Everything & Nothing @ All

Taking in the night sky, relaxing and lounging on the trunk of mom's car. Just shoot the breeze, identify the big and little dipper's, Venus, the moon made us kooky crazy with absurd observation about everything and nothing at all. I knew we would outgrow those times and that I would never forget them. When I see a clear night now I don't see as many stars as we did then but I know they are there... just like I know you're there and still here in my heart and soul, my head. It's all relative isn't it, relative to you and I and everything, everyone who have only to look up at the heavens and see the vastness of life, the mysteries of death and every bit of light that gives us comfort in the middle of all the darkness.

The top of the car trunk in the driveway became a place to retreat to individually too. You'd go out there and day dream, make that get lost in the night sky, taking in what was to be received I suppose. Whatever it was, the solice of reclining outside on the car in the evening, is a good thing to recall.

Sunday

Sunday is a bittersweet thing... many a good thing can occur yet the weekend closes in on the work week, homework is due, work Monday. For now it's quiet and comfortable in my corner of the world as I think and pray about anybody who suffers, the young, old, innocent one's with no place to go, biting pain, despair, fear, isolation looms.

Holy Spirit cast your mercy, comfort, consolation, peace on those who suffer. Please be with those who are not winding down from a lovely weekend and gearing-up in eager anticipation of the week ahead.

HEY!

So even tho' you incurred much grief on me as your twin sister, you also provided much goodness & great memories. What we shared from the beginning as womb mates to the very last time I saw you walking around, is an uncommon connection for obvious reasons and many more not so obvious. How very special and precious, how well I know and remain amazed at the sustainability of the twin ness.

I was thinking about the Saturday morning at KANW, I was on one side of a glass partition and you were on the other on the control boards. You kind of dozed-off in between songs, on oxygen by then, around spring 1994. I remember thinking; Don't die. I could feel you getting weak, sick and tired. You never mentioned the possibility of having to say goodbye, just kept on plowing through.

I don't like to go on about this matter either... but damn,, sometimes, well. You were born a few minutes b4 me, then you up and left some years b4 me. Well, that's just fine. You go on outta here with you're bad self. Enjoy the hell out of the peaceful, powerful, place of privilege, the perfection that encompasses you now. Wow! What's not to look forward to? For now tho' mom is hanging in there but grows increasingly weary of this world. The good news is her life, like yours continues to bless us in more ways then we realize.

..."I Did Not Die"

A Native American Poem :

Don't stand by my grave and weep, for I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I'm the diamond's glint on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. Don't stand by my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.

High School Year Books, Raggedy Ann & Andy & stuff

Robert Chavez signed our year book one year with the following bit of an inordinate degree of sentimentality: "Mike you like basketball."That was rich, real, simple straight to the point. * As kids we seemed to have some sort of connection with Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy. * We liked the children's song that went something like Jimmy crack corn and I don't care. * One of our favorite story books was the action packed Little Black Sambo. * A simple shovel and pale provided many hours of fun and mud pies was a thrilling way to get muddy. A drop of water on the tip of a little hill of sand created cool crown-like designs... then to scrape um up carefully from underneath.. a delicate procedure and phenomenal fun. * Oh, How bout when we perched on the wooden fence in between our house and Fofo & Florences' shoot the breeze and nibble on honey suckle off our tree? Sweet and peaceful, not a care in the world-times.. no way you could tell me different.

So, HEY. Been thinking about you today Mark. I went to a funeral service for little boy Timothy and little girl Abigail who were left out completely on their own in the world, abandoned out in the middle of life with only the grace of God to lift their innocent, pure precious hearts and bodies to a place beyond earthly recognition and description. The caskets were about the size of shoe boxes and covered with a nice silky fabric. Metropolitan Community Church made arrangements for a burial service at Sunset Memorial Cemetery along the babies corridor right next to Edith. Pastor Judith Maynard presided over the simple occasion marking the transition from life to death for two babies who never got a chance to be. This was their course? Who am I to question the book of life and death.

The moment was solemn, sad and laced with a particular calm that occurs when the holy spirit is undeniably present. My aching heart fluttered as the mysteries of life and death leave me feeling humble, somewhat weak. There is a profound peace and stillness even in the middle of the hustle and bustle surrounding us in the middle of day. I wonder about some things yet feel reassured and confident about others.

Ahh huh. Any who... What up? You bug me. You bug me. Shut-up. You shut-up. I love you. Later ~

Sports

Yes sports a common denominator for you and me. To watch it was to see people playing and having fun but we enjoyed the action, the challenge, the strength & coordination required and of course the competitive nature of it. We made a game out of the simplest things... how long could we keep the object i.e. ball, Frisbee, whatever in the air without dropping it.. then try to break our record, it was always about breaking the record, bettering the numbers.. the obstacle courses we set-up in the back yard.. the wheel barrel jump, scaling the concrete planter etc. the basketball games with goal tending allowed during the backboard-nailed to a tree era in the early 70's. The Olympics inspired many a competitive event between us. The Friday or Saturday night basketball games on the wooden floors with a wad of socks balled up. We either didn't have a ball around for whatever reason or mom was opposed to the idea of a basketball bouncing and bursting around the front bedroom. We played about as raucous, rough and tumble as happy puppies... we decided that the area just above the door was the basketball goal. We had some tremendous airial type moves and only got better as we grew to excel and have a blast in sports. We both pitched, you in baseball, me in softball & both held our own on first base. I recall feeling a great deal of pride when you compared my batting skills to Babe Ruth & Hank Aaron. I honestly fancied myself to be quite the quarterback, threw a good looking spiral that sailed & spanned some real estate. Alas, my QB days were shorter-lived than I expected and saddened me deeply. We appreciated the effort involved in organized sports too, the commadare, the practice & training involved altho not necessarily our most favorite thing to do but a big part of the athletic equation.
The ABC Sports motto has always struck a nerve with me and I think you appreciated it too;
"The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat".

January/February

So long January. See you next year!. The calender flips over tomorrow. It would be nice to see the short month go smoothly. I'm hopeful the world will be as well as possible. From on high to down low and every where in between.. may all life be good and all death be in accordance with the cycle and circle of life and may the physically departed sleep in heavenly peace ~

Auntie Agnes

Auntie Agnes died peacefully in her sleep last Monday. She was mom's last remaining sibling, mom has taken her sister's death pretty hard. Sure does get you to thinking about your own mortality, from whence you came and all that.

Auntie was a good woman, salt of the earth. When I think of her I picture her dancing with me to ranchera music, her head resting on my chest then bursting out in laughter, puro grins and giggles. She liked a good laugh. Auntie made some of the best if not the most delicious spicy ice tea I've ever had. At Christmas she gave us great knit or wool socks, scarfs, gloves or mittens, something really thoughtful, practical and fun, special and highly anticipated. There always seemed to be a picture of JFK prominently placed on one of the walls in your neat and organized home.

It's sad to think Auntie's gone but comforting to know her influence, the impact and impression she made remains. The very important people stick around, some how stay with us in our heart and soul long after the dance is done.

Rest in Peace Auntie "Nines" Agnes ~
Agnes Hammond
March 31, 1921 - December 21, 2009

Pick One

One of our favorite past times when we visited Grampa Epi & Gramma Alice up in Santa Fe was to get one of those thick catalogs from their study which was lined wall to wall with books from the classics, childrens books, books about south west history, sets of encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs and a host of other reference books in addition to family albums. So we'd grab a Sears, JCPenny, Montgomery Wards or Speigal, whatever looked the freshest and we would sit comfortably on the sofa with half of the catalog resting on me and half resting on you. The idea was to pick one thing you would like from each page, only one thing. We'd spend hours it seems like combing the pages, skip the clothes and have crazy fun deciding which camping equipment, ring, bike, toy, appliance, lamp, tool or musical instrument would best suit our mood & needs a jour. It was a harmless way to kill time and enjoy a few grins and giggles as we got lost in our wish lists and youthful reverie.

Another time Sophie, Marcie, Chris & Gramma Alice were playing Scrabble, sitting around a card table, Grampa was reading the paper or maybe wathcing Gun Smoke on TV. Whatever he was doing he and the Scrabble players were oblivious to the somewhat rowdy game of chase we had going on throughout the house. We'd hide from each other and then come out and basically scare the shit out of the other person. One of us got the bright idea to hide under the card table where the Scrabble board sat almost filled with the square wooden letters. I believe I came up from behind you unbeknownst to you and scared you silly. You jumped up in the air cat-like and the table flipped over, Scrabble board & wooden letters went flying all over the living room. It was not pretty and that was one of the only times I can remember Grampa getting upset with us. We were run off to our respective sleeping quarters trying to repress our laughter in the wake of the recent turn of events that ended a perfectly civilized game of Scrabble. Everyone was a little bit ahh put-off by our raucous and scrappy nincompoopy shenanigans.

Hearts & Bones ~ Fly Away & Come In for a Landing

Don't fly away-OK fly away but don't forget about me. I'll be here looking and waiting for you, wondering how your world is, how, where, who you are at any given time & space. Drop in whenever you want. Please know you are welcome here with me anytime. Want to remind you of the standing reservation you hold in my heart, head & soul... You and your love remain in that place deep inside my epicenter... that sacred, holy place in all creation where only love & peace reside. I don't mind reminding you of this periodically. Love to you, then, now & always. ~ from me

Race Car

Ideally when we played Monopoly, with regard to the board layout GO was on my right side and I liked to be the thimble or the hat. Mark was the race car. If I took care of the deeds, I liked to stack 'um up neatly in an organized manner, lining them up in order of their value on the board, in that exact order & keep all the colors together of course. The procurement of property was slow going the first round or two due to the fact that we preferred not to buy property until we passed GO again. No doubt the first warm-up round could work for or against you and could set the tone for the rest of the game. Course the roll of dice had everything to do with it. Sometime we'd buy everything we could immediatley, the railroads, utilities, the square lots with matching stripes of green, red, baby blue, orange, yellow etc., basically if you landed on it you bought it unless, it was something that took us for a ride. When Chris played, he thought it was OK to make the rules up as we went along but even with those practices in place, sometimes things did not go his way... all hell would break loose when all he could do out of frustration was flip the board over... deeds, tokens, money, hotels/houses exploded and went flying all over the place... needless to say game over.

We played for hours at a time with emotions often running high as someone gloated over their park avenue property or tempers flaired due to unsavory trips around that wildly wonderful or dull as dirt game board game not going their way, maybe good property was available but you kept landing on someone elses who had developed it with the little red houses or splendid green hotels. I enjoyed playing with people who liked to get the ball rolling and get to the gettin of monopolizing as much property, as smart and fast as you could. Drawing the chance or community chest cards could put a smile or a frown on your face. Go to jail card was a bummer but Get out of jail free was a nice ace in the hole. Rolling the dice and landing on Free Parking was fun, especially if there was a big booty accumulating in the middle of the board. There were the cocky ones with a cut throat style, out for blood and guts, it was so interesting when things started going south for that type player who procured property at any cost. It's just a game right? The players who took more of a reasonable and fair approach to the game were much more fun to play with. It was always delicious to see poetic justice done when the greedy land baron type player started having a tough go with the dice... tsk tsk, nah... if anything it was refreshing to see a haughty nature turn humble. The life size board shown here > is on a pad of concrete in a park at San Jose, Califas.

Comic Books, Combat or Red Skelton

Comics of choice included Archie, Family Circle, Marmaduke, Beetle Baily, Superman & Batman respectively. Sophie & Marcie use to read us "the funnies" from the Sunday paper like Lil Abner, Blondie of Blondie & Dagwood fame. Dennis the Menace was annoying, still is, even bugged us but was easy to take and predictable reading. I got into Snoopy & The Peanuts Gang and discovered satire when I read Mad magazine featuring smart-ass, "What, me worry?" Alfred E. Neuman. Is it just me or when you look real quickly at GW Bush, he and Alfred E. are dead ringers for each other? The ears look like some one else I know too. Any who, besides your army men, sports was a big deal to you, consequently became a big deal to me. I've often wondered had I been much more interested in girly-things, toys, clothes, activities and such... would you have been interested in those things too. I don't think so Mark, you were pretty much your own guy, kind of conventional kid, normal... where as Mary, Mary quite the contrary, always seem to look at life and all it's rarities, wonders, weird wild ways as something to explore rather than ignore.

1960's TV included Combat featuring Vic Morrow and a platoon of soldiers trying to survive with WWII as it's backdrop. You and Chris felt strongly about wanting to watch that program and Sophie, Marcie and I wanted to watch The Red Skelton Variety Show starring the kind, dimple-faced, dashing and funny Red Skelton of course. It was quite the battle of the the TV, I think on Tuesday nights. I'm not crystal clear, but mom probably manadated taking turns every week or maybe if Gary was home on leave, we watched Combat, no questions asked since he was in the Air Force and soldiery and all. How could we not watch it at that point?

Marky & Mary

So here's a photo of us, the puddin-heads that we were... when there was such a thing as penny candy & candy bars for a nickle, with our empty Nehi, Pepsi, RC etc. bottles we'd merrily march over to Mr & Mrs Bakers candy store with the pennies, nickles & dimes we scrounged-up from around the house, to get more ice cold soda's, maybe a popcicle, fudgecicle, push-up or milknickle ice cream bar. Life was good, simple, easy going. Mom made chicken or meat loaf on Sunday with all the fixins then drop us off at the Kimo, State or Sunshine theaters for an afternoon at the movies. We saw Bambi run for her life one Saturday afternoon at the Highland theater. That was my favorite place to take in a movie. I loved the balcony and the Kimo's too. For a buck or two we'd get licorice or whatever sweets from Skaggs or Walgreens, popcorn & a coke at the movies and maybe still have a little bit left over. So simple, so fun. But what about those ears of yours? Actually, upon further review, I notice my ears protrude a bit there myself but the pixie hair-do covers 'um up. Just reminiscing a bit is all.

Happy Birthday to You!

Here's one of your favorite songs when you were a kid. Thinking of you today Mark.
Windy by The Association

Your Pick

Mark's Dedication

It's that time of year when the night grows eager to take over the day. The seasons switch places and the clock keeps ticking. We're still here, surviving, striving, thriving. Everyday another opportunity to live right, revive the stagnant soul, stay the course. It's a good, hopeful time of year.
"I want to make a dedication;" "I want to dedicate this month to you, the one's who loved and cared for me. The one's who trusted that I truly loved and cared for you." "I dedicate September to you for the goodness we shared and recall with great joy. I take my place quietly, in your heart and soul, the holy place of privilege, power, perfection beyond understanding. I'm still a part of you now. Spirits unbridled, beyond limitations... enhanced by our wish to preserve the magic and mystery of life." "I dedicate these days and nights to you... for the untouchable, unexplainable flawless impact you made on me through devine appointment, God's tender mercies, amazing Grace and infinite source of peace and understanding."

"Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile"

Marky Mark

Alrriiight! We back on... up and running. It's been a while, domain name renewal, figuring out which door to go through, when, how, then to do this, that n ta other thing, trying times. Seems like it should have been much simpler than the rig-a-ma-row required. Whew... Done! OK, now where were we? We need to post some good stuff about Mark Allen Joseph.

You were called; Marky when you were a young 'un... Mark as you grew into adulthood. Mom's monkey-faced son. But then Mom's says "No, don't talk about mi hito like that." So I say; "But Mom, what does that say about me if I'm his twin sister?" At which time I get a dirty look of disapproval. Nah, I kid, but no really... you always did remind me of a chimpanzee. What? Their cute. Maybe it's the ears.

So anyway...

You seem so far away and at the same time... closer than I can understand. I looked up and thought I saw you in the shiny moon. I looked again and you and your shine were hidden by big smokey looking clouds. I looked at the sun... and with a glance, blinded by the brilliance of your light. I could feel the radiance, power, presence of heaven. I had to look away when I dared to look right in your bright face. Blessings blaze across the sky. Smoke signals, laser beams of iridescent light stretch across the horizon, jet streams criss-cross in the sky, stars fall and a spectrum of color appears out of no where, like a ribbon, to tie up loose ends. Shining sun, scorching heat and the moon so majestic, sacred and strong. Opposites occur, this side and that, all encompassing, balance and grace... no one completely comprehends.

It matters not. I know Grace with the understanding, that it does not come cheap. Try to explain the unexplainable, undeniable presence... just as large and lightening fast, as it is soft, subtle as the sound of a gentle whisper and leaves one in awe... amazed and humbled, and not even quite sure what's happened... how, why? Who can say for sure? So let me just say; To know the Grace of God, is to know a glimmer of heaven on earth & be blessed~

Twin Tid-Bits "

Feefee: Scrawny, precious, boney all at once... Mark as a little boy. Sharp, somewhat sensitive and a smart-ass, fun, focused, a pain in my...well, you know. From the army men, electric football sets, Strat-O-Matic. A 3M-type table game based on statistics and involved the toss of dice. Dream teams were assembled, the field was prepared, competition was underway, the dice knocked against themselves with that thick clicking sound as they tumbled on the table after you held the dice up to your chest, mixing-them up in your hands, then the dice roll. That was one play. God Bless anybody who dared even approach the kitchen table if you were in the middle of Strat-O-Matic. Ooo... scared of you. Those boney knuckles of yours on my person in the form of a closed angry fist was not a walk in the park, come to think of it. The hours you spent in the front yard on Walter Street digging out tunnels, roads, building bridges, until on more than one occasion, good chunks of yard caved-in several inches. I thought it was the coolest thing when you got a football outfit from Ramona and Rudy. The helmet and all were Greenbay Packers colors and even tho' I was happy to receive a pair of furry slippers, I would loved to have gotten a football uniform.

The time you and I were at odds, fighting like two little pit bulls, we couldn't even look at each other, beefing, bickering, fussing about God knows what stupid no thing as we sit around the supper table... Mom on the phone and as I recall we looked at the bowl of creamed-corn at the same time, it was a matter of who would reach for the bowl first, daring the other to do something in the name of sibling discord... You proceeded to grab the bowl and in a very matter of fact manner, pour the bowl of creamed-corn right on top of my head. As far as I was concerned you may as well have fired off a round of ammunition at me, point blank... with a bazooka. I was dumb founded even tho I saw it coming a mile away. I looked at mom as the yellow, creamy corn dripped off my shell-shocked face. I waited for mom to drop the phone in horror, appauled with what she had just witnessed, the unthinkable, the gall of Mark... She actully took it quite well, too well for my taste. Mark faced no disciplinary measures in fact, got off squeaky clean while I washed creamed-corn off my furious and humiliated face.