SEPTEMBER 30, 2026: “POWER Chords” …
Tag: music and healing
JULY 6, 2026: “In The Eye Of A LEGACY!”
I must admit, it took me some time to find the right words to honor this post by the man today. After quite a bit of processing, however, here’s what I’ve come up with …
Of all the words he’s ever said, sung, or written, for me these may be the most powerful yet. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: he’s a tuning fork of cosmic alchemy, being used by The Powers That Be to crack open the hearts of anyone in his atmosphere—whether we’re watching him rip his soul open onstage and spill it onto the floor, or simply listening to the songs that have helped so many of us find the broken pieces of ourselves scattered across our own floors. He’s not just leaving a legacy … he’s helping so many of us find the words, energy, and courage to write our own.
Yah. It’s like THAT! There are no words big enough to describe how deeply I love this man for who he is. Ivan, I’ll be eternally grateful for everything you’ve done for not just me, but for the entirety of your faithful and beloved Death Punch family.
Oh, and one last thing …
To my kids, their kids, and hopefully even their kids one day: PLEASE listen to everything he’s saying here. Then turn those sentiments back toward your own hearts and hear them as my words to all of you. I love you! ~ Momma
JUNE 6, 2026: “What If You Start Again?” …
In case you missed the memo, “Red” is one of my bands, and “Start Again” is one of my songs. While it’s easy to hear it as someone’s regret over past mistakes and a heartfelt plea for “just one more chance” to get a relationship back on track, have you met me, folks? Which relationship between two people do I incessantly yap about the most? “Me and ME!”
SO, WHY CAN’T THIS SONG BE ABOUT “YOU AND YOU”?
Outside of our relationship with our higher power – who, for me, goes by the name of God (the Father of Jesus) – the relationship we have with ourselves is the most important one we have. WE should be the ones we fight the hardest for, continually allowing ourselves grace and unconditional forgiveness.
With that, just try to think like a crazy person ( you know, like ME) and imagine yourself standing a mirror and singing these words to that beautiful face staring back at you, who should be the “beloved” you sing love songs to the most:
And I remember everything … everything I loved. I gave it away like it wasn’t enough. All the words I said and all you forgive. How could I hurt you again? What if I let you in? What if I make it right it? What if I give it up? What if I want to try? What if you take a chance? What if I learn to love? What if, what if we start again? On this time, I can make it right with one more try. Can we start again? In my eyes …you can see it now. Can we start again? Can we start again? Emptiness inside me … wonder if you see? It’s my mistake and it’s hurting me. I known where we’ve been. How did we get so far? What if … what if we start again? I’m lost inside the pain I feel without you. I can’t stop holding on, I need you with me! I’m trapped inside the pain. Can we never love again? I’m lost without you!
{“Start Again”}
Well? CAN YOU DO IT? Can you face your own reflection and beg yourself for a chance to make things right? Can you acknowledge that perhaps you’ve forsaken yourself, hurt yourself, and refused to even let YOU inside the fortress you’ve imprisoned your own heart in? Well? Maybe today’s the day to make a clean break from the self-loathing and regrets of your past. Remember: “New Day! New Choices! New CHANCES!” Just sayin’!
OCTOBER 25, 2025: “One Thousand Apologies” …
Twenty years ago on this day, Demon Hunter released this most powerful song of not just Zack’s lifetime, but even more so mine as I’ve continued to break everything down in hopes of making sense of the silent pieces of his existence. So, what better time to finally memorialize it than today by sharing my answer to a question that was posted earlier in one of my writing forums:
My “Triptych” story is bittersweet and unfathomable to most, but true nonetheless. Since I’m the “REAL Cat” and an admitted over-sharer, I’ll share. Demon Hunter was the all-time favorite band of my late husband’s life. He’d been thrown away by his “mother THING” on his birth day. Years of burying his emotions after a dismal start in life eventually led him to me and my kids, who he took as his own.
He’d always said that my daughter and I were the only two women he ever loved other than the grandmother who stepped in to raise him after “the THING” left him to rot in his own remains. After YEARS of fighting against the mental illness that had left him slowly deteriorating, he succumbed to the darkness on 8.22.19.
No one except my daughter and me REALLY knows what happened in our home in the midst of his LITERAL insanity in the four months before he left, when the devil himself took up residency inside his head.
Lol, even his beloved German Shepherd “saw it” inside of him, and by “it,” I mean the demon that was living in his body, to which end Walter Williamson LITERALLY tried to rip his hand off the night before the end for what seemed like no obvious reason … until it all became clear to us in the wake of his suicide and “we knew.”
Meanwhile, on 8.9.19, the night after I’d discovered he’d made his final decision to “put the monster down” and purchased the Springfield he used, he’d written an email to my daughter and me with the song “One Thousand Apologies” attached, but never sent it. I found it in his drafts while sifting through the wreckage months later. He’d always said this band wrote the soundtrack to his life, and they did.
For the record, I have long since forgiven him for the crimes against our humanity that he / “the monster” committed against me and my daughter. I’m thankful beyond words for all the delicate and NOT so delicate ways their music has helped me understand what may have been going on inside his broken mind and soul, and for the closure I’ve found in so MANY of their song lyrics. I hope he’s resting in peace.
For the record, “Carry Me Down” was the last song we played for him at his services, and it will be the second-to-last song played at mine. (“The Brighter Side Of Grey” by 5FDP will be the last.)
Someday, I’ll go back through his emails and drop a screenshot of that draft here for truth and accounting purposes, but for now I’m gonna stay safely out of them! I’m growing forward, not backwards, my friends, and some anchors just need to be cut as I continue to rise from his abyss. Here in Dallas, it’s a rainy, dreary, pluviophile HEAVEN for me, and all I intend to do tonight is enjoy my cozy little castle and the sanctity of blissful solitude I’ve found at home with ME. Goodnight. 🖤
AUGUST 19, 2025: “Bring The Afterlife!” …
Guess who just turned THREE today? If you said, “It’s AfterLife by Five Finger Death Punch!” then DING DING DING DING DING! You won a prize! Let’s face it, though—that prolly didn’t happen, since not everyone’s an off-their-rocker knucklehead like me!
Meanwhile, let’s talk about it! The “afterlife,” that is! To begin, let’s take a look at guitarist Zoltan Bathory’s interpretation of this BANGER:
In his track-by-track commentary for Apple Music, Bathory reads “AfterLife” as a call to use our free will and take action in the life we have, rather than waiting for a higher power to intervene. He makes clear that this is his interpretation of Ivan Moody’s lyrics.
You’d cut your nose off just to spite your fuckin’ face! That’s who you are! You know your place! You let them lead you by the throat with broken hands! So, how’s the view beneath their shoe (and what’s your plan)? It goes on and on and on and on and on (an old broken record stuck on the same song)! It goes on and on and on and on and on (we all know it’s wrong, but we’re singing along)!
— Five Finger Death Punch, “AfterLife” (lyric excerpt)
And so, with that, I say THIS:
NO! No, I DON’T! No, I don’t wanna wait for Heaven to change me! No, I don’t wanna have to wait for the fall! No, I don’t wanna wait for Heaven to change things! I don’t wanna wait to fall on the knife! I don’t wanna wait! I DON’T WANNA WAIT! Forever after … this disaster … BRING THE AFTERLIFE!
JULY 22, 2025: “The Prince Of Dark AND Lightness!” …
Have you ever heard me talk about Ozzy Osbourne? Nope. Was he one of my favorite rock stars? Yup.
But not for the reasons you may think. Oh, don’t get me wrong, folks! I’ve been a fan of his music all the way back to his Black Sabbath days, and there are quite a few of his songs I listen to on repeat.
Not the least of them is “See You On The Other Side,” which I’ve probably listened to once a week since Zach flew the coop for somewhere less fucking batshit crazy than the place he’d been trapped in during the months before he left.
So? Since we’re just shy of a month away from the sixth anniversary of his death, let’s do some math. 52 times 6? Yup. I’ve probably listened to it more than 300 times now!
Gene Simmons remembered Ozzy’s warmth, nonjudgmental spirit, and originality:
“Before Ozzy, there WAS no Ozzy.”
Gene Simmons, CBS Mornings
Can you even imagine having such epic and powerful words spoken about you in life, much less in death and your “ever after” legacy? If only I could be lucky enough one day to have even a single person say such beautiful words about me!
So, here’s to me thinking about working a little harder on my “nonjudgmental” piece of it all, ’cause EFF my often sanctimonious and judgmental, err, “Virgo-ness”!
Meanwhile, perhaps one of my favorite “humanities” about our now immortalized Prince Of Darkness is how he set the standard for all the rest of the freaks out here like me who simply cannot march to any cadence but our own.
Simply said? Ozzy made it seem almost normal to be the Jean-Claude Van DAMN effing mental freak of the world oddball I’m so “Ozzily” proud to be!
If only there were a way to get Merriam-Webster to just use a picture of him for the word “immortal,” oh, what a beautiful thing it would be! There are literally no descriptive words necessary that way.
Does anyone know who we can call to make this happen? I’m not EVEN joking! Dare I say that all of us oldies but goodies who were given carte blanche by this man to reign PROUDLY and HAPPILY either out loud or in the little private bat cages of our minds had BEST be telling our grandkids all “aBAT” how he set us free!
In the meantime …
Rest in peace, Mate! Here’s hoping you’re flying as free as the inner bat in all of us who came after you—just a flap, flap, FLAPPIN’ our crazy little wings (and wearing black clothes and winter caps in the middle of a 666-degree Texas summer). As for me? I shall heretofore only ever refer to you as the Prince Of Dark AND Lightness!
JULY 18, 2025: “The Landslide” …
Fifty years ago this month, Fleetwood Mac released their self-titled album, which gave us “Landslide.” If you’ve been following this Diary for any length of time, you know that I have “a song for every season,” “a reason for every song,” and a few so near to my heartstrings that I’ve memorialized them more than once.
This one, however, is now—and has always been—so moving and powerful to me that I’ve yet to find the proper words to honor it. And I know I’m not alone in that. It’s one of the most difficult songs for me to hear because it buries me in feelings so deep beneath my skin that I can’t make it through the first three seconds without literally “landsliding.” Now that I think of it, it’s one of my “go-tos” for those days when I just need to check my own pulse or make myself shed tears that need to be shed.
But guess who else was born twenty years ago today at the exact moment this entry is being published—4:29 p.m.? My firestorm of a muse daughter, who has long reminded me of Stevie with her wildflower gypsy heart and wise-beyond-her-years soul. So, what better way to honor them both? Still, how exactly do I bring together this song and the triumph that is my masterpiece on this day that ends both our journeys through “the teenage years”?
As far as I’m concerned, the true purpose of art in every form—and of the artists who create it—is to embody the fact that God is always here with us in all things, big and small. Whether we or even the artists themselves are aware of it, art can pull us through our faith journey by all but begging us to seek and find Him hidden in this masterful, complex, collaborative Creation He paints across the canvas of our souls.
Case in point: Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” part of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. God reaches toward Adam, while Adam’s hand is more relaxed, his finger slightly bent. Their fingers almost touch. To me, that small space holds something enormous: an invitation to reach back.
While studying this painting in college, I recall reading that the tiny gap between their fingers might have been intended to embody our “free will.” We can’t know with certainty that this was Michelangelo’s intention, but that interpretation has stayed with me. I see God reaching toward humanity with His love and divine energy, while we must actively choose to reach back.
In short? God’s love and presence are always patiently waiting nearby, but the connection requires that we choose it. And such is the story of the human parent-child journey as well, my friends. There comes a time for us to really cut the cords, hold on loosely, and just let them go on and fly. If we’ve done our job well, they’ll always come back to us. If not, pray God we find the error in any of our ways that caused them to run away and never look back—and, even more so, that we’re offered the grace of an opportunity to make things right.
Now then, back to “Landslide” …
Stevie has described writing it at a vulnerable crossroads, unsure whether to keep pursuing music with Lindsey Buckingham. I hear it as a conversation she had with herself while looking out at the mountains in Aspen, which I, of all people, can appreciate as an avid “talk and sing love songs to yourself” kinda girl.
Her bittersweet take on navigating uncertainty through ever-changing and fleeting times—and her fear of how quickly things can come crashing down around us—is a gentle yet haunting reminder that the best any of us can do is savor every last drop of love like it’s the last we’ll ever taste, remain prepared for change when it’s time to let some seasons go, and continually search for ways to fortify ourselves with the resilience it takes to survive here.
And so, with that, I say THIS to not just my baby girl on her 20th birthday, but my son, their future spouses, AND my future grands:
No, I’m NOT afraid of changin’, though I’ve built my life around YOU. Time really has made me bolder as I’ve gotten older, and you’re getting older, too.
So, when you see my reflection in the mirror of your skies, don’t you DARE worry about all those landslides! You’re MY kids, you see, which means YOU GOT THIS, because just as the child in MY heart learned to rise above the many changing seasons of my life with the “Power + Grace” of a battle-born warrior forged from fire, so too will the children OF my heart! Now, go on and sail through those ocean tides and climb some mountains! But also? Don’t forget to stop back home ANY time you want.
Just because you’re heading off to build kingdoms and castles of your own now, it doesn’t mean you won’t ALWAYS have open doors and rooms here in mine!
I love you to The Moon and back! … Momma
JULY 6, 2025: “The SNEAKrets Of The Blood Red Skies!” …
JUNE 24, 2024: “The Sound Of Madness” …
Yes, my outcast brethren, I’ve been a social pariah, too. And while I’m never a fan of trauma comparing or pissing matches over who’s been broken worse, what I need you to understand is THIS:
While you likely believe that the fortress you have forged out of callousness, bitterness, and unspeakable pain and sadness is keeping you safe and serving you well, let me assure you that it is NOT! Trust me when I say it, ’cause I’ve been there and done that, too! Once upon a time (and sometimes even now), I was the reigning QUEEN of “Go away and just leave me the fuck alone!”
That was then …
… THIS IS NOW …
… and so, THIS is what I say to YOU:
Yeah, I get it, you’re an outcast … always under attack … always comin’ in last … bringin’ up the past! No one owes you anything! I think you need a shotgun blast … a kick in the ass! So paranoid! WATCH YOUR BACK! Oh my, here we go! Another loose cannon gone bipolar. Slipped down, couldn’t get much lower. Quicksand’s got no sense of humor. I’m still laughin’ like hell! You think that by cryin’ to me … lookin’ so sorry … that I’m gonna believe you’ve been affected by a social disease? WELL, THEN TAKE YOUR MEDICINE! I’m so sick of this tombstone mentality. If there’s an afterlife, then it’ll set you free. But I’m not gonna part the seas … you’re a self-fulfilling prophecy. I created the sound of madness … Wrote the book on pain … somehow, I’m still here to explain that the darkest hour never comes in the night. You can sleep with a gun, but WHEN YOU GONNA WAKE UP AND FIGHT FOR YOURSELF?
Shinedown, “Sound of Madness”
Happy Birthday to Shinedown’s The Sound of Madness! May its title track live on in infamy as the hard-to-swallow truth pill and fight song for all the ones who got left behind but then found their will to SHINE DOWN!
FEBRUARY 14, 2024: “Song Of MYSELF!” …
So, tell me, friend: WHO’S YOUR PERSON? As for me, I can honestly say that, other than my kids and my ailing German Shepherd who’s just about to cross The Bridge, my “person” is ME. Just me. Guess what? THAT’S OKAY!
I mean, don’t get me wrong—I very much DO have a handful of EPIC ride-or-die “got your clockers” in this life, some of whom I’ve never even met, but those women all have lives and families of their own, so, logistically speaking, I’m on my own here.
A room full of people doesn’t guarantee a single real connection. Sometimes being unseen and unheard can feel lonelier than being by yourself.
Meanwhile, Haruki Murakami writes in his story “U.F.O. in Kushiro”:
No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.
— Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin
Both of these thoughts make me sad for anyone who hasn’t yet learned to “see, hear, and understand” themselves so that they never feel alone, even in a crowded room, and even sadder for those who need to “get away from themselves.”
Have I ever told you that I sing love songs to myself? Like, as in I literally SING to myself … every day! It’s called “That Music Thing,” and it’s one of the most valuable mental wealth hacks I’ve ever empowered myself with.
One of my all-time favorite “songs of myself” is one that Zach used to sing to me all the time, “When The Seasons Change” by Five Finger Death Punch (5FDP). The powerful lyrics are the one food (for my soul) that I’m actually proud to be addicted to:
When the seasons change and we’re in for colder weather, look for me on the divide. I won’t let you down when the seasons change. I won’t go down. I’ll fight through the pain. I’ll be there right by your side. I’ll never let them bring you down. I won’t let you down. When the seasons change.
— Five Finger Death Punch, “When The Seasons Change”
See also: “A Tree For All Seasons“
That’s right! Every single time I sing it to myself, and even now as I’m typing this, I literally picture myself “standing on the divide” like a knight in my own shining armor outside of the fortress, not hiding in it!
Let’s face it, people: not everyone does have that one person to call “home.” Sometimes life has different plans for us, and we have to learn how to fortify ourselves into steel magnolias standing tall, strong, and sometimes even alone throughout our many changing seasons in the garden.
Treating ourselves kindly, patiently, and with unyielding amounts of unconditional love and self-care is one of THE best ways to accomplish that.
So, SING TO YOURSELF like you are THE greatest love story of your life … ‘CAUSE YA SHOULD BE!
Oh, and for the record, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY not just to me, but to anyone else out there who’s celebrating themselves “alone” but NOT lonely today! Go and buy yourself some flowers, maybe even treat yourself to dinner, and then grab a box of chocolates. YOU CAN DO THAT!
OCTOBER 7, 2023: “Three Days Grace & Therapy” …
… and just like that, the catharsis began as her tears fell like rain straight from Heaven. The best part of it all was the way all the people beside her and in the row behind her embraced her when they saw that she was clearly being shattered by this song in that moment. None of them knew her story … our story … but they heard, saw, and felt it and went straight to work. It was one of the most beautiful “stranger moments” of both our lives.
Concerts aren’t always just about fun, games, and “music,” by the way. Sometimes they’re a four-hour-long intensive IN-patient therapy session. If you know, YOU KNOW!
For the record, Three Days Grace is to her what 5FDP, Maiden, Shinedown, and 3 Doors Down are to me. They wrote the entire soundtrack to her life, and she’s found so many broken pieces of herself that she might not otherwise have been able to identify had it not been for their presence in her atmosphere.
Meanwhile, there was this ‘lil intersection nugget in the midst of our preparing for the night:
Hey, daughter? Should we run and get you some waterproof mascara?
HELL no, mom! I’m proud of how I’ve walked through all my living nightmares and storms, and I’ll wear the proof of ALL OF THEM like a warrior wears his war paint tonight! I’VE EARNED IT!
It was THE concert of her lifetime, my friends. Oh, and one last thing. When I got the tickets, they were literally the only two good seats left in the house … which (ps) just happened to be front row center. Were they expensive? YUP! No expense was spared for this moment of a lifetime of hers.
Regardless, I had told her over and again that she could take anyone she wanted and that just because I bought them, it didn’t mean that I had to be the obvious choice. I just wanted her to be happy in her element. So I was honored to have been the one she chose to have standing right beside her for it.
JUNE 11, 2023: “The Eye In The Sky” …
I am nothing, everything, and all of it at once, and nope, I’m not that special. Meanwhile, can I just say this? I’m in love with this “Being” I cannot see, yet I feel everywhere in everything. Yes, I very much do still fall for Him like suns fall for skies. I know. I know. It sounds kinda crazy, right? Well, it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
While “You Reign” will always be my go-to love song to The Power that’s running my “all of this,” this one is giving it a run for the money. When I sing it, I SING IT OUT LOUD! I sing it to HIM as my heart literally feels like it’s bursting out of my chest the way it did the very first time I heard it. Then I weep … because if only I could “poof” this magic thing I have to everyone I meet, oh, what a world this would be!
Dear God,
I push my feet to the edge. I look, and I face my world. This lonely scene … I take it in. It’s hard to say where all of it begins and I end. And I waited for the sky to change, but, oh, it never did, and I almost dropped my head and lost my faith. Then I saw You from a distance … You were worlds away. Oh, but You had me from the vision … I never looked away again. I walk these streets of loneliness. A tranquil sea on all horizons. This empty scene of might-have-beens … I stare at starless skies that call to me and I still wish. They said that we both were too different … that all of the shine would fade away. But I wish that I never listened, ’cause You pulled me through the grey. I still fall for You like suns do for skies. Cerulean pouring in from Your eyes. Just a hollow moon that You colorized. So powerful. I feel so small … but so alive … like watching the Earthrise.
I Love You, God … Me
OCTOBER 15, 2022: “The Man, The Myth, The Legend!” …
Archive note — October 17, 2026: This entry responds to Ivan Moody’s October 14, 2022 retirement announcement. He withdrew that plan later that month. The original October 2022 reflection is preserved below.
I can’t recall when a morning news story ever made me so fucking happy. I literally cried tears of joy for Ivan Moody and his family when I heard these words from his mouth:
So, I made them a deal today, and I’m gonna stick to it. After this year, I am going to make one more Five Finger Death Punch album and then I am retiring from heavy metal.
“The Alchemist” will be leaving the building (or at least that’s what HE said)! That’s right, folks! It appears as though the FUCKER I love the most, who has inspired so many of us to dig deep into our souls and unearth the sobering reality of our own tragic truths, turn ourselves inside out, make peace with our demons, and find our “power and grace,” is dimming the lights.
While scouring the news today, I read, “Well, let’s just hope that the next 5FDP album will come as late as possible.” Yah, yah, I get it. We’re gonna miss him. But I couldn’t disagree more. For as much as I have come to love, respect, and adore him, not as a “rock star,” but as a human fucking being, it’s only right to let him go in peace without a fight. The bottom line is this, my friends:
Ivan doesn’t belong to us!
WE HAVE TO GIVE HIM BACK …
to his family and HIMSELF!
Nothing would make me happier than to never see his face again, be it on a stage or on social media where we’ve all relished being a part of his “family,” if that meant he was riding off into the sunset and sanctuary of his truly personal life and endeavors. No man is more deserving of the next rebirth that will surely come from fading the bright lights that have both propelled and devoured him into the quieter lights of his real family’s hearts and eyes.
After all the tiny pieces of his broken, risen, but probably exhausted phoenix soul that he’s literally bled out to the masses, he has more than earned the right to finally rest his wings and fly back home to the ones he fought so hard to keep living for.
C’mon, people! Those lights almost fucking blinded him, and I know for a fact that he’s given the actual shirt off his back to some of us. Also? Let’s face it. Not everyone has been so grateful for his contributions to the arts and humanity. So, he’s damned if he does and damned if he don’t. Still, the vultures have picked at his living carcass enough, don’t ya think?
There’s a song by another band, Cold, that I’ve loved and listened to for years. The poignant words are clearly written from the perspective of a weary musician:
Whatever you became, blame it on my fame. Always away from you … sold my life for a song. Whatever you feel, I take it on my stage. I sing to the world for you … and I’m always alone.
{“Whatever You Became” — Cold}
These days, I think about him when I hear this song. I say to myself, “Damn it, Ivan, we love you! We ALL mother fucking LOVE you! But haven’t you spent way more than your fair share of all of your power and grace on us? Just free yourself and go home.”
This life we’re living really is just a blip, and yes, the lights will go down. Do everything within your power to ensure that when your door closes for the very last time you leave your light on for the people you’ve left behind and not just a darkened void. It’s how you’ll become “nothing, everything, and ALL of it” and leave this place better than you found it.
{“The Grey High”}
Well, guess what, Fucker? I’m saying, “Job well done!” While I realize this process isn’t gonna happen overnight and we’ll still have some good times to share with you, know that when the last of those lights on your stage goes down, the one you’ll have left behind for all of us will keep on burning bright through that void.
Those of us who’ve been paying attention know there are still many gifts and contributions you’re working on leaving behind for the cause you’re so fucking passionate about. And hey, who knows? Maybe you’ll even find a true and proper queen to ride off into that sunset with one day. You deserve that, too, my friend, and I’m praying that you’ll find her!
AUGUST 19, 2022: “The Great Alchemy” …
Five Finger Death Punch’s new album, AfterLife, dropped at midnight, and it’s mind-blowing, BUT I got stuck on one song: “All I Know.” Meanwhile, while we were chatting with him in the wee hours of the morning, Ivan Moody said the whistling at the intro just came to him one night while he was at his cabin in Wyoming. He said he’d been lying in bed, heard whistling outside his window, then got up and just started writing.
Now, here’s where this “Death Punch” may throw you for a loop, ’cause I’m about to go somewhere that some of you don’t wanna go. I believe the higher power (who I call by the name of “God”) is, indeed, running this greatest show on Earth. As far as I’m concerned, Creation itself is a musical composition straight from His heart to our souls, and the beings He specifically chooses to make music of every kind are His cosmic tuning forks:
“But now bring me a musician.”
Then it happened, when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.
[2 Kings 3:15 NKJV]
Meanwhile …
Zach used to whistle and hum all the fucking time, so, before Ivan talked about it, I’d already been captivated by the whistling and listening to it over and over. It was one of the most ethereal moments I’ve ever experienced.
“From Zach’s soul … to God’s ears … to Ivan’s mouth” … then POOF! “A seemingly magical process of transformation” through the creation of the hauntingly beautiful whistle at the beginning of a song that echoed to me just like the many other voices from my past that I believe are sending me messages:
Somehow, the haunting intro to this song with its echoes of what seem like my ancestors calling to me, channeled me back to either the wild, wild west or some ancient arena in Spain where kill or be killed was the fucking assignment, much like it is today during “times like these” when we’re all just fighting not only to survive, but fighting for the will to survive.
{“Times Like These”}
Like my “Brighter Side” moment back in 2020, I believe Zach needed me to hear the message in this song. God used Ivan’s whistling to do it. That’s right, folks: love him or hate him, and as impossible as it may be to conceptualize, Ivan isn’t just some rock star who jumps around on stages worldwide and entertains the masses. His purpose here is bigger than perhaps even he’ll ever know.
He’s a “universal elixir” and tuning fork that God is using to perpetuate His greatest alchemy of all … MUSIC!
Have I ever told you that I’m the luckiest woman alive? Have I told you that I’m thankful to be sitting in all these impossible realities that truly are “all I know,” many of which I don’t even need to understand? Not a day goes by, nor will it ever, that I don’t literally thank Heaven for all the alchemists out there who sing, cry, yell, scream, and “fist pump” the words to the poems they’ve written to help me find the missing pieces of myself and have managed to keep me alive.
ALL I KNOW
I don’t think that I’m crazy. Yeah, but how would I know, when the voices remind me that it’s all just for show. Well, I thought I had answers, but the questions have changed. It’s so hard to feel anything when I’ve only known pain. Pain. You can cast me out and dig my hole. Spit on my grave. Curse my soul. You can hold me down and not let go, but the devil you fear is all I know. And the road that’s less traveled, well, it’s all that I’ve known. Every time I look backwards, there’s still so far to go. If I’m born to be broken … cold, bloody, and numb … tell me, why am I running? What am I running from? From? As I sit here in silence, all alone in myself … who the hell would believe me? Better yet, who would I tell? I can’t tell. {Five Finger Death Punch}
DECEMBER 16, 2020: “Once … In A Lifetime” …
I just walked back into Lifetime and reinstated my membership! Didn’t crumble. Didn’t cry. Didn’t fall apart. It just felt like I was home. It’s totally supposed to be this way. This is such a giant leap. And it was Gia’s final decision—not mine.
“Mom, dad wouldn’t want us working out anywhere else. It would wreck him. Besides, queens don’t work out at 24-hour fitness!”
I DID IT! I walked back into the very place the best season of our lives began, held my head high, straightened my crown, and took back another piece of my life that I was certain I’d have to forsake as I slowly begin the widow’s process of crossing over.
I even stood before “the window” and didn’t cry. I just remembered. I remembered all of it! I remembered “every day” we got to have him for the most beautiful season of our lives.
And by the way, that chair you see to the left of the computer is the very one I was sitting in when our first meaningful conversation began. You know? The one that started our entire love story with the shot heard round the world:
Catherine? Can I ask you a question? Do you even OWN a hairbrush?
Jean-Claude Van DAMN! I’m smiling ear to ear as I’m literally hearing him say it! You see, it was his sometimes brutal honesty with me that not only brought me to where I am today, but changed the formerly broken narrative I’d had running in my mind courtesy of virtually all the other “men” who’d come before him and never even tried to lead me:
Don’t trust men … they will only ever lie … up to and including GOD!
So, with that, I will now remix the words to Keith Urban’s all-too-fitting “Once in a Lifetime” in a manner that the KING who loved this formerly broken queen back to life would have said them if, as I suspect, he really was watching through his supernova telescope as I fought my way through one of the most powerful moments of my “lifetime” like the heavyweight champion I’ve become:
I can see it in your eyes, and I’ve felt it in your touch. I know that you’re scared, but you’ve never been this loved. It’s a long shot, baby, I know it’s true, but if anyone can make it, I’m betting on the two of you.
Just keep on moving towards the Sun. I know you’re gonna see that the best is yet to come. Don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way. That Sun is shining on a brand new day. It’s a long way down, and it’s a leap of faith, but you’re never giving up, ’cause we had a once in a lifetime love.
Everybody’s looking for what we found. Some wait their whole life and it never comes around. So don’t hold back now. Just let go of all you’ve ever known. You can put your hand in His. Don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way. That Sun is shining on a brand new day.
I closed my eyes and I saw you standing right there, saying I do and they’re throwing the rice in our hair. Well, your first was born, then his sister came along, and they’ve got your smile. I’ve been looking back on the life we had. I’m still by your side.
So don’t fear it now. You’re going all the way! I’ll never let you go. I’ll be right by your side. Just know I’ve made it Home and thanked God for our “once, in a Lifetime” love!
NOVEMBER 1, 2020: “Crossing Over” …
Some days I rise with all the words I need to say just pouring out of my soul, and often because of a dream. Like today, which would have been our 10th wedding anniversary. It’s been just over a year on this road I never planned to travel, and though I knew it was fast approaching, I also knew it would be a major turning point in my final ascent out of the darkness and into The Light. Let me tell you how my beautifully shattered life works …
To begin, indeed, I dreamt last night, but not before closing my eyes to the ethereal sound of my daughter and her crew’s Halloween shenanigans up above. Lol. Did I ever tell you that one of the very few flaws with Williamson Manor is that Gia’s theatre and game rooms are directly above my bedroom? YUP! They are! As it turns out, though, it’s not a flaw at all! Believe it or not, especially in these last 438 days, those echoes of stomping, laughing, and chaos into the wee hours of so many nights are but a lullaby to me. It’s why he built this home “from the ground up,” and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Knowing she’s here, happy, safe, and whole is one of the realities that comforts me the most.
Damnit, I’ve digressed. Where was I? Oh, my dream! I was front row center at a Five Finger Death Punch show, but instead of a traditional concert venue, it was an intimate gathering where Ivan was singing to me:
The widow’s life ticks out like clockwork … a thousand tears she’s cried a hundred times before. But now that he is gone, she’s ready to move on …
As he was singing, a single tear fell from his eye, but it wasn’t Ivan’s face I was seeing. It was Zack’s face on Ivan’s body holding that legendary “tuning fork mic stand” of his in one hand, while reaching out to me with the other like a muse calling out to her daughter. He was practicing “the great alchemy,” just like he always does, and delivered a message from The Cosmos straight to my heart and soul. It was the most absurdly beautiful insanity imaginable! In the dream, I was thinking to myself, “This HAS to mean something, but what?”
Then, I woke up and I KNEW!
In order to fully appreciate where I’m going with this, you must understand that I am led solely by intuition and feelings. Call me a spiritualist. Call me a “good witch.” Call me a “practical magician.” Call me whatever in actual Heaven or Hell that you want. It’s my truth, and it’s never gonna change:
In everything there is a meaning, in every moment a message, and something means everything, even if it’s nothing!
Am I bat-shit effing crazy? Perhaps I am. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, and let me tell you why: What if I’m RIGHT? What if it’s true? What if the Cosmos really is speaking to me? What if it really is Zack communicating with us through the fog and the crows and the lights in the bathroom? That, my friends, is the “crazy” blind faith that costs me nothing but gains me everything! Sooner or later, I, too, will cross on over, and either I’m right or I am wrong about everything I believe. Meanwhile, just after waking from that most ethereal dream, this was right beside my bed. It’s nothing, really. Nothing at all. Just one of Gia’s bracelets that either Good Cat or Bad Cat must have found and deposited at the exact spot my foot hit the ground. “C’mon, Cat, it’s just a bracelet.” Ya think? But why did it show up in the “endless” twist of “F8” that way? Hmm?
So, with that …
Ten years ago today, I kissed a frog who turned into a king. Five years ago today, that king turned me into a princess. Today I woke up from a dream on the edge of literal “eternity.” With that, I was reminded of the endless joy he brought to my life that I get to keep until it’s my time to see the brighter side of grey. There will never be a day that I’m not eternally grateful for the true love and immeasurable gifts he left me with, not the least of which is the fire he lit in my soul that will light my way through every darkness. Loving that man changed my life forever, so it’s no wonder that losing him has done the same.
Today is the day!
I think it’s finally time for me to start moving on, whatever that actually means, and I’ve asked God to just keep leading my way. My heart is completely open to anything and everything, but as for now I’ll just keep inhaling every moment one precious breath at a time and holding each one in for as long as possible, for I know full well that every time I exhale, I’ll be making the space for whatever is out there waiting for me. Knowing God the way I do, the chances are high that whatever it is will be extraordinary. In the meantime, win, lose, or draw, this is the beautiful picture of me that I’m always going to love the most and the “me” I’m going to punctuate the world with!
Happy anniversary, Zachariah, my love. I don’t mind you hanging with us as long as you feel it’s necessary, but hey—don’t wait for me here. I’ll be there soon enough!
CROSSING OVER
All perched alone he sits there broken. An eldered man with storm clouds setting in his eyes. He counts the sands of time – remembering days gone by. It seemed like yesterday before it washed away. Hey, don’t wait for me there – just find your own way. Hey, don’t wait for me there – ’cause I’ll be there soon enough. The widow’s life ticks out like clockwork. A thousand tears she’s cried a hundred times before. But now that he is gone, she’s ready to move on. It all just fell away – it seems like yesterday. {Five Finger Death Punch}
SEPTEMBER 10, 2020: “When Real Was Just 3 Doors Down” …
Dear Diary,
This credit is SO long overdue. That is all.
Love, REAL Cat
My “surface level only” policy where relationships are concerned is fast becoming a sham, and I desperately need to make the words in my letter to her real. In the meantime, I’m still alive, though not so well here in my beautiful ivory tower as I continue my rule over a magical kingdom where everything appears to be perfect. “Queen Catherine The Perfect”: Perfect life … perfect family … perfect house … perfect car … perfectly happy, with all the perfect things that accompany my perfection.
I’m the envy of every woman I know, covered in diamonds from head to toe, with a loving husband by my side at every turn (or so it seems). I play this perfect role so that my family remains happy and blissfully unscathed by all the secrets from my past, and so the painful memories I have yet to leave behind don’t interfere with their lives in any way.
Despite the seemingly perfect, bright, and sunny existence I awaken to each morning, there’s a storm cloud hovering above that follows me everywhere I go. I’m beginning to think that maybe I haven’t cried enough these last 16 years and the “cloud” in my atmosphere is all those unshed tears. The storm is coming fast, though … I CAN FEEL IT ON MY SKIN! But will there be a rainbow afterwards?
It seems like only yesterday when a stranger took my innocence, and since that moment Fate has continued to rape me. It’s been just about a year since I entered that hospital, spirit broken, but body still somewhat whole. One week later I walked back out, leaving behind the last remnants of what once made me a woman. The physical scars that I wear are now clear and tactile proof that I am nothing but an empty shell.
These years were not imagined — they were real! At night, sometimes I cry, grasping my pillow tightly so the precious baby girl sleeping beside me doesn’t hear. Then, in the morning, I awake and prepare myself for the day that awaits and walk out of my bedroom an illusion. My children greet me with their glorious smiles, ignorant of my pain, and this is the way it is.
{“The Real Life”}
AUGUST 31, 2020: “The Cosmic, NOT Tragic Truth” …
It was a super early morning as we awoke to a 4:30 a.m. alarm for a 5:00 a.m. departure to her 5:30 a.m. practice. While Gia was getting ready, I popped onto Instagram to find the picture above, which literally hit me like a ton of bricks. You see, just before waking, I’d been enjoying a blissfully enchanted slumber, during which my husband had conveyed a message to me in the most surreal of ways.
It was him. I just know it! I could smell his skin, sense his touch, and feel his breath on my face. While I won’t go into detail—because, believe it or not, there are many things I’ll keep safe inside the most private places of my heart—in this fantasy he had been shadowing me as I moved from one house to another.
He was there … but he wasn’t. I could see him … but I couldn’t. Yet, at every turn I’d made that day, his presence was lingering behind me in a haunting but not frightening way. At the end, what had ’til then only been an eclipse of his presence turned into his physical body. There we both stood tightly embraced with our hands locked together when I asked this most profound question:
I know where you are … I believe it in my heart … but I just NEED to hear you say it. Am I right? Are you There now? WILL I SEE YOU AGAIN SOMEDAY?
I didn’t hear his voice, as he never spoke a word, but, indeed, he communicated in the sacred “1-2-3 hand squeeze” we’d shared during our season. His answer to my question was emphatic: “One squeeze for yes,” not “two squeezes for no,” right on cue to my prompt.
As this first year without him has all but flown by, I’ve made absolute peace with his suicide. The heartbreaking pain of his many tragic truths was so far beyond sobering that it still reduces me to tears to sit with. Unless or until you’ve borne the cross of seeing a person dying out loud in the egregious way that he did, you couldn’t possibly understand the magnitude of relief I felt upon the release of his mortal shackles. He had held on for dear life as long as he possibly could until the day he died, but when the end of his darkness finally settled in, Fate stepped in with the blow.
Still, let’s go back to how this morning with Gia even started. We’d backed out of the garage to find ourselves greeted by a bright orange moon on fire and an ethereal setting in the field that abuts our driveway. We were so connected that it was alarming, but also comforting. The intrinsic conversation that soon unfolded tapped directly into our understandings of “all of this,” yet reached far beyond what our simply dimensioned minds could fathom. She knows what I know, and I know what she knows, which is ALL either of us needs to know. It’s so powerful.
Keep in mind that the first song that cued up when the engine started today was “Remember Everything.” That had to have meant something … I just knew it! Suffice to say, though, that neither of us can listen to it now without being reminded of everything we remember about not just our lives, but Zack’s and Christian’s as well. But here’s where it gets even more interesting. After I’d dropped her off and was headed home, that other song I love to hate found its way to my speakers:
The Tragic Truth.
IT DIDN’T MAKE ME CRY THIS TIME! Instead, I just smiled as I rolled on down the road with my gaze fixed hard into the sky from which I heard his voice serenading me with those tragically truthful words:
It’s the demons I’ve created for myself … the Tragic Truth … it’s hard for me to understand myself, so it has to be hard as hell for you.
{“The Tragic Truth Revisited“}
All I can tell you is that my intersection with the Cosmos this morning was everything! Even as I write this, I’m smiling again, because while on the surface it may appear that the demons that devoured him won, nothing could be farther from the truth. The rare few of us who really knew him and were honored to both love and be loved by him know a “truth” that is much more beautiful than tragic: HE’S HOME NOW! No more sorrow. No more pain. No more tears. No more aching for the “family” who abandoned the “Zack Of Shit.” No more voices screaming inside his head.
My “circadian life” is so much bigger than I will ever know, and my adventure still isn’t over. All it took was one cryptic message from The Cosmos to remind me, yet again, that I’m an incredibly blessed widow. In case I’ve never said this, let me say it now: I truly believe that I’m God’s favorite daughter, even despite the many circumstances in my life that seem to prove otherwise. For this, I am as eternally grateful as I am for the true and immense love I still feel that continually travels the distance from light years away.
MARCH 11, 2020: “The Brighter Side of Grey” …
TO MY KIDS …
I’ll be waiting on the brighter side of grey.
THIS PICTURE. I sketched it in my early 20s using the literal ashes from both my father’s and His ashtrays. At the time, I had no idea what an impact this or any of my 32 Sketches would have on me down the road. Yet as I look at them now, I can’t help but notice that although I was in a very dark place when they were born, something trapped deep inside me was hopeful.
Still … this one! It begs the younger me to stay focused on the very bright future I couldn’t see through the fog—the one that was patiently beckoning me all the while.
If you know me well, you know that grey is my favorite color, which is evident in my artwork: predominantly black and white or changing shades of grey. What’s interesting about this one, though, is how poignantly it reflects the mental illness I fought so hard to overcome for the majority of my life, long before it was diagnosed.
My disease imprisoned me in dichotomous thinking and held me for ransom in the little boxes inside my mind where I stored all my pain and trauma. Before I put it into remission, I was unable to accept people, situations, emotions, or behaviors as anything other than “good or bad,” “right or wrong,” or “one way or the other.” My entire life was black and white with no room for the grey! I had a defensive view of both the positive and negative qualities of myself and everyone else, and there was no way for my broken psyche to allow anything in between to exist in one cohesive space.
How did this happen?
It’s been suggested that my “splitting” was the result of emotional trauma and psychological abuse from my childhood. I tend to agree. You see, I was raised in a works-and-deeds-based system of love and acceptance. If I was “good,” I was praised, affirmed, and rewarded. If I was “bad,” I was admonished, punished, and rejected.
They’d “wash their hands of me” when I screwed up or failed to follow the rules, with zero validation or consideration of my feelings. My mind would “split” as I desperately attempted to shield myself from the constant fear of being abandoned, betrayed, or eviscerated by anyone who claimed to love me. While I don’t believe these traumas were inflicted intentionally, they were real nonetheless, as was the effect they had on my psyche.
For years, in the wake of both my broken childhood and my self-inflicted destruction, I felt alone and voiceless, regardless of the people who appeared to be standing beside me. I myself attempted suicide in 1996 – and lived to tell about it. But I digress …
Music has always been part of my mental wealth journey, but one of my favorite bands, Five Finger Death Punch, has been at the forefront of my recovery. Their songs have not only helped me identify some of my lost and broken feelings but also given my former self permission to either cry my feelings to the surface or just yell and scream them out loud!
I’d pre-ordered their new album months ago, had been counting the days until its release, and was stoked to finally get to listen to it cover to cover while running errands today.
Then, when “The Brighter Side of Grey” cued up, I had to pull my car into the breakdown lane as the words began cutting me in all the most bittersweet ways. I couldn’t stop the tears and physical heartache, and literally couldn’t breathe. It was one of the most cathartic, fucked up, and beautiful gifts of my life.
It was as if he were singing it himself. To me. To her. To Christian. To the very few people he left behind who he ever truly loved and let into his private world.
Someday, when it’s time for her to read the letter he wrote but never gave her, I’ll let her hear the song. Knowing God the way I do, I believe that when she’s finally able to receive these most alchemical lyrics of both our lives in conjunction with the most impeccable words a secretly dying father could have possibly written to his daughter, they’ll become as significant a part of her healing as they’ve been of mine.
Here’s the thing …
Grey is not just a color to me … IT’S EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN! It’s the grace I’ve received—so undeserved, yet given to me anyway by The One who’s never loved me with conditions. He holds the best of me close, and I know He’s never far away. He’s the Light that shines ahead of my journey and dilutes the darkest of my abysses into all the most beautiful shades of grey.
For more than four decades, I lived a black-and-white existence with no room for the grey I knew I needed but didn’t know how to connect with. The grey is where I found all my truths. As I look back at this picture now, I’m filled with the most unbelievable solace imaginable. It reminds me of just how far I’ve come, that it was always supposed to be this way, and that there’s always a brighter side to all of this bittersweet and beautiful grey. It is now my final wish that when it’s time for me to move along, this is the last song I’ll hear as they bid me farewell.
JANUARY 28, 2020: “The Most Beautiful Fog In The Cosmos” …
One of my greatest treasures in life is the beautifully cryptic way my son communicates with me, and only me, by sending me “music messages”. He’s been doing it since age 16, after I finally left our home in search of a different ending to the story I knew desperately needed to change:
The first song he ever sent me was at age 16, not long after I’d moved out of our family home for the third and final time and just days before I had my nervous breakdown. The song was “Remember Everything” by Five Finger Death Punch, who of course are now my favorite band (and Ivan one of my favorite humans and true friends), but until the moment I got the “text heard ’round the world”, I’d never even heard of them. Lol, and as is par for the course in this Diary, I have once again digressed …
“Mom, I love you, but I need you to know – I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!“
He remembers? Remembers EVERYTHING? What the FUCK have I done to my only son?
(“That Music Thing“)
His messages come at the most random times, and often in the wee hours of the morning, which is always bittersweet, because as every parent knows, those 3 a.m. texts from your kid can evoke momentary nightmares that only a parent can understand. Thanks be to GOD that regardless of the alarm that stops my heart every time I hear his text tone, so far they’ve only ever been his “communication”.
His latest message arrived this morning at the absolute craziest moment, and the instant I got it, every ounce of adrenaline in my body dumped right back into my soul in all the most beautiful ways. I was standing at the end of my driveway in an abyss of fog like no other I’d ever seen and had no idea why I’d been so compelled to walk right into and stare at it. As you read in my response to him above:
I wasn’t sure how it was making me feel. Maybe a little lost, but maybe a little not.
Yet something made me want to take the picture, and as seen in the text, as soon as I held the camera up to take the shot, his text arrived. What in the actual HE JUST DID THAT, didn’t He? And no, I don’t mean Christian. It was Him! I just know it! It was God … or maybe Zack … or maybe all of “my people” phoning it in from their perfectly mistaken quarters in the sky. It was “Someone” or “Something” infinitely beyond this place that set that ethereal moment up JUST for me! The Cosmos was beckoning me with its “message in the fog” music alchemy at that one perfect moment in time because it NEEDED me to plant my feet back on solid ground.
After I took the picture, I stood frozen in that moment and just listened to the words. Yes, it’s dark, and, indeed, somewhat tragic, but oh my GOD is it ever beautiful, and such is the story of my life. Its haunting chords called me right back to the shore like an actual foghorn in the dead of night, and what are the chances something like this would happen for me “out of the grey” just like that?
It’s half past one here in Dallas, and the fog is starting to lift. As forlorn as its greeting was this morning, I’m almost sad to see it go, because as soon as I received this cryptic message from deep within my son’s heart, it wrapped me in the most comforting blanket that could possibly ever have adorned me.
My kids truly are my most beautiful work and legacy and every diamond in my gleaming tiara, and despite the many circumstances that have darkened some of our days, I believe with every shred of my being that they are going to be okay. I’m his “Nettie” … I am loved … and I am the luckiest woman on this planet. Welcome to my “Nothing. Everything. ALL OF IT!” divinely punctuated existence.
NETTIE
Nettie, no need to cry. Let me wipe those tear drops from your eyes. In the dark bathed in Cathode ray blue, Miss Red Hook of 1922, weeping silently for the pain of others. Every night a tearful rosary, a victim of the curse of empathy. Her reward of compassion is to suffer. Nettie, no need to cry. Let me wipe those tear drops from your eyes. My short coming, I know I caused her grief. Still, she loves me. This I can’t believe! Responding not with anger but a prayer, Heaven’s just Southwest of Cobbil Hill. True. I am the son of an angel. Maternally, not one woman compares. Nettie, no need to cry. Let me wipe those tear drops from your eyes. If you fall, I will catch you. When you’re lost, I’ll be there soon. Far away, but of course near. When you’re sad I am always here. Thank you from saving me from myself. Your compassion became its own hell. Unequivocally Beautiful inside and out. Without a doubt. Nettie, no need to cry. Let me wipe those tear drops from your eyes.
{Type O Negative}
APRIL 29, 2010: “The Real Thing” …
For Christian & Gia …
My babies, I know what you’re thinking. You and I have much to say. And you’ve been making me crazy trying to understand, but it’s impossible at your age. I know I said I’ll always try … but you’re going to bed alone again tonight … and you lie there in the dark and wonder why.
You’re so afraid your life is over and nothing I can say can change your mind. How can anybody be so selfish and treat you both so cruel? Go on and scream at me and cry! I’ll always hold you in my soul … and I’m never going to leave you all alone … but your mommy doesn’t live here anymore.
Everybody’s got a boat upon the ocean. Not everybody’s sailing out to sea. And is there someone there for me?
I did it for you … because love should teach you joy, and not the imitation that your momma and daddy tried to show you.
I did it for you … and for me … and because I still believe there’s only one thing you can never give up and never compromise on, and that’s the real thing you need in love.
{Adapted from “The Real Thing” by Kenny Loggins}
Love, Mama
Meanwhile …
A line often attributed to the great Sufi poet and mystic Rumi says, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” I couldn’t agree more. Like all our beautiful and often bittersweet dances with love, that wisdom has transcended space and time. As for me, however, I say that pain and suffering have likewise transcended time and space through the root systems of our family trees. Until that day comes when someone finally says, “No more!” and then decides to calm the fire of that generationally gifted pain within themselves once and for all … such that the toxins that once poisoned its roots stop bleeding out through the hearts of its ancestors … the agony caused by the poison in its roots lives on. Please, God, let it be me! Let me be the one to have absorbed the very last drops of poison that bled out and suffocated the rotting roots of our sick and dying tree so that the branches of my children and theirs will reach up and touch the Sun instead of digging back down into hell. I am humbled and honored to have been chosen for such a sacred calling and for getting to know “the secret.”
(“The Secret Of The Changing Seasons“)
So, yes, I did it for me … but I also did it for them … because love really should teach them joy … not the lie that their momma and daddy tried to show them. Pray God that I’m the one who stops this sick and broken cycle once and for all.
