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For The Fallen Ones
November 17th, 2018
Dear…. Well, I don’t really know. Not that I don’t know, I am just not quite sure how to go about addressing this. If I were praying, I would know. If I were giving a sermon, I would know. But those things, well… when you say words aloud, that gives them shape, it makes them real and it means that you can be heard; that others can know. This, however, is not something anyone can know, not outside of this paper. Not outside of who already knows.
I’m writing because I have to. I have questions that demand answers and, barring that, that simply need to be asked. If I keep them to myself any longer, locked up and secure in the vault of my mind, I think that I may go insane and that isn’t a good look on me, as You well know.
Why. I need to know fucking why. I knew who I was, what I was doing for so long that I almost became complacent, in the strangest of ways. I never forgot my calling and I did everything that You asked of me. Everything. College, Seminary, obeying my vows; after that one night, everything was to the letter. I know, of course, that I have more sins to atone for than most, I’m not deluded enough to believe otherwise, but Jesus Christ when is it enough?
I know what they say, hell I know what I say; I tow the party line, say what I am supposed to and assign penance as is fit. I know they say that you never give anyone more than they can handle, but how is that decided? You have always been there for me, a presence almost physical at times; I knew you were with me in the same way the wind blows. You were just there. I trusted you, with everything that I am; I still do, but I question, I have to. If I don’t then none of this makes sense. You know everything, and you are the cause for everything, the whole universe; I accept that. There is a reason for everything, I know I know. But what the fuck are the reasons? How much weight can you lay on someone’s shoulders until they are unable to bear the burden anymore?
What is it that determines that breaking point because I am fucking sure that I am beyond past it. I can understand why, of course, but still. I have devoted my life to you for the last fucking decade; ten years of my life in your service. You are my calling, and although it took me a while to find You, I did and I think I am pretty fucking good at what I do. Yes, I have my downfalls of course but I am, unlike you, only human and some things just can’t be helped.
I thought I knew you, you were my constant and my rock, the only one besides Kiernan and Mom who I had; you are still with me, although you seem farther away than you ever have. I can see why. I’m a hypocrite, I know this; I have broken my vows and betrayed you in a way that is unexcusable. I accept this and I have confessed my sins, although I can’t seem to stop. I blame you, you know. I hate it, but I do.
Kiernan is sick, really, really fucking sick. He won’t tell me how bad it is, but I can hear him at sometimes, coughing and tossing. Some nights are better than others, but he doesn't deserve that, not for an instant. He is an asshole sometimes, but he is a good person, one of the best. And yet, he is being punished. He is worth more than that and You know it; you must. That doesn’t matter though, because it isn’t more than he can handle. That, in and of itself, is a crock of shit. He doesn’t owe you; he has not forsaken you or broken any of the major commandments; hell, he is a better man than I am, without a doubt and yet? He gets an undue burden; that weight on his shoulders is more than he needs and I hate it. I hate You for it sometimes; during the days when he was at his worst, I cursed you even as I begged you to help him. I’m a hypocrite; I know this.
I can list my sins, but it’s pointless, really. I don’t regret them, I don’t regret Grace for an instant. I should, logically, according to everything that I have been taught, that I have felt and that I agreed to, I should regret her. I should be ashamed, begging for forgiveness. Well, and I state this with all due respect, fuck that. There are worse things than loving someone than being in love with someone. I look around and see all of the horrors that happen every fucking day; the endless injustices, the pain and suffering, and death, war and hatred… it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, there are more serious things to deal with than who I am sleeping with.
Then again, that is kind of part and parcel of my calling, and that is what I still see it as. I know you want what is best for me, and I am supposed to trust you because you have a reason for everything. Yada, yadda, please see above. Grace is the strongest fucking person I have ever met, EVER and I have to believe, because you told me so, that you put her in front of me knowing what would happen. You had to. Maybe I am weak, although I would never dream of categorizing her as a weakness, that is not at all the same thing. But You must have known, you had to. I know I should have been strong enough to resist, I know I should have been a lot of things. But despite my collar, my vows and my devotion to You above all things, I am still a man, and a very fallible one it would seem.
I know the consequences of my actions all too well; I know the price I should pay, and the price I am supposed to pay. The ramifications of what I am doing are not unknown to me and I have seen them time and again, although not for exactly the same things. I could very easily lose everything that I have worked for, that I have been called to do and why? Because someone decided somewhere along the line that it was not allowed. I understand how blasphemous that is but frankly, I don’t care. I can believe in and serve You without having to bend to the ideals that have been put in place by men exactly as human as I am. It is if you will forgive me, bullshit of the highest order.
I am, as you can probably tell, more than a bit conflicted but just the act of writing this letter, even if it is destined for nothing more than the fireplace, has cleared my mind of some of the questions that never seem to stop circling, however, more have popped up in their place. Such is life, I suppose. I think, for now, that I will call an end to this little missive of mine. The flames are waiting, and so is Grace and I am going ask forgiveness instead of permission, once again.
Your Faithful Servant,
Finnegan
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This Is The Way We Cope
*The storm outside was nearly perfect. Crashing thunder, vivid lightning and heavy rains pelting against the windows provided the perfect soundtrack for the unholy hour, as it were. The clock on my nightstand had read 2:53 when I had slipped from the bed, the green light almost perversely at odds with the blue-white lightening that flashed through the windows. I’d left Grace asleep, her pale limbs tangled in dark sheets and the map of scars on her back almost glowing in the dim light. She was lovely, always, but there was something especially peaceful about her when she slept; the quiet strength that she always seemed to carry melted away and revealed something not fragile, not in the least, but softer, as it were, nearly delicate, although I knew she was the strongest person I’d ever known, save for Kiernan. Tugging on some pajama pants, I blinked away the bleariness of sleep and slipped my glasses into place, blinking as the world shifted into a sharp, almost painfully crystalline focus.
My footfalls were quiet on the wood floors as I listened for the sounds of my brother beyond the storm. Nothing; the house was quiet at the moment, which perhaps was for the best. He had never been prone to over sharing, not entirely, but perhaps that was just with me. Little brothers were a particular breed, and I knew that mine didn’t have it easy. He was still sick, that much was obvious, but he was quiet which hopefully meant sleeping, a lovely reprise from his usual insomnia. The low hum of the air conditioner as it spilled artificially chilled air over my still bare skin brought a strange kind of comfort. Grabbing a t-shirt from the basket that sat only partially hidden inside the laundry room, I tugged it over my head It was soft, worn with age, the once crisp black now faded to an almost dull grey and the design on the front impossible to make out. It had, at one point in time, been mine, but Kiernan had long since claimed it. The Catholic church seemed to frown upon its priests wearing Led Zeppelin shirts, although I never quite understood why.
A particularly bright flash of lightning cut across the sky beyond the windows, illuminating the room in a sudden, almost overwhelming burst of light before a delayed clap of thunder. I was awake, almost obscenely so, and at odds as to what to do now. The coffee pot would be an obvious start; I had a partially written sermon on my desk in the office that i should work on, and a few outlines for other projects around the church that truly begged my attention, to say nothing of the half-finished papers that demanded my attention. They could wait.
The instrument sat on a stand in the corner, long neglected but well cared for, cleaned constantly although not played in far too long. It was mine, a remnant of another life, but the weight and heft of it in my hands, the almost warmth of the bright orange lacquer as I settled into a nearby chair and rested the bass on my lap. My fingers felt almost strange against the strings, my fingers fumbling over cords long since forgotten and the press of the metal under now tender fingertips was bordering on painful but in the best of ways.* There’s a cost my friend, for living out some other dream.
*I stumbled and fumbled through a few barely familiar songs, hitting more wrong notes than right ones, and tried to force the memories that threatened to swirl up back. I was not a stupid man, I even had the degrees to prove it, but I knew better than to try and delude myself when I was in the middle of a losing battle and finally let the memories wash over me.
I was far from a perfect man of God, the woman in my bed pretty much secured that, but I was okay with that. Before I’d entered the seminary, hell before I was even an undergrad, I was living a vastly different life. Every boy dreams of being a rockstar at some point and anyone who says otherwise was lying; there was something so alluring about the gritting, dark and almost strangely forbidden world of music that had drawn me in when I was young. It had pulled Kiernan as well, although not to the same extent. I wasn’t pheneomenal, not at all, but I was moderately decent, especially in a small town. As it turned out, my vices turned out to be a bit more indulged than my virtues at the point in time and I hit the bottle hard. Through some miracle, divine intervention in the weirdest sense maybe, it took a fight, a car crash and a late night stumble into a church that made me stop and forget what we were fighting for, I lost whatever visions and dreams that I may have had amidst a mess of shattered glass and bent metal. I was one of the lucky ones.
Somehow, my parents never picked up on my late night escapades and, according to Kiernan who was truly the only other person who may possibly still know about them, they never would.
Three people had lost their lives that night, and my own changed dramatically. I’d shifted focus, trading the dark for some desperate attempt at cleansing my soul which, while no longer burdened, was still heavy at times, although never for the reasons most people would think if they could see my life beyond the collar I wore that, while it was who I was, tended to be taken at nothing but face value; I wasn’t my calling anymore than Grace was her job, or Kiernan was his illness, but according to anyone who looked, it was all one in the same.
My fingers slipped on the strings as a pair of bare feet appeared in my field of vision, the sound distorted and strange as it echoed in the quiet of the house. I hadn’t heard Grace as she had approached, quiet and very much the epitome of her name, and couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips as I carefully set the instrument aside and reached for her hand, twisting my fingers easily with hers and gently pulling her into my lap. She was warm, soft and sweet in all the same ways that the bass I’d just set aside was hard and cool, but she fit just the same, better maybe, as her head rested on my shoulder. She was wearing on of my shirts, the same one from earlier, that had been discarded in haste, the pale white cotton looking almost regal in a way I couldn’t seem to describe. I was a fool, and far too gone to think about it at this point in time.* Did I wake you? Do you need anything? Tea, Diet Coke, a cookie?
*Grace laughed softly and shook her head. I could feel her smile, her messy hair tickling my cheek. She smelled like vanilla, roses, and sex which should have been absurd, but it was actually kind of perfect. “No, the storm did. I’m okay, Finn, I promise. I just had a bad dream and you were gone when I woke up so I followed the music.” Her words were well measured and quiet, her breath warm against my neck. She spoke very easily, but it was a testament to her that she had traversed the house so well in the dark, although that was her entire world. I let my fingers trail over her bare thigh beneath the hem of her shirt and hummed some mindless scrap of a barely remembered song as my other hand rested on her waist. She was small beneath my touch and still easily the most imposing and frightening creature I had ever known, and I was suddenly terrified beyond measure, although I couldn’t explain why, not to myself anyway. She was beautiful in the flashing light from the storm and it was suddenly all far too much; the memories, the need, the utter panic. * Grace I- *My voice trailed off and I swallowed thickly as lightning struck somewhere close outside the window with a deafening, almost electric sizzle. “Finn, are you alright?” She shifted on my lap, twisting to rest a soft hand to my cheek, looking at me, seeing me on a level that no one else ever had, even through the clouded honey-brown of her eyes; even though she couldn’t see me at all. Brushing my thumb over her cheek, I nodded my head, knowing the movement was felt, however slight.* I’m fine, I promise I just. I know we don’t talk about it, we never do, but jesus Grace, you have to know. Tell me you know. Please. *It was a plea, one that came from somewhere that I couldn’t place and my voice cracked with emotion that I had tried in vain to hide. Grace smiled softly, turning into my touch and nodded. “I know, Finn. I know. I l-” A painful sounding cough from the stairs stopped her words dead cold and we both startled, turning towards the kitchen door where a sleep disheveled Kiernan had stumbled, bleary eyed and blinking into the living room with a bottle of water in his hand. “It’s about fucking time.” With that, he raised his bottle in a salute and trudged back down the stairs as the storm raged on outside.* #TheWayThatWeCope #TheRedDoorsWrite
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