Family Tree

Just swinging from branch to branch on the family tree: Gee, Aunt May and Uncle Joe are also my first cousins once-removed since Grandma Minnie married brothers. And look here: My great-grandfather Ernie married cousins. Hey, and didn't this grandfather marry sisters? And what the hell are these cousins doing? They can just stop it right now! And---whoa! I think I just slipped from the family tree. Yep, my ass is definitely on the ground. OUCH!

Living Locash

Yes, I am retired. And I'm living locash. What does that mean?

The LoCash Cowboys have defined it:

"LoCash is a way of life. It doesn’t mean you are poor or have no money. It just means that some of the best things in life are free – or LoCash. It’s remembering who you are and where you came from."

Song to Annie

My Saddest

WHERE?

Who, what, when, how, and why have never confused me as much as the question WHERE. Most of my life's questions have started with WHERE: Where am I suppposed to be? Where do I go from here? Where do I find the answer? Where are we? Where do you want to go? Where is the justice? Where is love? Where did that come from? Where in the world are you? Where's mine? Where is God? . . . Where are my car keys?

Starting Again

Eight months ago, I started a BlogSpot titled "Dancing with the Broom." I didn't get very far. I posted there ONCE--Jan 6, 2009. After that I stopped. I didn't just stop blogging--I stopped living. I shut down. After years of taking care of three sons and two sets of parents, working, delivering far too many eulogies, and more, I crashed WHAM into a great wall of depression. And my soul screamed, "ENOUGH!"

I realized that I didn't want to live the way I was, and I certainly didn't want to die that way either. I prayed. I went to counseling. I got the right meds. I rested. I made decisions. The biggest decision I made was to leave my teaching career of 33 years. I decided that Mr. Rogers had to go so that Mark could take time to live. Now I loved being Mr. Rogers. I loved teaching. And I was really good at it. I put my heart and soul into it. Perhaps that was my mistake: I put too much of myself into it. I cared so much that it became very painful. Mr. Rogers had to go.

Fortunately, I had made smart financial decisons over the years which enabled me to say goodbye to teaching. And now here I am, starting again, and enjoying a sweeter life. Meanwhile, here is the one post from my orignial BlogSpot . . .



Dancing with the Broom
My wife wouldn't just sweep with the broom; she would dance with it too. She found the joy in each living minute. I have taken the lesson of my wife's dancing with the broom to face the enormity of her loss. I turn on the music and "dance" through the many tasks of the day. Sometimes I glide; sometimes I trip. But these are my steps


Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Starting Again

I haven't done any personal writing for a while. I feel a need to start again. (Thanks, Bret, for introducing me to this blog site. Sometimes we all need a little nudge.) I feel a need to vent, create, explore. Perhaps I can do those things here.

At the moment, I'm feeling very reflective. I need to collect some of my past writings and place them in one spot and review them. I need to study them, consider them, to see where I've been, so I can gain a better sense of where I am and where I seem to be heading.

And so, for a little while, my postings here will be pastings of earlier writings: my attempts at dealing with the loss of Annie, my wife and the mother of my three sons. I need to know that I've made some progress over the past four and one half years. At this moment, I feel as raw and lost as ever. My heart is still broken.