I tried to email this to the creator, but there didn’t seem to be any contact Email Address, so I posted it here.

See ya later!

Matt

Grief is the absence of influences. The stronger the influence, the stronger the grief. Sometimes grief can be crippling, other times it can be so slight people act as if they didn’t suffer at all.

Do I grieve to Granddad Ken? No. Not as much as anyone else his family.  I have but a few memories, so if you will bear with me as I share the memories of a man I never new.

…Sitting on an ugly carpet, Granddad turns on Wile Coyote, a show he approves of. He didn’t catch the roadrunner that time, but he came pretty close…

When I think of the relationship between grand-parent and grand-child, I think not of my own family, but the relationship between one of my friends.

His name is Chris. He is belongs in a family blessed(or cursed) to live about 10 miles from each other. They hey were close and not just by distance. They did things together. They saw each other each Sunday at Church They hunted rabbits and deer together, they went fishing. They were FAMILY.  They were a part of each other.

A relationship I envy.

…Proudly saying I knew how ti shuffle really well(by which I meant loudly), and a demonstrating. Humbly I watched Granddad Ken near silently shuffled, showing just how wrong I was…

The closest thing to raising me Granddad Ken did was to raise my dad. I’ve learned so much wisdom second hand, through stories. Rich and the headphones. Gambling back allowances. Shrimp fangs.

Legacy is a tougher word than grief. The lasting story.The man, the myth, the legend. So let it be with Caesar.

I know a lot of my dad’s stories, fewer of Granddad Ken.

Almost none of Granddad Carmel(My dad’s Grandad, I think)

None after that. Impressive Legacy for the Wilson Clan.

But it won’t stop there. Even if its only a collection of Memorials, its more then we had before. We set precedent for the future.

Thus on to Eternal Perfection

…Learning to cook from a meal of rice, meatballs, and a can of Cream of Mushroom soup…

 This may startle some people,even Granddad Ken. But I swear this great man taught me how to cook. Not to follow a recipe, like my mom failed to teach me(Hi Mom!), But the Bachelor-esque, Slapdash, Impromptu, What-do-I -have-on-hand style of seat-of-the-pants cooking. It’s really awesome. Most of my mission meals are done this way. All based on the on one meal with my granddad. 

Then we cut a watermelon into 2 inch rings that barely fit the plate and passed out the spoons.

Cheers.

…A stuffed dog, originally a Husky, but made into an Akita through the careful application of needle and thread. An Akita has this distinct curly tail that never uncurls…

I’ve been to three funerals, cried at to, grieved at one.

The first, worst and most recent, was a black woman by the name of Anita. I don’t know the full story.  That’s for Mom to tell. All  I know is I didn’t know here, and there was a lot of black people. I didn’t cry. I was just there.

The second was Nanny. I remember thinking  of this heart shaped pillow she had made. and realizing she could never make one again. I cried. And I felt better.

On a related note, I remember Dad being asked to pray over the get together afterward. Rick gave him a 56 word limit. After a very solemn prayer, my dad grinned and asked, “How’d I do?” Rick grinned back “You went over. 56.” And people laughed.

The third was not held in a church. It wasn’t even a human. Bernie the Lizard, six foot iguana extraordinaire.  Mites did it. He had no energy. He was my roommate for a while. i cried  a lot. He was great. We wrapped him in mom’s favorite blanket. Dad used his Ryobi with Rototiller attachment to dig a six foot long trench.  Iguana’s  have serious rigor mortis.

I cried for nights.

…A present given anyway, even though its not requested….

…A sword drawn from a cane completes the costume for Rick’s murder Mystery…

…Jokes in my email….

Thousands of things I can’t remember, all adding up to one succulent fact.

I’ll miss him.

The Book of Colors: The tale of blanche, a White in a world where none of his House exist, he fights for equal rights and the acceptance of him as house leader

Linear: Time move forward. Characters do not. This tale is the linear chronicles of a time traveler

Those are most of it

Medalon (Hythrun Chronicles, Book 1)
Jennifer Fallon

So I FINALLY found out this authors name and the exact title of this book. I had been trying to for years, but it just wasn’t working. But today? BAM!

Avaliable at Minot High Library(Which is where I read it….)

And the glow was pretty for that split second.

It took all of my after noon to get him to carbonize the thread so it would last.

I signed off the system exhausted, only to have a cheer raised as I entered the lounge. I had revolutionized electronics and brought about the faint whispering start of the digital age.

Yeah me. But man, was it exhausting! Several of the others sat me down and showed me a few new ways to influence people. Each person is slightly different. With the right technique, my next cases should be shorter.

(Happy Birthday to JARED!!!!)

      I saw him the night my father died. The Marauders were invading. They had come in the night, creeping past the distance watches, then overpowering the short guard and forcing their way into the castle. I was up in a flash. I held a rapier in one hand and was lighting torches with the one lit in my other. With the light so bright, it turned the advantage from the Marauders to our side, but not by enough. One by one, my people were taken down, and suddenly, I was cornered on top of a table in the middle of the room. I tried to keep my defense even, but they had encircled me. I thought the end was near but my father, my brave, brave, father, had broken away from his assailents and swung down. He grabbed me as he swooped past, all the way through the window on the East Wall.

    The first time was when I was young. My father took the neatly wrapped bundles that were my family, one by one. It took him most of the day. Finally, he picked me up. Mother followed behind as we made our way to the grove. The Watcher was already there, the graves dug, their little bodies lain. The Watcher said a few words about trees in bright sunshine. My mother wept, her sobs causing her entire body to shake uncontrollably. The Watcher took here in his arms and held her as my father carefully placed each tree in the fertile soil. My mother cried over each tree, speaking names I have long since forgotten. I do remember The Watcher, as he approached me, his voice husky with unvoiced emotion, refusing to let his tears flow. “Well, boy. You’re the last of the brood. Worry not and stay strong, I have the rest. I’ll keep them safe.”

   And again, soon after, when my mother had left and I slowly followed father, her long white shroud brushing the ground as we followed a path that has always seemed familiar, we met again.  I helped him clear the hole, and heard his words, though I could never recall them, no matter how I try or how often I attempt to replay the events of that day. I do recall something of the beautiful rest of fall and the rebirth of spring. I carefully patted down the warm, moist earth and her tree was lain.

    Time flew, as it tends to do, and I never spoke with him. I saw him, as I mentioned earlier, as a flash of brown and a glint of gray. He let me know he was watching. I never resented it and I believe, as a young lad, I took actually took pride in him, this sentinel of the woods, who “WOULD HAVE WORDS WITH ME”, as my father put it, whenever I misstepped my duties, watching over me. 

    I learned everything, from swordplay to sewing, from the movements of heavenly objects to the navigation of the swamp. I was a rambunctious little lad and loved to climb, inside or out, wood or stone, the higher the better.

    I remember my mother as a frail creature. The winter chill that killed of my siblings had left her drained. i was too young to remember much of them, but I can recall sitting at my mother’s feet as she read in a soft hoarse voice from the Tomb of History, an accounting of the inhabitants of Swamp Tower and of my family. I can also recall the day she died. Even now, her rooms in the castle seem dark and gray, cold and damp. So much so that even as a child, given free run of the grounds, I avoided them like the plague.

    Not that I did not remember her. My mother lived on, not in the drafty rooms that killed her and her children, but in the secret grove, where, hidden deep in the forest, in the deepest part of the swamp, my family lay, where each who passed on slept, ready for the day when they would awake again.

    My father showed me the path, telling me of the sacred nature of the trees, how each tree was planted in remembrance of the fallen and how the grove was to be kept hidden from the world. I spent many warm summer days there, frolicking in the grass.

    But never climbing. Funny, after so long, so much time spent reflecting on those golden days, I never knew how well I revered those trees.

    The way to the grove is tricky. The trail loops and turns, crossing over itself, leading up and down, around patches of bog and even, at one point, under a stone outcropping only to go over an incredibly similar one a few minutes later. Even experienced travelers can get lost. I’ve had to start over from the beginning several times.

    The path out is clearly marked. It’s easy to get out, though the trail is just as winding. The nature, however, of the woods makes it impossible to follow the trail out, in, and vice-versa.

    My father told me the path was as sacred as the grove. Following the curve of the path puts one in the right mind set to visit. I was to never attempt to find an easier path and was to never show anyone the way in. and I never tried, I knew the Watcher would find me out If I did.