11-12-2011, 12:00 AM
After one last night/morning of dreams, my father died of a sudden heart attack today. This is what i wrote for him, or rather, for the rest of us. I think this was the reason for this particular thread, so i may or may not be done with it after
My name is . My name was supposed to be , but my father liked my present arrangement better because it payed homage to his ancestor. I cant say that I ever disagred with the change. A few hours ago my father died. I was listening to a song on you tube when I heard my mother screaming. Mo town philly by boys to men. I admit, my taste in music is of questionable artistic merit. I came and found her over him by the kitchen counter, where the cats like to play. There was a moment of confused disbelief, the look of the protesters at Ken state, when the guns actually fired. The feeling on the morning of 9/11, and again on every such day and moment from the beginning to the end of time, or so I imagine.
This was the look I felt on my face. The realisation that a moment, the “sum of all fears” to borrow a phrase from an author, comes to pass. I could feel that look, that moment again, behind the mask of my face. The answer to the question we all fear to ask. He had said he didn’t feel well, and went to get some water as my mom went for the asprin. He had fallen and cried out, the voice I heard, through my headphones, was not his but my mothers, crying for assistance. We did what we could. My mom pumped his chest with her frail hands. My sister Breathed into his mouth. I held his Head in my lap. We cried, we begged for life, we worked to bring it. After the confusion passed, he simply looked at my mother and cried a bit, for just a moment, and a few tears fell from his eyes. The tears fell with a music, fleeting, rich, full of emotion. A song like the falling of rain, a music I have heard before.
The great Prophet, Jack Black, In his greatest work, said “The Devil is the little voice in your head that makes you not want to not go to work, and says *** you to those you hate”. My father was working on his lesson plans for class Monday when he fell. At the end, his eyes were the clearest blue like the depths of the sky after a storm. His hands, even as those eyes started fading into the milky depths of the night, grasped and moved like a man holding a brush. My father was perhaps the greatest artist, the greatest painter, the world has never known. He was a gentle man, a creative man, if like all artists, consumed by the frustration at the question we don’t know how to ask, and only he sees. And perhaps just a tad bit unyielding. He refused to go to war, to kill, and instead was given alternative service. He did not want to kill, but he stayed with his students in WATTS the night Martin luther King Jr was shot and Los Angeles burned. He traveled for years in Mexico, and stayed with a time with the huitchal amongst others, learning something of their language and their beliefs, their art, their song. We fought, we always fought from the beginning to the end between us. But not today, or yesterday, or the week before. I had remembered something, an answer to my own eternal question, just the night before. This very morning, before I slept and in my sleep. Today my dad was happy, his problems seemed not so big to him. He spoke of his brother, long gone into his own nite, as a child speaks of something loved. He didn’t even become upset when the mechanic they found on Craig list never showed up. This was the day, him working to prepare for his students, that he sketched his final artistic vision, that he sang his final song. He was never a man to miss work.
I would give anything to see his greatest work, the answer he tried to sketch even as the night claimed him. But I think I know. We often ask, I have asked, where is God? Where was God when New Orleans flooded and burned. Where was God, as my father lay dying. God was the music in his final pure tears, the masterwork he struggled to sketch as he slipped away. God was with President Bush on the morning of 9/11, As he is with President Obama as he struggles against this moments version of those crumbling towers. God is with Elon Musk as he dreams of turning the Red Sky of Mars Blue, As he was with the crew of the Enola Gay as they did what had to be done, and turned the Blue sky of Earth red. And God was in the eyes of those who stared up from that hallowed ground, in their fleeting moment of confusion and disbelief. All of those moments, all of those times. Depending on your beliefs, Men are born and Men die but once, or a few thousand times. But god is born and dies an infinite number of times, in each of us. And God was with my father, on this, veterans day, 11/11/11, that man of gentle heart and a rocky road, as he died. Thank you dad for that so much.
My original name, as it was told my mom, before my dad worked his beautiful art, and changed it to honor those forgotten, was to be Ian Andrew. This was the thing I found last night. In that configuration, my name literaly reads “God forgives, mighty warrior” The song i heard was "hush". Ill take that. On this, veterens day, I say If God can forgive me, forgive us all, then so to can I. My ather sure for our many quarells. The world for being what it is. But those things seem Trivial now really. Most of all, I can forgive myself. For those quarells, for the way things have to be. That was my fathers Greatest work, his masterpiece, and I believe his final vision. When I looked at my own eyes, in the mirror, as a I paint with my fingers these words, they are bloodshot , but theya re also the same crystal blue as his were , in his final moments. God, unlike us, never says Fyou, because he does not hate. That, I believe, was my fathers final vision, and the art he strove to sketch even as he lay dying. Of forgivness, and a god who dreams as we do, but endures it to infinity. For the sake of love. Thank you dad. I love you.
Videos for text:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzkICG47LU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x40UYANhAwM
http://www.youtube.com/wa...jrxc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/wa...=u1kZ9zYr7kk&ob=av2e
My name is . My name was supposed to be , but my father liked my present arrangement better because it payed homage to his ancestor. I cant say that I ever disagred with the change. A few hours ago my father died. I was listening to a song on you tube when I heard my mother screaming. Mo town philly by boys to men. I admit, my taste in music is of questionable artistic merit. I came and found her over him by the kitchen counter, where the cats like to play. There was a moment of confused disbelief, the look of the protesters at Ken state, when the guns actually fired. The feeling on the morning of 9/11, and again on every such day and moment from the beginning to the end of time, or so I imagine.
This was the look I felt on my face. The realisation that a moment, the “sum of all fears” to borrow a phrase from an author, comes to pass. I could feel that look, that moment again, behind the mask of my face. The answer to the question we all fear to ask. He had said he didn’t feel well, and went to get some water as my mom went for the asprin. He had fallen and cried out, the voice I heard, through my headphones, was not his but my mothers, crying for assistance. We did what we could. My mom pumped his chest with her frail hands. My sister Breathed into his mouth. I held his Head in my lap. We cried, we begged for life, we worked to bring it. After the confusion passed, he simply looked at my mother and cried a bit, for just a moment, and a few tears fell from his eyes. The tears fell with a music, fleeting, rich, full of emotion. A song like the falling of rain, a music I have heard before.
The great Prophet, Jack Black, In his greatest work, said “The Devil is the little voice in your head that makes you not want to not go to work, and says *** you to those you hate”. My father was working on his lesson plans for class Monday when he fell. At the end, his eyes were the clearest blue like the depths of the sky after a storm. His hands, even as those eyes started fading into the milky depths of the night, grasped and moved like a man holding a brush. My father was perhaps the greatest artist, the greatest painter, the world has never known. He was a gentle man, a creative man, if like all artists, consumed by the frustration at the question we don’t know how to ask, and only he sees. And perhaps just a tad bit unyielding. He refused to go to war, to kill, and instead was given alternative service. He did not want to kill, but he stayed with his students in WATTS the night Martin luther King Jr was shot and Los Angeles burned. He traveled for years in Mexico, and stayed with a time with the huitchal amongst others, learning something of their language and their beliefs, their art, their song. We fought, we always fought from the beginning to the end between us. But not today, or yesterday, or the week before. I had remembered something, an answer to my own eternal question, just the night before. This very morning, before I slept and in my sleep. Today my dad was happy, his problems seemed not so big to him. He spoke of his brother, long gone into his own nite, as a child speaks of something loved. He didn’t even become upset when the mechanic they found on Craig list never showed up. This was the day, him working to prepare for his students, that he sketched his final artistic vision, that he sang his final song. He was never a man to miss work.
I would give anything to see his greatest work, the answer he tried to sketch even as the night claimed him. But I think I know. We often ask, I have asked, where is God? Where was God when New Orleans flooded and burned. Where was God, as my father lay dying. God was the music in his final pure tears, the masterwork he struggled to sketch as he slipped away. God was with President Bush on the morning of 9/11, As he is with President Obama as he struggles against this moments version of those crumbling towers. God is with Elon Musk as he dreams of turning the Red Sky of Mars Blue, As he was with the crew of the Enola Gay as they did what had to be done, and turned the Blue sky of Earth red. And God was in the eyes of those who stared up from that hallowed ground, in their fleeting moment of confusion and disbelief. All of those moments, all of those times. Depending on your beliefs, Men are born and Men die but once, or a few thousand times. But god is born and dies an infinite number of times, in each of us. And God was with my father, on this, veterans day, 11/11/11, that man of gentle heart and a rocky road, as he died. Thank you dad for that so much.
My original name, as it was told my mom, before my dad worked his beautiful art, and changed it to honor those forgotten, was to be Ian Andrew. This was the thing I found last night. In that configuration, my name literaly reads “God forgives, mighty warrior” The song i heard was "hush". Ill take that. On this, veterens day, I say If God can forgive me, forgive us all, then so to can I. My ather sure for our many quarells. The world for being what it is. But those things seem Trivial now really. Most of all, I can forgive myself. For those quarells, for the way things have to be. That was my fathers Greatest work, his masterpiece, and I believe his final vision. When I looked at my own eyes, in the mirror, as a I paint with my fingers these words, they are bloodshot , but theya re also the same crystal blue as his were , in his final moments. God, unlike us, never says Fyou, because he does not hate. That, I believe, was my fathers final vision, and the art he strove to sketch even as he lay dying. Of forgivness, and a god who dreams as we do, but endures it to infinity. For the sake of love. Thank you dad. I love you.
Videos for text:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzkICG47LU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x40UYANhAwM
http://www.youtube.com/wa...jrxc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/wa...=u1kZ9zYr7kk&ob=av2e