Trauma is very powerful, can do a lot of things physically and emotionally. Not to mention even greater things such as spread in multiple dimensions with ease.
I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for trauma, so it can be bipolar like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - acting as a blessing and resource or seen as a monster, demon or a curse. Trauma can be a teacher and a reaper, as we found out again today at the University of Virginia. I never imagined such a horrrible act hitting so close to my heart, but will have to think on that one for a while before saying too much. But certainly trauma is at the heart of it all yet again. About 22-year old Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., he experienced trauma as a youth with the divorce of his parents and being misunderstood often by his peers at school. This created internal confusion which was as fits of anger. Yet he turned that trauma into a constructive outlet, with a promising future as an athlete, earning a place on the UVA football team. He wasn’t going pro as a walk-on, but that constructive use of aggression put him in position to write a great life, escape a difficult past. And according to certain news outlets today Mr. Jones had overcome those adolescent challenges, used trauma as a strengthening agent and was thought to be flourishing. [Headline since retracted from The Washington Post after significant backlash]
Flourishing - That is a difficult word to see describing a killer, extinguishing three promising lives that will never live up to their potential, will never have the chance to flourish. Perhaps he was hiding it so well as many of us do, appearing to flourish while the anger boiled hotter inside him. Today Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. took whatever trauma was eating at him and spread it to countless others like a plague, a virus. I grieve for the families of the shooting in Charlottesville VA today, such a special place generally speaking, and for me personally, this is a horrible tragedy and the trauma will leave broad, deep scars.
I wish I was reading the headline this morning that 3 UVA football players (Wide Receiver Lavel Davis Jr., Wide Receiver Devin Chandler and Linebacker/Defensive End D'Sean Perry) have been suspended for Saturday’s game due to their involvement in a scuffle outside their dorm on Sunday night. Maybe one player breaks his hand or something. The players were in a heated argument with an after returning from a field trip, a former UVA football player was involved and also detained. But instead, we have a gun and that can magnify the moment immensely. I don’t know what it will take for people to realize guns are a problem – not the only problem, but from the escalation angle, the impact angle, guns are a big problem. Guns enable a bad situation and poor judgement in the moment to become a tragic and catastrophic life-altering, life-ending one.
“We lost three talented and bright young men,” Williams said. [UVA athletic director Carla Williams] “We will never see what their impact on the world would have been, but we will never forget their impact on us. I miss Lavel, D’Sean and Devin. I pray for peace, comfort and hope for their parents and loved ones.”
How can we be so cavalier about guns in the US? What will it take? Why do we continue to ignore this?
Before the news today of the killings at UVA, I’d say I was doing ok. Generally, I’ve been feeling much better. I’m more medicated (up to 2 different serotonin/dopamine stabilizers now and back on my cholesterol medicine), I’m back with therapy regularly, and things have settled down around me. Moved, unpacked a lot of old baggage from deep in storage physically and mentally. And most of the time I feel pretty good, far from flourishing, there are still regular outbursts, losses of patience and will to move ahead, and a recent visit from family was quite a stress on the system. There were dicey moments, but we all smiled through. And even through those stresses some good juice has been produced, just like the stresses grapes need before they are squeezed and fermented. Well, it is harvest season in Paso Robles CA, many vineyards just finishing up for the year, and I’ve harvested some additional knowledge and wisdom too, hoping to put it down in the barrel for a while now and that it will pay off for me in the future some years ahead. Salud! Now I go back a few days to last week:
The playwright and author Arthur Miller, I knew him back in school from reading The Crucible. Only a faint memory of that one, I will revisit it, or at least pencil it into my books to look into list. But not before finishing The Death of a Salesman, of which I read about half of in the wee hours this morning. Very odd how I got to that, but we will make the connections shortly. What struck me in Miller’s Death of a Salesman was Willy Loman’s character. How can you read a mirror, how do you see your reflection so clearly in the muddied rough waters of painful tragedies, narratives such as this? Well, I sure do or did when reading Miller’s themes and Willy Lo’s schemes.
Starting with the scheme of a planned suicide where Willy saw a double win, I can see that one. Ending his own suffering while providing the platform for his family’s future success and freedom (making his death appear as an accident, the insurance money would help his son Biff start a business and find success.) And through Willy’s selfish act, a failure of a life would be convolutedly reprieved. Willy would finally derive worth and value from his life in death, eclipsing his shortcomings and failures. Finally free from his internal demons and the anguish of a further muddling existence. Then there were the more specific mental struggles, living in an alternate reality, the chemical imbalances, moral failures and unwavering wife (Linda), all of which struck a cord with me. If we aren’t careful we surely can be consumed by illusions, false narratives that eclipse reality – finally unable to face true reality, unable to escape any longer. And it’s amazing how one person can impact another, be just the antidote to an incurable silent killer.
I’ve needed to get back to writing and reflection as I’ve let that go to the background over the last 2 months and taking away just one component of therapy and healing has a significant negative impact. I need to write, do something with my thoughts spinning out of control and incessantly churning in my head. I can’t take a step forward only to take 3 steps back because I am easily distracted any longer. Time to keep moving on and moving forward. I need to sell myself again on progression and remission or I may fall back into the Loman cloud. So here I was, typing feverishly over morning coffee and then a lunch break at work. This is all follow-on from my horrific morning wake-up call yesterday on November 8th, 2022. The blood moon, full lunar eclipse we experienced wasn’t the only terror present at 5am. I awakened not to the red hue of the moon out our window, but to what felt like bloody terror from a great white shark attacking my right leg, ripping into my calf. Yet it was just a cramp, probably from lack of hydration and the excess of wine from the prior night. That wine being self-prescribed to medicate myself to get through the evening with my parents and in-laws conflict-free. And then quickly, as my leg throbbed, I elevated, stretched it out and the blood all went to my head. Soon the spasm eased and my attention swung to the thoughts pulsing in my head, ears ringing like a church bell on Sunday morning.
Surprisingly, I had thoughts of my grandfather, seeing the vintage picture my mom showed the previous day of her, my grandma and him a few years before I was born. I say surprisingly because I never met my grandfather, never heard any stories of or about him, yet now I want to learn more and more and more, like a true addict, after 42 years of not giving him much of a thought or asking a single question. Heck I knew he liked smoking cigars and working on cars, was in the Air Force, and left in an unexpected flash from this world (something I truly coveted for many years).
Odd isn’t it how infrequently yet powerfully forces of nature like the earth, moon and sun line up, in this case literally as an eclipse, blinding some things in the shadows and creating new light from the inescapable darkness, only to return back to quickly revert back to a more familiar state as if nothing happened. Kind of like this visit from my mom and stepdad (coming up to see our new home and the Boston area), which has imparted significant wisdom and a further inquisitive nature in me. Now they are gone, back to Hampton VA, but I continue my process of learning, reflecting, becoming more and more present. Shining light on past darkness and putting illusions to bed.
That picture from my mom, of a man I never met but somehow feel I know quite well just from intuition or gut feel. I feel the stories of him hardly match the reality, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in our cases. I know my grandfather created a lot of good but also quite a bit of pain and harm in his years and beyond - gone some 44 years now but his impact still felt. I am sure he was the nicest son-of-a-bitch asshole you could ever meet, if you aren’t fortunate enough to meet me. And I didn’t even ask who the fourth person in the photo is – maybe its my dad, another guy I’ve never really thought about or truly met. I only used him as a vehicle to drive me, fuel me through hate and anger for most of my life, so I understand that playbook.
Well back to my grandfather, the bald guy to the far left of the picture (followed by my grandmother, mother and someone else). I wanted to know more about him so I started at the end. I first consulted my hometown paper and The Daily Press archives from April 17, 1978 gives us this intro to his obituary (you can tell how committed I am to learn based on the fact that I paid for the newspaper archives subscription, and I am cheap cheap cheap). Well the obituary said this:
Eldred C. Jones of 9 Westphal Drive, Hampton, died Sunday at 635-26th St. Newport News.
Before reading much further I had an infinite number of racing thoughts, questions in search of answers like a furious Plott hound chasing a squirrel up a tree and calling out with a fire-engine howl of accomplishment. Making assumptions I was, making a big ass out of you and me, all of us. That’s what always happens when we A-S-S-U-M-E.
And from discussing his death with my mom, I see a very unfortunate health-related sign here:
Your grandfather passed away suddenly from a heart attack - I had taken him to the hospital a few days earlier, but he was sent home - he had taken his nitroglycerine so they could not detect any issues. I thought he was alright. I did not have my license yet and drove him using my learner’s permit. I was very nervous about driving him, but I did alright. So you need to keep the weight off (failing that) and watch your cholesterol and blood pressure (C+ there).
[How tough must that be, of course on top of a huge mountain of tough to being with when thinking about losing your father unexpectedly, for my mom knowing she took him to the hospital to be checked on a few days prior to his death. I would have burned that hospital down and gone after that doctor, or at least held such a horrible grudge that I might never recover.]
The Daily Press obit goes on to say Eldred or E.C. as he apparently went by, worked for the United Insurance Co. for 10 years after retiring from the Air Force after 21 years of service. That brought an oh yeah I knew that, which I hadn’t unpacked from deep in my brain. E.C. was a door-to-door insurance salesman come to find out. All this time I forgot that detail which I surely knew. So here we are talking about the death of a salesman, getting mixed up with the non-fiction of Willy Loman and the reality of E.C. Jones and family. And how that door-to-door salesman detail and the mix-ups and assumptions of others were beating around in my sloshy head, no wonder I woke up with a pounding headache and ears ringing yesterday morning.
The obituary very plainly said he died, with no further explanation or context other than being followed by a mystery address. All I knew is he died suddenly and unexpectedly, and he had heart problems, which along with trauma surely passed down along with the high cholesterol from my grandma’s side. On the day my grandfather died, my mom and grandma got a call out of the blue that he had died a few hours after going to work and they were traumatized. Other details I didn’t know until now. That part about dying on the job may line up pretty well with this obit, but I had the scenery all wrong. And after going to work now I am a bit skeptical – he died on a Sunday. Maybe that’s what we all wanted to believe, or what we wanted to project. What was he escaping from?
From my mom again:
I remember that my mother said that the police had called and asked her to come downtown to the police department in Newport News. I don’t know how but we found it- my mother drove. We were taken to an office or area- I don’t remember where exactly or whom we talked to but I remember that they said my father was dead. They asked mother if she recognized the address where he died - of course she did not- but he was an insurance agent operating in that area.
What I thought was that my grandfather died at work and that meant at Langley Air Force Base, but as mentioned by our Daily Press, he retired as a Chief Warrant Officer 10 years prior. In my mind, one minute he’s working on some mundane government paperwork and the next his head hits the desk mid-sentence. Or maybe he collapsed walking down the hall in his shiny uniform, dropped his briefcase or a stack of papers, I wasn’t sure, but that was the visual. Again, how wrong I was all these years (don’t assume; why wonder when you can know – powerful advice), yet all I did was create my own reality or story, illusion as I have done so many other times, and just as Willy Loman had done. A false reality. And now, just as I read his obituary, the visual of him slouched at his desk on the Air Force base was replaced with him collapsing on the living room floor of a stranger’s home while pitching them to buy more life insurance, for which he didn’t have himself, and he keeled over and died on the spot, how ironic. That must have been traumatic for the family in that home not to mention our family.
Yet, something didn’t quite add up and the uneasy amped feeling I know all too well when I go to dark places was unrelenting. So I dove in and thought deeper yesterday over lunch. April 16, 1978 was a Sunday, what was my grandfather doing at a home in Newport News VA – there’s NO WAY he was selling somebody insurance on a Sunday back then? Ok, so there’s two addresses in that obit, the home I was born in and grew up until the age of 7 (9 Westphal Dr. Hampton) and another one I have no idea about whatsoever (635-26th St. Newport News, assumed to be the home he was visiting or selling insurance at).
But I needed to know more about that spot 635-26th St - what was that spot, and what was he doing in that spot? Really, was he selling insurance on a Sunday morning in the middle of Newport News? Did my grandmother know that address, did she keep quiet for good reason in her mind as she often did on many other occasions? What else was happening on April 17, 1978 in Newport News at that home?
E.C. lived in the 757 for his last 13 years, which is the area code for the Virginia Peninsula comprising of Hampton and Newport News. So living in Hampton, what was E.C. doing across town in Newport ‘Bad’ News on a Sunday? There really isn’t a good spot in Bad News, but this spot on 26th St. looked like a wart on a wart in 1978 from what I can tell. Granted there is a newer home built there since 2000, and actually it looks pretty nice, newly renovated and now under contract for $299k.
Ok so I diverge again. All I knew of Sundays in the 757 was going to church on the Air Force base with my grandmother base hung-over as hell and then getting a slice of greasy pizza for lunch. On a good Sunday, we’d also go shopping at the Base Exchange (no tax, great deals) before my grandmother or Nanny would fill up my gas tank and send me on my way with a $20 that I used to go get stunk (stoned and/or drunk). Why wasn’t my grandfather at church and then spending the afternoon with his wife and daughter? For it was a pretty nice mid-50s day with light winds, no rain.
Ok so I diverge again, again. Back to E.C. circa 1978. So I don’t know for sure if my grandfather was working or not, but I have a hunch. No, more than a hunch - I don’t think he wasn’t ‘working’ and I also know ironically, that he didn’t have life insurance himself – so how good could he be at selling it to someone else? And I wish I thought he was working, nose to the grindstone, or helping out a friend or doing something productive, but ah it doesn’t feel that way. And he didn’t fancy me as a hard worker either, maybe efficient and slick but not diligent to be working on a Sunday. I had seen his basement man cave and small shop at my grandmother’s house. And from one look at that picture my mom showed, I find myself thinking maybe he was doing some other kind of work – working on a cocktail or 10, working on a blunt, working on his girlfriend, working on a card game and getting cleaned out. Or watching the game at his bookie’s house after laying a cool hundo on the Phillies only to see them get no-hit by Bob Forsch and the Cardinals, taking a 5-0 blanking when there was no way the Phillies could lose. Another bet, another loss only to be chased with another bigger loss, yet this time he felt something tweaked in his left side like a shark took a bite out of his side. And that was it, his heart stopped, his life eclipsed by death. Generational trauma ensued, for my grandmother and mom both, and myself through further inheritance and transmission – environmentally, emotionally and genetically. My grandfather, my grandmother and my mom all essentially died that April day. I would wager a fair amount that both my mom and grandmother would say without hesitation that all life and joy ended on April 16, 1978 (day and year 0 E.C. – like B.C. and another dark age, another plague). My mom says she lost her safety blanket that day, lost her feeling of normalcy, lost her understanding of the world. And a year and a half later I was born to a confused 17 yr old girl trying to find her way and another security blanket. She forgoed college, she was blanketed by a fog living in an illusion or alternate reality. She likely used a blanket just like so many large sweaters and sweatshirts to conceal me during her pregnancy, for nobody knew she was pregnant until the day I was delivered in her bedroom upstairs in my grandmother’s house. That must have been traumatic for her, my grandmother, for everyone. But we will come back to that one just like the UVA trauma. No more of those dramas for today.
But we have to get out of the dark ages and defeat the dark side. Only a fool trips over what's behind him. But only a greater fool ignores the lessons that life teaches. So lets go back to the bright side, pull back from destruction and evil – let’s assume my grandfather Eldred, a good man, hard-working, honest family man, was out there with his nose to the grindstone trying with all his might to make his numbers, to sell another life insurance policy on that fateful Sunday. But try as he might, he had a weak ticker (not from all those stogies and booze, but genetically pre-dispositioned for coronary failure and it finally caught up with him). Alas, what kind of generational trauma did he cause to the family he was pitching when he collapsed – I would give anything to find out more about this. Wait, now we are going dark again – step back into the light, the bright side. OR, did he in a twisted way, help that seemingly unlucky family with his abrupt and shocking death at their feet. Perhaps this was the seminal event where they realize life is precious, and short, meant to be lived and loved to the fullest every moment. Or that they did in fact need a life insurance policy to ensure their loved ones were cared for financially when their mortal lives are eclipsed? That is an interesting tangent to learn about for another day.
Or was his ‘dying at work’ that day just too convenient. But in either case, the trauma is certain and thick. Sticky and many like the tentacles of an octopus.
Well what I know now, after consult with my godfather, the only lucid source of truth who was around and close to my family in 1978, is that my grandfather was in fact likely in the shadows that day he died. And it makes me feel more motivated to not fall into that same trap, and continue to fight my demons, slaying them and taking another path. I need to continue bulldozing my past and taking myself down to the studs, building a new structure of myself just as they did at 635-26th St. in 2000. And from the looks of it, they just renovated the home again, something I will continue to do to stay fresh, sharp and clean.
As I was reading Arthur C. Miller’s Death of a Salesman, I also read more about the man behind the screenplay. Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe among two other wives in the 89 years he lived. Of course I thought about Monroe’s untimely self-inflicted death, but something else that struck me was a quote of hers:
I have to tell myself over and over again, there are no monsters in my head or over my shoulder, hiding in the shadows.
Marilyn was never successful in taking her own advice, listening to a voice of reason. I hope to be different.
Nobody is out to get me, plotting against me, and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone other than myself, my greatest critic and my wife, my biggest fan and steadfast partner. And its time I start to prove the positives to her. No longer will I joke about my accidental untimely death just before the age of 50 in order to maximize her insurance payoff, no longer will I examine every situation and place for its ability to serve my purpose of ending my life in accidental fashion, a suicidal cover-up. I’m no Willy Loman. I’m no E.C. Jones either.
And I have work to do – overcoming the lack of ability to communicate my true feelings to another, to mask my true state, to ignore the elephants in the room, to create illusions and false narratives, to manipulate and create victims out of monsters and monsters out of heroes and angels. Those things learned and passed along must be broken and eclipsed by light at some point.
About my self-inflicted and illusionary curse, the curse I must diffuse:
I always looked at my life as entropy, even before I knew what the term meant. I saw myself as a faulty, cursed, destructive, one-way negative force that only increases over time. A demon that grows stronger every moment, able to hurt you more and more with every passing second. As a chemical engineer in college, I formally learned the concept of entropy in thermodynamics. I latched onto that as a scientific explanation and single truth for my master of disaster nature, living under a growing black cloud my entire life. And in that sense, the longer I lived, the larger the cloud and scope of my destruction would grow, so I was always worth more if I were dead. I would free myself from the destructive intrusive thoughts that created a false negative reality, and I would free everyone around me from further collateral damage. I could lift the fog and lift the curse by ending my life, and I could cleverly create a financial windfall for my wife at the same time, paying her back of all the tangible and emotional anguish and pain, loss I caused her. Furthermore, knowing she would never leave or lose faith in me, I had to take action on my own. While never has anything significant or significantly positive been done alone, I was bull-headedly going to dispel that thought.
April 17th, 1978 a waxing gibbous moon, just like the one on November 30, 1979 the night I was born.
When I woke up yesterday morning with that calf cramp I thought a shark was attacking me, but there was nothing or no one out to get me. Just my thoughts. Just as I had mistaken so many times prior in my life, nobody was attacking me, other than me, and I should just get up and move forward, erase the illusions and narratives in my head. My only enemy is me, and I can eclipse my past.