Three months after the death of Danny, are there any new insights that can be made now that the pressure of mourning has been removed and the psychological adjustment which acknowledges his departure has been made?
I remember writing about the wind agitating the bushes in the adjacent garden and, as Danny used to hide in there at times, I expected to see him causing the movement of the bush as he tried to bring down a butterfly, or because he'd just seen a bird. That is to say, there was a genuine belief that, if I looked hard enough or long enough, I should see Danny present in his usual position.
However, this genuine belief was drowned out by an opposing, stronger realisation that of course he'd not be there. He's dead, you fool, as of November 10.
I mentioned, too how I half-thought (perhaps that's the arrangement of words I'm looking for) that tapping the glass front of the photograph which remains of him would bring him back to life. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. After a shorter or greater period of time, the realisation dawns that no amount of wishing or catechism can return the past to us.
We are now in the realms of splitting thoughts into sub-thoughts: 1) I accept that no amount of wishing can recover the past and yet I am little better off than I was before because 2) I still wish that wishing could do so. The distinction between 1) and 2) is not an unimportant one, and it takes me to the shore where the waves of my own thoughts in recent days have lapped, without ever escaping the realm of thought itself and rumbling into consciousness.
At some point, there must come - bear with me as I become more convoluted - the desire to do away with desire. In other words, I accept 1) that no amount of wishing can recover the past and 2) even if it were possible, I have no inclination or longing to disturb the present.
The manner of my upbringing, the peer groups I (even now) am around, and the expectations placed on me by what I loosely call society mean that I am a creature of massive desire, and the ultimate goal is to accumulate. If I change the world, it is only in order that I may manipulate it so that even greater accumulations are shaken my way.
I must invert this, and breathe slowly, and not let my culture leach into the nature of the thoughts I should be having. Danny has gone, and this is not only something I accept, but it is good, for his time on earth was done. Nature brings meter to all things, and it is for my sick and tortured mind to learn to respect this, instead of rebelling against it.
