A Letter to My Mother Upon the Anniversary of Her Death.

Mama and Her Girls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 25, 2012

Dear Mama:

Eleven years have passed since I witnessed the amazing last breath you took in this life.  Not a day goes past that I don’t think of you in thankful reflection of the lessons you gave me the 26 years I had with you. Over a decade has passed and so much has changed, I wanted to bring you up to date on me and mine.  There is so much of which you would be proud that it will be difficult to write all of those occurrences here.  I’ll be as brief as possible.

I started and closed my own business.  The economy and that knock in the head did considerable damage to my pocketbook and my esteem.  I’ve brushed them both off and started over. I’m now back in the apartment industry and climbing the ranks; currently the Director of Marketing. I do alright in business.

The realization that my marriage was over, had been over, was a difficult one to come to terms with.  I owned every bit of the decision to formally end that chapter and took control of legally end the marriage. Every effort to be gracious upon that exit was made and most times I was successful.  Until I couldn’t be gracious anymore and I forced the hand that kept  holding on to me into a signature and a willing agreement.  I was strong. Finally.

Evan is just about grown now and I reckon I have done a good enough job.  He is healthy, well adjusted socially, has a steady girlfriend, splits his time equally between me and his dad, keeps decent grades, is planning on college next year and is exceptionally gifted in the arts.  Mama – he sang for THE POPE! We toured Italy together and it was wonderful.  That child is tall as the heavens!  You would look so small next to him now with him towering at 6′ 4″ already and on target to reach 6″ 6″ at least.  I could go on forever about that boy.  He is the delight of my life and I could not be more proud of the man he is becoming.  You would like him and he would be the best fishing buddy you ever had.

The long and short of it is this: I am still caught in wonder that those two stars line up perfectly with the moon; I get my fill in life and strive for just a little more; I breathe every breath as if it were my last; I know I’ll never be empty-handed; I am tiny standing on the beach; more doors have opened for me than I have allowed to close; Faith is part of every decision I have made; I climbed those mountains; I’ve taken the path that’s rough and forged it because it was the right or noble path; I have taken chances – some were worth taking; I have given my love in mistake and now give my love only to he who is worthy; I gave up bitter to be better; I have never sold out (sometimes to my detriment); I stare into the heavens to see if I can find you; I never lose track of my years and know where they were spent; and I have always… danced.

I miss you.  I have the hawk to remind me to always glide on the wind – ride it out and float.  Your body is gone.  Your legacy lives in me.  For that, I am thankful.

Love,

Me

 

Low Tide

Anna Maria Island, Florida August 2009Have you ever stopped and watched the happenings in the small pools around the sandbars at low tide? These are called shoals according to my research and they are teeming with life at low tide.

Welcome all.

Come and let us philosophize.

 

Welcome to the new home of my collective musings on the world around us.  I am thankful that I am able to experience all that this ife has to offer and glad that you have stopped by to share my tiny reflections.  Please enjoy and let me know how you feel about my writing.  I welcome your feedback always.  Namaste.

Journey to Humanity

There have been moments in my life where I felt like humanity was lost on human life.  Recently I have experienced things that inspire me to rethink that mode of thought.  The pattern began when I began to smother parts of who I was to satisfy obligations to family and career.   For years I was caught up in satisfying those obligations to maintain a stable life within a nutshell that I now realize was a shell of obligations that I imposed upon myself.   While choking the life out of my own dreams, it was difficult to see that other people could do good for others because that was in their heart and not because they were obligated to perform a duty.

This journey I have been on in recovering from a “mild” traumatic brain injury has taught me so much about my Self, relationships, obligations, hopes, balance, our social conditioning and my place within this life.  

Accepting the Purpose

I had a nice talk with an old friend today and he gave me a new perspective on my current situation. We talked about acceptance and what that means versus liking what the situation is about. I learned that even though you can present someone with what your purpose is and they may not like what that means to them, if you let them know what your purpose is they will have a hard time not accepting your purpose. Your job is to be prepared for what their reaction is to your action. And you have to evaluate what those reactions could be, being prepared of course for the wild card, and reconcile that with the importance of your purpose. Is taking ation toward your purpose is worth what could possibly happen if you do not take action? I would like to think that those around me will accept my purpose and the action I am taking to fulfill that purpose, whether or not they are happy with it and the implications it has on them personally. I certainly hope that those closest to me will accept it, be happy for me, support me on my journey and be here for me when I return fulfilled.

The Human Condition – vita contemplativa

The downfall of not being able to verbalize my thoughts is that I am stuck with them all day. One thought that keeps returning to my forethought is that of the human condition and how the human condition bares us on our course. Having been exposed to many challenges, thoughts and experiences in the last few months, I have had to reflect much over my true self and direction.

After the accident last year, I took a little time off because I couldn’t walk or talk. Once I was able to form a complete sentence, I begged my independence behind the steering wheel and pretty much went back full throttle. My livelihood depended on that independence. It seems there is a little hump of wellness that I just have not been able to get over. In the last month it became clearly evident that I must heed the advice of physicians and take a break. The stars aligned and I took a trip to see my uncle in California. I didn’t realize that the trip would include further alignment of stars and extreme moments of clarity.

If the opposite of Pro is Con…

If the opposite of Pro is Con; it stands to reason that the opposite of Progress is _______.

Have you ever really thought about this English language conundrum?  It is the forefront of my mind these days with all of the goings on in politics.  I knew if the the administration that got elected did so, there would be some drastic changes that would not bode well with the middle-class everyday American public.  I had no idea that it would be this bad.
Every day I hear something else that just simply shocks me.  Being a marketing person, I respect the administration for being a marketing powerhouse.  Quite honestly, I am in awe of their muscle.  As an honest tax-paying, American car driving, Coca-Cola drinking, worried-how-to-make-ends-meet American, I am scared to death of the effect on our culture.

This brings me to the dilemma of the day.  Do I support the machine because of their awesome weilding of demographic data and techno-advanced marketing tactic?  Or do I stand in defiance and say, “Cut the bullshit and the tactic, give me something real!”?  I am leaning toward the latter.  I have not been a very active politico until as of late.  I have just been incensed what with bowing to the Prince of Saudi Arabia, touching The Queen, a portuguese water dog and KUMAR as a liaison to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders?

Come on, cut the crap.  When are we going to wake up and see that The White House is now a farce with the blind leading the blind.  The government is now the largest marketing firm in the US, hell the world.  And we keep getting suckered by the ads.  They’ve got our number, for sure.

I remember a story where a government gave people numbers; they tattooed them on their arms.  Is this where we are headed?  I think I’ll try to escape before the Nazis start coming for me.

Gaining Perspective

I have never been an uber-religious person. For good reason (or at least from my perspective and I do not feel the need to explain). My sister Debbie and my friend Christy have been telling me lately to “LIGMO” (Let it Go – Move On ~ Debbie) and that God will only give me as much I am capable of handling (that’s Christy ~ ever the ray of sunshine in my life no matter how gloomy the clouds in either of our lives are at the time). On Thursday, January 15, I was quickly approaching a brick wall  with failing brakes (in the form of PC failures, unmet deadlines and being the captain of a seemingly unmanned ship) so I pulled the emergency brake to check out for a little bit before I snapped. Something was bothering me and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was so I needed to just take a mental break.

My Declaration of Independence

When was the last time you actually read the Declaration of Independence? Including the FIRST paragraph? Do you know the document does not begin with, “We hold these truths to be self evident…”? There is a preceding paragraph without which the document losing significant meaning.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Read the paragraph one more time and think reflectively after each beat. It is very deep and very relevant to the current status of our government. During the elections it became quite clear to me that the outcome of the election was of little consequence.