Hello Friend

Ah, relationships in their many forms… how shall we greet them today…

A cat meanders through the door during a yoga class 

A dog approaches you on the couch, paws upon a lap

On a stroll outside, a hummingbird speeds by through the air

A trip to the zoo, every imaginable creature living there

Sharing a globe with the animals, in the wild and in the pens 

The depth and beauty of a boy’s and girl’s best friend

Hello friend, hello friend

How are you today, how have you been?

Oh, the grandeur of relationships … how shall we greet them today?

What words come to mind, what is there to say?

For the barista working hard to prepare that right drink for you

For the waiter and waitress placing orders for your chosen food

For the loved one in partnership, making this circle of love complete

For the man, woman and child simply passing by on the street 

As in the beginning, and then all throughout life, until the end

As we hold this sacred heart – in order to offer, share, heal or mend

Hello friend, hello friend

How are you today, how have you been?

How are you? What is new? What can we do?

With this life – to make it matter, to make it real, to make it true?

We welcome the morning, with a bow, a prayer, a knowing nod

We embrace the universe, the angels, the spirit guides, and God

As in the myriad of classic books we store upon the shelves

We see within others as we see within ourselves 

Husband, father, son, mother, daughter, wife

If you lived strictly on your terms, you may have missed out on life

Yet if you found the free, dancing energy encircling, you were indeed blessed

In-between the give and take: a mind at peace, a soul at rest 

There is nothing that can make this existence any clearer or dearer

Than learning to appreciate, love and honor the one looking back in the mirror

And so, what words come to mind, what is there to say?

Ah, the wonder of relationships … how shall we greet them today?

The pets, the patrons, the clients, coworkers, bosses and more

The random humans we bump into at the soccer field, bank or store

The ones who have held us up as perfect, the ones who made us all wrong

The inner self that has beaten us up for so long

The ones who challenged us, the ones who made everything a flow

A dear friend dog or a cat … peeking around a corner … hello 

We faithfully take a stand for a totality of life we can finally defend

As we reframe everyone as companion, searcher, Child of God and friend

How are you today, how have you been?

Hello friend, hello friend

Hello friend, hello friend

A Eulogy for My Dad Who Passed One Year Ago

 

For my dad.

Who passed away one year ago to this day.

March 15, 2021.

For my dad.

I just want to come along here and say how much I love him.

I love him still.

Of course. 

When I was growing up, it was pretty much common for us to talk about the other worlds, the other realities, the higher realms, not just the physical world but the spiritual world … as if these realms were as available as going outside of a house. Because of this, the idea that I would not still love him or have a relationship with him or be close to him is ludicrous.  

We had many, many psychic and metaphysical experiences that would become commonplace.

It was not outside the realm of reality to be able to have a psychic connection, speak without words, speak even with the physical distance. We had many experiences.

One of my favorites involved a friend of mine from high school back in 1981. In a conversation about her in our kitchen around 10 p.m., my father and I were silently attempting to connect with her, secretly wondering if she would call at this time. Now, having never called me before or after at my house, it would be impossible that Isabel would call at this late hour. What would be even more impossible would be her saying right after I answered the phone: “You have to stop thinking of me; I have to get some sleep.”

Oh, my dad.

He also loved to tell the story of Leviticus 5. He would talk of the time he was in deep prayer requesting an answer to the quandary regarding the world's cultural problems and environmental messes. He took a nap and awoke with the thought “Leviticus 5.” He knew which Bible to go to in order to see what it said. At the top of the page were the words: “Remove Unconscious Pollution.”

My dad told a lot of stories. And he knew he repeated a lot of them. I knew he knew because he shifted the way he would start one of those repeats. It went from “Did I ever tell you the time …”  to “Hey, I told you the time that …” Now even though he had told the story previously, it would not mean that he wouldn’t retell it. He loved his stories. I think they comforted him. They brought him joy.

He did enjoy certain aspects of life...

• The trips with the family in the summer months, to the likes of Sea World, Knotts Berry Farm, Marineland and Disneyland.
• His family … though he would most likely not tell any of us directly but brag to others outside of the family. 
• The rooting on of the Rams, Red Wings, Tigers, Lions, Dodgers, Lakers, Angels. 
• The “picks” where he would enroll all the family members to guess which football teams would win each week. 
• The lottery and trips to Vegas, and his winnings there. 
• His bowling and the winning there. 
• The dining outings with his wife, my mother. 
• His meditation and the peace that came from this practice. 
• The Home Prairie Companion radio show, and all the cassette tapes he’d make of that show plus the talk shows that touched on the political and the metaphysical. 
• The talks about the synchronicities in life.  
• His work with Farmers Insurance when he got to use his intuition to work in the Fraud Department.
• His work in helping to uncover the murderer of a daughter of famous author Lois Duncan. 
• The adventure of investigating the mysteries of the untold.  

Over his life he would dig into a few of those “conspiracy theories” that weren’t really “theories” but coverups he had to uncover. I think he had to do such research just to be released from the rotten emotions that arise when you are being lied to. 

The JFK murder was his big one. I was 19 days old when JFK was assassinated in broad daylight publicly, in Dallas, Texas. That would mean for my entire life I would be taught two major lessons:

1. Do not trust the government or the media.  
2. Search for your own truth.

Now, even with his inspiring and uplifting times, there were certain aspects of life he didn’t seemed to like. He hated conflict, any kind of conflict.

He so disliked conflict that he would eat the wrong food that was mistakenly served to him at restaurants. He didn’t like taking too long in a drive-thru since he didn’t want to take up other people’s time. He couldn’t stay for the ending of those real nail-biters of sports games; too much to take! He also freaked out a bit about having a Christmas tree in his trunk on the way home from the lot, thinking some calamity might happen. Not sure what bad could befall Christmas trees in trunks. But he was concerned about it.  

With all his fears and concerns, the amazing thing was how much faith he still held. He knew the good was so much bigger than any bad. It was a faith built on experience; a faith built on spiritual connection. At one point in late 1959, he had no clue what would happen after losing his job and learning that his wife was expecting their first child. He would think “How is this going to work?” 

But he knew it would work out, and with his famous phrase “The universe is perfect,” things would fall into place for him. As they would for his family for as long as they are family. 

My dad.

This was written for my dad.

He is the most generous man I’ve ever met. He gave without needing anything back. And he gave even without the need to feel good about giving. It was just that natural for him. The most selfless person I know.

Last year, we would have no service for him. I’m sure that’s how he would have it. No big fanfare. No big presentation or focus. 

It would be enough to continue with this never-ending, always-expanding life, discovered in the higher realms, beyond the physical, of which he already knew, so well. 

It would be enough to have lived a life, living on his terms, embracing his beliefs as he did, cheering on his teams, picking his picks, watching from a distance the progress of his children, telling his stories, and leaving behind a legacy of three blessed ones, who he just wanted to be happy. 

On so many levels, I am happy.

But I wouldn’t have that happiness, nor have this drive, nor this identity as a searcher, if it weren’t … for my dad.

My dad.

I love my dad.

The House That We Called Home

The new owners of my childhood home are very sweet people. In February 2022, in honor of my parents' birthdays, my wife and I took a trip to Huntington Beach and got to walk through the newly upgraded house on Cambay Lane. I choose to write the below for the new family members so they had some history on a home that will always mean the world to me. 

Oh yes, so many memories. Honestly, too many to list.  

Really, it was a simple house, on a regular street, with friendly neighbors and an innocent childhood. At least that’s what it looked like from my point of view. 

It’s the house on Cambay – 15422 – where I grew up.

My folks – Jim and Patricia Ellis - bought the home in 1962, one of the original owners on this street. My dad used to tell the story how he wasn’t even interested in purchasing a home when he was invited by some friends to take a tour of a new housing track in Huntington Beach. Though he went along with a couple of friends just for the ride, my father would be the only one to purchase a house on this track, locking in an at-the-time whopping 30-year loan for a monthly mortgage payment half of your what you'd pay for a car today. 

By the time they moved to Huntington Beach from Redondo Beach, by way of Detroit Michigan, they would be bringing with them a daughter, Mary Lynn, who was two years old at the time. I would show up a little over a year later in November 1963. And another sister, Kathy, would make her appearance in August 1965.

This would be the home for these five Ellises. After originally setting in, my parents would live here for the rest of their lives – my mother up until 2014 at the age of 82 and my father up until 2021 at the age of 93.

In between there would be a lifetime of memories, ups and downs, joys and sorrows, personal growth, and family love.

• The wonderful Cambay block, with neighbors who knew each other’s name up and down the lane, with the children who would have fun with games on the Ellis’ front lawn, standing in as a baseball diamond, track and field arena or football field, after the parents’ call to action: “go outside and play.”  
• The same field where I would get knocked out after hitting my head on Mary jo’s knee, and where Keith would break his leg and then crawl all the way home when we didn’t believe he was really hurt. 
• The front yard where the white light pole would be claimed to be the “free” base during hide and seek games.
• The front yard that had bushes and plants and white rocks in front of the house, in a distant memory, before the clearing and arrival of the cement truck in 1973.
•  The house that saw many, oh so many, a sporting events on TV, where neighbor Dan would walk over those Sundays to catch the latest LA Rams game. 
• The rounds of “catch” in the backyard as sister Kathy honed her softball pitching skills, with more than a few times of having to ask the neighbors on either side, “Hey, can you throw our ball back?” 
• An avocado tree back there, planted by me from just an avocado pit I threw into the ground, while helpful neighbors told me it wouldn’t grow, and if it did, it wouldn’t produce any fruit. 
• The bags and bags of avocados we would have to give away, since we’d be overloaded with such a hefty harvest. 
• The avocado tree that would be taken down, per my mother’s directive, after I moved from Cambay Lane. 
• The farmers field that went for miles just beyond our backyard fence, and tractors that would plow along every now and then, preparing way for the likes of lima beans. 
• The fence we’d look over towards the northeast so we could watch on as Disneyland had its nightly fireworks show in the summer. 
• Mom doing her garden back there, before the arthritis took it away. 
• The O'Keefe and Merritt oven with the light that would be used to help mom trace our countries for our book reports … since we waited until after dark, missing out on the chance to trace it over a sunlit window.  
• And of course, Rags our dog, Fidrych our bird, one hard-to-catch Chinchilla, and then the dozens of cats Lucy, Nicky, Ragamuffin, Blackie, and the litters born in Kathy’s closet. 
• The end-of-the-year holidays that somehow were routinely accompanied by the annual colds, soothed only by rest, soup and more rest. 
• The holiday celebrations – colored ribbons around the poles separating the dining room, and the Christmas trees in the living room, where Kathy and I once announced we’d remain there so we could catch a glimpse of Santa Claus.
• The hilarious Halloween when all of us were too shy to answer the door to trick-or-treaters, providing the way for the loudest, longest and perhaps scariest laughing attack.
• The Thanksgiving dinners – starting in the dining room, and then on subsequent Thanksgivings spilling over into the living room where we’d be accompanied by the Cowboys and the Lions.  
• The living room that was somehow the sleeping quarters for everyone but me – ma on the couch, Kathy on another couch, dad in one chair, Mary Lynn in another chair and niece Emily nestled somewhere on the floor. 
• The times the family practiced the sounds of silence, unable to bridge gaps of misunderstanding and miscommunication – resulting in a hole in a door … or two. 
• And on the other side of the pendulum – two sacred weddings, one in 1987 with Mary Lynn and Michael in the back yard, and the other me and my wife Jennifer in 2012 – just me, her, a minister, my dad and my bed-ridden mother. 

So many memories. Too many to count actually. But reside they do … and reside they will. Forever. 

They will be there because we were all able to live and grow, in a wonderful neighborhood, on a picturesque street, and within a house we called our home.

15422 Cambay. May it continue to be blessed … and may it be a blessing for families, friends and memories to come.