a broken instrument still plays sweet music

On the other side of the world - I learned how to become a song

I wrote the following as an apology to my parents who had died long before I could harvest the words out of my garden heart.

I choose to believe there is magic in writing. I believe that even though my parents have returned to source here are still able to receive little postcards from me from time to time. Writing helps me to find peace amid the storm.

Life is a symphony - and even though we can all get a bit broken, we can still turn our lives into instruments - we can still compose the most beautiful songs. My love, what the song you need to write?

The following is the song I wrote from my parents:

I was born with a hole in my heart
that kept my parents from having
a decent night of sleep for the
first year of my life

they would take turns
sitting next to my crib
every evening watching me
sleep to ensure that my
heart would remember
to keep beating

my dad would steady one
hand softly on my chest
and the other on one of his
cheap world war 2 
spy novel he’d likely be reading
and waiting for my mom to relieve
him for her shift at around 3 a.m.

every time I sneezed they thought
my fragile body would turn into a firecracker

every time I cried they waited for
death to slip in under the door to
collect their little boy 

they were waiting for
the other shoe 
to drop

I was real-life 
version of Russian roulette

it was only a matter
of time before the hole
in my heart would break
theirs into pieces 

my parents weren't
walking on eggshells

they were line dancing
on them

after I survived the first
year my parents started
to relax a bit around their
son with a holey heart

maybe I wasn't just an undetonated bomb 
of grief waiting to detonate

~ maybe my story wouldn’t
just be all prologue

~ maybe I would make it

still, my incomplete heart
was never far from their full attention 

I remember on my
first day of elementary school
when my mom showed up at lunch to
tell my teacher that I had to sit on the bench
at recess 

because of you know...my heart hole

so I sat
and watched everybody
chase each other

Isabella came over
to ask me to join
in the great 
run with them

I can't remember her
last name
but I remember her long
jet black hair

"I can't," I said

"Why?" Isabella asked

"I have a hole in my heart," I said

"Oh, sorry."

That was the response I get whenever
I tell people that I'm unwell.

“Oh, sorry.”

What else is somebody
supposed to say
when I turn our small talk
into a confessional?

“Hello John.”

"I'm broken."

"Oh, sorry."

The older I got the less
my parents began to outwardly 
fret about the gap in my ticker

they relaxed 
~ but not really

they kept waiting
for the heartbreak to
show up

they kept waiting for
the other shoe to drop 

My heart with a hole in it
would only get brought
up when I let them down

which turned out to be a lot

it became a point 
of leverage for them 

_________________________________________

I was 22 when they
showed up at the door
of my college apartment

speaking in lines 
that it felt like we 
had been rehearsing for years:

"We saw your midterms,"my parents said
in tandem

"Uh huh," I mumbled in reply.

"Why did you drop
out of that class?"

the excuses spilled out
of my mouth like spoiled milk

"Because it was stupid
~ and the professor didn't like me 
~ and it was too hard
~ and I don't understand why I need to take it 
~ and I just needed a break from studying 
~ and I will take it later and it's not a big deal."

"You are failing
half of your classes."

"I like to look at it
like I'm passing half
of them."

"Don't be smart with us." they said unironically 

"Right."

"Are you going to
be able to graduate
from college next semester?”

"Probably not."

"Do you know how
much we took care
of you when you
were a baby?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you know
how many nights
we prayed for your
heart to not stop?"

"Yes, of course."

“Do you know how much stress you have caused us?”

“Yes, of-“

"Do you know that
your brother is getting
his masters next week
and you can't be even bothered
to finish your undergraduate classes."

"I know..."

"You are really letting
us down."

"I know - but -"

"Why are you doing this to us?"

"I think there is something
wrong with me. That’s why."

long pause

"Oh, sorry," they didn't say and said
at the same time

then the three of us
said the worst thing
we could have
in that moment
in the doorway of my
college apartment: 

nothing

we stood there in
silence

I had finally broken their
heart

their fretting and worrying
became fully realized

shoe met floor 

what I couldn't explain to
them at the time was 
that I had a second
hole in me forming
that scared me a lot more
than my first one 

this time the hole
was in my brain

the hole in my mind
was less of a murmur
and more like a monster

it was a hole
that wanted to
consume me whole

it was a hole
that had several
rows of crooked teeth
that left bite marks
on my stomach 
whenever I tried to 
get out of bed

I never told either of them
about it because they had
already worried their lives
away on me 

I just closed the door and
they went back home and
I went back inside to 
lay down in a dry 
bathtub listening to 
the holes in
my head and heart
write love letters 
to each other

_____________________________

two years later
I was in Taize, France 
on a pilgrimage

I traveled there with
a church group
but in reality I was
there on my own 

I had come around the
world to talk to
God who had 
apparently started
wearing camouflage 

I had recently started
to experience a new
hole forming inside of me

this time it was in
an unseeable place
inside of me

my soul

this hole hurt
the most 

all the magic
and miracle
and joy of living
and faith
that I used to feel
were leaking out of me
and into the sky above

I had come around the
world to tell God to patch 
me up

but I was met with the exact
same absence I had back
home

God never showed up
with a first aid kit

My dad had died
a month before

the experiences
I had surrounding 
his death were still
laying heavy on me

I had so many
regrets that they
had to take turns
tying themselves
to my back

so many unspoken words

which truth be told
was the genesis of
my trip to Taize

I had come around the
world to tell God to tell
him I'm sorry I wasn't
a better son

but God wasn't accepting
my phone call

I could feel the hole
in my heart widening
and the one in my head
and the one in my soul
I was nothing but holes now

they would soon merge
and I would be gone

sitting there among
truly holy people
I was the holeyest of them all

there were people
from all walks of
life and all faiths
sitting in the beautiful
candle lit temple

it looked the part
of where mystical
experiences take place
on a routine basis

during the day we
would labor around
the ecumenical camp site

hundreds of us would be
cooking
cleaning rooms
building structures
scrubbing bathrooms

and then four times a day
the bell would ring to call
is to temple where
we would sit there
long periods of either
silence or simple song

the songs were
usually just a line
or two of lyrics
that would be repeated
over and over
for 10-20 minutes

I sang the words
hoping I could
at the very least
brainwash myself
into believing things
would be okay

I didn't need God
to be real

I just needed to go
back believing that
God was real

I decided there was 
a difference between
the two

I spent every session
for five days
singing for my life

hoping that the
words would make
a garden inside of me

but I had too
many holes for
rosebushes to
grow

on my last night there
something happened

I remember the song
we were singing when
the old man next
grabbed my hand
and held it tightly in his

"Bless the Lord, my soul
And bless God's holy name
Bless the Lord, my soul
Who leads me into life"

He was crying;
actually sobbing is a better description
of what he was doing

it wasn't sorrowful weeping 
he was crying with a wide smile
revealing his toothless mouth

I could feel the calluses
in his palm rub
against my smooth skin

I felt ashamed

the contrast between
the condition of our
hands felt like an indictment 
of my life

it didn't seem to phase the old man
one bit as his hand kept squeezing mine
in rhythm to the song

"Bless the Lord (squeeze), my soul (squeeze)
And Bless God's (squeeze) holy name (squeeze)
Bless the Lord (squeeze), my soul (squeeze)
Who (squeeze) leads me (squeeze) me back into (long squeeze) life.

The song went on for about ten minutes or so

I would like to say that I squeezed 
his hand back
but I didn't

I was uncomfortable
and distracted
his hands were very dirty
his robes were covered in mud
his body didn't smell very good
he was obviously extremely poor

He kept crying
he kept squeezing
and I just wanted it to end

eventually it did

we all got up to leave
the old man was still holding my hand
and gave it one last super squeeze

I gave him the fakest 
smile I could produce

It was Oscar worthy
I then offered him a bow
like he was some sort of enlightened master

he shook his head
and poked me in the chest
hard

ow

and despite my
trying to back out
of it the man lurched
forward and hugged me

the only way to describe
the way this man held me
was to say it felt like I was
being swaddled by a hundred
million fireflies

there was an energy
in his unwashed arms

the base of my spine
was like a rocket that 
wanted to take off

my skin tingled
like every particle
inside of me was
getting a kiss from
heaven

I know that sounds
ridiculous

when we stopped
hugging I suddenly became
concerned that I was going to
pass out

I was going to be
one of those people
who hit the ground
after a faith healer
slaps them in a 
white suit slaps them
upside the face with
some southern spirit

my body was shaking

the man poked my chest again
harder (ow) and said something to
me in a language I could not
understand

a lady about half his age
who had been sitting on the other
side of him the entire time
waved at me 

she said in jumbled English
"Do you want to know
what he said?"

"Yes," I mustered the energy to say

"He said let all of the incomplete things is you and let them 
become an instrument. Tie all your broken pieces together and become a wind chime."

I smiled
this time it was real.

With that the lady took the 
old man by the hand and 
they disappeared in the crowd.

My spine spoke up again: 

Be an ocarina. 
An instrument whose many 
holes in turn the wind into music.

Be a wind chime. 
Bless the world with the gently clanging sound of grace passing through you. 

You are not a decoration. 
You are a wounded apparatus of melody and song. Your gaps will hum with spirit.

I was ready to levitate straight up through the roof of the chapel. I was a kite begging to kiss a star field.

My spine went back to sleep - but the fire remained.

I asked the wind to turn the holes in me into music. I begged grace to turn me into sound.

I sat back down to
sing on my own

and that's when the visions came

Bless the Lord (I could see my parents sitting by my crib)
my soul (I could feel my dads hand on my newborn chest)
And Bless Gods holy name (I could rushing over to me whenever I cried)
Bless the Lord (I could see my mom wring her hands on my first day of school)
who leads us back to life (I could see my parents wiping the tears from their face as I shut my college apartment door on them)

Forgiveness washed over me

My parents loved me
They did there absolute best to protect me

They didn't know what to do with the holes forming in me
That's okay - because neither did I

I was never a very good son 
to either of my parents

I asked God to tell my dad
that I was sorry
oh (so) sorry
oh (so) sorry
oh (so) sorry

I was assured that
my dad would get the message

It was in that moment
as I sat in a near empty
temple on the other side
of the world
that the gaping holes 
in my heart
and my mind
and in my soul

all became an ocarina
and my wounds became wind chimes 

and for one night I became the most beautiful song that I’ve ever heard

and from that moment on the conversation goes like this:

“Hello John.”

“I’m broken.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m not. It makes me an instrument.”

  ~ john roedel

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For more information on my newest poetry collection “Fitting in Is For Sardines” or my upcoming writing retreats please visit my humble little website.

I love you.