My Mother is Just an Ordinary Person

Inauspiciously driving a Subaru, turbo-charged mind you, she gets to work on time, stays late, and still finds time for yoga -- three hour yoga with her best friend. She says some silly things, occasionally calling me Lloyd (her husband) or Lloyd, Michael. You can hurt her feelings with one sentence, just like anybody else. Always late to pick me up, her nickname became my "late mother," even though I always knew she'd be there eventually. And she's an ordinary klutz, thanks in part to her Morrison genes, of which she has ever so much more to thank.

Balancing career, love, and Michael-raising has been one rocky road at times, fraught with personal hardships to overcome. You always hazily dream of the reward from such endeavors, working hard to get there, and re-balancing when things begin to go the wrong way. Life is our lottery ticket, and the difference we make day in and day out with the people around us -- the world -- is our reward. That is the lesson my mother must have learned at an early age, and as any normal mother would she has passed it along to her child.

So, when she told me on Saturday she must go to Afghanistan via Scotland, that a tragedy had happened, it all seemed too ordinary. She does a job that no one else can do, at least anywhere near as well. "Soft targets" are the difference makers in the long run. They sink their roots into the soil below. Given a chance to grow, they bring food and stability to the homes around them. Fragile though they are, they yield the greatest sustaining power of all, and water and love is all it takes to keep them going. To a community they bring only possibilities, honest seeds for the soil -- nothing to kill or die for.

Even though we all breathe the same, eventually find sleep together, how we decide what is right is what makes us individual. Interestingly, at that very moment we invite everyone around us, and in time the rest of the spider web of people they have touched in the past and those still to be woven in the future. As I pull away from the airport and watch her, waving to me, it's the same person who needed a hug hours earlier. She's making a decision, a big one, wrought with emotion, and even though the world might not yet be ready, she is helping it to get there one step at a time.

She is my mother, a person we all share -- we all have to keep.

To My Father's Day

I once thought that memories and little keepsakes were all we had to call upon as we realize just what has happened throughout our lives. Now, I believe that we have so much more happening all around us, and at the speed of light, thoughts become blogs for you and for me. There are things pulling us forward to greener pastures. And yet sadness and burdens of guilt wrench us back, but in the next breath in they egg us on. Our determination to see the sun rise over the ocean, again and again, keeps us on our course.

The great significance is not what we have already done. Rather, the act of grasping that which we are fully capable is the true feeling of a rhapsody. Dancing, completely losing one's senses whilst digging ever deeper into their own soul, is one serene example. Add dancing with a partner, and, well, you have something there. Add friendship and admiration, and you have heaven on earth.

Tonight I bid one of my newer friends goodbye for a while, and for reasons I am about to explain, I fear what "a while" may become. Too often I have said to someone, whom I deeply admire, "good night," "talk with you soon... I promise," and then not called them. Two birthdays pass, and a year, but they don't call me either -- except for when they do. The number for my best friend's home is made up of ten digits that I will never forget; I know them as well as my own hands. Then, a day after my father died, I dialed them, and I knew he would be there.

Tomorrow, my tomatoes will be a bit more ripe, a day closer to being eaten. My life takes another step on this path known as "the right direction." Numbers matter. Blood and hearts matter. Their drum beats us into tomorrow when we conquer the earth with yet another new smile. Tears from storms thunder through, like only something born from emotion could.

So, with this day, I will carry my father into another wave, another sunny ride. We are forever in every moment. As the bow strums back-and-forth-n'back, fingers find a note to move us to the next measure. Master every piece, for their moves are themselves and their own reflection of you. Find out who you are. While you are your father, you are Michael, son of Elizabeth, stepson of Lloyd, grandson of Raymond, "Grand-Mère", Nancy, and Jack, and so much more to so many more than numbers will ever count.

Find love, from within, from all around you. Add water, and you have tomatoes, basil and then supper. Healing takes time, some times more time than we have, but there is only one person who can affect genuine change. Whether it's the next dance, or the next time you light a fire, or witness an asteroid scrape our atmosphere, remember the inspiration given to you by your father. From his childhood (and certainly your mother) you were born into a complex world of love and twisted fate, but with his lessons and laughter he helped you become everything that is wonderful about you today. You knew every fault, but mostly try to remember his heroics.

This time with you has been, is at every single frequency in this moment, and finally will forever be. Squeeze, just a bit tighter, into the best hug you've ever had only to find your every inspiration.

Thank you,
Michael