May 7, 2015, Prescott- A year ago today, a painfully brief text message brought me out of my early-morning fog:  “Dad’s gone”.  The Dad in question was my father-in-law, ninety years of age, a former Prisoner-of-War ,who had been rescued from Juden Kamp Berga right after Hitler’s suicide.  In his subsequent life, he had been a traveling shoe salesman, owned a boot and shoe shop, ridden horse and motorcycle, avidly, and been a licensed pilot.  Norman David Fellman and his wife had raised three daughters from infancy and seen them become strong, successful professional women.  They had been to various parts of the Caribbean and Asia.   They were the bulwark of my little family’s life, for over twenty-five years, and their legacy was to lend me strength in so many hours of darkness. Norm was a true soldier.

The day before my father-in-law passed, unbeknownst to me until a bit later, a young man died of complications from a medical procedure.  He was one of my son’s childhood friends.  Though they were very different in personality and interests, and went on separate paths, they reconnected a few years ago, and maintained correspondence.  The young man was a talented musician, with a deep well of consciousness, and its attendant well of pain.  Brooke Bohner was a true soldier, in the spiritual sense.

We all carry on our battles, day to day.  I, too, struggle: With anger at those who manipulate others, for the sake of amassing power and wealth- telling anyone who will listen to them that “This is the way of the world.”;  with doubts about myself, for not following through on my promises to so many people, over the years; with the suspicion of so many people whom I encounter, almost daily; with injustice, in general.

I still stand, though, and keep on going, because for the sincere, for the dedicated, there is no other choice.