Note: Facebook friends are funny. I "met" Matt, online, last year after writing about missing my absent father. A friend, Laura, introduced us because of our common bond. We three share the Dad-who-went-gone-while-alive thing. We each have a father who disappeared, by choice, who let us down, betrayed, beat , abandoned or other not so ideal parental things.
We three know the way a parent can haunt and follow and stalk the consciousness for days turned decades long after childhood ends.
We know the the place holder on the family tree who is one part ghost and one part DNA. We know of parents who are sentences that never get completed by reality but only by imagination. We know longing and ache and shame that show up in our mirrors, hearts, last names and sometimes on our faces.
Paternal absence for a child is a reach that never gets returned. It's an ever present "uppie" with arms up. Fingers and hands that go unmet in ways that can sting and stun.
Abandoned sons and daughters can be stubborn. Sometimes we stand still waiting in some desperate form of hope or defiance. We refuse to move and make ourselves statues erect in a f' you salute to the sky. Sometimes we rage at the stars, life or those who stand with and by us when really, we are still hurt, still sore from soul deep "daddy" issues.
Sometime we are sure we require being retrieved or maybe it is on us to go rescue, fix or love the broken parts of a parent or others.
Eventually, we reckon with loss. In time, we stand still and move on.
Forever knowing the absence of that presence.
We keep company with the presence of absence, over-sized and in parent form. . Those of us stood up by our parents as kids sometimes feel like cousins. We are familiar to one another. We have this short hand, this way of being stuck in child longing that defies reason. We grow ourselves up and on. We get the phantom limb that can't be itched or even missed but is just gone.
That's part of how I know and don't know Matt and Laura. It's strong enough to get me to move by discomfort with how Matt uses the "g-word," for god, a lot and how Laura does as well, though less often.
So I know lots about and also very little about Matt and Laura. I don't know if they put sugar in their coffee or tea or drink it hot or cold. I don't know if they sleep deep or have insomnia or maybe a bit of both. I suspect, like me, they show up most whole on the open page, in prayer or tears.
And so I don't know them but by knowing them I'm less alone. I know Matt's sister had cancer.
Cancer sucks, in general, for everyone. Those of us with ACEs know cancer's cruelty too well, though. It takes residence in our cells and marrow and trauma. It keeps company with other aches and pains. It makes me furious because ACEs not only kick the ass of children but the adults we become, even if we have survived.
That seems brutally wrong to me. Those with adverse childhood experiences get more cancer, heart disease, depression and countless other health risks than those without. It is motivation to parent well but it's also infuriating.
The countless numbers of diseases are a form of pain compounding. Six or more ACEs and mortality, on average, goes down by 19 years. It's theft and robbery.
But this video isn't about science or statistics. It's about love and faith and music. It's about a sibling bond. It's about how none of us get through childhood or adult life alone.
It's about how love and loss don't start or end. We feel every ancient wound when pain gets a hold of us. Losses can be hard bricks neatly stacked one on top of the other. It can make us rigid and blocked off without any room for people or sun. Loss can overpower gravity and knock us off our feet. Loss can come fast and carry abandoned debris. It can level us and make us stagnant and hard. It can be impossible to move through or stand in.
Loss, without love, at any age, is unbearable. Loss, unless it is chased down by love, can't be digested or made into something beautiful. But that doesn't mean it's not raw or honest or vulnerable. That doesn't mean it is superficial. Being open about how much or how deeply we hurt can help us help others while it helps us help us.
I don't know Matt in daily life and I don't need that to understand he's anguished. I didn't know his sister or her life but I know how much she mattered.
I am reminded as well that not everyone is singing fa-la-la lightness this season.
Matt's not all jolly smiles covered with colorful blinking lights. And it's more than a relief. It's tender, soulful and honest. For those with fresh or old wounds, this songs is medicinal.
Matt and Laura are "real life" friends. But if you want to know them through words, they both have blogs. Matt's blog. Laura's blog.
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