*****************
"I lived on that for years..."
I'm sure a lot of you watched that three-part mini-series about the Hatfield & McCoy feud which debuted on TV a few months back. It was highly acclaimed, and won some awards. Jude and I really liked it, although, it wasn't what you would call a "happy story".
The truth is...it was steeped in tragedy, as any story about people becoming overly familiar, even COMFORTABLE with, the spilling of blood and the taking of human lives would have to be.
You have only to look at events around the world where age old differences manifest in cruel bloodletting to see it remains so...
...some people find it easy to rationalize killing other people. For whatever reason they choose...killing seems to be something they can live with. It happens in those areas where trauma is a part of the daily landscape and it breeds an insanity evidenced by callous contempt for the sanctity of life.
Sometimes I think if there is a God somewhere, watching the children of Earth gifted with choice and free will...I have to believe that they must sometimes weep bitter tears at the seeds of cruelty sown, and the sad harvest it bears.
In the show I mentioned about the two families whose names became synonymous with blind hate, someone near the end explained to a perplexed onlooker that the Hatfield and McCoy families were "famous for killing each other".
Sometimes I wonder if that's what this particular neighborhood of the Universe will say someday about us...
"Boy, the inhabitants of the third rock from that sun over there sure were into killing each other...it's like they hated themselves soooo much, and saw a little of themselves in everyone else, that they just had to destroy any remaining vestige in a cataclysmic act of self-immolation. It's too bad, it used to be a cute little blue world until they turned it into a lifeless cinder."
*sigh* I hope things get better...and our galactic neighbors don't have cause to say that. - EVER -
Well, after serving up a big bowl of macro...I hope you won't mind if I give you a little side of micro for a moment...
You see, something kind of hit me while watching a Thanksgiving Day encore showing of the above mentioned story. It was a line spoken by one of the daughters of the McCoy Family patriarch, his oldest girl, named Roseanna... < * > ...it was one of those moments for me like when you hear a song, one you've heard before...but this time...you "get" it. It goes into you, and you understand, with ALL YOUR HEART, what was intended to be imparted unto you...what deeper message the artist wanted to share with your heart, mind...AND soul.
The girl's father, Randall McCoy, had confided to her once that she was his favorite, of all his many children, and their love for each other was touching to see. That all came to a heart-wrenching end when Roseanna fell in love with a member of "the enemy", a Hatfield son, who loved her, too. *Randall disowned her...brutally cutting her out of his heart.*
Near the end, Roseanna saw her father again, and although he was a broken man, crushed by the death of many family members, several his own children, and twisted by a life completely focused for years on retribution and revenge, he would STILL not acknowledge his once much loved and favored daughter...
She explained through bitter tears how much that had hurt her...how once upon a time, when he had whispered to her that she was his favorite...it had meant everything to her...she told him...
"I lived on that for years..."
I heard...no, I FELT those words come into me, and God help me, I wish I could say I've never felt that way...to have had something that meant so much to me, that fired my love and zeal for life...to have had it taken from me and crushed.
*But, something like that DID happen to me, once... < * > ...and Roseanna's words stirred painful echoes of my past.*
It happened long, long ago, and it involved my older brother, who I worshiped when I was a kid, using my desire for his approval as fuel to keep striving on in a pursuit of excellence, to make him proud of me...
...and that all came to a shattering end.
The saddest part is...it wasn't the fault of either one of us. We were pawns in a twisted game played by a Mad Queen...and everyone on that warped playing field lost.
What I lost was something I had "lived on for years."
Sometimes you really can't put it back together the way it was. I do think I came out of it a stronger person, and, I have moved on.
But...for just that moment the other night...I could relate to someone else who had something they treasured sooo much, something beautiful they held close inside...taken from them and smashed into a million pieces.
No matter how much or how long you sweep-up after a thing like that, you're bound to step on a sharp little piece of it every now and then, like I did the other night...
...and you'll always have a scarred-over fragment left in your heart.
The blessing in all this is, if you're lucky, so truly blessed and lucky...that you CAN relate to people who've had it happen to them...
...and you feel for them. < * > 'Cause you see...
...when you can FEEL for other people...there's no way you can ever be blinded by hate...or find a way to say it's okay to end a life.
If you are still with me...after all ^that^...
...THANK YOU!
I've been living on the sharing of your precious time with me for years. ♥
***********
"I lived on that for years..."
I'm sure a lot of you watched that three-part mini-series about the Hatfield & McCoy feud which debuted on TV a few months back. It was highly acclaimed, and won some awards. Jude and I really liked it, although, it wasn't what you would call a "happy story".
The truth is...it was steeped in tragedy, as any story about people becoming overly familiar, even COMFORTABLE with, the spilling of blood and the taking of human lives would have to be.
You have only to look at events around the world where age old differences manifest in cruel bloodletting to see it remains so...
...some people find it easy to rationalize killing other people. For whatever reason they choose...killing seems to be something they can live with. It happens in those areas where trauma is a part of the daily landscape and it breeds an insanity evidenced by callous contempt for the sanctity of life.
Sometimes I think if there is a God somewhere, watching the children of Earth gifted with choice and free will...I have to believe that they must sometimes weep bitter tears at the seeds of cruelty sown, and the sad harvest it bears.
In the show I mentioned about the two families whose names became synonymous with blind hate, someone near the end explained to a perplexed onlooker that the Hatfield and McCoy families were "famous for killing each other".
Sometimes I wonder if that's what this particular neighborhood of the Universe will say someday about us...
"Boy, the inhabitants of the third rock from that sun over there sure were into killing each other...it's like they hated themselves soooo much, and saw a little of themselves in everyone else, that they just had to destroy any remaining vestige in a cataclysmic act of self-immolation. It's too bad, it used to be a cute little blue world until they turned it into a lifeless cinder."
*sigh* I hope things get better...and our galactic neighbors don't have cause to say that. - EVER -
Well, after serving up a big bowl of macro...I hope you won't mind if I give you a little side of micro for a moment...
You see, something kind of hit me while watching a Thanksgiving Day encore showing of the above mentioned story. It was a line spoken by one of the daughters of the McCoy Family patriarch, his oldest girl, named Roseanna... < * > ...it was one of those moments for me like when you hear a song, one you've heard before...but this time...you "get" it. It goes into you, and you understand, with ALL YOUR HEART, what was intended to be imparted unto you...what deeper message the artist wanted to share with your heart, mind...AND soul.
The girl's father, Randall McCoy, had confided to her once that she was his favorite, of all his many children, and their love for each other was touching to see. That all came to a heart-wrenching end when Roseanna fell in love with a member of "the enemy", a Hatfield son, who loved her, too. *Randall disowned her...brutally cutting her out of his heart.*
Near the end, Roseanna saw her father again, and although he was a broken man, crushed by the death of many family members, several his own children, and twisted by a life completely focused for years on retribution and revenge, he would STILL not acknowledge his once much loved and favored daughter...
She explained through bitter tears how much that had hurt her...how once upon a time, when he had whispered to her that she was his favorite...it had meant everything to her...she told him...
"I lived on that for years..."
I heard...no, I FELT those words come into me, and God help me, I wish I could say I've never felt that way...to have had something that meant so much to me, that fired my love and zeal for life...to have had it taken from me and crushed.
*But, something like that DID happen to me, once... < * > ...and Roseanna's words stirred painful echoes of my past.*
It happened long, long ago, and it involved my older brother, who I worshiped when I was a kid, using my desire for his approval as fuel to keep striving on in a pursuit of excellence, to make him proud of me...
...and that all came to a shattering end.
The saddest part is...it wasn't the fault of either one of us. We were pawns in a twisted game played by a Mad Queen...and everyone on that warped playing field lost.
What I lost was something I had "lived on for years."
Sometimes you really can't put it back together the way it was. I do think I came out of it a stronger person, and, I have moved on.
But...for just that moment the other night...I could relate to someone else who had something they treasured sooo much, something beautiful they held close inside...taken from them and smashed into a million pieces.
No matter how much or how long you sweep-up after a thing like that, you're bound to step on a sharp little piece of it every now and then, like I did the other night...
...and you'll always have a scarred-over fragment left in your heart.
The blessing in all this is, if you're lucky, so truly blessed and lucky...that you CAN relate to people who've had it happen to them...
...and you feel for them. < * > 'Cause you see...
...when you can FEEL for other people...there's no way you can ever be blinded by hate...or find a way to say it's okay to end a life.
If you are still with me...after all ^that^...
...THANK YOU!
I've been living on the sharing of your precious time with me for years. ♥
***********
