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July 10, 2017August 22, 2017

Do Kids See What We Wish We Could See?

A few weeks back, my four year old daughter Salem was still awake and chattering away in her bedroom, despite being in bed for over an hour.

When I went in to give her a cuddle and ask why she was still awake, she whispered to me, “She’s here.”

“Who’s here?” I asked.

“The girl.”

I pulled away a little and looked at Salem, who was looking intently behind my shoulder. “What girl?”

“The girl in the corner.”

I looked behind me to the corner of Salem’s room, where there was a little bit of shadow, but couldn’t see anything. I looked back at Salem, who smiled at me and said, “She’s gone now.”

To say I was a little freaked out is understating it. It probably didn’t help that I had recently watched The Conjuring, where a family has a not-so-pleasant experience with spirits in their new home.

It’s not the first time that Salem has had “conversations” in her room that we can hear through the monitor. Usually we just put it down to her telling herself stories to fall asleep, but after that recent “the girl” exchange, I’m not so sure.

Seems I’m not alone, either…

The Vision Only Kids Have?

When I shared this story on Facebook, many of my friends left examples of their own kids.

CREEPY! But probably true. Lauren used to wave and laugh at someone in the corner of her room when she was a baby. She also knew my dead father’s name when she was only 2 years old…also super creepy!

I used to volunteer at a daycare. One of the girls named her boy doll “Mushu” – which is kind of an odd, Asian name, right? So her mom asked her why she named him so, and the girl said “He told me.”

My son also had “a friend” growing up. He talked about him often and one night while checking on him before bed I saw him in the corner of the room watching over him. We even had to have a chair at the dinner table for him.

The overarching connection between each example is that they all refer to children, and not adults.

In addition to those, another friend suggested the reason for this.

Some children are more sensitive than others. Spirits know when people can see them and are drawn to those people.

Which made me wonder if the innocence of young children allow spirits to be seen as physical beings, and we lose that as we grow into adults and see life in a different way?

The Time I Saw a UFO

I think I believe in ghosts, or whatever spirits are, or the friends that my daughter and the kids in the examples above talk to. I’m not 100% sure, but there’s too much to discard completely.

Do all kids simply have imaginary conversations, or are there spirits of kids that died early that roam the earth looking for friends to keep them company?

Do all kids find a storytelling gift early, and it’s only when they go to school and are taught that it’s “bad” to use your imagination that they lose the will to converse with someone that isn’t there?

Are our beliefs and imagination shaped by adults that don’t remember their own childhood?Click To Tweet

The reason I’m not sold on the belief that ghosts don’t exist is that many people claim that there’s no such thing as UFO’s – and yet I clearly saw one when I was a teenager in Scotland.

My sister and I were coming home from a movie, and something caught my eye. I looked up, and there was a light traveling at crazy speed, in three different directions in about the same amount of seconds.

The light stopped, hovered, rose, and then dropped. Then it scuttled one way, then another. It took one final swoop, for about five seconds, then shot up into the air beyond the clouds.

I looked at my sister, who was nine at the time, and she said that was the coolest thing she’s ever seen. To this day, I believe we both saw a UFO.

So if I saw something that so many adults say doesn’t exist, doesn’t it stand to reason our kids see things we say don’t exist?

The Things We Wish We Saw

I don’t know.

I do know that I’m extremely jealous of my little girl, if she has a ghost for a friend. How cool would that be? As long as it’s like Casper and not Chucky…

While I don’t recall our son Ewan having the same experience, my wife recalls him also having conversations, but the cats we used to have kept the ghosts at bay (seemingly cats are very good at this kind of thing, as shared by others on that same Facebook thread).

As an adult, it’d be nice to have something whimsical, or imaginary, but that’s also real to believe in.

The world is a cruel, cold place at times. It’d be nice to be able to see old friends no longer here, or loved ones long since passed.

But perhaps the realities of the world have made it too late for us to go back to that.

It reminds me of the scene in the Christmas movie, The Polar Express. The main character, a little boy who refound his belief in Santa Claus after an adventure to the North Pole, is given one of the bells from Santa’s sleigh.

On Christmas Day, only the boy and his little sister can hear the chime when they shake the bell. His parents can’t. As the voiceover of the boy-now-an-adult shares, even his sister lost the ability to hear the bell as she got older.

Not him, though – because he’d seen with his own eyes, and he believed.

Perhaps we’ve lost the ability to see beyond our eyes, and believe that which we no longer do. If so, that’s a shame.

Then again, we could always let our kids show us the way again…

original: Pure Blogging

June 17, 2017August 22, 2017

Hope Comes From the Inside

When I was 28, my childhood friend and former roommate died from a drugs overdose. He was just 27.

It didn’t surprise me that he was gone. Perhaps, subconsciously, I was surprised he’d lasted so long.

Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell. It did. It broke me.

We always think that being prepared for someone’s death makes it a little easier. That the suddenness feels less sudden.

Whoever came up with that piece of wisdom was a fucking liar.

Or idiot. Maybe both.

When Jamie died, knowing that he’d been taken by the thing that had consumed him for most of his adult life didn’t make it easier.

Didn’t make it less sudden.

It simply reinforced the tragedy of a life that could have been so much more.

We Never Set Out to Fall

Jamie and I went to school together. Not just high school, but primary school too (early grade school in North America).

That meant the best part of 10 years in each other’s company as kids. A lot of time to build a great friendship.

After school, I went on to University, and Jamie joined the army. Did three tours, and came out a wiser and more thoughtful man.

But he also came out a very different man.

He served in the first Gulf War, and I truly believe that experience took away a large part of his belief in the world not being as bad a place as we all know it can be.

While he never talked specifics, it was clear Jamie had seen some horrific things. And not just committed by “the enemy”.

When he came out the army, he initially struggled to adjust to civilian life. As he sought to get back into the workplace, I offered him the spare room in the flat I was renting at the time.

Those seven months were almost like being back in high school.

We drank, brought girls home, played video games, and – like most young people – experimented with drugs.

Nothing too hard at first. But it wasn’t too long before we tried some coke and ecstasy.

While I won’t deny the experience was enjoyable, it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. So I stopped the drugs, and suggested Jamie might want to cut back too.

I didn’t want to tell him to stop – he was a grown man. And the drugs helped him forget the war. So who was I to stop him?

But I did worry he was getting too involved.

I wish that you could see,
This face in front of me,
You’re sorry you swear it you’re done,
But I can’t tell you from the drugs.

He shrugged it off, laughing that he was in control, and that he could stop at any time.

Except he didn’t.

And it impacted our friendship.

He decided to leave the flat, and go live with an old girlfriend from high school, who’d gotten her parents’ house after they died in an accident abroad.

As he was leaving, I hugged him, and asked that he get help. Or, at the very least, not fall any further than he had.

He looked at me, and smiled. “We never set out to fall, Danny. We just do. I can’t promise you I won’t – but I promise I’ll get back up.”

With that, he hugged me, and walked away to the new chapter in his life.

Turns out it was to be the final one.

Hope Comes From Inside

That was the last I saw of Jamie. I moved to England to work, and my visits home were infrequent for the first couple of years.

Jamie moved again – turns out old girlfriends aren’t too keen on junkies selling their dead parents’ valuables to fund buying the next fix.

We lost touch, and life went on the way it always does when you see people less.

Four years later, I got a phone call on a wet Sunday afternoon. It was Jamie’s sister, Lisa. I almost knew what she was going to say before her words dropped me to the floor.

“He’s dead, Danny. Jamie’s dead.”

Numbness is a weird sensation. They say that it kicks in to stop pain from overcoming. Or for emotions to remain in check.

I don’t know if that’s what I felt when Lisa hung up the phone, but one thing I do know – numbness definitely doesn’t stop pain.

Doesn’t change the cold, horrible truth.

He’s dead, Danny. Jamie’s dead.

Three days later, I was at the side of a grave in Glasgow. Myself and the minister included, there were only six of us standing around the hole in the ground.

One of them was our old English teacher, Mr. Cummings. It was nice to see him there – he was always one of Jamie’s favourites.

Lisa and her mum were there, as well as someone I didn’t recognize. Turns out it was Jamie’s counselor. He’d finally gotten round to seeking help for his drugs, but succumbed before he could get it.

So fucking typical of you, I thought to myself when I learned this.

After the ceremony, the five of us – Lisa, Jamie’s mum, the counselor, Mr. Cummings and me – retired to a local bar, and shared stories of what Jamie had meant to us.

We all felt we were to blame. That we’d let Jamie down.

It was Jamie’s mother who spoke to try and ease our guilts.

“Jamie wouldn’t want you – want us – to feel responsible. Every one of us tried. God knows, I tried more than any mother might think is enough. But it wasn’t to be. It never would have been.

“My laddie was never the same after Iraq. I’m not blaming the war; I’m just saying he came back a different person than he went. He simply lost hope about the things he thought was right.

“So, mourn him, but don’t feel responsible for him. He once said to me, ‘Ma, you need hope to live life, and that hope comes from the inside. My hope is long gone – but that doesn’t mean it won’t come back. It will for me – just you watch.’”

Her words tapered off, and Lisa hugged her tight.

We sat another hour or so. Laughing, crying, sometimes just sitting in silence and wistfully looking nowhere in particular.

Then we hugged, and went our separate ways.

Where the Sunshine Slows

I was reminded of Jamie the other night, when I was flicking through YouTube and caught a performance of Drugs or Me, by Jimmy Eat World.

They’ve been one of my favourite bands ever since their second album Clarity, and they remain so today.

As I listened to the lyrics, it brought everything about Jamie back.

His smile. His friendship. His infectious laughter. Him.

As the memories mixed with tears, the song came to an end. And, much like Jamie’s life, it was a perfect close.

Keep my heart,
Somewhere drugs don’t go,
Where the sunshine slows,
Always keep me close.

Jamie’s gone and, despite his mum’s words, I’ll always feel that I let him down.

Letting him walk out the flat we roomed together instead of making him stay and helping him fight the fight he didn’t want to have.

Maybe I could have helped. Maybe not.

Others who have lost friends and loved ones to addiction say blame is a natural emotion, and one we’ll always feel.

Doesn’t mean it’s right. Usually it’s not. But it remains natural to blame ourselves.

The truth is, Jamie lost hope. When we lose that, there’s little anyone can do to make things better.

What we can do is keep their memory alive, and remember the parts of their lives that weren’t tainted by the broken parts.

Somewhere where the sunshine slows, and we keep them close.