This morning, I took the subway to Coney Island. It was always your favorite place. The noises, the laughter and the screams. You always said the smells brought you back to your childhood. I looked out over the water as the sun was rising. My whole world shattered on this day eighteen years ago and all I could do now was take a deep breath, hold it for as long as I could and slowly exhale.
Eighteen years ago today. Sometimes it seems just like yesterday, other times it seems like a lifetime ago. What I wouldn’t give to have you back, to go back in time and keep you from going to work that day. How much different would my life, our life had been? Would it have changed that much? Life went on without you, even though I still don’t know if mine has completely.
Our kids are grown now. Eighteen years of memories, smiles and tears. I am a grandpa now, which means you would’ve been the best grandma. Sometimes when I hold her I can see you sitting in your old chair smiling. I can see you holding her like you held our daughter. You were the best mom. The best wife.
Eighteen years and we have survived, even if we are not whole since a piece of us is missing. Eighteen years of wishes and prayers that will never come true.
I think you would be really disappointed with our world now. Eighteen years later and the terrorists still hate America, maybe even more now. Eighteen years and we are still fighting the same war and I don’t even know what we are fighting for anymore. It seems hopeless. This world is a mess. Hate is rampant. Mass shootings every day it seems like. All those lives lost for nothing. It seems like most people have grown numb to it all and have given up hope.
Sometimes I wonder if God has abandoned us. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t do something. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t do something. I know you would’ve done something. You always saw the best in everyone and everything.
Most of those times I will find comfort and hope in your old Bible that still sits on the table on your side of the bed. The answers are there in your favorite highlighted passages.
In a way I am happy for you that you aren’t here to see all this. But maybe if you were here you would be the one that would change it all. I know there is good out there. I know there are still good people in this world. We just need more of them to step up and do something. Change this world you so loved.
Anyway, most days I am good. Some days the wind will blow and caress my cheek and I feel like you are still here with me and I can’t help but smile. Other days, like today and even after all these years, I can’t stop crying and I have to stop and pick up the broken pieces of my heart and push on.
I can see you giving me that look now. I know, I know. You wouldn’t want me to be sad, but even a warrior has his moments when he isn’t so tough. But like a warrior, I will fight on another day.
So today, eighteen years after you left us, I still will not say goodbye. I will never say goodbye. How can I when, like on that day and all days when you left for work, I can still see you smiling at me, giving me a wink and saying love you hon, see ya later.
So babe, I love you just as much today as I did the first day we met and I will see ya later.
If you want to cry, listen to this first song, I tear up every single time I hear it. And it is a good story of how a child grows up without her dad she lost in 9/11
I Miss You Daddy-
The Ones That Didn’t Make It Back Home by Justin Moore –
If I Had Only Known by Reba McEntire-
Jersey On The Wall ( I’m Just Asking) by Tenille Townes-
I came home from work Friday night and Kim told me Deanna, one of her best friends and mentor, told her about a vision her daughter had. Her daughter just finished her freshman year of college and truly lives for Jesus. Deanna said maybe Rob can turn her vision into a poem or a song. I took Kylie up to get her shower ready and sat down and this is what came out.
It is truly an inspiring vision and I hope my words do it justice.
Gave You My Heart
I gave you my heart and you walked away
You’re my dad, you were supposed to stay
I couldn’t keep it all together today
I grabbed what was left of my heart and walked to the beach
Walked far enough until your memory was out of reach
I screamed at you dad until I was too hoarse to speak
Then I saw a piece of sea glass so bright
It had such a mysterious light
It was like a piece of day in the darkest night
I bent down and dug with my free hand
There had to be more pieces under the sand
That’s when I felt the presence of another man
It was like a dream as my other hand held my heart
The one that you, dad, had ripped apart
Then I had a thought, this isn’t the end but a brand new start
I felt this man telling me to turn in his direction
But I couldn’t so I grabbed my sea glass collection
And I tried to hold a piece just right to see his reflection
I couldn’t turn around, I knew what he wanted me to do
I couldn’t give him my heart dad, I had given it to you
And I was scared he would walk away with it too
Then his hand touched my shoulder
My courage grew just a little bit bolder
My tears started to flow as I began to molder
I turned and as he reached for me I saw the scars on his hand
He looked at me and I knew he wasn’t just a man
That’s when I dropped my sea glass in the sand
I let him hold me for what seemed like an hour
I could feel his gentleness, as well as his power
I felt his love pour down on me like a summer shower
I whispered, “If I give you me heart will you walk away?”
He said “I’m your father. I’ve never left, I will always stay.”
I knew he was telling the truth so I gave my heart to him that day
(image credit: Kevin Carden Photography)
Busted Heart ( Hold On To Me) by For King and Country –
I was a happy child. I was always smiling, always laughing. I was healthy. I ate good and exercised. I had a few close friends.
However, my best friend was my shadow. He went with me everywhere I went. He played the same games I played. He liked the same animals I liked. We were inseparable. Even when I went to bed at night, he was tucked in right beside me. When the lights went out, I would not worry because I knew he would be there in the morning when I woke up.
We would then start the day again. My shadow always right beside me. I would laugh and smile. We would eat together, play together, and at night we would sleep together. Through the years that would never change.
Until one morning I woke up and it did change. My shadow was gone.
I looked for him everywhere. In the glow of the kitchen light at breakfast, outside at the brightest time of day, and at night with my bedside lamp, but he was nowhere to be found.
I became dark. My smile went away. I no longer laughed. I no longer wanted to play or talk to anyone, even my parents. I wanted to stay in my room all day and all night.
I wasn’t happy. Why would my shadow leave me? There was no explanation that I could find. I woke up one morning and everything had changed. I tried to snap out of it but couldn’t. My parents tried. Nothing worked.
I even quit looking for my shadow.
I lashed out at everyone. Just leave me alone. The darkness would not go away. I hated the person I had become. I felt like a prisoner, trapped in my own mind. I thought things I could not believe I was thinking. I felt like hurting myself, hurting others. I quit doing my schoolwork and I was getting into trouble at school.
Then one day, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw my shadow. It was only a glimpse, a split second, and I could’ve been wrong, but a hope came over me. A hope I clinged to. And as I started to hope, the darkness started to leave me. And as the darkness started to leave me, I started seeing my shadow everywhere.
And as I started seeing my shadow everywhere, I started finding me everywhere.
The darkness did not win. I could smile again. I was me again.
I know not everyone can find their shadow, if you need someone to talk to reach out to
So I posted this at 1030 this morning, and then I posted it to Facebook. Now it is no longer on WordPress and it can not be found on Facebook. I think the forces are out for people not to read this one.
As with humans, the birds keep repeating history instead of learning from it. Catch up on their history with the links below.
Little Culver, Colorado. That’s where I am from. It’s a Mayberry type of town, one main street, two lights, the old school that was there before they built the new one in Big Culver, that’s now a bed and breakfast, a small cafe that my parents own and one gas station. We are exactly a half mile from Big Culver, which is exactly one mile high from the rest of the world. We are approximately one hour and twenty minutes from Denver. At least we are now, but we weren’t always. It used to take almost four hours until in 1970, the year I was born, Culver Pass Tunnel was made. They blew up part of the mountain and made a tunnel that was a smidge over a quarter mile long. By doing that, the trip to Denver became a lot less time-consuming.
We are on the west side of Culver Peak. The first major peak as you enter the Rocky Mountains from the plains. If you go east from Little Culver and go up the mountain to Big Culver, you will find the best world-class ski resort in Colorado. I believe that is why they made Culver Pass Tunnel. No one is going to drive four hours from Denver to get to it when they have so many other options. But now, book your reservations early because, during ski season, there will be no rooms available. If you go up the rest of the mountain east of Big Culver and cross over the peak, you would swear you could see Ohio. My dad once told me when he and mom were missing me, they would go up there and pretend Ohio wasn’t so far away. Once you get down from Culver Peak, it is almost all flat lands as far as you can see.
I moved away when I was eighteen to go to college to go to The Ohio State University. I am now forty-eight years old and this will be my fifth time back in the last thirty years. Life gets busy, school, job, wife, children, finances, etc. I can make a million excuses but if I really wanted to go back, I could have found a way.
Why do I find a need to write all this down and tell you? I don’t know. I think I am trying to get my mind right, get my thoughts out. I’m on Southwest Airlines flight 447 from Columbus, Ohio, where I currently reside with my wife and four daughters, to Denver Colorado. I stare out the window, thirty-five thousand feet above the ground but my mind is a million miles from this world.
Last night I got the call from my mom, dad had passed.
The only thing I could think to say was I thought he would live forever.
In about five minutes, what I am writing now will be in the future as we cross the central time zone. Another hour from that and the rest of what I write will be in the future as I keep losing time. I wish life was like that and I could go back a few hours, a few days, a few months to see my dad one more time but time, and life, doesn’t work like that.
My dad is, was a truck driver. Mostly he would drive from Denver to Kansas City and back. Sometimes he would go from Denver to Salt Lake City Utah. Usually out and backs so he was home often. My mom is the best cook in the world. She owns the Little Culver Diner. It seemed like almost everyone from Big Culver would come down the mountain to order my mom’s famous home-cooked meals. On days when my dad was gone, I would help mom set up the diner in the mornings, she would make me a ham and cheese omelet and then I would catch the bus up to Big Culver to go to school. After school, the bus would take me back home and I would help mom out in the diner as well. I believe I am a fine cook myself but I do not compare to my mom. On days when my dad was home, he was an avid runner. He said it helped clear his mind and free his soul.
I remember the first time he let me go down from Little Culver to the Culver Pass Tunnel. I was ten years old and my dad let me ride my bike with him. For a ten-year-old to look down a half mile road that was all downhill and curves, it was quite intimidating. I rode the brakes all the way down, I think I used all the rubber off the brakes that day. My dad was patient with me. We finally arrived at the pass and it was scary as well. Imagine a quarter mile tunnel that had very few lights. Parts of it, I could not see my dad ten feet in front of me. He wanted me to ride in front so he could watch me but I was having no part of that. After we appeared on the other side of the tunnel, I was awestruck from the view. Amazingly, the road was mostly flat but to either side of us, it looked like you could fall off the face of the earth. We would go anywhere from one and a half miles to three and a half miles before we would turn around and head back home. I had to walk my bike up the half mile back home.
As I grew and got older, I started to run with him. I ran on days when he wasn’t home so I could get stronger and faster and he wouldn’t have to slow down and wait on me. There were days when he wanted to run by himself and I was heartbroken. I didn’t understand the need for him to be alone. Of course, now that I am older and a parent, I totally understand. Days when I run are the only time of the day I am alone with just me and my thoughts. Running is my sanity. Looking back, I am actually surprised he let me go with him as much as he did. Being stuck in a truck all day, that was his time and he let me share that with him. That’s the kind of man he is, was.
