Friday Night Lights

For a two days I thought about going to the home football game tonight. In the last hour I came to a decision. I'm not going to the football game. That was a crazy thought. What would I gain by subjecting myself to that experience. God, I can't drive by the empty practice field without a quiver of agony. Last year I think I went to a half of a game, or was that the year before? Many days have passed and little differentiates one from the other. All days are occupied with the same dominating focus.

In the light of the sun setting on August, Doc and I were noseing around the oak tree in the front yard looking for acorns. The squirels chew them up and leave few of the perfect ones so you have to look close in the grass and ground-up shells. An acorn is beautiful creation. The little cap with a tiny stem is as perfect as a wool beret. A piece of oak furniture finished in a craftsman's shop is almost as fine as the acorn's body.

Looking close at the base of the trunk of the tree I saw three shards of material out of place. Two little finger nail size pieces of purple and on of white. They weren't vegetable, they were mineral. Coffee cup in fact. Carbon dating would put their date of destruction at May 11th to 13th, 2005. I shattered the mugs in anger, and found the pieces in peace.

I'm not going to the game tonight. I fear my heart would shatter. Tonight I want to keep the peace. In the Friday night light of the setting sun I will ride my bike and leave the pieces of the past where they belong.

Senses

When I sit still I appreciate my senses. The rest of the time they get as much respect as the hairs on my head; if they were gone I'd miss 'em but I don't care what they do.

Tonight is a perfect late summer early evening. My senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, are pulling memories out of the past. I'm looking over our deck into the green and brown-black woods of our back yard. The patches of sky I see through the leaves is the lightest shade of blue. The flowers in the gardens are faded to fall. Air temperature is football night cool, just a touch under warm.

At any moment I could hear the kitchen door to the garage open with a push. That door has it's own DNA sound. I hung the door so it's been partially broken since day one. What you hear with that door is more what you don't hear--the latch doesn't work so you don't hear the click first, you hear the spring in the tube groaning. The next sound would be Aaron or Patrick pushing their way in--"Hey." Then the fridge opens because you can't come in the house unless you inspect the interior of the fridge.

There will be dew on the grass in the morning. Squirrels are gathering nuts. Our yard is full of shells. The leaves are showing signs of preparing to bale out. I don't hear the little kids tonight. Moms and Dads are probably trying to get them on a school schedule a week early. We did that.

7:35 PM. In grade school days, Aaron and I would be wrapping up youth football practice. Cathy usually had dinner ready. Lots of noise in the house. We would finish a night like this on the deck or front porch.

Somebody is cutting grass of course. Winter might be the quietest time. Living in a neighborhood of mixed ages a lawn mower is constantly at work. The retired guys cut grass from morning 'till dinner and the working fellas start at dinner and go 'till dark. Winter has one redeeming quality after all.

It gets darker on the hill in the trees earlier than below. Patrick argued that point as a little guy. He was right. We let him stay out ten minutes longer. I can hear the sounds of Patrick and Aaron and their friends. In and out of the house. ON bikes, skateboards, and roller blades. Our doors got a workout and survived. The bikes are hung up, beaten to submission like the roller blades.

Now it's ten minutes later and time for Patrick to come home. When he comes in he'll have little sweat beads on his nose. Aaron will come in a little later. He'll be hungry.

Does God Have an Alibi?

Tomorrow brings today
Today is yesterday once more.
Grief lasts forever; grief can't be stopped.
Forever feel grief or
stop forever.

Life is unkind and fair
that's as good as it gets.
Where is God?
Does God have an alibi?
Does God have an alibi?

God does not kill, God does not save.
Is this a giant play?
God watches and never intervenes.
Does God have an alibi?
Does God have an alibi?

Infuriating

Mourad said it is OK for me to be angry because I am angry. Not possible for to believe I can't be angry when I am. I know what I'm angry about. My son is gone and I did not give my permission for him to be gone this long and I surely did not give permission for God or anyone to take him. I did not give permission to anyone to build a stupid wall close to the road. I hate that wall. Who needs a wall to hold wood chips? Why does a four foot high, two foot wide wall have to be built 20 some feet from the edge of a road when there is 80 acres of land to hold mulch? Goddamn wall.

I want my son back! Fu----ng mulch sh-t f---ing wall. I hate that wall.
The owner said "If I knew the wall was dangerous I would never have built it." Two fu--ing years later the wall still stands and in fact it was re-fu--ing built. Put the fu---ng wood chip sh-t wall beind the goddamn barn out of harms way. Let my son go past. Let him be safe.

I have no abundance of gratitude right now. I'm angry. I didn't say it was OK to hurt my son.

Bring my son home and leave me alone.

Looking, Seeing, Remembering

Three years ago today we were in Oregon looking to the future and never saw it coming. The peace of that day is lost.

I'm sitting in the midst of memories. The good and the evil memories make for a hurricane of emotions. Physical pain is in my forehead behind my right eye. Mental pain is in everything my eyes see and my mind recalls.

Football Season Again

Wednesday evening Cathy and drove into DeForest to pick up a donation for the Aaron House. The route took us past the high school football practice. Four years since football mattered to me, my heart ached seeing the players. Until September '04, football was a big deal to Aaron and me. We spent alot of time together on those fields and around football.

The Packers are playing a pre-season game right now. To say Packer football was a big deal in Aaron and Patrick's childhood is an understatement. They grew up in the glory days. They saw their Dad go a little overboard more than once.

Football has not been the same to me since '03. That fall we started to lose Aaron to an addiction. Aaron lost his desire that year as is the case when an addiction consumes a life. After several months of recovery, Aaron regained a desire to play and held it just long enough to let go for good in a healthy way a year later.

Never again will football be anything significant to me. Everything about the game has the same affect: An empty, harsh, cold, hard, dull ache gets me right in the center of my chest. I feel it in my chest, my back, my left arm, and the back of my head. The games go on. Players play, fans cheer and it's all so unreal to be happening without my son.

I have more in my life than a game but that doesn't change the pain triggered by what once was.

Because Aaron Lived

A little project started two years ago opened today and we call it Aaron's House.
Four young men in pursuit of a solid foundation in sobriety are moving in to the building. They are living Aaron's idea. The idea was for a sober living environment where friends who shared the struggle of living with an addiction would support one another and begin their college education. Aaron wanted to live that idea in Bend, OR with some friends from Mount Bachelor Academy. "It'll work Dad..."

Aaron's House exists, not because Aaron died, but because he lived.
Aaron's House exists, not because Aaron had an addiction to a chemical dependency, but because he had an idea to change himself to live a healthy life.

Aaron's House is not to honor Aaron or memorialize him. Aaron is who Aaron was, no more, no less. Aaron's House is an honor to God. It's a testament to hope, to goodness, to mercy. Aaron's House is an offering of gratitude. Aaron's House exists because of charity and charity is the weapon to defeat evil. Evil took a kick in the ass from the people who love Aaron and/or love what he meant to life.

I'm tired tonight. I'm sad. I miss my son and I am deeply grateful for my other son, Patrick. Aaron isn't coming home but with the Aaron House in the community I feel Aaron making a difference in the world while I live, because he lived.

See the pictures from the dedication day on www.AaronsHouseMadison.org

Or Go Directly to Amanda Anderson's photos: http://www.picturetrail.com/aaronshouse

Make-up Work

"Feeling your feelings" is a term grief and recovery counselors use. In grade school I had the box of---it was no box, more like a sleeve, eight crayola crayons. A few kids had eight shades of blue. Most of us had regular blue. If emotions were made by Crayola, today I would say I have the fat box of 64.

Up to two years ago emotions to me were: Happy, sad, mad. I didn't know about their relative: Content, pleased, accepting to name a few on the bright side. And the many shades of blues such as angry, bitter, resentful, sorrow, horror, unrelenting-grief, violent, hurt, lost, disconnected, could-care-less, and deserving of fairness. The last one is an emotion you get when you mix all the blues together. Same as mixing red, brown, blue, purple or violet, yellow, and orange, deserving of fairness is sort of a muted shade of black.

I can't define the feeling I get when I see parents with their sons and daughters from the class of '05. Lost and disconnected captures some of the twinge. The closest feeling that I can recall from the archives of my memory is from about 1969-70. In grade school, about age 10 and 11 when everyone was a friend, if you missed a few days with a real illness everyone cared about you. Not when you were "sick" on a Friday and playing with friends on Saturday morning. The sick where friend's mom's called your mo to see how you were doing, and no one brought your home-work home. The kind when you were sick on Thursday, Friday, worse on Saturday and Sunday, getting better on Monday, still home on Tuesday and back to school on Wednesday afternoon with a note from the family doctor.

When you got back to school even Sister Francis Anne and the vicious Principal nun who's name but not her face I've forgotten, showed some concern. Even the cute girls rushed over to give some attention. Everyone helped you with the Make-up work. While everyone talked about the events of the school day, and moved chapters ahead in math, spelling, English, and reading, you were left with Make-up work. Stacks of it. You couldn't relate to the stories. You had nothing to add. Your classmates knew things you didn't know about or comprehend. You had to do the Make-up work and the new stuff. There was no catching up. Your class moved on without you. You didn't belong to the same grade. A kid without a home-room. The only place you felt normal was at home. If home-schooling was an option, you'd ask to transfer.

In childhood, you eventually caught up and someone else got the mumps. I wish there was a penicillin for this illness. I'd accept the shots that left you crippled in one rump. I'd gladly take the week worth of medicine in the giant spoons- full...pinkish, reddish pills all chopped up and mixed with water--the most bitter tasting stuff I ever experienced until two years ago.

Where'd All The Good People Go...in the Editorial Room?

Two weeks ago a family in our neighborhood was embraced in the arms of extraordinary compassion from people in the DeForest community and across the country. An adult family member was missing. She vanished in the night without a trace. Family, friends, neighbors, concerned people everywhere asked for help, and prayed for one thing--the safe return of Francine. Qualifications were not attached to any of the pleas and prayers of good people.

The good people were not on the job in the DeForest Times-Tribune editorial room. A poisonous editorial opinion in the form of a drawing appeared in the August 2, 2007 edition on the Opinions Page. I'm not going to repeat the message of the drawing. But I wonder, did someone decide a resolution to the mystery was worth the effort of all who searched and cared only if foul play was involved? That can't be the prevailing attitude. We get heaps and heaps of what we sew. Compassion can't be reserved for tragic endings.

Is there some resentment? A man told me in my lowest moment: Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. Profound and proven.


Appropriately,-----a few lines from:

Good People by Jack Johnson

You win
It's your show, now
so what's it gunna be
cause people
will tune in
how many train wrecks do we need to see?
before we lose touch of
we thought this was low
It's bad gettin worse so

Where'd all the good people go
I've been changin channels
I don't se them on the tv shows
Whered all the good people go
We got heaps and heaps of what we sew