Time Travel

Time, time tells a story, time identifies truth, and time is transcendent. As I enter the last year of my fifties in less than a month, (I will be sixty in 2025, Lord willing), I have become a constant time traveler, especially when Facebook gives me those "see your memories" popups. Those reminders are both inspiring and, sometimes, quite sad as I see people's comments on my posts that are no longer alive. Some are comments and likes from my friend Lou, comments from my cousin Christine, elderly friends from church, and people I have known my whole life, all of them are gone; they have transcended into eternity. Each July the memory of the day Johnny came home from Afghanistan pops up with the airport pick of everyone smiling and holding signs, in that picture three people are now gone; my dad, Lou and Mitchell. Now today, yet another dear soul, Suzanne, a sister in the Lord who was just too young, has passed on into eternity.

Some memories that pop up put a huge smile on my face. Recently, it was a video from ten years ago with Jenna and Joshy riding their bikes at Starkey. Then there are the videos of elementary school graduation, birthdays, Christmas, and all those posts from my final years as a DJ for weddings. 

Stirring the Pot

The sudden death of my friend Lou brought some issues to the surface, so since last year I have been going to the Vet Center in New Port Richey (Veterans) and joined a small support group. It is anonymous; from that group the one thing I have been working on is self-care; physical and emotional well-being are so important, I've not cared for myself, it seems I have spent so much time learning spiritual truths from the Bible that I have neglected the areas I should have been doing all along. I don't know too many pastors who have served so issues facing veterans are rarely in Sunday sermons. Churches segment church goers by age, marital status and gender. I've never found a veterans group at church, I'm sure they exist somewhere. The one thing I have missed is the brotherhood of fellow veterans who know; they know and understand. The love and acceptance of each other are far more impactful than you might think. All my close non-veteran friends are mindful of veterans, their sacrifice and service. when I first started going to the group I  did not feel at all like I fit in with the guys. I am not a veteran of OEF; I am a Cold War-era veteran, so there is that. However, no one seems to care about that, at the end of the day, we share the same story of how and why we joined up, of friends we lost along the way, lessons learned, far away places visited, and the most important of them all, the brotherhood of those who serve and our mutual disdain for people in swivel chairs deciding our fate. I have been blessed because 

I served with my sister Kathy in the Navy Reserve, she is my shipmate. Kathy, my late brother Bobby, and I, all went to Navy boot camp in RTC Orlando. each of us at one time marched on the same grinder, ate at the same chow hall, swam in the same pool, attended the same classrooms, and did training on the Blue Jacket mock ship. However, this group, hearing their stories has helped me understanding mine, it has adjusted my view and brought things into focus I haven't thought about in decades or maybe never thought about.  

Brother, Sister, Me

Fast forward to today, when I recently visited where Kathy and I worked at Navsecgru on York Street in Tampa, there was only a parking lot and no evidence of the two-story building with the antennas on it. The same thing happened in my childhood home in Weedsport, New York. Imagine my surprise when we drove up to Weedsport Sennett Road and the barns and silo were gone from our farm. The physical world has changed; some things are better, and others are decaying, rusting out. I travel from here to Colorado through many states to visit my oldest son; as we move through America, we see abandoned buildings and houses with broken windows, homes and businesses that one time flourished with life and light, only now to be darkened remnants of a time and place left behind.

Transcendent Scenes 

Even when we look in the mirror, who is that balding white-haired man with the dad bod? Time is moving; I still remember conversations with people who are gone, my last words to my late brother on this birthday, "I love you, Bobby. I love you too..." There is my last conversation on the phone with Lou, just six days before he passed away, making plans to purchase matching camouflaged underwear to one-up our great friend Mo, who was fanatical about everything he had being camo. Think about that, an amazing friend, our last conversation laughing so hard about how we wanted to play a joke on Mo at our next men's camping trip. Walking Wende home from school during high school, Ronnie, my boss at the restaurant, I can still see his grin when I made him laugh at something dumb I did; then there is my mom. I still see her twenty-five years later. All these scenes I see and hear in my soul, none can I prove even existed, if not for my soul memories. I have been blessed to know them, and I am acutely aware of that; those moments with those we care about, those transcendent moments, those are immutable and unmeasurable.