Keep on Climbing
Alone on the mountain, I longed for a Sherpa. Someone, anyone, who understood the territory, to be with me on my climb. Waiting and watching, I can’t quite say when I gave up. Maybe when my mother died, maybe when the teenager abused me. Maybe even earlier, when my father called me stupid.
Giving up hope makes life unbearable, makes effort useless, makes the future worthless and the past deplorable. Nothing to look forward to but bleakness and despair. No one wants to hear or know this. They keep on climbing and leave you there, staggering, fumbling, alone. You figure you deserve to be alone, because you have no skills. Your own parents, in their drunken stupors, were terrible climbers. You long suspected they’d given up too, but it wasn’t voiced. You were always too astute for your own good.
We can only teach to what we know. We’ve given our son a good foundation, and I honestly thought he’d be at the summit by now, calling down to us, “The view is amazing!” but he is taking the slow side up the mountain, conjecturing, sleeping on dreams which seem an awful lot of work, gearing up but mostly resting.
It’s not on us. I won’t be blamed, nor will I compare him to those who have gleaming trophies of worldly success. Our boy is a miracle, no matter his life choices, and Doug is a great father, and I have turned out, much to my surprise, (making up the role of nurturing supporter with not so many clues or patterns to emulate, just from intuition), to be a wonderful motherer.
When Scott was born (his birthday on the horizon) and we first saw his sweet face, I understood that, as precious as he was, this marvelous, miraculous gift, I was that, too! And Doug. And my parents, and his parents, and every single one of us who has ever been born! A marvelous, miraculous gift! And I tried, with every fiber of my being, to keep that love and hope and promise alive, in our little family, in the wider family of the world. And sometimes it breaks your heart. And often it makes no sense. And every now and then it takes too much effort and you need to sit and rest. Sometimes people (and even animals, at times) seem so heartless and unforgiving, so capable of cruelness, you just have to shut your eyes, and turn away, and give your heart a breather.
Rest then, and in the morning, it will be clearer. One day it makes sense to you, and you’ll know what to do, how and where to do it, and the why, which has been with you all along, quiet and unassuming but always loving you, always eager for your great success, will shout out its encouragement, from the top of the mountain. Will remind you that Love is why we’re here, that there’s enough for everyone, and encourage you to keep on climbing.
LBM 9/19/2021
