……

Better days ahead.

I heard those words in my hardest times over the past decade.

The man that said those words to me has been gone and in the ground for some time now.

Better days ahead.

His way of saying “stay the course”

And now…I unburden myself.

Believe what you read here or don’t.   I know  it is the truth and I was a willing participant but I lay it down now and I do not care what anyone thinks.  Judge me as you will but I care not.  I write this so I will not forget, I will not succumb in my later years to lost truth…and as much as you see me as evil….I am honoring him in a way no one will understand.

My Grandfather was as much my father as life would permit. My father died 6 months into my existence.  I’ve written before about my appreciation of my grandfather…he stepped in and took over where my fathers existence stopped.

My grandfather passed over a couples year ago…succumbing to the inevitable combination of dementia  and age.  In those last years…the imposing figure I grew up with…the six foot two seaman…the man who had swam in the surfs off Guam…..he who had  shown me how to …how to Man…. was now this shrunken visage.

And he died without a final word…he died …as we all will…..with very few knowing who we really are.   My grandfather was a poet. He was a genius….and no one in my family understood him.  Not a one of us…and one day we will be held in account…myself included.

My grandfather was not perfect, but he believed in love. His commitment to his wife was absolute.   Not because of wedded bliss ,but of belief in the words.   For better or worse…..and decades of worse it was….. but he held fast…..and was rewarded with the burden of  keeping a suitcase in the back of his truck in case things went sideways ( which they often did)

What is this important?

Its is a reflection.   It’s an insight.

And… I stopped here over 2 years ago because….. … … just because.    I stopped because I wasn’t ready.  Cause I was in the midst of my own shitty self .   I was angry at my heart…and the heart of another.  That misunderstanding where you unknowingly grow apart but are together because that rut you wore into each others souls prevents you from seeing how bad things had become.  That, and you dont know how to fix it… but you hope that digging deeper that  you will find some kind of bedrock to build from again.

But you dont.

You fail… and you realize that no one is truly at fault..although you fling arrows of blame in all direction.    No one ever committed suicided by self inflicted bow and arrow… ( dont quote me)

My grandad has been in the ground a few years now… and I haven’t visited him… my grandmother followed over a year ago and I wasnt there to see her laid in the ground.  I’ve only been to the grave of my father once in my entire life.   I guess I have a problem with the permanence of it. The reality of knowing that this is the last time I will see them.  When I was younger I had took a job for our local city parks and recreation department. Part of the job was tending to the local city cemetery.  You learn a lot about death after the fact.   What transpires between viewing and that last clod of dirt.    I’ve been in 16 graves.   Down in the hole that is permeance….. well I take that back.  I’ve been witness to 2 exhumations also… ( if you have the money even the dead are mobile) .   All of which… has tempered me in a way I cannot describe.

I do want to believe there are better day ahead.  I want to believe that in the unknown there is possibility.  I want to believe that my grandfather saw something in me that gave him hope in his later years.

I’m 45 years old.  And… haha… I dont’ have a fucking clue.    No kids… no wife.. no partner.   But believe it or not… I’m perfectly fine with it.   Maybe the old mans words were about my acceptance that I would find solitude as …um…my… foretress….of… fuck… solitude?

I will admit that these days are sorta trying…and I’m really relying on “better days ahead” not only for me but for many of my friends who are hurting.   2020 has not been the easiest year from many of us.   But in that… I feel some blessing.  I haven’t lost anyone close to me… my family has … for as much as we are “a family” has been healthy.    I had to say goodbye to one of my pack..but that was inevitable…time is a poison we all are forced to drink.    I have let go of a few things that I was hurt about… realized that sometimes the path diverges in  a wood for a reason. ( and even if you take the low road for awhile you can always cut the switchbacks to get to the high road if your willing to huff it)

I think my biggest contribution to “better days ahead” was my trip down the Ausable river this past September.   Floating the river my grandfather raced in his youth.   Paddling the waters that he did 50 years go with the feeling of it being undiscovered country.  I did it alone… my time and reflection something I felt selfish about.  I think I found some connection there again to the old man… and I will admit I found myself talking to him or God in the same tone.

Better days ahead.

Although I try to keep that in my heart…   I still keep his “ace up the sleeve ” in my mind more and more these days.

“fuck em'”

Be who you are.. for the world is too busy trying to bust you into dust to worry about the bullshit.