Haunted
My beautiful bride and best friend shares with me many quirks and details. We found in each other a type of weird that is so great together that it just tickles me endlessly. One of our things is a total love for the performances of actor Nathan Fillion. We will pretty much drink any Kool-Aid he is selling.
I think his best role since playing Captain Mal on Firefly has been his portrayal of John Nolan in The Rookie. It’s got a lot of range, more than most police procedurals, and the cast does a wonderful job bringing their characters to life.
The most recent episode reminded me that I am very much still haunted by the trauma of losing my Nephew, Brother, Child and Friend Xavier. It’s been nearly nine years since he passed, and sometimes everyday things trigger memories as acute as the moment they where placed in my brain meat.
The episode we watched started with a death-notice, where the police needed to find the next of kin and deliver the news that a woman’s son was dead. This subplot took about five minutes to unfold, and as viewers you knew what they where doing. I was totally caught off guard by how hard I got kicked when they delivered this fictional news to a fictional mother.
Her initial reaction to seeing the police, her statement “What has he done now?” mirrored my own thoughts at that apex. I stood in our front doorway thinking literally those exact words nine years ago. Then the fake cop ripped off the fake bandage and the actor playing the mom’s entire body language and face collapsed into a blackhole. I don’t know if that actor has experienced an event like this before in her real life, but she totally nailed the performance of it.
In that moment, watching this show, I was totally paralyzed. I was drowning, I could hardly breath. I think if I was standing right then I would have passed out. I couldn’t find the words to turn and talk to my partner. I couldn’t get anything out of my mouth. I relived that moment over and over again in my sleep. Such is the power of art. I’ve seen this type of thing get hammed up in other police procedurals between Xaviers death and now. None of them have ever hit my core this way.
Learning that you are still haunted by one sentence, said nearly a decade ago, it’s something I’ve spent today trying to process. I’m approaching forty years old, and the most shocking thing isn’t learning that I am no longer invincible…
It’s learning that I never was in the first place.
I think his best role since playing Captain Mal on Firefly has been his portrayal of John Nolan in The Rookie. It’s got a lot of range, more than most police procedurals, and the cast does a wonderful job bringing their characters to life.
The most recent episode reminded me that I am very much still haunted by the trauma of losing my Nephew, Brother, Child and Friend Xavier. It’s been nearly nine years since he passed, and sometimes everyday things trigger memories as acute as the moment they where placed in my brain meat.
The episode we watched started with a death-notice, where the police needed to find the next of kin and deliver the news that a woman’s son was dead. This subplot took about five minutes to unfold, and as viewers you knew what they where doing. I was totally caught off guard by how hard I got kicked when they delivered this fictional news to a fictional mother.
Her initial reaction to seeing the police, her statement “What has he done now?” mirrored my own thoughts at that apex. I stood in our front doorway thinking literally those exact words nine years ago. Then the fake cop ripped off the fake bandage and the actor playing the mom’s entire body language and face collapsed into a blackhole. I don’t know if that actor has experienced an event like this before in her real life, but she totally nailed the performance of it.
In that moment, watching this show, I was totally paralyzed. I was drowning, I could hardly breath. I think if I was standing right then I would have passed out. I couldn’t find the words to turn and talk to my partner. I couldn’t get anything out of my mouth. I relived that moment over and over again in my sleep. Such is the power of art. I’ve seen this type of thing get hammed up in other police procedurals between Xaviers death and now. None of them have ever hit my core this way.
Learning that you are still haunted by one sentence, said nearly a decade ago, it’s something I’ve spent today trying to process. I’m approaching forty years old, and the most shocking thing isn’t learning that I am no longer invincible…
It’s learning that I never was in the first place.