another shot for me to understand it right

after the service we came back to the farm, just like we did after dad's service, and we had a party, and we got happy and we told stories and of course, we got out the super deluxe slip-and-slide we jimmy rigged together for maximum length and width, and just enough slope. needless to say it was a celebration and not a mourning event, good long peace was a long time comin'. I have begun to learn what a sacred thing family is.

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my talk with pop today, june 3rd

He was foolin’ with his two teeth and commented on how he thought he’d had all his teeth abstracted already, but it seems like he still has two. He said he thought he was gonna make it out of here with them but now he thinks they might have to be abstracted. He knew they were cutting the hay before I did somehow, and he is beginning to show that he is aware of what’s in the room even beyond what it appears he can see. He knew the wire was wrapped around the lamp and he knew when his glass of water wasn’t sitting on the bedside table anymore. He told me “we really like those two ladies you boy’s brought around.” I told him thanks for teaching us to count our blessings, and he said “I’ve got too many blessings to count one by one.” I told him he was a lucky man, that we’re all lucky men, thanks to him, and he said “thanks to the good lord.” "We've had a real intresting life out here." "Good to let it run its course." I told him there was a frog in the fountain behind him and he said it must be a bullfrog and I said it is, and it’s huge, and I showed him how big it was with my hands and he smiled. Lots of smiling today. He got really excited they were cutting the hay, I told him there was a great breeze that kept the hay dancing and tried to give him some visuals so he could imagine sitting on the front porch. He kept saying he hoped he’d get to see them finish bailing tomorrow. He asked if there was something we could do about his sore throat, Cassandra gave him his pills and told him they were for his throat and he said oh good, swallowed them, then said he thought that would really help. I have to give it to Cassandra on that one, mental states are everything. When I told him I was going to go sit out on the porch and watch them cut hay with grandma he got the biggest smile I've seen in years and said louder than anything I've heard in a long time “maybe I’ll go get my mowing machine and come down there and help ya!” it was so great.
The revelation came yesterday following the night where Lloyd asked me how I was going to relate to people since I had led such a “rich” life. He said it and then appended it with “rich experience.” I explained that I understood those worries, worried about them a lot, but can only use myself as an example. I can’t tell anyone how to make their life better and more meaningful, but I can show them how I went about beginning to do so in my own, and perhaps some universal tools or attitudes or something can come out of it. I will explain myself with myself, what else do i have? what else does anyone have? I admit in some ways i am using the world around me and those around me and all that is not me, or appears to be not me, to dynamical come to an awareness of what is me, and then, i suspect, see that in the purest of hearts me and not me are made up of One.
Maybe the revelation though is that if there is anything I can help people with, based on experience, it’s how to deal with death and find meaning in it and celebrate life instead of worry about things you can’t control and can’t ever really know for sure about. This is where faith comes in and it’s up to you to keep your well of faith full. There’s a thin line beyond which you really cannot fake, find that line and then cross it on faith toward the good. It hit me when bobby lowe and his wife were there and I saw a pamphlet called “the dying experience.” This is what I can share and give to people, i think, i think i have a feeling, i think this is what the universe has been waiting for me to figure out. That reminds me of “the prayer path” bobby’s wife described they do at their church. This would be a good thing to set up on the farm with gongs. The unfolding of a revelation. Is it possible to package up something like that? I should try to think concrete and go from there. Find one overarching nugget of truth to share and then plan a path of reflection that will bring one there. Maybe me first. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for my blessings.