The Sun

I have been trying to write a family history. I have become a soundbite writer. I have written 120,000 words over the last four years. Every morning for the past week, I’ve been thinking about the past. It all could be lost if I do not write it down. Who cares?

Writing a family history is hard. It’s like writing a book. The bits and pieces of memory are haphazard; there does not seem to be any straight-line format. How do you make an outline? Where do you begin? I call it, “I was born.” That is a beginning.

Every day, I take my coffee outdoors. I have a small lanai. Beyond my backyard is a Slough, bordering the slough is it perfusion of Florida vegetation inundated with invasive species. I look at it every day. I start out meditating, deep breathing.

Occasionally, I go to a park, a mile away, that is pristine Florida vegetation. I sit there by myself, or my wife is with me. Occasionally, I just go there to sit to avoid whatever is going on in my house. It is a jungle, it is not like the Amazon, but there is massive vegetation. Marjorie Rawlings wrote “The Yearling” and other fine things, about the early pioneers in Central Florida. Looking at the vegetation, I wonder how they made it through to hunt, how they avoided the number of rattlesnakes per acre? I have noticed that all this vegetation reaches strenuously for the sun.

The sun is everything. The sun is the essence of life. The scrub Pines grow straight. The Sable Palms grow straight. Even the gnarly white Oaks reach straight for the sun. The edge of my backyard is a perfusion of vegetation, all maneuvering, clamoring for the sun. The competition is extreme. I wonder about man and how extreme is the competition for life. Competition, struggle, seems to be the natural order.

The sun is the essence of life. Without it, nothing exists. It is a bright sphere in the heavens; too bright to look at directly. If it were too hot, we would burn. If it were too cold, we would freeze. It is the true essence of climate change. Over millions of years, the sun has burned hot and cold, creating jungles where, today, deserts exist, creating ice ages.

Once, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I traveled to Peru and found myself sitting in the central Square of Cusco. The Incas worshiped the Sun. Sitting on a bench I could feel the warmth of the sun. It it was very rewarding. The elevation, about 11,000 feet, made that warmth necessary. The sun went behind a cloud and instantly I felt cold. I could understand why the Incas worshiped the Sun.

I believe in God. The sun is a metaphor for God. This single sphere sits in the heavens and gives life. God created life. God created the sun. When I feel the power of the sun, I feel the power of God. Every morning, during that quiet time, looking at nature, the blue sky, the puffy white clouds, the vegetation, I give thanks to God. Life is wonderful. I am happy to be where I am; I have always been happy to be wherever I was.

Yesterday, I read an article in The Washington Post; it was about a couple who had lost a daughter. The husband wrote an article about grief; the wife wrote a book. Life is wonderful. Death is sure.

I remember a talk with my brother-in-law; he was a young parent; he thought about the precarious nature of life, that we cannot be sure of tomorrow. None of us can be sure of tomorrow. That thought has always stayed with me. I have always tried to stay in the moment. I tried to reverence the moment; to do the things today that are necessary with the people I hold, dear.

I never wanted to sing the Willie Nelson song, “Always on my Mind.” I try to give the day all I have. When the tomorrow tolls, I want no regrets.

I read a lot, literature, History. 100 years ago, people died, regularly. Grief must have been prevalent. When I was in Honduras, during Peace Corps, 1969, most days, coffins were carried down the dirt street to the cemetery, mostly small coffins. Death seemed to be as common as picking avocados. I made peace with the processions. They were inevitably a part of life. I went to the cemetery, and it was a perfusion of fresh, muddy red clay, and plastic flowers. Each new cross was a truncated story.

When I was a boy, the dead were laid out in living rooms. When I was 10, my uncle was laid out in the kitchen. The family, 30 or 40 strong, gathered around laughing, joking, singing, eating. I sat in the corner, a 10-year-old, looking at the dead man. I always had a recurring dream after such situations. I would dream that it was late at night, I was alone with the coffin and dead person and that person would sit up. Death was scary, one day you are alive and well and the next day you are a rock. Where did life come from, and where did it go?

Death, today, seems to be sanitized. You do not have to deal with it. It is an industry. You never have to see the body; it is cremated. You just see a lovely little urn. In Honduras, and early America, they had to wash the body, dress the body, build the coffin, dig the grave, and say the prayers. Death was intimate, a solemn affair, the next day, it was, as if it never happened. If people grieved, I could never tell.

Today, you need psychiatrists and psychologist. Some write books and lament the fact, over and over, in infinity, that life will never be the same. No day is ever the same; we always step into a new river.

What is wrong with me? I don’t grieve like these people. I don’t luxuriate in it. I don’t write books about it.

There were 10 in my family, counting my parents; now there are two. Each of my brothers and sisters had, in today’s terms, large families; within those families children died. Over the years, everyone experiences a perfusion of life and a perfusion of death.

I keep asking, when am I going to grieve? I remember losing a lost love, having a broken heart; she didn’t even die. That was a grief. I grieved for my father, quietly, and alone with my own family, I broke down and cried, then it was over.

I don’t know what I will feel like if my wife dies or one of my kids or my grandchildren. It is hard to lose someone that you co-mingle with every day that you love every day, that are an intimate part of your life.

I know you cannot count on tomorrow. I know I must take advantage of today. I know what you can do with a few dedicated moments, of consistent time, over prolonged periods, how much can be accomplished, what talents can be developed. I know the importance of each day. I prepare myself for any eventuality. I know I must die. I know that those close to me will die.

I moved many times in my life, lived many different places. My family and the people in my past were always living in a different place. When they died, they were still living in a different place.

I believe in God. I believe in Christ. I believe in the resurrection. I guess, I don’t believe in death. I always believe that those I loved, those that died, are just living in a different place.

That belief makes grief different.

Oh, the daughter that died, had a tumor that was impinging on her optic nerve. She was operated on, and her pituitary gland was affected.

I have the same type of tumor. They’ve been monitoring it for 10 years. Knowledge helps preparation.