Pretty Shit Morning#

I was going to sit down and start writing this post.

I woke up early, packed my laptop, grabbed all my work stuff, and thought I would get to sit at a Starbucks and write for like… 45 minutes. Hop in my car, drive to the customer site, boom-bam engineer stuff, then come home.

Life had a different idea.

I get a call from my brother about 2 hours into my drive (that was already only supposed to be like an hour and a half at most) and he says my grandpa fell and the paramedics are transporting him to the hospital “as per policy with the elderly.”

Alright. Fair enough.

I pull my belt tight and got to work. Got my field engineer set up for our staging. Excused myself to head home to handle this family emergency and all that.

Someone that means the world to me got into a car accident.

Seriously? Life, come on.

I mean…

  1. 1.5 hour drive? Nah, 3 hours almost.
  2. Grandpa to the hospital.
  3. Super important person gets in an accident.

We Cubans have a saying:

Cuando el mal es de cagar, no valen guayabas verdes.

It means “when the ill you’ve got is the shits, green guavas don’t mean much.” Our own little version of “when it rains, it pours” meets “when life gives you lemons”.

Except it’s raining, you’re up shit creek without a paddle, and life is trying to hand you lemons when you really just need a Yamaha boat engine on that tiny little toddler-sized boat you’re on.

Now, that’s a loaded ass intro, yeah?

Let’s get to the carne-con-papas (meat-and-potatoes).

The Ultimate Burden of Responsibility#

Responsibility.

It’s a word many of us know but you don’t really understand until life actually hands you some responsibilities.

I cannot speak for everyone’s specific cases but I will speak to mine.

I am a first-generation eldest son in a Cuban family.

As a result, I inherited probably a billion responsibilities that nobody asked if I wanted. Yet, I have always happily taken them on because well… I don’t know.

They’re a part of who I am? They make me feel useful?

I don’t know. I don’t understand?

Whatever the case, I’ve got these responsibilities.

I turned 31 this year and between my 26 year old brother and I we basically took over all the family expenses and responsibilities from our parents.

My mother was a nail tech since she was 12 years old in Cuba.

My father has worked every shitty job you can imagine starting with being the youngest boy in a farming family so basically do half a day of school and skip the rest to work the farm. Then he became a leather tanner in a factory. Then a butcher for a government run operation in Cuba. Then got into construction.

Then they both came to the United States and put in amounts of work no human body should have to endure to make a living.

So, my brother and I decided to take over the responsibilities and retire them early; preserve whatever health and function they have remaining.

I couldn’t explain why but I can’t see myself not doing this for them. They’ve loved me with everything they have and raised me the best they understood how in a new country so different from theirs.

So my life plays out in some weird way where I’m balancing a chronic illness, work, family, and all this other stuff.

Conference Call with Life and the Future#

As you get older, so do the people that matter to you.

All the while your future comes calling and asking what your plan is.

Boom, now you’re on a conference call with Life and your Future.

Most of the time this feels like you’re sitting there with your boss and HR and you’re being put on a fucking existential performance improvement plan (PIP!!! EPIP???).

Faced with familial mortality and your uncertain future, because the world is so scary right now, just makes it so hard because you’re getting squeezed from both sides and nobody is asking if you can breathe.

I guess if I had to answer the Future, I would ask it to allow me to honor those I love. One day I will lose them all and I want to honor their legacies and the love they so selflessly always gave me.

I want to take all that love and shine like the most beautiful star in the middle of this dark world and give people hope that maybe… Just maybe… It’s not all so bad.

If I had to ask Life for something… I’d beg it on my knees to give me every second it can spare with those I love.

In certain ways, It has done just that recently. I can be selfish though, right? Just a little? Ask for more? Beg for more?

Could I give an hour of my own life to have an hour more with them?

I would even if I had like… 27.37 hours left. 26.37 is neither here nor there.

Love Conquers All#

Love conquers all.

Somebody said that.

They left out like 50 parts though. Probably more. I’m still discovering old dollar bills and lost buttons under that couch.

Love is this fickle thing because it’s so fragile yet so invincible. It all depends how you choose to exercise it.

The late Dr. Stephen Covey mentioned in his seminal work, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, that Love is a verb.

Love is an action. A choice. A continuous exercise.

We can give it conditionally or choose to bear our hearts without rhyme or reason, casting our Light into the world.

An Imperfect God#

God is imperfect.

Yes. I said it.

Capital-G-Big-Dog-The-Boss is imperfect.

According to Abrahamic tradition, we are, allegedly, created in God’s image.

Man, lemme tell you, we are imperfect as FUCK.

Logically speaking, that means God is also imperfect.

I wrestled with that one for a while.

Why?

Why make your creation imperfect?

Then it dawned on me.

Imperfection is what gives us room to be free.

Something that is perfect has no margins, no tolerances, no room for error. Perfection means slavery to a singular, unyielding path.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola went ham in 1486 when he published his “Oration on the Dignity of Man”.

The rough summary is this:

God created the universe. Then he created angels and beasts to inhabit all the stations from the heavenly spheres down to the earthen planes. Yet, he felt unsatisfied that no creature could quite grasp the vast accomplishment of his creation.

Thus was born man.

However, God realized he had no station he could rightfully give man. The choice, after consideration, was to allow man the freedom to choose their station.

Elevate yourself to the heavens like angels.

Lower yourself into the dirt like a beast.

The choice is yours.

As a result, well, look at what we’ve done.

We’ve done spectacular things.

We’ve done horrendous things.

Yet… We always have the choice to grow. To live. To expand. To become.

Oh, this wonderful life…#

So, we can’t change that Life moves and stops for no one, for Time is unyielding and bears no favorites.

The Future comes fast, for it too is in love with Time, and Time is unyielding and bears no favorites.

So I accept them… This Life. This Future.

I know I will laugh.

I know I will cry.

I know I will love.

I know I will be hurt.

I know people I love will pass.

I know.

…

I hold no ill will against Life or the Future.

For if even God is imperfect, then how can Life and the Future be perfect?

Between laughter and tears, is the space in which we find our freedom and we live.

If we strive to be better every day.

If we strive to right our wrongs.

If we strive to love with everything we are.

Then we can let Time carry us along, and fear not where it takes us.

Signed,

Mourner