November 24, 1994
"Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused,, if it be received with thanksgiving."
Saint Paul - Letter to Timothy
When I woke-up a year ago, Tuesday, November 22, 1993, I didn't know it would be the last time I would wake-up next to Maggie - with Yoyo between us and Andy laying across the bottom of the bed. We greeted each other with a smile, a tender kiss and a warm good morning. A few hours later Maggie took me to bus station in Hyannis for the trip to Logan Airport. Before departing we kissed and told each other, "I love you." It was the last time we kissed, the last time we said, "I love you." When we saw each other again, three weeks later, we were enemies - adversaries in a dreadful divorce.
Dave Leavitt wrote, "Those who belong to no one but themselves can never be abandoned." There is much truth in this statement but also sadness - for it implies that by belonging to no one but to one's self, one has no attachment nor commitment to another, one is alone and isolated and prefers living that way. I am living such a life now - not by choice but by circumstances and necessity. Once you have been abandoned and alone it is impossible to be abandoned again - particularly when you are living in solitary confinement.
The other day at the animal shelter in Centerville, one of the caretakers told me how a great many unwanted cats and dogs are abandoned. Their owners drive to a strange and distant neighborhood and then simply throw their pets out of the car. With sadness in their eyes these pets ask, "What happened? Why me? What did I do wrong?" Their crime was to love a heartless and hollow human.
I spent last Thanksgiving in Saint Augustine. I went to see the movie, Jurassic Park, then got drunk at Churchill's Attic - for dinner I went to a nearby Pizza Hut. The previous afternoon I met a couple from Saint Augustine Beach who invited me to their house for Thanksgiving dinner, but I declined. It was nor the first Thanksgiving I spent alone nor will it be the last.
Today I spent Thanksgiving with my family here at my mother's - me, mom, Kevin, Anne, Casey and Kevy. It was not a festive time - there was an empty chair where my father usually sat. It was more of a day of obligation and frustration than one of celebration and appreciation. I think each of us wished we were somewhere else - but we survived the day..
There is not much to be thankful for this year, for it has been a year of many losses. But I am thankful for my miraculous recovery - that my mother only had to put flowers on one grave this morning and not two. Am thankful for my doctors at the Psych Center and for finding Joyce at the welfare office and Karen at Social Security - and my new lawyer, Brian. Am thankful for my faith and my sense of humor - at times my sense of humor has been my saving grace. Am grateful that I am slowly getting better and am gradually discovering some hope. And although the past is painful, it is worth overcoming.
10:00pm - My Childhood Room - Randolph, MA
contact: fortheheartcries@gmail.com
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