Written at the campground in the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

My tent sits, staked into a site no more than twenty, thirty yards from the edge of the Grand Canyon.

One hell of a view before you go to bed and as soon as you wake up, kid.

The ranger working the registration desk had promised and she’d certainly delivered on that one.

With all the joy, passion, and most of all, life I’ve come to discover during these last two months, I look out and beyond the precipitous ledge, into the horizon, where the sun begins its beautiful, bloody descent. The cliffs across from me forming the line of the horizon plunge into darkness, blackness, as the sun sinks into its depths, while the sky just above glows a brilliant, radiant orange, glowing dimmer and dimmer as it works its way up higher, yielding to the serene blue of the evening to come. Twenty yards away from the thousand-plus feet drop to a certain death, I find Brendan’s demise only more tragic, his act of self-destruction only more mysterious in the face of such stark, raw beauty. How can anyone want to rush somewhere so final, so ultimate, with such haste when everyone gets there eventually, inevitably?

Then I remember a time not so long ago and times so long ago. I remember wishing, seeking death for myself many years ago and just a few years ago, failing, fearing to take my own life perhaps only because of the eternal damnation that I believed in, that would not allow me the courtesy of what I was seeking. I’d feared the same fate that Brendan had found, his fate that had been indoctrinated upon my mind by the Church, by the school, and even by my parents. I remember the days, the months, the years before I’d finally relented to the low dosage of SSRIs. I remember the relentless, unyielding weight of a numbness that wasn’t quite completely numb, the endless restlessness but without the impetus, catalyst to get a life in motion, and most of all, I remember the impossibly heavy burden of a blinding, dull pain creeping into not just every inch of my body, but into the very depths of my soul, my being. Only when I remember, shudder at these thoughts, I think I can, maybe, understand in the smallest, tiniest fraction, how or why Brendan could have brought his life to such a violent end on his own accord.

***

The smell of gunpowder.

Stop. Just please fucking stop. I don’t want to inhale the aroma of gunpowder I’d never smelled, I don’t want to be blinded by the crimson pools, stains, streaks collecting, dripping, congealing. I don’t want to smell, I don’t want to see, I don’t want to hear anything. I’m in the sanctity of my own house, what should be a home, so can’t the grisly, morbid, haunting thoughts give me just an hour, maybe two, of reprieve? My body feels hollow, weak, empty from the hours of quivering, crying it’d just engaged in for the most part of the morning at school, until the administration felt it best for me to take the day off, but not before interrogating me on whether there had been any indications, suggestions that an eighth grader may put a gun to his own head, and to be fair, not before forcing me into a group session where we all sat around in a neat circle, watching the mess that the completely unqualified, uncertified “counselor” had tried to coordinate, to extricate from us feelings, words, perhaps in a collective effort to get through the hell of a mess we’d found ourselves in that day.

My body quaked, the tears flowed, except when that crazy red-headed woman they’d put in charge of our cheap travesty of a group therapy session, came around to me, asking questions obviously meant to result in some quick catharsis, to relieve all the pressure that had been built up. Fucking archaic, unscientific, Popular Psychology, Freudian, psychoanalytic bullshit.

Just a few months ago, maybe even weeks ago, Brendan and I’d managed to find ourselves in the 300s of the Dewey Decimal classification at the school library, a treasure trove of forbidden works on social sciences, including psychology, contradicting, challenging the holy, fundamental teachings of our academic establishment. Even with our limited, yet to be fully-developed minds, we’d skimmed and even read through some of the works. Freud was a given, general texts on psychology much more approachable, modern, and enlightening, tempting us with its slaps on the faces to all that we’d learn in the forty-five minute too long forty-five minute religion class we had each day. From even those cursory reads into basic texts, we knew, I knew, that the woman sitting in the center of our circle, now turned to face me, was a complete hack, that the cathartic method she was trying to sell off on me was unproven, ineffective.

How do you feel, Jaimin?

How the fuck do you think I feel? The gunpowder, the blood, oh shit. Let’s just stop right here, move onto the next person, because despite the shivering, despite the quaking, you’ve yet to see me unleash the full fury of my grief, you stupid, vapid, fucking whore. You want catharsis? You want me to get up, throw this cheap aluminum chair with its thin layer of faux leather padding at the window, leap at you in half-rage, half-grief, and start screaming profanity almost mouth-to-mouth? You’ve no fucking clue what you’re asking for and you’ve no fucking clue what you’re doing, but you also know that, don’t you? You know that the only reason you’re in here, working with your bit knowledge of Freud and without a license, without qualification is because as a private institution, the school’s not bound to hire teachers or staff according to normal state or federal regulations. It’s your time to shine, to put into practice without having to work two to five years of an advanced degree. Fuck you. You get nothing from me.

I bring my head out of my arms, intending to snarl, intending to shoot the meanest, most spiteful look of hatred directly into her eyes. But I’m too tired, my reserve of affect, emotion stretched beyond its limit and solely reserved for shock, for terror. What comes out instead must’ve been just a sad little sight of someone so confused, so lost. She moves on.

I can’t decide what’s worse. Lying on the living room floor, crawled up in a fetal position, watching the walls of my own home spray, streak with blood, smelling the tell-tale bite of gunpowder, the metallic odor of mass pools of hemoglobin all around me, or having sat through nearly an hour of that pseudo-psychological bullshit at Palma, in the room that was normally used, reserved as a small chapel. Before I can make a rational, logical argument for either side, I hear the rustle of the key lifting the tumblers, the lock turning counter clockwise, and the door yielding to my mother’s light frame.

She stares at my strange position on the floor, probably wonders why the lights are still off during an especially dark, overcast day, and only begins to address me after she closes the door and locks it behind her.

Why aren’t you at school?

Today must be the day of stupid questions. The day of the whoppers of all stupid fucking questions. I almost laugh at the ridiculousness, the hilarity of the question, but I don’t think the body is capable of dancing with the mind. I only hold, crawl myself into a tighter ball, trying to resist the shivers that come from deep within, but they manage to spill out.

It doesn’t take a very bright person to figure out that something’s wrong when one’s son is crawled up into a ball, shivering, home early from school and it must have been fantastically difficult for my academically inclined, crazed mother for her to ignore the fact that her doctor, lawyer, professor-to-be son was missing the precious, last two hours of instruction from the expensive education she and her husband were working their assess off to put their boy through.

I hate myself for having such cold, cruel thoughts. I know better. She’s my mother and she loves me. But I still hate that side of her, I still hate that side of them. I hate the Korean-ness, the shared curse between the first generation and second generation immigrants of worshipping education, indoctrinating academic and financial prestige into children. At the moment, stripped of all sanity, of all socialization, knowing only primal feelings, I hate my parents and I begin to hate Brendan. I resent him for bringing this upon me, for bringing the stench, the sight of death into my days and I will hate him for the even more vivid, foul odors and scenes that would come to encompass my dreamscapes during the night.

But my body can’t dance with the mind and I only explain to my mother what I’d found out. As she kneels next to me, cradles my head in her lap, I want to stand, I want to push her away, to scream, to unlock that door, dash out into the large public park just in front of our house, and feel the air screaming by my face as far as my feet will carry me. But I also want to remain, to feel my unshattered, intact-without-an-exit-and-entrance-wound head lifted in her arms, housed in the warmth of her lap, near the womb from which I’d escaped. Maybe it’s easier on the body to remain, so I do, listening to the mindless, meaningless words of reassurance, half-resenting, half-loving her for them.

But it’s in our nature to really fuck things up when we most need not to fuck things up, isn’t it?

Jaimin. You know that your friend can’t go to heaven because he killed himself right?

My body, my mind is full of hatred, even knowing that the words that I try to tell myself I’d not heard even though I know I’d just heard them, were spilled out of fear, spilled out of panic that her own son may follow in his friend’s steps. I’ve never felt such pure hatred for my mother and I’m surprised that I don’t find myself vomiting once more into the much more sanitary bowl that the very same person who would be inducing my vomiting had cleaned, maybe even that morning, but no earlier than yesterday evening.

I’m glad that despite my body and mind finally able to dance in synchronization, in hatred with one another, they do so now at the pace of a couple who’s practically danced out, at the very final song of the evening, ready to retire for the evening, so exhausted they won’t even engage in the usual fuck before tuning out. I say nothing to her, refuse to look at her, and retire to my own bedroom, as hastily as my body allows, afraid to reveal, to allow to leak from within, even the smallest fraction of the hate, the resentment I feel toward the woman who’d taken such pains to bring me into the world, afraid to let her know how I’d wished she’d never done such a thing, afraid to let her know how I’d wished those nine months would’ve never existed, along with the years that have followed.

***

It’s dark and it’s much colder here on the North Rim of the Canyon. The sun’s long set and the stars are out. The edge of the Canyon seems so much more distant, so much less dangerous in the cover of the night, only the branches at the ledge visible, the short shrubs hiding from view the distant, deadly floor of the massive hole in the ground.

Back then, it was the fear of an afterlife in damnation that would’ve kept me from leaping into that deadly crevasse, if I so desired. Today and beyond, something much more powerful, something so very different keeps my steps solid, keeps my attention and focus on the beauty, the life that brims in even this harsh environment. I know the love, the miracle, the divine that is life. I’ve decided to embrace each and every precious moment of my existence and it is an irrevocable embrace, an inextricable embrace, one whose memories will never fade, even in the darkest of moments, the lowest of points.

news article

it is such a shame to see this happen. no doubt the story was a fraud and that this is wrong...but there is still healing needed here in Mike's life. Instead of cancer there is a sin of addiction, a sing that many of us struggle with. our addiction may not be pornography, but we do struggle with addictions - TV, exercise, movies, food...etc.

the response to this story has been interesting. there are the usual pundits who go after the "christians" and feed on the scandal. BUT i have noticed that the true christian community is hurt but understands the situation. they see the story and song as a cry for help...one that asks for healing from an addiction. this situation tests the Grace and Forgiveness we speak of.

despite the scandal, i hope the message and truth of the song is not lost. i know for patsy and i, as we face another surgery, this song is our prayer and cry out to God.

another blog on the issue also brings up good points. that blog can be found here. the article is called "Addiction Sucks."

I feel truly ashamed... truly disgusted with myself at the moment- and I know that God forgives me, but I'm just so amazed (not in a good way) at my personality...   yuck.

I have been half-avoiding a couple of people because I thought they were pushy, thought they were New Age Monterey weirdos, fake, people who over-emphasized how deeply they care about EVERYTHING (in that fake way that makes you sick)....    oh how sad, surprised, glad, ashamed, etc etc etc I was to find out a couple of things this week.  

I'm glad for the lesson, though I'm sad that I went through it to begin with.

So what is this lesson? You can't judge a book by it's cover? cliche, I know.

Sad how you can find out a detail or two, and suddenly your perspective is changed.  Sad how I have become a judge in my own mind, right in my own eyes, and have failed to see anything clearly enough to realize I was blind.  Ugh.

I debate still whether or not to share details into this matter... fear of sounding like a fool, sounding self-righteous... fear of suddenly being that example of a "Christian" that the world sees and assumes that all Christians are like that... only in this case, it's an example of a Christian sinning.

The important point to know is that I want to learn from this situation, see what the Lord wants for me to learn from it.  See what it means, how it will be used in my Christian walk.  I'm sick of hearing the labels run through my mind (snob, weirdo, New Ager, Over-protective parent, clingy person, etc etc etc), categorizing everyone I meet out here...   I'm sad that I feel like I'm in this sea of people that reject God... when in fact, God has placed us in the midst of a sea of people who BELIEVE in God, LOVE Him, Trust Him... and I've been a fool to assume things.  I can't even imagine what I've missed because of my pride...

I'm sorry... and I'm also grateful.   

I suppose I needed to get that off my chest somehow... it helps me to pray about it, helps me to write things down...  hopefully it helps others who may be the same as me, or going through a similar situation... maybe it only helps me... still- I felt like it needed to be shared somehow.