You can find the previous chapters here.
When we returned, all the red flags that I had ignored or displaced from view or said I would get to later continued to unfurl. I am a slower processor, I admit. I like to observe quietly and consider all options – like, am I the problem? I personally do not want to impose upon anyone nor ask anyone to change for me. I want people to be happy and to make them happy when they are not. So, as more problems started to arise, the engagement was short-lived, and by early November, Becca and I were no longer talking to one another. I should have stopped it there. But I did not.
My professional life was tanking. As I said, I had opened my practice and in the two and a half years since that first client hour, I had gone from one office with one person, me, to three offices with about 50 people at that point. This was causing no minor issue with the competitors, especially as we were also now doing crisis response. We had also secured the jail-based therapy contract – all from the same competitor. So, they did what you also do in a regulatory environment: you start making allegations where you can. Namely, against my license.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I had my license suspended – I would get it back – so I had to tell Becca, mainly because it was necessary to be open and honest, but also because I wanted to see if she would understand and support me. She had known some of the issues developing, but not all – and looking back, it was because I was afraid to tell her, fearing her judgment. We decided to spend Thanksgiving together with some friends. It was more subdued, but still an amazing time. We celebrated our reunion with long hours of passion into the night, and we decided to spend the weekend in a small town just south of us. Again, it was an incredible experience. I thought she would condemn, judge, and judge me at my lowest when I told her, but instead, she stood by me and supported me during a time when I felt like my world was falling apart. I was a good therapist, a really good one. I cared deeply for people. This attack was devastating because I had to answer to my community, protect those who worked with me, and find a way to care for my clients. Becca was right there with me, a true partner. I was amazed that such a person could exist.
However, the following Monday, the red flags rose again and again, much like my ex-wife would do when she accused me of vile things. Vile. So, once again, we ended it. Well, she did through text one late night. “I don’t want drama in my life, so it is best to go our separate ways.” I was crushed. I was crushed because I thought I had someone standing with me during such a low moment. Rather than the love I needed, she used it to destroy me further.
During our time together, we started talking about having a child. No big deal, well. Well, except that about 12 years prior, I had been snipped, and it would require surgery to get it repaired. But you know, after so many years of being told how bad of a father I was, I wanted a chance to prove I was not. Sure, my son and youngest daughter tell me otherwise, but there is something in some men, I think, that wants to be a father, to prove himself, to care for someone, and I had that. Each break-up pushed that further and further away, and those dreams, and I had them, seemed to melt away again and again.
That is why I decided to go to Ireland once again. You might find this odd, but during times of hurt, I often spoke to Ireland as if she was standing next to me. “I need to come see you,” I would say. Or “Ireland, bring me home.” Always something to that effect. I think it was something Katharine Tynan, the great Irish poet (but aren’t they all?), had said once about leaving Ireland lying “enchanted in our dreams.” After that first time, she was always in my dreams, waking or sleeping. I set the departure date as Christmas Day and the return date as New Year’s Day. This time, I knew I was heading to the West Coast and picked a spot on the map that looked the furthest away from Dublin. That’s how Tralee in County Kerry found me.
There is no point in hiding anything; I am in no way compelled to tell a lie, to hide my sins. As it is now clear this evening, as the sun pretends to set in the Irish sky, God has not forgiven me for whatever sins I have done, and I have searched for them all. They are ever-present with me, and if such a thing could haunt a man, then these wretched acts of mine plague me as some sinister disease, taunting me with their lingering scent of corruption, like gangrene on a wound. I will hide nothing in these hours. The “why” is this. This story, which I tell you now, all of it. I will conceal nothing as there is now no point.
I found myself in an emotionally dark and incredibly lonely place because it seemed that no matter how good I tried to be to someone, to others, how much I tried to serve, my hopes and dreams were always handed back to me as decayed and moldy plates of food to a prisoner for torture. What could have been rich and succulent dining with fine wine was buried under the rank odor and foul mesh of weeks-old sustenance, and I had nothing to do but eat what was there, poison and all. There was no excuse that when one of my assistants came on to me, I took her up on the offer of sensual pleasure. Admittedly, I was attracted to her, and we started a relationship. Of sorts. Mainly the physical kind. It was intense. But it was wrong. I am not a good person, I gather; thus, what I do tonight will hopefully be a penance and an acceptable sacrifice. But she was also the target of a friend I brought to Ireland that second time, Dan. And she was the crush of my best friend, Andy. I am not proud of this, but I need to tell you this because this is part of my long list of sins and regrets and one of the steps into why my dearest M could not be with me. There were too many sins and too many imperfections before her for me to deserve her.
Do you see what I mean? Or maybe, I guess, have you ever felt this way? To be so low in yourself that maybe you make the wrong decisions. You and I both know – now – what I could have done differently, but would you have if our lives were reversed?
Dan was bright, motivated, and married. I invited him to accompany me because I did not like being alone, and he was always good company. So why not have a friend with me, who could help drive, or be my wingman, or whatever would come? On Christmas Day, we left Denver and took that long flight to Dublin. Immediately, we went to Wexford for breakfast, only to drive the long way to the Tralee Holiday Home I had booked for the week. Immediately, and I mean immediately, I was in love with that city. It is also the place where things started to go, well, south for me.
We were on holiday, and I needed to refresh my mind. Dan and I decided to walk to find what pubs were playing music or to find some piece of the Irish fabled beauty that could ease my mind. Our first stop, the Tavern on the Mall, was more of a traditional sports bar. It was loud as there was some match on. Of course, Tralee was flooded with college students on their own break between classes. This did not do well for me, but as I felt like I was in something of a relationship, I chose not to focus too heavily on flirting. Besides, I’m awfully terrible at it. I find it is a waste of time. I am more pragmatic than most and would rather speak honestly than make sly gestures. As you can imagine, this does not always suit me with those I do find attractive. I never want to be offensive or hide in any way who I am. I am not one to strike first, to make it known in any way that I am interested until I know the other person may be.
Most of the night is a haze, honestly. Even now, as the alcohol has long since left my system, I do not remember much, except going to a late bar – night club, we would call it – and drinking until the floodgates of guilt or ego (I would bet ego at this point, now that I’ve had time to think about it) spilled forth to Dan what I was doing with my assistant. I distinctly remember sitting outside the iron gates of St. John’s Catholic Church with its darkened steeples reaching up into the dark sky. The mist that hung around that evening gave it an eerie feeling as if the ghosts roamed at midnight. There I sat, confessing if that is the word, or bragging, which is probably the better word, my actions to him. He became enraged. Looking back, it was not to protect me but because he – a married man – had intended to bed her. And here I was, single, doing that. Still, still I regret that and all the actions leading to that.
Over the next few nights, we frequented the pubs, but one stood out: Sean Og’s. To get there, you walk past the town center, taking a right to land in front of McCafferty’s. There, you take a left to find the best pub south of Farren’s. Sean Og’s is nothing but a wee bar, but it has live music nightly. It is nearly always busy, filled with people of all ages and accents. Behind the wee bar is a kitchen – I call it a kitchen and I’ll tell you why later – only to be followed by narrow hallways filled with more seats, leading to a beer garden. Here, I listened to my first live music in Ireland. Again, this a memory I hold dear because it was here that I, for the first time, heard “Country Roads” in Ireland.
Heard.
What a shallow word for what happened. I was born in Louisiana but moved to West Virginia when I was 24. I tell everyone, without irony, that I grew up in West Virginia because, in so many ways, I had. My little sister lived there, and I wanted to be closer to her. Having moved from West Virginia four years earlier, I still longed for it. Much like, but to a lesser degree, Ireland when I first landed, I felt immediately at home when I rounded the bend on I-64, seeing the lights of the gold dome for the first time. Something about the mountains there called me home. Later, I discovered two things that only filled my mind with something more than coincidence. First, the Appalachian Mountains – and you really need to pronounce it right – are part of the same mountains that stretch from the eastern coast of the United States through Ireland and into Scotland. Second, my ancestors settled in the Appalachians, having come from Scotland in the early 1700s, no doubt with the same sense of home that I had first felt there and in Ireland. The Irish McAllisters would arrive from Antrim to south Louisiana in the early 1800’s. I did not know that then, but after being asked about my heritage while traveling here, I did the research.
You can imagine how this West Virginian who missed that state daily felt when he heard “Country Roads” played in an Irish pub on the west coast of Kerry, in the land that is the mother of all that is good in Appalachia. However, what added to it was that everyone in the pub, and I mean everyone – old and young – was singing it. I was in Beijing around 2010 and heard it sung by a Singaporean girl group in a hotel bar with tourists worldwide. And I thought that was amazing. But no, here, here was something akin to the angels singing the Doxology as the heavens rolled away. I cried. I did. A little. Not a lot. A man does not cry much, I am afraid. A single solitary tear of acceptance and joy. To be overcome with happiness or grief is simply not fitting for a man. Right?
I used to think that, honestly. Even after becoming a therapist, I struggled to express my emotions free of the masculinity I was presented with while growing up in the Deep South. However, after these past few weeks, I can tell you that my emotions have surfaced to the point there are times I cannot hold them back. I used to clench my jaw to hold back tears, but now, nothing works. There are times I want nothing more than to be held while I cry. But such is the heart when it does finally break, when it breaks into a million little pieces, and you have no idea where to begin to put it back together again.
When I speak of memories, it is a memory such as this that sustained me and beckoned me even further into my hope of living in Ireland. West Virginia is a myth, much like that song. But here in Ireland, all the good things I have believed and loved about West Virginia could be real. The people, the land, the farming, and, of course, the pubs. Something that night stung me deeply and brought me around to the idea that in Ireland was the hope for anything good left in the world.
If our nights were spent at the pubs, our days were spent exploring. Our first exploration day was on the Dingle Peninsula. The day was as normal as Irish weather is – foggy and a bit rainy. We headed up what was an easy road for me, but so many locals had decided to go around it because it was considered dangerous. It is a climb, a narrow road on the side of the mountain, overlooking a valley long ago carved by glacial retreats during the last Ice Age. Ireland has a long memory, I’ve been told, and no longer than all of time, it seems. Conor Pass – An Chonair in the proper tongue – overlooked what was the greatest sight to me. At the time, you can see – when the weather is clear – down to Dingle Bay if you look west, but east was that valley with different little glacial lakes, and back to Tralee town. Standing there in the biting wind, I felt nothing but pure peace. I am unsure why I ever left that spot, but this past month, I have visited it several times to stand there and take it all in. I am not sure if hell or heaven is my destination, but nothing will be more beautiful than the Dingle peninsula. That I do know.
Dingle is a colorful little town that has a mix of blue, yellow, and pink buildings all lined up in a row, and while it is set at the edge of a harbor, it does not have the smell of the docks; it has a scent of baked goods, coffee, and salt air. I knew I had to stay there at least once, and I would, the next time and the next. This time, though, as Dan and I set out, we kept to the coast and discovered – such an odd word, but it was all new to us – the most scenic route in Ireland, I believe. Upon leaving on the Slea Head Drive around the jutting land, a land clearly in a winning argument against the angry ocean, what startled me most was how Ireland could turn immediately from this genteel, serene landscape of rolling hills, squared off by different color pastures into this sudden narrow road driven through solid rock – with the mountain to your east and a cliff falling directly into the ocean below to your west. Ireland, in all of its unchangeability, kept changing. This was part of the Wild Atlantic Way, but I did not know it at the time. What I did know was that I kept seeing two things. One, these little blue signs with what looked like waves on them. I mistook it as a coastal sign, but in reality, it was the symbol for the Wild Atlantic Way (with the W A W making the waves). The other thing I saw, no matter how much I longed not to see it, was Becca. Everywhere. Clearly, I knew I was not over her. But I buried it under deep conversations with Dan, pints of the most alluring elixir of Guinness, and the sites that gave freedom to my soul.
We made it to St. Brenden’s Creek, just on the other side of the mountain from Brandon’s Point. I wish they would keep the spellings the same, but that is not an argument I am willing to take. From this shallow fjord that someone long ago had decided to make into a harbor, the fabled navigator set sail for his spiritual islands, landing on a whale, finding the new-to-him world, and back again when he ran out of craic. You walk down the pier to the bottom, surrounded by high walls of rock and stone covered with grass and flowers, down towards the sound of the tide and surf. What faith St. Brenden must have had to get into what is barely a river vessel to make the trip into the unknown, truly across the ocean blue. Perhaps I can sit and talk with him if we reach the same heavenly shore, the undiscovered country.
It was a long day, made longer by the hangover and the rather thick tension between us, but we would stop every few minutes and take in the scenery. I cared not if it was the same ocean, the same rocks, and the same island; it all was new and different to me every few feet. We made it to Kruger’s Bar, just outside of Dunquin, to find something warm – namely, an Irish coffee. Later, on the last night of this trip in Tralee, I would have something like 10 of them. After Kruger’s and the Creek, we made our way back after dark to the pubs in Tralee, always finding our way again to Sean Og’s.
The next day, we went north, heading to Ballyheigue, Ballyduff, and eventually to Carrigafoyle Castle. Along the way, north of Ballyheigue, was the first time I had encountered a holy well – St. Daithlinne’s. It is down a back country road, and honestly, I thought we were lost. Seeing it that first time is like seeing it this past month for the last time; it’s still remarkable. It is located between the bottom of two hills, with a creek running from somewhere on top down to the ocean, which you can still see. Back in West Virginia, we would have called this a “holler.” You walk into the gate, with the memorial to the well to your right. Around the space is a walkway and a few spots to sit. This well is supposed to cure eyesight issues. I am not necessarily a literal person regarding these things, but I hoped it would open my eyes to what I needed to do. I took the plastic ladle some other well-wisher had left, dipped it into the water, and wiped my eyes with the very cold, magical elixir, but nothing happened. I saw Becca still yet. I started to think about how to get her back to Ireland. To see if there was a way to start over.
We made our way to Carrigafoyle Castle, north of Ballybunion. This was an imposing structure, and still is, finalized in the 16th century, only to be torn to shreds by the English bombardment. It was the home of an ingenious pirate, chieftain, and rebel leader. Here, he built a canal to bring in ships that were going up the Shannon so that he could properly tax them, as it were. And here, the Desmond revolt was put down. There were ghosts, and I could feel them. The castle was closed, but the grounds opened, so Dan and I spent a lot of time milling about, exploring the ruins, and pondering what it must have been like back then. And I spent time communing with the ghosts who still roamed the ruins, looking for only God knows what. I would return there again in July to bring my friend’s ashes.
Rich had been a client, but in truth, he didn’t need to be. He had led a rough life, compounded by trauma. This led to drug use and, as drug use usually leads to, incarceration from time to time. He had spent something like half his adult life in prison or jail. For whatever reason, he latched on to me. And for whatever reason, I advocated for him with our local drug court. He was denied the first time but kept fighting but we kept fighting for him. A few months before this trip to Ireland, we had become friends. We would have coffee and talk about our troubles with the women in our respective lives. As time developed, we became closer and closer, like brothers. And when I lost him, and I will get to that if my heart allows, it ripped something out. He had real faith in me, and I still do not know why. He was not my only best friend, with Robert being my first.
Robert and I went to high school together and reconnected sometime after we had both begun our adult lives, quickly becoming best friends. Two verses in the Bible, 1 Samuel 18.1 and 2 Samuel 1.26 speak about the love between David and Jonathan. David was the little shepherd boy, the usurper to the throne, suddenly finding his way into King Saul’s court. Jonathan, the heir-apparent, is considered a foil but becomes something else. Biblical interpreters make hay out of so much of these two verses. One side will suggest it was an approval for homosexuality, while the others will allow only that they were best friends.
Either of these could be correct; this is no place to offer my own discourse. I will say that both sides miss what is happening here between these two individuals. They became so entwined together that their love for each other had surpassed even that which a physical connection, male or female, could provide. They knew each other and walked with each other in a way that was difficult for even the most sublime poets to find the words to describe. To say they were best friends denies an intimate connection clearly present in Scripture, but to say they were physical lovers suggests that only such a connection can come from physicality. So much is lost when we deny that human connection is more than taste and touch but transcends from mortal flesh into the divine realm. That is what David and Jonathan had, and that is what Robert and I had.
For me, a best friend is not someone you share things with but who tells you when you are wrong. Robert and Rich never failed to tell me when I was wrong. To me, this is the most treasured gift someone can give me, to tell me the truth. Robert lost his first long-term partner ten years prior, and that gutted him. But when he lost his mother to a stroke, I think that was the moment he died. See, he had to be the one to decide to remove life support from the only person who had truly loved and accepted him for all his radical flamboyancy. I tried, I did – please tell me I did – to help him to fight through his depression. But his alcohol intake increased, drinking liters of vodka a day.
By that time in my life, I had already helped two families to make that decision. I never made the decision. I would not want to. I could, however, help others make that decision. I am, above all, a pragmatist. Emotions, which always lead to selfishness, must be removed from the situation, and I easily do that in those situations. I could help the husband, looking at the faces of his two young toddlers, let his wife go. Or the daughter, who loved her mother so dear, to make the agonizing choice to remove life support from the one who had suffered a stroke while she whimpered, “Mommy, I sure do love you.” But Robert had to make the decision alone in that hospital room; I could not be there for him.
Our friendship was of the sort that we could easily pick back up even if we didn’t talk for months. One time, when I was on a random trip to Louisiana, I ran into him on his way back from an audition – he had always wanted to be in the movies, and from to time, he was cast as a background actor. That was a truly random thing in an already random trip. We shared a lot, from comics to politics to how we saw life. During my transition from being a cult – yes, I was in a cult – his militant atheism kept me holding on to my faith, a fact that I never failed to remind him of. Like so many people, he had been hurt by the religious people of his church when he had come out. We often joked that I was his token Christian, and he was my token atheist – to give one another new ways of thinking and to remind each other that the other side wasn’t completely devoid of humanity.
Robert and I often talked long about the demon he was trying, but failing, to defeat. But even with rehab and life-saving surgery, he could not quit. He would not quit. He wanted his end, and the only thing that eased his pain of having, in his words, killed his mother was to see how many bottoms of the bottle he could find. When he was placed in hospice, his partner called me, and we started making plans for what was surely coming soon, too soon for this friend of his.
Along with his partner, I was the only one Robert counted as family. This was during COVID, and I could not make it down there. I was trying, though, but it was nearly impossible. I wanted to see my friend one last time. Instead, I would call him, even when he was in hospice, and we would talk. In between our conversations, my heart would break, leaving me to find a place in the garage or somewhere hidden to cry my eyes out, begging God to save my friend. God did not answer me, or at least in the way that every fiber of my being wanted. When I spoke to him for the last time – I remember his voice ever so clearly – I could tell it was not long.
“I’m tired, Landon. I’m so tired. I’m going to sleep now. Bye-bye.”
That was the last time anyone spoke to Robert. A few hours later, his partner called me and told me Robert had passed shortly after that phone call. I was devastated, and for some time after, I would still become overwhelmed with emotions. For the first time in my life, I was alone. He was the only one I confided in about my marriage problems, about my own mental health, about anything. He never judged and always told me the truth, even when I was wrong. More than that, he was always, just always, there for me. I would still talk to him after he was gone, quietly, at night, or when I was driving, not yet having closure. It brought me some measure of peace but hurt just the same since I could no longer feel his presence from across the miles separating us.
Closure came when I took Becca to New Orleans. We stopped at his partner’s house and, after a flood of tears, was handed some of his treasured items along with some ashes – such as the Elton John concert packet, the same concert we had just attended. He was supposed to be there. Since then, I have not been able to talk to Robert like before. Since that moment, I learned what closure was. I am not sure I like it, to be honest. The alternative is selfish, I know. But in times like this, I truly need him. Maybe, my God, I pray that I can talk to him when I close my eyes for the final time. Perhaps we can both find peace. Maybe I will have all the time in heaven to spend with my friend, whom I miss terribly. He, Rich, and I. Just maybe.
Back in Tralee, we did take it easy, you know. At least for a few hours because the level of alcohol we were consuming would have put down a horse. Hangovers were a constant thing. But after the final night, during which I consumed ten or more Irish coffees, we headed back to Dublin feeling like we had died. I was not about to give up one moment of having my eyes open in Ireland, so while Dan rested, I walked through Dublin’s historic district, focusing on St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I took the tour, enjoyed it thoroughly, and bought a rosary. This is the same rosary that in this past month, I have dipped in holy wells, in the waters at St. Brenden’s Creek, and in other places to send to my son, a U.S. Marine. I sent it along with the letters to my dearest M yesterday morning.
When we landed back in the United States, I was sick. But I had about three days to get better before I headed to Cuba for two weeks. My first time in Cuba was in 2016, when my friend and mentor, David, invited me. I had left the cult, a legalistic religious one filled with guilt, fear of hell, and just awful ways how to treat each other. To say I was skeptical about all things related to religion, the supernatural, and people, in general, is to understate things wildly, and it was a skepticism I stated daily while attending seminary. He challenged me, and I do like a good challenge. I fell in love with God again. I saw things I could not explain and experienced something that I did not think was possible. I felt absolute freedom. Freedom in a communist country, odd that. But you have to understand. Here, people would walk in the rain to attend church, hungry in all ways, and the church fed them in all ways. Yes, the congregation had government plants, so we always had to be careful. But in the midst of this, amid abject poverty punctuated by smells of sewage running on the streets mixing with aromas of kitchens preparing meals, there was liberty and a dependency upon God that was utterly foreign to Americans.
I could compare it to gold and fool’s gold. The reason we have fool’s gold is because we have real gold. Both are shiny and heavy and make a good story. But only one has real value. We hold out for the real version, digging away until we come to the sacred ore. That is like faith, hope, and love, I believe. Unless we have caused a cave-in behind us, finding ourselves with only the memory of real love, the real gold, as we wait out our last few hours until the medication takes hold and we slip away. The same is said of freedom in faith. In Cuba, I found a freedom in faith that destroyed my previous understanding and replaced it with a sense that not only was I wrong, but this was a mystery I did not have to understand. I could just simply enjoy it.
COVID shut down any trips to Cuba. But in April two years ago, David invited me to go, and I brought Becca. We had similar views on the faith, and as she had experienced something of the charismatic church in Arizona, I thought she might enjoy this. Of course, I use that term loosely. You do not go to Cuba to enjoy it. It is not a vacation in our sense of the word but a pilgrimage of hardship and joy. I attended every service, soaking it all in. I preached a few times, too. I used to do that. We even saw a few exorcisms. Again, I am a man of science and faith. Science cannot explain or give the hope that faith and spirituality can. I rest in both worlds and care little about judging others for whatever they want to believe in. To each their own.
I wish I knew who I was telling this to. I wish I could see you as you hold these pages and see your eyes as you read. Are they green, blue, or grey? A Van Morrison brown? He hated that song, but I certainly do not. I know it is not my dearest M, who will never read the letters I sent her last morning because she is as stubborn as the Irish summer day is long. Maybe you have already given up on me. But somehow, I do not think so. I want to know what you think and how you might judge me. I am not sparing you the important details of how I came to this, and I will certainly share with you all that remains of my story, of my life. I hope that is enough. You cannot condemn me any more than I have already been or have condemned myself. Still, I wish I knew who I was writing this to. Are you the one who found what was left of me?
Please tell me your name. I’ll find a way to hear it.
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