Disintegration

Through the eye of the needle, it's easier for me to get closer to heaven than to ever feel whole again.

1989 on a bus heading toward the beautiful town of Durango, Colorado, those words echoed through my brain as they played over and over again through the headset of my walkman.

There's something about shutting off the world and getting lost in a song.  There is that scene at the end of Parenthood where all conversation is muted and a slow song murmurs in the background but all you see are the expressions of the characters:  the tears of joy, the laughter, the intimacy, it all culminates to a bitter sweet harmony.

I've been stuck in that moment and it happened on a bus on the way to Durango in 1989.

There is something painfully amiss when you are stuck on a bus with friends that you've come to know and love; and then recognize that in less than one week, you will never see most of them again.

To me, it was a prophetic moment similar to those seen in Final Destination.

2009, it was just an ordinary day.  At some point, I received a phone call from mom to tell me dad died.... three months earlier.  "Ho hum", indifference aside, apathy served cold.  I didn't know the man.  At that moment, I didn't even know his middle name or what he looked like or his age or his favorite scotch.

There is something remarkable that happens to a son when a man he should hate dies.  He learns love.  There's a scene in Sixteen Candles where Samantha is lying on the couch crushed by the prospect of never getting Jake.  Her father sits at her side and comforts her.  "it's why they're called crushes.  If they were easy, they'd be called something else".

I always longed for those moments of comfort as I clumsily stumbled through adolescence.  I resented the father I never knew for not teaching me how to deal with disappointment and better yet, how not to crush one's spirit.

The day I learned he had moved on three months previously, I found my comfort.

It was the voice of my personal angel who took this "ho hum" news and breathed life into it.  It was she who found his obituary and raised this dead man to some briefly elevated plateau that made me recognize that imperfection embodies us all but compassion allows us to disintegrate those deficiencies.

Through the eyes of the woman I love, I was not any closer to heaven but I finally felt whole again.

When asked what my favorite album of all time is, I always respond, "Disintegration by The Cure".

I have my reasons.