The beautiful couple, my nephew Marcos Tapia and his new bride Julie
For Marcos and Julie on their day…
If one is blessed, fortunate and just plain lucky, the stars may seem to align for you.
If one absorbs the good teaching of their parents, the essence of honor and respect, they will in turn be blessed with the same.
If one has conviction, trust, and good old fashioned faith, they will also attract in kind.
If one has an open mind, and open heart, and a place within for others, they too will find the bounties of a soul worthy of another with such light within.
One might need to look beyond the borders near to you, beyond the urge to find a quick result and the first urges to grasp what they will forever hold.
If one has a song in their heart, and a steady chorus of laughter, of sincerity, and shares it in healthy doses…they will find themselves surrounded with a glad air and a soft place to land.
I met Marcos and this family when I was much younger, as we all were.
Juan and Terry were in the midst of a meager beginning…and their two boys were already hard working young gentlemen…even though they were but kiddos.
Somehow the good Lord brought both of our families to know one another, to grow in each other…and so I represent that bond here today, along with Papa Gordy who is here today…and Grandma Vimy, whose spirit is present in this trinket she wore as her slogan during life.
I talked with Marcos on the phone the other day…about the chances and moments that brought him to know of Julie, somewhere far to the south and east of here over a decade ago. He talked of the calls, the emails, then their first meeting. He shared time with me, and all I could see was a divine fate. I could see one blessed moment after another, where the stars aligned, the odds were narrowed, and the distance between them became but just a number. Became something that would soon disappear.
And I heard Marcos tell me of Julie being a calming presence and truing rudder in the sometimes trouble waters we call his life. Of her being steady, supportive, patient, kind and full of belief in his potential, his love of family, his respect for the women in his life…And a fierce defender of all he loved. She helped him to be the man he was destined to become…
But mostly what I saw in Marcos was the emergence of a fine man, now a fine father, a fine nephew.
And in Julie, I saw simply love, and an ability to do all that is called for to make an ongoing love possible. Her love lives in Marcos’ smile and accompanies him always…And then there came Briella…the first grandchild and the light in both their eyes. The light in the eyes of all of us here to honor this extended family today.
They call Texas the lone star state. It occurs to me, that out of all the stars in the sky, of the billions of people here on God’s earth…that somehow these two found each other, and chose to become as one. And it occurs to me, that perhaps Texas might be missing its shining star, because she sits here today at his side. And I know in my heart that in Julie having joined us here in this corner of this State far from her roots in the South…that she not only came North to shine among us all, but also to fill Marcos with a gift that only such a love can bestow…she is his True North and we are all blessed today because of that.
God bless the three of them…Tio Matt
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When you assemble in the foyer, look into the eyes of everyone you see.
This will be the last time the lot of you will gather…
When you form those lines, know that others have taken the very same steps. Then they went forward and fed and raised you…
When you hear the music and voices of the crowd, embrace it as sweet harmony…like the same sweet sounds that lifted you over the last four years…After tonight, such a chorus will be but echoes and memories…
Entering the auditorium, you will leave behind the glorious freedom of chains that afforded you the room to grow…gave you chances to falter and still recover. Leaving the moment as a lesson learned without bridges being burned.
As you walk to your assigned chair for the night, look around and feel the pride exuded from friend and family there…embrace that kind breeze.
When you sit down and await the songs and salutes, awards and speeches, retirements of staff and handshakes from teachers…treasure every word, each expression and breath…There will never be a moment quite the same…You will have other such grand glimpses, but just one carries the fruit of at least thirteen years in such a cumulative harvest and grand acknowledgement.
This day is unique, and gives way to your leaving the souls gathered there as one.
Take pictures, take pride, take a moment here and there and hold it inside. For they will later at times sustain you, raise and remind you that much is possible, and that you are loved…Sign the yearbooks. Your words will be looked upon and reflected upon and perhaps even clung to over decades at special moments in time.
Inhale this day or evening as it may be…and know that when you walk away, some will move on, others are to be left behind. Some are to prosper and some to perish. But for at least this moment, appreciate the fact that you will never again be this young, nor as filled with possibility and potential…overflowing with dream and vigor.
And while you wait for your row of chairs to rise and journey to the handshake and presentation…bask in the applause, the love from theirs and yours there in the assembled oneness.
Be aware that whether they be your junior, or seniors, all in the crowd will be living through you vicariously, to dream of what will be, or what has been…regardless, for the magical glimpse in your time, you are giving them all a chance to once again, or somewhere down the road, gather and glow as individuals and as one.
Mark the year, as it will accompany you as no other. Take the time and also give it…place it all in a place of honor…whether it was marked on field or court, behind desk or podium…this is a time like no other…And mostly, give appreciation, share thanks, and immerse yourself in all that surrounds you…This is your time, your day, collectively and as one.
Here are some reflective thoughts I penned some thirty years after I made my walk, gave my speech and held my paper to the sky…For a moment it all returned to me, and again I addressed my class, wherever they may be…
“…I can still hear the echoes down the hallways of that long abandoned school, feel the warmth of your being as we brushed shoulders in a lunch line or rolled eyes at each other in the midst of a boring lecture in some ancient class on even more ancient history. Through the years as I have ventured down as many other halls, sat dutifully at other desks, broke bread with whoever was a part of my days, and toiled at the work put in front of me…And I have felt parts of our years still with me, imagined your faces in a crowd. Longed for the innocence and the unbridled joy that being there with you could bring. While I’ve always lived in the moment, I also find myself clinging to fragments and shreds of tired memories and trinkets of our times together.
Today, I’m here to replenish my supply, to fill my heart and raise my glass to you again before I resume the journey.
When I leave here this time, I will have looked each of you more deeply in the eye, held an embrace longer than in the past, and let your words, your expressions, your collective essence embed a little more meaningfully into my soul…”
Tonight I pray that God blesses and accompanies each of you, now and following your moment and this momentous occasion…
Take care with you as you go. And remember, when you walk, walk on air…
Yours, Matthew Lyle Landsman
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Today there is no rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox, the Knicks and Celtics, the Rangers and Bruins, Jets/Giants and Patriots…For today, and forever more, these two grand cities will be forever linked and sadly have terror and profound loss and pain in common.
For today, there may be a lack of criticism and bickering between our citizens, and less finger pointing by our politicians…For today I will pray to my idea of God, and I will also pray to yours…for tolerance and oneness and a collective embrace…
It was not a mixed up boy that killed in Newtown…or a collection of terrorists that came to prey on us on 9-11, and 4-15 in New York City and Boston…It was Satan himself wearing the shoes and hats of many murky souls…
For today, while we are down on our knees to pick up the pieces, to scrub the bloodstains off of sidewalks and our memories…for today and forever more, let’s pray the Devil gets a one way ticket on a hell-bound subway, and that prayers and serenity fill that void…
For today, and the rest of my days, I shall weep for the loss of serenity and life in kind…Matthew Landsman
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Good friends…like shoes and jeans and plaid shirts…The longer you keep them, the more comfortable they are, the more they grow on you, and even when they are near to the end of their run…you reserve them for weekends, gardening, and over time you mend them, mix them with new ones, and if you’re lucky…they can comfort your kids and friends or family…long after you’re gone…
A good friend is like a dusty piano…even when a piano sits unused and silent, it still has the potential to bring music to your heart and put a song in the air and accompany you…
A good friend is like concrete. A foundation for a life or a dwelling is likely to endure and stand up to weather and adversity much better and much longer than a relationship without substance, or a house built on plain earth that sits susceptible to the elements, not conducive of longevity. Over time, true friendships and concrete foundations are likely to solidify and become sturdier through the years and over decades.
A great friend is like a mighty Douglas fir tree. One can shelter you from sleet and storms…give you material to build a hospitable spiritual or literal abode. And even after the tree or friend has been felled and called back to the life giving earth…the simple memory or remains is kindling and fuel for warmth through fond recollections, or the flames there in your hearth. Whether metaphoric or in your abode…A great fir or great friend never stops giving, even when life has dwindled.
A good friend is a smattering of special songs that sustain and remain and blossom in your heart…whether it’s midnight and moonlight or the advent of a new day at dawn. When the melody lifts you sweetly as the day makes its start. A friend in your soul will accompany you come what may…
A good friend stays with you, prays with you, and will go the distance for you. And they will know by the look in your eye and a subtle hint in your tone that in fact is what they need do…
And a true friend has a long memory to recall the glory, and a short memory to shed the shames…and has a place inside that is safe harbor…but even in a place of refuge, they will tell you what you need to hear, rather than what you wish uttered…
And true friends lean against each other and never let the world know, that if either should shift, the other would fall…and so there is strength even when there is none…
A friend is a gift from God, sent to watch over the other, share in the laughter and sooth the brewing storm. And a friend won’t scoff and scold if you’ve not enough sense to come in from the rain, but will join you because you’ve the strength to endure foul weather while tending to those wandered lambs lost in the elements…and help you guide them to kinder times and warmer surroundings and brighter days.
A friend usually understands, but even when they can’t, they listen and linger for another cup or two…and a friend always watches you till you’ve gone from sight…and then misses you and prays for safe passage and a gentle wind at your back till you return.
And a friend forgives others for having grown old, for needing help to scale the porch or time to just sit and be glad for as many yesterdays…when there are a finite number of tomorrows left to share. And a friend holds your heart in their hands…and it is safe there, as are your secrets and frailties…and then…a friend rescues you, so you can rescue them right back…and the circle though unbroken…is rarely a proper round one, but a precious wandering journey none the less…and a friend seldom looks at the clock when the phone rings, because regardless of the hour, a friend is a friend, is a friend. Amen
Love, Matthew Lyle…son of Gordon and Vimy, which pretty much explains it all.
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I wake up in the wee hours sometimes,
when most of the world is asleep,
and listen to the peace over much of the land.
And I feel the lonely souls,
and smell the un-brewed coffee,
and feel the chill of the untended fires,
and await the dawn that few wait for,
and I listen to all night radio,
and wonder about the isolated souls in hospital rooms.
But then the gentle breeze rises to a howling fury,
and rearranges what can’t hold fast,
accompanies her primal roar
with a chorus of tumbling and skidding chorus there.
So while the tranquility has been shattered…
And taken away the essence of that which matters,
In but an instant…and a siren’s wail fills the night.
Power and the illusion of control are lost at once…
And too, while we sleep, or wish to be,
Much is lost somewhere along the way.
But I know that regardless of the solitude,
I’m never alone, abandoned…
For regardless of what happens around me,
Faith resides, abides, and dwells within…
And cradles me in an a sweet embrace,
till sleep again finds me.
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You CAN wait…
People always say “they can’t wait” to see this, or do that…Especially for Fridays. I have news for you…you CAN wait. Unless you are drowning, or bleeding, or suffocating, or otherwise waiting for a life to be saved, you will just have to wait.
Remember, while you are busy wishing your life, or day, or week, or year way…real life is actually happening. The life you waited for. The life you’re wasting. Monday to Thursday are the bulk of your real life.
The last couple months of a pregnancy are yours to live, not wish away…
I might have pisst the best part of us away, had I not realized the mundane moments leading up to preferred ones, were mostly what there was to “us”, and those were the moments that defined us. Not the ones we thought we waited for, but the only ones worth saving…
It isn’t about the days in red on the calendar…it is about all the days between…I embrace you even when you can’t wait to be on your way. MLL
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In This House…
Lives love,
Compassion thrives,
Laughter grows,
Happiness exudes within these walls.
Joy happens within the property lines.
Great food and its glad aromas invite.
Memorable times and motorcycle rides see their beginnings.
Life is treasured, measured, hugged and healed.
Two beautiful, vital, healthy souls call one another best friend here.
The future and prosperity come to fruition.
Two of my best friends make a life together,
And blessings are bestowed and embraced here.
Best of all, Jeff, Emily, and mighty Koda
All live in this house built of wood and plaster,
But it’s a place truly worthy of being called
Home.
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As a writer, today is a goldmine for composing words to describe an enduring love and the romance of this moment. As a friend to both Nita and Terry, today is the fruition of decades of fishing and wishing for a glad moment in time…one that revives the faith in happy endings, in romance, and in the simple premise that while life is often a chore, a bore, a routine without much in the way of the “things worth writing home about”. And there is that collection of amazing things we achieve in the midst of unremarkable times. But that life can also be amazing on a daily basis while we toil with the mundane…If life is lived with the right partner…with your best friend. Today we are privileged to live vicariously and share in the collateral wave of joy that has overtaken my two friends and will carry them for the duration.
Terry and I have been friends since the middle 70s…and though I left Rainier in 1977, the friendship has endured and matured and actually gotten better over the decades. We ran one season of track together…Lord, he was fast. The view I always had was of him getting farther away and smaller during that lap of the track. But at the end of the day, he never gloated over his gift, and we were equals except for a short time after the starting gun. Today, there is but the glad memory of our having been running buddies so long ago…
In 1975, Terry stormed into a stormy Tillamook for a little game of football on a Friday evening in the fall…as he recalls; the muddiest and worst weather he ever played in…and he left there with a victory…and the attention of some of her citizens. A few days later, at another muddy, rain and windswept field in Rainier, I walked the sidelines with Terry who was in street clothes this time while we took in a JV football contest. And the scenery on the far sideline that was the opposition’s cheerleaders was more than tantalizing. It is now more than obvious that a little blue eyed freezing and shivering, yet still smiling and captivating in all her tiny glory caught Terry’s eye on that happily fateful night. It appears we all became friends in an instant, but I had no idea that while her and I spent the next few years as pen pals (remember pens and postage stamps), that in the midst of the rain and fall coastal fury, she and my friend Terry were to build a small fire that survived as warm coals and embers for over thirty years. And though they were to eventually drift away from one another, and I was to also lose track of her too…true friends never are forgotten.
I still have the notes she sent first from Wilson River Highway in Tillamook, then from a college in Bend.
Life goes on; all three of us grew up, raised our kids and did what old friends do. We wondered how the lives of our friends had turned out. A few years ago I found Nita in Bend…and after a couple years of being e-mail pen pals again, I found myself in Bend for the first time, to witness another Rainer football game there on neutral ground…And it was on that cold and cloudless night that she and Terry were to again meet after three decades…Ironic to have our again shivering Tillamook cheerleader in our midst, but this time sitting on the Rainier sideline between the two us, cheering on a different generation of combatants there…I hardly need tell what happened next…another Rainier victory, and two pink cheeked souls were smitten once again…Gotta love this happening for my good friends…
I gotta be honest. I’ve never known Terry to be this happy on a daily basis…even while dealing with the rigors of life, there has been a prevailing glad overture around him…and the music of his life has taken on a lovely tone. Nita is the salt of the earth…a mother, a great sister and daughter, but mostly a fantastic friend. Years ago I was speaking to my brother in law about my life, my numerous friends, my social circle and network of people. He spoke simply and eloquently…”I don’t need a lot of people in my life. I have what I need without all that. When I got married, I didn’t just marry your sister…I married my best friend. She’s all I need.” Here’s to words well spoken, and here’s to my lifelong friends today having married their best friend….I love you guys…MLL
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Matthew Lyle Landsman 