As my life zips by at warp speed I barely see the signposts ahead, the lives dripping by, the rain that falls or the
multiple times that particular moments  grab me by the stones and scream ‘LISTEN!’.
There is an incessant drone that accompanies the soundtrack of my life.
Like any constant, the human condition adapts and moves on, uninterrupted and undisturbed.
The body is made in a way that it simply adapts and adjusts.

Example: Where did I put my glasses?
Answer: They are up on the top of your head.

If we didn’t have this ability, wearing clothes would drive us to insanity.
I work in a cigar store and hear on a daily basis,
“This store smells wonderful! It reminds of my Dad/Grandfather/Uncle.”
Truth be told, I can’t smell it.
I can be away for weeks from the store and upon my return?
Nothing.
No smell, no recognition.
I am for the most part physiologically incapable of recognizing it.
But I could walk into another cigar store and the smell grabs and smacks me in the face like the cigar smoking bitch that I am . . .
(in a good way, I love tobacco).
My point is that as we live our lives we sometimes build up an almost unintentional immunity to things that mean the most to us.
This includes people, places, things, moments, songs, food, smells, feelings, emotions and more.
It’s physiological and biological as well.
It’s how we are hard-wired.
We are bombarded by so much media that much of what we see consists of perpetuated and virtual cybershit.
Don’t know about you but seeing that on a daily basis puts me on a virtual merry-go-round.
But now and then something throws me off the ride, in a major way.

My 2011 Ford Escape has one hell of an amazing sound system.
It is equipped with Microsoft Sync, Sirius Radio, a great CD player and a USB port for the 4,000+ songs on my Ipod Classic. (and it gets close to 32 miles/gallon highway)
Not sure but judging from the sound I think the speaker system may be made by Bose.
At any rate this thing kicks some serious sonic ass.
It is AMAZING.
(and it has an awesome Australian Southern Cross vanity plate to boot)
I was driving into Boston last Sunday morning and had my Ipod set to ‘Shuffle’ (random songs).
I can fast forward or rewind using the controls on my steering wheel.
As I made my way onto the Mass Pike THIS song came on.
I’ve listened to Marc Jordan for years but never listened to this song as I did this particular Sunday.
It’s meaning was crystal clear as to what and who the song was about.
The next song was THIS from Michael Sembello (aka, Maniac from ‘FlashDance’ fame)
Although I’d listened to this album years ago, I never heard the actual words.
What came to me towards the end of the song was that someone is trying to get in touch with me.
Someone is trying like hell to make me listen.
Someone is going out of their way to get me to wake the hell up in terms of my life.
If you feel like doing some homework, listen to these two songs.
Who do YOU think they are about?
Know that I am listening and know that in my heart the songs are both about the same Man.
Is He Superman?
It’s all about interpretation.
I’m thinking I understand and it’s always been all about Superman . . .

~m

Dear Mom and Dad,

For every memory lost, every heart broken wide open, every tear shed,
every life forever changed, every second chance missed,
there was always that white light of hope,
a sotto-voce prayer whispered by the many that so loved you.
I am currently living in a world that is profoundly affected by the monster that took the both of you.

This Sunday morning (Pamela’s birthday) I will walk with my wife,  your daughter, Maureen, your granddaughters, Sarah, Jenna & Hannah and Jonathan, Sarah’s friend and love.

I will paraphrase your granddaughter  Hannah’s Facebook profile, “We will walk for you . . .  You may have forgotten but we never will.”

Wally and Ginny Murphy.
Mom and Dad.
Uncle and Aunt.
Grandmother and Grandfather.
The lost and never found.

There were so many things that you missed out on, so many precious moments that you should have seen, so many defining points in time that change young lives and this
insidious bastard took that away, forever.
There’s little to be gained with a ‘what could have been’ mentality but maybe that’s just part of being human.
It’s the way we are wired, methinks.
I take comfort in the knowing that you hopefully ‘see’ . . .

I will be walking on Sunday for the two of you knowing that you can see all of us moving towards a cure for the thing that stole both of you from us . . .  all too soon.

On Sunday morning we will walk to remember two (+1) people we will never forget.
We miss you both dearly . . .

~Michael
~Maureen
~Pamela
~Sarah
~Jenna
~Hannah
~Jonathan

[Murphy’s Law]

Maybe in another space,
another time,
another place,
another silly rhyme
we would gently collide,
in a dance of serendipitous destiny and fate;
and all that the blessed heavens could cast in our way
Falling stars, like ethereal butterflies touching our lives without us even knowing,
with whispers of ‘meant to be’,
transforming the colours of life that we once took for granted

When the tired and crimson sun sets on another distant horizon,
know that chance and coincidence are sometimes pure and beautiful random happenings . . .
meant to give our lives an oh, so deeper meaning and understanding
but for the biggest part, they give us love
from a place that’s not so mysterious after all; the heart.

Mine whispered.
And yours answered.
But that 1 click ultimately took us on a long and still unforgettable journey home . . .

for Kel

~m

It’s been a particularly difficult day for yours truly.
And change is in the wind.
I decided to place my worries elsewhere tonight . . .
Bigger hands, much bigger shoulders.
He has never let me down before.
Going a bit God on you here.
I apologize.
Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, though.
If you have yet to listen to Casting Crowns, do yourself a favor and check ITunes sometime.
Yeah, it’s a God thing in some ways but musically these guys are simply amazing.
And their message is always ‘life is good’  positive.
And I need positive after the soul sucking day I endured.
I got the goosebumps that I badly needed after watching this video.
Love your neighbors, love your world, love your life, and kiss the kids for me . . .
And yes, ultimately, I am His
~m

It amazes me the distance that disease can create between people and families.
Alzheimer’s takes everything you once knew about someone and throws it in a closet,
locking the door, throwing away the key.
This Father’s Day is the first without my Dad and I’m trying to sort out my innermost feelings.
I will go to the cemetery tomorrow morning with a coffee in one hand and a cigar in the other
and try to remember the man I once called ‘Dad’.
I miss him. I truly do.
Not as he was in the past 6-8 years but in the days when I could tell him a joke and
he would laugh; when I could go to the fridge and ask him if he wanted a beer; when I could say, “Hi, Dad,”
on the phone and he knew it was me replying, “Want your mother?”
I will be with him tomorrow as he will be with me.

This Father’s Day will feel a bit empty, strange and maybe a bit of a relief that
I don’t have to see his withering body sucking on pureed food through a straw.
Tomorrow I will see him as the guy that never missed one damn baseball game of mine,
always called me ‘Michael’ not ‘Mike’, a man that taught me how to throw a baseball and pass a football,
a man that never ever let me down, a man that taught me what it means to be a man.
I still miss him dearly but tomorrow I will begin re-building in my mind the complete memory
of a longstanding hero of mine.
If I die being half the man that he was, I will be truly blessed.
Make time to visit or call your Dad today.
Happy Father’s Day to all.
Love you, Dad.

~m

[photo courtesy of Kelly]

I’ve been mulling over in my mind the past several weeks wondering if I could
crystallize my many thoughts into one fine black point.
The little voice inside my head just said, “Are you really serious?”
Since the night I wrote ‘Boxes’ my world has changed dramatically.
On one level, there is this welcome sense of relief regarding the final end for my father and his long fought ordeal; another level acknowledges a deep sadness knowing and accepting the fact that he is truly gone.

I took a ride yesterday afternoon to North Cemetery where my mother and father are now buried.
It was unseasonably warm with a cobalt-blue sky, a Cape Cod-like sea breeze and enough
brilliant sunshine to make me start daydreaming about the summer months ahead.
This place where the earth now wraps its arms securely around my parents has become
hallowed ground for many reasons.
For me, it is a tangible point of communication, a visible portal to somewhere I’ve never been,
a place where special things happen and are accepted for all that they are.
It was no different yesterday as I stood staring at the rose granite bench bearing the names:
Virginia A. & Walter M.
Best friends, I thought.
The engravers had paid a visit and finished the stone.
The circle was now complete.
I was alone in the cemetery and sat down on the sun-warmed bench, stretching my legs out into the sunshine.
To my right was the small flag stuck in a holder that now marks my father as an American veteran.
I was sitting for less than a minute when the wind picked up.
The tiny flag began waving gently and touched my arm.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, smiling at the thought.
The flag continued to wave, touching my arm, my soul, my heart.
It was sitting there that I began to finally accept the finality of these past few weeks.
The stone was done, seeds were planted and tears rolled down my cheeks watering the dry earth below me.
As I stood up, the breeze ceased and the flag drooped down.
I kissed the palm of my hand and placed it on the warm rose granite bench that now held their names.
“You’re finally home, Dad,” I said to an empty cemetery.
I got in my truck and drove away a different man then when I originally came in and
for the first time in many years, something felt right.

~m

His soul sleeps,
buried far beneath a long forgotten vertical landscape,
yearning for home . . .
it dreams of places remembered; warm places, complete and innocently raw

The perpetual journey through a cobwebbed labyrinth remains a stygian quest at best,
an unanswered prayer, a dimly lit votive, a quiet cry in the dark
the clouds thicken, the earth cools and a winter of the mind settles in

Rolling waves of emotion yield snowflakes of blue
that fall like sleet, slicing the spirit into oh, so many unrecognizable pieces of what used to be a life; where nothing fits or belongs but must somehow remain

still . . .

Who knows when, this sadly shattered thing will end
Only God knows when it started,
But it’s wearing pretty thin, as the winter settles in, covering the frozen man . . .

ps. love you.
m&m

Reading ‘Carver‘ right now.
Please READ THIS.
You will spend 20 minutes of your life and thank me.
This is one of Carver’s most amazing short stories.
Please take the time and read it.
The man was amazing.
Simply amazing . . .

Off in a not too distant somewhere, I hear the shimmering sound of church bells.
Melancholy yet beautiful, their dissonance fills the night air with a longing, a void filled, 
an endless possibility.
Dark grey clouds move low across the sky saturated with change; change of the heart and mind,
soul and body, a chasm of repeating continuation.
The church bells chime on, sounding more and more like a movie soundtrack that once defined your life
as it echoes the pain,
loss of cerebral photographs, and confusion of all the simple things that mattered.
And yet, the sound is oddly comforting, a musical pall of earth tones beckoning pure white light.
I am suddenly aware of the clip-clop of my blackened dirty shoes on the pavement below,
an urban heartbeat, the intrinsic essence of time and space; of a time that
I listened for the sound of your footsteps, of a space holding everything you once were.
You.
My dear, drifting and lonely Father.
If you could only know what I want for you in the most loving of ways.
If you could only hear the beautiful church bells.
But the world will continue to hurt you until you find a way to finally listen.

After I hit the ‘publish’ button on this post I will be away
from the blog I so love for a little bit.
I have so many wonderful things to cook for the holidays over the next few days
that I will have no time to sit down and visit here.
I want to wish each and every person that visits a wonderful Christmas filled with
all the things you’ve come to know and love over the years.
I pray that broken hearts can be somehow mended, shattered spirits can be lifted,
a little grace can be restored and that
at least one person finally finds the true meaning of the holiday.
May God bless all of you.
Thanks for reading here.
I leave you with one of my favorite renditions of a Christmas classic.
And have yourself a Merry Little Christmas . . .