MY LIFE: A LOVE STORY

“If the words from my heart make sense, why not listen to your own heart.”

Melvin L Morse MD FAAP (spiritualscientific.com)

Just print it out. It’s easier to read that way

Once upon a time, there was a man who had a BIG IDEA! His idea was so big, it took him many many years to think of it, and even more years to write it down. When he did write his idea down, he noticed it made a lot of people cry. So the man was sad, and wondered if he had the right BIG IDEA. Because it was a lot of trouble to write down the BIG IDEA and he wanted to do other things, like play with his children.

Then, the same people who cried about his BIG IDEA, asked him to come and talk to them more about it. They introduced him to many other people. People from all over the world asked him to come and talk to them about his BIG IDEA. He noticed that most of these people had a child who had died. They were crying because something about his BIG IDEA made them happy about their child who died, in a sad kind of way. For the first time in a long time, they were at peace. They understood something important about themselves because of his BIG IDEA.

They said that his BIG IDEA allowed them to trust themselves, to see that they too had a BIG IDEA, and that their own BIG IDEA healed them in some mysterious way. So the man became very excited and he said, tell me your BIG IDEA and I will tell it to everyone else.

But it didn’t work that way. The man’s BIG IDEA seemed to function to let each individual person trust something deep in them and related to something called GOD. It turns out that this GOD was talking to each of the crying people, but they didn’t know it.

The man wondered why his BIG IDEA allowed these crying people to talk to this GOD, when he didn’t even know what this GOD was and his BIG IDEA didn’t really have anything to do with this GOD that was talking to crying people. Then he remembered that he didn’t think up his BIG IDEA all by himself. In fact, children told him the BIG IDEA. He only thought and told everyone he thought it up himself because he thought that sounded better.

In double fact, the BIG IDEA was a “wonderful secret” that a child told him. The man had a job saving children from dying when they were drowned or hit by cars or other bad stuff. Mostly it didn’t work, this saving children, but the man didn’t care because he liked his job. He got to put tiny tiny tubes into tiny places and do exciting fast paced stuff and fly in a plane to different places, and figure out really hard problems. The man liked to fix things, and these broken dying children were really hard to fix, so he liked that. He got to spend a lot of time with beautiful women who helped him to fix the broken children. They thought he was a HERO.

It turned out the children were so hard to fix that only one out of a hundred lived. It was these children who told the man his BIG IDEA! One child told him that his BIG IDEA was so important that “you have to tell all the old people”. He wondered if his BIG IDEA was true, and another child told him that his BIG IDEA was ‘real, it was realer than real”.

Then the man noticed that many of the crying people were getting angry. And they were getting angry at him! Some told him his BIG IDEA was a big lie. Other people told him he made up his big idea to make money. Other people said he didn’t think of his BIG IDEA (which he didn’t) but that someone else wrote a book about their BIG IDEA and they thought of it first! And other people told him their BIG IDEA was BIGGER than his BIG IDEA!

Many people told him that his BIG IDEA gave them a BIG IDEA. Others pointed out that his BIG IDEA seemed to be part of a NEW PARADIGM, a new way that human beings will think. The man thought this was very interesting, and learned that human beans think in a certain way, and that many times through out history, that way of thinking dramatically changed, like when people suddenly started using language to write instead of just talking, or people suddenly learned they could tell lies and invent stories, or when people thought of the idea of democracy.

Mostly the man thought about the crying people. They were the parents of the children he tried to fix and couldn’t. They were very interested in the BIG IDEA, he realized because it came from the children who he did fix. Many of these fixed children said that the man didn’t fix them at all, but they decided to return to life. The crying people wanted to know why those children lived and their child died, and they seemed to think the man’s BIG IDEA explained it to them.

The man did not know why the crying people were so interested in his BIG IDEA. The crying people saw something in his BIG IDEA that he didn’t see. So he decided that the big secret in the BIG IDEA was truly a secret, sent to the crying people from the children who died. He decided that he didn’t know what the BIG IDEA was all about because he had never had a child die.

So he told the crying people that he had never had a child die and he didn’t know why they were crying and they hugged him and hugged him and thanked him for telling them that.

They said that his BIG IDEA was important to them because he didn’t understand it, or make money on it, or had a child die. He was a guy who tried to fix children and play with his children.

So then the man decided to make sure that his BIG IDEA was true. He thought he would be letting all those crying people down if he didn’t make sure his BIG IDEA was true, according to the best scientists and thinkers in the land. So he published his BIG IDEA in scholarly journals, and he met lots of really smart people, and they all were astonished at his BIG IDEA. For example, he met a lot of chaos mathematicians and nuclear physicists, something he knew nothing about. Yet they exclaimed, “you know everything about these subjects, how did you learn so much about quantum physics and chaos mathematics?” The man realized that he learned it from children who nearly died and then told him about his BIG IDEA.

This was not as strange as it sounds. One after another, men and women would come to him and whisper in his ear that the same thing happened to them. One man was very wealthy and a famous molecular physicist. He whispered in the man’s ear that he learned it all when he nearly died as a child. Another was a famous rock musician, who was known throughout the land for his songs. He said “I learned to sing my music when I nearly died”.

And secret officials hidden within the government whispered to him that his BIG IDEA explained how their spies could see things in their mind at a distance. And mystics and mediums told him his BIG IDEA explained how they helped their clients better understand themselves.

So the man was amazed. He thought and thought and thought about his BIG IDEA.

He came to realize that this idea was like a wonderful magic mirror, it helped people to understand something important about themselves. Something they felt was important, even though it didn’t seem important to the man, who after all, only wanted to play with his children.

Yet like a mirror, whatever was seen in it had only meaning to the person looking in the mirror. This seemed to be the greatest insight of all about the BIG IDEA. It was a way that each person could talk to this God, learn something from this God, but what they learned only meant something to the specific person.

These insights were spiritual insights. Yet they could not be proven. They were so important that they could stop the crying people from crying, but they were afraid to do so but they didn’t want to believe a lie that they made up themselves. The BIG IDEA proved to them that their spiritual insights were real, and by definition cannot be proven by objective means. However, since the BIG IDEA could be proven to be true, then it followed that the insights it created were also true.

When the man had stopped thinking about his BIG IDEA, he noticed the strangest thing! His wife hated him and his children didn’t know who he was! He was mad, because he didn’t really care that much about the BIG IDEA, he really just wanted to play with his children.

While the man was thinking about his BIG IDEA, his wife got tired of waiting for him to start thinking about her, and his children grew up and they were used to playing with someone else. None of them cared about the BIG IDEA, because like the man, they did not have a child who died, or care if there was a NEW PARADIGM. The man made a lot of money, and they thought the man was just a thinking man who gave them money.

So they left the man, but still wanted his money.

The man was in despair. He said, but what about my BIG IDEA! It was so important to the crying people. But his family didn’t care about his BIG IDEA, they were not crying, they had wanted to play with him and all he wanted to do was think, and his wife had gotten old waiting for him to finish with his BIG IDEA. He had thought and thought and thought one “thought” too many. He realized with horror that his family hadn’t even read his books, and why should they? People halfway around the world cared more about his BIG IDEA he realized, so he had spent time with them instead of loving his family.

Oh, he forgot to love his family. This was very strange, because his BIG IDEA was about love. But even the man did not understand or care about his BIG IDEA, so he missed that part of it.

So the man decided to die. He decided his BIG IDEA had ruined his life and was not important. His life was proof that his BIG IDEA was a BIG FAILURE. So he painted his house black, and made preparations to die.

Now a strange thing happened. Just as the man was ready to die, a thought came into his head. It was a very pure thought, different from any thought he had before. He wondered, “is this a prayer?” And the thought was, “yes, your BIG IDEA is important. You should not die. Yes, you did screw up and drive your family away and all they want is your money, that is true, but it is also true that your BIG IDEA is important. Sometimes it just works out that way, you think of a great thought, and everyone hates you. Get over it”.

The man was very puzzled. He remembered how the children described what talking to this God was like, and this seemed a lot like what they described. But would God say things like “you screwed up” and “get over it”. That did not seem very likely.

He said, “no, weird strange voice/thought, I am going to die. If what you are saying is true, I need more than a weird strange voice talking to me. I went to a lot of trouble to paint my house black inside, and get all this stuff to die with and learn how to use it, and I am going to die. If you really think my BIG IDEA is true, then you have to send me an old fashioned “sign” like a real god would do, not say things like “get over it. And even that is not enough. I screwed up once on this STUPID BIG IDEA which just led to everyone hating me, so if it is all that important, you have to send me someone to help me with it.”

And there was silence. And the man said, Ahah, I knew it. And he prepared to die.

And then another strange thing happened. Just as the man was to die, really only seconds from dying, the phone rang. This was very strange, as he thought that he had turned the phone off.

So the man answered the phone. And it was Randall Sullivan, a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine! He said, I have heard about your BIG IDEA! It sounds very interesting. I want to write about it for Rolling Stone. I will be over at your house in 15 minutes.

The man said quickly, “perhaps we should meet at a restaurant” as after all, he had painted his room black.

So the man met with Randall Sullivan. And Randall Sullivan said I have to meet with you again, and again, and again. I then I will write the story. And I am also writing a movie about you. And the woman who will teach you about love, who will come after me to help you.

So, the man did not die that day.

When the article in Rolling Stone came out, the man went to the grocery store to buy five copies for his mother. He knew the clerk, because she was once one of the crying people. He had saved her son’s life when he was a baby, but he was only a baby so he couldn’t tell the man what it was like to almost die, like the other children did.

She said to him, why you are buying so many copies of that magazine. And he said, “Because I am in it and I am going to show it to my mother”. And he started to leave when she said “here, let me help you with it”, because the magazines were falling down.

Then the man remembered the voice and the phone call. He asked her out on a date.

But a strange thing happened. In the middle of their date, she said something to him that made him get up and write for two straight hours, while she watched him. This was the first time he had written in two years.

This made another person very happy. She wrote a book about her BIG IDEA, but it didn’t go to press because it was waiting for the man to write the Introduction to this book. The man had already said, publish your book without me, but the lady wanted to wait. When her book came out with the man’s introduction, it became a best seller and the lady was happy.

So the man saw that this crying woman did help him, and even made the other lady happy and got the other lady to stop calling him and yelling at him about his Introduction. So, not only did she help him but she made other people stop yelling at him.

Then the man had to go to France, where another man kept yelling at him. So he decided to bring the crying person with him, and the same thing happened. The crying person sat with him and he wrote another book, and the French man stopped yelling at him and the book won a BIG PRIZE, which made the yelling man happy, and he invited the man and the crying person back another year, and lots of people wanted to talk to the man and the crying person.

First he made a baby with the crying person, and then he married her, and made another baby with her. He thought, now everyone will love me again, and my children will now love me again.

But his children didn’t love him more. Now, not only did they hate him, they left and went to live with his ex-wife! They told her about the babies, and the crying person, and all the people who now seemed so happy with the man and his new crying person wife.

All of this made the man’s now ex-wife very angry. Really really angry.

She got a lawyer, and did lots of bad things and was mean and took all the man’s money.

Soon he had no money left.

So he went to a wise woman who helped people who have no money. She was very sad. She said “I know all about your BIG IDEA, and I think you are a brilliant man. But your ex-wife now hates you, your children from your first marriage will never speak to you again, and you have to sell your house, give up all you own, give her all your money. That’s the WAY THINGS ARE.” The man sputtered “that’s not fair”! The woman said “I know”.

The man tried to get in touch with the mysterious voice again, but there was only silence. There seemed to be only a recording, which said over and over again, “you only asked for help with your BIG IDEA, you big stupid head, why didn’t you ask for a lot more stuff while this god whatever seemed to be in a giving mood. I mean Randall Sullivan didn’t even pay you anything to be in Rolling Stone, next time go for big bucks to go along with the psychic help”.

But mysteriously, another very strange thing happened to the man as he left the “Queen of Bankruptcy”’s office. A little bird, shaped like a falcon hopped up on his shoulder.

It whispered in his ear, “don’t worry, I will help you”.

He wondered it this little bird could be real. He also remembered the meaning of his BIG IDEA was that spiritual experiences have personal meaning only to those who experience them and defy outside objective validation.

However, he still could not trust his BIG IDEA, even though he had proven it to so many other people’s satisfaction. So he called the Queen of Bankruptcy back and said, “something really odd happened to me just now. I wonder if you know anything about it”. She laughed and said, “oh, do you mean the falcon. Well, a lot of clients tell me about a falcon talking to them after they see me.”

So the man and the crying person, and the falcon went out into the big bad world together. They had their two children. They were alone and did not know what to do.

Yet at every turn in the road, every time of hardship, the falcon whispered in the man’s ear what to do. Since the falcon came from a bankruptcy attorney’s office, it was very skilled with legal issues. It helped the man file motions and went to Court with him, when he could not afford a lawyer.

It told him what to do, and what not to do.

The falcon told the man there was only way to save himself and his family from his ex-wife. He explained to the man that she had become transformed into a Harpy of Vengeance that even she (the falcon is a girl) could not defeat. The man understood this. He knew that the ex-wife had become a crying person consumed with complex pathological guilt and was doing her grief work in her quest to destroy the man, the crying person, their children and all they represented to her.

It sounds so great, he explained to the falcon, this god sending the crying person as a helper, etc, but the ex-wife and her children had in fact wanted to help the man, when he didn’t want their help, he just wanted to think and think about his big idea. Now, all of a sudden, he has a younger gorgeous wife, new children, saying they are who are helping him with his BIG IDEAS, and what are the ex-wife and old children, “chopped liver”. In fact, his ex-wife saw the man and his current wife and success is a transformed grief object representing all that his ex-wife lost all those years he ignored her and neglected his children.

The falcon rustled her feathers and shrugged, “whatever, she’ll have to get over it won’t she”.

Hmmm, the man thought, the same thing that god-voice thing said before, “man, this god is a tough guy, get over it? Is that in the Christian Bible anywhere I wonder?”

So, the man listened to the falcon. As you can imagine the advice from an imaginary falcon might seem a little unusual and a little extreme to the human mind.

Furthermore, there are some who think this is a fairy tale, with cheerful happy animals, but read on at the risk of your own sanity, for the little falcon was born of the Queen of Bankruptcy; she told me the last client who the little falcon helped painted her a picture in gratitude.

She showed me the picture in her office: It was a picture of the falcon tearing another bird to pieces, with blood spurting everywhere, to save the falcon’s babies. I could no longer deny the falcon was real, at least real to me, for the falcon she showed me in her office was the same falcon on my shoulder.

So this story is no fairy tale, and has no happy ending, except hopefully a happy ending for the man’s children who he has now learned are more important than his BIG IDEA.

The man went to Court with the falcon one day, and the Judge took the man’s children away. The man wept and ripped his clothes from his body in sorrow. Surely, this was not worth the BIG IDEA! Why did you not let me die that day.

And the falcon whispered in his ear, “now you know what the crying people feel, it is not a fun game to them, it is not you putting tubes into their children so you can brag to beautiful nurses how good you are, how smart you are. Now you feel what they felt, but just a little.”

And the man went to Court one day, and the Judge took all his money away, and his good name, and everything that he spent his life working for, and all that he thought was important.

And the man wept, and ripped his clothes from his body in sorrow. Surely, he cried, this could not be worth the BIG IDEA! And the falcon whispered in his ear, Now maybe you will take your BIG IDEA seriously, now that you have nothing else to think about or distract you.

Your big idea was about love, and yet you have not tried to love anyone but yourself.

And the man went to Court one day, and he cried out to the Judge for justice. He told the Judge, “behold, I am victim on an alter of truth. Look at these 22 lies that have been told about me, look at the facts, look at the evidence, how can you take my children and my job and my life from me when all that you have seen is lies”

And the Judge told the man, “today is not the day I decide your children’s fate. Today is not the day for Truth, or Lies. That is next week, or month, or year.” And the man returned to the Judge, wearing a T shirt from a Monty Python movie in which a knight has had his arms and legs cut off and still the knight is fighting. He is screaming “come back here and I will bite your legs off”. And the Judge told the man to approach the bench and told the man: You are in a war young man, and you are not taking it seriously. You think your life is about playing children’s games. You think that life is about your BIG IDEA. This courtroom is about war. This is where the weak die and the strong survive. So strap on your boots young man, you have a long fight.

And the falcon whispered in the man’s ear: I told you so.

And the man said to the falcon: So, this is the wisdom of this God I am told about, “get over it”, “I told you so”, “life’s not fair”, “you’re screwed”? This is this great almighty all powerful good that people have been worshipping throughout the Ages?

The falcon rustled its feathers and said “get over it”.

Now if children are reading this story, I beg them to turn their heads, for what is to be written is truly horrible. But for the adults, even those of a weak stomach, I beg you to read on, for only if you read what happened next can you understand the wisdom of Brother Mike who ends the story. Brother Mike is an Enforcer in his Church, and a man of wisdom, but his Church, contrary to most Churches, is not the Church of God, so we will not be surprised to learn of his final healing words to this story.

Ah, you think I digress from my tale, but I do not. I am giving you the flavor of traveling alone with the crying woman and two small children in a strange landscape guided by the falcon. For from time to time, the falcon leaves us and circles and scouts what is ahead and then returns. So it was with that last digression, I alert you, intrepid reader, that gruesome stuff is ahead, but all will end happily with the word of a Christian Brother, Brother Mike, of the Church of the Ungod. (Brother Mike belongs to the Unitarian Church, which the man interprets as being a Church of the No God or Un God. Brother Mike actually collects money from the participants in the Church, which the man interprets as being an “Enforcer”.)

So the falcon whispered in the man’s ear:

Your destiny is on the East Coast and you must move quickly in the dark of night.

There is rich soil there for your Big Idea to grow. The forces of good and evil have surrounded our encampment, and speed is necessary.

And behold, it was true. The man sold his house at full price in a disintegrating housing market in 3 hours, to a couple who stated to the Real Estate agent that a mysterious “God” that they believed in told them to buy the house. And behold, it was true! His partners in medicine, who he practiced with in harmony for 20 years, rose up and threw him out of his practice, stating he must flee for his own safety. And behold it was true, they refused to pay him any money, stating only that the matters were so complex that only endless discussions with attorneys for years could possibly sort out how much money they truly owed him. In turn, this meant that no person or even agent of the IRS could figure out how much money the man had or did not have, not even himself.

And the falcon rustled her feathers and whispered in his ear, “I guess the legal system, with its delays of weeks, or months, or years comes in handy after all”, for the partners did not say they owned him no money, they only said it was so complex only the wisest judges in the land could decide, and these wise men were unfortunately so busy they would not be able to decide for a long long long time.

And so the man fled to a New Land. And the people of this New Land, welcomed the man, and said, we believe in you and your BIG IDEA. And we have structured the law of our New Land to help people like you who are fleeing from righteous vengeance.

And the falcon whispered in his ear, “I told you so”, as the man did not know of such things, he only went where the falcon told him to go.

Yet the Harpy of Righteous Vengeance sought out the man, and send his son, her soldier to spy upon him and see what he was up to. The man embraced his son with open arms and welcomed him to his home. But his son said to him in anger “you have destroyed my mother’s home, and burnt all that I hold dear. I am angry and I will destroy all that I see in my anger.”

The son said: Father, you and I are in a war, a war with no rules. You are a terrorist who has bombed my Twin Towers, and I will see that justice is done. The man looked at his son, they were twin souls, born on the same day of the year! He heard his son speak of justice in the same way that he felt about justice, and yet each thought the other was unjust. The man suddenly saw why the Christian Bible says “vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”, for no man understands true justice. Even the wisest judges in the land cannot deliver justice.

For the first time, the man understood why the Wise Man (another older brother) told him that justice is done but the Courts move at a glacial speed. For perhaps the man lost his business and reputation while the Courts moved slowly, but surely this was better than the swift justice his son wanted to deliver. The falcon whispered in his ear: “A hasty justice is no justice at all”.

The man loved his son, so he went to his BIG BOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY, and read that behold, children who are the victims of High Conflict Custody disputes often take sides, and usually the side of the parent they think is the weakest. They succumb to a kind of waking sickness called Parental Alienation, in which they want to destroy their other parent in their anger.

And the man looked upon his son, and loved him for the loyal soldier he was. The son was like his father, a man who wanted to protect the weak, especially the crying ones. He realized how much the son’s mother had lost, and that she had become one of the crying ones, and he loved his son as much as he cursed the son’s mother, for he knew his son was being a good son.

And the falcon whispered in his ear and flew away.

The guards came for his son, on a black sad day, when many sacred objects in the man’s home were smashed in anger and his crying woman screamed in fear and called the police. They took his son to protective custody where he could not hurt himself or others. The man’s sisters and family gathered and protected the son, and sent him to a magical land of spiritual power far away, where he could be safe for the rest of the war.

The man’s son cried out in anger at him, “you blackguard, you have framed me, I did not do anything wrong, this is unjust!” And the falcon whispered in the man’s ear: “Remember he is the one who told you this is a war without rules. He can hardly complain now. Maybe he does hate you, but he is safe now, and will grow to be a man and find his own BIG IDEA. His hatred may be the price you pay for that.”

Many other terrible things happened.

One day, the falcon whispered in the man’s ear: The Harpy of Righteous Vengeance is getting harmful information from those who love you. They lack the understanding and the will to do what must be done.” And the man said, “what must I do?”. And the falcon told him, and afterwards, there was a great weeping and teeth gnashing in the man’s family, but the problem was solved. The man cried out, “so this is what I must sacrifice too, now my own family hates me? Even my sisters?” And the falcon reminded him of his son’s words, “this is a war without rules.”

One day, the falcon whispered in the man’s ear. They have prepared a horrible trap for you deep in the jungle. They have dug a pit in the earth and placed sharp sticks pointing upward. They will then frighten you with a monster of your own creation and get you to run from it, to trap you.

And the man said, “what should I do?” And the falcon said, be at peace with your path, your journey. Accept that you are a man with a good heart, but imperfect. Walk with me, slowly, quietly at the side of the path and we will see what we see.

And at the pit, they looked down, and behold a man named Richard Lyle had fallen in the trap of his own making, with a wooden stake coming out of his face and heart. And the man cried out in agony and pain, but the falcon whispered, “that was for you, be thankful for your children’s sake”.

There are many many other tales of the falcon, most far to horrible or unbelievable to tell.

I realize now I never did understand my own BIG IDEA and what the crying people understood from it. I see now that there are lessons of love that can only be learned when one loses everything. My attorney once asked me why men grow in strength at as young adults, only to lose their strength at mid-age, when they need it the most. My stepdaughter Ashley told me the answer: You need to learn from loss before you can truly be strong.

I have not hated my ex-wife for a long time. Nor do I blame her for what she is doing. I believe she is doing what anyone in her situation would do, she is fighting for all she knows is true, and just and right, with all her might. She has not seen past the illusion of justice as my own son taught me to do. I realize now that it is all about love, or the lack thereof.

There is no moral or happy ending to this story. If I made some of you angry in my efforts to save my family from a Righteous Vengeful Harpy who probably is in the right, if there is a “right or wrong” to life, (and by the way, I have it on pretty good authority there is only “wrong” and “get over it”), please blame it on an imaginary falcon and still love me, a man who now sees that his life is not important, it is all about loving his children.

The man then succumbed to a terrible illness, one that had been lying dormant in his body for many years. Ironically, he got the sickness from saving the lives of children. He went to see the wisest doctors on the land, and they told him he had only a 5% chance to live, and beat the illness. He cried out in anguish, to the god only his crying woman believed in.

Weeping tears, he told the doctor of all that had happened to him, expecting compassion, or even upping the 5% chance to maybe 7%!

The doctor looked at him, and said “get over it. So life didn’t turn out for you the way you expected”.

I will close this strange story with a quote from Brother Mike. Much of the battle with my ex-wife had to do with my son, who was addicted to ecstasy and methamphetamine and in danger of falling into the Abyss. I wanted him to live with me in rural Delaware where there would be fewer temptations. He had lived by himself on the street for so long, he had a hard time adjusting to so-called normal life (as if living with the crying woman and a small imaginary falcon could be called normal). Yet he was on the football team and passing all his classes in school, when he decided seek justice for his mother (my ex-wife) and smash the crying woman’s house.

Delaware Family Services became involved, and they said “he must return to the streets of Seattle Washington”. Counselors from Delaware Guidance said “he must return to the streets of Seattle”. The man’s own attorney (not an imaginary falcon) said “he must return to the streets of Washington.

The agents of the State of Delaware told us, if you do not send him away, then we will take all your children from you.

I cried out in anguish! I have waited so many years for justice. I did not take it into my own hands. Now I have lost my son, and have not seen my daughter in four years. This is too great a price to pay for my Big Idea, I should have died rather than suffer such losses.

In fact, my son fled his place of refuge and returned to the streets of Seattle. He is now addicted to methamphetamine and has no home. His mother is still fighting with me for custody of my children, one who can only read at a third grade level and is lost to drugs and the street, and the other who has not spoken to me or seen me in four years. We are now fighting over the ruble of our lives, which we both have destroyed, arguing over chunks of concrete and smashed idols.

I vowed to the crying woman that I would never allow this to happen to our relationship, and our two children. We go to counseling, even if we don’t need to, we take special courses on how to have a happy family and marriage. (Strengthening Families) I told her that my BIG IDEA would never be more important than our children and our family. In turn, the crying woman said to me that she would help me and be a part of my BIG IDEA, and so would our children.

She said I had to let go of the conflict, I had lost everything, and now my children from my first marriage would fall forever into the Abyss, until such a time as the god she believes in and the love that I no longer feel or see rescues them. “Melvin”, she told me tenderly, “you must open your mind and heart to the fact that you will be one of the 5% who lives. You had a less than 5% of living that day that you prayed for help, and you survived that day. Pull yourself from the Abyss and let God work his will on this earth.

So, I listened to the State of Delaware, and the social workers and the therapists, and the police, and let my son fall into the Abyss. I cried out to my Brother Mike that I should never have fought so hard for my children.

Yet Brother Mike had the final word. He pointed out that it is not so simple to say I should never have fought the horrible battle. If we send your son to the Abyss, he may well pull us all in after him. If I didn’t send him, he could have made my current family and the crying woman’s home a similar Abyss. The State of Delaware and Delaware Family Services and its agents were right, we cannot keep Cody from his destiny. You yourself faced the Abyss that day when you prayed to God for Pauline, would you have wanted someone to have intervened and kept you from having that moment?

This is the ultimate lesson of love, we must be able to share someone else’s abyss with them and yet not fall in it with them. That is why the crying people hugged me, when I said I did not know what it was like to lose a child, but I would share my BIG IDEA with them. By doing that, I was saying that I would sit with them in their grief, and learn from them, and share with them what I have learned about love.

As a Critical Care Physician, I have fought death and lost more times than I can remember. In my personal life, I have fought custody battles, and tried to pull my children close to me, only to see them torn apart by the process. My heart is broken. I love the crying woman, and our children, but know I love them with a heart that can no longer love.

I only have my Big Idea, and my obligation to the crying people who have lost children. I don’t regret any of the battles I have fought, as each battle was a lesson of love.

UPDATE 2010:

Thank all of you who have written and have been touched by this story. However, I wish to tell all of you that it is a love story, and life has its way of proving the power of love.

1) I took a course called Strengthening Families. In Delaware, they are given by Children and Families First. This is a very important course and I urge all parents to take it with their children.

It taught me to spend time, everyday, doing something called “The Child’s Game”, or “My Time”. This is 15-30 minutes that parents spend every day, as much as possible, simply playing and listening to their children. For those 15-30 minutes, the child or teenager is the boss, they decide what is to be played, they decide what is to be talked about.

This is surprisingly hard to do. I had to discipline myself, constantly remind myself that perhaps, somehow, my teenager could go for 15-30 minutes without my otherwise constant flow of advice and judgment on their behavior!

With my son, the anger and estrangement between us was so great, that he first chose not to say or do anything. And that is okay. I had to take three courses of Strengthening Families (and they are 15 weeks long each) before I learned this lesson. So I can save all of you all that time, if you are like me, and it is hard to do nothing, and simply sit and listen.

Remember it’s the Child’s Game. It’s Their Time. If they chose to do nothing, or stare at you in hostility, it’s their time. There are rules to the Child’s Game, but you have to take the course yourself to learn all of it.

Each of our strengths is a weakness. I would never have learned the children’s secret that we are on Earth to learn lessons of love, if I was not an action oriented Critical Care physician. It is that same aspect of my personality that made it hard for me to listen to my own children. I just wanted to “straighten them out”, “fix whatever problems they had” and be done with it.

I would never have learned the lessons of love that my wife has taught me if I hadn’t taken Strengthening Families, and learned to listen to my own children.

I am not alone. Throughout my time at Strengthening Families, I encountered so many families with angry unruly teenagers and parents who were estranged from them. I saw remarkable healings occur when parents were willing to engage in the Child’s Game, or My Time, and simply listen.

Many of you may be puzzled as to what is so hard about that. Uh, well, think about it. You have to approach a teenager who is actively telling you they hate you, swearing at you, saying “get away” and “My time is dumb” or worse. And you have to be willing to say “this is your time. If this is how you want to spend it, I will wait. If you don’t want me in the same room as you, I will wait in the other room. And I will wait until My Time is up for today. And then we will do this again tomorrow.

My son soon learned that he would always have a time with me, in which I would not criticize him, I would always listen, and extend my love to him.

After a year, he made contact with me again. So many times, I had driven him away with my anger. This time, I listened, I did not judge, I did not lecture.

He is living in an apartment now that I arranged for him to have. He is once again attending school. I waited, not always patiently, at the edge of the abyss. I waited although my heart was breaking, and I was seething with anger at those who I felt had done this to my family. I waited patiently, with fake love I did not feel, as I internally raged at those who I blamed for all that happened to me.

And one day, his hand came out of the abyss, and he said “Dad, help me. I love you”.

And I am so grateful to Children and Families First, and to my wife Pauline, and to the god she believes in, that I was there to grab his hand, and say “Son, I love you too. How can I help?”

(By the way, Miss Hattie, if you are reading this, yes, yes, I know that in My Time, you are not supposed to ask the teenager any questions. Please don’t flunk me again, like you did the first two times. In this particular case, perhaps I broke a My Time rule, but my son is safe again)

2) My wife, Pauline Morse, has finally started to teach me to love, at age 56. Simply by the example of her life. She truly loves unconditionally. She has had extraordinary problems in her life, and I always tease her by telling her that she is so good with lessons of love, now this “God” has given her advanced lessons of love that would overwhelm anyone else.

My wife has nursed me through a life threatening illness that kept me from functioning for almost two years. At the same time, she ran our household, raised our children, and constantly improved her bowling average! Our children are loving amazing rainbows of light and love.

She rarely complains, and usually says beautiful thoughtful things that make me barf, and yet cause me to respect and admire her as a true Hero.

I am proud that I am worthy of being her husband. I have loved her with all my heart, and in turn, her love has made my heart grow. I am truly a better husband, father, and human being for loving her.

3) I will no longer dwell or be concerned with the “injustices” I have suffered. They were not injustices, they were lessons of love.

For so long, I thought to myself, but I cannot let this lie about me, or let that vicious unfair attack on me go unanswered. At first it was for my own reputation, and ego, and all I have accomplished. I dreamed of retiring with my children and patients loudly proclaiming “oh what a wonderful guy he way”. Well life didn’t turn out that way, as my little falcon loves to remind me.

Then I thought, no it’s not for me, and my ego, but it’s for my work. If I permit these attacks to go unanswered, if I permit this person, or that State Agency to attack me, it will discredit my work and prevent my obligation to grieving parents to be fulfilled.

Pauline has taught me how foolish and ego driven even that is. She is telling me that I am doing her God’s work, and as such, it is not up to me as to how it is manifested on this Earth.

So I am at peace with my enemies. They are part of my obligation, my lessons of love. I thank them for all they have done for me.

Branch Rickey always said that his best friends were his enemies in New York that forced him to take his baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and move to Los Angeles.

Melvin L Morse MD