Grinding Wheel

By dint of turning, the Wheel of Fortune catches me and grinds me like straw. A despicable sensation to make me chop, without respite or pity. Death promised to my son. Horrible, impossible, unthinkable. Losing a child is the worst suffering. I experienced this torture every moment of the fifty terrible days of a murderous summer.

The days that followed are the worst of my life. Each of these eight weeks has prolonged the intolerable suspense where the only final date is death. The other deadline is provisional, always in question. Survival is never acquired. It is repeated, tireless, every moment, every day, every night, every morning.

My son fell from the dungeon of a medieval castle. A fall of 20 meters on rocks. Not a scratch. The bones of a young child have elasticity, the muscles have a tone, the joints have a flexibility that is lost with age. A doctor witnessed the fall. He saw the child fall while turning on himself, which cushioned the shock. Since the accident, he is immersed in deep coma, said exceeded. The limbs are stiff, decorticated. The jaws are clenched.

The first days of coma are hit in the corner of uncertainty. death can happen at any moment. Every hour that passes the hypothesis of survival is reinforced a little. The first week passed relieves the terrible anxiety. Just a little, a little bit, because nothing is played. The nights are worse. We do not sleep, sleep is the enemy. There rise horrible monsters of death, with green teeth like the grave, with the mouth so deep. One wakes up in sweat, at the end of a terrible cry. At dawn we come out of the torpor without dream that takes the place of sleep. We go back to the nightmare.

The hours, the weeks go by. Every day we visit the sleeping child. We talk to him. We play the songs he likes. Anything that can get him out of this sluggish torpor, all that can bring him back to himself, bring him back to that side of the mirror, make him forget the swamps of death, all that is life is good for him. For us it’s a respite. Coma resembles fetal life. Shadows, lights, indistinct noises, clear words quickly blurred, fleeting sensations in an ocean of nonsense.

Here it does not look like agony. It is a torture to death, or for life if it fires. In the optimistic hypothesis of a coma, said his doctor, he will remain a vegetable forever. The brain has suffered irreparable damage. The cerebellum was touched too. He will be paralyzed. Quadriplegic tied for life on a rolling bed.

In good French bedridden and moron. Or worse … what not to be understood as bullshit. Neither his mother nor I thought for a moment. We feared it, yes. But never believed. Not him. Not that darling. Too much sun in his heart, too much light in this incarnated soul. He did not come to leave so quickly. Five years. We could not believe it. And it did not happen.

The Wheel of Fortune turns and grinds us. But the Wheel of FortunFrench Fortin sounds alike  protects us. A fortinFrench is a small fort. A fortress seed. We blow a little, sheltered from the walls. Jean Dodal, author of this particular tarot, did not make the mistake at random. There’s no chance. Never. Chance is the other name of necessity called Osiris. Ousir. Asar. Hazard. Dodal knowingly omitted the final e to fortune. It became strong by the grace of the language of the birds.

In the midst of the worst torments, the ring of power protects believers, those who believe without believing. As they believed, faith saves them. As they doubted, they were blessed. We did believe, his mother and me. The child is saved. But the test was not over yet. After a coma of this kind, the rehabilitation is total. We must summon up our patience. The doctors have warned us. The child is like a baby. He could not walk, talk or anything he knew.

His memory was closed. Will it open? Will the phoenix be reborn? Will the day rise on us? Murdered, more dead than alive, but triumphant. Life has won, the other battles will be too. The all-powerful intention has brought us all summer near the bed of my son, she made us talk, watch for the signs of awakening, hope, want to win. The intention will open the locked door.

That’s what happened. He recovered everything in a few days. He went back to school, he grew up in strength and wisdom. He is a man today. And I’m proud of him. And I told him to be proud too. Proud of his difference. Proud of his strength of character. Proud of his gaiety, of the deep joy that animates him. Proud of his desire to grow. To heal. He will never forget the harm he has experienced or the one he has done. One is never a victim without being so executioner. His work is intense and hard, but he did it a first time. Tomorrow he will know how to do it again and win. That is his will.

As for me, I won the right to close for good the double page of this arcane. The carelessness of my childhood is nothing but an unreal memory. Everything has taken the deep, dark tone of a predatory world. I took my life as counselor. I gave my life for his. I was ready. Death did not want me. It was not my time.

I have the gift of exaggeration. Excess. Hubris. Far out. It’s in my true nature. But other qualities have been added. The courage, the sense of urgency and the will. I mean the powerful intention that comes from the belly, that reverses the walls and moves the lines. The intensity of life takes me to the guts. I live without a screen, full force. I owe it to this arcanum. The Wheel of Infortune broke me, crushed me, quartered, dismembered, destroyed, pulverized me. I suffered on the cross, I stumbled under the wheel. As I’m not dead, it made me stronger. (source)