Stranger in Paradise

I don't know if I'm able to write about death without sounding either cloying or detached. The Spectre seems to be so very close these days, and many whom I've respected or whose work I've loved are now gone. Judy Garland and Grace Kelly, Rock Hudson have stories which resonate with my experiences. Heath Ledger seems only the latest of far too many; in the past few years I've said goodbye to Audrey Hepburn and Dan Fogelberg, as if they were friends - and now others I do know intimately are approaching goodbyes; my friend, Patty, won't be here for a great deal longer and my Mom, too, will be gone soon. And, perhaps, Dad. I wonder if I will lose my Mark? How do you continue without your heart and soul guy? It's not the leaving that hurts so, their agonies are through. It's the remaining behind. The horrific emptiness at feeling bereft of companions whom we believe believed ad felt as we do. 

I think of the thousands of young men and women whom are dying in an unjust war and their parents burying them. I think of my Gay brothers whom are attacked by strangers whom hate for the sake of hate, and especially of the ones whom in despair take their own lives because they don't believe, can't fathom being loved. The commercials of children dying in Darfur or at St. Jude's are too real and too close, and even the abused animals with great sad eyes tear at my heart as if I knew each of them - and I wish I could hold them and take away their pain. Or maybe it's my pain I wish they could take away. 

If you love them, hug them, write or feed the ones you love enough will it carry you through the long years of loneliness you expect? Will watching their films or listening to their songs fill the days? Will reading old Christmas cards or crying at Irish music bring Mom back for a few minutes? Will sending money ease the pain? What is there that can make any of it mean something worthwhile? I hear in my heart the fluttering wings of angels and I see in my mind's eye old holy cards stained with the tears of the Saints and bloodied Sacred Hearts pierced with swords. I remember believing in Church and Country, some time long ago, when I could brush the dust off a butterfly wing and not regret it, a child scientist exploring a life's demise with disquieting aplomb. Now I think of, long for another life, a heaven, a paradise, the celestial globe; a garden unending where decay at last ends and the cherry tree blooms in the midst of snow falling softly. Quiet, beautiful and filled with many songs, the sea thundering to the the lawn's edge and there, amidst every contradiction, they are all there again, with the bloom in their cheeks and the fire of stars always in their eyes. Stranger things are true.