I saw Orion this morning (6:15) while retrieving the morning paper.
The constellation told me/reminded me of several things;  Autumn has arrived here in New England,
and there is one more constellation I need to see before I die [Southern Cross],
and that another year has passed and my wife is one year older.
Happy Birthday, to my always.
From your forever.
And the stars continue to sparkle.
Just like your eyes . . . [green Orion]
Love you.
See you for Indian tomorrow night . . .

~m

3 weeks are winding down and I just can’t believe how fast its gone.
The biggest part of me feels sad that Maureen and Mark will be flying out on Friday afternoon,
the smaller part feels very happy that they will be going home to family and friends.
(I know, a bit selfish)
This is a picture post of some of the places we’ve seen and things that we’ve done these past 3 weeks.
Look for more pictures and many future posts about this most special of vacations for
Pamela, me and the girls.
This has been like a little slice of  heaven . . .

Yet to see . . .

He stares blindly out the window of another night
down on Bleeker Street, where nothing seem to change except a world gone mad.
He exists.
I exist.
I go to him, touch his shoulder feeling the quivering bone underneath my hand
but he doesn’t move, nobody is home it seems.
As I bend to kiss his forehead,
I think back to my childhood remembering the smell of him;
a rich elixir of leather, spice and a fatherly scent I could never quite put my finger on.
It was a smell of  total comfort and one of extreme familiarity.
His scent is different tonight; he smells clinical, preserved and abandoned.
He smells like a familiar stranger, an ancient decade of melancholy memories,
echoes of voices lost in an obsidian mist . . .

I sit there with him as we both blindly stare out the window, watching a world gone by
and we sigh,
we cry,
we say goodbye to the too many words left unspoken,
the things we once took for granted,
and the once welcome spaces where we no longer belong.
I take his frail and shaking hand and wonder (as I have thousands of times before)
how many more nights will he sit here all alone and stare?
And simply exist.
There is little left to say but with my father, somehow that’s okay.
Somehow, I know he understands.
He has taught me well.
He was never big on words anyway.
It will be very hard to forget the nights down on Bleeker Street and even harder to forget
the little man just sitting staring out the window . . .

To my wife . . .
(and in a small way to a  very dear friend from Cape Cod ’09.  Do you remember?)

Maybe it’s a sign of survival, of anguish,
of the frightening realization that mortality does exist in the deepest recesses of the mind.
Maybe it’s a sign that everything is still changing,
still in that near frozen state of flux . . .
For him, for me, for the four walls that still imprison him,
for a world that looks to him as confusing today as it did several hundred yesterdays ago.

Maybe it’s not a sign at all but a palpable gesture that while he sleeps,
this ravenous disease does not; it always wants more.
It replaces what it takes with something barely recognizable, something dark and foggy,
something you never want to talk about around the coffee table but remains forever.
Sometimes this thing just takes.
And takes . . .

Maybe it’s a sign that he is tired, fed up with playing the host,
sick of food that looks like pureed shit put through a strainer that he has to try and swallow.
Banana Crème Pie should never look like soup.
But it does.
And that’s a crying goddamn shame.
His mother was a pastry chef, Christ in a sidecar.

Maybe someday I will look back at this point in time and have a moment of revelation
but I’m not betting on it.
If this disease has taught me anything it’s not to get caught up in any kind of emotional gambit.
It’s a losing proposition at best.
So maybe it is a sign.

For my father maybe it’s a sign that simply says ‘stop’ . . .

Deep inside this garden of souls lies the bones of a lifetime drowning in half-truths,
Of long and slowly forgotten days that were sadly beyond repair,
Of nights not unlike the darkest side of the moon

A few insignificant touches of the brush would be all that it took,
to make life go on as she thought that it should;
Unbroken and bright, the simple and small
while echoes of unwanted things filled the silent grey halls . . .

Of her Gothic cathedral, sadly visited by few, where three skeleton keys
were kept hidden from view
because life wasn’t meant to be that easy, and she kept it that way, anyway
maybe all the way

The tall stained-glass windows soaked with rays of the sun
kept the white light of truth from touching the soul of anyone, near or far,
it never really mattered
distance was never a fragile thing

Deep in this garden of souls lies the bones of my life, my blacks and my blues, and yes,
my oh-so-not-insignificant life
But you will know I was here by two things left behind
originally unwanted but in the sweet by and by
they would find . . .
You.
Somewhere
deep in Gethsemane
with two deep sunset roses nearby . . .

Pamela-

I’ve always dreamed of singing this song for you.
In my heart, I know that I have, maybe someday I actually will.
It’s everything I’ve always wanted to say to the only person in the world that I could ever say it to.
Our love is a slow, sweet dance . . .
Happy Anniversary, my Pamela
(put on the headphones I’ve left for you. Loggins is simply amazing LIVE.)

Forever

Now, while we’re here alone and all is said and done
Now I can let you know because of all you’ve shown
I’m grown enough to tell ya
You’ll always be inside of me.

How many roads have gone by
So many words left unspoken
I needed to be be your side
If only to hold you.

Forever in my heart
Forever we will be
Even when I’m gone
You’ll be here in me
Forever

Once, I dreamed that you were gone
I cried, I tried to find ya
I begged the dream would fade away and please awaken me
The night took a hold of my heart
And left me with no one to follow
The love that I grasped in the dark,
I’ll always remember

Forever in my heart
Forever we will be
Even when I’m gone
You’ll be here in me
Forever

Forever in my heart
Forever here you’ll be
Even when I’m gone
You’ll be near to me

Forever in my life
Always thought I’d be
I’d be yours

Forever . . .