The price of preying upon children
Had therapy today. The storm followed me to the medical center, hounded me as I left the car, pounded me with hail. Frozen tears. Between Tamar and Michael I've done enough crying the past few days, and the warm place that the tears come from is so exhausted and cold that nothing more can well up from there.
A bit of hail struck my neck, and another. They slipped down my neck and between my breasts, leaving a chilly trail of wetness behind. How fitting to my mood.
Hard questions from Tamar, from Michael, and then from my therapist.
The hardest of all from Tamar: When am I going to stop carrying Ryan around? I don't know that I will ever be able to put him down. The dead live in memory. Its been 7 years and his mother still asks why he drove off that cliff. It haunts her. A mother is not meant to outlive a child. Why would a brilliant, beautiful man, newly a father, kill himself? She asks. His brother asks.
I know why.
I know the 'why' and something in me wants to tell her, to end her torment. But it would not end her torment, it would only cast her deeper, into a lower level of hell. I am neither so cruel or so honest that I would tell her that the reason he killed himself is because he could not face parenthood. He cradled his daughter in his arms and a fear rose in him, a fear originating from the memories of childhood. He was afraid he would fail in his duty as a parent to protect his daughter, as his parents, as my parents, had failed us. The world is full of Demmings. Our survivor's secret and love for each other got us through adolescence and early adulthood. We guarded our siblings, we strove to survive. But I failed him somehow, for I could not help him survive the spectre of the past and the possibility of it revisiting his future.
Oh my lovely boy. I am so sorry. Failing to keep you alive, I carry you in my heart, hoping some day to find a place of rest for the innocent children we were and the twisted adults we became. I would lay you at Her feet, if I knew where she was, and with terrible eyes I would look upon her and tell her the price of preying upon children. It will not cost her her own soul. No. It cost us ours.
A bit of hail struck my neck, and another. They slipped down my neck and between my breasts, leaving a chilly trail of wetness behind. How fitting to my mood.
Hard questions from Tamar, from Michael, and then from my therapist.
The hardest of all from Tamar: When am I going to stop carrying Ryan around? I don't know that I will ever be able to put him down. The dead live in memory. Its been 7 years and his mother still asks why he drove off that cliff. It haunts her. A mother is not meant to outlive a child. Why would a brilliant, beautiful man, newly a father, kill himself? She asks. His brother asks.
I know why.
I know the 'why' and something in me wants to tell her, to end her torment. But it would not end her torment, it would only cast her deeper, into a lower level of hell. I am neither so cruel or so honest that I would tell her that the reason he killed himself is because he could not face parenthood. He cradled his daughter in his arms and a fear rose in him, a fear originating from the memories of childhood. He was afraid he would fail in his duty as a parent to protect his daughter, as his parents, as my parents, had failed us. The world is full of Demmings. Our survivor's secret and love for each other got us through adolescence and early adulthood. We guarded our siblings, we strove to survive. But I failed him somehow, for I could not help him survive the spectre of the past and the possibility of it revisiting his future.
Oh my lovely boy. I am so sorry. Failing to keep you alive, I carry you in my heart, hoping some day to find a place of rest for the innocent children we were and the twisted adults we became. I would lay you at Her feet, if I knew where she was, and with terrible eyes I would look upon her and tell her the price of preying upon children. It will not cost her her own soul. No. It cost us ours.
posted by KR | 11/07/2005 09:37:00 PM
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