6 posts tagged “life”
He has a passion that sparks my own
Here's an observation. Well, more of a rant from a very pissed-off virgin...
Every man wants to be a woman's first - the one unforgettable standard by which others after him are measured...provided that he does his job correctly, of course.
Some days it seems that every man wants to be your first in the sack, but unwilling to sacrifice himself to protect you from the heartbreaking aftermath of the morning after -which can be likened to the horror found after a hit-and-run on a dangerous mountain curve - when you awaken to find his side of the bed empty.
So tell me something, guys:
Why is it that there's so much stress on a man to be sexually active and on a woman to be sexually pure? And for the girls who do remain true to this double standard, why does there seem to be either a line of guys (different personalities, a mixture of intentions) ready to change that or a flurry of them running away for outright fear of an attachment they have no intention of fulfilling? Some say these are the girls you save for when you're finally ready to settle down after sowing your wild oats. Others attribute it to being inexperienced and prefer girls with experience. These things are understandable, even valid in some cases.
What I don't think I fully understand are the guys that show an interest, are genuinely intrigued, and draw closer, raising a girl's hopes before dashing them to the ground, not knowing they had been shattered many times before. Yet she continues to smile with a very genuine understanding and respect as the war rages on the inside. For someone who has waited on that someone special all of their lives, this is so hard to take, and they feel that they can only take so much before they give up altogether. It hurts, it frustrates, and it confuses because the thought comes to their minds - What's wrong with me? Did I not do or say the right thing? What more could I have done? With this thought they withdraw back into their shells, leaving the next person with the task of drawing them back out again.
I guess my question now is this: how many times can this keep happening before I say "No more...I'm done"?
So, not long ago I wrote about the still-shocking passing of music icon Michael Jackson, who died of a cardiac arrest at the age of fifty. I listened to his music fervently for days (and still doing it, in fact). In doing this I found that his heart, his soul, his pleasure and pain - in short, his very essence - lives in the music. From the driving bass line of "Beat It" to the back-to-basics soul stylings of "Butterflies," from living life "Off The Wall" to starting with the "Man In The Mirror," his art was intertwined with his life. To listen to the songs, one could not feel that this man was now gone.
Today, after responding to a recent post regarding my father's passing in March of 2008, I looked over all my entries from months past. And I deleted them all, save one (as you may notice).
This used to be an insignificant date, an ordinary variant day of the year where, unless some grand event was planned, held nothing special in store.
It's a day that, as of 9:10pm CST that evening, holds a new reason now to make it significant.
That night, my dad's condition had grown worse upon the discovery of an aneurysm on his heart. He had had a heart attack in the summer of 2004 and had a rollercoaster of a recovery. Sometimes he was doing better and was active, but later came to a constant point where even a trip up a flight of stairs meant a trip to the hospital. He couldn't hold food down, fluid backed up in his lungs to where he needed an oxygen tank to keep him breathing.
Meeting him, you could never tell that just four years earlier, this man was about to take the music industry by storm. He's a talented percussionist with deep roots in gospel and jazz. He's quite possibly one of the greatest musicians you've never heard of. He's played with the likes of Al Jarreau and Enrique Iglesias, and had produced shows of his own, highlighting local and well-known recording artists alike.
After his attack in June of 2004, he pushed himself to keep going so that his work would continue. If anyone has ever had an ailing parent or loved one to look after, you know the pain and uncertainty of watching them suffer and wanting to take it away from them even as they fight it themselves.
On March 29th 2008, after 12am CST, doctors at Northwestern Medical in Chicago found the aneurysm was out of control and couldn't be controlled. Several hours later, Cleveland Clinic arranged for a life support helicopter to pick up my dad at 1am CST on March 30th, 2008 with every confidence that they could help him. Which gave my dad and the family hope, and so Dad spent that entire day in a state which the doctors had sedated for fear of agitating the delicate condition of his heart. After the morphine drip was removed, Dad was, for once, his awake, animated, and funny self, to the delight of his mother, his siblings, his goddaughter, his son, and his best friend - my mother.
Work prevented me from sharing that day with everyone, but later that night as the helicopter was set to pick him up, I promised him over the phone that I would find a way to see him soon and that I loved him.
Like everyone else, I had no idea that I'd never see him again.
On March 29th 2008, at 9:10pm CST, my dad passed away, having been picked up by God's helicopter to be brought home.
If I could only describe how painful it is to write this...
Really, there is no way to put it into proper words. All I know now is that I miss him.
