Reminiscing - Artificial Flowers

Social Forums Non-Philosophical Chat
1

Hello F(r)iends,

I am a hardened man. The world was cruel and I learned to be cruel.
I had no soul and my cruelty knew no bounds.

Yet, when my daughter was born, everything changed. I softened and my cynicism waned. My daughter became as my soul. I started to laugh and smile and for the first time in my life I experienced happiness. I had direction and purpose and a foundation.

I remember my daughter laughed as a baby. I would smile at her and she would smile in return. I would laugh and she would laugh. I would clap my hands and she would clap her hands. I would jump with glee and she too would jump in her mother’s arms with outstretched arms in the shape of a “V”. My daughter was curious and had active eyes. Every thing that moved she focused on, everything with interesting blends of color she intently observed. Even as a baby, my daughter loved swing music. She would dance with me and her mother and the look on her face is without parallel… Her being left me in awe and could bring me to tears of joy.

My soul was taken from me. :cry:

I wanted to kill and cause pain and then I wanted to die. Still, deep down, I remain quite sentimental. I heard a song today that I had not heard in years. I shed tears and bitterness crept over me. I realized that if there is one thing in this world that I can’t stand it is the suffering of a child.

“Artificial Flowers”, as sung by Bobby Darin.

[i]Alone in the world was poor little Anne
As sweet a young child as you’d find.
Her parents had gone to their final reward
Leavin’ their baby behind.

(Did you hear?)
This poor little child was only nine years of age
when mother and dad went away;
Still she brav-el-y worked
At the one thing she knew
to earn her few pennies a day.

She made artificial flowers, artificial flowers,
Flowers for ladies of fashion to wear;
She made artificial flowers, you know those artificial flowers,
Fashioned from Annie’s despair.

With paper and shears, with some wire and wax
She made up each tulip and 'mum.
As snowflakes drifted into her tenement room
Her baby little fingers grew numb.

From makin’ artificial flowers, those artificial flowers
Flowers for ladies of high fashion to wear.
She made artificial flowers, artificial flowers
Made from Annie’s despair.

They found little Annie all covered with ice
Still clutchin’ her poor frozen shears
Amidst all the blossoms she had fashioned by hand
And watered with all her young tears.

There must be a heaven where little Annie can play
In heavenly gardens and bowers.
And instea-a-ad of a halo she’ll wear 'round her head
A garland of genuine flowers.

No more artificial flowers;
Throw away those artificial flowers,
Flowers for ladies of society to wear.
Throw away those artificial flowers,
Those dumb-dumb flowers,
Fashioned from Annie’s,
Fashioned from A-a-a-annie’s
Des-pa-a-a-air.[/i]

-Thirst

2

Our suffering comes from our vulnerability. Opening the heart is a great risk. There is certain to be pain in this world. Life is full of different pains. Yet the open heart is the only way to really live. A person with a closed heart is like an automaton. They move through the world but cannot be moved by the world. They are like the walking dead.

Your daughter wasn’t your soul, but the light from her soul helped you to see your own after a long period of blindness. A man cannot lose his soul, but he can lose sight of it. He can even stab out his own “eyes” in an effort to not see it. Remember what she showed you. Honor her gift.

Be with you pain, and stay outside of it. It is there as a companion, as a messenger. It is not there to torment you. Listen to it and learn from it. Give it your attention. Hear it, as you would want to be heard in your own moments of need.

with loving-compassion,
xander

3

Xandar

You got to realize as you grow up that when a man is in pain over the loss of somebody like a child they aint lookin for advice about how to feel.

If that little child was his smile and that little child was his soul then so be it. What he says goes. Those is his feelins and beliefs.

If hes lucky hell mourn that baby for the rest of his life and never forget and never lose an ounce of his pain.

Thats his real life experience.

We all need to think hard before we give advice on such a heavy topic.

4

Hi Tedious Old Fart,

Actually Thirst has touched upon this tender subject before, almost a year ago.
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … t=#1654622

If Thirst doesn’t care for my words here then I know that he would be the first to tell me. He is a direct man.

I wanted to point some stuff out, if it means anything to anyone at all, then that is good, and if it means nothing to nobody then that is ok too.

5

Yesterday you just said somethin bout watchin words and their effect an such. Today you report that once said they can be taken by the wind.

Thirst man may tell us whats up, but then again he might not.

Take my advice son.

Sadness contains philosophy.

6

Tedious Old Fart,

This is getting WAY off topic. Here is what I wrote yesterday.

I spend a good deal of time carefully writing my words here. That is why I am like a turtle.

A messenger can most strongly influence how his message is delivered. He cannot control how it will get received.

If you would like to continue this conversation then I would ask that we please conduct it via Private Message or in a different thread.

7

Your difficult to understand.

Its nighttime where Im at so it is in the PM but I dont understand how talkin about it in the AM would make a difference. Also, I got an appointment tomorrow, so I couldnt even do it if I wanted to.

I was just showin my compassion for the thirstman where I thought you lacked it, an Im sayin that publically. I say like a grown man.

8

I hate this world.

Much love to you, Thirst.

9

Thirst,

I had a feeling that you’d been thinking about your daughter’s death recently, partly due to a couple of things that you said in our conversation last week. Of course, those things will remain private. I’m sorry for what happened to her and consequently to you. I know that even your wife and friends aren’t a substitute in any sincere sense and that their love is inextricably different to that shared between you and your daughter but it is love nonetheless. Pain and rage aren’t cured by love but they can be ‘balanced’ by it, at least to the extent of being able to use these most powerful of emotions in a positive way.

10
11

Despair is disgusting. Everything else a person can feel - anger, hate, bitterness, and of course the good feelings- everything else has a certain ‘energy’ to it, a certain biting drive, and that can be used. Even if it’s not always healthy to use it, at least it can generate some sort of forward motion. Despair though, it doesn’t offer anything. It’s just an crushing inevitable surrender to the unfairness of the world.
It goes beyond just an ‘aww, that’s too bad’. Despair has a repugnance about it. When you have it yourself, it makes you feel like an invertebrate, something clinging to the underbelly of society or something. When other people have it, you can smell it on them as surely as it were a cancer. Bleh. I hope you go into remission soon, Thirst.

12

thirst,

there is a point where the words fail. I’ve not lost a child, but some almost as close. My thoughts are with you.

JT

13

Thirst,

I have no idea what it feels like to lose a child, I am not a father.
I don’t understand the love of a father, and then the subsequent loss of that object of affection, object of obsession, the thing that is the very meaning of your life.
I am just a teenager, I cannot know this pain, and I may never know this pain.

But I do know pain…my baby sister drowned in the pool when she was a year old.
I had just become a big brother…I wanted the responsibility…I read my little sister stories when she cried at night until she went to sleep.
I felt love for my little sister in a way that I never felt love for my older sister, or anything else in my life for that matter…

She fell in the pool that I still see everyday at home.
She slipped through a tiny crack in the pool cage, she had followed my cat through the crack…she always laughed and played with the cat.

I was young though, and when my parents told me that she had ‘passed’ I did not know what it meant.
I said “What do you mean?”
They said “She’s gone away.”
I say “Well whens she coming back?”
They cry and say “She isn’t.”

I did not comprehend what this meant, I did not cry, I did not know what to think…
People would tell me how sorry they were about what happened, and I still didn’t understand.

Until I went to the funeral home…I saw her and touched her…I said to my grandpa “Shes cold!!, why is she so cold!?!”
He told me that she had passed on…I cried then…
I understand pain, and I know how hard these things can be to accept.

Yet I don’t think that sorrow is a bad thing…it builds character.
Never forget, always remember…
Cry, its good for you.

14

Hello F(r)iends,

I wasn’t sure if I should post anything in here because my daughter evokes such powerful emotions in me… I wanted to address each of the posts but I don’t have it in me except for this: Xanderman, you are right and my mind tells me you are right but something else prevents me from accepting this… perhaps it is fear.

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts…
For now, I’ll cry.

-Thirst