Synchronicity and Meaning (Part 3 of 3)
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| Interior of Liverpool's Bombed-Out Church |
First of all, I must say that I’m a Zen Buddhist and not particularly invested in any theories about the afterlife, not even reincarnation. That said, I certainly understand how such ideas might provide comfort in the here and now. One who believes in reincarnation, for instance, might feel less anxious about death knowing that they and their loved ones live on in some sensate form. On the other hand, someone with a traditional view of heaven and hell might envision deceased loved ones watching over them and enjoying all their usual earthly pastimes, even as those who’ve perpetrated unconscionable harm to them or the world at large are presumed to meet justice in another place altogether.
It's difficult for me to imagine someone so beyond redemption that they deserve eternal damnation. Thus, if the image many Christians have of heaven turns out to be true, I hope entrance to it is something more like the ending to the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. If you’ve not seen it, it goes something like this: The crucifixion is complete; Jesus is dead; and all who played a part in the Passion Play descend from Calvary to board an old bus and ride off into the desert. The disciples are there, as are the Roman soldiers. Herod, Pilate, and Judas are there, and Mary Magdalene too. And while they’re not devoid of emotion regarding what has just taken place, there is an air of collegiality amongst them. It’s as if they’d thrown off the worldly karma that led them to play their earthly roles and could finally be together as their true selves, their best selves, reconciled with one another. That’s the way I understand that scene. Watch it here if you are so inclined.
I preface what follows with this imagery so that you’ll realize the full impact of what I’m about to say. You see, I’d been estranged from my father for a number of years by the time he died. My brother called one evening to say that he’d entered hospice and was not doing well. Before I could get on the road in the morning for the long drive to my hometown, he was gone. He died without family or friends near, gasping for breath after having long suffered from COPD.
I might feel sadness, guilt, or anger for not having known of his diagnosis until it had taken him, but apparently no one else in the family knew about it either. Was Dad ashamed of his condition—having been a star athlete back in the day? Did he feel that none of us had earned the right to know such a personal thing? Both are quite plausible possibilities. I might also feel sadness or guilt for not visiting him in hospice, or anger at my brother for not divulging the news sooner, but apparently he only learned of Dad’s precipitous decline in the final hours as well. I could feel sad or guilty for having been estranged from my father in the first place, but after a lifetime of him withholding emotional support, time, kindness, understanding, respect, guidance, resources, and information, I’d reached the limits of my endurance. And for that I harbored a lot of anger at him—so much so that I couldn’t even imagine meeting him on the aforementioned bus motoring off to the sweet by and by. I simply never wanted to see him ever again.
The last time I had a one-on-one conversation with my father was on a day when I’d actually intended to visit my mother where they resided in an assisted living facility. Mom was declining with dementia and shrank into silence in the presence of my father. The only way I could spend quality time with her was to walk with her to a common area in the facility or request that Dad find something to do for a while. On the day before that visit, I called my brother to inform him of my arrival in town only to learn that Mom had just been moved to the other side of state to live with my sister, who’d been trained as a nurse. This was puzzling to me since I’d called him just a couple of weeks prior to tell him of my upcoming visit. He’d not said a word about any such plans. Are you seeing any familial karma at play here? So, ever hopeful, I suppose, I ended up paying a visit to my father with my mother absent. The irony. I was actually concerned for him that my mother’s move meant he might never see her alive ever again. This was grief and a concern that we shared, I felt. But after that visit I would not see him, speak to him, or hear from him until the day of my mother’s funeral. If I did not continue to reach out to him, it simply wasn’t going to happen. That was the duty that was owed to him.
My mother was troubled by my estrangement from my father. In truth, though, she seemed to have little grasp of the dynamics leading up to it even when her faculties were at their peak. She had no idea how much I struggled to understand him behind his impenetrable walls. What sort of cruel upbringing had made him armor himself in this way? What demons could he possibly be wrestling with? What in the hell was wrong with him? And, yes, what then was wrong with me? “Of course he loves you,” was all my mother could or would say. Thus, I did my best to navigate an untenable situation with her well-being in mind. It was with this messy grief still hanging over me that I journeyed with my wife to my mother’s hometown of Liverpool, England in order to better understand her life for the purpose of giving her a proper goodbye—proper goodbyes being difficult to experience when a loved one slowly disappears into a haze of dementia.
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| The Author At Crosby Beach, Liverpool |
Whereas my father’s German immigrant heritage was rarely spoken of and remains largely a mystery to this day, my mother’s heritage was richly and lovingly conveyed to us through stories of Liverpudlian life, wartime drama, the English countryside, and growing up just around the corner from little Paul, the future Beatle. I saw her everywhere we went in England by virtue of having so many memories triggered one after another. We flew into London and saw the many places depicted on the keepsakes and tchotchkes she’d lovingly kept on her shelves in America. We climbed the mountain in Wales from which my grandfather plucked a rock specimen in a rainstorm so that he could forge a connection with his rock collecting grandson overseas. We visited Crosby Beach, where I recall spending the day by the seaside with my mother and grandparents when I was just two years old or so. And we visited my mother’s childhood home, of which I also have vague memories—the one with the air raid shelter in the back garden that we’d heard so much about—the one where Mrs. McCartney, the neighborhood nurse, helped to stanch my mother’s worrisome nosebleed. And, of course, we couldn’t possibly go all that way without visiting Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and the grave of Eleanor Rigby—the places that inspired the music that I can’t possibly listen to without thinking of my mother.
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| The Author On Penny Lane, Liverpool |
Which brings me to synchronicity. As we were exploring downtown Liverpool, we came across the Church of St. Luke, the “Bombed Out Church” as it is often referred. Its ruins now serve as a reminder of the horror and devastation of World War II, and it certainly made palpable the fear my mother must have felt all those nights that she and family spent in their air raid shelter in the little back garden just a few miles away.
On the grounds of the church are flower gardens and an Andy Edwards sculpture called All Together Now depicting two WW I soldiers, one British and one German, about to shake hands and enjoy a Christmas Day soccer match. Of course, the potential lesson to be learned from my stumbling upon this memorial to peace and reconciliation on a journey to honor the life of my mother was not lost on me. Her wish for my reconciliation with my father was percolating in my unconscious mind the entire trip. But something else on the grounds of the Bombed Out Church gave me pause. There in the grass beside the sculpture was a flower arrangement similar to one that might be found on a gravesite. It spelled out “MARK” and “DAD.”
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| Floral Arrangement by Memorial Statue |
Yes, Mark is my first name. Now, lest you wonder how such a discovery didn’t make me think I’d entered the Twilight Zone right then and there, let me reveal a bit of backstory. The community of people that care for the grounds and work on the programming at the church apparently lost one of their members not too long before we arrived. I surmise that Mark was his name as well and that he was also a father. I say this because I vaguely recall reading a note to that effect as we were welcomed into the church interior by one of the volunteers. And yet, despite this “explanation,” how can I not see meaning in such an intriguingly serendipitous occurrence—a mystifying coincidence of particularly evocative circumstances and emotional ripeness. Such is synchronicity at its most profound.
With the power of this unprocessed experience still reverberating in my being, we made our way down to the Mersey waterfront and then back up to the Cavern Quarter. The Cavern Quarter, you probably already know, is anchored by the famous Cavern Club where the Beatles played before becoming too famous for such intimate venues. I recall my mother telling us that her younger brother had seen them there, which made me want to visit it even more so as to feel that bit of family lore.
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| A Solo Performer at the Cavern Club |
We descended into that dark womb of rock and roll history, ordered a pint, and continued our exploration. Eventually we settled into seats in front of one of the stages where a solo performer was nearing the end of his set of mostly Beatles covers. He closed his planned set with a nice version of Lennon’s Oh Yoko! and then called out for requests. Before the words had even exited his mouth, it seemed, a woman called out: Come Together! And so it was.
What do you think about synchronicity? Is it possible for a loved one to reach us from “beyond” with a message conveyed in this manner? Maybe you believe that such phenomena are engineered by God on behalf of both the sender and receiver of such messages. Or perhaps you believe that our very being knows precisely what it needs in order to heal and continue growing in the best way our embodied wisdom knows how to grow. I’m not sure what, if anything, I believe. I remain open to this great mystery that unfolds with each of our lives. However, I do know this for certain. As the performer sang the chorus, “Come together, right now, over me,” I wept as if my mother was indeed with me once again and reminding me of her wish.
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| Flower Garden Outside Bombed Out Church |
Copyright 2024 by Mark Robert Frank
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