A LETTER TO MY SISTER COLLEEN

It was OK. Not stellar; passable 

I didn’t realize I was writing eulogies ❤️🙄

In my view , you have done well. Are doing well. Everyone isn’t a cookie cutter product. You are sensitive, highly aware & intelligent...and truly caring of those who have had fewer opportunities. You expend your time, in an appreciable degree, helping others along, nudging them to read, inquire, think. You are extremely self aware. That alone is a rare trait. This is huge. You cannot and will not cure the worlds ills, singlehanded. You do, however, what you can, with your time and spirit. You are a ‘net contributor’ to the forward success of the world around you. 

You are loyal, gentle, deeply tuned in and cause no harm. Like me, you have not lived the life of a saint or nun...and yet now, in this time of life, ALL OF OUR EXPERIENCES now make up a positive whole, on the balance of a lifetime. 

I appreciate your comments about the passage of my life. Long ago, before I was 10 or 11, I made up my mind to be a traveler and an adventurer and a person who looked hard for the magnificent, the unusual, to ‘other side of the mountain’ — disregard the ordinary ‘norms’— working midnights as a policeman in a major city. Risking my life and safety a thousand times, for people I didn’t know and would never see again. Obtaining a doctoral level education with my own energy and effort. Trying criminal cases, high stakes, where innocent lives hung in the balance. None of it for accolades. Rather, for the pure adventure and personal attainment. I wanted to perform the dance for myself. I was, and am, my own best, imaginary friend.

I consequently lived my life,  —not focused on making money or acquiring power over others, but on adventure. 

And so, quite intentionally— even in volunteering for the USMC / Vietnam. I instigated the PLAN. I traveled all over the continent & world (like you) and did almost everything that humans can do. Guam. Okinawa. Philippines, Laos, UK, EU, AK, HI, and hundreds of trips taking depositions, NY, NC, TX, MS, IN, —indeed, every single state (except VT), riding motorcycles, camping, watching, listening, observing, digesting. 

I’m good with it - I wish I had been kinder. I wish I had been more judicious about how I expended my life-force time & treasure. I wish I had been a better father, brother & husband. But largely—at least some aggregate view, I’m ok with it. I did some sporadic, and large, good things— some even requiring personal courage, at high personal risk. I’m proud of those times— but not for aggrandizement in the eyes of others. I don’t care what anyone thinks.  I also, at times, intentionally behaved badly and took the cowards way sporadically. I regret those instances where I made a choice to be an asshole. Or worse...to be dishonest or unethical. I feel Dad & Mom watching me, in those instances.