Promises from yesterday... Diverting from the heavy stuff of the last few days... I wrote something several days ago - the day after our rain storms here in LA - not really meant as a post but rather a sudden reflection and expression. It came to me in an instant while driving to the gym. I pulled over, scribbled it down, cleaned it up a little, and decided to share it with you... a smile. Read into it what you will, I think I know what it means for me. What does it mean to you? Have fun... I simply call it Irony. Looming over the road, the overweight tree that so often fascinated me but also worried, suddenly came crashing down. On my car. A hundred feet from home. Crushing first the vehicle’s roof… and then me. Dead. I died today. In an instant. Ironic. From my earliest memories it was all a set up for this moment; a waiting game, a lifetime of looking over my shoulder for it’s arrival. “Daddy, I’m scared.” “Of what,” he whispered back in a voice not always so compassionate and understanding. “Dying,” I half cried in return. “Try and think about today, not tomorrow,” was his simply reply. Not the greatest response, but in truth, quite astute, though maybe not completely edible for the four year old in his arms. Some years later I saw an episode of a medical television show – television, the great escape to take all your worries away! In the episode a kind teacher suddenly started having bad headaches, then quickly became mean tempered, then suddenly died of a brain tumor! All in forty-four minutes of what is meant to be entertainment. “Ah! That’s it! That teacher will be me! This is what I will fear! This is what will get ME!” “Dad, I’m REALLY scared now.” “Let’s go play catch.” Okay, again, not the best response but yet another successful diversion from my core problem. The pattern was established. Life gives us a hundred and one possibilities about our demise. It also gives us near equal amounts of diversions. We balance between them as we navigate our lives. “Go to the dark side - divert.” Like a martial art or swordplay, “attack…parry…attack…parry.” What a waste of energy! My dad was right – not often - but this time he nailed it. Live today, let tomorrow have your worries. The rain came down in sheets, four days and four nights of it. God was kind and generous in omitting the biblical zero behind each… though I’m sure it was a deserving consideration. The bone-dry earth soaked up the liquid like a man who had just crossed the Sahara, arriving at an oasis on his last legs, his final breath. Gulp, gulp, and gulp…nonstop…soaking the clear juice deeper and deeper. With it came salvation, the nourishment the land so desperately needed to survive. In doing so however, ironically, it also loosened the deepest roots that hold all things together. It confused the order of attachment, the priorities needed to keep the chaos in place. As I sat under the great, mysterious tree, not a hundred feet from my home, I suddenly looked up, through my windshield. I think I actually had warning, not a lifetime’s worth, not the hint from a television show all those years ago, but enough time… seconds to act, remove myself from harms way and death’s sword. But I didn’t parry this time. Odd. I simply watched the attack happen, fascinated by the suddenness of it, the irony of it… the humor of it. I never saw this coming in a television show. It wasn’t even one of the hundred and one options I had reviewed for my demise. I laughed – out loud - and then the tree came crashing down, first killing the roof of my car, then me. In that final moment however I had the last laugh. The car was old, not as old as me, but in car years pretty old. In fact I was getting ready to turn it in for a newer model - something unfortunately we humans can’t do yet – properly, to ourselves. So there, in that instant, after a lifetime measured not in what is expected but rather what it was meant to be, I chuckled and watched it all happen… One last look at the enormous tree heading toward me through the roof of my aged vehicle, “You just killed a very old car. I win!” I’m quite certain that I was still laughing as the light swallowed me and took my last breath.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:53:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015