My mother-in-law passed away a year ago.  To say it devasted the family would be an understatement.  Morticia (my nickname for her inspired by the Addams Family) was a witchy mermaid who positively affected everyone she came in contact with, and her bigger than life personality was one that couldn’t be easily replaced.  The love of her life and Adi’s dad, Gomez (they truly were like the Addams Family), will attest to the huge void that entered his life when Morticia passed on to the great beyond and never have I personally witnessed the adversity a family had gone through after the passing of a loved one.

I watched as Adi struggled for the last 12 months as she tried to make sense of losing her mother at the much too young age of 61.  Spontaneous bursts of grief would pour forth and through her tears she would say to me, “My mom died.”  It was challenging watching someone I loved so much in so much pain over losing a loved one, yet we persevered.  For Adi’s dad, it was equally if not more challenging.  He had lost the love of his life, his ride or die his soulmate and was left wondering what was the point of going on.  Although he tried to remain as positive as he could, he would often say to us, “It’s a bad day.  I broke down and cried and felt paralyzed to do anything all day.”

In her passing, Morticia left her dream home behind, a large Victorian home on the Gulf Coast of Texas in Galveston.  In the family, the house has a name.  It’s called, The Big House.  If I’m being honest, this home used to make me feel uneasy.  It was old, built in the 1880s and rife with spiritual energy that coursed through the house.  Think the Addams Family.  Whenever Adi and I visited I would always find a reason to leave as quickly as possible.  I loved Morticia and Gomez, but their house scared the shit out of me.  I know, I’m a grown man who shouldn’t be frighted by such things, but I still found myself checking for monsters under the bed each time I visited.

I tell this anecdote as context for where I am currently writing this missive.  I am sitting on the wraparound porch on a perfect fall day of the home Morticia called, “The Big House.”  How did I end up here?  Well, it’s a long story that I will make brief.  The house has been sitting vacant for the last 14 months because Gomez has been too distraught to visit.  There are too many memories and he has told me on several occasions that he fully expects Morticia to round the corner and say, “Time to wrap it up for the night, old man, and go to bed.  Turn out the lights and lock up on your way up.” 

Morticia’s spirit occupies every corner of this home.  Her elegant touches can be seen throughout, and it wasn’t until my recent viewing that I developed a newfound appreciation for this house that I finally discovered what an artist Morticia was.  This home was her canvas, and her expression permeates throughout every wall, doorway, painting and piece of furniture that has been placed throughout this old Victorian home.

Adi and I have moved to Galveston to help bring this home back to life.  We needed a change of pace after I permanently stepped away from Four Day Weekend after our theater of 27 years closed only to be moved to a new location.  I had stepped away in 2020, but the closing of our Fort Worth Theater cemented the ending of that chapter of my life coupled with our youngest daughter going off to college at the University of Texas.  Life was changing and with it we needed a new start.  For Gomez’s part, he needed help with this large art project that Morticia left to be completed.  The stars aligned (obviously with Morticia’s help on the other side) and Adi and I found ourselves on the Gulf Coast with our oldest son and his girlfriend as we all embarked on this new journey.  I could feel John Lennon so famously singing, “Starting Over…”

Gomez joined us for the first few weeks so that he could familiarize us with all the quirks of living in “this old house”, as he refers to it.  Gomez and I sat on the porch these first weeks and we talked quite a bit about life, about losing those that we love the most, and most importantly, finding some way to move forward with them no longer in our life.  I mentioned to Gomez about the power of saying “Yes” to new adventures even when it doesn’t feel right to do it.  “We have to find a way to just keep living,” I mentioned to him which he reluctantly agreed with.

We asked Gomez to have dinner at a beach side restaurant with us and although he really didn’t want to, I give him the utmost credit for saying “yes.”  We asked him to go for a walk on the beach with us and although he didn’t want to, he said “yes.”  We asked him to go out to the Strand in Galveston and once again he found a way to say “yes.”  As his time in The Big House came to an end before he had to get back to his home in Mansfield, he said to us, “I didn’t want to say ‘yes’ to any of those things but I’m so glad I did.  For one brief moment life felt okay for a bit.”

In the end, what we learned from Morticia's spirit and Gomez's resilience is this: saying "yes" to life, even amid the greatest of adversities, holds the power to heal, transform, and bring us closer to the joy and peace we seek. Every "yes" became a beacon of hope, a step towards embracing what the future holds despite the pain of the past.

It's crucial to understand that while sorrow and grief are natural progresses, saying "yes" to new experiences can be a bridge to reconnecting with life. It's an act of courage, a declaration that we are willing to find light amidst the darkness. It's through these affirmations that we honor our loved ones by living fully, as they would want us to.

So, take that leap. Embrace the invitations of life. Say "yes" to opportunities, adventures, and the small moments that make existence beautiful. In doing so, we may just discover that within the fabric of these new experiences, our hearts can find healing, our spirits can find renewal, and our lives can regain a deeper sense of purpose and joy.

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