Sunday, February 12, 2006

Missing Ben

I won’t need many words with which to adequately express myself on this question but-while on the way home tonight- I passed by the eastern gate of the cemetary wherein my son Ben lies. It was already by then well after dark, the gates closed and locked. I could do nothing more than drive by, turn my head in his direction and feel this awful pain in my gut which still afflicts me very much even several to many hours later at the time of this writing.


Were I to attempt a description of this feeling, this pain, I’d ask first that you try imagining the physicality of an enormous void, a vast, overwhelming emptiness. Now place yourself within that void, that emptiness-almost desert like with neither hope nor manifestation of refuge though mirages certainly do abound. Soon you’ll realize just how doomed you indeed are to drift indefinately toward an uncertain destination with assurance only that such wanderings will remain a frequent traveling companion.

The rabbis say that our sleep is 1/64th of death. In like manner, one could argue that sympathy is 1/64th of empathy though I admit here that such arithmetic does elude me. However verbose and hyperbolic I may often seem while writing of Ben’s quasi-tangible, permanent absence, it is really nothing more than the sounds of my silly head trying to translate the beats of my heart.

How very much I do miss Ben!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alan..when I am driving through a very dark night, with only the sounds of the car, and the highway, I get the most empty feeling of desolation. I can see nothing beyond my direct field of vision,and even though I know that there is life all around me, out there, somewhere.. it does not make me feel better. Perhaps, this is 1/64th of the feeling you described.

Alan aka Avrum ben Avrum said...

Perhaps it is ... Dear Friend! :)

Alan

Hadar said...

I am finding it difficult to leave a comment because while I on one hand feel empathy, I on the other hand feel anger, and in the middle of it all I feel hope that at some point a memory of ben can be there without this continuing search for a soul that is no further away than your thoughts, memories and your own heart.

Jack Steiner said...

Right now there is nothing profound or awe inspiring words that come to mind, just this.

You have people who support you and are listening. I hope that in some way this helps to fill that void.

Regina said...

Dear Alan- I was referred to your blog by Jack and I am glad I came to visit. I am so sorry for your loss and I fear I may never understand your real depth of pain as I have no children to ever lose. But the least I can do is to keep you and Ben in my thoughts and prayers and come to visit. Thank you for sharing with me and all of us about Ben...