*

In soul muscle moments our hearts unfold

Daring dreams long thought lost

And days we’d thought long gone by

With wounds paid at such a cost

*

In heart smiling moments eyes glow hope

And hands glance into full hold

And here comes another sunrise

That welcomes this dream so bold

*

Walk with me near and walk with me far

The rhythmic wonders of your jazz like eyes

Sends me smiling in joyous dancing

Thinkin’ maybe just maybe we’ve won the prize

*

Timothy J. Feeney’s role as director of a neuro behavioral project for the New York State Department of Health does not end until December 31, 2009, not September 30, 2009 as reported earlier in this blog. While it is troubling to learn that a man who continues to misrepresent his credentials to others will continue to influence the lives of many brain injury survivors and companies providing services to them, it is somewhat comforting to know his time will run out at year’s end.

Mr. Feeney, as regular readers know, continues to say he has both a masters degree and a doctorate when, in fact, he has neither. The “degrees” he does have were issued by Greenwich University, a diploma mill that closed its doors in 2003.

This little boy watching is my heart’s strongest beat. Always there, dark-eyed warm-pensive, he joins me watching the shifting movements of change and time. On this cool first October night we sit together, the long road we’ve travelled stretching out behind us as we face a new bend in the road; the day our father never met. His tears and mine mark this moment as true. Our hands clasped tight, and the clock ticks on.

This little boy smiling knows me well as I know him. Into the sunlight now he comes, chin rising, eyes strong, words crisp clear with autumn clarity, the glow of life in his cheeks, a ray of hope like a brand new friend in his heart. I watch him smiling, knowing his freedom grows with each passing day, that his father loved him a universe, and I do too. We three are now one.

Seeing a childhood friend after 35 years, a friend who is family in your heart is about as uplifting and joyous as it gets. To discover that your friend is married to someone who is as loving and kind and beautiful human being as one could hope to join lives with is, well, wonderful beyond words. And so it was for me last evening when I saw Tischa for the first time in too many years and met her husband, David.

They took me out to the Blackbird Cafe in Canton. New York for dinner.  While there is no way you can catch up on all things after 35 years in a single conversation, I can say that our table glowed with love and friendship.

One of the unspoken truths that join me and Tischa this, we have known each other since we were something like nine years old we knew each others parents. I knew her Mom and Dad and she knew my Mom and Dad and her Mom and Dad liked me and my Mom and Dad liked her.

And so it was deeply special when I told her how, when I was visiting my father’s grave some 25 years after his death in 1969 it dawned on me that his body had begun to break down and was now feeding the soil, which, I also realized, meant that my father was in a real way feeding the Oak Tree that grew next to his grave, which is why, on nearly every visit to his grave, I gather up the twigs the tree sheds and take them with me so by having these twigs I have a part of my father with me.

Over the years I have given a twig to people who are deeply special to me or people I believe to be deeply special to the world we live in. Always I say, as I hand them the twig, My father would have liked you.

Last night, over dinner, I gave Tischa a twig, and when I gave it to her, I was able to say something to her that I have never been able to say before, My father loved you very much. And he did. And had he met David, he would have loved him too. I know I do. I love both David and Tischa. Anyone would, unless, of course, the weren’t paying attention.

I don’t get taken in much anymore, but damned if doesn’t happen from time to time. And it hurts, deeply. Not long ago I was involved with a company whose owner for several years  gave every sign and symptom of being a real friend. He kept this behavior up until, I later realized, he didn’t need my presence to make his company money and off the cliff I went. Brutally painful. Then along comes some people who help me enormously in life, more than I could have imagine or prayed for, and in doing so they profess friendship, one even suggested I think of them as a sibling. This lasted until I told the truth about a situation they were not ready to face and subsequently I was on the receiving end of the shoot-the-messenger syndrome. Easier to shoot the messenger than deal with the message. Again, brutal pain.

Well, I am only eight days away from turning 56, the first birthday my father didn’t reach, and I am looking at and considering some major changes in life. But the heart-and-soul bruising of recent events distracts me and has me wrestling with a hefty dose of sadness, and, to be frank, an equal size dose of anger. All of the folks just mentioned didn’t have the backbone to tell me of their retreats to my face, the sent emissaries, in person, by phone, and, in one case, by e-mail. I am, by nature,  a deeply forgiving person.  Sometimes to the point of forgetting that I have a right to my anger and, by the way, it’s expression.

Years ago, and I mean many years ago, 35  probably, I just would have simply pulverized two out of the three just mentioned. While I have never been a bully in life (I was the one who would seek out and level the bully) I didn’t take shit from people and didn’t take kindly to getting fucked over by people who were supposed to be my friends.  Fortunately for my heart and soul and sobriety (not to mention the physical welfare of two of the just mentioned) those days are long gone. But let me tell you something, if you’re one of those who go around telling somebody you love them or are like a sibling to them when the truth is you’re nothing but lip service, you ought to fucking be ashamed of yourself. Your behavior? It’s pitiful.

Am I going to end this brief missive with some piece of wisdom or heartfelt peacemaking? No. I’m not. I’m hurt. And I’m angry. Maybe some other time.