Dad, you’ve been gone a long time
and I want you to know how much
I loved and continue to love you.
The coroner ruled that it was an

accidental death because there was
no suicide note; I think that was
to be nice to the family and to
help us out with insurance, but I

know you committed suicide and I
can’t blame you. I have never,
ever been angry with you and I’ve
wondered about that and I have had

therapy to deal with the whole
thing. Given the wonder of my own
life, which you and mom provided
for me, I can’t even imagine the

pain, deprivation, sorrow, abandon-
ment and grief of your own life
as an immigrant kid whose mother
died in childbirth when you were

about seven and the death of your
dad from the Spanish influenza pan-
demic when you were about thirteen,
leaving you an orphan in America.

You did a great job as a father.
I don’t know where you ever learn-
ed it given your life, but you
showed warmth, tenderness, and

at the same time integrity, and
you modeled compassion and late
in your life, the love of Jesus,
as especially shown in the Sermon

on the Mount. Believe me, I under-
stand that when your health gave
out and you couldn’t continue to
provide for your family, you couldn’t

cope with that reality and the pain
and maybe shame were overwhelming.
It was just too much for you and
I want you to know that I understand

and that I just am sorry that, given
all your life’s circumstances, you
couldn’t find an alternative. I do
not stand in judgment. Still, I just

wish you were here so I could hold
your hand, give you a hug, kiss
you on the hair stubbles on your
cheek and tell you I love you.

Jimmy Carter lost a humiliating
decision to Ronald Reagan to
lose a second term as president.
It can be argued that he wasn’t
the most effective president;
after all he was a micro-managing
engineer by training but who can
doubt that he has been the greatest
ex-president in history? And so,
Hillary, buck up. You would have
been crucified if you had won;
the Republican Congress would
have impeded your every move,
the Right-wingers would have
been all over you all the time,
the misogynists would have
screamed bloody-murder at you
constantly, so maybe you should
count yourself fortunate and
gather all your significant
acumen and talents and do
something else significant for
the nation, as only you could
do. And as a male senior citizen,
I hope this is okay to say,
“You go, girl!”

He’s jogging more slowly now that
he has had a stem cell procedure on

his right knee to save it after forty-
thousand miles running for forty-five

years. There are those who say, “See,
I told you running was bad for your

joints,” except it has nothing to do
with running; it has everything to do

with inheriting arthritis, and so, he
grabs his hiking sticks, sets his stop-

watch and sets out for thirty-minutes
now timing instead of measuring

distance. At the end of the jog, he
lifts his hiking sticks into the air

in jubilation that he is still going
and gratification for the near spiritual

reality that his body has healed his
own body allowing him to keep doing

what he has loved to do for so long.

A company that makes footwear
For the great out-of-doors,
Sixty years ago, dumped chemicals
From their tannery into the
River that runs through it
And today, the people who live
Along the river have to boil
Their water or use bottled water,
The plastic of which will end up
In land fills, remaining there
For hundreds of years
Or maybe till the end of time,
Which might come before
Hundreds of years at the rate
We are going.

People think he is clever and
quick and good with talk and
he gives that impression, but

all of it took so much work so
very much work until he didn’t
have to do it anymore. It wore

him down over time because that
was his job and he was always
afraid he wouldn’t be able to

come up with the witty quip at
the spur of the moment. He took
an IQ test in college and scored

okay but it was timed and he felt
under enormous pressure and he
doesn’t do his best when he is

anxious. He took an on-line IQ
test and did much better because
he had all the time in the world

to get the answer right. He sighed
a sigh of relief when that score
came through, kind of like when

he writes something. He has all
the time in the world and it feels
really good to get the words right.

Okay, we now have hell on earth
because of the worst hurricane
in recorded history and the soft
porn, faux-news channel hosts
a perky blond interviewing a
perky blond in Florida both
offering Botox, pouty-lipped
sympathy for the truly des-
perate inhabitants of the Keys
and mainland and guys watching
aren’t thinking about the devast-
ation and human misery; they’re
thinking about how much they
would love, in their working class
dreams, to get the celebrity blonds
in bed or at least on their knees
and the executives smile knowing
that for them, that’s just part of
the deal and, oh yeah, it’s really
good for ratings.

She walked along the narrow strip of sand
separating water from a large wall of dune
looking for a potential object d’art or two,
which she hoped to discover soon.
Bending down, she picked up a small piece
of driftwood — a new sculpture to construe.
He watched her eyes as they began to sparkle
and her lips began to form
words in silence and he knew
soon there would be, in the offing,
a sculpture so beautiful, artful, so true.

Just a few minutes before
a lonely man stood on the shore
a beautiful woman appeared on the deck,
He wondered if she would come back.

As the sun continued to set,
she appeared as if out of nowhere.
Was she an apparition on the deck?
No, she looked and smiled; she really was there.

A beautiful woman stood on the deck
looking at the sunset in early September.
What was she feeling on that deck
while observing a dying ember?

Did the fading summer leave her with a hunger
maybe hoping for a wonderfully warm Indian Summer?

One can only hope the
thoughts were filled with wonder
for the beautiful woman who stood on the deck
looking at the sunset in early September.

Ten years ago, on the seventh fairway,
In a game between two old friends,

One said, “I have always felt like an
Outsider.” “And you have always loved

It,” the other one said. And so the one
Has and over time has come to know that

It isn’t outside there; it’s just on the inside
edge from the outside. Someone else

wrote that that’s the place of the prophets.
The one smiled and thought, that’s nice;

I can live there.

*idea from a meditation by Father Richard Rohr