A Remembrance

I traditionally post a remembrance on New Year's Day, but I was a bit too busy with family and friends to have found the time which is, I think, a form of remembrance, all its own. I love you, and miss you, little brother. Read more!

A Thought: On the Brevity of Life, Good and Bad

There are some days, as the years go by, when I feel as though I'm getting older too quickly. Funnily enough, I've come to realize that those are the days I find to be most worth living, good or bad. And a part of that is because I've been lucky enough to have had, thus far, a life filled with friends and family who make me think, feel and, most importantly, anchor me to the world.

Life can feel too short because of all that you have or all that you have left to do. Either way, enjoy what's there, while it's there. Read more!

A Thought: On Defining Memories

If we make an effort to define memories as much as they define us, the most one need ever be is wistful for what once was, rather than sad for what couldn't be. Read more!

Hope for the Holidays

The holidays are my favorite time of year, from right around this week until a bit after New Year's. There's something about the world during all of this that feels...different. I understand why so many cultures have celebrated it; not just because it was a turning point, when the weather began to shift back towards warmth, but because it was full of something deeper, a time for thought, introspection and possibility.

People just seem happier, even if they aren't, really, and the world becomes something magical, with the lights, the clarity of cold air and the sounds and smells, the bells and woodsmoke, particular to the season.

I love it all, truly, but sometimes...it isn't easy. There are ghosts for me. I mean, they're there, all year, but the ones that haunt the holidays are a little stronger, more prevalent. I'll be alone for Christmas this year, for the first time in a very long time. Jennifer's going to Florida for the week and Katie, like everyone else, will be spending the day with her family. Mine will be over here in the early morning, but likely gone by noon. I'm not sure how to feel about all that yet.

My mom met my stepdad when I was 18. I was already living on my own in the old trailer, had been since I was a senior in high school and could walk up the steps to get inside again. My mom was living with my grandfather, who needed 24-hour care we couldn't afford to give him otherwise. She'd take care of him during the day and, more often than not, I'd go and take care of him overnight, so she could rest. But that's none of it the point.

My stepfamily moved in with the two of them the summer of my 18th year, just before I turned 19. I volunteered to stay with my grandfather, rather than going to my family's Christmas, back when I still had enough alive to do the big gathering. That was the last year, though we didn't know it then, obviously. He and I watched TV together and the little ones, my younger soon-to-be step-siblings, got to enjoy a real family Christmas the way we'd always done it, so it was good.

A week later, very early New Year's Day, Ian killed himself. Three months after that, my grandfather passed. It was hard, then, being alone in the world, truly alone, for the first time. My mom sought solace with my stepfather, which was only fair, then they got married and that year they went to his family's Christmas and forgot to invite me. There was no malice or anything. In all her own pain, she forgot and he'd assumed she had asked. It was just something that slipped through the cracks, is all.

My best friend called to see how my day had been, sometime after ten Christmas night. I told her about all of it. She asked if I'd eaten and I told her I hadn't, as I was out of food again (there were a couple of years when I was only eating every few days). We ended up sitting in the parking lot of Albertson's after I'd broken into a local farmer's market and taken some fruit, because nothing else was open, leaving money and a note on the counter. She fell asleep and I cried listening to her new Lifehouse CD.

A week later, very early New Year's Day, I stood at my door and watched snow fall in Louisiana for the first time in as long as I could remember.

It taught me something that I carry to this day, one of those things that I keep wrapped safe and tight in my heart. There is hope. Always hope. And if you remember that, the ghosts can become good company, visitors with whom to share that dark, contemplative time of year, I suppose. It can, at the very least, turn the memories from a sharp sense of loss to something softer, something that, even if touched by melancholy, can still be beautiful, as a sad smile is still, at its heart, a smile.

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A Thought: On Playing Make-Believe

No matter how old you get, there are always going to be days where you just need someone you can play make-believe with. Read more!

A Thought: On the Inevitable Disappointment of Other People's Parents

I swear, I'm the only person in the world who has anxiety dreams about disappointing other people's parents. Read more!

Sometimes it isn't about you...Unless it is. And you know if it is.

It's astonishing to suddenly realize I've known someone for 26 of my 32 years.  What's more astonishing is that we've managed to stay friends despite countless moves and life changes, spending a fair portion of that time across the country from one another before the days of social networking and cell phones. 

I am forever thankful for his friendship, for his family and for his outlook on the world, twisted perfectly so that it just happens to match mine.  Happy birthday, old friend. Read more!

Old Writing: My Grandfather

            My grandfather was a quiet man.  My grandmother did most of the talking, which was fine with him.  He listened and watched from his old leather chair.  Mostly, I remember him in that chair.  It’s where he went when they wouldn’t let him work anymore.  They gave him a gold ring with a ruby and told him he had worked enough, whether he liked it or not.

            He would wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, then sit in his chair until lunch, unless there was something my grandmother needed him to do.  There usually wasn’t.  So he would watch TV, getting up only when he had to.  Most days, that was all.  Sometimes, though, when I was very young, and I don’t know why, he would wake up different.

            Those mornings were my favorites.  He would wake me up early and we would have breakfast, same as always, but instead of going to his chair to watch reruns of old Westerns afterwards, we would go out into the garage, pick out walking sticks, fill our canteens, and leave.  Sometimes we would bring food, but not usually.

            We would walk and I would talk, out past the cane fields, on the old railroad tracks that didn’t carry trains anymore, a cadence of steps and the thumping of the walking sticks, rhythmic and slow.  After awhile, we had left the little town where we lived behind and I would become the quiet one as he told me stories about when he was young, about his family.  I wish I could remember those stories, but I never cared as much about the details as I did about the feeling of his telling them.

            We would go into the woods and he would tell me the names of flowers and what things were good to eat.  He always saw the rabbits and birds before I did.  I was too busy trying to take everything in at once, as children are prone to do.  We would walk alongside the old tracks, overgrown and reclaimed by the wild, and for the only times in my whole life, my grandfather was no longer quiet.

            When we eventually got back to town, I’m not sure how but I never needed to know the way, we would make our way back home, side by side, footsteps and thumps, hang up our canteens, put away our walking sticks, and he would go back to his chair, I to my room.  When I got older, we never talked about those walks, but I remember the feeling and, as I watched him dying slowly over the two years after my grandmother left us, I would see, as he looked into the backyard from his wheelchair, the man who took me walking.
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