Butter scraped over too much bread.
'Dad's heart stopped after I said amen to a prayer'
At 11:44am Sunday November 9, 2025, the Conductor took his last breath. My friend, a minister of the Bible, watched his father pass away even as he said a benediction for him. It is heartbreaking and beautiful.
It was a 3 month long journey that resulted in the Conductor laying in a hospital bed for more than 30 days all told over the course of the illness.
I read recently that none of us truly become men until our fathers die. Dubious logic, but absolutely beautiful poetry. And in the generations of today, losing our fathers may be the thing that is needed to trigger the metamorphosis of maturity.
It is a hard passage if it's true. I think I'd prefer to be Peter Pan if it is.
The Conductor and his family have been in and around my life since childhood. His widow, the Queen of Swords, is among my closest friends. He was a vaguer component for decades but in the last 10 years has emerged as a clear cheerleader for this wolf, often telling me how much he appreciated everything I've done for and with his family.
He was a weird guy. One of our friends describes meeting him 30 years ago in a suit with no socks or shoes. Probably about the best and most succinct way of understanding this complex creature.
He was gone a lot from his family. Conductors have to conduct (trains as well as symphonies) and his route kept him on the road for days at a time. It provided a good living for his family, but the absence took it's toll emotionally.
I don't' think it was the job so much as it was the baggage of his life, but he struggled with addiction for decades before finally kicking the heavy stuff. Though he was hooked on tobacco until things got serious for him about 3 months ago.
He had a sister who struggled emotionally too. She passed away a few years ago from heart failure. The same thing that killed her brother. His sons are now rightly worried about their own life-pumps.
As I have watched him over my life, I have seen the Conductor through the eyes of his sons and wife, all close friends. They always hoped better for him and honored him as best they could in their own flawed ways. But he could never measure up to the standard the Bible holds out to those who hope for the approval of Jesus and His father.
And so I did, as righteous men often do, judge him. Inferior, broken, needing to change. But, in all the years I knew him, he remained absolutely confident that he would have a place in God's kingdom. As a man myself who feels unworthy of that role, I always found it eyebrow raising.
He would need to change this and that in order to yadda yadda. It's a life-long mantra of the Bible-thumper. In recent years, I've started to change my understanding and softened a lot. On others as well as myself—well somedays I'm less soft on myself, but trying. And I've started to see that there are good-hearted humans who just cannot meet that standard. Something in them is broken beyond repair and they are doing the best they can.
We all have demons. Some of us are better at cowing them than others.
Some of us have to hide under the bed, or behind a haze of chemical stupor in order to function. It isn't fair to say 'you aren't good enough' if you're doing the best you can. I think the Conductor was. I think I am.
Sometimes all you can do is limp through life.
In the end, he was a kind man, a good man—if flawed. In truth, I've known many 'better' men from a righteousness point of view who didn't have half the kindness or thoughtfulness. Maybe that's why we discuss Jesus we focus not on his righteousness, which no man could match, but rather, his goodness.
He was a guidepost. A point of consistency on the landscape of my existence that's gone now. It will be far worse for his wife and his sons, but the loss of that waypoint will effect us all.
It's terrible and sad. Another loss in a long line that will just continue until the Wolf breathes his last breath. And that's not the scary part; the last breath. The scary part is all the unknown between today and that moment.
Death is only a problem for the living.
Good night, Conductor. I'll keep waiting faithfully for my own line. I'll wait as best I can. Broken, tired and unworthy. Thank you for showing me that it's less about what others think of you and more about being honest with yourself. It's a weight I am still learning to carry.
Just like all of us.
Love always,
Charlie.
#death #memorial #essay #writing #100daystooffset
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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