We All Should Care

Accept the call for a deeper purpose.

Originally this post was destined to go up on The Spencer Bell Legacy Site, but alas that site wasn’t cooperating with me, and so this is where it’ll have to be born.

May 6th… a day I already wasn’t a fan of, because my best friend was killed on that day in 1991…it was that day, 5 days ago, that I lost my grandmother to her battle with small cell carcinoma, brain cancer, and come to find out Adrenal Cancer. Yes, she had three different forms of cancer, but they only knew how to treat the lung cancer.

The last week of my life I’ve spent in near silent reflection. Few could reach me, and as days go by, that number diminishes. It isn’t because I do not care, because I do not want to talk to people, but instead it is because that is how I grieve.
I distance myself.
I’ve never been able to lean on others the way that I am supposed to, then again I’ve never dealt with anything by protocol.

My grandmother, “Mamaw Ruth” was the woman that I get my “save the world complex” from. She spent at least 40 of her 70 years on this Earth taking care of others. Family, friends, strangers, and even people she disliked. She put her heart into each and everything she did and her mantra was “If it’s worth doin’, it’s worth doin’ right.”
(Or damned if you don’t and damned if you do) depends on what kind of mood you caught her in. lol
She was far from perfect,she fought, she was a pistol, a handful, she would just as soon give you down the road if she thought you was wrong, than look at you sideways, and she’d yank a knot in your behind quicker than you could say “please don’t” if you did something unacceptable. Hence her “you’re never too old, nor too big to be laid over my lap”, and she meant it. Believe me.

Her death has taught me so much more than heartache though.
I looked around the “receiving room” and what I saw both infuriated me and broke my heart.
After all of her years of care-taking, attending funerals, sending flowers even when she didn’t have money in her budget to do so, only around 40 people attended her send off, and she had 10 plants, give or take.

She and I have had the discussion many times, that we don’t do what we do for repayment, but the least they could have done was come pay last respects to a woman that gave so much of herself to so many people.

More selfishly, I figured my “friends”, people I had known since the ages of 12,13,14 and 15 years old would be there, by my side, since I have been with them through so many things I can’t and would not begin to list here.
Sadly…most of them did not show up, and even more sadly? None of them had concrete reasons.
I had two friends with me, one I’ve known since I was 12, Kasey and then one I have only known since August, but feel as if I’ve known her for my entire life. Patty. I met her at a Legacy show, she’ll tell you I was comatose our first meeting and mention a fishy pick and I’ll say it was all HIS fault, but I won’t mention any names.
I digress…
She drove from Michigan to sit with me and hold my hand. THAT is the type of people I have met because of Spencer.
She can’t know what it means to me.
Kasey can’t know how much appreciation I hold for her, for everything.
And unfortunately reading what is written on my heart isn’t possible.

Yesterday was spent going through old photos, some I didn’t even know existed and others I wish like hell didn’t exist, all of which I’ll eventually get made into a slide show with the help of my awesome friend Jess, if she’d be so kind (you see this is her first time even hearing mention of it, sorry Jess!!). She just makes the best slide shows ever. The end. Then you can have a good laugh at my expense and I’m okay with that.

On a happy note, my Mamaw left every dime she had to St. Jude Children’s Hospital for research. She said she wanted to help in some way, and she’s always stood behind them.
She had mentioned about a week before she died that she wanted to divide her money between the Legacy and St. Jude, but went downhill so quickly, never got a chance to change her will, just know her heart was with Adrenal Cancer Research and Spencer as well.

All of this was to say: For those that care thank you.
To those that cannot reach me, I’m terribly sorry but I WILL come back, I always do.
For those that have lost someone like this, my condolences are with you.
To everyone else, those that ever question if my heart is pure, if my giving is without want of anything in return, please just know anything I do, I do with all of my heart.
Not because I want something in return, but because my grandmother was the example I chose to follow, and also because I have faced so many negative experiences in my life, that all I want is to take care of people and help them smile.
Nothing makes me happier.
I am real, my heart is genuine.

I love you all and if you need me, if you just want to talk, if all you want to do is sit in silence with me on the other end of the phone, then you know what to do. There never has to be a reason to contact me, I’m always here.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. It’s not that I’ve been too busy, it’s not that I didn’t want to, it’s just that I’m not as good at this as the rest of the writers on this site.

Todays topic comes from the thoughts that dance in my head just before I drift off to sleep. This one came to me three days ago.

If there was a way to stop time, would you? Would it be wise? What would you stop time for?

I would stop time for two things. Concerts and a lover.

The lover might be more understandable and accepted, so I’ll start there.

Laying in bed with the sunlight streaming in your window on a Sunday morning after a long night of lovemaking… Tell me you don’t want to stop time?

…If it were only so easy to stop time or bottle it… To sell it would be more precious than gold.

The concerts? When I’m at a concert and I look up into the lights (usually when they’re blue) I want to stop time, embrace and memorize the situation and never leave. It’s those moments that make me miss performing so much.

So what would you stop time for? If you could. How long before you would start it back up again? If ever.

[image courtesy google.com/images]

I notice the things that so few do.
I go about my daily life in a plethora of emotions because I can honestly almost feel what others do. I call it extra empathy, in reality, I have no idea if there is a name for it.
I know that there are so many people that are perceived incorrectly by society.
They are thought golden, untouchable, happy, simply because they hide behind a facade. A mask of smiles, though it never truly reaches their eyes. You never see their soul, because it’s dark.
I know that look because I have that look.
That “empty, longing, soul searching, I’m never going to be fixed, but I wish I had someone that could relate, and accept me no matter how many neuroses I may have” look.
Sometimes, it isn’t a matter of being fixed, but merely, of having someone hold your hand in the dark, and walk quietly alongside you, to quiet the shadows, if only a bit.
Sometimes, we just want someone to hear what we aren’t saying, but we’re silently screaming.
I think Charles C. Finn can sum it up better than I can, so I’ll let him:

“Please Hear What I Am Not Saying”

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I’m afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,
but don’t be fooled,
for God’s sake don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water’s calm and I’m in command
and that I need no one,
but don’t believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,
if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It’s the only thing that will assure me
of what I can’t assure myself,
that I’m really worth something.
But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I’m afraid you’ll think less of me,
that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s really nothing,
and nothing of what’s everything,
of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I’m saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying,
what I’d like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can’t say.

I don’t like hiding.
I don’t like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you’ve got to help me.
You’ve got to hold out your hand
even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings–
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator–an honest-to-God creator–
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

If you feel this way, even if you never contact me, understand, that when nobody else does, I hear what you’re not saying, and I see YOU, not your mask. I try not to pry, but oftentimes I can’t help what I see without looking.

For everyone else? Please, do everyone a favor, never place anyone on a pedestal. We are merely human, no matter how pretty and golden we are, we are not made of marble, we cannot sit still for an eternity, and we will fall.
The higher the pedestal, the harder the fall.
Remember that the one hurting, may atypically be you, but genuinely wounded will be the one you chose to deify.