Code 404 for an ex

Exchanges over the Internet are encrypted. If you call up a page and it exists, your browser will first receive a 200 code. If the address no longer exists, you will get a 404. Other codes ensure the well-being of your navigation. C., an ex, died on August 19th of lung cancer. 404.

I don’t know what the codes are in medicine or in mathematics and statistics. C.’s death is no surprise, having his code, considering he had smoked a lot, and not just nicotine.

Nothing, however, no code to talk about his complicated life. I met him in 1984 or 1985. He was a theology student, long curly eyes, beautiful blue eyes, his body smelled like patchouli.

He had caught a glimpse of me in the pavilion that brought together religious and philosophical sciences. It was the first kiss in an empty classroom. Then began a slow descent into my personal hell. Perhaps the word is strong; I would say it was a slow deconstruction mixed with a difficulty in finding my place in the professional world, also an emotional earthquake.

As attractive as he was, C. was also a fascinating being in many ways. A father of two young boys, one suffering from what would later be diagnosed as Tourette’s Syndrome, the other boy was a carbon copy of his mother. She had been away for a few years.

For me, it was a time of financial hardship, but one that was rich in emotions and understanding. C., I can give him that, made me discover the misery of souls, the suffering, the parallel realities. This period remained engraved in me as to what my sensitivity needed to go beyond the agreed promises.

But C. also possessed important demons. Coming from a toxic family, his relationships invariably turned sour. He was adopted and rejected by his parents because he was too unruly. That’s to say, at the time, parents had three choices before accepting a child for adoption. C. was number 3. The parents could not return it. At least that’s what C. liked to tell me. Was this true? I don’t know.

He had studied theology and then counseling. He had specialized in lost causes, including people with terminal cancer, because he wanted to find a way of redemption with them, probably. He also wanted to try to help them through the magic of psychology. I was able to experience this learning with him and this confrontation with death.

I pass the years. Our paths have gradually moved apart after many jolts, deceptions on his part, lies, and magical promises. He found his past, his so-called natural mother, an Amerindian who survived through prostitution and who had unconsciously called her offspring to discover it. This is no joke, probably magic. All her abandoned children found her before she died. That was that too, C.

He ended up being accepted as a half-breed by governments, even changing his name. Shaman, he was when I knew him, shaman, he became a shaman on a reservation or something.

He is one of the main characters in Crever mon fils, a novel that is my interpretation of the rejection of the mother for M.

I didn’t have much of news, and when I did, I confess that I was afraid every time he came back into my life, as if I feared I would have to naively fall back into his truths. I wasn’t very strong psychologically speaking in front of him.

C. had trouble with people in general. He could do as much good as he did bad. He saw himself as a magician, no doubt, trying to be accepted while always telling the four truths to those who hadn’t asked for them, as if the story of his rejections were to continue.

He came back into my life through Facebook. From time to time, I saw a few pictures of him. Heart attack in his fifties, sometimes comments on my posts and news, usually emotional strives, his youngest son having finally come out of it somehow, the older one causing him pain, spitting image of his mother. Again, only interpretations from his personality. I don’t know, actually.

About a year ago, C. left me a note on Facebook announcing that he had been diagnosed with a prostate tumor. I had the reflex to tell him that he was lucky because prostate cancer was an illness we can cure. He had totally blown me off (kind of pissed me off) and "unfriended" me on Facebook.

Towards the end of July, his oldest son sent me a note saying that his father was in the hospital, dying. He had a message from C., who was thinking of me.

It took me a few hours to react. First of all, C. had always been like that with me. I could have been a sponge to receive both his bile and his sweetness. I was sad but could do nothing for him. I replied to his oldest that I thanked them for being present in my life. Regret should not exist. I lived what I had to live with them. I wished them courage and, above all, the necessary reconciliation.

C.’s birth chart points precisely to this search for the wounded soul, the hurtful mothers, origins, and exiles. Fortunately, one cannot predict death in a birth chart, only link a context to it. The planetary movements that brought us to the pandemic were operating in front of him as a great purge of the soul.

Code 404, therefore, for C. I like to think that I could have received a code 301, a redirection, or a 302, a new address. Who knows where the soul of this troubled shaman is. I was sincere when I thanked him for coming my way. I probably would have had a hard time going to his bedside. I had neither the desire nor the courage. Am I a coward trapped in his intellect? There’s probably a bit of that.

I know that C. wanted to do good just as I’m trying to do mine. Each with its own codes and labyrinths. Go in peace, sir. Ironically, two parallel streets in Montreal have our last names. So, magic exists even if we don’t see it all the time.