Rallying Cry

Had I not been alone in the early waking hours when ambushed by it, my state would surely have been interrupted by family members worried about my mental wellbeing.

Blessedly there was no such infringement. On my own I could just let it be, and let it out.

‘It’ being my first good cry in quite some time.

I say ‘blessedly’ because it’s only when such surges subside that the messages in the emotion become available to me, much like the rainbows we can depend on when the rain tears up on the sunshine.

The night before this morning after, the origin of where this all began shaking out, had been Friday night, Movie Night in our household, a much anticipated highlight of each week for my 12 year old.

This week the flick was Dad’s pick, the responsibility for which had escaped me until the moment I heard the popcorn popping; the kid propped up ready in front of the screen peppering Dad with, ‘What did ya pick Dad? You don’t have to keep it a secret anymore’.

You would think I would have internalized by then, some 30 years in the rearing, one of the ‘Hand Me Downs’ my father had tried to instil in me, his words then coming back to haunt me:

‘Rushed decisions are always bad decisions Mur.’

With mere moments before the show was to go on, with yours truly doing a slapstick-like surf through Netflix – and with not more than a moment taken to initiate my normal ‘parentally-responsible-age-appropriate-review-on-content’, a snippet of one particular flick innocently entitled, ‘Naledi: A Baby Elephant’s Tale’, caught my eye.

It’s caption: ‘Telling the true story of a baby elephant born into a rescue camp in the Botswana wilderness, who became orphaned after a month…’ ‘

‘Ahh, came the pressure relieving sentiment to myself, ‘Sounds like a heartwarming Disney meets The Nature of Things love story.

Perfect.

Split decision made.

‘I knew I could pull it off!’

‘We’re good to go.’

And well into the movie, there I was, self righteous, my fatherly instincts proving to be spot on; a movie harmonious to the young mind of my impressionable preteen.

A self affirming wisp of ‘Way to go Dad’ from a voice within me…

…just before…

…that is just before…

…everything movie-wise took a sharp turn south.

Let’s just say the tale turned dark, horrifically dark, for the average caring human, let alone the Nature Boy that is my son.

If it had turned fictional dark, I don’t think I would have been as activated.

But it turned reality dark.

The kind of reality that gave cause to the broken hearted look of disbelief on my boy’s face.

A blinding flash of the painfully obvious then before me, the voice of my ego then spouting off a sarcastic, ‘Did you somehow miss ‘rescue’ in the trailer, or how about ‘orphaned’? If you had rendered yourself conscious for even a moment Mur, you might have realized the movie had poaching written all over it?!’

Movie night ending shortly thereafter with a hollow thud.

By the time I went to bed I was riddled with emotion. Oh how my wife and I have been trying to let our son be a kid just a little bit longer.

So there I was, alone in the early waking hours of the next morning, still reeling, when the wave of emotion swelled, and then crested.

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, was my paining for the human in the elephants, and the elephants in the human. 

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, was remorse for my hand in harming the environment my son and our children wonder in. 

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, was deep disappointment for our kind, so capable yet so divided; the solutions, though within reach, just outside our grasp.

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, was my emotion doing what emotion does; trying to get important messages through about the truth of me, and the truth of us. 

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, was a reminder of the light of my humanity; my part in that loving and creative True Nature that is common to all of us, if we could just dig out from under all that fear. 

Perhaps my cry, like I like to imagine yours, a reflection of my deep gratitude for this wondrous life, the miracles that abound, and a calling to elevate my part in the healing and protecting of it.

On this, the day of the volatile U.S. election, in the throes as we are of the second wave of the pandemic, my cry, like I like to imagine yours, my pot of gold, my rallying cry.