'Can't Get Out Of Life Alive' - Mr. Les Brown

'Can't Get Out Of Life Alive' - Mr. Les Brown

 written by Bill Curtis

In one of his motivational talks i heard Les Brown say, paraphrasing, 'You can't get out of life alive.' Going away is a common factor, the subtractive multiplier of existence as i know it, to the infinity of the Hereafter as I believe it. Supposing, of course, with certainty, the possibility, at least assuredly, that the Hereafter is a possibility. LOL, Maybe.

My Mom went away a long time ago. Over 50 years. Two best friends, Yewande and Michelle, went away during the past 11 years. My sanity anchor, Ms Kylla, went away about three years ago. My first childhood experience of a childhood friend going away was when Anderson went down into the woods we called "creek", swam in the creek, drowned, and

last I saw him he was quiet in a casket.  The next person in childhood who went away was Cornelius. Junior High School. Brilliant! I remember liking listening to Cornelius talk. 7th/8th grader had imagination and smarts. Boy was in Junior High School in '67 talking about possibility of UFOs as real. Time travel stuff. I was spellbound. Cornelius was "far out" before I even understood what far out meant. In hindsight I suspect Cornelius was a convicted Reader. And a  convicted thinker. Reading fertilized his imagination.

All these people went away -- Mom, Yewande, Michelle, Anderson, Cornelius-- and Cornelius I heard the news (I think) over AM radio WSID that he was killed playing Russian roulette. A young friend going away when you are young hurts like your hand held on a hot stove. They all went away to the Hereafter, to Heaven, to a better place is what my Christian upbringing tells me. But I will tell you this, no one has come back to tell me of the place.

My Father went away in the 1980s. He returns to me in dreams at significant times. Usually with an insight or an answer to a situation in my waking life. When my Father comes to me in a dream, I know that the situation will turn out A-OK. Another person

who went away was my puppy love girlfriend from high school, then my Lady 20 years later when we Rekindled the romance at the 20 year class reunion, went together again, then broke up again, then went together again-again. Then, again, broke up  -- again. And I don't even remember why we broke up. What I do remember is that she was a very good woman and that she Really liked me. I've had a few who said they loved me, but fewer still who Really liked me. 'Liked 'me'. I know me. Raised by my Father, I can be a lot to like but easy to love. Fall in with a woman who really likes you, you got a woman who can really love you. That means she "gets you". The You of you. Typical young man I was at the time, I could not see that she really "got" me. She "got me" better than I got myself. LOL. We were Friends. Not this facebook friends stuff, but emotional, mental, flesh and bone and blood Friends. Let me put it this way, we were strong enough to be vulnerable. Our vulnerabilities got exposed.

She told me secrets. She opened her baggage bag, the compressed compartments, laid all that crap out on the floor, talked about it, then gave wings to the crap to fly away. Deliberately. It was beautiful. And fun. We matched secrets. We discarded cards like a card minnow at a square table with super card sharks. She was fiercely angry with me after we broke up the final time. I could not understand why. Dense man. Got a woman who "gets you" and you don't get it. Dense man. In time she was in another relationship, I was in another relationship, and we managed to talk again. I remember being happy for her. I knew that I 
messed up, even though at the time, I did not know "how" I messed up. Again I say, with total self-forgiveness, lol -- Dense Man. In early September of 2001 or 2002 she went away. Collapsed combing her daughter's hair, I'm told, brain aneurysm.

I used to dream about her. Vivid. The last time she came back to me in a dream, I was sitting in a dining room chair. She was standing behind me, with me looking up at her, my head tilted back, resting on the top edge of the back of the chair. She made motion to lean down to kiss me. From my sleep, I entered my dream, remembering that I heard that if someone goes away and comes back to you in a dream, do not let the dead kiss you in a dream. You'll die. So, then, in the dream, I told her, "Saundra, I'm alright now. You don't have to come back to check on me anymore."  She never came back . Tonight I got a call that confirmed my metaphysics still works. Over the past 3 weeks, I "saw" that a relative of mine was about to go away. Because of  modern family dysfunctional psycho-historic situations, the person with the information about where this family member was at kept the information to themselves. I've no illusions. I "saw" that this is what would happen.  So tonight a call comes in to me that he is on life support. The quiet of my Mom's going away sleeked up from the ground and layered itself over me like a coating. I felt the moment encrusting me. Going away is coming. I felt the idea I've felt about death for a very long time:

Death is a reality, a bold, unexpected, expected important part of living -- going away. From life, you cannot get out alive.

I called a longtime friend of mine, known her since about 2006. Did business with her. She heard something in my energy, asked what was wrong. I lied like people in those TV shows and said, "Nothing. I'm OK." I just could not tell her. Sure. If he's smart, a man will sob. He'll let the compression out, not hold it in like a killer from the western world. Stoic, over-rated. Stiff upper lip, a license to do one's self harm by harming other people.

Tomorrow I will try again. Going away is coming. I see the wind coming. And I do not have to do this alone.

-- written by bill curtis

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