Evolved

Some of you may know that for the first three years of Gavin’s life, I was his primary care giver. Never have I hit Gavin. I don’t believe in hitting as a form of discipline. I couldn’t imagine inflicting that mental and physical distress on a child.

Now, he has fun, three days a week at daycare and is enrolled for Pre-K. However! Every morning I keep him 🙂 I play with him, I read to him and I make his breakfast. I ask him, “Gavin, what would you like for breakfast?” Lately his reply has been, “I’d like an english-muffin with peanut butter and chocolate, big-big strawberries, raspberries, apple juice, and a water. Paleaseeeee.” I drink coffee while preparing his breakfast and watch as my little Gavin plays with his dinosaurs or sea creatures. Or, a puzzle. Or anything. I love spending this time with him. When I was his age, I had no father. I made it very clear to myself and anyone listening that I was determined to be there for Gavin. Always. To be his primary care giver for the first three years of his life was a blessing.

And now, when I pick him up from daycare (we call it school because it’s much like a school) he smiles SOO big and yells, “That’s my Dad!” And man…..man does that feel good. It’s simple. I’m here to be a loving, supportive, husband and father. Writing is a bonus that I am ragingly thankful for.

Often I think of children who have been tortured, abused, and manipulated. I was that child. I broke the cycle. We all can break the cycle, if we are aware and want to. Mental illness is a subject I take very seriously. I believe that we, as humanity, have barely begun to truly understand how deep, or to understand how many levels concerning mental illness there are. I believe there are forms of mental illness that have evolved our human race. I also believe there are forms that are evil. I think it’s important for the broken children who have been abused to understand they are not the evil ones.

They are the evolved.

 

Matt

Poem-

Sometimes memories are like metal fans.
With each blade sharpened-
They aren’t beckoning you
They are pushing you away-
When you reach for them
You are cut, again-
Leaving you reeling
Running from closet to bedsheets
to where you no longer
own your memories

-M. Taggart

 

 

Odd Walking Thoughts-

We looked in the mirror to rest now. Without you there would be no us. A nine year old held still, silently wishing. Scraping memory. It’s not living in the past when a trigger forces you live the past now. A hollowed tree bore resemblance to a face we once knew. The tree was dead now.

-M. Taggart

poem-

I don’t want to think about that right now-
I want to listen to my open window
I want to listen to the street
I want to hear the wind blowing the tops of the trees
I want to smell the air
I can hear the pushing wind driving into the leaves that are left over
from the winter drop
I wonder why they hung on

-M. Taggart
copyright 2018

poem- spliced

We rocked in a padded room
holding a single piece of fabric
which was so perfectly fine
that it wasn’t allowed to be-
It frayed and spliced
into millions of splintered ends
leaving us blank and empty-
The door to our padded room opened-
We stopped rocking
knowing it was now over-
The one thought was gone.

-M. Taggart
copyright 2018

Parenting

I sit my two year old son, Gavin, on my lap just after he bumps his head on the coffee table in the living room. I tell him, ‘Gavin, you need to be careful of your head. You need what’s inside your skull. You don’t yet understand just how important it is to protect what you have. Love you buddy.’

Gavin then jumps from my lap, grabs a Dino, and makes a loud roaring sound. And off he goes. I know that Gavin doesn’t fully understand what I’m telling him. But what I believe he feels is a caring tone. We’ve (Megan and I) repeated this hundreds of times. If not thousands. We’re teaching him to care for himself. We’re teaching him to love himself. Something I didn’t learn to do until my mid thirties.

I made a decision before Gavin was born to forgo the growth of my career to be the care giver to my son during the week. A decision I know to be the correct one for myself and my family. The best parenting advice in the world comes down to two words. Be there. My career, which I built, can be built again. The one chance I have to be the best father possible, is now.

As I continue to observe Gavin’s growth and development I often think of children who do not have a guardian that’s acting in their best interest. I think of guardians who hit. Who scream. Who sexual and mentally abuse children. I hope you bump into these words if you are among that ilk. It’s you. It’s not the child. It’s you and you need help. Stop hitting. Stop screaming. Stop abusing and turn yourself in. You won’t. You’re too weak. It’s your weakness that owns you and you aren’t intelligent enough to know what to do with it.

If you are a child that somehow reads these words. It’s not your fault. It never was. It never will be. This isn’t a promise for you to keep- to protect them any longer. Turn them in. They are killing you.

If you are a parent or guardian that suspects something has affected your child, ask them. Right now. Do not wait. If you don’t ask, no one will. NO ONE.

Abuse of a child runs rampant in all countries. All societies. If you are an adult that witnesses abuse, step in. That very moment. That child may never have another chance.

It’s 4:30 AM and I’m shivering while writing this. My son just woke up, upset, and needing attention. Megan or myself is always there for him. With endless, us. I wish every child had this. Unfortunately I know this to not be the case.

Enjoy your coffee.

Matt

 

 

Odd Walking Thoughts

Wasted space happened in our thought. I filed it away. Listening to no music while thinking of it. Want to keep your self. self. It’s the strangest thing when you leave. We walk in the smell. The leaves this time of year are rotting on the soles of our boots. We carve your remanence with a knife.

-M. Taggart
copyright 2017

Odd Walking Thoughts – Cornstalk

A child walked along the row of corn while looking at the beautiful gleaming sunlight bounce from the stalks. The child wanted to know why they couldn’t always feel as the corn looked as the sun danced upon it. The child hadn’t realized they’d asked the question out loud and the frog had listened. Then the frog replied, ‘We think of ourselves in bad ways and then we think of ourselves in good ways and sure enough we then don’t know which way to think of ourselves at all.’

copyright 2016 -M. Taggart

Ernest Hemingway – A Quote

‘The best people posses a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues makes them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.’ Ernest Hemingway

 

Don’t let beautiful be destroyed by what was. Christmas is my least favorite holiday. Often bringing my spirits low where I then find myself headed for a silent room. Alone and not wanting company. Now though, much has changed and I look forward to Christmas. I even look forward to Christmas Eve. What makes it beautiful are the people you have directly near you. Not the presents, not the TV commercials with noise asking to purchase, purchase, purchase. Not the ornaments. Not even a decorated tree. What makes it beautiful, to me, is knowing the people with you truly care for you without pause. Without changing of mind. I’ll do my best to not let beauty be destroyed by what was. I hope you’re able to do the same.

Matt

 

A Poem

Dine with us-
Let’s mash our gums-
Inside this knife