Sometimes i think about object permanence, and how most of our lives are etch a sketched into our subconscious before we can speak. Sown into some primordial fabric, its finely stitched patterns determined by what we first absorb. I think of you leaving Chelsea and Westminstor, holding me in your hands in awe. Carrying this strange tiny porcelain alive thing, snug in your chest. I wonder if your feelings beat through me, when you had imposter syndrom, woven into an unexpected valve of neverending love. I wonder if I felt the age old fear prophetic people have- that fear of being crazy.
You were a child, with a child, who stayed a child. Exactly how it should be.
You were my first love and my first enemy. I was a baby with a grown up face and a lot of questions. I attribute you to my giggles and my fits of rage. My insatiable curiosity that veers on voyeurism. My appetite for variety and adventure. You were, to me, immortal. A soothsaying disciplinarian, with hands as big as plates. Your steps could traverse seven of mine, and you could make items sprout at random in thrift stores. You taught me to read, and it felt like remembering. I inherited your intensity, irreverent passion and unquenched thirst for God. You made your daughter a seeker.
When I was bullied, rather than intervene, you walked me right up to my nemesis and watched me confront her myself. You prepared me for standing up for myself, a skill that I subsequently took too far. Some people are afraid of rage. But not you or I. We approach battle as if it is a primitive art, commanding full use of the tongue. Clamoring hard-to-hear truth and clever witticisms, flailing mad and wild like boisterous beasts.
You were my first love and my first enemy. My first God, my best friend, my worst teacher. As you explored alternate realms, so did I. I was enthralled by the same bizarre obsessions. Mythology and the holocaust. Magical cards and journeys into the subconscious. Stories, sugar and salt. Documentaries and cults. Health kicks. Dreams. Britpop. Sinead O Connor. Fits of giggles in the wrong places.
I look at Gabe and Esther, and I think, how do these people exist? These lopsided, compassionate warriors, clumsy propagators of impossible hope. I look at them with such admiration and understanding, such gratitude, such joy. You have moved mountains for our ancestors. Unconditional love has happened between us all.
You know, Gabe once said to me- “Dad, he’s a shaman. He’s so psychic. It’s so crazy”, and I thought about the years you had to exist before us, when the world was more rigid and less awake. I thought about your madness, as it has become my madness. Your psychic, your gifts. You see things others don’t and did it long before it was acceptable to discuss. Gabe and I held hands on a mountain top and cried. Esther said, if you died, she think she would too.
You were my first love, my first God, my first best friend and my first enemy. There are armies in heaven shouting your name. There are wild beasts below, traversing your underworld, protecting your psyche. There are ancestors parallel, who champion your cause. You will surpass this, too.