October 17, 2018
“I know I promised you my next letter would not take so long. But, you know – promises, promises…”
“Yeah, I know you too well. So never mind the excuses, just get on with it.”
“Glad you’re so understanding. Here it is: I’ve been writing up a storm. Trying to involve people in the kinds of conversations we are having. Conversations that go out of the range of normal ways of connecting.
There are other worlds where people live, like where you are. When you left your body, you moved into my heart. You are with me all the time. You never left. I hear your Spiritual Voice ringing inside me every moment. You are with God where I am with Him. So, you already know what has happened since my last conversation in this website.
You know of my lunches with Anne, Visits with the kids. Activities at Osher, Veteran’s Writing Group, St. Louis Parish, and everything else, including Steve’s and my trip to Ireland. So much happening. I am amazed at my 93-year-old mind and body keeping up with it all.
The topper is, however, we finally became Great-Grandparents. Little Maddie Kennedy arrived on September 8th and blessed us with her 6 pounds 9 ounce presence. You finally connected with the Kennedys. Ironically, I visited JFK’s ancestral home in Ireland when I was there later that month. Our connections were further completed. She is a darling. Little with black hair and a Butler face much like yours. I hope I live long enough to see her blossom.
Be that as it may, I am reorganizing the modes of our conversation. In so doing I am opening up the design of this website to more properly display and serve its intended purpose of connection. Here’s how it will work:
This website (Relighting Us) is going to be a platform for spiritual conversation. Very much like ours in these Cocktail Hour Conversations but expanded to include those so spiritually inclined. Those who have faith and so believe.
Believe in connection. Believe that mistakes are incorrect steps taken in the right direction. Believe in laughter and forgiveness. Believe in miracles. Believe in each other. Believe in their Good. Believe that God is Good.
Good that when in us runs us. How it runs us and how we do things should be written and shared for others to see and adapt if needed. In the title of this website it is characterized as ‘Relighting.’
A relighting of the good parts of a journey that put laughter back into life. Laughter that enables forgiveness. Forgiveness that enables Good.
Skibootch O’Faolain is a metaphoric character whose antics and experiences parallel those of my own. Not exact likenesses, but elements of the mistakes, commitments, guidance, and corrections in my life. Written in humor rather than fact to enable me to understand that my weaknesses, embarrassments, and messiness, occur in everyone’s life. We’re all in the same boat. We just wear different clothes.
What really matters is how good and clean are the clothes. Skibootch’s stories deal with brown suits. How got them and what he did with them make up the narrative. I have written and subtitled them ‘The Mud Puddle Stories,’ and they have been posted along with this conversation to the ‘Relighting Us’ website. They will also be a part of a book being published by the ‘Express Yourself in Writing’ class at the Osher Institute at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). I will submit the agreed title and publication information on a future post to this website.
So, in effect, this will be my last of my ‘Cocktail Hour’ conversations. From now on ‘The Adventures of Skibootch’ will constitute my conversations with you. They will be short, and sometimes humorous, mirrored vignettes, of the times I spent with and without you in those years previously mentioned. In addition, I am in the process of redesigning the website to include two story classifications: ‘Veteran’s Echoes’ and ‘Our Stories.’
So, all that is my alibi for not getting back sooner. I know you will recognize Skibootch and how much he loves you – as do I. He’ll be speaking for me.
Love,
Bob”