Narrow Trail

Sometimes we walk a narrow path
On a razor-thin line
Our bloody feet ask for mercy
And there’s no sunshine

Then we find branches
So many roads to choose
Which one offers hope?
How will we pay its dues?

Another year is gone then
And still I tread this path
My soul feels so dirty
But I cannot take a bath

Nothing will cleanse me
My innocence fled long ago
I cling to shreds of hope
In the few bright strands I know

Farewell to times now past
I greet a future I have not met
In the present I feel lost
But it’s my only safe bet

I look to you and I hope
You walk beside me on this trail
With love my pain is less
And I know I will not fail

****

Happy New Year’s Eve!  I hope my last weird lyrical bit of verse was enjoyable.

Meanwhile, this past year was crap.  I honestly don’t like looking back, but sometimes the best way to put things behind us is to give them a final parting thought.  So here it is, 2010 in review:

January started off positive.  Daniel had had a moment of insanity in December, but seemed to be recovering from it and getting a better perspective on reality.  My bosses assured us that the contract Microsoft had with our employer (Hewlett-Packard) to provide their helpdesk support would continue.  We were certain to get the renewal we were looking for.  HP had had the contract for eight years now and always done well with it.  But Microsoft decided they could not afford us anymore, and before January was out we learned the corporate contract would not be renewed.  We were told we had until the end of July–my birthday, by the way–to find a new job.  That gave us six comfortable months.

February…well, there’s only one thing which happened in February of any consequence.  On Friday, February 26, I got a call at work from Sam.  She told me to get home quickly, that my heart was about to break.  She would not give me details.  My emotions assumed the worst, my head told me I was panicking needlessly.  Danny was probably hurt, I told myself, maybe seriously, but nothing more.  I got home and learned he was dead.  I remember Sam’s pained expression as she stood in the doorway of our house.  I asked if he was alive and she said “No” and I kind of collapsed.  I contacted Shoes at work and she came over and I barely needed to tell her anything.  She collapsed, too, upon receipt of the news.  She read it in my face, although she confirmed it by asking audibly.

I contacted my side of the family.  I told Dad, and I could hear his heart break over the phone line.  We had trouble getting in touch with Mom, but I finally succeeded, and again I heard a heart break while my own was already doing the same.  Things kind of blurred over the next couple of days.  I remember announcing Dan’s suicide in church on Sunday and then leaving the Great Hall quickly to keep my emotions in check.  After service, I had a moment I’ll not likely forget.  One of my church friends, Coleman, came straight to me.  Her daughter committed suicide a few years ago.  We put our arms around each other and cried for a minute.  It’s a pain that can’t be described to anyone who has not felt it, but it is a pain which can be shared by those who have.

Then I was on a plane and I was in Virginia.  I cried at the funeral home without reason.  Then I saw the casket my ex-wife picked out and I cried some more because it was beautiful and terrible at the same time.  I picked out the urn which sits beside me now.  My minister back home put me in touch with a Richmond UU minister who put me together with another Richmond UU minister who could do Danny’s service.  Everybody agreed on the UU thing because it’s such a non-denominational faith.  We could not have had better; the woman spoke as if she knew Danny.

I remember the last time I looked on my son’s face.  I remember the last time I saw his coffin as the JROTC color guard escorted it out of the room.  Everything in between was a blur.  There was crying, but there was a bit of joy to be found.  I spent an afternoon with my surviving son, Spaceman.  I established a line of communication with him with our cell phones.  I had just gotten my phone late in January in anticipation of needing it to help me find a job.  Now it was a link I very much needed, one I feel Spaceman needed as well.

By this point it was March.  A week after I returned home, my co-workers and I were told Microsoft had executed an option to end the contract even earlier.  Our jobs would be over on April 30 instead of July 30.  Panic mode set in, but I kept as calm as I could about it and set about trying to find a job while mourning Danny’s loss.

April came and went, and I was jobless.  One of my co-workers found a job at my current place of employment, and in May I was there as well.  A couple of other HP co-workers would follow me.  I found other former HP employees I knew already working for my new employer, although in other parts of the company.

During my brief job hunt, I got into an accident on my scooter.  I was unhurt but the scooter was totaled.  This doesn’t take much; scooters are low-value things so it doesn’t take much for repair costs to exceed their worth.  I was sad at having lost it.  After having had it for about two and a half years, I was a bit attached to it.  The insurance company of the fellow who hit me paid for its replacement, but I had to shell out a few hundred dollars of my own.  Given that I was jobless at the time, this was not a happy thing to have to do.  Fortunately, the day after the accident I had an interview with my new employer and was offered my current job.

Summer was a bit of a blur.  Sam had a birthday in June, and mine was at the end of July.  Spaceman’s birthday was mid-July, and for the first time in some years I could not be with him for it.  In August, Shoes moved to Phoenix.  This was a good move for her but a lousy one for me.

In September my divorce reached its final steps and in October it was finalized.  Shoes birthday was in October and she turned twenty-two.  I consider this a significant event; it’s the first birthday in her full legal adulthood.  Twenty-one is when that adulthood “happens,” but twenty-two is the end of the first full year of such legal nonsense.  No more big birthdays for many, many years to come.

Anyway, November came and brought new tragedy.  Shadow, my cat of fourteen years, died.  I went to bed three days before Thanksgiving knowing she was having problems.  We had an appointment with the vet scheduled for Wednesday, but when Sam woke up on Tuesday an hour or two after I did, she told me Shadow wasn’t moving.  I checked and found she still breathed, and was aware of her surroundings, but she could not move.  Her body was limp, other than an occasional twitch of her tail.  We took her to the vet and put her to sleep within two hours of discovering her condition.  She had slept next to my head for the last time.  Her urn, which looks like a resting black cat, sits next to Danny’s.

Thanksgiving was okay, other than the fact I was in mourning again.  I had had an unpleasant day earlier in the month when what would have been Danny’s twenty-first birthday came and went.  Sam fixed a lunch which was barely edible.  I am not insulting her cooking; she is normally a wonderful cook.  She was the first to say the bird was badly prepared, but we ate what we could.

I resolved around that time to end 2010 early, at least from an emotional standpoint.  I would start having a new year, a good year, in December.  Bright spot number one came on the last day of November when, with the help of another church friend, Kivuli came into my life.  The same friend had taken Sam and I to the vet a week earlier with Shadow for her euthanizing; now he took us to the Humane Society for the other, more joyous end of life.

A couple of weeks later, more joy as Sylvie came into our life.  This time, Sam went to church with me, helped me fold the Order of Service for the day, and then she went to the Humane Society and managed to get a free adoption.  (The first ten on Sunday are always free, which is not as easy a feat as one might imagine.)  Just before Christmas, I learned I would be going permanent with my new employer.  No more contracting agency.  This meant a cut in pay but significant benefits, so it is a good thing and will happen in January.  I followed the steps my boss gave me and just need to wait for the official transaction to occur.

In summary, 2010 has been the worst year of my life, hands down.  It ended on a positive note and I have high hopes for 2011.  I have several projects on the horizon which I hope to pull forward in January and make great progress on in the coming year.  More on that tomorrow.  See you then.