Welcome #AEON

She’s already pretending to be asleep. She’s not though because she keeps peeking with one eye, to make sure everyone is still here.

Wow! What a wild ride it’s been. How do we start from here. Okay, first my mom died in December of 2015. We expected that though, it’d been coming for awhile. Two years actually. She called me two years before she died and asked me if I’d be okay if she was gone. She said she was tired. You have to understand I hadn’t had a coherent conversation with my mom in several years. She’d been bed ridden for along time and her mental health had failed. This call was different, she was awake for the first time mentally in years. Her voice was clear and to the point. Before she used to always say, “I don’t know what to say,” when my dad would put her on the phone.

I ensured her I would, told her what a perfect mom she had been. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have the child I have today because she taught me how to raise children. I thanked her for that and the life she’d given me. Her funeral was complete closure for me.

Then we came home to Gary. My nephew had moved in with us a year earlier after a divorce, he was troubled. Kara (my daughter) and Hugo went and got him on December 10th, 2014 from Tulsa. Three days after we got back from my moms funeral my wife Shannon found him in the back of her car dead. His funeral was December 10th, 2014. A year to the day he moved in. He’d taken his own life with no respect to our feeling or needs. He was selfish.

February 2015 my daughter tells me she’s pregnant. It’s time for our family to move on. If you knew how much this girl did not like babies you would understand the irony of this blog post. I was over whelmed and so thankful. Her SO (Hugo) was perfect for her. They would have a perfect child together They had some problems in their relationship but nothing compared to the rest of the worlds problems, they were better together than they knew. They were really good from cutting themselves off from society and just being themselves.

Now we were ready for the pregnancy! Weird food cravings, weight gain, complaining about her back, a baby shower. All the things that come with a pregnancy. That’s not what happened. Before any of that could start my kid called me at work. She never dose that. “Dad, I’m having the baby.” She was calm as fuck and my heart dropped. She was at 25 weeks gestation.

“Goddamn it!” Was all I could think. My pet dachshund (Syxx) of 14 years had died in November of 2014. The first of many deaths to soon follow. How much more could the universe dump on me. Does the end of your life really happen this fast? I fucking 50 for christ sake. Turns out no it doesn’t

A New Beginning

Aeon came home the evening before Thanksgiving. I spent Thanksgiving 2015 with my granddaughter! After five months in a NICU in Little Rock she came home for the holidays. We have a lot of bills but that doesn’t matter. Thanks to a quick GoFundMe they were able to get back and forth the 300 mile trip. Five months of sleeping in a waiting room, keeping up with bills, insurance and jobs in a piece of crap car that she somehow managed to repair. Plus she just bought her first piece of property. we are poor by the way so this took some kind of skill.

What my daughter has done since is remarkable. She’s got a daughter, a baby who is so freaking happy it’s spooky. This kid is smiling and grinning, talking to herself in goo language. Born five months early she came home healthy and happy. Science did this, to it I owe my life. I stand on the shoulders of giants. Everything is possibly because of all of those that came before me.

I might think I’m an idiot but I’m actually as smart as those I listen to. I listened to my daughter when she said it was time to make a new start. Thank you universe. Welcome to the universe Aeon.

2016

I wasn’t the same person I was this time last year, I was someone else. Today I am somebody else. Today I am more thankful than I’ve ever been than I’ve ever been in my life. Today I am alive and thankful. Here’s why. God didn’t kill me. Climate change didn’t kill me. World War III didn’t kill me. Terrorist didn’t kill me. The volcano under Yellowstone didn’t kill me. Can I get on with my life now?

My life hasn’t changed much since my dog died, then my mother, then my nephew killed himself on December 10th, 2014. Except

I have a lot more things to be thankful for than what could have happen to me, I have this.

A grandbaby.

Happy New Year! Everyone and welcome to 2016!

Guess who came home the night before Thanksgiving! My legacy, my daughter imparted in her child. My genes, my everything. I will continue. Our world is changing, our climate, our understanding of history, our connections online.

We are growing as a society. Finding others like ourselves online. Like borgs to a collective we make connections and webs. All ways looking out for each other. I have been online since 1998. I have watched as each country came online. I have networked across boundaries that i’ve never thought possible. I am 50 years old. My granddaughter is 5 months old. I can only imagine the wealth of information she will be capable of having access to.

I was born during an era of dial up telephone, before online. At first it was transmitted as radio signal. Then over the telephone but it came. The internet and a way to meet people from all over the globe. We connect.