Driving down the highway through the perfect sunny dream, a perfect day for perfect pain

I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with a nasty bug. I hope I am wrong; it would be a mercy to have one less dark cloud bearing down on me. Same time last week my father was feeling the same way; a nasty bug he had, but manageable. He went to bed around 11:30 and never woke up. My mother found him the next morning laying on his side wrapped tightly in his blankets. He was still warm, but he had left his body hours before. He was 69. Too soon.

It's almost a week since he passed, but it feels like it just happened. It's still so fresh, so raw. I'm an exposed nerve, have been so for days. Ah, but the warm cloak of support has kept me afloat. Spira was the first person I told. Let me tell it to you true, I was not as steady breaking the news as my mother was when she called me. It took me close to a minute to calm down enough to get the words out. She has been a constant angel on my shoulder. So has Craig, so has Janelle. They've been my mother hens. And my other friends, well they've been amazing. Everyone has (well, almost everyone, but we'll not speak of him) - my coworkers, friends, acquaintances, and, of course, family. In this, I feel blessed. And, if I step outside my grief for a minute, I see the interconnectedness, the harsh beauty and grace of life. And, if I'm able to slow my breathing and calm my thoughts, I feel God's comforting embrace. I am a child in her arms.

For the last couple of days, I've been aching for the embrace of a woman. At first, it felt weird to be thinking about sex given the circumstances, but once I thought about it, it made perfect sense. I just want to feel good, to feel comforted in the midst of this nightmare. Ah, but that type of comfort isn't likely, so I trudge on.

At Spira's after the funeral on Saturday, we were sitting on her couch. It was fairly early in the evening and we were both spent. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted what appeared to be a shooting star pass by outside. The window in Spira's living room is more like a sliding glass door and overlooks the park behind her condo and beyond that, interstate 93. It is a broad, clear view, and if it weren't for city lights, the view would be even better.

After watching this green orb wink out of existence after three or four seconds, Spira called out, "Did you see that? What the fuck was that?". I had expected her to say something more like "Did you see that meteor?" or something else that would neatly explain what we just saw. She's not one to hastily label any aerial phenomena as a UFO without exploring other more reasonable possibilities first, which was why I was surprised at how perplexed, and even spooked, she appeared.

Once I thought it over, I was equally as surprised and perplexed. What we witnessed was not normal. Here's why: 1. The orb was green (I guess that could be normal, but I've never seen anything like it) 2. It was below cloud cover, which I'm pretty sure would rule out a shooting star or comet or meteor, though I could be wrong on one of these counts 3. Not only was it below cloud cover, it flew lower than the planes and helicopters we subsequently saw and used as frames of reference 4. It disappeared. Spira immediately went online and looked for an explanation. She found this, among other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fireballs.

I don't know what it was, but I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I formed a connection between it and my father's death. Was it a sign from him? A farewell? I don't know. I do know that the mind excels at making connections and deriving meaning and that is what it did here. I'm not saying it's impossible that it was my father's doing (Whitley Strieber has written extensively on the connection between the deceased and the UFO phenomenon), but I doubt I'll ever know for sure what it was. All I know is that two events occurred on the same day that never happened before: my father's funeral and this green, low-flying fireball. My normal life, already disturbed profoundly by my father's death, had been shaken more by this event.  Our lives are built around distraction. We shield ourselves from the mysteries of life, from our mortality, but, really, for all intents and purposes,we are as clueless about the Universe as we were when were mere apes. It's almost like the more we learn, the more mysterious things are. And that is not a bad thing, if we look at it openly. When Krishna shows Arjuna his true self in the Gita, Arjuna is shown something vast and terrible and wonderful and incomprehensible. Awe, on the grandest of scales. Reality, as we've constructed it, does not reflect the true scope of existence; I'm not sure it comes close at all. But there are glimpses, and perhaps more, that can be revealed to the keenest of eyes.

I sit here bewildered and grief-stricken. The veil between the world we've made for ourselves and the nature of Krishna has parted, briefly and barely, and I've been reminded of the magnificent scope and mystery of life. Below is an excerpt from an older blog entry that recounted a family vacation in Maine. Everyone had gone to bed and it was just my father and me.


We've become closer over the years, and I enjoy the time we spend together. He's opened up to me more of late, and I get the sense that part of it has to do with the ticking clock. We reminisced about the days when I was a child and he was younger than I am now. He spoke with some regret about the friends he's lost touch with, the brothers of his past made wraiths in the night. As he spoke, he shook his head at how unnecessary it was -- they didn't grow apart because of a falling out, some event that left no other outcome. No, they just became less important to each other and it didn't need to be addressed. It happens all the time--I've been through it.

I followed him onto the deck and we looked upon the stars that stood vigil over the bay like ancient sailors. "When I was a kid, maybe about twelve or thirteen, one of my friends asked me, "What lies behind the stars?", he said. "That really bothered me. I thought about it for days."

"Did you come up with an answer?"

My dad gazed at the sky's mystery, his answer already in his eyes, and said "No, I never figured it out. But I did come to terms with not knowing."


Oh, dad, I miss you so much. You were as much a friend as you were a father.