Lisa's POZ Blog

I will preface this blog with the message that this is a very personal issue that I have chosen to share because it has affected my wellbeing.
It is a letter written to my son in real time, and the discussion is from my heart.
Please respect the position I am in, without judgement.

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I have watched from afar, while you have struggled to keep some sense of sanity in your life since losing Christy. I understand the incredible pain, and lonliness, and the hole in your soul that will never be the same again. No one will ever come close to being as important as she is, and was, again.

For the duration of the visitation, funeral, and the immediate period following, you hid behind a mask, to keep a brave face for Serenity, and everyone else. I saw the pain, knowing that there was nothing I, or anyone else could do to ease your burden. It may be years, or never, that you are able to have those feelings with another person. I wish that the platitudes we speak could be more true than they are. Time may ease the seemingly insurmountable pain, but it is a measure for only you to come to terms with.

I know you spoke of having anger, and that is perfectly understandable, but I am more concerned with how you have gone on a destructive tangent to keep from having to feel the emotions that threaten your mind with every turn. You are trying to dull the pain with every fiber that is in you. Unfortunately you will destroy yourself, and any chance your daughter will ever have, because no amount of drugs, alcohol, sex, or pretending will work. I know you are having difficulty dealing with Serenity, because every time you look at her, you see a perfect, tiny incarnate of Christy. You tell yourself that you need to go 'out' and show the world you are 'living', but you know that that is a lie. You may not even realize what you are doing consciously.
Our mind does that for us, when the emotions are too painful.

I understand the 'what ifs'. What if your phone hadn't been dead that night. What if she had never had posession of that weapon. What if we had all pushed harder for her to answer to the authorities. Perhaps she would have been in a forced rehab if she had been jailed, rather than being given only slap on the wrist, after slap.

It is OK to forgive yourself. You could not change the particular events of that fateful morning. It was not in your hands. I really do understand the tiny amount of guilt you will probably always carry in your heart, because I have done so myself. I still do, and you probably will as well.
The cataclysm of events that brought her death will likely always haunt you to some degree, and I won't try to tell you otherwise.

I also understand that the events, holidays, and the fact of Serenity’s impending birthday, as well as Christy's just a few days later is still coming soon, and are going to be so very difficult for you.

I want you to know that I love you, and support you, and I always will. Whatever I can do, you can count on me.

There is a reason I chose to write this to you, as I feared that my own emotion would get in the way of your being able to hear me out before shutting me down. Your desire to avoid these feelings, whether conscious or not, would get in the way of hearing the whole message.
While I know that your heart is still very raw, I want you to know how really worried I am for you. In the spirit of love that I write this, I am really in fear for your very life.

Your life would be truly over if your actions brought about the death, or irreversible damage to the only one in your life who matters to you, Serenity.
Would you doom her to the unsafe circumstances that catapulted Christy to her psychology? To the demons that wracked her soul, even before you entered her life for the better? Would you condemn her to that existence? Do you want Rennie to have to call the ambulance over, and over again, because you had too much something or other? Do you want her to fear her only parent's death because she couldn't wake you after too much drugs or alcohol?
Do you want to be homeless with a precious little girl who only wants to be with her dad, because you are unable to hold a job because of your own irresponsible behaviour?

Are you not the same man who told me that you would never entertain any idea of having another child with anyone other than Christy?

Serenity deserves to have a dad who is a hero in her eyes. My own father was not a fancy man. He was allowed to attend school up to the eighth grade before he had to be given over to an orphanage. Romeo, his father, died at an early age, and my grandmother was left alone in the Depression years with eight boys, (of whom my father was the youngest) and a girl (Aunt Mary) who was the youngest child. Your great grandmother could not support all of the children, and the boys were all sent to foster homes (such as they were), and she only kept Mary.
He was a man who lived right, and did right by other folks. He expected fair wages for the work he did, but never expected perks. At the age I am now, I cannot relay to you the importance of being a fair minded man, who is a man of his word, as well as a man who would never consider taking anything that was not fairly due him.

The older I got, the smarter he became.

If your daughter loves you and respects you half as much as I loved my own dad when she is twenty five, then you know you have lived an exemplary life, regardless of monetary wealth, things, or fame.
It is not having cool things, but being a right and responsible human being that will resound with your daughter forever.

When I was in my pre-teen years, I wanted all the cool things that the other kids were wearing, and nifty belongings. My parents were more than able to afford those things, but chose to instill an earned ethic in me. I was fortunate to grasp at an early age, that it is not things that make you a man. It is the giving of your true self, and the humility that allows you to have an open mind and heart, that establishes your character as a man. I hope with all that I am, that you realize this before there are catastrophic repercussions.

This will be the most sensitive aspect of your life that I am about to address.

I am of the sincere belief that you have confused your grief emotions, with romantic emotions. I also am of the belief that you have only recently begun to maybe feel that way too, but you are now entrenched in something that is weighing on your mind.
Please read on, and I will try to not offend your sensibilities.

We have all been profoundly touched by the loss of Christy. She had not even finished living her twenty-first year. She rose above the abysmal pathology she had been dealt, and had made great strides to better her life. We were never so proud, as to watch her stride across the stage at Wake Forest to accept her degree. I was so proud of her for working towards a nursing degree. She was going to make it out. Out of the legacy of her familial psychology.
It is unfortunate that her siblings have not been able to do the same.
Because you have been so recognized as a saviour by nearly all of the family, it also made you the focus of all things that could be right.
In being universally recognized in this manner, you have become also the poignant recipient of even her own siblings' admiration. They too, have mistaken emotions of closeness, for feelings of unhealthy closeness, that has manifested in a sexual way.

While I understand these dynamics, I also feel compelled to help you understand why this is the most destructive thing for Serenity to witness. It will only serve to perpetuate an unhealthy atmosphere.

Please allow me to illustrate in a personal way you can recognize.
Do you remember aunt June? Out of four sisters, she was/is the last remaining sister of my mom. Do you remember the day at grandma, and grampa's house when aunt June flew into town because we all knew grandmother was near death? We gathered together to remember, and garner strength in the hours of grandmother's death.
When the funeral home men came and took Shirley to the funeral home, could you have possibly have imagined Aunt June having sex with grandfather? While he loved Junie, she was not Shirley (mom), and she never could be. He respected and recognised that.
I pass no judgment on you, because I know too well the uncharted territory of grief, but I cannot continue to stand by in horror as your daughter is exposed to an abhorrent existence. I really believe you are not/have not, done anything in a purposeful deleterious desire, but have become mired into an existence not of your conscious choosing.

I beg of you, please take stock of what you are doing. You are being watched closely by Serenity, because she has no other parent than you.
I know it is hard. I know you are young. I know you are hurt and confused, but as hard as it is, please think of the little woman you are going to most influence.

I love you to the ends of the earth. It took me until the end of my third decade to come to these sobering truths, and I hope that you could only recognize them before the time it took me, because it really is of utmost importance.

If you were to die tomorrow, what would you want your daughter to absolutely know about you?

Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
I love you.