The Cloud of My Thoughts

Over the years, I've had dreams in which my father had passed away. I woke up exhausted, inconsolable and heart broken until I realized they were just terrible dreams. They prompted me to develop and enjoy a solid, wonderful relationship with him, and accept him unconditionally.

Based on events from those dreams, I expected to experience his actual death similarly. Since it hasn't happened that way, I've begun to think something is wrong. Maybe I'm deeply in denial. Maybe the belief that he's somewhere around here, just out of sight blocks my "real" grief.

I want to call and tell him about this, but the thought short circuits when I realize, I would be talking about him. I still feel emotionally agog.

Aside from the mindless rituals of the day, I'm ashamed to say, not much is getting done around here.

I don't want to eat so much as drink, and drinking isn't a wise option. I don't need help feeling numb, or to be immobilized. I find myself staring like a catatonic too much of the time as it is.

How can someone who no longer occupies physical space on this earth occupy so much of my mind? I desperately want to disengage, go on a road trip, stare out some fog shrouded windows, soak in a hot tub, toast my skin on some sunny beach and listen to the sea.

None of that would really help. Wherever I go, I'm still within the cloud of my thoughts .

What I'd really like more than anything: to wake up in the morning and have this not be real just one more time.

If A King Had Lived

Today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's shooting.It may seem strange for a white person to do so, but I've often wondered what would have changed, had he lived. For me the anniversary raised more questions:Would we be a more racially stable society ? How would whites have changed their attitudes? Would all of us have become more Brother's Keeper oriented?

Are they still being told they are inferior? Why? Doesn't that imply that they aren't? What if they were the superior race? How would whites wish to be treated if this country were ruled by Blacks? That do unto others thing, does any one remember it?

I see more Blacks on television and in the movies. They enjoy higher visibility, breakthroughs in music and sports, commercials, film and and TV programming than when I was younger. It led me to think that race relations were better. But I'm not the one who should be saying if they are or not. As one of our Black country men or women if they think its better. How are we making it better?

My family and I go to more movies completely devoid of whites, I've been entertained and enlightened. Being stunted by the whites doesn't even come up in the story line. I appreciate these movies, because even though it's a movie, it gives me another perspective. I'm honored to be called friend by several ambitious Black folks. One a poet, husband, father, and hard working member of society. Another lives near Detroit. She runs her own PR business, and contributes her talents to the Habitat for Humanity group. She's been raising four very intelligent equally ambitious young ladies with out the presence of their white father.

A friend of mine lived all of her life believing she was 100% white bread. I always thought she reminded me of Mariah Carey or a pale Whoopi Goldberg (whose smile always made me smile) but it seemed inappropriate to say so. She recently discovered, after 50 years, that she is 1/16 Black. It is evident to the Blacks who see her. It wasn't evident to her. It didn't change my feelings for my friend one bit. She's always been loving, hardworking, successful and generous.

It isn't the color that makes up a person's character, it's the qualities they exhibit. The fruit of their spirit, if you will. Shouldn't we be encouraging all of our American brothers and sisters to strive to be the best people they can be? Wouldn't it be more interesting, more profitable, more benevolent to be a synergistic United States, with a round table for all the races in our borders?

I've listened to the I Have a Dream speech. It's a call to all sides, to join hands and make this a great country. It was similar at the core to the message from Rodney King. "Can't we all just get along?"

Where do you think we'd be if Martin Luther King had lived?

Popping the Zeppelin

Today's the day. I'd really rather not go, if it could be avoided, but this day hangs there like a zeppelin on the horizon. The other kids have already done this and had each other to get through it.This is my first visit to the house with out my dad being there. I wondered if I should have gone before now, maybe reality would have sunk in sooner. Maybe for the past month it would have been more real. But I didn't. Too many overwhelming things happened at once.

I offered to visit her the weekend after the funeral, but my stepmother had already made plans with her friend. After that the weeks slipped by and opportunity didn't come up again until this weekend.

St. Anne's , the Catholic church Dad attended, is performing a service in his memory. I have nothing against Catholics. I used to be one. I was raised one. But having moved on to a different kind of faith, I haven't been in their church for years. My step mother's devotion to her late husband is about the only reason that could get me in the door. And this service will come at the end of a day of God-knows-what.

They say being widowed suddenly does strange things to a woman. Some want to throw away everything, and some won't move one single thing. I have no idea where my step mom falls. Even if she's ready to begin parting with some of his belongings, am I ready to take them? Am I ready for the emotional fall-out of not borrowing them but inheriting them?

Friends

Pink is not my favorite color. And Easter pink might be pretty far down the chart on my color choices. Pink is usually not a good food choice.
Except when nothing in the world sounds good to eat and the effort of cooking seems overwhelming.

Bright pink became my friend today, like orange did yesterday, for the same reason. A pink egg became my salvation. It peeled like a dream, the yolk a perfect shade of butter and I knew they were cooked and colored with love.


Dear friends, a playwright and his lovely wife, accepted our invitation to enjoy a casual Easter dinner at our family table. I love to cook for the holidays and as my family of origin consisted of eight, I’m still learning how (and failing more often than not) to cook in small quantities.
When I greeted our friends at the door, the missus carried an apple pie and a small oblong casserole dish full of brightly colored boiled eggs.

In a flashback, I’m standing in the oak surround kitchen my father built, red-orange print carpet under my feet, harvest gold counters. It’s Easter Sunday 1970 something. My paternal Grandmother who might have been slightly over four foot six on her tippy toes, smiles wryly. The rainbow basket she brought only on Easter contained the waxy green shredded paper serving as "grass" and about a dozen brightly colored duck eggs.
I feel my face smile and it feels like the sun peeking out from rainclouds.

Condolences were offered and accepted regarding the recent loss of my dad (who incidentally was a big fan of egg yolks.) The holiday seemed all the richer for starting our visit with such a bright memory.

We ate and talked and laughed over dinner. With dessert, Jack and I discussed details of the play two of us had spent months working on. When our friends departed, I'm sad to see them go but glad for the meal, the memories and a bowl of eggs.

I think I’ll go make friends with that blue one…

A Bucket of Hope

If hope were a bucket,
I'd want a big one
Galvanized against leaks
A sturdy handle to carry it with me
where ever i went
and a sprinkler spout to spread it around.

The Sound of Silence

The library isn't the place it used to be. I went on a grey day after errands. I was going to look at a copy of the Sun. I took my laptop and set up camp at a large open table across from a bank of glass windows. On the other side was another long table of computer geeks staring at screens, clicking buttons and rolling mice.

Aloft I hear the inflectionless voice of a child reading. There was something all at once comforting and lullabic about this kind of reading. I don't know if it reminded me of being in school, church or just the safety of being in a relaxed environment where people could read. It made me think about the song I hear today--The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. A song I have always liked.

I am not often in the realm of total or complete silence. Usually a radio is going, or the TV rambles in the background. Even at night I like to hear some sound. I have six options of ten second loops on an actual white noise machine with the following options: heartbeat, water, space, ocean, crickets and wind. I 'm particularly fond of ocean surf and crashing waves. I have several discs to choose from when the current one no longer sails me off to sleep.

I miss the hushed reverence in libraries. It was almost church like. where no cell phones rang, people didn't talk at full volume and whimpering children and babies were swiftly removed. I remind myself I'm not trying to take a nap at the library, just concentrate or come up with a story.

Where is silence to be found? Sometimes I travel in my car with the radio shut off, but the tires still hum or pulse on the sections lines of cement highways.
I'm listening for silence. But the truth is it could sneak up on me and I wouldn't even hear it.

I was in the grocery buying eggs yesterday. The man in the meat department said his polite work obligated hello. I replied the same.
"You think Spring is ever going to get here?" he asked.

I admit, I don't much like the way mother nature toys with us, 58 degrees one day only to plunge t o 27 the next, and dump ice, twenty inches of snow, or a wintry mix. My beloved had hoped the weather would be kind enough that he could get on the bike during his much needed but a few weeks too early Spring break. It looks pretty bleak.
The weather men promised a sunny 60 degree day mid-week only to keep bumping it back farther and farther off.

"It won't be long," I tell myself. My eyes caught the promising, golden fuzzy aura growing on the forsythia bushes. Soon they'll be popping little yellow flowers and we will be warming our sun-deprived skins in the heat of the roiling Great Orb.
I can hardy wait. And this is what I'll think of when I fry breakfast eggs while looking out the kitchen window.

Word Well

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say."
Anais Nin

Happy Easter

"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
Don Marquis

Words to Consider

"No one ever excused his way to success."
– Dave Del Dotto

Return of the Prodigal

The prodigal son is home.

He looked stunned that we were so glad to see him. In fact, I wanted to cry I was so happy.

I wanted to ask him a hundred questions.

"Where have you been? Are you hungry? Why didn't you call us? Are you alright? Where are you staying? How long are you going to be around?"

I took it as a good sign that we were all riding the elevator UP.

Serve and Protect

Maybe you found this site through The Radical Write. If not, you may want to check out the March 3rd post about the police car that sped in front of us lights flashing and stopped. See post here.

Its funny how everything you've been trained to do shifts into autopilot in moments like that. I was so freaked by the idea that the cop was getting into his trunk (for a shotgun to shoot us, I thought) that I could not move.

Even though we live in a relatively sleepy village, we get a lot of cops screaming by with and without sirens, along with a few paramedics and the occasional firetruck. It's been said that we live near a drug highway. I don't know what percentage of cruisers are going for the drug runners, if any.

The policeman who raced in front of us March 1st puts his life at risk every day, and he was doing for us what he's do for anyone.

For me, it embodied a man laying down his life for the protection of someone else. Fortunately no one was hurt in that instance. I will be forever affected by his actions.

I still get choked up thinking, He didn't even know us.

We're Not So Different

We never have as much time as we think.

Everyone who is born will one day die.

You and I are not so different.

You have worries, I have worries.

We have the option to cast them on the Lord.

You have sorrow, I have sorrow.
I allow God comfort me.

You eat food, I eat food. I ask the Lord to bless mine. It reminds me that provision is not owed to me. It's a blessing for which I'm thankful.

Photo by Carlos MF

You party, I party.

Our elements may not be the same. I always have water available if Jesus shows up and make something of it.

You are loved, I am loved. Our circle of friends and family may not overlap,

but I know the God who loves me, loves you. He's waiting to show you.

You're not religious, I'm not religious.

I set aside time every week to thank the one who has given me so much. Many call it worship.

You blow it, hurt people and do some things wrong; I blow it, hurt people and do some things wrong. It's called sin.
If we confess to sinning, the Lord faithfully forgives us.

You've done things you're not proud of, I've done things I'm not proud of.
I asked the Lord to comandeer my life.
When He did, He said He still loves me regardless of my past, how many people I've hurt or how many ways I've screwed up.

I called on the name of God for many solutions to many problems and he sent Jesus to be my friend and live in my heart.
It was a free gift to accept or reject. I accepted.
I've never been happier.
Even in my darkest hour, I felt Him with me. I had peace and didn't worry.
I walked away from a non-Christian life fourteen years ago.
And I've never looked back or regretted my decision.
I only regret I didn't make the decision sooner.

Thicker Than Water

Even though our family is missing one, the truth is, it hasn't shrunk. To date, I met two more Uncles that I never knew about, and found out about a whole wing of the family that I am discovering today through a relative who loves genealogy. Plus, my daughter is no longer lost to me, and maybe her mother and I will be at least friends. We are family in the grand scheme of things.

Life just got a whole lot more interesting.

Hoops or Yoyo?

Photo by Jess Hodson

I want to be this happy.

Desk Landscape Tourist

What lives on your desk?
I like going to office buildings and looking at the personal items on the desks of staff members. It gives me a window into their world view, and their priorities. Coffee cups are on most, and sentiments on these are particularly insightful. The one that says PEACE may be trying to transcend a stressful job, the one with Eagles speaks of seeing things from a different perspective, and a John Wayne airport mug might mean they work to travel. The one on my desk says: Visit a 1000 Story Building. If you think about it, you'd be surprised where you might find such places in the U.S.

Photos that smile at me daily are people close to my heart but physically far away: my daughter Kim, adopted mother Vera and California cousin Suzie. Other people's happy faces live in photo files that I view pretty regularly. Two stones, one of marble from Italy the other black from California serve as paperweights as does a red glass chile.

The monitor stands on platform that allows a wicker basket underneath collecting all responses from magazine, anthology and book publishers. A three hole punch lives next to it so I can store them in a three ring binder when the basket gets full.

To the left of that, a glazed pot with rainbow stripes holds a collection of cheap black Bic Round Stick Grip pens that I love. I bought it in Akron almost a quarter century ago. It's been on every desk since, from Orange Park to Charlotte North Carolina to Beach Dreams. It's one of two things I remember buying from the Pier One, which was then half a block away.

To the right of the monitor stand tall file boxes filled with writing magazines, next to half a dozen screenwriting tomes. Underneath that shelf rest two small shoe boxes collecting postal receipts and miscellanous papers. On that corner of my desk is a white cordless phone with the ringer turned off. The red light blinks when a call comes through.

Topping my large desk are several ivys panting for water (which reminds me I need to water them...) and an aloe vera that seems to thrive when I forget it. Next to them several books in which pieces have been published. Since I work from home and not a commercial building, incense, pillar candles and tea lights adorn the top shelf along with one old-world relica clock. My prized desk ornament is the sculpture Thankfall bearing my daughter's face and upturned hands.

What's living on your desk that you can't bear to live with out? What do you have that's unique?

Said and Done

At last the snow is melting!Which means flooding for a lot of people. Yesterday the creeks were running high and I expected the reservoir to be cresting. A peanutbutter fog crept in after dark and hangs outside even though it's after 11 am.

I call my father's widow more in a week than I have in months. I wonder now how his passing will affect our relationship. I wonder now if out of six kids, six will remain on good terms with her or visit when they come to town. I haven't anyone else to visit.

This gets me thinking about all the ways she invested in me over the years, from cook books to lessons to getting dad on the phone. You know, our relationship was always eclipsed my the one with my dad. Sort of like a sapling growing in the shade of a giant oak.

But there it is. A little tree, over ten years old.

I pictured us going to the cemetery together leaving flags and flowers and blotting our eyes with tissue. Becoming a holiday cemetery visitors.

Today, from the coffee shop I can see the crosses of the memorial cemetery of the Ohio Fallen Heroes. As long as I live here I will never forget my dad was a vet.

I didn't get him a brick to add to that as I had wanted. I got to re-thinking it when I filled out the application. He was still living, and I didn't want it to seem like I was writing him off in anyway. He may have been pleased to see it, I'll never know. I just remember thinking how lucky we all were that he had survived the heart attack and aneurism. I couldn't assign him a place in with the dead at that time.

Now it doesn't matter.

A Daring Adventure

I've been asked to let a budding young writer shadow me for career day. At first I thought, no way. We just buried the patriarch of our family. Then I thought about who I was at 14. I started thinking about what the shadow and I would talk about. What are the most important lessons for a writer to learn? I began thinking along the lines of how I could answer that. Before emailing the mother that I had agreed to career day, my mind had already accepted. Although nearly a month away, I'm excited to see what develops.

I've long been a believer in encouraging others to dream big dreams, reach for the stars and at least dare to overshoot their daily routine. I believe life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Years ago, a young friend called me with an opportunity to travel and work abroad.
"Go!" I said. "Before the responsibility sets in."
Maybe it was my own desire for freedom that caused me to give that response. I was already tethered to a house and spouse with a baby on the way. A life in Europe sounded exotic.

He left and lived there two years, give or take. I don't know if they were the best years of his life, but he's glad he went, aren't you Savage Wit? He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. His time in Europe changed his perspective. I enjoyed the photos, postcards, coffee and chocolates that occasionally turned up in my mail box.

There is nothing as intoxicating as living on the meridian of possibility the cutting edge of life, daring to dream. It keeps life interesting, sparking us alive. Maybe that's why people take vacations.

The older I get, the more things tend to stay the same. The more predictable they become, the more I want to stay home. But staying home is only good in small quanitities. Eventually, my brain begins to atrophe.
Then I find myself hankering for an aberration of almost any kind.

Jack Bunny might have it right. He works to live and gleans essence from people watching and bits of dialog from his part-time window of "the world." He gets out, keeps his wit sharpe and his eyes on the look out for something interesting. He's out shoveling snow at 69 and still living to tell about it.

I must remember to tell my 14 year old shadow about risk, taking a dare and above all, twisting the life out of every opportunity. Live your life as though you're in the middle of living a great story. So even if this mentoring gig doesn't go well next month, I'll tell her and myself, "It'll be a great story to tell."

Walking in the Shoes

Every day I make an effort to go toward what I don’t understand. ~Yoyo Ma


Photo by NG


We don't realize how much we live in our own heads until something happens and we need people. I have been extremely fortunate to have a small but strong network of faithful friends and be associated with a church during two life-changing tragedies in my life. I continue to be amazed at the outpouring of grace, love and kindnesses that divorce and death bring out in so many people.

I am in awe of these people who are so "other" conscious. Suddenly I am also hyper-aware of all the times people needed me in these situations, and how unable I was to assist them, until the experience befell me. I suppose because the emotional landscape was so foreign, I shied away.

Yoyo Ma's words hit that place in me today. Quite often, I am fearful of venturing into unknown territory. But I can tell you I'm getting better at it, and did it last week.

The daughter I gave up for adoption 23 years ago arrived with her mother at a recent social gathering. That was a shock unto itself. They kept a little to themselves, not in a rude way.They didn't know but a few people. So, not knowing protocol for such events, I brought sibs over and introduced them.

Later, when we were all getting our meals from the buffet line, I noticed that my daughter and her mother had settled in at a table with their plates of food. Alone. With my full plate, ready to resume my seat at a prechosen table, I felt a nudge--probably God. Maybe you know how He is...

These thoughts went through my mind.
"Go ask them to sit with your family." They looked happy. I didn't know if they'd want to move. (translate: I didn't want to ask, be declined and look stupid.)
My answer was, "But...."
"Go ask them," He insisted.Have you ever tried arguing with God? I have. Enough to know that there is a consequence for not heeding holy advice.

Here's a couple of things that could happen if I didn't go: I might drop my plate. All my food could slide into the salad dessing. I could trip and fall and splatter food on all the guests. Hard to not look stupid. Or even if I made it to the table and ate my food with out being struck by some mishap, there is the possibility of indigestion, or (and I'll offer no gruesome details for this) worse.

Are you kidding me? I always let Him win. When I arrived at their table, my prescence interrupted a conversation.
"Would you like to join us at our table?"
"We don't want to intrude..."
"You wouldn't be."

The next thing I know, they and my family are all enjoying a meal together. Emails get exchanged. We laughed together. We hugged.
And when we said goodbye, I felt somehow, I'd added to my network a few more wonderful people.

Hope

I like watching the sky turn pink with the anticipation of sunrise. I like being on the brink of Spring when Winter's butt is being kicked by longer daylight hours as more heat radiates from the Great Orb.
It's always held a special place in my heart to listen to the old Beatles tune, Here Comes the Sun while it's actually shining and has been a long or lonely winter.

I like the first really-too-cold breezes playing with thte curtains of open windows when we air out the house after the last grey molehill of snow is gone. After a winter of nothing much besides goose honks, the first wave of robbins chirping brightens my heart.

I like breakfast on the deck with a steamy cup of coffee when no one else is awake, and seeing the bright green tendrils of hope, the blossoms of a promising summer.

I'm grateful that hope springs eternal. Some people say, nothing lasts forever about the good times. I wave those people off, saying, this is not the time for such negative sentiments. Instead smiling and enjoying happy moments to the fullest, gleaning every grin and giggle out of every minute.

When the dark times come as the inevitably do, that negative sentiment now becomes a positive remark: nothing lasts forever. I know this too shall pass. The sun will rise to shine another day, and I will be laying in a beach towel under it.

Dream Endangerment

Can sacrificed dreams be revived? Or are they lost forever? Do you harbor at least one dream that you can't let go of? That has yet to become a reality?
I picture dreams as living things, needing fed, nurtured, sunshine and freedom of expression. I've seen folks give up their dreams to pursue harsh jobs, all in the name of providing for the family. Sisyphusian jobs that served their purpose but exacted a cost, draining color from hair and skin and leaving them ravaged seniors, bitter, dry and humorless. Their dreams were barely entertained much less realized.
I've witnessed some who held hands with their dreams, and found ways to nurture and sustain them. And still others who danced with their dreams and when the financial responsibility of parenthood no longer needed them, their dreams bloomed into a second career. The second part of their lives, just as fulfilling as the first.

It reminds me a little of that Japanese man who watered the seed everyday for years with no return on his investment. Then one day, the seed sprouts ten feet.

Considering everything begins with dreams, I find it surprising that we don't embrace them more widely, more often. I had people in my life who encouraged mine. I can't thank them enough. Dreamers inspire the rest of us. Dreamers beget dreamers. But dreamers need encouragers.

I think of dreams as an endangered species with so many hunters, so many shooters, thieves and killers of a good idea. The young dreamers of today are the movers and shakers of tomorrow. How are you involved with that movement? How do you encourage dreams? Are you living your dreams?

Highlight Delete

A freakish thing I could have lived without happened yesterday. As I began closing my email account, I managed to highlight and delete enough in-box mail to take me back to February 28th. And my mind went there …
On February 28th my dad said he felt great. His words were clear and strong, he sounded happy. We'd just had a lengthy conversation and I remember thinking about going up to visit him.
I felt secure thinking we still had a lot of future together.
I remember thinking that we were coming to the five year mark of Dad’s heart attack and the resulting stroke that nearly took his life.
I remember pleading with God not to take my dad.

February 28th I woke up and made breakfast, speculating about the weather. In my mind, I heard an F-18 fly over head. When we lived in Orange Park, Florida, they flew overhead in spring.

In the cabinet above the coffee maker, where all our mugs were kept, I glanced up and saw the carved earthenware mug my dad had bought for me while he vacationed with Mary Ann in Montana one summer. I couldn’t remember the last time I drank coffee out of it so I pulled it down.

While drinking my coffee, looking out the window, again in my mind’s eye, I saw an F-18 nose down and one wing touching, sliding toward the house like a giant “X”. I remember thinking, I wouldn’t be able to save anything. Not people, myself or anything of importance.

Friday morning my friend Holly M called me out of the clear blue.
”What’s going on?” I ask.
“I had dreams about you. Nothing bad, but I wanted to call and check in.” And after talking awhile, I felt that everything was okay, but could change any minute.

Saturday after three near-misses in traffic I wanted to get to church. At church, the worship pastor, Aaron sang Come to Jesus originally written and sung by Chris Rice. The song so affected me that I wept in church. The what-if’s about traffic weighed on me. The song played over and over in my head. That night we’d been informed that dad was in the hospital. And that a priest had been called.

By Sunday afternoon, my father had died from the effects of a stroke.

Monday, Aaron sent me a song download. I played Come to Jesus so many times, I could hear every word in my head.
Thursday, as we drove up today to pay our respects, and smile for the people who wanted to join us in saying goodbye, the landscape sliding by the passenger window had changed.

The foliage had been encased first in frost. As we drove north, the frost thickened to ice. Instead of just glazing everything, some trees were bending under their burden. When the sun peeped out briefly, the trees glittered like lead crystal.

The song still played in my head. It carried me through the meet and greet and the service.
The last song to be sung at the funeral service was Come to Jesus. It book-ended the event for me. But one verse stuck with me the most:

“With your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye,
and go in peace and laugh on glory’s side.
And fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live…”

Youngest Perspective

I recieved this post from my youngest brother. He also lives the farthest away. I'm posting it partly because I want to honor my dad and the man my brother became because of him.

I don't know where to start. I may wander all over, so just bear with me. I have never had to do this before.

I believe Dad was the last male in his family. It was up to him to carry on a family name. To leave a legacy. I think if you look around now, you will find that he did a VERY thorough job of it. Four sons, two daughters. Now, nine grandsons, and six grand-daughters. Looks like the name will definitely live on. Is this not how God himself rewarded those in his favor in biblical times? I like to think so.

My parents had six kids.... SIX!!!! Just imagine doing that today. I'm glad he didn't quit at five, or you wouldn't be reading this, and two grandsons would be missing.

My dad was the greatest at making things work. fixing things, making things and just general problem solving. He was never self serving, but serving of all others. He was a dreamer, but made you also dream. He was a provider and showed us how to provide. He was a believer that showed us how to believe. He was a father that showed us HOW to father. He was decent and honest and showed us also the benefit in this. He was my confidant and my friend, my coach, my cheerleader.
Now he will lead from afar.

He left the map. He will now clear a new path for us. We were fortunate to know him here, and we will be fortunate to know him again.

Dad, I miss you, but I know as well that you are here.
May God bless you. You have done your work here. It was time for you to go home. May you hang your hat and enjoy what "Papa God" has prepared for you. I'm sure that heaven is excited to see you!
All our love.

How Ya Doin?

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t overly emotional that the question kept being asked. ..How are you doing?

A question as loaded as a gangster’s gun.

“I’m fine, but it won’t last,” I want to say. My dad was one of the good ones. If you’d known him, you’d never want him to leave. The likeable kind, the kind you enjoy having around. Five years ago in his near death experience, I knew he wouldn’t be an easy one to let go of. There was never going to be a good time to see him go.
My brother noted mid-service that no one in our family was crying. We joked about it. Should we laugh until we cry? Should we weep tears of joy?
I wished he hadn’t said it. Right then, I noticed Alan had a faraway look on his face and I tried handing him a packet of tissues.
Neil shook his head adamantly and gave them back to me. He turned to Alan and said something. I noticed Alan snapped out of it and looked around. It turns out Neil was partly responsible for some of the boys not crying. Whenever their eyes started to wad up or their lip began quivering, he’d speak up.
“We’re not having any of that. Don’t even start.”
I reminded him that he was the youngest and no one had to listen to him. But I didn’t cry there either. I chose to pretend that Dad was somewhere in the back of the room and everything was fine. I could always cry later. And I knew I would. Maybe crying is too private a thing. It certainly has become so for me. Even though we were at a funeral and if ever there was a perfectly legitimate time to jerk tears, this was prime, I could no more cry than squeeze water out of dust.
Adam wanted to turn the golden key, open Dad’s burnished cherry-wood box and slip his cell phone in. Then have someone call the phone.
“Why?” I wanted to know, smiling at the irreverence of it. “He isn’t going to answer it.”
“Because my ringer is actually a recording of full-blast laughing.”
I thought it would be funny but hoped he wouldn’t do it. Maybe dad would appreciate the humor of it. Everyone had gathered for the service by then. Undoubtedly Dad’s wife Mary Ann wouldn’t have understood the humor. Publicly, we’re the type that laughs instead of crying. Only because it’s socially acceptable to be seen laughing, your sinuses don’t block up and you never have to use a hankie.
We felt spectacle enough walking into a church where we’d been discussed but rarely present. I was never more keenly aware of being in the limelight than when we lined up for photos and people we didn’t know began shooting along with our spouses. I hated for this. I felt like an accidental celebrity. Adam opted not to draw any more attention to us.

On Some Level

A glance out the window revealed snow flakes big as clover blossoms skittering through the air, landing to become one with the windsculpted snow dunes. A white-out momentarily obscures the houses across the street. In unison every kid in Franklin and Delaware County hoped to God for another snow day. Maybe it was the wind, but I thought I heard a collective “Oh No…” of their parents, I among them..

On snow days, I end up cooking far more, washing more dishes and enduring constant surge of interruptions from the family I adore. I sit in the wine colored recliner, hypnotized by the motion, while chicken soup burbles on the stove.

I should be editing one of 261 essays that make up my list of default work.
But I stare out the window and see the layer of pristine snow that separates me from my neighboors cut only by the blade of a snow plow.
I wrap my cable knit sweater around me and sip coffee and think. If I push back and hold my head south, I can watch the snow and drift off to sleep.
It's Saturday. I'm sleeping in.

Wish I was in Henlopen..

This photo was shot by my friend of 24 years, Rick Sharpe. When I see it, I am miles from an ohio white out.

Lines of Navigation

It would be impossible (and boring to some) all the ways my dad impacted my development, and life even today. I tried to break it down to the consistent undercurrent of how he lived his own life.
As this week ends, I will leave you with a few sayings passed on to my from my dad that I've mulled over and used as a compass by which to navigate my life. Maybe they'll help you as much as they have helped me.

Live your life above reproach.

You can do anything. If you can read it in a book, you can do it.

What ever you do, be your absolute best at it.

If you use it, put it back where you got it, and leave it better than you found it.

I'd like to think this last one is where he made the most impact on his planet. Watching my sibs yesterday, it was obvious that he had left his indelible mark on each of us. Even the prodigal has come home. He'd been home for about a month working alongside my dad.

Dad also got to see my first born, Kat, again the week before his death. I feel certain in his mind, he believed the family was all back together. Amazingly, Kat attended with her mother, whom I met for the first time after 23 years.
I just wish he could have seen it. I hope that he was able to look over the silver lining of a Heavenly cloud and see the party we were having in his honor, and how many people gathered together to speak well of him. I know his heart would have overflowed with joy, along with his green eyes.

I'm sure if Dad was watching, he couldn't get the grin off his face.

Trace the Sky

Since my little bundle of joy was born over 17 years ago, I haven’t been one to get up, stay up or wax active in the middle of the night. Lately I can’t sleep. Yesterday 3 a.m today 1 a.m…

It isn’t even that I have so much to do. The Six Pack is home for the funeral and some giddy electric energy seems to keep everything unreal, but moving forward. I have moments where everything seems fine. Then I'll think, I really need to call my dad and tell him about this...and realize, he's the news. My mind shorts out there, reminding me of the time travel theory that one can't run into one's self...
Dad's passing is such a shock to me, it overwhelms and slides right over me. I can’t seem to absorb it or move in it. It puts me in mind of being five years old and show and tell day is coming…

My dad was a sky watcher. But because he was searching for the unlikely, he saw a lot of the usually unnoticed and underappreciated: fragmented as well as double rainbows, interesting cloud formations, moon dogs, sun dogs, sun rises and
sunsets.
But the truth is, Dad's eyes traced the skies looking for UFO’s.

For many years, he traveled with a certain amount of camera equipment, along with a battleship gray box next to him on the front seat. About the size of a large lunchbox, it was a home-built UFO detector. Where he found the instructions to make it I could only guess. He told me how it worked, and at the time it wouldn’t have taken much to convince me. I was five.

I feel sure my dad took his fair share of ribbing for the interest he displayed about UFO’s, which were met with a great deal of skepticism in the late 60’s. My dad didn’t care much what people thought of him. He was a little like Noah when he made his mind up. If you gave him a hard time, he’d just talk to someone else and leave you out of it.

We were leaving my grandparent’s country ranch house, across from a pine tree encircled reservoir. It was late at night and the damp pine scented breeze whispered quietly through the needles. I might’ve been eight if I was there at all. So tired I would have fallen asleep. His super Eight was in the trunk and the grey box sat zoinking, or whatever UFO detectors do when they go off. He searched the sky and found what he was looking for and pulled out the camera .

I’ve seen the footage so many times, I have it memorized. A bright light hovers in the sky. It flashes, and three smaller lights fly out of it. They hover around as if saying their goodbyes. A few seconds later, each small light flies into a different direction and disappears. The larger light flashed again, it just flew in an erratic pattern, unlike anything I’d ever seen aircraft do up until then or quite a few years after.

My dad said he sent the foot age to a lab and had copies made, and he sent one of them to the government. He said a little while after that, he was followed by men in black sedans, and saw men in suits that he believed were followoing him. He was never called or questioned. And after a time, they also disappeared.

He was interested in the unidentified flight of objects for many years. I don’t remember when he stopped carrying the grey box. It seemed to have done the one thing it was supposed to do—it went off and he saw something that night.

And we’ve all been watching the sky ever since.

In Transit

I've been notified that my comments on this blog are currently not working. I have recieved comments before so I don't know what is going on with that. We're trying to get it fixed. You can post me from "the radical write" if you feel so compelled. I'd love to hear from you.

I'll be posting about some other things very soon. My thoughts for the day:
Prayers are like Heavenly Hugs. We can't get enough of them here.
I have jillions of great memories of my dad, for which I'm grateful.

This tragedy has been difficult, but as death can sometimes do, it brought the "Six Pack" together again. We'll all be seeing each other in one place for the first time in five years. Before that, it was 17 years. For some reason most if us forgot cameras and the roll of film that was shot was...well, it hasn't surfaced yet. I'm not taking any chances this time. I got all manner of recording devices.

Stay tuned. With any luck and a few blessings, you will see us all again, sans parents.

One of the Best

Traveling Home

Usually surrounding the hospitalization there's a flurry of activity and the retelling of events, explanations of procedures. Usually people sit around soggy-eyed trying to think the best, hope for the best thought, remember people who pulled through similar situations. The waiting seems interminable. To pass the time, my sister brought a book and I had brought the laptop.

My sister and I shared resurrection stories on our trip to Akron City hospital. Neither of us allowed the other to dwell in that space that allowed the waterworks to spring a leak and start a flood.

We talked of happy times and future plans that included Dad. Neither of us wanted to entertain the slightest notion that we may be seeing him for the last time. The little voice in my head had spoken, "He's not going to make it this time." I wanted that voice to be wrong.

When we arrived at the hospital, I called my youngest brother of four still in transit from Atlanta. Driving brother number three.

"Where are you?" I asked.
"Tennessee. Where are you?"
"Hospital parking deck. Why?"
"You need to get your butt upstairs."

But the hospital had changed since our "Six Pack" had been in it five years ago. Nothing looked the same. The renovations had removed all the familiar trails. My sister and I searched four floors before coming to an unoccupied reception desk. The halls were pretty empty. Ones who worked there were occupied on the phonewith lines forming. We found elevators and stood in front of them.

And realized we were standing by my 15 year-old-nephew I hadn't seen since I don't know when and brother number two who had been missing for two years. Reunions hugs and smiles were passed all around. We rode the car to the second floor. When the elevator opened, I saw brother number one, Eric.
"Dad's already gone."

They led us to the elevators that led to a hallway and waiting area, and finally, with an escort to the room where my father lay.
Isn't life unpredictable? The one I never thought I'd see again, is here. And the one I had hoped to see one more time, has traveled home.

Bad De Ja Vu

When we were planning Dad's 70th birthday, he had a heart attack on March 3rd. The medication arrested the potential damage to the heart. In 1% of cases, it causes bleeding somewhere in the body.
Dad complained of a headache for two days until they realized his cranium was filling with blood from an aneurism. He was comatose for over a week.
In five years, he's made a remarkable recovery and had even been able to read, drive and go back to work. We were all grateful for the time we got to spend with him as he recovered.

This year, we were planning Dad's 75th birthday party in April. Then the call came last night.

"Dad's had a stroke. It doesn't look good. They've already called in the priest."

I'm on my way to the hospital with my sister. I'll be writing offline and posting here as able. We're hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

I don't want to plan any more birthday parties.

Honest Work

March 1st 08
My father instilled in me a very strong work ethic. Show up on time, do what you’re getting paid to do. Leave it like you found it, or just a little bit better. Honesty is the best policy.
I was a firm believer in greener pastures when it came to work after a firm where my dad worked cut him loose after a decade and a half of faithful service. My new motto became do unto them before they do unto you.
I haven’t always been so quick to follow that adage, especially if I liked the work. But I had a healthy attitude toward moving on in general and work was no different. If I could learn the job they were usually mine to keep until I got bored, restless or wanted to learn something new.
By far and away my favorite job in Florida was getting paid to sit in the sun drawing caricatures. The pay was great, usually they were party bookings and everyone was having a great time. I met a lot of interesting people from all over the US because they were visiting. I liked the weather for the most part, never minded the heat or the humidity.
It’s those blasted tornados. We left a short time after Andrew hit Homestead. Seems like that was a good move given the frequency and velocity of storms since.
Five jobs you might not know I worked:
Egg Collector on chicken farm
Loading M-80’s
Silkscreen pressing t-shirts
Avon Lady
Waitress in Chinese Restaurant

Five That Let Me Go
Custard Stand (couldn’t learn the menu)
Schwanie’s Pub (only worked Tuesday’s)
Iacono’s (wouldn’t work Tuesday’s)
Koenig Art Emporium (Downsizing)
Optic Nerve (talking about Jesus, not their given reason)