Over Christmas in a complete six degrees of separation type of occurrence we found out where BigB is living.  Just like that.  After years of having no idea if he is dead or alive or what the case may be and without looking for the information at all… boom.  One conversation with one person I reconnected with via a Christmas card and there it is.  Oh yea, they say, I saw BigB the other day and was asking him about you.  Say wha?? I say.   Yea, BigB lives near us with so and so and has for a while.  Oh.  Well.  There it is then.  The one thing Rye has been wondering for years now.  Just falls into our lap.  Like it’s nothing.  As if it’s random.

Which, of course, it’s not.

So, I debate.  Do I tell Rye or do I not tell him.  Will it hurt him or help him.  I decide to tell him.  After all, I’ve been listening for years now about how he wants to find BigB when he turns eighteen.  What he’ll say to him.  What he’ll do.  And so on.  And I’m not one to keep anything from Rye.  He’s deserves to know.  So I told him.

“Well,” Rye says, “it’s nice to know he’s not in jail or in prison or dead.”

“What do you think?  How do you feel? Does this make you want to contact him?”  I ask.

[pause]

“No,” he says.

“Do you want to see him?”  I ask.

“No,” he says.

“Ok,” I say.

And that was that.  I have not heard a word of it since.

___________

And then last night I had a dream.  And it was so real it feels like it actually happened.  I dreamt that BigB was heavily using drugs, as he has a lengthy history of doing, and was in bad shape.  We had not seen him in years and years and yet he came to see us and was falling apart and needed help so Don and I took him to rehab.  And Rye helped us.  And it as weird because as a unit Don, Rye and I wanted to see him be well.  We wanted him to be ok again.  We wanted to help him.

And that was it.

What does it all mean?  I have no idea.  But I feel certain it will all be revealed in time.

__________________

And as an aside…

Dear Mimi Silbert at Delancey Street,

It would have been so helpful if a few years back you would have acknowledged 12 step programs and a higher power as being not only helpful to but vital to your residents for long term recovery from drug and alcohol dependence and acknowledged and accepted without prejudgment or stigma that a good many of your participants suffer from completely treatable mental illnesses that, if correctly diagnosed and treated, could save them from a life of self-medicating, addiction, antisocial behavior and/or prison recidivism.  I mean, really, where is the shame in a little lithium?   It saves people’s lives.  It saves families.  It gives kids their parents back.

Consider it.

Sincerely,

Meg

The past is never dead.  It’s not even past.

- From ‘Requiem For A Nun’ by William Faulkner

So I  have to write this down before I forget it but last night I had a dream about Eminem.  Here’s why.

Rye’s new favorite song is ‘Not Afraid’ by Eminem.  If you haven’t heard the song or your kids don’t listen ad nauseum to and know the lyrics to every new hip hop song that comes out on the radio, this song is from his new album ‘Recovery’ and it’s about Eminem’s decision to get clean from drugs and alcohol.  And it’s actually a really good song.   So we listen to it a lot. Because it’s on the radio a lot.

Anyway, yesterday Rye, his friend and I were coming home from the amusement park/water park (to which we now have season passes so we go every week) and the song ‘Not Afraid’ came on the radio.  Rye sang it at about 800 decibels with the hand movements and everything and we moved on with our lives.  Well, about 10 minutes later another Eminem song came on that I had never heard before and I swear to God I nearly had a wreck I was so stopped in my tracks by it.  The song was “Love the Way You Lie” with Eminem and Rihanna.

Now, it’s not often in life we have moments like this and when we do have them it’s always a bit unnerving but at the moment I heard that song I was totally taken back to my first marriage.  Honest to God, I felt like I was emotionally in some kind of time warp.  That song completely took me back, instantaneously and in some weird suspension in time.   The song was a nearly perfect depiction of my relationship with Rye’s bio-dad, BigB.  And it completely weirded me out.  Now, not to say that that relationship was all bad because by no means was it.  Rye’s bio-dad was my best friend for many years.  Almost all of my 20’s, in fact.  When it was good, it was really good.  But when it was bad it was really bad.  Too bad.  So ultimately I had to go.

Anyway, to the dream.  Well, the dream was that I was staying at a friend’s house and Eminem was staying there as well.  He was passing through town on some tour or something or other and he was friends with the same people I was friends with so he was staying and visiting with them, just as I was.  I was petrified to talk to him because I had no idea what he would be like in real life and, to be honest, he very much reminds me of BigB (Rye’s bio-dad) and that weirds me out a little as well.   But I finally mustered up the nerve to talk to him and as it turns out, I had nothing to be scared of as he was really nice.  And very intelligent. The intelligence part was the part that struck me the most.  We had a good conversation and then our mutual friends, he and I all went out for breakfast.  And when we got in the car the song ‘Love The Way You Lie’ was playing.   And this time I was was ok with it.  The song didn’t spook me as much.  I was at peace with it all.

Ok, a little mundane, I admit it.  But I never ever dream about celebrities so it was unusual for me.

Really I think the dream was about working through and coming full circle on the past and present because, you see, Rye loves Eminem.  Eminem is a lot like BigB.  BigB was raised a lot like Eminem.  Rye loves but is scared of BigB.  I loved but was (and still am a bit) scared of BigB.  We never hear from BigB.  Eminem is who we hear on the radio.  Eminem sings songs that directly relate to both Rye and BigB.   BigB looks somewhat similar to and has the same mannerisms as Eminem.  Rye has no idea that BigB ever liked Eminem as an artist.  Rye is simply drawn, independantly,  to the lyrics and the notes and the emotion that Eminem expresses.  He can relate to it.  As could Big B.  They are all very similar on a level of soul.

So, there you go.

Life works in mysterious ways.  And what may appear to be the past is never really past.