“Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” William Jennings Bryan

Monday, November 9, 2015

November 9, 2015



“Its not me behind the wheel this time”.

It was 6 months ago yesterday that our family was at my father’s side when he let go of his world, his life, and his pain. During the days that he laid in the ICU and later in hospice, I went off by myself to an empty stairwell and listened to the song, “O’ City Lights”, by Gregory Alan Isakov. It is a song about dying, but it is also a song about learning to let go and understanding that there is so little we can control.

Whenever I start thinking of my dad, I turn to this song and listen to it again and again. There is nothing more I could have done, and there is nothing more I can do, no matter how many times I replay the lifetime of memories and of those final days ending with the moment he found peace. Yet, the emptiness grows more empty, coming on with stronger thoughts arguing that maybe I could have done something more. But,

I had no control.

I am still hopelessly wrestling with this reality, trying to get the wheel back, even though it was never in my hands all along.

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