Pure? What does it mean?
Pure? What does it mean? The tongues of hell are dull! Now I must tell you of the very strange thing that happened last night, a sort of convergence, wait perhaps more of a mashup. I am left to wonder about truth, left to wander for truth in this living hell with the mind’s voice stuck in a fevered pitch. Indeed, what is pure. Last night I had a recurrent reverie, a lucid dream fever. I have learned it is common for Shadows (bereaved parents) not to have dreams of their dead child. I have tried everything to have such a dream. I have been thrilled to hear my daughters tell me of their dreams of their brother; one has a recurring frightful one where she tries to save him. I have had many friends say he has come into their night’s subconscious, and it is heartwarming to hear. The closest I had come since his passing was a night not long after his murder when I woke from a deep REM sleep with the most calming peace. It seemed to emit from the center of my brain and felt like a dopamine release. The only similar experience I have ever had is the feeling of orgasmic birth, which few can relate too. It seemed to say everything would be ok I am in the light of peace and love. I felt his presence, but it was not the dreaming I longed for or desired. Last night multitasking before meditating to sleep in my usual pattern, I checked a few emails, read a few posts from the Get Off Our Lawn page about the fight between the Memphis Zoo and Overton Park over parking and then opened my book. One of the emails had sent me to read Fever 103 by Plath and another to a friends blog. This Lady friend has much in common with me; we have both lost a young son of distinction, horrifically. They both attended the same school and now rested together in Elmwood. Her blog was a beautiful personal story about how her son’s spirit was still working through others, a feeling and truth I have also witnessed since my son’s passing. The young are still mostly good when they die, still pure. Pure? What does that mean?
The city was muddy by the raging Mississippi, an apocalyptic storm stalled from the warming El Nino churning up the Gulf. The rain continued steadily down the copper gutters outside my bedroom window, as I lay slowing down my breathing taking control in through the nose out through the mouth releasing my tightened muscles and my spellbound mind from the thoughts of the day, downloading the feelings received from others, downloading the workload, the contracts, the numbers, trying to let go of all the day’s interactions. Letting go, release and then usually I fall to sleep, but last night it was not so. Last night I was frozen my body stuck in sleep paralysis, but I was not asleep I was in a vision. Another common disposition for Shadows (bereaved parents) of murdered children is that they obsess over the case and let me tell you I have. It has been my first waking thought, and a quick study of the justice system has proved ugly, leaving me to feel victimized over and over. Needless to say, my sleep patterns have been disturbed, but I believe it is important to ride these waves of grief to joy and hope. Each second we live is a unique moment a moment that was never before and will never be again, and I seek to share and memorialize the wide beautiful life my son lived. The vision, the poem, the obsession over the case, the emails, the posts, maybe even a little of the book all bleeding over into this lucid experience. I told you this was a mashup! Where is the truth? I felt like I was breaking free gaining awareness. I remember telling myself reality is we hardly know anything, science is not reality, it is our model of reality. A quote from my book was the heart of my hidden reality, and it loomed over my vision, “In fact some of the best ideas come when you least expect them,” Edward Frenkel. Pure? What does it mean?
Vision, the vision of the last breath...vision of Diablo Blanco, the name my son’s friends had given his car, on a warm early summer southern afternoon rolling with the windows down. Our last words: “love you”! He knocked my hand away from rubbing his scruffy chin. Two upper nods of his chin bring him to me in this new ever after. Observing this vision still from above, I can’t see his chin his face his eyes, but I know it is him. I see him leave his two friends at a chicken joint and head to the bank. Which bank it is not clear but I had helped him tally and write out the deposit for his USAA account, a large sum of cash from graduation on the passenger seat. I could see the new Galaxy on the dash cut out where he kept his phone, actually I am surprised at the detail. I had helped him clean his car knowing his two sisters would be in town for his graduation and would want to use it, so the particulars of every item rang in my vision, including the smell from his Armani pour Homme in the center console. Oddly his dog Mae is in the backseat. Fannie Mae! He had begged for that hound, and she had come to him a puppy the year before his fateful day. Mae was not in his car that day in late May, but in my vision she was, and I sure wished she had been. I try to move putting the force of my mind to it, but I am frozen. It is like I am behind the glass of a crystal ball and I can’t touch a thing. I can’t reach out to grab him or even to pet Mae. A hot flash burns over me, and I can feel the vapors melting to the sheets still across my unmovable flesh. Evil dances on the dull tongues of hell. This city needs a mass exorcism I think to myself in a vision within a vision. Two thoughts flash like film scenes, one of a town in South America the black pope of exorcism-performing his rites and the other of the archbishop of San Francisco praying on the pier at the site of a recent murder, a ritual I greatly respected. I thought every city should draw attention to murder sites. Now the dark men full of a day party leave their apartment in search of prey as they had done many times before. Two young thugs hold him slam his head on the steering wheel he struggles no possibility of fleeing now just fight. Gunshot once twice maybe three a struggle in screams. First shot blew off his finger and went through the perps thigh; the second took a window the third his heart. Silence for his last breath! Rise, rise I think I am going up kissed by the cherubim. His beautiful face of death on the pavement, his beautiful death mask floats forever in my mind. The fever made me shudder but would not release me. Something sinister over my left shoulder, something secretive, undercover. I feel truth start to fall away in the perception of man. The busy complex and swimming pool full of eyes. Bark! Bark! Mae is barking wildly the howl of a hound. The driver of the dark car squeals then peels away with the two thugs into the flames of fire. I think these are children of 911 stuck in the trauma and PTSD of the falling twin towers. Then a scene from grand theft auto flickers from an ashen white melting Fukushima. From here I rise over the site filled with love. I witness the life stolen. I see the trivial material goods taken and wish to tell someone anyone who would listen. In my waking mind, this great desire to scream from the mountaintop was easily understood. Still not questioned or interviewed ten months after my only son's murder. One detective quickly retired the next transferred. I was, needless to say, frustrated but knew nothing could change reality. My son is dead! As this case weaves through a system in failure, it twists and turns still open and under investigation with one confession and one who at least supplied the weapon still on the streets. My vision was not over in the strange vagaries of fate; I stood to cut a leopard spotted ribbon on a green overpass to the zoo. The sign in ornamental iron read Greenhouse and underground parking. Finally, I am freed from this sleep paralysis and wake startled with the thought of a society that can gather so much rancor for parking on the grass and yet not inflamed to action by the city’s murder count. Such lack of empathy on both sides freezes and locks the battle instead of finding solutions. I affirm to start empathy to make this society realize the greatness stolen from them in the murder of my son. So much has been lost because of the lack of empathy, lack of understanding outside of one’s ego. To help find the true identity, we must teach empathy at an early age; sure there will always be pure evil. The sin the sin. Pure? What does it mean? The canvas of the white nautilus leans against the wall. Candles flicker on and off again as I sit powerless watering my hothouse orchid listening to drones fly over the flood.
