Relativity

Almost everything is relative to how one thinks.

That's not too hard a concept to grasp... it's a lot like the self-fulfilling prophecy we hear about time and again. If you think it, it will happen. The mind, you see, is a powerful force.

A few years back, I was asked to leave my home and my family against my will. I had some choices to make and I had to make them relatively quickly. My first thought was that I was not going to sit around on my arse and feel too sorry for myself. She who has yet to be named in these chronicles had seemingly set herself the task of making me feel miserable.

It didn't work.

The day I moved out of the house, I had arranged a "date" with a young woman who I had met while looking for a suitable place to live. I took her to lunch at a nice little Thai place and we had an awesome conversation. She, too, had been seperated from her spouse and she had a way of coping with her situation which I thought quite novel and decided to copy. She made a list of things she should do and posted that list on her refrigerator. Among the items on her list was to try some new foods. She got to try Thai, I got a good suggestion.

For the most part, I made the most of what I had thought was a bad situation. I thrived and eventually found happiness and all that other stuff just by being the person I knew I could be. I didn't even have to find Jesus... for that matter, I wasn't aware that he was lost.

(Sorry, that joke was rattling around in my head too long not to have used it.)

After about a year of the nonsense of being 'seperated', then finally divorced, I got a letter from a former co-worker and good friend of mine who related the story of another acquaintance who had been on the same road as I was but with very different results. To make a long story short, he too found someone who had introduced him to the world of some happy white powder - at last report, he was broke, out of a job, and headed quite far north to become a ward of his parents.

Darn shame.

After getting back from the service for the Lovely Miss Carol's grandmother, we spent the week fretting about her father. Dave McGee was in San Angelo, Texas in poor health and by most reports was quite depressed about himself and his position. Carol and the Lovely Miss Shelly (Sister-in-law extrodinaire) were working on a plan to move Dave McGee from San Angelo to College Station where he would be closer to what little family he had. A great plan it was.

Unfortunately, it will never come about. David McGee was found dead in his apartment in San Angelo on Friday.

Somewhere in his mind, he had ceased to have the will to live. I was quite saddened because he was on the brink of something better for his sunset years, the brink of being closer to family which, for any faults he may have had, loved him for what he was. The mind is a powerful thing, you see, and eventually it will win if put to the test.

From what I had been led to understand, he had been the victim of the demons which posess the minds of some of us willing or unwilling. What may have transpired will remain between those who loved him and those of us who have not had a chance to even know him.

Carol, her brothers and I will be spending the next couple of days attempting to disburse what little Dave McGee had in this world. He had already given of himself by requesting his body be donated to Texas Tech University for research. Good for him.

I'm sorry that I never got to meet him as he had some of the same background that I had in radio. I'm sure that he had some great stories left in him.

The mind is a powerful force. Harnessed correctly, it can accomplish great things. Sometimes, it can lead to self-destruction... even to one's demise.

Rest in Peace, David McGee.


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