“[I]n times of crisis it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel or say, ‘We should all go out to a movie,’ or ‘Ballet would help us.’ It’s always poetry. What we want to hear is a human voice speaking directly in our ear.”
Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) speaking to the New York Times, as quoted in The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson
this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
today for my brother in law, Ed Murphy, who has just died, and for victims of family violence
we honor courage in all its forms
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, My Left Wing, and TexasKos.
april is national poetry month
image and poem below the fold
Another Attempt at Rescue
by M. L. Smoker
And to think I had just paid a cousin twenty dollars to shovel the walk.
He and two of his buddies, still smelling of an all-nighter,
arrived at 7 am to begin their work.
When I left them a while later I noticed their ungloved hands
and winter made me feel selfish and unsure.
This ground seems unsure of itself
for its own reasons.
Real spring is still distant
and no one is trying to make themselves believe
this might last, this last unreasonable half hour.
It is six-thirty in eastern Montana and the cold
has finally given way.
The time is important not because this has been a long winter
or for the fact that it is my first here
since childhood, but because there is so much else
to be unsure of.
At a time like this
how is it that when I left only a week ago
there were three feet of snow on the ground,
and now there are none, not even a single patch
holding on in the shadow of the fence-line.
We do not gauge enough of our lives
by changes in temperature.
When I first began to write poems I was laying claim to battle.
It began with a death and I have tried to say it was unjust,
not because of the actual dying but because of what
was left. What time of year was that?
I have still not yet learned to write of war.
I have friends who speak out–as is necessary–with subtle
and unsubtle force. But I am from
this place and a great deal has been going wrong
for some time now.
The two young Indian boys who might have drowned
last night in the fast-rising creek near school
are casualties enough for me.
There have been too many
just like them and I have no way to fix these things.
A friend from Boston wrote something to me last week
about not have the intelligence
to take as subject for his poems
anything other than his own life.
For a while now I have sensed this in my own mood:
this poem was never supposed to mention
itself, other writers, or me.
But I will not regret the boys who made it home,
or the cousins who used the money at the bar.
Still, something is being lost here and there are no lights
on this street; enough mud remains on our feet
to carry with us into the house.
a personal note: These diaries have become such a part of my thinking and feeling that I now turn to writing one without hesitation as I face a closer grief for the first time since beginning this series.
Ed Murphy died this morning at the age of 62 after a brave but relentlessly lifelong battle with a seemingly ever-increasing army of demons. He did not suffer alone, and he did not suffer exclusively, but I think he did suffer more than any of us would want anyone else to suffer.
He was born during WWII while his father was serving in Europe, and was diagnosed with a form of temporal lobe epilepsy. He was about 3 when his father finally returned, and according to family accounts soon began to bear the brunt of his dad’s own post-war stress, as well as from the man’s difficulty and denial in accepting the condition of his firstborn and namesake.
The subsequent years got no easier for either of them in a small house filled with a family that grew to five children. My wife, Jeanne, who was conceived shortly after her father’s return from the war, has described some small aspect of her role as advocate and protector for her older brother – but she has also blocked and forgotten many of those memories as a way to protect herself.
When I say that Ed did not suffer alone, I mean that he had the love and support of his siblings and others in many forms. I also mean that violence of any kind in a family ripples outward like concentric rings from a stone tossed in still water, and touches everybody.
A few years ago when my mother in law died, I sat with Jeanne’s two sisters to go through boxes and albums to find some appropriate photos for her funeral program. I hope to be able to do the same for Ed’s memorial service. I was struck then by how so many of their family portraits featured him off to the side of the group, or lurking behind them with a sullen expression or eyes cast downward.
I’m sure that those aren’t the only pictures I’ll find this time around. I’ll be looking for a more complete story.
Ed’s final years have been difficult, particularly since his mother died in the fall of 2003. By then he had been divorced for several years, and had lost his home, a shopping center that he built from the ground up, and his livelihood as a self-employed plumbing and heating contractor.
His mother was his most unconditional protector, with her own regrets.
He moved in, mostly by default, with my sister in law, who is a single parent living next door to us. When that grew untenable she and my wife found him a room in a renovated school that serves as a public housing facility in our town.
But he continued to deteriorate, and his behavior and cognitive function grew increasingly troubling and clouded. He could not live alone, and through the considerable efforts of his four siblings – three sharp nurses and a physician who labored mightily to find and get him the right help – ended up in our state’s inpatient mental health system.
That process served him very well. He was treated thoroughly and respectfully. His brother and sisters divided up the many tasks associated with assuming responsibility for someone who could no longer make his own decisions. I admire them for what they’ve done in their brother’s best interests, and have to wonder how anyone without their backgrounds and tenacity and commitment could even begin.
Several months ago Ed was diagnosed with a form of dementia called Lewy Body Disease. Yesterday my sister in law called while visiting him to say that he was not responding to her. Earlier this morning the facility called my other sister in law to say that he was dying. She and my wife left at around 7:30, and managed to be with him in his remaining minutes.
I have my own stories and memories of Ed – some of them are unpleasant, because I wasn’t always tolerant or empathetic when he grew increasingly difficult to be around.
But I’ll also hold many others with a measure of fondness and gratitude. He was, in his heart, a sweet guy. Ed was a fanatic for diners – he was the guy you see hunched at the counter drinking endless refills of coffee, bantering with the grill cook, waitresses, and pretty much everybody who walks through the door because they’re familiar to each other, and accepting. He felt close to home in such a place.
One of his greatest joys was the matchless chocolate cream pie, in fact, any pie, from the Agawam Diner. “Best fucking pie anywhere,” he’d say.
His free use of profanity throughout his life distressed his uber-catholic mother to the point where she often surreptitiously poured holy water into his orange juice.
But Ed was stronger than voodoo.
He absolutely loved my cooking, and one of my most cherished memories will always be of him tearing into the mounds of barbecue I cooked over hickory one Christmas. Ed loved pork in all of its forms, and despised holiday turkey. “Too fucking dry.”
He was also an inveterate tinkerer who was happiest working with heavy pipes and any type of machinery. He was an accomplished builder, and did pretty much all of the work needed to erect the home he shared with his wife and daughter, along with a two-family vacation home far up in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and a large shopping plaza that had infinitely more character than your typical strip mall.
Life can be hard, and complicated, and anything but fair. But there’s also more to someone else’s life than any one person can ever see, or understand, or appreciate. And I guess so it was with me and Ed, and so it shall be.
– – –
start with this Google search on family violence, and follow it wherever you choose
Join CIVIC’s “I Care” photo campaign
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat
view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day
