Dear Rodney,
So… who is this Christoph person? Chris? Christopher? Kristoff? Khoast? Tristen? Orman? So many names that I have gone by and only a few of them the name you gave me. I’ve gone by my fair share of names over the years and for a long time I wasn’t even sure of whom I was. I wandered for years after your death, trying to identify who was this child that you had left behind. Left behind. What a cruel way to look at things Dad. Yet, that’s how I thought of it for a long time after you died. I knew it wasn’t your fault, but I felt like I had been left behind.
Do you know how angry I was with you when I last saw you? It was such a simple matter and not worth the anger that I spat at you. The sound of that Black Dodge’s slamming door, after the angry words we exchanged, would come to haunt me for years to come. Yet that was nothing in comparison to the horrible thoughts and words that came from my mouth in the two weeks before you passed away.
I was on a Christian retreat during the last two weeks of your precious time with us. I had studied for months on how to run a Bible Camp for under privileged children. It felt so good touching the hearts of those young children. I felt a real connection to them, as I know they felt it with me. We brought Christ to their hearts and they brought compassion and love to ours. One of the children made me a special salvation bracelet that I wore the rest of my time on the retreat. I couldn’t believe how much a small bracelet made of multicolored plastic and a leather string could mean to me.
I was so mad at you on that trip. I spoke such harsh words about you. I doubted things about you that should have never been in doubt. Yet, I was a child of only fifteen at the time and it was in my nature to rebel and rail against the boundaries. I don’t blame myself now for what I said, but it took me a long time to get to this point.
There are a few days in your life that you will never forget and for me the day I got home from that retreat is one that will stay in my heart until the day I die. Richard picked me up from the church the moment that my foot landed off the van. I could feel a fear that I could not explain sweeping over my soul, this was not right. As we pulled into the driveway I could feel the sands of a thousand beaches fill my legs. The weight was too much to hold. I stood at that door as it swung open, not sure which two family members would be standing there. I don’t remember a word being spoken for as soon as I saw Kim and Mom standing there I knew I had lost my father. My scream and howl is all that I remember as I crashed to the floor.
I can’t remember anything after that until I was standing by your casket, looking at the body your soul had left behind. I knew you weren’t in there, but I knew you were nearby. I did something I have no recollection of ever doing in your life time when I bent over and kissed your cheek. No one had warned me that you would be so cold. I reached down and tucked my salvation bracelet into your hands. I buried more than my father that day.
In the years to come Kristoff fought with a destructive rage that would lash out at anything and anyone in his path, including himself. I sought solace in drugs and alcohol. I threw fists through walls. I sliced blades across my skin to try to find a physical pain that would take away my emotional pain. I rejected faith as a pointless system of arbitrary laws to control the masses and deaden us into sheep. I hated everything, and took joy in nothing.
Khoast was on a steady decline from fifteen to twenty-one. I pushed anyone who cared about me away, and it wasn’t until someone I truly cared about pushed me away that I began to look at myself. I may not agree with why she pushed me away, but it made me truly look at every aspect of my life to that point. I was grasping at straws. I had no respect for myself, I had no love for others and I had totally rejected the divine.
I began to look at myself and realize that things had to change. I started to devour faith like never before. I had always been interested in religion and had always studied them. Yet until this point I looked at them as a scientist looks through a microscope. I had been trying to find their holes and their flaws. What kept them together and what would make them fall apart? Now I began to see them for what they were. I remember feeling my faith coming back to me, yet different than I had ever felt it before.
So… who is this Christoph person? He is a person who has found his way. I have learned that compassion is the meaning of life. I have learned that the divine has many names and many aspects and it doesn’t care what names we put to it. The thing that matters most is that we love each other and have compassion in our hearts. I don’t claim to have it all together, nor do I claim that I ever will. What I do know is that in my loss of you I have become the man I am today and that man is an echo of you.
The anger is washing from my soul, the loss will always sting and my love will eternally grow.
I love you. I miss you. I know you are here watching over your family.
Love,
Me
4 comments:
My god, Chris, this is beautiful.
The insight that you have gained, and the ability to synthesize it and express it so eloquently, is absolutely stunning. I see major emotional and spiritual growth here--growth and understanding that has happened even in the last year.
If there is one thing that I have learned in this crazy journey through therapy and back to school, it is that grief work is possibly the most complex work we can undertake.
"Experts" like to talk about the five stages of grief, but I have yet to read the book that explains how we never really finish grieving major losses in our lives, but rather that they affect the fundamental makeup of our personalities, and that they have a huge impact on the decisions that we make later in life, and how we deal with later losses.
I am living the process of writing a similar letter. I am just now beginning to do the grief work that I need to do--my family dealt with my brother's death by putting it in a box and saying "Ok, we've dealt with that, we're over it now." As a result, I do not yet have the integration of all these people in my head (and I have separate and distinct names for them, just like you: the nine-year old girl who lost her brother, the teenager and young adult who wished to be loved above all else, the warrior martial artist, and now the adult who is on her way to becoming a healer), but I am seeking it.
As I was reading your letter, I also realized that I don't know this new, integrated person that you've become. I know the teenage Chris, when loss was still big and gaping, and I met you again, briefly, as a young man who was just beginning explore where and how relationships, past actions, and dreams all fit into his personality, and where he wanted to go with his life.
Thank you very much for sharing such an intimate look at your journey so far.
Thank you Denise.
Honestly I am not fully aware of why I had to write this, I just knew that I had to. I learned alot of things while I wrote and I purged some demons.
The "experts" can have their stages and bottle everything into definable limits if they wish. The human need to encapsulate and define everything is a narrow perspective in my opinion.
The pain of loss will never fully disipate. It sounds sad and hopeless, but I believe that the realization of this is liberating in it's own way.
I am glad to hear that you are writting a letter of your own. I hope that you feel that you can share it, but if not it is still a wonderful thing to do. Write it and place it in a sacred place never to be shared if you need to, but atleast write it.
No words right now. Just tears...
For pain you stuggled with for years.
For things I did not know.
For what part I have played.
May the healing begin. And may it be complete in us both.
I am sorry that you learned new things through text rather than through my lips.
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