Stop Me if You Heard This One Before: Songs of Grief and Hope

Ian,

We enjoyed the Smiths. I introduced them to Danny, Danny then to you and you back to me. Love the way music networks around, within our family.
 


Listening again, I recognized how the mixture of Morrissey's melancholy lyrics and joyful jangle of Johnny Mar's guitar illustrate the confusing mixture of emotions in maturing grief. This tension is odd, unnatural - but accepting the dissonance seems essential to continuing to live. This is a long, strange trip of ever changing emotional landscape - I still am hiking it. I wrote about the interplay between grief and hope over this past year - especially as your 4th anniversary of going Home approaches. Writing stuff helps me process feelings; Maybe it will help others too and provide support and understanding.

So, here are my songs: songs of the night and songs of the day (had to add in a little Phantom - you loved that!). Without further ado, strangeways, here we come!

One

There is nothing new here
A retooling of what has been said
Loss slows new memories
Clouds old ones

Therefore I must keep repeating
Say again what has been said
Go to the same places
Force my mind back

Walk with you again in the house
The driveway, the street
Watch the old TV shows and movies
Go to the haunts, play old games
Just stare at Bessy, pluck your bass
Listen to your songs
Remember your face

Should I be encyclopedic and focus on every detail
Or be empathetic and just feel
What if I loose a memory
What if one escapes
I fear loosing you again
But there is power in memory
To discover something new
A detail, an experience, a word
It is like seeing you again in my mind
Joy floods, conversations renew
Grief mitigated in memory
But for a minute -
But I will take that!

Two

I hear music in our house today
The thumping and popping on a bass
The strumming and picking of a guitar
The sampling and sounding of tunes

I hear voices in our house today
The sharing and telling of stories
The debating and pressing of opinions
The laughter and giggling of family

I hear play outside our home today
The dribbling and leaping with a ball
The running and catching of the disc
The pressing and pushing of the weights

I hear silence in our home today
The ringing and singing slowly stops
The talking and texting tappers away
The bouncing and bounding becomes still

Space unoccupied
Energy trapped in inaction
Pause, peculiar quiet
Loneliness and yearning

I feel hope surging once again
A promise made, a promise kept
A place missing, reunion coming
A home empty, a mansion full


Three

Music man moves through the house
Living and dining room entertainment
Bessy blends notes with effortless slide
Fretless resonance through rounded strings

A Bugera booming with Big Muff fuzz
Hefty Trace Elliots transport and elevate
Tele snaps and twangs in spite of distortion
The Tak discovers a dropped D melody

Bass and guitar groove and blend together
Dancing in intertwined melody
Amplified strings as surrogate voices
United in sound, rhythm and heart

Such was our music, such was our song


Four


Four years

126,230,400 seconds
     2,103,840 minutes
          35,064 hours
               1461 days
                    48 months
                         4 years

How is it possible?
Answer my text, take my call
Just come home
Silence just silence
Worst fear realized

Deep, lifelong wound
Joint out of socket
Straining to breath
Just to survive
Realize and rationalize
Hope to believe, believe to hope
Take trembling steps
Learning to walk again
Find a sort of balance
With a lifelong limp

Time itself is hard
Everything reminds me of you
Time we spent together
What we missed
Time is not enough

 19 years,
     231 months
          1007 weeks
               7053 days
          169,272 hours
     10,156,320 minutes
609,379,200 seconds

Don't get me started about
Awaiting your arrival
Cuddling as a baby
Legos as a child
School, pretend, action figure
Xbox, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh
School, projects, cars and girls
Too much to remember
But hungrily grasp at each frame

Hanging out at home
Riding together in a car
Playing in the yard
Grabbing Chick-fil-A
Working out
Jamming on guitars
Singing at church
Playing in a band
Discussing life's mysteries
Finding truth
Laughing
Falling asleep watching a movie
Running in the rain

A song, lyric, muscle roller, trip to Sam's, a chord
Shakes me from balance and I fall again
Feel the break, the rip and the tear
I limp more obviously
The wound bleeds

Hope cannot be found here
Amid dirt and flesh
Too weak, too fragile,
All starts but to end
Hope springs not from change, adaptation
Nor from gradually getting used to your absence
All is still interrupted
The wound reopens

Hope springs beyond these stars
Beyond myself
Through wood and nails
A folded cloth
A herald's song
Conviction from the bones

I am Jacob
I walk with a limp
Yet I know His Name
I am graced by His blessing
I will meet you again
You and He both
Where end meets beginning

Love you E,


Dad

"All you can thrash" - our life with pizza

Pizza, the essential food group of youth, I have missed. Ian your love for pizza started early. Mom and I promoted it in Maryland as we loved to eat at Armand's after church. These thick offerings were truly pizza pie -1/2 inch thick goodness of sauce, abundant toppings and mounds of cheese. Though you were young, the blend of bread, meat, stringy cheese and flavorful sauce was a magnet. We do not remember the place's name, but up from our apartment was a pizza place Danny liked. Momma Jean and Poppa Gene when visiting walked you guys there - by hand and stroller - to fulfill the Pogue family's desire for pizza.

In California we continued to enjoy pizza together. Often Digiorno pizza at home, or a bring your own topping pizza night. We would roll out the dough or use pre- made and everyone brought their favorite - bacon seemed to often be on your list. After cooking, we would sit around the table, talk, tell stories, share "highs" and "lows" of the week, and laugh.  

It first was about quarters and video games then pizza. When we first arrived in CA, pizza meant games - so requests to me, Mom, Poppa Gene, anyone for quarters, boosts to see the screens and help. Soon the taste of pizza, the allure of pepperoni and the joy of eating began to moderate games and raise the food value. In California, pizza was mostly about bulk. At Renaissance Pizza yours, Danny's or Caylea's sports teams would crowd for pizza after games, receiving trophies. Teams required mass quantities.


With the play room and pool, armies of youth were always at our house. Pizza was the easy way to please the hoards. Abundant, tasty hot or cold, it was the fuel behind so may weekend or Summer or spontaneous parties. But we learned to mix it up a bit. We all fell in love with grilled, fresh asparagus. At your going away to Texas swim party, pizza flowed, as did a huge plate of asparagus- boys (I remember Kevin in particular) grabbing some sticks as the headed out to the pool.

Texas pizza -we continued bulk pizza nights, Papa John's, the Hut, and others. How could we afford to feed a growing family with visiting populations of guys and girls? On 6th Street we did Hoek's Death Metal Pizza and HomeSlice on South Congress (especially during and after tattoo sessions with Danny). I remember doing a Longhorn game with Alfred your youth leader. The line out of the parking garage was - well long. So we just walked down to 6th Street and hung out and ate pizza from Roppolo's before heading back to the car. Another memory was the metal competition at Red 7 - we came with your gear, unloaded, got our stamps and of course you were hungry!! We grabbed pizza at Hoboken Pies before coming back so you could jam with the Messinas and others.

But, in Texas you discovered "all you can thrash" pizza at Double Dave's. It was there I could tell you of the feasting feats of "Big Red" Don , Clayton and Chris at Texas A&M. Going to lunch, ordering all you can eat, eating vast amounts of pizza, then packing up pepperoni roles in Eppendorf tube bags from the lab for eats later in the week. Thus the experience was deemed, "all you can thrash!"

We started going to Double Dave's when Mom taught at ACC Northridge. It was nearby and an easy mark for lunch when we visited her on campus. A store full of neon beer signs, longhorn paraphernalia and old road signs, held the delights of pizza and plenty of it. You could punish an all you can eat bar. Multiple trips, variety of pizza and dessert pizza. Don't forget the soda. Not healthy, but good.



Mangia and another place near Anderson High were frequented, but Double Dave's was our pizza out place. We could watch basketball games, discuss the week's activities, or explore weekend plans - it was all talk and grubbing. Your giggle, the little spewing of food or drink as you laughed - always remember.

We found Double Dave's in College Station during our visits to check out the school. Mom and Caylea tolerated it. You and I were home. That place on the corner of George Bush and Texas was our favorite haunt each time I visited. We would do TexMex or Chicken Strips, but almost always take in a Double Dave's all you could thrash. You know, we never take pictures of the mundane nor do we record those normal conversations. I have a text from you taunting me about your time at Double Dave's without me. I love looking back at our text conversations. I wish I had pictures of us or recordings as we ate together! I miss all the stories we shared, every giggle coming from you, each talk we had - I miss you.

You went Home on a Friday the 19th, and your friends had your name called at Muster that Sunday the 21st. Yes the 'officially' recognized class years were loud, but your name was greeted with a "Here" that resonated from the upper deck and up from the floor. Rivaled them all. 

As Muster ended, 80-100 classmates flooded down to greet Mom's sisters and family, my family, friends from Austin and our broken family of Austin Pogue's. What love did they share! What funny stories did they tell! We had cleaned your dorm room out hours before - the hardest thing I may ever do in my life - and many friends of yours wanted something, a t-shirt or desk or study relic to remember you by. One friend carried your red stapler (yes Office Space) to Muster with him and to the floor. Your memory and inspiration filled our minds.

How do you follow that? Only one answer - a Double Dave's "all you can thrash" meal. 80+ people landed on our Double Dave's, tens of pizzas were ordered. Everyone ate, told stories, remembered you and cried - yes there were lots of tears. Mom wore your favorite t-shirt - a San Francisco 49er shirt, the one-fish, two-fish, red fish, blue fish pajama pants you reluctantly let me buy you at Target (turned out to be your fav) and favorite beanie you wore to control your curly locks as you grew them out to donate to Locks of Love. Those clothing items went to rest with you and were spread that next weekend around your favorite Austin places: Zilker Park and Rock Island (on a frisbee at times!) and Mount Bonnell, where you carried Seraina to ask her to prom.

We went back to that Double Dave's twice more with your friends for an "all you can thrash" meal, to hear new stories of you and catch up with their lives.











I still remember the stories of pond hopping, Valentine gifts, lifting and fitness that emerged as we ate the world's least healthy meal. But that was so you - a portrait of health, strongest kid I had ever known, full of creativity and joy - now not with us, doomed by sleeplessness, unable to conquer narcolepsy by a health routine, a quiet house and remembered with a tear. Pizza - so good, yet so not.











Every day I remember you with such joy and such sadness. The joy and thankfulness of each moment we spent together coupled with the loss, the sadness and anger that those moments are gone. I weep.








I returned to Double Dave's to "thrash" again today. It is never the same. You are not there with me. Our family committed to not end things as with a period "." amid loss and addiction, but continue as with a semicolon ";".

My tattoo - חֶסֶד; - reminds me that chesed - the covenant, steadfast loving kindness - of our God never ceases. It is truly an "all you can thrash" love that extends beyond failure, sin, loss and time to embrace us where we are and take us to where we will be reunited again forever. I must preach the good news to myself daily and continue in His love.

Love you E