Pain Don't Hurt

by Mark Miller

  I pulled onto the long street that led right up to their burial plots. I lingered in the car for a bit; maybe I was preparing myself. The National’s “Fake Empire” blared through the speakers, a song I had played over and over again to punish myself. I think I was saying good-bye to that too, this imprisoning of myself in misery. I wanted to live in the light. I wanted to be happy.

  “Let’s not try to figure out everything at once, it’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky, we’re half awake in our fake empire, we’re half awake in our fake empire. . . .”

  Deep breaths, deep breaths.

  Final good-byes don’t always happen at the moment a person leaves you. You’ll know when you have said your final good-bye. You’ll feel it. It resonates in your body, this hollowness, this echo of “no more.” It’s a concept that people can’t process with any quickness. We aren’t built to deal with it in one fell swoop. Instead it grows like kudzu slowly over you, and before you know it you’re suffocating under this thick, heavy mass of undeniable loss that you have to deal with. All the never agains swirl through your head like angry hornets. Never again will I . . . eat German chocolate cake with my mom, work on the house with my dad, or play a song for my brother, receive or send a Christmas card, birthday card, hear a voice, laugh at a joke, fight with, laugh with, break bread with, never again will I have a chance to see if it could be better. . . . Never again . . .

  I had been holding back all of these feelings, this complex tangle inside, and every time I felt like leaking some of it out, I could feel its vastness following, not allowing for it to be broken apart, and the magnitude of that grief threatened to buckle me. I was never ready to let it through, to just invest in being a man who had buried his family. Even now, when I talk about it, it feels like I am speaking of someone else, still keeping all of that preserved pain at arm’s length, maintaining enough distance to not get pummeled by it, to not get swept into that dark and tempestuous sea of loss.

  The rain was coming down now. It was comforting, and I felt my hurt was camouflaged by the gray sheets washing over me. Some voice inside said, “Just leave, go back, change your clothes, get an umbrella, come back tomorrow.” I tuned it out. Your mind will always try to convince you to avoid discomfort, to run from pain, and wait for the “opportune time.” The truth is, that time doesn’t exist. There will never be perfect conditions to deal with anything that hurts or scares you. It’s like a fight in a ring. If you want to find excuses to back out of facing it, you will. There are always a myriad of them lingering around, and it can be harder to dig up the motivation to keep going rather than to give up or hang back. You have to set your jaw and just move forward, no matter what. You have to swing out onto that rope of uncertainty and hope for the best. Walking into the ring was never this hard, but it gave me the strength to know how to just put one foot in front of the other, until I stood facing them. Side by side, Harry and Helen Miller. My parents.

  I knelt down and pulled a few weeds that had grown thick surrounding their headstones. There were flowers on my father’s grave; I will never know who brought them. I had words trying to fall into order in my throat. When you talk to a person in a coma, you can speak knowing that maybe they will hear you. At this grave site my voice sounded so unconvinced, so strange. I don’t know who I was talking to; possibly to myself.

  “Hi. I, um. I haven’t been here because I was, uh, real fucked up for a while. And, I . . . I didn’t know what else I had to say to you guys. You left me with a lot of shit to sift through—could have done better on that, Dad.”

  I forced a laugh. My fingers were running through the grass, searching for something to hold on to, wanting something to hold on to me.

  “So I guess, I wanted to say that I love you guys. . . . I think I do. And I wanted to say thank you, for, trying. . . . Thank you for trying. I am grateful for my life. . . .”

  With that, the dam that had held back years of bitter anger and hurt melted enough to create a crack, and all of those tears I hadn’t cried yet came roaring through. Honesty has a way of placing you directly in the middle of whatever emotion you’ve been protecting yourself from. I buckled in half, my palms resting on those granite stones, air pulling into my lungs almost too slowly for me to breathe. The sobs were violent, and embarrassing, even though no one was around.

  This was the first time I had been able to cry in front of my parents since I was a baby, and this time I was crying because I actually missed them.

  “I’m so sorry, guys, I’m so sorry. . . .”

  I must have said this a million times. I don’t know what I was saying it for. Maybe I was sorry that I couldn’t have made things better for them or that I couldn’t have helped them to be happier. Maybe I was sorry that I had hated them for so long and blamed them for my unhappiness. Maybe I was sorry that they weren’t there to see me growing out of the parameters they had set for me and into something bigger, something stronger.

  After an hour or two I reached a point of calm, and I called Shelby on Skype. She answered, and I made sure to point the phone away from my face. She had seen me cry more than anyone ever had, but I still wasn’t comfortable with it.

  “Hey, kid. How are you?” I had the camera pitched slightly over my shoulder. She could see the rain coming down on the hills behind me. I’m sure she could hear the cracks in my voice, but she didn’t let on.

  “Heya. Where are you, dude? How’s the Pit treating you?” I could see her eyes searching around, trying to figure out my surroundings.

  “I’m okay, weather sucks. But hey, I want you to meet some people. . . .”

  I turned the camera toward my parents’ graves.

  “Shelby, this is Harry and Helen Miller. Guys, this is Shelby.”

  She was quiet for a minute, and then she spoke softly.

  “Hi. Nice to meet you. Thank you for making my best friend. . . . I’m proud of you, buddy. Good to see you finally did this.”

  She smiled through the camera. I thanked her and got off the phone quickly.

  The ride back was quiet. Passing bars I had gotten drunk in and fields I had played in. The schools I had attended, and the small gyms where I had learned the beginnings of my craft. This town had raised me collectively. I had been born to a set of parents, but I had been cared for and nurtured by many. My coaches became my parents. My training partners my brothers and sisters. I had been raised by Steelers, by Pirates, by fighters and athletes. I learned to walk on fields and concrete floors. I took my licks at home, but I learned to give back here.

  Justin sent me a message as I drove home: Did you see your folks?

  I responded, Yes I did. Shelby met them too. I’m sorry you never got to.

  Justin, in true Justin fashion, had this to say: I already met the best part of them. You. Get home safe. And come visit sometime. I think you could actually be in Austin and not totally fuck shit up now. Love you.

  I had tracked Maurice down not long before. We were talking again, and I would start training with him once more several months later. My tribe was reconnecting.

  As I pulled up to the front of the house where my kids lived, I saw Ronan, one of my twins, burst through the door. Saw his crooked little smile and heard his husky voice bellowing, “Daddy!” Ronan’s twin, Paddy, followed, a quieter version of him, more reserved. Ben came after. Already tall and quirky, Ben reminded me of me. I had done so much wrong in my life, but somehow I had been gifted with wonderful children, children I couldn’t have been more proud of. Children I couldn’t say enough good things about. They were perfect in their individuality. They were smarter than me, and they would grow to be bigger and better than I ever was.

  What you are born with is just that. Your beginnings, nothing more. You have no choice in that matter. It’s how you deal with it that makes you who you are. Everyone has demons; everyone has shit they have to shovel through. You find your ring, you pick your fights, and you work through it. You don’t back down from something because it sc
ares you, you only back down when you know that winning isn’t worth the sacrifice at hand. You learn to love with your whole heart, and it will scare the holy shit out of you. And you learn to forgive, because hanging on to a grudge is a futile thing and born of weakness.

  I was born in the city of steel, and I was cut from a mold that told the world that I would be weak, that I would be fragile. Physical obstacles and cruelty afforded me what seemed like one path, and it led to anger and self-destruction. Instead I found a way out, but I had to cut that path for myself and I had to eliminate all of the bullshit excuses. And I had to learn that you don’t always win, but you do always get a lesson, if you are open to it. Sharks hunt for survival. Fighters aren’t that different. Each battle is something settled, some pain we can’t express that we get to muddle through. If you are lucky in your life, you’ll find your ring, your place to go to work that shit out. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to forgive the people who hurt you the most, to quit hanging on to every excuse you afford yourself rather than actually facing the truth, which is that the bitterness poisons you worse than the initial pain. If you are lucky, you’ll fail enough to love your success. The balance is what makes us genuine in life, what makes us real. I am a father, and I am a son. I am a fighter and a survivor. I am all of the above and more. No one is ever one thing only, unless it’s by choice. Sharks never swim backward; they can’t, and neither can I, not anymore. The past is an anchor with suffering written on the rope. I don’t live there now. I am cutting myself free. And while I might not have everything figured out, I am slowly getting there, and I can say that I know who I am and I’m not perfect, but I am as resilient as the steel that was once made here, and I am a fighter, in every sense of the word. We all are.

  about the author

  MARK “FIGHTSHARK” MILLER has been a professional fighter for fifteen years and has competed around the world. He is the father of three boys and lives in Los Angeles.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  credits

  Cover design by Steve Attardo

  Cover photograph © by Allan Amato

  copyright

  PAIN DON’T HURT. Copyright © 2014 by Mark Miller. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 978-0-06-222234-3

  EPUB Edition JULY 2014 ISBN 9780062222367

  14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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