This was once a place where I shared thoughts about music, life, and my own mortality. Over the past month or so, I've felt the need to reclaim this space, even if for no one else's interest but my own.
I've never thought about my own mortality more than after my father's passing, two days after Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday decided to share the same 24-hour period on the calendar earlier this year. After he died, I had so many questions about my own identity, why he seemed to roam through this world so freely while I was so methodical, so conservative, so unwilling to take risks and break free of the rituals and tasks that were killing me slowly. A brief conversation with a career reinvention coach not too long ago helped me realize that I had more of his risk-taking spirit than I thought I did. We look alike, we have the same mannerisms, and we both speak fluent sarcasm, but the way in which risk taking plays out in my life is not meant to mirror his life. I have my own path to travel and the next year needs to be spent in constant communication with GOD concerning placing my short-sighted plans aside in order to get on board with the divine purpose that was intended for me. At the very least, whenever GOD says "Trust me," my response needs to be "Okay. You've got this." The last time GOD told me that was in regards to making things right with my dad. "You need to do this. I'll explain later."
That was almost two and a half years ago. GOD set it up so that I would be the one to spend the last moments with my father before his spirit took flight. It was without question one of the saddest and strangely beautiful moments I had ever experienced. And I remain extremely thankful that I listened to the messengers that GOD placed in my life (my mother, my wife, and two of my cousins) that served as flesh, blood, and bone confirmation of the spiritual text alert that caught me off guard during the Fourth of July in 2016. I feel my dad running all through me now. I often saw him when I looked in the mirror in recent years, but now it's on a whole other level. My mom recently told me that he left behind everything that he no longer needed when he died and just deposited those sides of himself into me. I have no reason to doubt that, especially when I was walking around yesterday in one of his two-piece athletic outfits while wearing a silver eagle head that he gave me when I was younger around my neck. I never saw more of him in me than when I looked in the mirror yesterday. And it made me smile.
When I was growing up, I read a lot. I made time for play, but reading and listening to music in solitude were probably my two favorite things to do as a little kid. That hasn't changed much at the age of 45. A lot of what I read was regurgitated in conversation with my dad in the guise of "advice," much of which had little to nothing to do with what we were talking about at the time. However, there was this one time when I shared something with him and it was exactly what he needed to hear. He found it so profound at the time that he had me repeat it to a number of his running buddies. A few of them would even repeat it back to me as I got older. It was something that I read in this book that was full of silly jokes and rhyming games. I can't remember the name of the book, but it was something that seemed to hold my interest when I wasn't reading street signs in passing or The New York Times (yes, really).
I still remember the quote. I just thought about it again today and realized that it could also serve as social media protocol in these days of online half-truth wildfires and Internet trolling on both a general public and Presidential level.
"Keep this in mind and will all go right
as on your way you go:
be sure to know about all you tell,
but don't tell all you know."
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