Darkness

I feel the darkness descending on me. It's been away for a long, long, time, but now I think I'll allow it to visit for a bit. I'm in need of a bit of introspection. It fuels my creative energies. Like Hemingway. Not to say that I'm really like Hemingway. Just dark right now like he was. I've been shelving my negative thoughts at the advice of the positive minded gurus I listen to on the radio. Sometimes you just have to let the sadness in. This is a sad world and I've witnessed more than my share of sadness. Not in my personal life per se, but in the lives of others that have touched me.

Since I started working for hospice 16 years ago, I've kept a journal of all the patients I've cared for. I finally stopped adding to the journal, there were just too many deaths, but last night I looked through it. All those faces came back to me in an instant. They haven't been put as far away as I thought. All that pain and suffering.

Grief: I Cried Today

My dad passed away on February 28, 2007. I'll miss him always but the tears come less frequently now. Today I put a Jamey Johnson CD in my car player and was fine until his song, You Should Have Seen it in Color played. The tears started at the line, That's me and Uncle Joe just tryin' to survive... You see, I had an Uncle Joe. He and my dad were orphaned as young boys and they did have to try and survive together. The next line that did me in was, That's me and Grandma in the summer sun...that rose was red and her eyes were blue... Yes, my mom and dad got married in June. She wore a red rose and her eyes were blue.

The tears were pouring down my cheeks now as I tried to navigate around the trucks on Southern California's 605 freeway on my way to make visits to hospice patients.

My dad had a hard life. He was a lonely boy when he joined the Navy and sailed off to WWII. He did have a good life with my mom, and had his own family that was with him when he died, but I still mourn for that little boy that lost his parents so young and always had a big hole in his heart. He grew up in the generation that didn't whine and complain, and he never did, but it still makes me sad to think about how many tough times he had to indure in his life. I wonder if he ever knew that I aspired to be like him in a lot of ways. Probably not. I didn't ever share that with him.