Angels and Demons

It is remarkable I can be happy in the moment, yet remain so open to feeling pain.  This is not pain I seek, nor pain self inflicted, nor pain I feel I deserve.  This pain is reserved for others, the tears falling from my cheeks cleanse my soul as I weep; I feel sorrow for the horror and the heroic I have seen in the last two hours.  One of the things I appreciate most about myself is also my greatest curse.  I lacked the ability to feel anything at all for so many years, and so now I feel in overdrive.   When I feel,  I feel with everything my heart, soul and mind can contribute. When the intensity of these feelings are directed inward, toward me, they can cripple me.  They often overwhelm me.  I mourn the loss of so many things in my life in fragmented sections because I was unable to mourn for them when the loss occurred.  I mourn with such intensity, I sometimes scare myself.  I don't know how I am going to live through the next moments.  I allow these feelings to wash over me because they are a gift.

When I feel for others, the intensity is just as extreme, just as painful, but those tears heal.  I welcome this pain.  Sometimes when I experience life through the eyes of someone else, whether it is in the form of fiction, or as it was presented to me today, in the form of a real life story, I know I cry as much for the subject of this story as I cry for myself.  Since I was unable to feel anything at all for so many years, this visceral experience reminds me I am human.  I am compassionate.  I care how others experience humanity.  Most importantly, I value life as so precious I want to experience it from as many views as I can fit into this one life I have been given.  I think I am doing a phenomenal job if the measure of my success is the value of every tear I have shed.

Let me tell you what moved me today...

First, the happiness is because my eldest daughter, Eileen, received her clinical assignment for the next year and she will be back home after three long years at school out of this country.  I shed tears of profound joy.  As I am selfish, I am elated she will return close to me.  I am also in awe of this child because even as a little girl she said she wanted to be a vet.  Actually, she said she specifically wanted to be Shamu's doctor.  How many little girls get to grow up and live their dream, get to live the life they planned out?  This gift, her dream, has been realized over great obstacles.  She worked damn hard for it and I could not be more impressed at what this child has achieved.  She is my greatest inspiration.  She is the reason for everything I have done throughout the years, the reason I rise from my own darkness and the reason I know I must face each day as a better person than I was the day before. (Just to clarify, all three of my daughters qualify in the previous two sentences, Eileen is simply the subject of this particular day.)  So it is with marvel that I can move from this elation, awe, and admiration into profound horror with such ease.

I looked forward to this particular episode of The Dr. Phil show all week.  I have always had a very morbid and disturbing fascination with death and dying, but a particular fascination with people who murder.  I study people constantly.  I started to read about famous murders from a very young age, and that evolved into studying serial killers.  I was an amateur criminal profiler before there was a term for it.  I have read everything I could about every psychopath in history.  I follow nationwide news and probe into the minds of those who have committed the most horrific atrocities in our time.  I want to know what they see, how they perceive life, what their motivation is derived from, and how they came to this.  We all are victims of our experiences, but few of us choose to victimize in return.  The show today focused on four teenage girls who lured a 12-13 year old girl to hang out with them.  What they did to this child is beyond comprehension.

I was initially drawn to this story because of my morbid fascination with murder and torture, but that was not what captivated me today, nor was it what moved me from all those wonderful feelings into horror, sorrow, grief and respect.  Dr. Phil introduced the story with a brief outline before he introduced his guest...his guest was the murdered child's mother.  I sat mesmerized as this mother related detail after detail of the events as they unfolded that evening, each detail more horrific and disturbing than the previous.  I completely forgot why I tuned in; to see the murder through the eyes of the murders.  As this mother told each detail, I felt for not only the family, but for what that poor little girl must have been experiencing in the last moments of her life.  I was embarrassed for the time I have spent in my own sorrow, for nothing I have experienced could compare to what this mother must live with.  I respect and admire her courage to face each day, because I'm quite certain if it had happened to my child, it would have destroyed me.

Tears fell freely, each tear hotter than the last, each tear laden with salt burning as it rolled down my cheek.  As I listened to the mother's story, my tears flowed with such force they were no longer tears, but a hot, salty stream. When my blouse could no longer contain the tears, I enlisted a box of kleenex.  The mother described how many days she stood in front of the mirror with a bottle of pills in hand, battling to live just one more day.  Each day she wins that battle is a testament to her strength.  I am humbled through her.  Dr. Phil taped interviews with some of the now adult women who committed the vicious, sadistic murder of this child.  The second part of this story airs Monday (Nooooooo!)

I now sit in my living room a crumpled heap, an emotional mess.  I have cried for the better part of the past hour.  Gee, thanks Dr. Phil, I really didn't sign up for this.  Oprah followed Dr. Phil to drive my emotional coaster through the next range of tears.  Oprah's show featured notable people she has interviewed over they years.  One person featured was a little boy named Mattie.  He experienced more joy in his thirteen short years than most of us are blessed with in a lifetime.

Mattie was born with severe health problems which threatened his life on multiple occasions.  What struck me most about Mattie was not his struggles, but how one experience in particular shaped his outlook in life.  During one health crisis, he believed he experienced God; he believed he visited heaven.  While his terms and the details of his experience vary, he echoes what I know to be truth.  One day, I'll share the day I met God when I was six years old and I'll do my best to describe my visit to heaven, but for today all I will say is that I cannot wait to go back.  My experience was more expansive and has evolved as my perception of the experience has been shimmered with adult vision, but let me tell you....it is nothing like what the most passionate televangelist describes.  It is so much better.  The beauty burst from within this child and is close to the inherent goodness I experienced when I was six.  This child is light.  The tears kept coming, but this time it was because I am reminded of what I know to be truth.  My life has a purpose.  I was sent back here not to suffer but to serve.  This child validated what a psychiatrist once labeled as either a very vivid imagination, or a very euphoric hallucination derived from extreme trauma.  I did not imagine what I saw, what I heard that day; nor was it the result of psychosis.  I can't wait to tell you that story.

Wow, I have cried for the better part of two hours.  I began feeling happy.  I traveled a journey through my emotions, feeling one after another faster than I could acknowledge and process what I just experienced.  Not one emotion was placed in a box. I guess I can be strong when I experience emotion through others.  I need to convince myself I am strong enough to experience my own emotions.  That is a challenge for another time, today I have emerged from my crying jag feeling very fortunate.  I have faced both the demons and the angels through the lives of others.  I feel peaceful, and I have a huge smile on my face!  I also worked up quite an appetite. I'm going to find something yummy to eat for supper.