What's Love Got To Do With It?

My posts on this blog and elsewhere often exude anger, sometimes love. Emotions of extremes, or are they really so opposite? What does my anger have to do with Love?

Often it is my intention to point out feeling of injustice, mistreatment, helplessness, violations of basic human rights, lack of control in this world, but on this blog in particular, about the unecessary horrific death of my first born son, Steven Nathaniel Wolkoff.

The commonality among most of my posts on this blog is that there has been a violation of expectations, of the order of reality, and the unreal bizarre things that are now our reality. In other words, my responses to situations with a sense that this shouldn't be happening, especially not to my family, not to me. There is a certain way things should be: we are innocent victims, we have rights, we have pride, and Steven should be alive today. My family should not be suffering in endless pain and Steven did not deserve to experience the agony he felt, as he slowly, painfully died. All of these go against the natural order of life, a parent should not bury their child.

What the Wolkoff's or anyone else does is their business, as long as they do not deliberately physically injure anyone in the process of living their lives. We should be able to complete it, it should work out as expected it would; this is the way things are supposed to be done in this society, and certain variations introduce chaos and cannot be permitted; the world has a certain lawfulness to it, including supposedly a justice that is above any merely social law, and you or this event violates that lawfulness.

I often refer to "YOU" as those who do not take responsibilty, ownership for their actions and/or inactions on the lives of others. It seems to have become the new social norm of our society, where it is always someone else's fault, never the person or entity that causes the harm.

I also refer to it as the ARROGANCE OF LAW, practiced by THE INSTITUTIONS OF our LEGAL SYSTEM, without any conscience, no regard, to right or wrong, fairness, victims rights, human rights, or justice. THESE INSTITUTIONS OF LAW supposedly in charge of fairly enforcing Laws and protecting us, instead deliberately manipulate laws, acting ruthlessly, indiscriminately, no different than a Mafia criminal would act in ignoring the value of a human life.

It is clear, though, that not everyone responds to these situations with anger. I am one of those people that do, for I have been through the injustice of all the above many times in my life and know that unless one becomes proactive, nothing will happen to address these issues.

Most of us are taught to bury our anger. I don't, my anger involves an active response to the problem. Anger sees the problem as "out there" rather than "in here," and I see it as something to be confronted, rather than run away from. I have always become angry at unjust things that happen to others, even when these things don't impact on me. I often have identified with the "underdog" and put myself in someone else's shoes (love, sympathy, empathy, compassion).

My anger still exits for helping those "others", but ever since Steven's death and the continuing deliberate way that we as victims are re-victimized, disrespected, and dehumanized, it is real personal now.

My anger comes from my soul, from who I am, it also comes from who Steven was and could have been, and seeing how my family has been traumatized. I believe that despite all the physical and behavioral effects so easily associated with anger, it is basically coming from my inner being, my soul.

Life can be unfair. My anger is an expression of intense love for those I care about. I desire to return to the time before Steven's death, an effort at removing the things, or events that so dramatically, permanently changed our lives forever. Anything else is just a substitute. This desire cannot be attained. You just can't reverse time.

So, like Don Quiote, I tilt at windmills, trying my best to re-establish a just world for my loved ones, a lawful world, where things go as they should. I want justice, accountability FOR STEVEN, for my family. This is "only fair." My anger and my love act as symbolic creatures, expressing my feelings, "venting" them, hopefully bringing the truth to others, of injustice. I try to light a fire under the asses of all who can help us, and expose those who try to hide the truth. This is the "civilized" response, but it tends to degenerate in its effectiveness in the face of those who will stop at nothing to keep the truth from being told, who profit by manipulating their power, or the laws to hide behind, and thwart justice from being served.

What does all this mean to me?

I don't want to spend the rest of my life regretting or have my children obsessively thinking about things we should have done or said in defense of what has happened to Steven and us. I want there to be a clear self understanding, regardless of the legal outcomes, that we ALL did our personal very best, that we have hired the most professional lawyers to bring justice and accountability to Steven having his life unnecessarily stolen from him.

I want Steven to be remembered forever as the awesome brother, son, friend, human being that he was in our lives, and that he made a positive difference to each of us, HE LIVED, and yes he died for no reason at all. Who will be the truthful loved ones to honor Steven and talk of his journey for generations to come, so that he will never be forgotten?

Anger is a "normal" state, not a pathological one. There may be better ways to deal with problems, but this is a very human one. The essence of my anger is a response to a violation of what I perceive to be the rules of reality that we cannot and should not adapt, nor accept that violation, that its source is out there and should be changed.

It would be wonderful to return to "normality," to some sort of justice, lawfulness, people being held responsible for their behavior when it hurts others. Personally I know this is likely not remotely feasible, but I attempt to approach this as a goal, as best as I can. I do so with my anger and my love, because that is who I am. It is the very best that I know how to respect Steven, my children, and myself.