move to the next moment

A Definition of who?

"It defines you" she said softly.  "I disagree, it's that I let it define me, and I let all of them define me.  That's what ruined what I was - who I was." I quickly snipped back.

People say that death changes you, but really it doesn't.  It's the people that surround us, that give us their definitions on how we are to grieve, to live, and to support them that really changes us.  I lost my parents, and I gave up "me".  In order to let everyone else live their lives.  I defined me for the daily situation that arose when I was called upon to serve.

"Fred you need to do this"

"Fred write this"

"Fred you need to speak here"

"Fred you are in charge"

"Fred you're the only one to do this"

I sat with a friend chatting one afternoon while our kids ran around the house playing, laughing, and of course screaming.  It was in that moment that she said "but I'm the only one who'll do it and they know it". And it clicked.  Everyone counts on those who won't say no, because this unspoken rule of "you're the only one."  Well why?  Is it because for the past years we've put our own lives on hold to take on the burden that others won't because their lives are vastly more important? 

Or is it because we have let these tragedies define who we are when we cannot see the light in our own souls?  We emerge ourselves into the tragedy but cannot pull out of it without the help of others; but sadly it's the others that set us into this definition and we struggle each day trying to free ourselves from it.I asked, "isn't there another person that can help to do it?"  She said "no everyone else is too busy."  I laughed hysterically, but understood completely. 

To others, she and I were the "selected" ones no matter how insane our lives were, no matter how we felt, or how sick we were - we both individually were the chosen ones to deal with all matters of our own life's tragedies.

I have given up two years of my life to take care of my mother, I would never take any of those moments back.  I've spent three years so far dealing with the aftermath of my mother's failed Estate and Trust, dealing with the IRS, CPAs, Attorneys, and Financial planners, and I wouldn't take those moments back.  Those moments have given me definition, a definition of what others defined me as.

Within those five years, many have defined me for their own grief, their own pain, and for what they couldn't do or rather what they believed was my job to do.  That defined me by their actions, wants, needs, and I let it. I thought what they needed and wanted me to do was what I am supposed to do.

I'm not mad, angry, or pissed.  For years, I've let those around me define me because of the death of my parents, but now I understand.  I've finally realized it's not the those around me that defines who I am to be. 

It's me.

"Time Heals and Time Reveals"

"Time Heals and Time Reveals"

A Sensei told me this as he threw me to the ground (I obviously was distracted mentally to miss such an easy hit).  In the past week, many new ideas and thoughts have ravaged my mind and thus the break from this blog.  I’m working on two distinct ideas for my next entries.  The first comes from a chat with a good friend about “what defines us” and “redefining our own lives rather than living through the definition given to us by others”.  The next is simply “can you rework your heart and soul to trust in someone or thing again, after it’s been removed for years?”

I’m here and thinking – are you?

Time... No Time.

A friend of mine over the weekend decided to give my excuses of "I just have no time" a reality check.  I was complaining (yes I am not perfect always ;-) )  about fitting in all the things I want to do over an IM session.

From Music, Training, German, Photography, Family, and Yoga the list goes on and on.. from the latest challenge from my friend "C" to read the Bible within a Year...  "I just have no time anymore." I snipped.

He responded a bit too fast "stop saying time... "no time" is purely an excuse to avoid what we should be doing.  Insert Life instead of time and see if you realize what you are doing."   And so I did.

I have no life to train.

I have no life to perform

I have no life to play with my family.

I have no life... to live.

A clever reminder to me and to you that if we do not have the time in our lives to do the things that make us feel alive, then really we have no life.

So from now on when you are telling yourself all those silly excuses that you have no time... insert life instead of time.

Content With This Life?

Last weekend, a good friend and I chatted about contentment with life over a couple of martinis. 

Sparked by a conversation with "C"

"Content with life, never" I said with a boyish grin.  "Contentment is giving up on life's passion and quest for the answers to the questions that God hasn't revealed yet and honestly may never. I won't give in to being content with the life I have, I will strive to be the best and will never give up. It's my belief that God wants us not to be content, but to use this unstableness to achieve the greatness he's instilled in each of our souls." I said to "C"

Each of us makes mistakes pursuing what we think we may need or want in life.  It's at those times that we have the choice to stay content or move to that next moment.  Being content would not allow us those mistakes or wrong steps, therefore not shaping our soul in becoming the best we can be and really only maintaining that single moment in time.

It's that courage deep inside of us to leap from the comfortable life in order to make mistakes or to create a new chapter in our life.  Either one leads to an experience that will shape who we are in this life.  God may want us to be content in order to allow him to guide us along his chosen path, but then what of free will.  We have been given one of the greatest gifts of all... CHOICE. 

I can choose to be content with life, to not follow the passion or drive within my soul but where does that lead?  To happiness?  I'm not sure it would, for me my parents died leaving me many questions on my past and presented me many choices along this journey whether to be content or not.  I've chosen not to be content, and with one of those choices came this blog.

I want to be the best father, husband, friend, writer, musician, and the list goes on.  God gave me many blessings, am I content with the known ones... not a chance.  I will pursue pushing myself through the stages of contentment in order to someday achieve happiness.  Or is it that pure contentment in life is the sign of happiness? 

"C" sent me a note this morning... "it's about learning to be content in letting God lead the way and Him determining my path as opposed to me trying to figure it all out on my own.  I believe He still wants us to strive to work hard and do better and better, but we need to be content to let Him determine the path."

I've never thought of it that way.. that God wants us to be content in order for him to determine the path.  Many times I've said to God - "take the wheel it's all yours, show me what to do next", it's from hearing this "song" while having a bad day.  So maybe I've been mistaken, if I would have been content would the path have been laid out for me rather than me searching and searching for it? Or maybe the path is for me not to be content with life - Ever.

A Year Of Moments

It is almost breathtaking that today is exactly one year from the day God threw a lightening bolt at me. A head on collision on my Mother's birthday, that should have killed me but miraculously it didn't.

Looking back, that moment was a very important one; such as looking upon my hand at all the lines that join together and then go their separate paths, this too was such a crossroads for my journey.

Losing both of my parents have changed or rather twisted who I was, hiding my real self in delusions and illusions to protect my heart from being ripped out once again.  I became an image with no soul.  Tossing out my loves and likes and replacing them with material items became what felt right.  This way no one could get close or truly know me.  Sadly, I accepted this; until that day the car crossed the yellow line hitting me head on at over sixty miles an hour. 

I remember laughing out loud at the song that was playing as the airbags deployed and my car was thrown into a 360 spin... Nickelbacks " If today was your last day"  Ironic, tragic, and a wake up call from above.

The State Patrol and Local Police couldn't believe that I wasn't seriously hurt or dead, and to their surprise I was walking around.  It was then that I realized it was my deceased mother's birthday.

To this day I truly believe I was saved, but at the same time warned to change.  It was with that moment I began a new journey one of the hardest and most hurtful ones ever.  Deconstructing me.

With the tragic losses of my parents, I was without a foundation.  A journey that had no past but needed to understand those unanswered questions of who I am and why am I  here.  Very intense questions that may never be answered... but I will keep searching until I understand.

Along the way I've met many new faces; some have been blessings, others have become roadblocks in my path.  Sorting each out has been something very new for me.  Never one that has ever had conflict, a always "whatever you want/need" rather than "Is this something I want or need".  Not saying that I've become completely self absorbed, but more self aware of why I'm doing things and importantly for the right reasons.  It's the only way to truly finding "true" friends.

"True" friends have become my family.  My new foundation for life and for understanding.  With this new idealism and foundation comes a new moment and a new year.

The new year of 2010, I will be revealing some very pronounced changes in my journey. For the start a new website chronicling my journey, with a spot solely for understanding the aspects of grief, comfort, and void that comes from the loss of my parents.  In this website my photographs, music, and writings will encompass the true ideals and thoughts of "me".   A few other items will be revealed at a later date. :-)  

I will move to the next moment, with grace, honesty, and loyalty in hopes of living and breathing that next moment  in this lifetime.

I'll be home for Christmas

As I sit here, sipping my “congo bongo” tea and listening and watching the holiday music videos on TV a normal yet almost tragic song comes on… “I’ll be home for Christmas.”  (click here) 

If only in my dreams, the song eerily states.

I dream about having a home to go to, like a normal 31 year old would.  Buying presents for my parents, and sitting with my boys creating pictures and crafts to give them.  Driving to their house for Christmas Eve dinner, gathering around the tree, and having a cup or two of my mother’s spiced rum tea. 

Seeing my boys climb into their footed pj’s and Hayden and Gavin cuddling up to my parents in front of the tree.  Then heading to midnight mass, smelling the intoxicating scents of Christmas and sitting next to the large nativity scene.  While I hold my boys as they sleep, and the carolers sing the classic tales of Christmas Past and Future.

I picture this in my head as if it was real, holding onto that thought deep inside my heart for a moment of time – while a smile runs across my face and tears fill up my eyes.

I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

Comfort... Real? or Facaded?

In the last weeks of my mother's life people from all around came to her house and delivered baked goods and alcohol.  From homemade doughnuts, cakes, pastries, cookies, and bars to bottles of Whiskey came from all around.  Two weeks after my mother's death it suddenly stopped.

The calls, emails, and drop ins also stopped.  It was like having the carpet yanked out from under you, going from a vast support group to losing everything in a blink of an eye.  Alone sitting in her house one night, I starred blankly at a picture of what was once my family.  A Father, Mother and their children, all smiling not knowing the tragedy that was to become of their lives.

I needed someone or rather many to comfort me, not for everyone to walk away and leave me.  Friends that I'd known for years walked away, didn't call or email even if I initiated the communication.  I mean really who wants to chat with someone who lost his parents... what happens if they accidentally say oh and mom brought me this. Family left slowly because they had put in their time to save face, and truly had their own family to be with. 

Death and Grief impact a family to an extent that breaks the foundation of blood and unravels those binds until the family is no more. 

As time passed I created a facade of comfort, I threw my emotions into a lockbox, my feelings into an abandoned well, and my soul hidden.  It was the only way that I understood how to deal with the grief and to even have friends that would chat with me.

And this is where I am understanding the concepts that I've created to define comfort.

Real Comfort:  Is everlasting.

A simple phone call out of the blue asking... so how are you doing?  A hug that appears from out of no where, with the simple words of I'm here.  Or even a quick stop to say hey I was in town..

It's the unthinkable aspects that make up real comfort from the outside world. Yes I am comforted by sipping my tea looking at the Christmas Tree and remembering falling asleep on the golden couch before dinner - watching the twinkling lights and smelling my mother's cooking.  Or simply picking up my saxophone and playing it like it was yesterday I was on stage infront of hundreds.  That is what real comfort is.  Knowing you belong and that people out there think of you now and then... and let you know it.

Facaded Comfort:  Comes and leaves forever.

This is the pre death and after death aspect of comfort.  The uneasy "I don't know what to do" or "I don't know what to say" slogans.  And this is in no way me slamming it- it serves it's purpose for those who do not want to get involved and does help those who are hurting.  It has it's place in Grief.  This is the unemotional way of comfort.  Not to get involved or to close.  You do your part, you feel good about helping in a materialistic way and then you leave.

Sadly both friends and family in times of tragic death resolve to the Facaded comfort, once sorted out you understand it.  You accept it.  And then you figure out those who are with you forever, and others who can't for their own reasons.  It is neither good or bad it's how people deal with tragedy as well uncomfortable situations.

In history it was said...  Are you with me till the end? And it's as simple as that.

The Gingerbread House Tradition

For a decade now, my wife and I have celebrated a tradition that my family created when I was five.  Being a German family we celebrated the Christmas season with  baking; the main one being the creation of Gingerbread House Masterpieces.

It started with my mother, father, brother, and sister growing up.  The year after my father passed away, my wife and I started our own tradition.  Inviting friends from all walks of our lives to join us in an afternoon and evening of celebrating a simple tradition that meant so much more to me than anyone could possibly see.

A tie to my past life where I had a mother and a father.  A past where I had an extended family that was there and involved in my life. Then it came to me this past weekend, while having friends sit around the table decorating their Gingerbread houses for the tenth year;  this is my family.

My family are my friends.  Their children are my nephews and nieces.  It's a bizarre tale of one's own life but it's mine.  I've created a family from a tradition that my own blood family had.  And this year my own sons joined in the tradition with another family.

Each family tradition marks who we are, where we came from, and most importantly what holds us together.  From stuffing shoes full of candy and fruit for St. Nicks day, to creating gingerbread ornaments, to having beef stroganoff for dinner on Christmas Eve prior to midnight mass.  It's these "little" things that give us our past in order to survive our future.  

It may be a sad and depressing time for those of us who've lost those dear to us, and while our souls feel empty we gather what happiness we might have left in our lives to get through this month.  This weekend gave me something, moments to move to the next moment and then the next.  I'm slowly understanding what can fill my soul that's missing a past.

To everyone that joined my wife and I, and our sons this weekend.  Thank you.

something was missing

I've been a saxophonist since i was eight, privately taught both here and in Europe.  My teachers groomed me to be the best, to win, and always told me it was never perfect enough. 

My father was my greatest supporter, he would hear the teachers, shake his head, and then tell me "Fred, if you can make it sing with happiness, sadness, and your soul comes out for all to see, then you truly are a musician."  I'd look up at him and smile, and always said "I will Papa, I will."

Years later my father died, the day we buried him was the day I lost my soul.

It is now ten year later that I've picked up my saxophones once again - not for the intention of being the best and competing... but purely living my father's thoughts.  My saxophone provides me life, direction, and most importantly a chance to let my soul out once more.

I have hidden my potential within the fear of "grief."  And now that something that was missing is now found.

Unraveling

It seems that each step I take towards realizing the person who I was, who I became, and now who I am unraveling, became a terrifying experience.  At times, the realization of this facade I've put on for so many years is purely painful. And now the long quest to try and piece each of the jagged puzzle pieces together to form the "new or real" me is very hard.

When you try to remove the thoughts and ideas that you've pushed out to so many people of who you are; and now you change those very thoughts to the near complete opposite. It throws one heck of a monkeywrench into things.  To be blunt it confuses and pisses them off.

I have no clue how this will all unfold, but I do know that where I'm going is a new and great place.  Why?  Simply put - I'll finally be me.

"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."

— Sarah Dessen