capri0mni | Something wierd form the other night in #drwhochat

gordon_r_d was a witness... he can verify this (and maybe

lyssie were, too... I really don't remember if they were in the #room that night).

One of the regular chatters, who goes by the nickname TomFDW made a silly mistake (which I don't remember), and typed, self mockingly:

*TomFDW sets self on fire.

And I said something like: "That's a strange hobby." and he said: "Not as strange as collecting the autographs of racetrack exercise riders."

Now... what's so wierd about that? Tom knows almost nothing about me -- we've only recently "met" -- and my uncle (my mother's younger brother) was an exercise rider for a racehorse trainer. He was shot and killed in Mexico in 1963. The official police report out of Tijuana concluded that it was suicide, but mother always suspected it was murder, and they just concluded it was suicide, so they wouldn't have to expend manpower trying to find the killer.

TomFDW didn't mean anything by it -- it was just a goofy, silly comment he "pulled out of the air." But of all the different permutations of goofy, silly, yet grammatically correct statesments he could have made, to make that particular one to me.... I dunno. Just struck me as rather eerie... ya know?

Oh, and the anniversary of Pete's death is June 7 ... the same day I'll be at the Art Garden...

Hmmm.

I wrote the following memorial to him last Samhain, and meant for it to be published in the local Pagan magazine. But that was around the time they stopped publishing creative writing :-/. I don't know how to include the whole collage I did to illustrate the piece, but here is what I think is the latest picture I have of Pete. In the photo I took it from, he is getting out of a truck with a horse's lead rope in one hand, so I think he was already working as a training rider by that time...

The dead are never gone. Their spirits, like drops of rain, fall all around us, seeping into the stuff of life as rain seeps into the earth: a coffee mug, a favorite shirt, the walls of rooms where beloved voices once echoed. It is Time, alone, that separates us, keeping "What Was" and "What Will Be" outside our lives, as surely as an iron door keeps out the creatures of the dark.

But on this night, this Samhain night, the Gate of Time stands open. And so the spirits return, and ask for a seat at the table.

Old family photos lie scattered around me like autumn leaves -- shadows of the living, now gone, frozen in time, images as faded and transparent as ghosts. And you, sweet Peter, Mother's little brother, are among them. She saw your face in mine, she said, heard your laugh in mine, and I, staring at one photo, see her face in yours -- just as it was when she was lost in thought, and didn't know that anybody saw.

Yet, at that moment, when the camera clicked, you were the focus of all eyes, the very guest of honor. What thoughts were you lost in then, what fears, what hopes, and what regrets?You stand before a chalkboard, before a picture of your younger self. It's the only one with any date, as if those present tried to pin time down, and make it stay. And yet, in this image, time collapses upon itself, and disappears. I turn the photo over, and see my mother's hand -- hear her voice again, thick with grief and anger: "Send this one back." She didn't, though. She loved you too much to let you pass through Time's Gate unremembered.

You passed through too soon. There was no one there to keep the demons at bay when the bullet ended your life beside that Tijuana road leading south along the beach.

She and Lincoln, newly wed, flew down when they got the call. They had planned to be apart, that week, but Death puts an end to all plans. They spent long days seeking answers, and found instead locked doors and chatter in a language they could not understand. Finally, wrapped in grief and love, your sister became my mother.

Time wavers, and your image flickers in my mind like a shadow cast by a candle flame -- caught between the young man you were and the old man you would have become, if only fate had taken a different turn. And yet, if it had, would I be here at all?

I cannot say.

Is anyone left on this side of the Gate to remember you?

I cannot know.

So I will do my best, for your sake, and for hers.

So come, sweet uncle, on this night, and join the family circle: mothers, sisters, fathers -- all. Let us laugh, and sing, and speak of loves we share, before the Gate of Time closes for another year.