I miss....

Recently, I've been riddled with a large sense of what can only be described as grief. I get this way sometimes. It probably means I'm about to really get hot and heavy into some writing project. Usually, just before I start "writing again" I suffer with a horrible bout of depression. This is more than just a "funk" though it can start out this way. Often times it manifests into something quite larger and much more (for lack of a better word) sinister.

This particular bout with depression has been all about the things/people/special someones I miss. Perhaps they've been gone from my life for a while. Perhaps not. The point is that there have been a number of people on my mind recently and I finally decided the only way I'm going to shake it is to blog about it.

March 1st marks six months since Amelia was hit by a car. I can honestly say I haven't felt this kind of grief over the loss of what some would call a "pet" since my mother's English Bulldog, Maggie, died. Amelia had so much personality. I'm an animal lover. I love dogs, adore cats. There was something special about her. Some mysterious connection that brought meaning into our lives. Her loss sent shockwaves through the small microcosm that is my family. Even today, the house has an emptiness that no doubt is traced to Amelia's absence. I'm here, Kelly's here. My son is here. J.J, Buddy and Sassy are here. We're all here and we love one another. But we're not complete. One of our own is gone and six months after the fact it's just as devastating as it was the day it happened.

My son and I were in Longview recently. We stopped by Petco because they have pets available for adoption every other weekend. We like to look -- have always enjoyed petting them -- though we have always known our home is too small to welcome another family member into its walls.

Even writing that, it feels so silly. We have a vacancy, that's for sure. No animal has come to live with us since Amelia's death. So to say our home is too small is, I guess you could say, an outright lie. But is it really? They say home is where the heart is and I know I speak for all of us when I say our hearts are still clinging to Amelia. She's not here but she's as much a member of the family as Maggie still is to me. (Mom handled her grief slightly different however. When Maggie died, she bought another English Bulldog, Abby. Eventually, she purchased Bo as well. Neither has been able to quell the grief she still feels some 6 years after Maggie's death.) At some point I have to learn to let another one be that special to me. As much as I love the Buddy Bear, he's not Amelia. For all their quirks and funny moments, neither J.J. nor Sassy have her affectionate demeanor or sense of empathy mixed with her conditional feline adoration. I miss you, Amelia. And I'm quite sure I always will.

I know it's weird to say but I've been thinking back to 1993 and 1995 when my Uncle Bill and grandfather died. Uncle Bill's passing was so sudden. He was ripped from the world unexpectedly, shortly after heart surgery that had left him quite incapacitated. One day he was there -- though admittedly different than he'd been prior to surgery. He was THERE and that was what mattered. The next moment, he was gone. With my grandfather, it was long and drawn out. He had a heart attack and lingered for months, slowly wasting away to a shell of his former self. Helplessly, I watched as my namesake lost his will to live, eventually dying both literally and figuratively of a broken heart.

Neither man bore witness to the day I wed my first wife. Mercifully, both men were spared having to comfort me the day that marriage ended under such horrid circumstances. They haven't been there to see the trials, tragedies and triumphs that have shaped my life over the past decade plus. I wonder if I would have become a different kind of man under the watchful eye of Uncle Bill and my grandfather. With Uncle Bill's unshakeable positive attitude, indelible courage and boundless faith, would I have walked the path of lesser resistence that I occasionally took in life? If exposed to my grandfather's sense of adventure and his propensity to laugh at risks, would my fears have been more easily surmounted? I don't know, but I know that I carry them with me as much as I can. Many christians ask "what would jesus do?" in certain situations, and admittedly I ask that as well. However, I often times find myself asking what these other great "missing" influences in my life would do. And if I listen hard enough, sometimes I think I can hear the answer.

I also miss my friend Tara. I don't know why, but she has been on my mind quite frequently as of late. She came to me several months ago with a problem she felt was in need of my assistance. The problem is that Tara forgot who she was asking when she asked for advice. I love Tara to death. She will always own a piece of my heart. Some part of me will always belong to that very dear friend. But at the end of the day, I am who I am and I can't change that. Tara was depressed. What she wanted, I think, was for me to say what she wanted to hear. She wanted to play both sides of the conversation. She essentially wanted to be the script writer of how the little drama was to play out.

"Okay I'm going to tell you I have this problem and you are going to reply thusly..."

I'm not able to do that. When somebody comes to me with advice, I have to give them advice I feel they need to hear. I try to temper it with love. After all, any advice I GIVE is out of love. Out of genuine concern. I admit ignorance when it applies. I admit lack of experience when it exists. I advise people quite openly to consider my opinion as what it is. One person's thoughts, carrying no more or less weight than any other person you might ask.

Tara chose to see judgement where none existed. In the end, I couldn't stop her exit from my life. I couldn't because I chose not to compromise who I was. To do so would have meant our friendship would've been built on a lie from that point on and I love and care for my friends too much to have our relationships built on a lie.

And so it is I "watched" as one of my dear friends walked out of my life. Is it forever? I suppose we can never be sure. Many have walked away only to come back days later. Several have walked away only to realize, months down the road, how valuable my friendship can be. Occasionally years go by and people go through some horrible event or some profound moment and realize that I am not there serving whatever purpose it was I served in their life.

And occasionally they walk away for good...Whether or not they miss me, I can not say.

What I can say is that each person (pet or human) that has left my life has taken with them a piece of my heart that I can never replace. Often, I find myself wondering if this is what killed my grandfather. Earlier, I said he died of a broken heart. Maybe he didn't Maybe he died because people who left his life took with them small chunks of his heart and he only expired when the last piece proved too weak to do the work of all the missing pieces. Perhaps it is grief that killed my grandfather. Perhaps even the grief that his grandson and namesake did not visit him even once during his last 2 weeks on earth.

Want to hear the weirdest part? I've been missing people that are in my life. Missing people I "talk to" on myspace or e-mail or even on the telephone but haven't seen in a month of sundays. The more I think about loss or the more I contemplate time and how it gets away from me, the more I realize how important it is to remind those who have chosen to continue life's journey with me how very much I love and appreciate them.

You never know...

It's so very true. You never know what tomorrow will bring. It may bring the death of your best four-legged friend. It may bring the phone call that your favorite Uncle was found dead at the corner. Or it may bring a relationship-severing fight with one of your very best friends.
Tomorrow may bring your own death in a car wreck. Tomorrow may see your best friend killed on the battlefield of Iraq. Tomorrow may mean your mother is shot during a botched bank robbery.

None of us are guaranteed tomorrow and for that reason, I really want to encourage everyone to live your life to the fullest. Life's too short to spend it pissed off. Love the ones you should. And TELL them you love them. But don't just tell them.... SHOW them. Because once they're gone, life doesn't give many second chances to say goodbye.

Till next time this blog is brought to you by the manic letters W, E and H and by the depressive number 2.

SNURP!!!

I'm one of those people about which you are going to have a strong opinion. You're either going to love me or you're going to hate me, plain and simple. Now that opinion might change daily, but generally you're either GOING to love me or you're GOING to hate me. Okay so there may be days that you're just kinda "ehhh..." about me, but as a general rule, those that love me, do so very deeply. Likewise, those whose passions burn with fury and rage do so at very high temperatures. Why is this important? Well, because it dictates who reads and ultimately enjoys my randomness.

I am who I am and I've never been one to make apologies for that. Love me or hate me but you better make damn sure you feel something, otherwise I'll see to it that you do!
I'm the type of guy who actually tries to lick his elbow eventhough the message board forward clearly states you can not. (By the way, I can not lick my own elbow.)

I'm also the type of guy who often says the first thing that comes to his mind... and the weirder it is, the better. This is the major reason people either love me or hate me. I'm totally random. I'm just as prone to shout "I've got a lime!" in the middle of a library as I am to fall out of my wheelchair in the middle of the Longview Mall and fake a seizure just to get attention. I'm as likely to sit and ponder who invented the little plastic thing on the end of shoestrings as I am to ponder what would happen if a person managed to sneeze and burp at the same time.
That last one has actually been a quandry for some time, actually. I call it the Snurp Principle. A burp/sneeze attempting to exit your body at the same time. Of course, I have also pondered what would happen if a person hiccuped and sneezed at the same time but we're not talking about the sniccup. For the moment at least, we're talking about the SNURP.

Why are we talking about the snurp? Mostly because I finally answered the question that has been bothering me since I was early in my teenage years. What happens when you sneeze and burp at the same time? Well, to find out, the first thing you need to do is eat something like chili. Something guaranteed to make you burp. It also helps if you're a part of a family that has been passing around the flu bug and other "sniffly" germs for weeks now. (Taking notes I hope!)
The next part of this plan may or may not be optional. To be honest, I'm not sure. But it happened to me when I was laying on the floor playing UNO with my son and his mother. Somewhere in the middle of our third and final game (which lasted nearly 2 hours by itself... nothing like a marathon UNO game to really make One's back tired!) I rolled onto my side to kind of stretch my tired back muscles. About that time I got a major tickle in my nose... Ahhhh here it comes! I was going to sneeze! There was no time to stop it!

Oddly, the motion of rolling from my stomach onto my side (and nearly on to my back if I'm being totally accurate) had released some sort of trapped gas bubble up into my esophagus. (And yes, for the record I'm glad the gas was released northward instead of southward!)
So, long story short, the Snurp Principle was solved in a moment of shock and awe! I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or my son but I'm reasonably sure KELLY was the most repulsed.
So what happens when you burp and sneeze at the same time? Well, a whole lot really. First, it makes the sneeze actually feel less explosive. Second, it burns the holy dog mess out of your throat... but admittedly that could've just been the chili. But third, and perhaps most importantly, what I have learned is that snurps REAAAAAAAAAAALLY freak black tailless, half-cocker spanials/half (we think) beagles out of a sound sleep quicker than his food bowl being re-filled!

Well I guess I can scratch one random piece of useless knowledge off my "to be acquired" list. Now if I can just solve the SNICCUP PRINCIPLE I'll be set! Think I'll wait a little bit though. I don't think my body can handle another all night UNO party!

Till next time, this blog is brought to you by the gassy letters W, E and H and the still amused by the randomness of the number 2.

Well Welcome to Blogger/Blogspot, Eddie

Pleasure to meet you! The name's Edward Hancock II, but my friends call me Eddie. My enemies call me things I can't print in good conscience.
So what's the purpose behind starting this blog? Quite honestly I'm hoping to introduce the world to Alex Mendez.

Don't know who Alex Mendez is? Well that's probably because you haven't read my latest book, In The Breath of God! Once you read it, you'll know all too well who Alex Mendez is and you will NEVER forget him!

As for me, well I don't know if I'm forgettable or not. visit my myspace page and you're sure to be taken for quite an emotional ride! You'll come face to face with a man who has opinions and is not afraid to use them!

So check us out, won't you?

www.myspace.com/edwardhancockII

You'll be glad (or is that galled?) you did!