i'm feeling grief and i don't like it. yet i'm afraid to push it completely away (as if i could). perhaps to do that would make me lose every sensation. people do go catatonic as a result. and then, what is left? merely a frozen set of memories, not even accurate ones. i'd walk around like the homeless beggar i've always been afraid to become. hey, this is america, the free-fall society, everyone fears for their survival, that terror only a pay-check away.
no question, when i truly bond with a person, he/she becomes part of my body. they hurt, i hurt. visiting friends the day after they'd lost their child, i could be numb, in shock, able to do my best to comfort without trying to submit a cure. the loss is a permanent pain that never goes away. one friend felt so guilty for his son's death, he wished to die, until he gave himself diabetes and pricks his thumb for blood every day. now i keep remembering.
i strongly suspect i never became a parent to avoid this kind of damage. a man and a woman join together to create an extension of their own nervous system which they cannot control. and since this is a society both of individuality and a belief in freedom, eventually they have to kick the fledglings out of the nest. humans and birds, birds of a feather, how i'd like to separate from the vulnerable body. unfortunately, i've never had a passion for video games and virtual reality. like Samuel johnson kicking a rock, 'this is not an illusion. it hurts!'
yes, i stubbed my toe at the lookout twenty years ago and that appendage never the same. a girlfriend whacked me on the left ear forty-years ago and i still hear ringing. by having children i would have doubled and trebled the possibilities of injury. kids remain part of the mother and father's body, no matter how far they are away. and if one dies before they do, it puts all of the natural order out of joint. the terrible pain feels as bad as though it had happened to them. and the mourning lasts long, since they've a huge network and blood flowing over invisible veins shattered, the wound slow to heal and leaving a huge scar.
here's a bit of suzanne's story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/07/BA7B1OEETL.DTL
and pictures of her with her older sister daphne: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3838057959272.164885.1512702870&type=1
