One kind of loneliness...

[Plot Note:  Hannah is a young woman whose mother was killed by Violet's son, whom she was dating.  Joe is DCI Vera Stanhope's sergeant.]

"Silent Voices" 

Vera

Early in the episode where Joe and Vera are drinking and looking at the case late at night...

Joe:  How old were you when your mom died?
Vera:  What? Where’s this coming from?
Joe:  Oh, nothing. I’m just interested. 

Vera:  Ten. Let me show you something. [Opens closet door and points to carved marks with a grin.]
Joe:  What’s that?
Vera:  [Pointing] Me! Ten. Tenth birthday. [Puts back against the marks excitedly.] Tall, wasn’t I? Tall girl.
Joe:   No, not really. Not for ten.

At the end of the episode...

Joe:   How’d she take it? Hannah?
Vera:  Well, she’s broken now, but she’‘ll mend. There’s a girl whose mother taught her how to live. Don’t see Veronica putting herself back together, though.
Joe:  You didn’t tell us about the conversation you had with her, about Simon’s brother at the reservoir.
Vera:  Oh, just a loose end, just tying it up for me own satisfaction.
Joe: You know, if you had told us that information, maybe I could have put two and two together quicker.
Vera:  Nobody died, Joe. And there’s a girl who’s still got her mom because of you.
Joe:  But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like there’s a child drowning, and I can’t get there in time.
Vera:  Yeah, I know.
Joe:  Look, I teach my kids everything I know. Everything that’s in me is theirs. Because I want them bigger, better, and smarter than I am. And I can take the sly looks and the teacher’s pet teasing because I want to learn. I want to learn from you. But you gotta give us access.
Vera:  “Tall girl.” That’s what my mom used to call me. “My big tall girl.” Is that what they do then? Lie. Make you feel good. Make you feel special?
Joe:  Yeah.
Vera:  Well, I wasn’t tall then.
Joe:  Well, you aren’t tall now are you?
Vera:  No, but I ... I thought it stopped me growing. You know ... the shock of losing her.


Such exquisitely simple, plain writing on such a complicated existence we broken people live!

In the episode,  I see this middle-aged woman asking a question about parents because she doesn't get it, doesn't understand what parents do for their children.  Consequently, in the role of shepherding her staff, to help them grow and develop in their careers, she doesn't share freely, doesn't understand why that is important.  I see a middle-aged woman who's believed this thing about herself her whole life because, as a child, it was how she made sense of the dissonance between her mother's affectionate pet name for her and how her body turned out.  I see a child deprived of love and attention seek it from all the wrong places, choosing things that are known to be wrong as an adult because of an unwillingness to lose love finally found. I see grief over the loss of a loved one so great that things like eating, sleep, thinking are impossible.  I see a person in authority heap twisted truth upon others as a means to manipulate other, feed his ego, and entrench his own position.

I see whole generations of my family in this episode.  I see myself, my mother, my mother's mother, and my mother's mother's mother.  I see facets of one life carved upon another.  I blogged a bit the other day about the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children. It is absolutely staggering the damage that parents can do to their children, the voices they leave in their children's heads … voices from words spoken and unspoken, even voices from absence.

Anyway, this moment is an prime example of how very lonely I am. I have this … text … that I discover that is so profound and so complex and so simple and want to delve into it with another because that is who I was and who I am still, somewhere deep inside. Only there is no one for me here, now, and no one for me later. No one to "read" with and delve with and wend way through words and thoughts. No one to share conjecture, revelation, wonder.

Just Amos.
Who is sleeping.
And doesn't understand anyway.

Doesn't understand the grief and loss, the longings, the sobering reflection, the absence ... all of it drowning me in this moment.

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!