To face defeat, darkness and death is difficult. It is easier to numb one self, put on a happy face and suppress dark and sad feelings of loss and mistakes.
I have been reading a lot about the suicide of soldiers and war veterans. It is increasing at an alarming rate. On veteran’s day I wrote a post, Stop the Killing, that suggested the best we can do for our military to prevent suicide is to stop teaching them how to kill reflexively, Killing without conscience.
These dark thought come to my mind since I am having a difficult time accepting my son’s, Peter’s, suicide last summer. All I can do is to walk in the shadow’ of death or to numb myself with business and suppress my feelings. I am choosing the former, walking in the shadow of death, since it seems more real and more myself.
But as the NAMI show, in which Peter’s art was displayed, said last week “Creativity Heals.” My form of creativity is with pictures and words. Today I put my wife’s Pat’s picks of Peter’s Digital art on flicker with a link on the home page and Peter’s art page. Sharing Peter’s art with the world helps with healing. I also intend to write an essay about “Letting Peter Go”. This will be hard since I am such a persistent person and do not accept defeat very well.
In nature around me, as fall leads into winter, I see death. It happens every winter in these parts and without it we would not have a beautiful spring. Perhaps my attraction to living in Hawaii was that there is so little change in the weather that I noticed there was not much of a weather report on nightly news. But I do not live in Hawaii geography or spiritually, so I much learn to face death, darkness and defeat.
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