There was the idea of going back to relive a day in your life, exactly as it was, and without changing a thing. I first read about this idea when I was reading a book by Robert Fulghum.
I never forgot this idea. However, I was much younger when I read about this.
I was a kid at the time. I had too many “yets” to discover. I had yet to find myself in love. I had yet to see real life or true life. As for the life I saw, I had yet to see anything so grand or so beautiful that I had yet to learn about the beauty of life.
I had yet to learn how to stand on my own two feet. I had yet to learn the benefits of walking away from the crowd. I had yet to learn about the benefits of seeing life through my own two eyes.
There are amazing features around us. The earth we live on is a crazy place and it always will be. There are wars and fights and battles and there’s been bloodshed, thefts, assaults, and there is always an enemy who looks to engage to the death.
There’s always someone out there who looks to destroy. However, there are still diamonds in the rough, and there is, was, and always will be parts of the world that have yet to be explored.
I was too young to see this. Then again, I was too young to understand that I had the moon on a string. I never considered the miracles around me. I never considered the bittersweetness of living in the purity of the moment. Hence, I never thought much about the value of time or how precious a minute could be until it was gone.
This is for you, my young, sweet, and beautiful friend. This is a word about my loss, which is similar to your loss.
There is a verse in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 11 which goes, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
I do not agree with this. Well, not entirely.
However, when I was a teenager, I thought and spoke and related to the world through the eyes of my teenage “self”
As for my parents, I never assumed or thought of them as human. No, they were Mom and Dad. As such, Moms do whatever it is we assume that Moms do, think, believe and feel.
Dads do what we assume they are supposed to do.
When I was a child, I had no clue that my parents were real. I never assumed that they could possibly understand. In fact, there was always this divide, at least to me, between the older and the younger. There was a rift between, which I saw as a mounting frustration that built and built because, in my best guess, parents are incapable of understanding what it means to be a kid. And kids are incapable of seeing and understanding that parents were kids one too. Both kids and parents are imperfect. Kids want to live and parents try too hard to bubble-wrap the world to keep you from harm.
Living is learning and learning can be painful at times.
No pretending or measures can be taken to avoid this fact.
My Old Man passed when I was not much older than you are now. He died on December 28, 1989.
We never had the chance to do too many things together. This is an important part of the loss that needs to be talked about.
I hear about the stories from others who had their Father around to go fishing with or to do things that I never had the chance to do. I hear these stories with a sad and sometimes resentful envy.
I see no reason to deny my true thoughts or feelings of this. In fact, it has taken me decades of growth and maturity to be able to report this to you the way I am now.
It’s not just the loss of life. No, there are losses of opportunities. There are wishes and dreams that can never come true. There are talks that are only one-sided now.
However, as gone as my Father is, I have never forgotten him.
I have never lost him, and it is through my love and my letters that I still write to him that I can say, my Old Man is still with me, alive and well in my heart and dreams.
I will grant you the bittersweetness can sting. There are times and moments in my life that I wish I could hear him say, “Good job, kid.”
Or “You done good.”
There’s almost always someone who comes around and believes they have the right to speak for my Father and say, “Trust me… he sees and he’s proud.”
I get this comes from a good place. But the only place I want this to come from is him, my Father, The Old Man.
It is just before 4:00 in the morning. I am sitting in front of my computer and thinking about the losses that I didn’t need to lose.
The world is a beautiful place, but sometimes, the beauty and the purity can sting. Maybe this is why people cry when they see something so amazing and so wonderful, their heart cannot take the overjoyed feeling of their emotions.
When I was young, I thought as a young teenager thought. I was upset with the world and angry about my losses.
I was 17 when I read about Fulghum’s idea. This is when I read about reliving a day, so amazing and perfect, that I would wish to relive it again, exactly as it was.
There are only a few moments in my life that I wish I could live as they were, exactly the same, and without changing anything.
Some of them are too close to the heart and too bittersweet to share. Some of those moments are too personal and too emotional for me to let them venture away from my chest. But despite the craziness in my life, or how people come and go, I can say that I have built moments and memories. Some of them are so perfect and so amazing that I wouldn’t change a thing.
Just so you know . . .
meeting you and hearing about your thoughts and your story is one of them.
It took me years of growth to understand and learn how to speak about my Father both openly and honestly.
My Old Man died 36 years ago. With all of my heart, I have kept him alive and with me, every day since.
I won’t say that this is (or was) easy.
But this is the only way I knew how to keep his memory and his heart alive — in mine.
You are going to create miracles and moments will come to you. They will be as perfect as the day you were born.
I believe this with all of my heart.
Thank you for showing me how precious life is.
The Written Addiction 