Able at the least

Strong, weak, pathetic, capable, able at least…

John has to go into the machine alone.  The black and white smoky images that come back are not of my brain, they do not predict my future.  Not directly anyway.

What does he feel while he lies there?  What does he think of?  Does he walk through dives, recall adventures with his old friends?  Does he dream of me, of the times he touched me deeply, body and soul? Do the faces of our three little ones dance behind his eyes…

I don’t always know how to comfort him.  I’m not sure I ever really will.  Not sure how often, exactly, it is my job.  He needs to be treated normally, as often as possible…right?  It is a game.  I hate games.  It is a game I can’t help but play….something else…we are never going to be normal.  What is that?  I used to joke…it isn’t a joke anymore

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Life throws a pile of shit at each of us. Sometimes in one huge clump.  Sometimes in a bunch of smaller ones.  I read of a monk, walking barefoot to beg for his food.  When asked how it was, he said it hurt, walking on bare feet like that.  The response was to focus on the foot in the air and how relieved and free of pain it was.  It is all about focus.

I understand that.  But sometimes, I don’t know how to find the strength.  Seriously.  So stupid, that it takes so much strength to focus on the raised foot.  I see the gratitude, the reasons for it.  Three times they cut into his brain, three!  And he is still himself. 

Justice is a concept that, now, seems even more undefinable.  What if it is stronger than me, the fear?  And I think, there is no real justice.  There may be some sort of balance, now and then…but it seems for the most part to be accidental.  The power lies within.  For each of us, regardless of the script we face, the power doesn’t seem to be in karma, god, or fate.  It lies within us, for each of us has the strength, if tapped and supported the right way, to move mountains.  We are able to find hope in devastation, faith inside chaos.

Family is what ties, whether or not there is blood to define it.  Hold close those that mean something to you.  Believe that within you lies the strength to get through seeing good in all the breaks around you, for everything breaks.