Listening Again (Repost from Facebook)

Listening Again

After a few cups of coffee this morning (and some pancakes and bacon -- a Saturday morning ritual ‘round our home) I started on the laundry. Yes, that’s right, I help my wife with the clothes. I can fold and put ‘em up as well. Anyway, when I do the wash I listen to my iPod. Death Cab for Cutie has a new album to be released in a few days and I’ve got tickets to see them live in June. So...I’ve been listening to a lot of DCFC to “get in the mood.” I’ve listed here the lyrics to “Styrofoam Plates,” a song from the stellar and groundbreaking, “The Photo Album.” 

There's a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes; I threw them to the sea,
but a gust blew them backwards and the sting in my eyes
that you then inflicted was par for the course just as when you were living.
It's no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but the donor of seeds to a poor, single mother that would raise us alone.
We never saw the money that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver,
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner at the Catholic church.
The servers wore crosses to shield from the sufferance plaguing the others.
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity and I'm thinking of you,
I do every year when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we're doing here.

You're a disgrace to the concept of family.
The priest won't divulge that fact in his homily
and I'll stand up and scream if the mourning remain quiet,
you can deck out a lie in a suit.
But I won't buy it.
I won't join the procession that's speaking their piece,
using five dollar words while praising his integrity.
Just 'cause he's gone, it doesn't change that fact:
he was bastard in life, thus a bastard in death yeah.

Wow. That’s articulate. That’s bitter. That hurts. Now, I know that this is not an autobiographical song; I’ve heard Ben Gibbard, the songwriter, say so. But I also know that it is biographical; that he wrote it based on the true events of the life of a friend. His friend had recently attended the funeral of his father and conveyed his feelings regarding his father, his funeral and his abandonment to Gibbard. This song was the result of that conversation.

I have two boys. They are here with me now watching “Ice Age 2: The Meltdown” and eating microwave popcorn. Earlier today we spent some time on the skateboard (my wife, in what may only be described as understatement, asked, “Do you think that it’s very smart for a 39 year old man responsible to provide for a family to be doing tricks on a skateboard?”) I can’t imagine walking away; never returning. To be described by my sons at the end of my days as a, “bastard in life, thus a bastard in death.” That stings. But I see it all the time. Hang around a courthouse long enough and you’ll see it too.

As I age I begin to understand more the complexity of adult relationships. I understand (though I do not always condone) the reasons why adult relationships fail and why divorce happens. It’s always ugly; it always hurts. But sometimes it’s necessary. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.

What I don’t understand is how any parent could walk away from his or her child, that life which they brought in to this world. That precious gift entrusted to a mother and a father. That life, and soul and spirit. It is beyond comprehension or excuse. And it reminds me that the Bible instructs that we are not to provoke our children to wrath. And that, should we lead our children astray, the Lord instructs that our fate is akin to having a millstone tied around our neck just prior to being thrown in to the ocean. Sounds about right. In this case the punishment seems to fit the crime.

The song got my attention. More directly, the lyrics got my attention. I figured out a long time ago that I can learn at least as much from negative example as I can from the positive. I’m looking for something more in a eulogy. In order to get that later, I need to give more now.