Failure to Connect

“You only live twice:
Once when you're born and once when you look death in the face.”
~Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
~Carl Sagan







Tonight, while working on a scientific manuscript leftover from my thesis work, I suddenly had the urge to pause. I looked up, in front of me, at a painting that my late mother-in-law created. I stared at it. I stared more. I have looked at this painting a million times, while working just like this. But for some reason, this time, I saw how she blended the shades of green in the leaves, how she must have thought about the light, how the contrast of the shadows would need to be just right as to provide clarity yet not overcrowd the delicate nature of the ashy petals.

At that moment I was appreciating this work so much more because I see, for probably the first time, that in her painting she was seeing the world much the way her daughter is now seeing the world--but instead of with a brush, it is through the lens of her camera. I had finally made the greatest connection with Gail I could ever make. About 6.5 years too late.

And I started crying. I cried hard, the kind that make your abdomen seize. And no, it didn't feel good to "get it out" because it just left me with more to think about.

I dont cry very often; years often go by. I am not proud of this, it is not a statistic I wear on my lapel. It just is. Like the dust behind the couch. It is easy to see if you go looking for it.

I looked at the painting and saw her last moments of life again. Her second life. I remember how she told me, the winter before she finally let go of this painful world, to take care of Jan. Her Jan. Her angel. My angel. And I cried thinking about how, like countless other things since then, I feel like I have failed in that. I realized how I have changed so dramatically in the last 6 years.

And is it for the better? At least I can look at the painting now and understand.

I fool myself so often into thinking I am a success, but am I? What have I figured out, anyway? Will I ever?

I remember sitting with my grandfather by his ever-smoldering fireplace early in the morning a few times when I was a sophomore in high school. I was a paper-boy, and we were waiting for my newspapers to get dropped off so we could assemble them and I would go out into the neighborhood. Grampa would get up to help me when there was 5 feet of snow on the ground and I had to be at early morning Jazz Band practice. He sat, peacefully, staring at the fire, absolutely confident in his quiet composure. I remember thinking, even then, "he has it figured out. This is what he wants to do, and he isn't rationalizing it to anyone." I remember being a bit nervous around him, even then; not because I feared him, but because I wanted him to be proud of me. And I know, now, he was/is. I didn't "get" him then. At least I made that connection before it was too late.

What I wouldn't give now to sit with him again by that fire just one more time and feel that pressure. I would smile, though, now. In my complete imperfection, he probably got a huge kick seeing me squirm. And I would too, were the shoe on the other foot.

There are shockingly few connections left. I find myself feeling so often as though most people aren't interested in being genuine. The glancing blows I have made all feel fleeting and shallow. Acquaintances. "Friends" who I can't tell any of the things in this blog post. Why? That is a good question. I don't know why. It might be my unwillingness to accept a lot of what I see on first glance. I feel I must be one of the hardest people to be close with on the planet. Even the closest friends don't feel close anymore. Perhaps it's all me.

My dad and I connect on a lot of levels, we always have. Being who I am, and that is an awful lot like him, it is not a surprise that it hasn't always been easy. But through it all the connection has remained and for that I am eternally grateful. It is days like today when I feel remarkably alone and wonder: when the bell tolls for the last time, what will it have all been for? There is comfort in knowing my Pa is out there, probably tying up a Transformation, being as hard on himself as I am on myself.

So its me and Gail's painting, sitting here in the night, the quiet and dark. She stood in front of that on more than one day and stared at it much like I am now. I wonder if when she was doing that, she questioned herself as I am questioning myself. All those years I thought she was so hard to get along with, and it turns out we had a lot in common after all.