are now adults living independently on their own... actually making it when they never thought that they would. I see my own children blossom, and strive to be there for them in their triumphs as well as their failures, and watch them pick themselves up out of the latter, because that is just what we do 'round here. We don't quit. Not ever.

I see that what I do today, makes a difference today. The continued relationships I have with those I have served shows me that it will make a difference tomorrow too. I see that the values I hold dear, and have taught to those around me are living on in them and those they have relationships with. They in turn will pass them along to the next generation. Then the next. 

Many of those values are lessons that a little girl who could not walk, talk or even feed herself taught to an irresponsible and lazy young man seventeen years ago. 

In this regard, my daughter can never be forgotten, as she lives on in those lessons she taught me. She lives on in me. She lives on in my actions, that will live on in others, and just like the ripple effect that I have talked about before, one act of goodness can become a legacy. 

So my friends, I ask you this; How will you be remembered? What have you left behind for others? 

There is the meaning of life.

There are some that I follow in other blogs who have lost recently, and are well into their journey of grief. Each journey is different, and each must be travelled alone. Death, dying and loss can bury you if you let them. I myself in less than a year have seen my maternal grandparents pass, my what was left of the family farm get put up for auction or sale, my father announce his cancer diagnosis, and one of my closest friends die of a heart attack unexpectedly while away on business. I could wear this grief like a stone around my neck, or I can embrace the life and lessons that they have given me, and move forward. I once tried treading water with the former. I now choose the latter.

If this experience I share with you has taught me anything at all, it is that we survive. 

The wounds that should have killed me outright, did not. And while I live with the cold, ache for the rest of my life, I think of an old song by Elton John who sang, "Did you think this fool could never win? Look at me I'm coming back again."

"I'm still standing."

And for those who struggle with their journey, know that it's okay, because... You are still standing too. You are not alone. We can share this hurt together, part of the same tribe.

We are still savages.