For the past several days everywhere I look there is Patrick Swayze. Now I always liked Patrick - who wouldn’t after Dirty Dancing and Ghost - but that was about it for our connection. Then after a while I was becoming exhausted, had no idea why when Anita (anita4angels@gmail.com) called and said a friend of Patrick’s wanted to talk to me. I was skeptical but tuned in. It wasn’t easy….
“What I want to say to each and every abused child, aged or in infancy, is that it is not true. You were not born with an evil soul.”
Ann: Anita said you wanted to talk to me.
Friend of Patrick: Yeah, and you knew it too. Took you a while to get here, understand this is getting to be kinda overwhelming, but yes, I did want you to talk to my friend Patrick Swayze, He’s been gone a long time, and I don’t think he’s real comfortable so I’m wondering if you might give him a chance to tell us what’s on his mind..
Ann: OK. Patrick?
Patrick: Yeah, please just call me Buddy, everyone did. I just want to tell all the folks I loved that I’m fine, I’m working on all the things I need to be working on, and I am coming to see that all that I had and worked for was part of a bigger plan for my life. That when I got it right was when I was thinking about children. City of Joy, even Dirty Dancing, all those things that I did to make kids feel better about themselves or to help folks see that kids need help and understanding. That’s the one thing I never had. I was used, folks, and I let it happen.
Ann: Why does your friend think you have something important to say, why you need to speak to me particularly?
P: Just wanted to. This is a big kind world and nobody knows it because we don’t treat each other right. But we are such a little bitty part of the world, the universe, that we cannot even fathom what love is.
A: What is wrong, Patrick?
P: I’m not settled. I had a charmed life, or so it seemed, but I could never measure up, always had to prove something, I looked great, could do a lot but never enough. I don’t know as I came in that way or had to compensate for my Dad thinking I was a sissy and my Mom thinking I was her chance at the big time. I want to say that I didn’t get what was important, that the striving and being a perfectionist and a role model and all, that wasn’t good enough, and I was wrong, that City of Joy was right. I am trying to help people now.
A: (exhausted for some reason, can’t concentrate.) FOP, this isn’t going so well.
FOP: Honey, you are too tired to take in what he wants to say. Let it go just rest now.
Later:
A: OK, I’m hearing the word “betrayal.” Patrick, is this something that you want to speak about?
P: Yes, yes, the relief in hearing it spoken out loud. There were many betrayals. My mother, my mother the supposed nurturer who made it her business to destroy her older son in the service of her own ego. She did not succeed as I am whole, and the self-fulling prophecy has not come true. There were many that tried to deflect its course, but the foundation of convincing a child he is a demon is one that never leaves. My wife could not stand up to her, and I never cut myself off from her so as to completely deny, refute, put the lie to the baseless assumption she raised me with. I was, as you would understand, Ann, the Ill-Made Knight, doing good, making good because I believed without shadow of doubt in my own evil and lack of worth. The demons of hell lurked in my soul or so I believed. Neither love nor successes nor drink nor drugs could fill the hole that was the bottomless abyss drilled into me.
A: And now?
P: What a waste, what a crime. If I could come back I would fill my life with every waking second dedicated to opening the world for children of abuse. Abuse that is screaming and abuse that is silent. Both are horrific, but the silent abuse has no defenders, and it is left to the abuser to confront that lie in his or her very soul. I did this over and over but never wholly erased the slate.
A: Is this what you came to say?
P: Yes. My friend understands because he too carried scars that make him vulnerable to manipulation and horror. Our wives were unwitting accomplices in that they lent credence to the lie and baited us to wash it away with success, good works, beauty, and isolation. We cleaved only unto our women who bought into the lie and never could it be washed away while that relationship held sway. My friend has moved on, praise to God, and I love and cheer him for it. He has paid a steep price, but he has gained a liberation which is as silent as his enslavement was before.
What I want to say to each and every abused child, aged or in infancy, is that it is not true. You were not born with an evil soul. You did not need to be redeemed, for you carried within you a light that the darkness in powerful people tried to snuff out because it challenged their own existence. Those who should have been our protectors were our exploiters, using our talents to project an image of themselves on to the world. Whipped and beaten into a grotesque parody of success, these pariahs sucked the life blood out of their victims, and that was a crime against the love of God which recognizes no such thing as inherent evil.
October 26, 2019