This Rain that Brings you Here is Heaven Blessed

A million lifetimes ago, I drank more than a couple of screwdrivers, forgot that I did that, and took a sleeping pill before bed. I thought that I heard music and it was beautiful music, I was happy and sad at the same time, and I wasn't quite sure where or who I was for a while. I felt a glimmer of something deep and wonderful. Some sort of understanding--of what? I'm not sure--tickled at my conciousness. I felt, almost, halfway out of the dark. I woke from my closest encounter with a near death experience alive, which is definitely good.

I'm thinking about that out-of-body experience now because I'm thinking about my father. I wrote him a letter yesterday about me and the kids and Outdoorsman, just kind of catching him up on our lives since I haven't seen him in almost a year. My mother said that she'll read it to him, but I don't know if he'll understand it. It's happening so quickly, and I can't find any research about people with advanced MS losing their touch with reality, but there it is. He asks where he is, why he's in bed, and if someone wants to go for a walk with him. My father has not been out of bed in years. He talks and talks, not realizing that he can no longer make sounds come out of his mouth, not realizing that no one understands what he is saying.

Where are you, Abba? How do you feel? Are you sad, do you feel like no one understands you, that you are all alone and that everyone around you has gone crazy? You just want to get out of bed and go for a walk. Do you feel like that shouldn't be so hard for people to understand?

I think about Princess, how when she feels misunderstood, when I don't grasp exactly what she is asking of me, she cannot handle it. She tantrums. Her need to be understood and to understand is so strong that she negates herself and the person answering the question.

Are you angry, Abba? Or just confused? Do you feel trapped, panicked, misunderstood and negated?

I have watched you slowly reach this point since I was 8 years old. I was with you when you rode your electic wheelchair right into the line of traffic, hoping for a tragic miracle, and I refused to take you for walks anymore. I saw you slowly accept, I saw you become a saint, a person with no connection to anything pleasurable or physical, but listening to torah tapes and chanting shacharis with a glowing face, a holy face, a face that got thinner and thinner but never stopped smiling.

And where are you now, Abba? Maybe you are not mad. Or sad. Or even confused. Not really. Maybe you don't understand because this physical world is just not your world anymore. Maybe you are above it all, floating above it all, halfway to heaven. Halfway out of the dark.