The Enchanter's Theorem

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the day my father died, fourteen years ago today.

Fourteen.

It feels more like four days today. Like I just saw him yesterday and if I turn fast enough or around the right corner, I'll find him standing there, grinning at me like a loon.

I miss my father so much today.

There's nothing new to say or for me to tell you about my father. If you track either the Hugh M. Hyatt tag or the Poppa Bear tag here on my LJ, you will find my memories of him. Stories that I've kept alive as best as I can, because it's all that I have left of him. The things he touched and the things he made are not him. But the memories... Those are things, moments that retain a bit of his soul. A bit of who I knew and remember of the man. That I remember of my father.

This year has been so so full of death and grief. So many have died or been killed and not far away, not across the water, but in communities that I travel through, losses to friends I have known for years. Artists gone that I have known of for years. Children taking their lives, because they're not sure that the next four years would be survivable for them, because the gender they were did not comply with the physical form they were born with. Artists also taking their lives, because they weren't sure if they'd have health care the next four years, and better to make one's own exit than be at the mercy of a cruel and merciless government that demands Obedience, and dispenses only pain and a slow death from pre-existing conditions, because apparently the sick and disabled don't deserve care or help or gods forbid, hope. And on top of that, a friend I knew since high school finally lost the battle with his heart, the organ he had been given with a congenital defect that finally got him. He lived longer than any of us thought possible. So much so that I think we all thought he would be here for a little bit longer.

But maybe that would have never been true, no matter when he died. Jason's dying would have been a loss no matter what, and a lot of us would have wished for more time. Not for us. For his children and for his wife, who has been such a pillar of strength and power, that I am in awe and hope that when or if she needs to break or just take a break, we will all be here to catch her.

It's the least I can do. The least *we* can do as her community.

And here we are on Pearl Harbor Day and the World is on fire and we are firmly in the grips of what Heinlein called the Crazy Years. I like to think that my father would have been a voice of reason during all of this. Spoken out especially against the willful denial of scientific fact presented in hard data. This once, his stubborness would have been a gift and a source of power. He loved to argue. I like to think that he probably could have out-argued the Devil. He had that in him.

I don't have his facility for the math or the science. I can only write about the people and the art and the music that I track. The politics that I immerse myself in, because at heart, I am a truly political animal, and in another life, life in DC and write analysis for people who probably never read them. But whatever. That life is not this life and I work with the tools that I've been given.

Oh, it hurts this year, Lady. It really fucking hurts. And next year doesn't look any better, in fact the next decade looks to be pretty fucking shitty. We're going to lose more people, and not to natural causes. Even my father's heart attack was an expected risk. It's not like the family history doesn't run in that direction.

So apparently today is going to be full of fire and tears. I will burn incense and offerings and pray. I will meditate and weep.  I will rail at the cruelty of men and the blind neutrality of the vast Universe.

I need a box of tissue and a new cup of coffee. The crying is giving me that stupid headache that seems to follow such outbursts.

Pop, what are we going to do? I know that we can prevail, but I also know what the human cost of that effort will be. It'll be body count in both literal bodies, and in a lot of minds. It will break a lot of people and we will lose people we love and gods, I just want it to stop. I just. want. it. to. stop.

Goddess, help. Help. Help, help, help.

I don't know what to do.

I want my Daddy.

Back is still crunchy today and putting Tiger Balm on by yourself when you can't reach all the bits is annoying. But it's helping where I could reach and that's all that matters. Stretching is managing the rest.

And I am reminded, both by Kobe's example and my own experience, the one thing that is true (for me) about pain.

I can't let it stop me.

It's funny. When I'm in pain, if I stop, it gets worse. Muscle pain especially. But if I get up and start moving, even if it's slow, even if it motherfucking hurts, if I just implacably and carefully move forward and stretch and take the right meds and vitamins and just get moving...

It gets better.

And afterwards, I'm stronger.

James would say/quote that pain is just weakness leaving the body. He'd be right. It's words that I've only had one phrase for my whole life, which I amusingly enough got from Atlast Shrugged, make of that what you will. Pain is no reason for stopping. Reardon thinks it after a day of back breaking work. And keeps moving forward.

Note, I'm not talking about broken bone/bleeding on the floor pain. For that shit, best to finish healing before you get up. But when the bone is set? The wound healed?

Time to get up.

Most of you know that my husband is a die hard Laker fan. And more then once, I have watched Kobe play through some of the most eye opening injuries like they weren't even there. Afterwards, he treats the hell out of them. Physical therapy. Everything to get better and stronger. I've seen other athletes and injury/accident folks come back from things that they were told they could not come back from.

*I* came back from an injury they said I wouldn't come back from.

Which is just a long way of saying: you never know what you are truly capable of.

Don't short change yourself.

You are mighty.

You are heroes.

Now let's get moving, shall we?