Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 117

Book 3 of APoS is...okay...so far

I truly did skim through writing book 3 of A Place of Safety, which is still obvious even after 3 drafts. Parts are repetitive and Brendan repeats himself so many times, I got sick of it. I can imagine how a reader would feel. I mean, each time it makes sense, but still... Needs a LOT of work to smooth it out.

That said, I'm about halfway through it and the structure is good. I see spaces where I need to dig a lot deeper, but no need to rework the spine, so far. What helps is this takes place in a shorter period of time than books 1 and 2 -- just a few months during the hunger strikes of 1981 -- and the story's drive is more immediate. And it helps that he's been out of the loop so doesn't need to know everything that's going on.

Something I did miss out on is making sure Brendan is being honest about his feelings instead of putting them aside to keep the story moving. That is NOT acceptable. He's faced with a life-altering betrayal and I have him seemingly little more than miffed about it. That needs to be addressed, for sure. Same for his brothers, in this part of the story; Rhuari is okay enough, but Kieran needs to be better integrated since he figures in a lot near the end.

But this is just a read through to remind myself of what I have. I find myself making notes to add something, then a paragraph later realize I addressed it, already. This book has grown so complicated, for me, I can't keep all of it straight in my head.

But I am closer to thinking I've been doing it up right.

Book 2 of APoS is read

 I've finished re-reading the Houston section of A Place of Safety and can see it will need a great deal of work. It skates along on the surface far too much, and I have notes throughout to expand on this or add to that. I'm even thinking of another chapter to give the relationship between Brendan and a young woman he becomes involved with in Houston a chance to really flourish.

He's in the city just as it's really gearing up to become the city it is, today. 1972-1981, just over 8 years -- though for the first 6 months of his time there he's damaged and nearly catatonic. A lot of this is him coming to terms with what Derry had become and realizing that, even though Houston is more on an even-keel...a lot of the same hatreds and anger exist in the city.

Still, the structure is solid. Not as exact as Derry is, but still no need to rework anything. The characters are in place and well-established in themselves. The vague parallels to actions in Derry are there to be expanded upon and alluded to. Brendan's voice changes a bit as he becomes more and more Americanized, though that I'm not sure about, now. I may keep him the same, all the way through.

I was able to do this despite having a nagging little headache, all day. One of those irritating things that doesn't pound but won't let you ignore it, either. I get those, every now and then, usually after a tough day but not always. I may have arthritis in my neck and that's causing it.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Real life is a pain...

 I hate it when aspects of my day-to-day life intrude on my writing or working...but sometimes you have no choice but to shift focus to the mundane. For example, the apartment below mine became infested with bedbugs, some of which migrated up to my place. I've never had bedbugs so didn't know what I was seeing when I saw one, so didn't kill it. Not smart.

They got into my box spring and I was getting bit, then I learned...and this was a couple weeks after the issue in the apartment below was known...about them and cleaned my place nearly from top to bottom. Problem is, most of my flooring is carpet and I think they got into it.

I've now had three treatments by an exterminator, but I still got bit by one, yesterday. So I've washed and dried all my clothing and such, covered both my mattress and box spring with bedbug-proof slip cases, and just finished scrubbing the carpet around my work table with a power-vac cleaner. I'm lying in bed with my laptop and a printout of APoS, waiting for the carpet to dry.

Good thing about this is, making my work space ready for the cleaner showed me how much crap I've got that I can just get rid of. Tons of shit that means nothing or is unusable, or that I haven't even looked at in years. Soon to go by the wayside.

I'm currently working on the Houston section of the story, and while I like the flow of it, it's still on the superficial side. The point of this part of the book is to show how, even though Brendan's escaped the horror of the Troubles in Derry and thinks the city is a beacon of peace and safety, it's just the same in too many ways. Just a bit quieter, is all.

I feel like it takes a bit too long to get to the point where events begin to parallel what happened to Brendan in Derry...to an extent. I don't want exact replications, just general or similar in quiet ways. I'm trying to make a point but not be loud and harsh about it. I've read books like that and they drive me nuts.

Well...more nuts that I already am.

Structurally sound...

Today was spent solidifying the basic structure I have set up for Derry, and it works nicely. It should accept any changes I make to deepen and expand upon the actions being taken in the story. There is a quiet flow to it that gives it a quiet surface...but like the Mississippi, the undertow is fierce.

It's not going to be easy to work in the details I need and keep them seeming normal and natural. I want this to read as a memoir, not an historical tract. No jamming of info, just Brendan's observations and thoughts at what he's witnessing. He misses a couple of big events because of various reasons and knows of them, second and third hand. Of course, he's in the middle of the Battle for Bogside and Bloody Sunday, but those are massive wide-ranging occurrences that no one could avoid becoming involved in.

What's helping work out the logistics of it all is the CAIN website and its gallery of photos from 1968-1974. This one is by Eamon Melaugh, and its description is -- Two children sitting on the 'Roaring Meg' cannon. The cannon is located at the 'Double Bastion' on the City Walls overlooking the Bogside area of Derry. During the Siege of Derry 1688-1689 the cannon was said to have made the loudest noise of any gun, hence the name. The street in the background, Nailors Row, was demolished as part of redevelopment in the city.
He has hundreds on the site, and I have a couple of Willie Carson's books of photos of the time, not to mention several put out by Guildhall Press. What's driving me nuts, right now, is I used to have a large paperback of women's stories about being arrested by the British Army, during Internment, called something like Strong About it All...and I can't find it. I'll have to dig through all my books, now, to see if I mis-shelved it...but I may have the title wrong because I can't get it to come up on ABEbooks, at all.

As a last resort, there's always Walled City Books, in Derry.

Turning into quite the beast...

 I have 23 chapters written for Derry in APoS. 318 pages and 74,000+ words, and I get the sense it will wind up close to 450 pages and well over 100K in wordage. I can see so much that needs to be in there, still, and parts of it read too superficially. Smooth and easy, without a sense of the location or the people. Meaning probably adding another chapter, as well, and working at least one additional rewrite.

But there are sections I'm very proud of, especially the last chapter, as Brendan's preparing to leave Derry, and his walk to Claudy. The sloppiest parts are in the beginning chapters, right now, and the one dealing with the Bloody Sunday massacre. That one's going to be hard to write, but it's very, very important because it happens just a few days before Brendan's 16th birthday. It breaks through his reserve and builds his anger, but he remains clear-eyed enough to see the IRA has become just as oppressive as the RUC could be. Sometimes more-so.

This image is of Derry in the early 60s, just as the city was beginning construction of the Rossville Flats, which will figure greatly in the Battle of Bogside. They'll wind up just to the left of the triangle made by two roads meeting, in the middle left side of the image. Brendan's home is in that line of houses just to the right of those roads, atop the hill.

I sort of lose track of a couple of his friends in the middle chapters, so that will need to be addressed, as well, since they haunt him in the Houston section and later. And one bit happens too easily; I need to work that so it's more realistic.

I still feel like I don't have the sense of the people of Derry, yet. I've watched Derry Girls, which is set in 1994 and 1995, more than two decades after the majority of the story, and it's geared to be a comedy...but I did catch glimpses of their hard-edged humor in it. That is going to be a bitch and a half to make work.

My job is cut out for me...dammit...

Re-reading to remember...

 I've begun re-reading the Derry portion of APoS and had forgotten some things I put into it. There was also some repetition and actions that didn't quite make sense, but I'm only making notes, right now. Re-familiarizing myself with the story so I can be sure to work it out in the proper timeline. I know there is a lot more to add and re-arrange.

I'm up to 1969, when the People's Democracy march takes place. It was a group of college students walking from Belfast to Derry to highlight the need for political and societal reform. Brendan's brother, Eamonn, joins them and Brendan is sure something will go wrong. Which it does...did...brutally.

In truth, this is when The Troubles really began, not the Battle of Bogside, 8 months later. The Protestant response to a group of peaceful marchers showed the world how vicious things have become in Northern Ireland, and those in power refused to learn from their mistakes. Instead, they continued to repeat them. Over and over, until London had to send in troops to quell the growing chaos. Which, eventually, made things worse. But that is normally London's way.

Unfortunately, that's how people in power work. Still work. Take the stupid, blundering, arrogant path, every time. The Republican Party, here, has shown they will do anything to gain and maintain power, no matter how illegal or evil it might be, and can't see they've already lost. They honestly think acting like third-rate fascist thugs will get them what they want when all that does is anger people...and that anger leads to violence...as it did in Northern Ireland.

If Stormount (the NI center of government) had actually followed through with some reforms, none of this would have happened. All Catholics wanted was decent homes and good jobs to feed their families. Protestants could have quelled support for the more radical demands if they'd just made sure those two things were made right.

But the Protestants, goaded by Ian Paisley, who was in thrall to the devil, howled at even those minimal changes in the power structure and what happened? Thirty years of murder, destruction and an explosion of the criminal elements on both sides of the divide...and they still wound up giving Catholics pretty much what they had wanted, at the beginning. It was so damned stupid on all parts.

When men become mad dogs, there is nothing you can do but isolate them till they die off...and that's pretty much how it worked.

Something different...

 Today, I finished preparing an adult coloring book and uploaded it to Ingram Spark for printing. If they accept it, the book will be offered through Ingram Content Group for order, and possibly through Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I won't know for sure till they add it to their sites. It's 25 sketches I worked up, cleaned up and arranged in a little series of erotic fantasies, and I like how they turned out. Not as clean and simple as most coloring books, but could be lots of fun. My hope is to have it out and ready for order by the end of September.

It's gay oriented, of course, but I've long known there are a lot of women who like gay literature and images. Many even write gay romance...whoa, use the current term, Kyle -- MM Romance and Erotica. Some of it quite deep into kink. Reading them, I've found that what I think is extreme in my books is fairly tame. The closest I get to water sports, for example, is near the end of Hunter, when the MC is being deliberately humiliated by it. I guess I led a very sheltered life.

I did the coloring book to clear my head after Dair's Window blew up on me. Art has always been my refuge. I was never good enough to be considered a fine artist, but it did well enough for me. I even made money doing storyboards for films. But focusing on these sketches, and the tedious job of cleaning up the dirt in the image after they've been scanned, blanked out my confusion and anger at what happened with DW and let me see clear, again.

I'm still setting that book aside and finishing at least the first two parts of A Place of Safety -- Derry and Houston -- before I return to it. I got to thinking about them and they really are two halves to a whole. I can do the third part -- Return to Derry -- after they are set. My goal now is to have a readable draft ready for these two by the end of the year. No guarantees, but it's something to keep me moving forward.

Baby steps...

Understanding is slow...

As I dig into the books I bought to help me center APoS in Derry, between 1966 and 1972 in the first book, I'm finding how some of them provide minimal information...but even that can be useful. I have a copy of The Brow, the Brothers, and the Bogside by John Ledwidge that is, ostensibly, about an important Catholic boys school in Derry, but it only has a bit more than 5 pages of text devoted to the troubles, covering October 1968 to 1971 in the most superficial of ways. BUT...there is discussion in this section about the appalling living conditions in the Bogside area of Derry (where Brendan lives) and a photo of a woman at a hearth with an iron crane used to hold a pot for cooking over an open turf fire. I need to find out if turf is the same as peat, but that alone made the book worthy of having.

I'm also reading Last Orders, Please! by Macgufin...and it's bizarre. Caricatures of people in more the Belfast area but also Derry and the surrounding countryside, following a functional eejit of a drunk named Brian Arthur, who hasn't a bone of sense in his body. At least, I was thinking they were exaggerations, but in reading Kidnapped by A J Davidson, I wonder. This book deals with real kidnappings between 1971 and into the 1990s...and the way some of these things are, first, planned and plotted and, second, how the Garda and the RUC go about investigating and trying to catch the kidnappers makes me think the Irish really are dumb as bricks.

Of course, a lot of the problem was poor communication and lack of proper training on the cops' side, sometimes with fatal consequences. Another part was bad luck. But overriding all of this is the clan aspect of it all. "I can work with this man's brother because his Da once worked with my grandfather..." and all that shit. On both the Protestant and Catholic side. It's mind-boggling...and I already had a fair idea of how nonsensical things could be in that part of the world.

I'd make this a satire were it not for the nonstop death and destruction that occurred...and yes, I know Irish playwrights work that sort of thing all the time...witness The Hostage by Brendan Behan and the absurdity of what happens to the British soldier taken prisoner by the IRA in Neil Jordan's The Crying Game. I'm not sure enough of my ability in writing humor to pull that off, and I don't want to do the story a disservice.

If my Brendan wants it to happen, it will. He's already leading me down new paths... 

It's been nearly two years since last writing in this blo...

It's been nearly two years since last writing in this blog and more than eight months since I stopped working on A Place of Safety and focused on Dair's Window...but then DW blew up on me and I had to stop that and take some time to think things through. In the meantime, I sketched up an adult gay coloring book with some rather dangerous bits in it, and that seems to have helped. I'm back to reading my books about N. Ireland and have decided to treat each section of the novel as its own book.
Brendan's family lives on Nailors Row for part of this section.

Derry will be first, of course, and is the hardest to write because I'm still uncertain about the sociology of the town and her people. Their humor is dark and a bit defensive, which I'm not sure I can replicate...but I won't know until I actually get into it and do it. I also have an idea as to why Brendan's mother is so disparaging of him, but need to see if this is something that can be put forth in a realistic fashion.

So once the coloring book is up and running, which should be by the end of September, I'm digging into Derry and rewriting it until I no longer can. Houston is 75% written; I just need to add a few things to it and polish it up...and Return is about 80% completed...maybe 85%. It was always going to be the easiest part to write because it takes place during just a few months, during the hunger strike of 1981. It's also the harshest, so far, because it includes a long torture section at Castlereagh Station, in Belfast.

I don't know if I'll be posting daily...but these blog comments do seem to help clear my head and focus me.

Honing and sharpening...

I've spent the last few days working out why the opening chapter of APoS wasn't working, for me...and finally just dove in to restructure it. Opened up a new blank document, copied and pasted the parts of  what I currently had to it, and came up with this...which is much shorter and far tighter and less expository. I think that was the problem -- putting too much detail in at the beginning, stuff that could come later. So...here's what I did (the image shows one end of Nailors Row, under the Walker Monument,,,which was destroyed by the IRA in late 1973):

In the Beginning

Those who knew Eamonn Kinsella, and were being less than dishonest with themselves, had to admit that were he born but ten miles to the west or north, his murder would have been seen as the fitting end to a hard and brutal man and few would have mourned his passing. For he was well-known as one who was quick to temper. A wrong word, here, or a wrong look, there, or even so little as a wrong touch, and suddenly you'd be on the floor with a split lip or blackened eye, and it would always be your fault he had to react, no matter how improbable the cause.

To his advantage was his height, at over six feet, and that he came in at more than 15 stone. Despite it being years since his position as a navvy on Belfast's docks, his hands still held the calluses the job built, his back still carried the strength gained from it, and he had only just begun drifting into sloth. So as word of his death spread, the first thought on many a mind was he had finally focused his anger on one who had shown him the truth of existence...that there was always someone stronger, meaner and better with his fists than yourself, and one day you're sure to meet.

That idea was quickly cast aside, because his body was found off the Limavady Road in a ditch of flowing water on a cold, blustery morning late in February. His coat had been pulled down his arms and his hands bound behind him. Every bone in every finger had been broken, several ribs shattered, an elbow dislocated and his face pummeled into the mere hint of a human visage. Blood soaked his shirt down to his trousers, the knees of which were torn and scraped as if he’d been forced to walk on them or been dragged, and it was said his every tooth was broken out, as well. Of course, little of this was truly verifiable because the Coroner’s one comment on his death was the purest embodiment of simplicity.

“Mr. Kinsella perished due to a bullet fired into the crown of his head.”

Perished.

Not killed. Not murdered. Not slaughtered like a cow in the abattoir. No. Perished. A charming word that can mean so much. After all, many's the time you'd hear more than a few men say, "I'm perished from the thirst." Or hunger. Or cold. Or work. Or the mere seeking of a job. Women would say it, as well, but not once until that Coroner's use of it did I ever connect the damned word with death. It sent me to the library, it did, to look it up, as they had a dictionary. To my surprise, it was defined as such, with synonyms being expire, wither, shrivel, vanish, molder and rot (any of which might have been just as appropriate...save for the last, since he didn't time to), so its meaning had to be accepted as true.

If still cowardly and so bloody fucking typical.

It was determined he had lain in that wet icy ditch for a full day and night. On his back. His clothing soaked through and solid with ice. His one unseeing eye open and tinted by blood; the other being swollen shut. Still bound tight as if against the possibility of him returning to haunt his killers...and in truth, I'd not have put it past him.

The problem is, that made it difficult to set an exact time of death, according to the Constables. Understandable...but to then have them claim it was somewhere between midnight and four in the previous morning? That was ridiculed beyond belief, for he was last seen being jostled out of McCleary’s Pub in his far-too-usual condition just after last orders, two nights before. And once the details of his final condition were spread by a reticent undertaker's wife...in quick, horrified breath, of course...it was obvious to one and all that he did not release his grip on life without a full-on fight, and without question it would have lasted for more than a few pathetic hours. Its veracity became truth incarnate when it was learned that said reticent undertaker was also in the process of gently but insistently suggesting a closed casket, to the widow.

Word of his murder flew from tongue to ear, as such news always does, and within the hour many a man at many a pub began to offer kind remembrances of his bleak eyes and long face, all bringing to mind tortured poets and sad balladeers. They spoke of how he could sing so well as to make the angels weep. Elegant tunes of Ireland's ruined past and her dead future. Others gave gentle smiles and recalled melodious stories spun by him of fairies living in Oak glens that once spread forever across the land. And of gods who roamed her once glorious green fields and forests. And exciting tales wrapped around Grianán Aileach, the ancient ring fort but six miles and a hundred worlds away from town. All brought forth in such beauty and perfection you'd have thought he lived through each and every one.

He could also weave tales set in times more modern, violent and furious and savage, and dealing with the unnatural order of life in this corner of our fair isle. Even his enemies, of whom there were more than a few, allowed that he had a true Irish heart, and in another time under better circumstances would have given the likes of James Joyce and Sean O’Casey a challenge as the nation’s bard.

Of course, a few less-pious souls mingled in their offering of the possibility that he might well have lived through some of his tall tales, including those ancient, with their gentle hints at the heretical idea of reincarnation. That blasphemy spread just as quickly, and by the following Sunday, the Church was filled with huffing and puffing most magnificent at such vile nonsense. I found it glorious and rather probably, for it was hard to see how so much anger and grace could have been poured into one man in fewer than thirty-six years unless he carried it over from a previous existence.

By God, the rages he could build about the horrors of being a working man without work in a land cursed by God, with a wife and five mouths to feed. Barely living off the dole, they were, with naught but spuds burned in the open hearth and tea made from thrice-used leaves for their breakfast. Rags on their backs. A hovel of a dwelling on Nailors Row, close to collapsing around them and lucky to have that to themselves. No steady heat or indoor plumbing. Spuds for supper and tea, as well. No prospects for a decent job as once he’d had, even though that had been the worst kind of cruelty to his back and taken him away for too long from his devoted family...and would you please front me another pint, m’boy?

Despite the fact you’d never see a farthing of repayment from him. Of course, that last memory was minimized in honor of the dead. Hypocrisy is much expected at both funeral and wake.

Still, it was not a day past his burial before some felt it safe to acknowledge that he might have taken a dram too much, now and again. But that was not viewed to be a true criticism; as many would say, it was one of the few comforts offered men in his pinpoint of the world. Women as well, though not as many because they had little time for it, between caring for their latest wain and working the shirt factories, not to mention keeping their man from making too great a fool of himself down the pub. That could be a full-time position unto itself.

Of course, anger was seen as the only honest emotion men like him were allowed to hold forth. And if his wife went to market with a fresh bruise over one eye or across one cheek, or was out walking her wains around till her lord and master had sworn himself into weary, drunken sleep, stopping to chat with others who might be doing the same...well, she was hardly known for her gentleness, was she? Her nails had left scratches deep on more than just his back, and her quickness with an iron skillet aimed for the head was not unnoticed. No, she was her own form of holy terror, was Mrs. Kinsella.

Far, far too many of these comments were bandied back and forth, soft and low, usually accompanied by a click-click-click of the tongue. The justification for their libels was, Just having a bit of craic on the stoop, nothing more. But that they took no concern for any of his children if they happened to be close by and...well, just happened to be listening in...without seeming to gave lie to their claim of innocence.

But that soon faded away, as well. For starting with his wake, his trek to sainthood began and the truth of his lost, violent existence drifted into the fog of vague remembrance like a ghost, aided and abetted by that closed casket and the need for his burial to be quick.

It was paid for only through the intersession of Father Demian, the family's priest, who’d so often visited the man’s home in times of violence or distress in the years prior he felt no need to knock before entering. And he tried to comfort the new widow as she wept and wailed such things as, “What’s to become of us?" and "How shall we live?” Over and over, to the point where even those sympathetic to her wondered if her laments were less over her husband's passing and more from her sense of guilt for having loudly wished him dead, many a time. While I may have agreed with the latter sentiment, it was not their place to cast judgment on her, for it. Only a man’s kin may determine the meaning of his passing and worth.

So...how did the family live, once he was gone?

Simple.

The burned spuds and weak tea for breakfast were replaced by porridge and milk. Fish and chips could be brought in, on occasion, and eggs and fresh bread. For the one benefit of having to deal with life on less than half the dole's miserly payment was that Kinsella's widow knew how to stretch a ha’penny the length of a mile. She also took in sewing and was well-thought-of by those needing a light repair to a shirt or dress, and for half the rate of the tailor's. Even better -- because the widow had five young ones with another soon due, the Derry Committee (the bastards who ran the town) were forced to promise better lodgings for us once the last of the Rossville Flats was completed.

If there were room still available on the queue, of course.

Can’t make promises one might have to keep.

So yes...for me there was no sorrow at his death. And while it was deemed inappropriate, me being his second son, I sensed even then it was for the better of me, my two brothers and two sisters...and even my mother, weep as she might. Something no child the age of ten should be thinking about his own father.

But in all honesty, I did.

For I cannot tell you the number of times I'd seen his fists upon her as my elder brother and myself tried to stop him. The blood on her face. The tears from blackened eyes. Hers as well as ours. And how he broke my clavicle by shoving me down the stairs when I got too tight between them. It stopped him, but Ma blamed me for the expense it incurred, by a trip to the clinic.

Now of course, since I demand honesty from others, I must also honor it, myself. My relief at Da's passing was mostly colored by the recent occasion where he’d nearly crushed my right hand because I dared wish to keep a shilling I’d earned helping Mrs. Cahan clean her hutch instead of hand it across so he could have one more pint of porter. And never once since has my mind changed.

However, my father lived and died in Derry, Northern Ireland (Londonderry for those who cannot be bothered to learn the city’s proper name). And upon his death, he was lionized for who he was...a Catholic man...as memories of the brute he was were cast aside. Then when it was learned he was killed by two drunk Protestants who swore to heaven and earth they’d only meant to have some fun with the Taig...which was as high a pile of shite as could be imagined but, naturally, was accepted as the most reasonable explanation by the powers that be...his martyrdom to Mother Ireland was carved in stone.

A poor family man trying only to keep kith and kin together as he slaved for the pennies tossed his way by Loyalist scum.

It would bring full-throated laughter from even the most accepting of men. If they were being less than dishonest with themselves. Still...that would also have been tucked away, eventually. Merely added to the long list of offenses against the Catholics of the North and soon forgotten but for several Catholic schools being attacked, that year. And the murders of more Catholics, thanks to the emergence of a band of Loyalist mental defectives who, sensing the growing restlessness of the oppressed in Ulster and the push for civil rights, stupidly thought killing a few papists would remind them who was still in charge. Called themselves the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, they did, and in their deluded minds would become bigger and better than the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) or B-Specials (generally bullies and assholes backing up the RUC).

Instead, they wound up simple murderers, banned, and imprisoned at Long Kesh.

However, their stupidity was not completely in vain. For in honor of their foolishness, the Derry Corporation saw fit to decide that no Catholic would be relocated till it was time to redevelop their street. Meaning we kept living in that hovel for three years more. Ma, the new wain and the girls in the front bed, me and the lads in the back, even as life settled into a fresh, bold direction around us.

So that was my new beginning at the ripe old age of ten, feeling joyful and free even as the subtle brutality of my only known world surrounded me, waiting for the best moment to bring forth its fullest impact, growing closer and closer to an explosion of hatred and cruelty made only the worse by it happening in a supposedly civilized part of the fast-dwindling British Empire.

But what child can see the build of history around him? Even few adults can, in truth. Events occur that you’re part of but at the time carry no meaning beyond themselves. You either rejoice when all ends well or weep when it doesn’t. So my father's death only held resonance for me in the most selfish of ways -- that I could now live my life in the manner I chose, that of a boy filled with hopes and dreams and prayers and promises, believing himself to be in a place of safety.