Bless Me, Father, For I...Wait, I'm Not Catholic

It is time to come clean. I must confess. It is an inevitability that chose now to manifest. It has to do with the real reason that I started this blog. That core reason has little to do with food, drink, or music, although all three are important and will feature prominently in this venture. No, the core reason has very much to do with a subject that seems to drive a lot of blogs.

The subject is pain. Not the 'heartbreak of psoriasis' kind of pain, or 'my team lost' kind of pain. I am talking about the crushing pain of personal tragedy. The sort of pain that makes you want to crawl into a hole and tell the world to go to hell. The sort of pain that makes you think things like 'I don't want to kill myself, but if I just stopped living that would be okay'. So it is with me.

I had the luxury this morning, of a solo walk in a park near my home. It was around the lake that is the centerpiece of this park, on a paved path that encircles it. Being alone I was able to meditate in silence and give a stir or two to the bubbling crock pot that is my mind. I was thinking about everything and nothing, while wondering what I would write about today. Somewhere in my head, a chunk of memory detached itself and crashed down on me from out pf the blue: it was about this time five years ago that I went back to work for the first time in months following the deaths of my first two children. It was they who planted the seeds of change in my head, which have since sprouted into the trees of resolution.

I was 37 years old before I finally woke up from a daze and realized that maybe my wife and I were missing something in life. I was coasting pretty much until then. I don't know exactly what prompted it, even to this day. I think my wife had a similar epiphany because we had little difficulty deciding that we wanted to have a kid. Life took a certain glow after that, because after all, trying to make babies (for the most part) wasn't a task to which I had any objections! The 'how' part even gained in enjoyment, at least it did for us, when the consequence I was careful to avoid was now the cause and result I wanted. Ahh, bliss...

There were some problems. It turned out to be slightly more difficult than we figured, for a variety of reasons I won't get into right now. Suffice to say that it took longer than expected, but when it did happen, Oh! Man! did it ever! The day the pregnancy was confirmed I have blurred memories of, it was so OVERWHELMING and EXCITING. But the day in March 2003 when we went for a checkup ultrasound I'll certainly NEVER forget. Not only was my wife pregnant, she was pregnant with TWINS, a boy and a girl!

I thought I was going to faint. Or throw up. Or run around laughing my head off. TWINS!?, I thought, you have got to be effin' kidding me! I could see them on the screen. I had to lean over with my hands on my knees. I started laughing and had a hard time stopping. Man, this was so cool, so much more than I expected. We were going to be parents of twins. At that moment I had never felt so human, so alive in my life. I even remembered to thank God, which was something I hadn't done in years of passive agnosticism.

So it was with intense sadness, anger and rock-bottom despair that we suffered the soul-searing tragedy of having not one, but both of our precious gifts taken away from us within a span of less than three weeks. This was a psychic explosion from which the echoes are still fading away. It was those echoes that I heard in the mournful cry of a lone goose, this morning while walking around the lake. In that instant, I felt the tiny hands of my precious son and daughter caressing my heart, reminding me of why I want, no, need to write: who will tell their story?

I am the vessel, the pathway, the circuit needing completion. I will tell the story.