​
I walked hand in hand with her through your massive doors, and tread in awe across your marble tiles. She was proud just to have me at her side.

Still holding hands, I sat with her and marveled in her belief. I watched as your words brought tears to her eyes.

I remember thinking that this place was her peace, this was her sanctuary and that you comforted her.

Then I remember the shiny, cold tin that was passed around to collect your fees as your reminders went out over the PA that we are all merely servants, and that what we give was already "his", and was being monitored as a degree of faith. I watched her empty her account each week. Happily.

Each week I also watched her continue to crumble. My mother's ailment attacking more violently than her tiny body could take.

As she continued to pay her "dues" and seek some word, some guidance, some salvation from the empty skies via you... an alleged messenger, you continued not with open heart, but with open hand.

You took from her what was important to you, dollars and cents. She gave to you what was important to her, heart and soul.

I'll not call you holy or god, a church of the masses or divine. I'll call you the thief and liar that you and all that you represent truly are. If ever I've believed in anything, it's that you, religion, faith and the fear that comes so tightly tied with them is closer to true evil than the devil that you fabricate and employ to create the illusion of good and bad.

Fuck you and your fairy-tales.

I come from the horror that was the battlefields of Scotland, and the mountain ranges across the new frontier where the Sioux Indians were butchered and betrayed... these were the beginnings.

More recently, as my own life reaches what feels like a midway, and I watch my parents and theirs begin to slip into the unknown, I am learning again from stories ignored by this rebellious little boy that I come from places even more foreign to us as a human species.

I come from Grandfathers who brick by brick built the homes where their young wives would raise seven children. I come from Grandmothers who taught thousands in her beliefs and who sacrificed at home while their husbands survived and returned from World Wars where their service and acts of heroism promised them nothing more than the opportunity to work harder.

I come from a time when things were simply not had rather than put on a plastic card and paid for later. A time when the basics were more than enough, and taken as a blessing during a nations youth. I (fortunately) come from a family who ranked our togetherness higher than anything that could be bought or sold, that looked at me as a gift, and that treated me as if I was already one of them.

I look around and can't seem to overcome a feeling of guilt in my own abundance. I look into the eyes of the aging and then into those of our youth and can see a difference.  I can see a whole person in our past.  I can see life lived in those that cling to a last breath. But in those eyes of the up and coming I see a dependence, I can feel the disconnect, and I am pushed further away with each swipe, beep or scroll of a phone... 

​The pages of a beautiful story that you had yet to finish writing ripped away too soon...

Deaths cold fingers the culprit, and our human weakness the accomplice, my heart collapses at the thought of who you'd be today.

You did what others dream, you stepped up where others yield. You strangled the doubt that most fear, and you towered above even the legends of my youth.
I never looked any further than my dinner table to find my hero, and those tiny hands that coaxed my first steps, still drive my forward motion today.

To look back on what what you accomplished in your short time on this planet casts a heavy, harsh shadow over the little life that comforts me in my own journey.

I can't know what my own future holds, but I do know that one day, I want... no I need.. no... I hope against hope for the people that I leave behind to know that I was a beautiful part of their story, and that my hands offered the same guidance that yours did for me.

I may never measure up to the bar that you so beautifully set, but Mom, I'll try with everything that I am... with everything that you made me.

Sometimes I try and explain to you how things that seem so critical, so all consuming and important to us right now in this moment are meaningless. I try to teach you that this life has so much more to it than whats in front of us every day.

Most times, I guess I speak the language of "Dad" and am easy to ignore because I'm not very good at it.

I've not seen more powerful evidence of my own insignificance in a long time than I've found in this image.
​
A mother, stricken with cancer, helpless against what biology has set as her fate, and a child helpless and clinging to the only thing it knows. A mother powerful against her fate, and a child instinctively trusting that this power will not be extinguished.

There is more beauty, more power and more truth in this image than I could ever put into a million words to share with you. Take a look, think about what it says to you, feel the reality in it, and know that in those moments when you consider other than yourself, these moments where you are diminished and small, you have touched what we are all here for, and you are at the best that you will ever be in this life. - Love Dad

​​It's taken more years than I care to count, but I can now see that one of our biggest human failings is most certainly that we've allowed ourselves to decipher worth based upon the recognition of difference between species.

I can't however seem to fathom how much better off we would be if such alienation didn't exist.

What might we be if I meant as much to you as you do?

Would it be for better or worse if the well-being of a dog, a bird, an insect held the same regard as our own?

I think it would be for the better, and I think if this practice of loving even that which we find most different from ourselves were taught to our young rather the teachings that have brought us to where we are now, that a very near generation might find that love as a default serves much better than a division among animals and come even sooner to the realization that loves opposite is only required when love is allowed an absence.

​This, my own eulogy, is another post that will change with time.

​As the calligraphy that curls and swirls to paint the pages of our days flows from shade to shade and through the soft and elegant strokes of a poet to those of a madman's pressing pen shredding the dancing days swept like pages through the storybook that was David, I'll change the way I'd like my final words to come out.

​Whether he was to you a hero or a villain, a brother in arms or a bitter enemy, friend or foe, know that David cherished above all things being part of your story and the fact that you helped to write his.

David's first life lesson was love. He learned to love before he could speak or walk.

He learned how to love from his mother, a lady that loved everyone and everything she came into contact with. A lady that also forever emblazoned the definition of human and super hero in his mind as the type of person he wanted to one day become. She gave him his bearing, but the rest of the world would dictate his course.

He learned who to love from a collection of old Pinups that his grandpa had stashed in a cigar box in the shed.

He learned what to love from an old truck that sat in his grandmother's driveway, rich with the smell of hunting trips, gunpowder, and the occasional cigarette puffed in sneaky haste.

David loved his wife for more reasons than he could ever count, but mostly for always playing the softer, kinder, and caring side to his untamed, harsh, and undisciplined ways. Brenda was to him, more than a friend, more than a lover, and more than his wife. David looked to her as superhuman, and as an embodiment of everything that he would never be good enough to become. She grew more beautiful to him with each passing day, and to call her the love of his life would be a tremendous understatement.

​Most men will never know the force that drives them to be better, David held hands with his motivation every single day. Brenda weathered his childlike antics and embraced his flaws. It was her that defined his purpose, it was her alone from which David ever felt a constant where departure had played a starring role in the majority of his life. He owes her more than words or gifts can ever repay, and he reveled in every single moment that with her he could share a smile.

He loved his children for their promise of doing things better than he had. He cherished the days that became years and one by one took them away from home. He measured their success not in dollars, but in their individual ability to love. His sons and daughters inked into him were gifts that he would show to the world at any opportunity. Most spend their days with the hopes of saying "look at what I have". David, through his children was proud to say, "Look at what I've left".

He loved his motorcycle for the fact that she shined even when the days were grey and stormy. He loved Guitars and Old Trucks because they spoke to a soul that he believed in his heart was born too late.

He loved sunsets, the ocean, and the warmth of the tropics because they marked, for him, a recognition of a time in her life when his mother was finally content.

He always had a place in his heart for the small and humble things that nature would show to him. His words, "We are one on this trip through the stars" was his small way of letting his guard down and embracing one small soul at a time, all of the things that walk this planet of ours.

He was a servant to those that he loved, his passion was their happiness, and it was bottomless.

As our glasses are raised, a final toast to the energy that each of us knew... cheers.

For as long as I can recall, my aunt Toni has been different from anyone else in my life.

Her differences to me though were not physical, and not mental.

​To me, her differences were human... as she was much more than most.
Imagine loving without the fear of rejection

Imagine loving so purely that you never had to comprehend love's opposite

Imagine living each and every day with family and friends at the front of your mind rather than yourself

Imagine the desire to greet everyone that you met with a smile, a touch, a long embrace and a kiss

Toni didn't have to imagine, because her love for life and those that she knew was above everything, very different.

As we lay Toni to rest, I can't help but finally recognize how dramatically different she was from the rest of us, and how beautifully different we all might one day be for having known her.

Goodbye Aunt Toni, and thank you for every single hug, kiss, and glance away from normal that you ever shared with me.

​Burke

​Its been a decade mom...

Ten years to live this down

Ten years to forget the hurt and the loss

Ten years to let go and live

Ten years to learn from the legacy that you left

But mom, I've wasted my days. I've lost sight of what it means to do this well. I look into the mirror at an aging face and wonder if our ends will be the same. I fight with demons that my heart and soul blame for your leaving. I curse and kick at the walls of belief that will forever keep me out

What originally felt like the quick snuffing of your candle has proven to be a slow dimming of the light that you shared with all of us

I'll get through, I'll find your fire again… you raised me better than this.

Sometimes though, I slip… I find darkness a bit softer than realities harsh light…

I just miss you mom… still… always & forever

Strange to feel trepidation in penning a thought to my daughters. Stranger still to realize that the times dictate our fears, and bind what should flow naturally from parent to child.

I'll scream it louder than the norm might shout and not fear society's scowl in doing so.

To the most amazing young women I've ever had the honor of knowing, my daughters, a thought that I trust you'll consider, and hopefully hold close.

"Your naked body should belong only to those who have fallen in love with your naked soul."

Live unencumbered my angels, and chase passionately every single thing that steals the attention of your heart.

I am not one to post political crap or even feign interest in the constant flow of excrement that spills from my TV, phone, etc... but the past couple days I've been stuck on this "where are we" and "how far have we come" couple of thoughts...

We are paying interest to banks to dwell in the buildings and homes that we built. We are paying interest to banks to drive the cars and trucks that we built.

We are being shown 60 second commercials advertising drugs that will kill us and that represent a 19:1 ratio (advertising : R&D) at the hands of Pharmaceutical companies while simple (but not profitable drugs like the Flu and Polio vaccines remain in short supply because they dont represent a massive profit margin).

We are tolerating a government that is so incredibly massive, that it has the staff, the funding, and the time to govern vegetation (marijuana, psychedelics) and restrict what grown human beings can and cannot do to or for themselves, while this same government advocates and even promotes the sale of controlled, chemical substances to the tune of prescriptions equaling 64 pills per day per every single American citizen.

We pay monthly subscriptions to watch a little box in our living room that tells us not what we need to know, but what we want to know (eg-not breakthroughs in science or exploration, but which red idiot said what to which blue idiot).

We pay to watch billionaires play a game on Sundays while our soldiers, police officers, firefighters and teachers are eligible for welfare.

We pay a percentage of our wages to an unknown pool that gets spent on who knows what, and then we pay more for the same year after year.

We cast a popularity contest to see which liar we should follow for the next four years.

We listen to millionaires puke insults on the radio about the color of each others skin, and we pretend that its okay.

Then, in all of this we pick sides rather than siding with one another and asking WTF? We all see these things and a million more like them... we all know it's wrong... but what will we do tomorrow? Same fucking thing because the rest of the flock hasn't shifted directions yet...

​Like a child before Christmas, I’ll lay awake and wonder about what I might find in the morning...

Will I wake up alone at the end of a dream, or will this wonderful slumber continue?

Will I find you again when I open my eyes, or will the sandman have broken his beautiful spell?

Are the memories and beauty that you’ve shown me just wishes come true in some dust land fairytale? Or are you really there, and still playing captor to this old heart of mine?

If my dream is over, then I’ll forever cherish the beauty and magic that I’ve seen... that you’ve shown, that you’ve shared...

But if this dream is to continue... if I find you wrapped in these arms when the sunshine kisses the sky, if your smile and starry eyes are still the first things to illuminate our morning, and if you’d care to hold my hand for another trip through the stars...

Then I’ll smile and find content, lost in the beautiful dream that you’ve made for me.

we are born into this...
no... we have brought ourselves into this...
no... we were planned and placed into this...
no... we find ourselves here...

right here

we find ourselves bound to a day to day where breath matters not until its our last
we dedicate lifetimes to the gain of others
we strangle passion and desire while profit and demand are resuscitated
we profess ourselves above beings thriving in the same sunlight
we measure ourselves and eachother against the schemes of credit and debt
we disagree with our predicament, but find comfort amongst the flock
we mute the raging mind that chokes on its own disbelief in our quiet hours

right now

I'll say what I feel
I'll love uncontrollably these creatures that share this trip through the stars with me
I'll stop only when I can't go on
I'll follow only when my heart can no longer lead
I'll live before I die... I'll live.

​Sad that for his entire life, Rafiki knew nothing but a cage. We all wake up to this single, wonderful opportunity to chase dreams, love and emotion on this quick trip through the stars.

Somewhere along the way, we've tripped and twisted in our purpose. We're limping now through this entanglement of ideology set forth for us by those that we can't seem to stop following, feeding. Someone set a precedence and someone accepted it and someone taught it to another that chose to accept rather than question.

​Set another precedent. Someone ask why. Someone stomp and shout against the norm. Someone bash and beat what we've become until we become something new. Why do we default to hurting when we are capable of healing?

My rights as an animal are no different than Rafiki's, no different than the unnamed, untamed that still live by instinct alone.

My heart breaks at the thought of a cage for such a beautiful creature. R.I.P. big brother.

Two years ago today, your suffering stopped.

Two years ago today, your hurt ended.

Two years ago, I kissed you goodbye for the last time.
​
Two years ago, you asked that I be strong in your weakness.
For two years I have been strong, and for two years I have drawn strength from your memory.

But for just one day, one day in each of those years, this day, I break.

I fall apart and ask why. I pull out old pictures, and I curse the cheated, the hurt, and the devastation that a sickness brought.

It happened, and it happened in front of all of us. It happened in the face of faith, it happened in the face of denial, and it happened in spite of every effort.

Then in this same day, and in those same pictures, I see your smile. I see your strength, your wisdom, and your faith.

I shudder to consider my own weakness where you had only grace and power and beauty.

Then I get up, I dry my eyes, and I take a breath.

​You were an incredible mother, you are an unstoppable memory, and you shall forever be my source of strength.

​I love you Mom.