Rumors, Legends
We hear many different stories about Owen’s life, and his last days and nights here in Petaluma. We know, intimately, our family’s life with Owen, and our remembered and intuitive experience of him as our kin, and our friend.
What is rumor? What has become legend? It seems such a short time, barely over 9 months since he went missing, and we wonder how the stories have evolved, and ultimately, what were the events that led up to his death? We know some of the details strangers share with us could only be known, if they were present, in Owen’s company that night. What is not said, is often as revealing as what is said.
They (these strangers) have told us, not knowing we’re Owen’s family, that they know what happened to him - this young man who was found in the River a few months back. We listen. We shake our heads in the uh-huh way, and drive ourselves back home in a daze. That’s when we sit at the virtual table of puzzle pieces, and try to place truth into conjecture…into rumor…into legend. At what point in time, does a story become legend? I don’t know. I’ve never needed to study such a course of events.
Owen’s story, and the variations on a theme, are in their infancy, in my personal estimation. I can’t imagine people who were there and those who have taken a personal interest in being somehow associated with this tragedy (why?), as having a clear concept of what is okay to share, and what is still too raw to reveal. So, I don’t trust anyone who tells us their version of that night. Somehow, I feel I would know the truth if I heard it, though. I also feel that with so many stories floating around, we may never know. I don’t know what to do with that - the unknowing.
Losing Owen is the ultimate insanity, the ultimate void - but the not-knowing-how-or-why is a place, a state of mind, that cannot attach itself to a word as simple as “insane”. No container is large enough. So I look to the sky, the galaxies beyond the galaxies, as offering a space large enough to hold the thing I can only describe, with our limited form of communication, as an insane loss, an insane void, an insane gap in time and space.
Owen appreciated and loved musical talents - so I feel he would appreciate and love tonight’s song. If Nat ever comes to a place in this galaxy, where he feels he can read these posts, I am certain he will agree, that technique and talent, when combined into a single composition, would tell a story of Owen’s life, that he could share openly. And, I feel, Nat would point to this song as an example of perfection.
Song for the night: Go Insane, Fleetwood Mac (Lindsey Buckingham)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KswVThZH41w&feature=related
emmitt-owen-riley
linda-siniard
What an amazing song, and accompanying guitar. So simple, yet so powerful. I was struck with how the music built steadily, and how his voice literally screamed from the pain and frustration, until the veins bulged in his neck. It HAD to be more than a portrayal of the words. It must have been something he had lived in some way or another–the going insane.
You described your feelings so well, and I tried to imagine what it must be like to have strangers tell you the story of Owen, the boy found dead in the river, not knowing that you are his parents. How surreal is that? Of course, you can learn so much more just by listening, and not revealing your identity. But it must feel uncanny.
I imagine you sitting at a table, and arranging all the puzzle pieces to this mystery of mysteries. Taking a piece from this one, and a piece from that one, and still finding that there are so many missing pieces. And yet a picture begins to emerge ever so slowly…
I think you will know when you have the essence of the right story. You were so close to Owen that you WILL know. (I believe with all my heart that one day you WILL know.) And though the puzzle will appear complete to others, you will still be missing the most important piece…your beautiful Owen.
Lonnette,
You posted your response to this post on my birthday. Surreal doesn’t begin to describe it, yet, every piece of the puzzle is a new beginning. Thanks for writing just the way you did. I reread this post tonight, listened to the song, and read your reply. Uncanny, yep.
L.