.
What Do I Do?

I asked my wife to hold me as I wept harsh tears on two different occasions yesterday. I feel so sad, so lost, so without hope at times. I do, however, continue to pray to God and ask for His help.

I went to the inner city parish again this Saturday for Mass. The message was about doubting Thomas. As it always does, the fears and worries of me being "Thomas" came through loud and clear. However there was hope to the message as the priest spoke his Homily and it helped me feel calm for a while.

Yesterday's second torrent of tears is what I shall try to encapsulate for you here. My wife was flipping through the various channels on the television and stumbled across the tail end of a romantic comedy that I have seen previously but cannot recall the title of. It was a newer film, having Drew Barrymore playing the character of a woman who suffered a brain injury that resulted in her forgetting everything each night when she went to bed. The gist of the story was that this fellow (Adam Sandler, I think is his name) falls in love with her and they struggle on how to have a relationship. Each morning Miss Barrymore's character awakens with no knowledge of people she met. Well, here is the important part for me... as you may know from seeing the movie or from watching romantic comedies in general, there was a wonderfully designed happy ending to the film. I will not spoil it for others who may not have yet seen the film.

When the details of the happy ending unfolded over a period of 10 or so minutes, it was then that the tears started to fall and the sobs started taking over my body. I used to think that life was all about searching for the good, trying to create good and happiness for others in life. That by doing this, one could find joy and contentment. I used to believe that so fervently (recall my Don Quixote posts). Now the glaring harshness of reality has set in and all I see is a slow walk towards death. Nothing I do, say, or feel has any bearing on anything. I wept for that loss of spirit I had, I sobbed for no longer being a "Don Quixote", I cried out in pain from the fear I had. A fear so deep and so intense that it paralyzes me into wanting to do nothing but sleep or sit doing nothing.

I cried because I missed who I was... who I used to be. I do not know who I am now, nor what I should do.

It is very debilitating. It is an enormous weight on my body, mind, and spirit. I think of the unending path of death that I have watched in my life as one by one those that I love die before me. I am on the same journey as are we all. It is so harsh, so brutal, so desolate.

I pray to God to help me find a way out of this pit of despair, to find a way to feel joy. I wish to forget, or push aside the truth of the march toward death and ignore it like I used to be able to do.

PipeTobacco