The symphony of death

Disclaimer: this blog is about a support group my friend attends, not about anyone I work with.

What is the one thing that makes people fall apart?  a dying moon in the middle of a mid-suumer's night?  Too many years at a manual job?  One seering insult that has broken the same emotional artery over and over?  One passionate kiss and then years of deadly silence?

I arose slowly then looked at the moon.
I had one hour to get to work but I took an unintended detour.
The end of the week
the end of the month 
the end of the school year.
Her words fell upon me like silent axes on how each of her afflicted children were not functioning properly.
how he kicked the staff's head in the group home because she wouldn't let him go back for his library card.
How someone else's child became some public servant's problem.
How years went by before they reported child abuse because it was a relative.
How Brenda wanted to cut herself and explained how she intended to.

How all the what ifs and maybes were rolled into one ball of hope that would unravel like a giant knitting ball with no props.
how she felt death pass over her three times that day and the people who have died were more real than those who were alive.

How the one last affliction, a second vandalized paint job on her car ruined her night.  she wasn't beaten, raped or slapped but the paint was like blood on her memory that washed her soul away.  How someone unknown and deadly was crushing her with just a few strokes of rage and desperation.
how she wanted to kick that teenager in the face who had cut through her yard....and his 3 unseemly friends.
How life would be over soon and it would not matter.
how the 40 something woman in group talked about playing darts in the bar like it was the crowning moment of her life.  such an impaired vision of minimal choices.
how she cared but really didn't.
how her son may be delinquent from school every day if she didn't stalk him in the morning to get ready.
how she just folded in from exhaustion because life was one more day of casualties as the violins played into the jaded night.