November 23, 2025
My dad suffered a long dying. Years of it.
So many words left unsaid. So many songs left unsung. He was a quiet and humble man of rare inner strength. His life was that of an epic symphony, privately played. He took his music with him, only hinting it in the end.
I remembered who he’d been when I was a child, watched who he was becoming as I grew into adulthood, and mourn who he’ll never be as I near the age of his own passing.
He had no regrets when he left. And I wonder if I’ll go the same way.
In my youth, I looked to the future and the promise of a better tomorrow. Now, I look to the past and wonder whatever happened to that promise.
But that was yesterday.
Today is different. Neither here nor there. Neither now nor then.
My present is the ongoing collision of all my pasts and futures. It’s wreckage filling me with the ghosts of what was and could’ve been, what is and still can’t be, and what could be but never will.
Forgive me, dear reader, for this may be just the ramblings of someone who has seen too much and yet still desires to learn so much more.
To channel Metallica:
What I’ve felt, what I’ve known
Never shined through in what I’ve shown
I wonder how many of us are living or jsut waiting to die—ignorant that the music doesn’t write itself. Oblivious that the music doesn’t remain. In the end, what we don’t write doesn’t manifest. What we don’t share simply disappears.
And though the great mass of humanity may lead lives of quiet desperation, I shall not die with all of my music still within me—having lived at least as much as I could. Having finally known love instead of anger, wisdom instead of fear, and solace instead of vengeance. Perhaps this is my song. Perhaps, if fate is kind, my symphony. My way to peace, and to the deeper unknown.
No one gets out of life alive.
Few remember to live it.
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