life is strife, and to survive it too long is the true “hell.”

© Publishing e v e r y / w o r d.

We're not even halfway through all the old stuff, yet the anthology – every / word, is coming together better than I expected, to be honest. In case you missed them, here’s a look at some early thoughts and poems written by my dad in the mid-sixties to early seventies, before I was born.

Honoring his memories that he no longer can, is a way for me to continue connecting with him.

To properly tell his story, I’ve got to go back.

As far back as I can.

There’s a part of the story that I want to be told from his perspective…

Every word he didn't publish helps to tell his (story).

💬 In this week's issue:

• Blaspheme - life is strife, and to survive it too long is the true “hell.”
• Merrily Along We Go - not seeing anything, but the things we wanted to see.
• When I was a hundred - When I was a hundred, I was fearless.

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no, everything is not ok

Dad and I spent some time walking together this afternoon. I guide him by holding his right arm with my left. When he feels my touch, he reflexively says,

thank you, buddy.

Then he tells me;

you’re a good man.

While he taps my chest.

His expression is evidence of his brain telling the rest of his body to divert all the stored chemical energy to the muscles in his face that make his lips pucker in the middle and curl up at the edges. Making him smile makes me smile, and it feels good, until one second later when it doesn’t. Everything is not as it was. He has no idea who I am. No idea who he is.

I chose to live in this moment.

A little over six years ago, I was stressing about the usual stuff someone in their early forties stresses about. Politics, the economy, things I couldn’t control at work, why I had to work in the first place. I found myself in the fortunate position of having a happy home life. Living it up as a dad to amazing kids and an equally fantastic wife.

Your “real” family is usually the one you choose. There are most likely more strangers with the same blood running through their veins as you, that could give two shits about you, than there are people that you were drawn to start a life with. And then, you make people together and pray that they don’t end up fucking hating each other. It’s a fever dream, and in your head, you are a cycle breaker.

His words, a catalyst of creativity.

Why can’t he remember?

Once obsessed with mortality, fear of and then acceptance of death.

A combination of science and prose, a carefully crafted story emerges.

Always the protagonist, his characters enjoy life more than him now. They have the chance to grow, to be free, to live forever — like he wanted to.

Curiosity.

Random thoughts.

Suicidal thoughts.

The words stay the same, it’s the story that keeps changing.

His story will not be forgotten.

I miss you, dad.

ENDALZ💜

E.G.

🎨 Surrounded by art, I looked outside to find even more…

August 19th, 2023

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What do you believe happens to our souls when we die? 💀

Do you believe in the idea of human life possessing a soul to begin with?

My dad was a man of science. Now suffering from Alzheimer’s, he may or may not answer if you were to ask him if he believes in God.

I’ve previously written that he was;

“not absent of faith, yet solitary in his spirituality”.

He didn’t actively practice a religion or attend church, although he often talked about faith, and believing in something bigger than himself.

Early in his life, his writings were philosophical, questioning religious beliefs and making comparisons of religion, science, and exploration.

He wrote the following poem in 1970 when he was about to turn 25 years old. Now, 53 years later, at the age of 78, he is nearing the end of his life. I wish he could tell me what he thought, but Alzheimer’s has robbed him of that possibility.

Here is his idea of what happens to our soul when we die: 💀 🪐

From meteor to meteor, asteroid to asteroid, through the timeless empty mass of a faded meteoric storm.

I have transversed the universe already an uncountable number of times, and for what? Only to find the same thing as when I left.

The same cluttered void. This was and probably is the only bit of void that has a mass, which is solely contributory to the combined masses of its void.

Hopping from one life-giving nebulae to another, trying hard to osmotically receive the life-giving secret of the nebulae.

Then only to cast shiftlessly and endlessly from one dead start to another.

Your body fragmented by the solar stormed surfaces of the celestial bodies of space and time.

I am weary now, and I must rest like the dead star; in a silence of atmospheric serenity.

— C.R.G. – March, 6, 1970

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