A letter to my son.

Mom, if I had ever known, I would have never let you go- 

Saturday, August 14, 2021

August 14, 1969

The festival Woodstock musical festival that drew nearly half a million people to Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the Catskill mountains was a pivotal moment in American culture. The festival ran August 15–17, 1969.

- No comments:

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Sharing Grief (written over 4 days stuck in my car in the Winter of February 2021)

What Kept Me Warm

Ice storm 2021. The power went out, and for four days I lived inside my car.

That’s the simple version. The truer version is that I spent four days trapped with my own mind, with nothing left to distract me from what I’ve been avoiding since my mother died.

People tried to help. They offered advice, small strategies for getting through hard things. One of them said that when grief starts to rise, they force themselves to think about something else. I remember how much that bothered me. It felt like betrayal—like turning your back on someone you love just to make yourself more comfortable.

But grief doesn’t care what you believe about it.

Somewhere along the way, I started doing the same thing. Looking away from photos. Cutting off memories before they finished forming. Redirecting my thoughts like I was steering away from something dangerous. Sometimes the only way to survive a feeling is to leave it unfinished.

The part I wasn’t prepared for was this: the car felt natural.

Not comfortable—nothing about it was comfortable—but familiar. Like I had slipped into a version of life that made a certain kind of sense. Small space. Controlled conditions. Quiet suffering. No expectations. Just stay warm. Stay alive. Make it to morning.

I had known that feeling before.

Years ago, I lived in a small house with one Dearborn gas heater that warmed a single room. The rest of the place stayed cold. At night, I’d sleep on the couch inside a sleeping bag, covered in every blanket I owned, pulled tight up to my neck. It sounds miserable now, but it wasn’t. It was mine. It was enough. There was a strange comfort in narrowing life down to something that simple.

The SUV felt like that—like a stripped-down version of living where nothing existed except survival and silence.

On the fourth day, the lights came back on at my mother’s house. I went inside to check the heat. Thirty-four degrees and climbing. Then I checked the other house. Everything was working again.

I stood there, in a warm house, with electricity humming back to life around me—and almost immediately, I missed the car.

That’s when it hit me: it wasn’t the car. It was the clarity.

Inside that vehicle, there was no pretending life hadn't taken a massive turn. No questions about what my life was or where it was going. No space for regret or comparison. Just a single, honest objective: get through the night.

Out here, in the world with lights and heat and fully furnished rooms, everything comes back. The past. The silence. The absence of the one person who made all of it feel anchored.

For those four days, no one called to check on me. Not one person. I’m used to being alone. I’ve built a life around it. But that kind of quiet—total, uninterrupted—introduces something else. Loneliness. The kind that doesn’t just sit beside you, but settles in.

More than a year after my mother died, there I was with nothing left to buffer the truth: no one is coming to check on you. This is your life now. Learn it.

At some point, I broke one of my own rules. I took a photo of myself in that car, bundled up against the cold, and sent it to someone. Maybe it looked like a joke. It wasn’t. It was grief asking to be acknowledged. It was me, a version of me I don't like, reaching out without admitting that’s what I was doing.

I regret that.

My mother used to tell me not to tell anyone everything. Keep some things to yourself. Let other people talk. Listen more than you reveal. At the time, it sounded cautious. Now it sounds precise.

Because most people aren’t really asking how you are when they say how are you? They’re offering a greeting, not an opening. And grief—real grief—is too raw to hand to people who don't really give a shit. 

A real friend already knows you’re hurting.

Everyone else is just waiting for their turn to speak.

And that’s the part no one tells you when the lights come back on:

Warmth doesn’t fix living alone..

- No comments:

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Sombody's callin' your name..

When I’m gone I want just one someone and it doesn’t matter who, please stop for 4 minutes and 11 seconds to play this song “Seven Turns,” by the Allman Brothers Band just for me that I related so much to in my long and very un-relatable life. Dickey Betts singing these lyrics that turned my emotions loose to feel what nothing else could. When Gregg joins in at 2:47 with his unmistakable southern voice “somebody’s calling your name,” it was as if he was speaking just to me.

Some tough health news for me this week has had me listening to my favorite music while knowing this life that is in God’s hands has been all over the map with the best and the worst often happening at the same time. No longer confused and without any questions or complaints, God has been very good to me even during times I felt I didn’t deserve it. He thought I deserved it and I’m grateful and often sad that there is no one to share with anymore. I always just wanted to be left to be who I was and not be ostracized or isolated by people around me. That wasn’t how it was to be and God knew that I would struggle and oh how I did. No more questions from me about why this or how that in this life for me, it was always in his plan. 


In my teenage years music was often my only companion and the lyrics to the songs of my life were most often expressed by The Allman Brothers Band and Gregg himself as he sang about his own life of being on the run and bump and go loves that never seemed to go anywhere until the very end of his life. The eagles Desperado is another one of my favorites seemingly written in words that described my own experiences that I would like to listen to when my time is near. 


Since I was a little kid I couldn’t relate much to other people be they family or neighbors or school mates and I’ve never even to this day understood why. But what I do understand is what took me through those times back so long ago still get me through my days as an old man and I am eternally grateful God gave that music to the world but specifically to me. The one’s who comforted me when nothing else would and those who sang the turbulence of my life then and now are mostly all gone now but their music remains where I can reach it when I need it. 


When God decides my time is up here and there’s just one more turn on the highway for me to take, I’m as ready as I can be. I’ll be seeing my family members who were the staples of my time even though at the time I often didn’t quite know how meaningful they would be, I cannot wait to see them again. Knowing I will be seeing my mom again comforts me now like a hug I can no longer get and a voice I ache to hear.   


I highly recommend everyone who runs across this that you live as much life every day as you can because one day you may find the sounds of your clock ticking away and your plans whatever they may have been be cut short. Don’t waste one of your Seven Turns, there may not be another one.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqxywPYRCbI


Seven turns on the highway,

Seven rivers to cross.

Sometimes, you feel like you could fly away,

Sometimes, you get lost.

And sometimes, in the darkened night,

You see the crossroad sign.

One way is the mornin' light,

You got to make up your mind.

Somebody's callin' your name.

Somebody's waiting for you.

Love is all that remains the same,

That's what it's all comin' to.

Hey, yeah.

Runnin' wild out on the road,

Just like a leaf on the wind.

How in the world could you ever know,

We'd ever meet again?

Seven turns on the highway,

Seven rivers to cross.

Sometimes, you feel like you could fly away,

Sometimes, you get lost.

Somebody's callin' your name.

Somebody's waitin' for you.

Love is all that remains the same,

That's what it's all comin' to.

Somebody's callin' your name.

Somebody's waitin' for you.

Love is all that remains the same,

That's what it's all comin to.

Somebody's callin' your name.

Somebody's waitin' for you.

Somebody's callin' your name.

That's what it's all coming to.

- No comments:

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

tomorrow

105 times I've sat here in the darkness and silence of another night to write down my deepest thoughts that my soul kept hidden beneath all my efforts to pretend everything was alright. There are no appointments to keep and no calls to return. I could pass away while writing this and it could be weeks to months before anyone would know. 

I made a promise to my mom before she passed away that I would find a way to go on and try as best I could to be some form of OK. It feels as though I may be failing to live up to that promise and it deepens my sadness knowing she is watching me not doing well from above. 

Tonight I watched a video of a son and a father building a playhouse for the son's kids and I thought of my own father who I only met once and every time this 38 year old son called his father Dad it was like a dagger in my gut knowing that I will never know what that is like. Then a text msg about an old man I had met at the cemetary who was so kind to me and took care of my mom's gravesite, he passed away today suddenly. 

I mowed the yard today, did some laundry, and spent some time at my mom's house where I have left everything just as it was the night she passed away in 2019. What to do with two houses while one of them is way more house than I actually need. 

I've retired early and have lost every passion I've ever had. All my cameras sit gathering dust and I have no desire even to pick one up. Gave one camera body to a stranger I had never even met just because she said she needed one and I have so many just sitting here.  

Tomorrow will be here soon and I'm hoping something will bring me out of this mood. Mom always told me that the best thing you can do when you feel like this is to go out and do something for someone else. Mom was so kind and so sweet and giving and I miss her more every day. Even while mom knew her time was near and in her toughest hours when she would look at the sadness and fear in my face, she would hold my hand and tell me in her soft whisper voice that she had left, it will be better tomorrow, don't worry. She isn't hurting anymore and her place with God was well earned. She gave me everything I need to find my way back to her when it's my turn to leave this world and I believe we will see each other again. I am as ready as I can be.

- No comments:

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Unclaimed Freight

They’re emptying her house.

Not slowly. Not carefully. Just carrying it out—piece by piece—like a life can be reduced to objects and finished in a few days.

Mrs. J lived here long before I did. Not that long ago, she walked her chubby dog down this street and kept her red car shining like it mattered. And it did. It was proof she was still here, still moving, still in control of something.

Now the dog is gone.
Her husband is gone.
And she is in memory care, asking when she can go home.

“This is your home now,” her daughter tells her.

And just like that, a life gets rewritten.

The car is still in the garage.

Dust has settled over the hood, dulling what used to shine. She would’ve never let it sit like that. But the life that kept it that way—that was her. And that part is gone too.

They’re selling everything to pay for her care.

That’s how it ends for most people. Not with meaning, but with transactions.

I watch from across the street and realize something I can’t unsee.

This isn’t just her ending.

It’s a preview.

If you live alone long enough, this is what waits:

No one to help you up.
No one to call.
No one who knows how you lived.

At some point, you stop being part of people’s lives and become something to handle.

Unclaimed freight.

It’s been a year and a half since my mother passed.

I’m still going through her things. Slowly. Carefully. The way she would’ve wanted. Every item means something because she meant something.

Across the street, they finished in days.

I don’t judge it. I just don’t understand it.

I’m not sure which way is worse.

There’s a truth in all of this that doesn’t soften, no matter how long you look at it:

You don’t push people out of your life without paying for it later.

At some point, the bill comes due.

And it isn’t money.

Tonight, I sat alone in my mother’s house with the lights off.

No television. No noise. Just the sound of clocks ticking—steady, indifferent, reminding me how little time there really is.

Time doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t care.
It just keeps going.

It’s 4 a.m.

No sleep. No answers.

In a few hours, I’ll get up for no real reason other than to make sure I’m still here.

Still breathing.
Still aware.

Still trying to find some peace in what I now know is coming.

Here’s a sharper, more editor-level version of this exact piece—tightened further, with cleaner rhythm, stronger line breaks, and a harder emotional landing:

They’re emptying her house.

Not slowly. Not carefully. Just carrying it out—piece by piece—like a life can be finished in a few days.

Mrs. J lived here long before I did. Not long ago, she walked her chubby dog down this street and kept her red car shining like it mattered.

And it did.

It meant she was still here. Still moving. Still in control of something.

Now the dog is gone.
Her husband is gone.
And she is somewhere else, asking when she can go home.

“This is your home now,” her daughter tells her.

And just like that, a life gets rewritten.

The car is still in the garage.

Dust has settled across the hood, dulling what used to shine. She would’ve never let it sit like that. But the life that kept it that way—that was her.

And that part is gone too.

They’re selling everything to pay for her care.

That’s how it ends for most people.

Not with meaning.

With transactions.

I watch from across the street and realize something I can’t unsee.

This isn’t just her ending.

It’s a preview.

If you live alone long enough, this is what waits:

No one to help you up.
No one to call.
No one who knows how you lived.

At some point, you stop being part of people’s lives
and become something to handle.

Unclaimed freight.

It’s been a year and a half since my mother passed.

I’m still going through her things. Slowly. Carefully. The way she would’ve wanted.

Because she mattered.

Across the street, they finished in days.

I don’t judge it.
I don’t understand it either.

I’m not sure which is worse.

There’s a truth in all of this that doesn’t soften:

You don’t push people out of your life without paying for it later.

At some point, the bill comes due.

And it isn’t money.

Tonight, I sat alone in my mother’s house with the lights off.

No television. No noise.

Just the sound of clocks ticking—steady, indifferent.

Time doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t care.
It just keeps going.

It’s 4 a.m.

No sleep.

In a few hours, I’ll get up for no real reason other than to make sure I’m still here.

Still breathing.
Still aware.

Still trying to make peace with what I now know is coming.

- No comments:

Monday, February 8, 2021

16.2 miles

This past week, a few new realities have turned what is left of this life into something I am having difficulty wanting to pursue.  

With most whom I knew to be family either in serious life-threatening health conditions or who have already passed away, my image of the future has been reduced to a landscape where life as I've known it is unsustainable. 

Last week I managed to walk 16.2 miles for exercise, a milestone for someone who has avoided traditional exercise outside of working for most of my years. Don't know if any of it helps but it does give me something to do to keep from dwelling on the things my mind insists on going back to. 

Although I didn't need the reminder, some news the past few days tapped me on the shoulder as if I had been asleep and hadn't noticed that life is so very short and impossible to predict. That any minute can be our last and that what life was like yesterday might have been the last day it seemed worthwhile. Two more people I'm close to are struggling with serious health issues. 

We have funerals for people who we love who pass away yet there is no formal service for those who are still living and who simply choose to step out of our lives. Each day on my walks I have wondered what would happen if I were to have a heart attack or stroke and someone felt the need to call someone who may want to know. But there really doesn't feel like there is anyone.

Recently when I was filling out forms for new insurance there was a space to fill in for who to notify in case of emergency and it was another stark reminder that it's just me now so I wrote, God. There is no one left who might call and get no answer and wonder where I was or how I was doing. No job that would be concerned that one of the most reliable people who ever worked for them just didn't show up and didn't call. 

This is where I would usually say it's kind of sad, but it is what it is, but no, it is in fact, pretty sad to have lived six decades and find myself where there isn't anyone left to be notified if I were gravely ill or dead in the street. This is what life is like with true peace and quiet but without the peace.

So here's to all who find themselves in the 4th quarter of life where you seek peace and calm only to find quiet and regret. There are likely millions in this same place and it doesn't take a lot of effort or time to be that one person someone needs to make them feel they are not forgotten, and cared for and that they exist beyond the silence that surrounds them. 

Think I'll go for a walk.. 

- No comments:

Friday, February 5, 2021

the theory of my relativity

It's taken a year to get down to business with re-writing my "final copy," of my previously re-written some dozen times or so Will. You want to do this while you can still remember and categorize the people that were in your life while you were here and those who weren't.. If you fail to get this done when you are alive, the state will do it for you when you're dead without any knowledge of what your preferences might have been. 

My unique and mostly solitary lifestyle never seemed as odd to me as it did to others throughout my years and while there were a few folks around from time to time all of them would eventually walk away. I was married at 17, a parent at 18, and with a knock at my door from a process server and my wife and son 10 feet away, I was to be divorced at 21. 

A ton of life some good and a lot bad between those years and these yet here I am now some 40 plus years later having learned some great lessons and suffered some hellish consequences all self-inflicted. Throughout all these years I've spent a lot of time analyzing why it all happened and how I managed to do rather well despite my attempts to de-rail my own efforts. Divine intervention and guidance are all I can figure out. 

Friends, jobs, relationships, hazy times some fun and others life-threatening, all of these things would have one consistent dynamic that I learned most of my life lessons from that I still tap into today and it was this, no matter what I received from or gave to an experience, they all had a clock if you will, a time span, and that clock would run out leaving me alone to figure it all out. 

Having basically quit high school in the 10th grade only to come back a couple days a week to the classes my cute little blonde girlfriend was in, I wasn't expected to accomplish much. I learned to lean on my refusal to take no for an answer and a strong determination to show all those who walked away from me that I would somehow find a way to make it on my own and I have to say I did pretty damn well in the end. 

But while enormous success in some areas is something I'm proud of, not all the parts of my life can I look back on without regrets. There is far more to life than working and investing and being able to retire early and those other things I wasn't so good at hold a lot of my regrets today. While trying to make an effort not to constantly beat myself up over things I fell short on, it's really easy to feel like that is exactly what I should be doing. 

All these dots get connected in a weird way when writing and re-writing a will and that precipitated this blog/rant. Am I being fair, is this enough, should I include so in so, etc. What it comes down to for me is sorting out who refused to walk away from me and my life despite the circumstances, AND, who walked or ran and don't know or care if I'm alive at this minute or already dead and I know everyone's names.. Maybe others have dozens of people who stuck by them no matter what over the course of a lifetime but for me, I have only 2 or 3 and feel damn grateful to have even just those. Feeling blessed.    

Writing a will for me was an exercise in remembering those who made a difference who may not even know that they did and those who ended up a waste of my time and energy. My mom was the only human being who never for one second ever left my side even when I wasn't deserving of her. I had some low points as most of us who have lived much do and I know I disappointed her in some of the decisions I made before I grew up but she forgave me instantly and without judgment or condition and was proud of me as I grew up and learned my lessons and now I can die a very satisfied old man knowing my angel thought I was a better son than I gave myself credit for. 

What I have in the Will is going to all the right places and hopefully will make God and my mom feel good about the decisions. Mom loved animals and kids and the friends who stood by me when they didn't have to and she would hear all about it from me when the people I thought I knew turned out to be something else. So the right people and places will benefit from what I was able to pile up from some of my best decisions and I feel very confident mom is smiling about it. 

My advice to others is to purge some of your accumulated stuff from your life so others won't have to do it not knowing where you might have wanted things to go and get that Will written, updated, and filed with the state before it's too late and then the state distributes things for you.. 

- No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
  • One Last Right Place
    I’m not sure if I was looking for something better—or just trying to feel like I was moving. Today I drove west, looking at a couple of prop...
  • The Strange Reality of Turning 70
    So I made it to 2026. I'm 70 now, and my health has begun to decline rather precipitously. After being on extremely expensive blood thin...
  • Notes from the Edge of the Circle
    If I were to die right now while writing this, it might be months before anyone discovered it. My bills are on autopay. Months sometimes pas...