It saddens me to hear of a parent losing a child. This is the second time I have read a post with such news from you Sea. You have my deepest condolences. Grab hold of that thin silver lining extended by your up-to-now estranged grandson. Establish good commo and further relations with that young lad. I'm sure you both will be good for each other going forward in time.
To my dear friends and family that have expressed such heart-felt love over the recent loss of my only child, I want to thank you and let you know that I have read every word and felt the love and respect you have spoken. You all know me, I am a private man, not one to complain and try to never move the focus of a tragedy from the true loss into anything about myself. It isn’t about me but there is a valuable lesson learned from all pain and loss, if we just open our eyes and hearts and allow ourselves to see the beauty of this without being blinded by grief and remorse. Jimi and I lost our son four years ago and we’ll feel that pain until the day we die, you never get over loosing what you had dreamed would be the better part of you;; you legacy. You dream about the grand-children that you’ll never know, you remember doctoring cuts, how much it hurt you to have to teach discipline to a child, watching them make mistakes and knowing that you had to allow them to make those mistakes so they could learn the price of being a human being. It is a simple sort of magic that I probably never will totally understand but when your child is cut, you bleed. I was estranged from my only natural daughter. Her mother and I were separated when she was a baby and it greatly impacted my life. This was before the days where anyone recognized clinical depression and I wandered off, leaving everything and never looking back. My family didn’t hear a word from me for over a decade, some thought I was dead, some that I was in prison and maybe I was but there were no bars, just something that I couldn’t escape from. I traveled the world, looking at the darkest places, seeing the ugly underside and not leaving a mark or footprint anywhere, just a ghost. I won’t go into those lost years except to say that if I had to do it again, I really don’t know if I would do anything different because without it, I could be the man that I am and I would not like to be anyone else. I have come to a place in my life where I will share pieces of that over time, written in stories, poems, songs, it’s all there like an open book and so many of you have discovered that and follow my little diatribe religiously, ever encouraging me to continue. I try to write with clarity and precise diction, I do not like being misunderstood, stories and songs have been my sole means of expressing what I’ve learned. I always try to write to show only what I learned from the moment, never what the true cost was in blood or spirit. My daughter’s drug addiction went back to her horrible childhood, a childhood as a runaway, living under a bridge or with whatever “friends” that she found. I wasn’t there. Her mother brought her to me when she was 11 and I gave her a simple little gold ring made with a fresh-water pearl that I have taken from a mussel in the Tennessee River. She was still wearing that ring on a chain around her neck the last time I saw her in McMinnville 14 years ago. She found me again while I was on a salvage job in Maysville, Ky in 1999 and spent most of the summer with us, along with her new baby, my grandson, Tristen. I still sing that stupid seseme street song that she played on TV constantly because it made the baby laugh. A few years later, I had a heart to heart talk with her “husband” who was financing a tattoo but couldn’t keep electricity turned, diapers for the baby or food in the refridgerator and he left the picture to further his career as a bench-made pharmacist, manufacturing and distributing bimethamphetimine.: good riddance. A few years later, I sold many of my prized guitars and went to Nashville to pay court costs and restitution for her shop-lifting to pay her dope dealer. I retrieved Tristens Christmas toys I had sent from the pawn shop, and carried them to Old Navy and bought him a complete new wardrobe for his first year in school. I put her classic Fard in a shop for a complete rebuild for her and after everything was paid, told her that was the very last dime I would ever give to the drug man. I meant it. She hugged my neck when I left and tried to sell me a little gold chain, loot left over from her recent Walmart crime spre, I assumed. I was angry and ripped the $100 bill she had asked for into tiny pieces and threw them out the window. Before saying again that I would never give another dime to her drug man, ever, not even as a residual, no court costs for being busted, no bail money, nothing…but if she wanted, I would move her into our home and help her. We both cried because somehow deep down, we already knew the cards were cast and had to be played. It was only a matter of weeks before she called, saying she had been arrested for wrecking her car, fleeing the scene of the accident and getting caught with enough heroin to be charged with intend to distribute. I refused to bail her out. She called later wanting $30K for a rehab program “to get my prison sentence reduced” and once more, I refused. If she had asked for help to get away from the dope, I would have sold my home to help her but I didn’t have to read between the lines there; she asked for the wrong reason. I asked her if we could take her son and keep him until she got her shit straight? We wanted to give him a safe home, away from that life but she kept him hidden from us. DHS and a foster home was preferable to my former inlaws rather than letting us give the boy a chance until his mother could ge healthy and rebuild herself. I won’t go into it, but I literally could have purchased my grandson at that time but chose to trust the system but the system didn’t cooperate and he got lost. Once Leah got out of prison, she contacted my wife, I still refused to talk to her. Two years later, under court supervised rehabilitation, I watched her through social media and finally decided to reach out to her. I called, she was shocked and didn’t know what to say. She said she was in heavy traffic and asked if she could call me back shortly, that she really wanted to talk. Over a month went by and I never got that call. And now, I suppose that I can quit glancing at my phone every time it rings, wondering if she finally needed her father. She wanted me to visit and I wanted so much to go but kept putting it off, being afraid of what I might find and how I might react. The years have robbed me of whatever checks and balances that prevent me from laying waste to anything that threatens my family or friends. It is much easier to walk away from destruction and death than it is to live with fear and hate. I said that I need time to put this into my own language before I would take calls from family and friends. This was not meant to be rude, I just have a twisted sense of propriety that requires me to understand what I am feeling before I can listen to kindly platitudes. Addictions have destroyed every instance of permanence throughout my life. It destroyed my family when I was a child, It kept me from knowing and keeping the child I fathered safe and warm, and now it has scarred my soul more deeply than I felt I could live with but after reflection, I realize that is pure unadulterated Bull-Shit. I can deal with it and so can you. It is only a real loss if we fail to listen to the message and share it. Stubborn pride and principles aside, take the time to mend those broken fences, they are what hold you together as a family. We have let all the evil in this world numb our sense of family to the point that we pretend that we are characters in a fucking soap opra. This is life, my dear friends and it’s all we got. Don’t make the mistakes I made, reach out to those you care about, even if you know they’ll steal your heirloom watch for a bump of dummy-dust…tough love is still love and without it, there is no hope. Some words can never be unspoken, some sights, never unseen. The hand of god does not have fingers, it is bigger than that and made of love and hope and without it, we are all lost. Do not waste your kind words and thought on my grief and sorrow, these I am culpable for and accept. Take that love and use it where it will help. Save someone. Please.
May GOD bless and be with you and yours and keep you all well, safe, and protected.... hurts... I know...
SIR Sea I / we (some) Know this . Nice post above . I Just had news that another young gent passed . I try so hard to get kids involved with me in small engines to solar etc. USE YOU LOVE to FORWARD the knowledge you hold to help . I need Co-Leaders or helpers , ya don't need to know how to fix engines,solar,helicopters etc. THAT'S me head leader . I need to make sure the kids are doing there stuff & not going to poke out an eye !!! Sloth , Taught by my Dad !
Sloth, You get it and I think we'll become allies, if not friends. God Bless you, what ever you think she looks like.
Prayers outbound. Addiction has been a multigenerational problem in my family also. I don't know your personal song but the beat is familiar.
That tough love is a hard dish to serve sometimes , but sometimes is the only option. I can tell by your words , you have a big heart , and you would give your all to help those you love , sometimes they are just to numb to realize what they are refusing. This is a wicked world we live in , and it seems a lot of our youth are falling for these wicked ways , and then they can't break that hold . So sorry for your loss .
