Holy Pride and Love of Self

1. What We Knew

for David and Ryan

He left us

For good

He has gone to some far away destination

A place not easily seen

And certainly never known.

I am left with this reminder of his brief and fleeting existence

That life cut short

As I view the gliding of the green swallow floating just beneath the canyon rim.

And there is that crunching sound beneath our feet

The wind, now, picks up the leaves and throws them softly, gingerly, carelessly

Throughout the vehicle in which I am now found.

And the one not gone, but feared to be departed

Is there sitting next to me

Observing the falling and the swirling

As if he knows now what I know

The insurmountable fear of tomorrow’s destined plunge.

And we do not speak.

Silence gives way to anger’s cacophonous bleating

And I am less than what I was just a moment ago.

Farewell lower self

Farewell to the dearly departed

Farewell all.

I wrote the above somewhere in the latter part of 2003, I believe in the Fall, which was why there was comment about leaves. David, the young man I knew that was gone and I was grieving for, fell off a cliff near our home on May 7, 2003. Following this accident I visited that cliff edge numerous times to remember and grieve. There were many small birds; swallows I believe, green in color that flew just over the cliff edge during my visits. I have not seen these birds at any time since.

I have always had this premonition that my son Ryan would leave us early. One of the times I was clearly struck with this reality was while I was sitting with him in our GMC Jimmy, also known as “The Beast.” This was also the Fall of 2003 and Ryan was 15. We sat there in that vehicle and I gained a sense of this leaving, which is what I alluded to in the above writing. Ryan was the one who was not gone at that time, but feared to be departed.

I knew that there was a good chance his passing would occur somehow, yet I also knew that there was a power to prevent this death. In the ensuing years I did all I could to avert it. And I did a lot.

My wife has four pictures on a shelf in her office at her work. One is of her mother who passed away in 2008. Another picture is of her brother who died of cancer in 2004. A third picture is of our family dog, Bernie, whom we had for 13 years and lost in 2003. The final picture is of Ryan. These pictures were assembled in my wife’s office at varying times over the last six to eight years. Ryan’s picture has been there for at least six years. There was a reason why his picture was displayed there and not his brothers. Ryan was the one who worked at a photography studio in high school and he was able to secure very nice senior pictures of himself.

Yet why did my wife put Ryan’s picture in among the line up of the departed even before he left us? She knew, like I knew, yet we did not speak a word about it until he passed.

On May 7, 2003, the day David died, Maureen came up the hill to our house. She lived down the street and was a high school student at the time, a year older than Ryan. I remember hearing her sobbing cries as she approached our house. She informed me that it was David who had fallen off the cliff and met his death. We sat and held each other for awhile as we both wept. We then went over to David’s house to be with his grieving family.

On that Sunday evening, a day after Ryan’s passing, while Maureen was home for the holidays, she took that similar trek up to our house to console us in our grief. When someone dies, you walk up the street, you go to the house. You do all you can to console and grieve with those whose long road of pain has just begun.