For my father.

“In the end these things matter most: 

How well did you love? 

How fully did you live? 

How deeply did you let go?” 

― Siddhārtha Gautama

There are so many paths that our lives could take.  So many things we could have done, didn’t do, should have done.  So many things we just barely missed.  So many people we met.  Or didn’t meet.  Choices we made.  Or walked away from.  Families we were born into.  And our lives were made different because of them.

And what is fate?  What is it to feel something as though it is supposed to be? What does that even mean?  And over the course of our lives, how often do we follow our truest path?  How do you measure the missed or taken opportunities?  How will you ever know if you have gotten it right?  At the end of it all… what does it even come down to?

Does it come down to moments we spent with those we loved?  With the risks we took?  With how often we decided to listen to the all mysterious heart?  Or maybe it’s just the basics.  The driving our kids to school.  The homework we turned in.  The lined sheets of paper we filled up with our dreams.  The people we missed; in life and in death.  The baseball games we watched together.  The fights on the phone.  The times we turned away; and the times we came back.  The times we held hands.  The times we BBQ’d at the pool.  The times we hugged.  And kissed.  And just were together, present in each other's lives. 

I have watched my father give two very beautiful eulogies over the last year.  My heart has been broken in so many different ways.  There have been so many endings.  So many mournings.  So many questions about what does it mean to LIVE a LIFE.  How to celebrate and respect and remember.  I have found myself in situations that seemed impossible.  That changed how I felt about what it is to be strong.  I have said goodbye - in many different ways - to people that changed the course of my life.  Who changed the way I thought about living and loving.  And in many ways, it's been impossible to let go.  And maybe it's not so much 'letting go' but letting that loss enter you completely.  Accepting it.  Letting go of holding on, or of what holds you back.  And at the start of this new year, I  sat, holding the hands of my brother and my mother… watching my father say goodbye to his.

I heard the way he remembered his father.  And I was gently reminded that this was a man, with a family, who loved, and who lost greatly.  Who felt things strongly.  Who had been broken, and had still found a sense of peace.  Who had known hope, pain, and forgiveness.  Who enjoyed talking stats with my dad.  With bowling on Tuesday nights.  With ALWAYS sending me a birthday card that ALWAYS magically arrived on JUST the right day.  Who was a very subtle and constant presence in nearly all of my growing-up-memories.   Who had a clock on his wall made from a tree stump that looked like a fish that I loved.  And that, to the dismay of my mother, hangs over my couch - and runs fast.  Whose hug made me like the smell of cigarettes.  Who I can still see bending over to pat our black lab on the head as he walked slowly in the front the door and pulled his comb out of the back pocket of his levi's to run through his hair before clearing his throat and saying hello and asking what was new. Who liked to listen to us talk, even if he didn't really care what it was about.  Who went to all my horrible school plays.  Showed up to every grandparent's day.  Who gave me my first bottle of Disaronno and told me how to drink it.  Who made my 12 year old vegetarian self my first New York steak.  

My grandpa cared deeply for his family.  He loved completely.  He was sensitive to the world.  He was giving and compassionate.  He never shied from telling my brother and I that he was proud of us.  That he loved us. That we were important to him.  I am so grateful for my family for letting "I love you" be such an easy thing to say.   For teaching me through example the importance of being present.  Of, through challenge, being family.  Of the connections we forge in this life.  Through our actions.  Through our choices.  That it is never to late to forgive or create relationships.  That we should live fully and love well.  

We are gifted so many chances in this life.  To do wonderful things.  In very normal ways.  The things we do, the choices we make, the risks we take for happiness and more importantly for love – of family, of friends, of the heart – will change us.  Will hopefully make us better, redefine what it means to be strong.  To be open.  Will allow us to be the people we were meant to be.  The people we are capable of being.

Thelmo “Tam” William DeMartini 1935-2012