In memoriam

Today I recognized that we are all running out of time and when offered the chance to spend some of it with people we enjoy, maybe helping them undertake something outside of their routine, something uncomfortable, that makes them nervous, well, we should say, "Yes." Besides, it would be rare if we didn't learn or experience something equally powerful along the way. Maybe it’s maturity but the man I've become is starting to understand that the human connection makes life and living it worthwhile.

My father and I had our rough patches. We all do. More so with men of passion. Even in the deepest dark Dad always said he would love me unconditionally, and for years I couldn’t say the same. Blood passed between us and I wasn’t mature enough until it was too late to handle it. But I’ve grown into it. I look back to what we had, what we shared, the things we did for each other … it went beyond an attentive hand. We loved. Others. Each other. Deeply.

And now I realize that all of the shit we went through is just life and living it, playing hands we were dealt, chasing what we wanted, had tasted, and what we savored long enough to addict us, to change us, to steer us … into hardship, into trust, into love … and sometimes, maybe now, into positions where we cannot influence an outcome, where we must wait patiently, observe quietly, and abide … attending to all that we are and our relationships with the universe have caused to happen. We are not without responsibility. We are complicit. We lived and loved more and harder than our bodies and our souls were designed to withstand.

So what now? What next? 

I’ll be here. I hope we will be able to answer those questions together.

The Eulogy

Grief is a sneaky bitch…

It almost seems inhumane. I wonder; what is it about death that makes the living feel guilty often for just being alive? Maybe it’s because death is a magnifying lens and grief is the haze that clings to it. It is not something you can try to clear, it is only something that can dissipate through time and particular attention to it. What often gets brought to light first and magnified the most are those little flaws and mistakes. The ones that seem to linger the longest and are always the last to dissipate. When it comes to flaws to magnify I have many. I’m far from perfect and by extension so was our relationship. I’ve also made my share of lingering mistakes and as I look back and examine them now I can’t help but wonder what hurts worse the words that were said or the words that were left unsaid.

Of the many things I inherited from my father, a receding hairline, a fondness for movies, unwavering stubbornness, and a competitive drive like no other. What made us most alike was a love of the written word. Everything that dad read I read, even when my maturity level didn’t quite match that of the source material. But he never discouraged it and often enough he made me believe that I could at some point be a decent enough writer in my own right. Maybe he was on to something because I do have a particular way with words. Unfortunately I most often use my ability as a wordsmith to push people away most usually those closest to me.

How ironic that our last conversation would be via the written word and instead of mending that bridge I used those words to drive an even larger wedge in between us. It could just be a fault in my wiring that causes me to focus in on and magnify these bad interactions causing the haze of grief to dissipate that much more slowly; preventing me from being able to most clearly see all the good interactions we shared. And we did share so so many.

Me and dad always had our own particular way of expressing ourselves toward each other. We could probably fill the Grand Canyon with all the words that were left unsaid between us but most of the time we didn’t need to say them, they were communicated in the comfort we experienced in each others presence often spent in silence.

Grief—our reaction to this tragic loss—is one of those experiences. It can only be communicated through the eyes and the long stare when you confide in another, or the shake of a body when it trembles as it’s held. What words will ever do justice to that? What can you write that encapsulates some of the most profound love you’ve ever felt.

Maybe that just what I’ve realized these past few days. Grief is really just love. It's all the love you wanted to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go. I just hope you know that in spite of all the words I never said the three I should have said more were I love you.