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Monday's Mourning Ministry
My Immortal ~Evanescence
~
The Subconscious Remembers...
or
The Body Remembers What the Mind Forgets...
(Setting: This weekend, remembering her last full weekend home)
June 9, the day my beautiful firstborn son was born.
So why? Why could I not pick up a phone and text him?
It was the least I could do, but I could not do that.
Awful. I felt awful. My heart on the ground. Pounded.
Ground into pieces. Tearful. Sobbing. Continual
tears flowing down my face. Reading about more mothers,
more mothers losing their children to drugs...some alive...
some dead. But it's my son's birthday! Time to celebrate!
He is alive! He is functioning. He is happy.
He is a good kid (with a few flaws, like most of us),
But I cannot move; I cannot stop crying; my heart
is in a puddle on the floor. Why? I have been in
deep pain for two weeks now. What is wrong with this mother?
Then, Tommy reminds me. Four years ago was the last
weekend she spent at home, steeped in her rebellion, not
willing to bend to the rules, and she'd just been found out...
Again. Three years in a row of turmoil. We'd had five
sweet months with her. Then we found out we were being conned,
deceived into thinking all was well. We discovered
evidence to the contrary. Natural consequences
needed to follow. Don't enable. Raise the bottom.
Don't you dare be codependent and allow her to
self-destruct. You love her too much. Too much is at stake.
Her life is on the line. Her future is on the line.
Take a stand. She knows the rules. As she has said many
times, "Mommy, I can't hear what you are telling me; I've
got to learn the hard way." So these were the last days with
her here, at home, home. where. she. belonged. but. could. not. stay.
Annivers'ry syndrome. Unbeknownst to my conscious
mind, but real, in-your-face to my subconscious mind. It
was taking me down. I couldn't breathe without crying
for her. Missing her. Mourning her. Bemoaning why she
could not "hear" in time to save her life. Could not seem to
"see" the error of her ways. We had her brother's birthday
party here that weekend. She loved her brother, but
she stayed in her room... Crying. She could not be reached. We
could not risk being conned out of our good sense again.
It would have been too dangerous for her. She was on
the cusp of Dangerous Denial. We could feel it.
We could sense it. It was breathing it's deadly breath down
our necks, necks already bent over in grief from loss,
loss of the little girl with the sweet, fun, spunky wit.
To let her go on in her Denial would have been
derelict in our duties to love her, guide her, warn
her, and let her suffer the consequences of her
choices. So on that Sunday night, she left, with a sweet
friend, but she would not choose to stay with that friend. She left.
And the choices she made from there led to her demise.
Yes, she returned home to visit. We got out a lot
of her misunderstandings. Love was exchanged. Hugs were
given. She responded. She turned to God. She restored
her broken relationship with her estranged boyfriend.
She hugged me tightly. I softly cried out in angst, "I
don't want you to go!" but she pulled away. Despite God,
love, reconciled feelings, humor, laughter, she went to
the arms of the drugs that evidently held her fast,
and. would. not. let. her. go. Even amidst the terror
they brought with them. the destruction. the devastation
they wreaked. ...Drugs people had told us were "harmless," she'll "be
okay." But she wasn't. We knew she had to feel the
terror for herself. Terror we were always feeling.
We thought the terror would lead her to seek help. Well, she
did feel terror... She did not know her driver had toked
up that morning, combined with his antidepressant...
She got in his car, catching a ride to the beach she
so loved. But only three hours into the trip, on a
straight-a-way, with no rain mind you, he passed out at the
wheel... Subsequently, the four-wheel drive Tahoe careened
off the road heading for a row of trees. Her scream of
terror awakened him. But he still did not have the
wherewithal to put his foot on the brake, to stop the
madness. The cruise control was still on, the car trav'ling
at highway speeds. into. the. trees. that. could. have. been.
avoided... She felt her terror... But it was too late. Too
late for her and two of her friends. The driver and his
brother survived. My child does not have the choice now to
come home. To get treatment. To receive love. comfort. and
help. Four years ago. The Watershed Weekend. All for
Naught...
*****
Merry Katherine loved the band "Evanescence." Its music can be lilting and haunting, and some of it captures the very dark aspects of life. Today, I heard one of their songs being played on a grieving mother's poetry site; I had never heard the song played in the context of grieving over your child...
I had just written the above poem to express my prolonged angst, and the lyrics and longing of this song grabbed me. I've changed the lyrics a bit to fit my mourning song to my child... As you hear the singer, replace her words with my words to turn it into a more apt child-loss mourning song... I think you too will be grabbed by its poignancy...
"My Immortal" (Adapted)
Evanescence
(Adapted Lyrics I sing tonight to my child)
(My changes will be italicized.)
(Original lyrics are below the adapted lyrics.)
The original lyrics:
My Immortal lyrics
Evanescence
Songwriters: Hodges, David; Lee, Amy; Moody, Ben
http://twitpic.com/y0p7p Thank you to @LillyAnn !
Poem - The Subconscious Remembers, or The Body Remembers What the Mind Forgets - Angie Bennett Prince - 6/13/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU9FwP4uOY8&feature=related
Adapted lyrics to My Immortal - Angie Bennett Prince - 6/14/10
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