Saturday, August 29, 2015

Grandma's Porch

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In just a few days’ time, I will have completed my 49th year on planet Earth in our Milky-way Galaxy and will enter into the cycle of endeavoring to complete my 50th year.  I’m quite thoughtful this time of year for many reasons and I’ll share something personal with you that I’ve shared near every year for the past 22.  My father died on September 14, 1993 just 15 days after his 48th birthday.  When I had completed my 48th year last year, it struck me with a great well of sadness that I would see more here in this beautiful world than my father had the opportunity to do.  Once again my soul is gripped with this thought and the emotion that comes so strongly with it.  Tomorrow would have been his 70th Birthday. 



It is in tribute to my Father and his Birthday that I reflect here this morning.  I’m grateful that I knew him even for the short time I did.  The 22nd anniversary of his departure from this plane approaches.  I’ve done somethings he’d have been so proud of.  So many moons ago, on a day like today or a night like the last, we’d have sat on Grandma’s porch and gazed at the stars contemplating the myriad theories and philosophies of existence, shooting stars, consciousness and our origins.  These are things I dearly love today.  From those very precious conversations while my mind was still so young and impressionable was born a true love of philosophy and a dire need for Marianna’s Trench deep conversation and continuous learning just to really feel goodness and true beauty of life.



There was nothing superficial about my father.  He was authentic, so very sensitive on the inside and so very strong on the outside.  He was so wise in so many unbelievable things that I was always awestruck by the thoughts in his head that he readily shared with me.  Life kept me so very busy in his last years that I never got the chance to tell him how much those conversations on Grandma’s porch meant to me.  I never got to tell him how much I loved his philosophical conversations.  He’ll never know that he was the impetus that drove me to continuously seek knowledge and understanding of everything under this sun.  Not that I know it all now for the further I go, surely I have discovered I know nothing but the fact that there is so much I have yet to learn.  But even that is a wondrous gift.  For in that mere understanding I realize I still have time to seek and to learn and to dig deeper into the heart of our existence and to share what I have learned as he so willingly and lovingly shared with me.



And all of this was born from so many childhood conversations when most thought I was too little or too young to understand.  At six years old we sat there on Grandma’s porch and watched the stars and talked about physics and astronomy.  At 9 years old we sat there and talked on hot summer nights about anything and everything in life.  At 12 years old we’d sit on the porch and watch the pouring rain, hear the thunder boom and roar and watching the lightning crackle across the sky with the excitement of two children where only one stood.  At 21 years of age, we’d share a beer and talk about the philosophy of anything and everything – from human behavior, to ancient astronauts, to astronomy and the many theories of our human origins.  I'd later in life learn that so many learned scholars know what my father intuitively knew.  My father never went to college.  He seemed to intuitively know everything about everything and I was so blessed to be his daughter.



In tribute I’d like to share some words just for him whether he sees them or not, I do know that he’ll feel them some how.  So, Dad, where ever it is that you are now – although my heart still aches from missing you and I can hardly see the screen on my computer to type this annual share in tribute to your life and to my complete gratitude that you existed for the short time you did here, I just want to thank you for the time that you spent here with me on Earth.  I just want you to know that I loved you above all else and that I deeply appreciate how difficult your life was but want to honor you for completing the toughest job of raising not one but two head strong kids pretty much on your own in the crazy world that we lived in.  You did a really great job and you were a really great dad.  You were and will always be like Superman to me (dad did love those comics).  Thank you Dad.  I love you and Happy Birthday.

 
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© 2015 Dr. J.L. Harter aka Jaie Hart (photo:  Google images edited by me)

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