Moving On - Children of the Children of God

Ricky,

I tried to write a poem expressing how much you have affected my life, how you remain with me, now even more present than when you were here. It was trite. I had words that have been used too many times. Still, I find parts of you in my thoughts, whirlwinds of memories sweeping into my head unexpectedly, like leaves blowing in through my open door on a quiet afternoon. I have to put these things into words because words are what I know.

I want to talk to you, to ask you so many things, Ricky.

You wanted to make a difference in life, as we all did, and found you had to ally with death to really do so. Where are you now? Is it quiet there? Do you see my bewildered state, wishing you had stayed a little longer to tie up lose ends? Do you know how much you mean to me--to all of us--and does that make you feel everything has been worth it? Not just the final acts, but your whole life.

When I hear footsteps behind me, turn to look and find no one there, is that you following behind in your gentle way? Do you live under the stars—or over the stars—or in a star? Or have you become something I could never understand so you will not tell me.

If you remain as you were, in another plane, but still yourself, beside me, walking through me, floating above me, touching my cheek and crying with me for your own reasons, I hope it doesn’t hurt. You shouldn’t have to hurt anymore, or feel remorse, or the weight of the burden that came with a body and the life you led. If you can see ahead and know what I do not, will you try to get through to me? Will you smash against the walls, break all the metaphysical rules, and use all the energy you have to move me in the right direction?

You might sit quietly in a place where you can watch the ones you loved, only observing, powerless to assist, as you were in life. That would torment you to be powerless in death, because you gave up life when you felt the only way to have any power was to die. Yet, maybe where you are now, you see but do not care.--Like being on Xanax or Heroin, your eyes could be glazed over and your hearing muted and it would be just as well.

I have no way to know what might have been, but I can see the changes taking place because you took drastic measures and things are going your way.

I’m not sure if your death makes it harder or easier for me to consider believing in a god again. I haven’t decided yet. If there is a god or an afterlife that would punish you, I would want no part of it, and if I ever had a favor to play, I’d rescue you and give you everything you wished for in life, starting with a private beach. If you walk with the angels, may you have a peace that passes our understanding and goes into the realm of something undiscovered and unimaginable.

You have broken all of our hearts though; you have reminded us what it is to give up everything for a cause you believe in, to give your life for a purpose, or simply to romanticize pain and give in to pure instinct. Just when time had numbed the nerve endings enough for me to feign normalicy, you tore open the wounds and brought blood to the surface; I know it hurt you to care, it hurt you to death.

Even if righteous vengeance became confused with your personal darkness, your vision was realized and we are fighting again, for justice, for the future of all the younger ones, and yes, for ourselves. I don’t see the fire dying down; we are feeding it furiously, as we feed each other now, with heart. Remembering is very difficult, as you well knew, but we will never forget now--you have made sure of that. You will never be forgotten. In death you achieved what you senced was your destiny; a destiny you seemed to have lived out in a most peculiar way. Things didn’t turn out the way we all thought they would when we were little, but we were little then, and we were naïve.

We wish you peace forever, if that is what you want. If you are here, making the best of your new existence, we will feel you and you will be a part of us. But if you are indeed gone, just gone, all gone, and there is no part of you, no thought, no energy, no dust of consciousness that settles on in some invisible place, that is just to awful to imagine. It is why the ancients invented “the great spirit”. It keeps our loved ones alive, where without such a concept, they are likely gone forever; dust to dust. There is no waste in that, but there is terrible sadness.

Ricky, your life mattered; your death mattered as a catalyst for good things to happen and wrongs to be righted. We love you, your memory, and your kindness. You will live on in us.