The DU Lounge

Speaking only for myself, as an old man, I feel my mortality, but in a sense, I am grateful for it; it relieves me and makes life all the more precious.

I wish there were something I could do or say to make you not feel this way.

The things you face are very real, but it is also real that you are still breathing.

Let me say something personal.

When I was in my early 20's, I stood on a hill under an oak in the backyard of the house in which I grew up, a rope tied to a high branch, the noose on the other end on my neck, standing on an inverted garbage can. How I managed to climb down from that situation I still don't know, but I do know everything seemed impossible then, all death, all disappointment, and I was still a young man, a stupid young man, but a young man all the same.

I suppose I stopped on thinking what it would do to my father to find my body there. I was saved therefore by love, not for myself, but for another.

I do know that followed all these transcendent moments, falling in love, raising my sons, living too long and not enough, mixed of course, with loss and pain, but - I think - you cannot feel pain without knowing love.

I think of all the things I would have missed. No one would have cared of course; everyone would "get over it," but now, having lived on, I care that I have learned that life, for all its misery, is precious.

I'm not a therapist - although I hope you have one, a good one - but I would guess without understanding your relationship at all, that you share with your wife, since you love her enough to not want to "drag her down." That must mean something. She may be relieved and grateful for the chance to help.

I have certainly lost friends, and my only brother may be alive but is "dead to me," and has been for decades. If though, I mourned too much for that, I would be taking away from the love I feel for my wife, my sons, and the anxious hope that there still may be some hope for humanity with all my whining and caterwauling.

Do something. Weep a bit. Weep a lot. Curse the moon, curse the stars, curse the sun, and then bask in the moonlight, live in wonder under the stars and their lives out in infinity, and when the sun comes up, say, "It is yet another morning, and still I am alive and think it a blessing of some kind, even if I cannot see how that is now."

Eventually we are all released by entropy and time, but it is best to let that rest until the it comes on its own, as it will.

Until then my friend, I am glad you have - and appreciate - DU. Let your fingers flow free here, and do not be ashamed to share your pain. We are liberals. We believe in caring for the other, and it brings us no pain to do so, and is, in fact, a source of joy that we can feel the joy of wanting to help the others among us.

Be well again.