Devils, an Angel, and the Fountain of Youth
Life sucks, sometimes. For all of us. The devil, or multiples of them, swoop into our lives and sit upon our shoulders and weigh us down. The devils come in deadlines, and bills needing paid, collectors and responsibilities. They come in the form of bosses that are jerks and drivers that cut us off on the way to the store with their vile curses and middle fingers. They’re in the millions and swirling all around us.
Or worse, they balance upon our chest in the quiet moments when we’re alone with our thoughts and steal the breath from our lungs, choking us on our own misery as we sink deeper and deeper into that morass of self pity and despair that soon it’s sucking us into a darkness we can’t escape alone. It escapes us in the forms of anger, rage, tears or depression. The weights become heavy on days.
And devils never act independently, they attack in groups. One big one gets you and before you know it you’re surrounded by them. Picking and prodding, stabbing and cutting and sucking the happiness out of the day, drop by drop, until we’re just……..there. Alive but not living. We’ve all had those days. We will have more.
These days, these devils, age us. They steal our days, they take our health, they grey us and stress us and weaken our hearts. These days steal the sunshine from the sky, the joys from our hearts.
Thieves of innocence and wonder, these devils are. They steal the hope and happiness from us, and replace them with the leaden weight of despair and sorrow. They take love and replace it with the heavy burden of anger and resentment. They take friendship and swap in obligation.
Young children, however, are immune. They’re not aware of these devils. Ignorance in this instance is indeed bliss. They wander happily in their gardens of Eden, completely unaware of the evils that exist outside their little world until we begin whispering our fears into their little ears, showing them how to dread, how to fight, how to anger and how to hate. In this parable we, the parents, are the snakes. We’re the ones who first, unknowingly most times to be sure, rob them of this innocence.
At this age though, I can admit that I miss that blissful little world, and as selfless as she is, the little one lets me into hers without judgement or condition. In fact, she welcomes me into hers. Those devils aren’t allowed so I shed them at the door and immerse myself in the innocence of a few moments of play, singing songs, reading books or whatever remedy she prescribes. The weights are removed for a while, the years recede, and the sun returns to my darkened skies. Possibilities are presented on pointed fingers, in storied fables and in our times of play.
In a while I feel younger, less weighted and burdened by life. The spring in my step is returned and I can emerge from this brief respite ready to take on the challenges of life once more. Her naps in my arms are therapeutic, almost healing. They give me time to reflect and restore my strength.
As fathers we are often left to fight these battles alone. We fight our devils and demons and, at times, let them get the better of us. Sometimes, it’s too much. As strong as we are, as valiant as we fight, and as hard as we work, the world conspires against us and we’re just destined to lose the day. We used all the tools in our arsenal, all the means at our disposal and exhausted every option save one.
The little two foot angel babbling at your feet.
She doesn’t see the same devils and demons as I do, thus they must be figments of my imagination. Exaggerations born of worry and fear and fret and exhaustion. She doesn’t recognize a world of stress and obligation because she’s not yet been robbed of wonder and awe. Innocent. Pure. Unblemished by the mistakes that I’ve made. Untarnished by imagined fears and incomparably bold in her blissful energy.
So I stand aside and let her into the fight.
And she carries the day.
