THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY (Day 25) : IN MY ARMS....

I have this recurring dream. In it, I am clinging to a rock face, hundreds of feet up, and completely paralyzed. I’ve done a little abseiling in my time, but going down is easy. It’s hauling oneself up, inch by inch, that presents the challenge. It’s not so much that I’m afraid of heights, really. I’ve taken helicopter rides, and been on big dippers, and things like that. What terrifies me, I believe, is the concept of being so close to life-ending disaster; the idea that one slip, one misjudgment, a moment of weakness, might send me plummeting to my end.

I’ve never died in my dream, but I haven’t made it to the top, either. And in some ways I think that is as good a metaphor as any for this bizarre, mystifying, daunting, paralyzing, exhilarating thing we call life.

Back when kids had real toys, I used to have an Action Man (G.I. Joe) mountaineer. He had shorts, a light jacket, a red pudding bowl helmet and these strange spiked things that were supposed to clip to his boots. He also had some nails which were not, as I later discovered, in case he decided that a bit of cabinet making might be called for halfway up Mount Everest, but were actually the most important part of his kit. Be patient with me here, there is a point to this.

These nails, or pitons, are the means by which a climber makes progress when there are no footholds to be found. Through careful preparation, these small pieces of metal can guide the climber up a face that might seem impossible to navigate. In my own life, there have been times when events beyond my control have paralyzed me. There have been times when my dream has seemed real, that at any moment I would lose everything, forever. But, I have always had some pitons to hold on to. Sometimes, these pitons have been people. Sometimes it was faith. And sometimes, it was music.

Yes, music. That casual, take it or leave it, in the charts and gone tune, that forgotten album track, that throwaway B-Side. When I think of the really big moments of my life – the birth of my daughter, my wedding, my travels, my break-ups, there is a tune to be heard. That is, at heart, probably the reason we blog about it, and discuss it, and reminisce, and compare, and deliberate.

For my post today I’d like to share a particular moment on the rock-face.

It was March 18, 2006. We got a call at three in the morning telling us that my stepson, a soldier in the U.S. Cavalry, had been a passenger in a high-speed car accident, and that he was in critical condition and on life support.

I put my wife on a plane and then set out for a 13 hour drive with other family members. At that time, he was not expected to live.

During the next week, he hung on. We were told his brain injury was severe. I had to go back to work, and left my wife with him in the intensive care unit. She was there with him for the 17 days he was in a coma, and for the next month as slowly and surely, he made progress.

While I was at home, trying to keep things together, I started listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter ’s CD, Between Here And Gone. I remember driving to work and listening to “My Heaven”.

You can look back on your life and lot
But it can’t matter, what you’re not
By the time you’re here, we’re all we’ve got
In my heaven.

And then, he made a miraculous recovery. The physical damage had been done, and he is still undergoing serious reconstructive surgery three years later. But in less than a year, he was walking, talking, and returned to his Army career. When he drives me somewhere, I think back to the moments when I talked to him, lying in a hospital cot, dead in almost every sense. Now, he has good prospects and a young baby.

It was a little while later that I discovered “In My Arms” by Plumb, a Christian artist in the same vein as Evanescence. I was putting together a slideshow telling the story of this young man’s life, and of the moments in which it seemed everything would be taken away. But as parents, we know that giving up is not an option.

Castles they might crumble
Dreams may not come true
But you are never all alone
I will always, always love you.

Yes, there are going to be times when you find yourself clinging to a rock face. You are trying so very hard not to look down. The pressure makes movement almost impossible. But you don’t need big nails, or expensive nails, just something to hold on to. And that is what music generally, and these songs in particular, mean to me. I hold on, and keep looking up. And even though sometimes I want to, I never, ever, let go.

mp3 : Mary Chapin Carpenter - My Heaven
mp3 : Plumb - In My Arms

TODAY'S QUITE INCREDIBLE STORY IS COURTESY OF FIFTYPERCENT OF THE BLOG MINE FOR LIFE.