Songs that are on your mind

My Name is Bocephus

@LoveyChar

This is a different kind of ghost story.

I know I make my father out to be a saint but in our eyes he was. He overcame all kinds of horrors and nightmares in his life. He didn't have parents to help him. They were gone when he was a child. He had brothers and they all attended a Catholic school in the deep south. They didn't have any lunch money so they did without. They had to sit while the other kids had a school lunch...while they watched and were very hungry. They developed rickets from malnutrition. They did not tell the school they didn't have any money for lunches.

They had side jobs and did any and everything to buy what they could. They slept under trees while sharing a roll of bologna and a loaf of bread. They were young kids working in canneries. This went on until they were all old enough to join the military. They all served and my father served in two branches of the military. The U.S. Army and Marines.

There's the Native American legacy on the maternal and paternal sides of my family. We simply haven't got the time to go into all of that. There's more hunger and starvation and reservations and every kind of multi-crap you can imagine. It's a total cluster.

My father used music like medicine. He was a singing bird. Always whistling and singing. He knew every song and lyric. I'm a chip off the ol' block and I make no apologies for that. In a nutshell without the whole bushel, let's break it on down to his final hours and wishes and words.

My mind wouldn't let me grasp that this was really the end. Here's the last 24 hours and we were in the hospital. At 9:00 pm, he wanted me to read him the story of Samson. A man of immense strength and a legendary warrior. His eyes were gouged out and he was forced to grind the grain until it was his time to die. Then his brute strength came back and he was a mighty warrior once again. Paw said, isn't that something. I said, yes, it really is.

Maw went home and I slept in a chair until 9 am. That's when they brought in the morphine and took everything out. I still didn't allow myself to register what was going on. He was still awake for most of the day and we held his hands. He died at 9 pm and we held him tight and kissed him goodbye. I said all of things I wanted to say. Maw left but I waited until they took him away.

He said, don't ever let any of your past define you. Don't let it ruin the rest of your life.

I know you've been through some really hard things, Char. Don't let it define you because you are awesome with immense strength. We all grind the grain as the years go slowly by. We have to make the best of what's left because we just never know, do we.