Skip to main content

For Davey

"Sure.  I'll make small talk.
Chit chat.
Discuss the ins and outs of a "typical" day.
Pass the time lightly.
Say tiny things.
I'm happy to tread surfaces with a smile,
and will.
Sometimes.
Yet- when I look at you,
I know there are layers.
Dimensions.
Collections of ancient wisdom.
Roads.
Stories on stories on stories.
Core needs.
Humanness.
This is where I light up.
This is where I thrive.
You can't be caged in a pool for long.
Not when you're someone
who wants oceans."     -V. Erickson

I visited with my beautiful, big brother today.  A video chat.  Twenty minutes of freedom from his solitary confines.  In my eyes he was beauty. No less than a rare flower blooming in a parched and barren field.  He shared a recent glimpse of hard earned wisdom... "Sis, we are all infants. No matter our age.  We all share the same basic human needs. An infant will die without human touch.  We all need to be loved."
Of course we all need food, shelter and water.   But like infants we all also require, REQUIRE!! love, human touch and a sense of belonging.  We need it.  We can do without it and the body will survive, but what of the soul, the heart, the wide ocean of being?  To deny another living human of touch and care is a cruelty no less horrific than starvation.  When I consider how we punish others and push away the very people most in need of our warmth and tenderness and care, I wonder how we can begin to call ourselves a "civilized" people.
We can not begin to claim our inheritance as the humans we are capable of being, until we recognize another's suffering as our own and turn the light of our own love on the shadows of pain and loneliness all around.
I love you David Lon Lloyd Jr., heart and soul, stem to stern.

Comments

Nancye said…
I love Davey too.

Popular posts from this blog

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the

Inosculation

I learned a new word today!  Imagine my joy to discover "inosculation", to taste the word for the first time, rolling it around the soft interior of my mouth before speaking it aloud with a shiver of delight.   I am a lover of trees, not metaphorically but literally.  I linger beneath their branches. I tear up beside their solid beauty and revel in the rough, steady touch of bark beneath a wide sky.  I love learning anything new about my beloveds and today I discovered inosculation , which literally means to unite intimately. Sometimes trees grow so close to each other that they rub up against one another.  The friction of bark on bark wears away at the hard outer layers, revealing a tender, vulnerable, embryonic layer of life.  If they stay in contact through the friction they will join together, uniting into a third thing....  a tree union.  In such cases the trees share their life force with one another.  I can think of no more perfect metaphor for beloved companions.   Th

a story recently shared by a friend

 Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself