So I was thinking about this tonight and how a song can inspire so so so much! I have friends who are incredibly creative and can make those songs. Kudos to you all! We, in the writing world, appreciate your inspiration. It is your songs that can inspire us "artists of the written word" to write.
Tonight I am inspired to write and I won't tell you which song inspired my words...you just have to guess.
I was thinking about life today, thinking about how I feel about it all. So often we mess it all up in our minds and make it so incredibly complicated that at the end of the day we can't see the forest for the trees. Or maybe that's just me that does that. Yeah right! You know you are right there with me.
So....we complicate things. Yep. We work ourselves all up with some insane and incredible thing that is going on and we can't function. I am reminded of something my Dad said FAR TO OFTEN to me in my life...Don't sweat the small stuff and at the end of the day it's ALL small stuff". I hated him for that. But, as long as you promise not to tell him I will admit...under diress...he was right. Shhhhhh! Seriously, I'll take down you and your lineage if you tell him I said he was right! Test me! Go ahead and try. I will plead the 5th!
There is someone that has been on my mind alot today who knew just how to keep it simple and not complicate everything. He focused on the things that were important to him.
Yesterday I was reminded of what time of year it was. Tomorrow will be 3 whole years since I lost my Uncle. A quiet man and a quiet goodbye. I have never once put into words what he meant to me...until now. He didn't have the greatest "reputation", I don't mean that people thought he was an awful person or anything - he just lived by a different set of rules than most. He didn't own a thing beyond what he could fit in his car. He certainly didn't leave this huge trust to his kids or family. What he left us was his sweat stained hats, worn out boots, a trunk load of stuffed animals he won at the crane game, some pictures of his kids which were golden to him, and some clothes. If I was describing just a Joe Schmo you wouldn't think much of him. But, because you are reading this you are someone who loves me and know that I loved him so you think more.
So, take a minute, and learn about a person who didn't have a pot to piss in BUT he had a fire in him that was like kindling to his niece...me.
I was ALWAYS soooooo proud to call him my Uncle. I was surrounded throughout my life with wanna-be's. Not my Uncle. I was so so proud to tell people that MY Uncle was a REAL cowboy. He never once lived by anybody else's rules, he lived by his own. Money? That was never his motivator. Things? Didn't care about those either.
I was maybe 5 or 6. It was a typical Sunday afternoon. We went to church and my Mom had my hair all up in curls to look pretty. We always went to Grandpa and Grandma's farm for Sunday Dinner. My Uncle Lou showed up so proud to show off the two new colts he bought. The adult in me now understands how big of a deal that was for him and how come he wanted to show off those beautiful colts. I...took one look at those colts and would not be happy unless I was on the back of one of them. He bought them as a proud Papa for his boy but he had to get through me, his niece, first. I wouldn't take NO for an answer.
He put me on that colt, my parents and grandparents all in a worry as that colt wasn't broken in. But me? I can't explain it but I wasn't worried....not even just a little. I willingly jumped on the bare back of that colt...ready to ride. I can still feel it as if it just happened. My legs, albeit small at that age, wrapped around that colt. True to form, he was not as excited for the introduction as I was. As soon as my legs wrapped around him he started bucking, and bucking hard. It didn't take much and I was airborne. My Uncle, who was so proud of his purchase and what he brought to his parents' house let that colt go as soon as I hit the air and I was the only thing that mattered. Why wasn't I worried to get on that colt? Safety. I KNEW he'd catch me if I fell.
My Uncle Lou was a real cowboy. He had hard livin written all over his face. He was a shot of Whiskey and a beer on Sunday. A roll-your-own filterless cigarette smokin, hard drinkin, lovin your family, horse breakin kind of guy. He had a Sunday Church hat and an everyday sweat-on-your-brow hat. These weren't baseball caps...these were cowboy hats and he wore the strength of our ancestors in those hats.
I remember the last time I saw him. He was the same sense of soft-spoken strength that I'd always known. It was my Grandma's funeral. He was the same as he'd always been to me and we could communicate without saying much at all. See I was one of the oldest of the grandkids, my brother only older than me. I am forever thankful to be so because as we have lost so many family members I enjoy that I got to know them as a kid and as an adult. I drove with him, Uncle Jim, me and Mark...the smokers. I think now three years later how special that moment was since I have now lost both those uncles. I wouldn't trade that moment for all the money in the world!!!
I have been sooo incredibly blessed! I never lacked for anything - that was important! I am a strong, stable, to-it-myself girl today because of where I come from. My Uncle Lou came into this world weak and feeble. He left this world strong, weathered, and loved!
I have a display on my mantle today. It is his sweat stained workin cowboy hat, his big belt buckle, and some seriously worn in boots. I look at them daily and am reminded of where I come from, who's strength I need to stack up to, where I've been, and what I want to raise my kids to be.
A shot of whiskey and a beer...a strength when there was none, a constant that would always been there, a weathered and worn face, but always, always, always one that had time for others.
So, what's the song that inspired my thoughts tonight? Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You
I an still sooo soooo sooo PROUD to tell people that YOU are MY Uncle. You were the sun at the end of a storm in so many ways for me. So humbly lived, so incredibly admired, so very missed!
