Getting Over It

Listening to NPR while passing the time I hear a doctor describe loneliness as a disease. I suppose. It doesn’t really feel good. Ever.

Then he begins to reflect on his feelings when his father died. He was thirteen at the time.

I was thirteen when my mother died. I know how I felt at that time. I lost all faith in God then. He got a large part of my soul during that time. I claimed my right to disbelieve, and to hold Him in contempt.

I remember several particulars: the last time my mother left the house, in tears and stating that she would never again see her home; my father standing by the car in our suburban driveway, telling me my mother was dying; my mother’s incredibly brave, sad smile as she embraced her children for the last time in the hospital, her skin bright yellow with jaundice; the one teacher in my junior high who called me aside in the hallway to express her sympathies.

These things happened a lifetime ago. Forty-four years. I’m really not sure how this event colored my life. I’m not sure what scars it left. If forced to guess I’d say it probably reinforced an older inclination to solitariness, a desire to keep people at a distance which I learned early from a peripatetic life as an army brat. Also, it reinforced a distinct disdain for the world and all its doings.

Somehow, it just doesn’t seem all that important.