Monday, June 14, 2010

Monday's Mourning Ministry - My Immortal ~Evanescence/The Subconscious Remembers






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.)



I'm so sad you are not here;
Since you left, I drown in my tears.
Why did you have to leave?
This grief's too heavy to heave!
Though your presence lingers here,
You still will not come home...


These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real...
There's just too much that time cannot erase!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears;
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me.


You used to captivate me by your resonating light;
Now, I'm bound by your absence left behind.
Your loss it haunts
my once pleasant dreams.
Your death it chased away
all the sanity in me.


These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real...
There's just too much that time cannot erase!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears;
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me.


I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone;
But though you're still "with" me,
I've been alone all along!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears.
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me,
me,
me...




The original lyrics:

My Immortal lyrics

Evanescence

Songwriters: Hodges, David; Lee, Amy; Moody, Ben



I'm so tired of being here,
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave,
I wish that you would just leave
Your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone


These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real.
There's just too much that time cannot erase!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears.
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me.


You used to captivate me by your resonating light
Now, I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me


These wounds won't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real.
There's just too much that time cannot erase!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me.


I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone,
But though you're still with me,
I've been alone all along!


When you cried,
I'd wipe away all of your tears.
When you'd scream,
I'd fight away all of your fears.
And I held your hand through all of these years,
But you still have
All of me,
me,
me...











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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