The inspiration for this blog came to light when I began to see all of the magic during the painful and tragic experience of losing my father. He left our home in Florida to get the dry cleaning a few miles down the road. He told my mother he would be right back, kissed her goodbye and walked out the door for the last time. I was just falling asleep in Kampala, Uganda when a colleague called. I thought it was very strange that he called me so late. All he said was that I needed to contact my family. Three hours later I was on my way to the airport. Twenty-four hours later I was by my father’s side. And seven days later I held his hand, and then laid my cheek on it to feel his warmth one final time before he slipped away from me for what I thought would be forever.
But it wasn’t.
The Magic Had Only Just Begun
After his passing, I left the hospital and drove directly to the ocean. I parked and walked to the water’s edge where I immediately saw a large pod of dolphin swimming offshore. In all my years of growing up in Florida, I had never seen so many gathered in one spot. I counted at least twenty there frolicking in the water. There was one that caught my eye. It kept lifting its tail out of the water and waving it back and forth as if waving hello, or goodbye. I started walking north along the beach and the pod followed the same direction as I. And this one dolphin kept waving goodbye. For fifteen minutes I walked and each time I looked out the dolphin was still right there waving goodbye. I finally just stopped and watched him until he went away.
Why did I find the dolphin so magical?
I have always felt a deep connection with the ocean and especially with dolphins. For surfers in Florida, they are a natural part of the landscape, always there jumping and gliding around you. I always felt safe when they were around. The rumor on the beach is that sharks are afraid of dolphins. I am not sure if that’s true but its something we Floridians choose to believe when paddling around in the murky Atlantic waters. My father knew my affinity for dolphins and would often bring home little dolphin figurines from his various trips. I couldn’t help but think that this was my father saying goodbye.
Facing the Music
I waited there until the dolphin finally moved on and then I drove home to face the music. Literally. When I was sixteen years old I didn’t have much money but wanted to give my father something special for his birthday. I learned an old country song that always reminded me of him, Daddy’s Hands, on my guitar and sang it for him that night. It was one of the few times I ever saw my father cry. Through his tears, he smiled and asked me to play that song at his funeral some day. I hadn’t played the song in the twenty years that had passed, so I went home and spent the night practicing.
And the Magic Continued
The next few days were spent planning his funeral and organizing his estate. Each morning I would wake up, make a cup of french press and head out to the rocking chairs on my parent’s front porch. I had set up an office out there, looking at my father’s grand green lawn that he was so proud of. Each morning my mother would eventually join me, and each morning she would say, “Crystal, I need to show you something. Come to my room with me.” And I would say in my impatient teenager voice that only my mom has the power to invoke “Mo-ummm, I am busy. I need to finish this before I head back to Atlanta.” I was starting my 2nd year of grad school in under a week and had to leave immediately after the funeral.
Finally, on the third morning after his death, my mom and I were sitting in our usual positions on the porch when a dragonfly landed on my wrist. My mom and I stopped talking and looked at it. I wiggled my wrist a little bit and it refused to budge.
I said, “That is so weird.” My mom looked in disbelief. We kept on with our business and after about five minutes I stopped again.
“This thing will not budge. What is up with that?” I asked.
“I know,” my mom answered in her cute southern way, “That IS just so strange.” I could sense some strange hesitation in her voice.
After the dragonfly finally buzzed off my mom pleaded in her annoyed, motherly way that only I have the power to invoke from her, “Crystal, will you puh-leeease come here for a minute? I REALLY need to show you something.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fiiiiine,” my 16-year-old self sighed.
I followed her to her bedroom where she opened her jewelry box and pulled out a small gift box. “This is your birthday present from your father. He bought it a few weeks ago.”
She handed the box to me and I stood there staring at it. My birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks, but of course, my father would have bought something well in advance. He was always good with those kinds of things.
I opened the box and there was a beautiful dragonfly pendant made of different shades of amber. My jaw dropped. My mom and I both just stood there speechless for a few moments.
We had no words. We looked at each other, tears in our eyes, and then hugged for a long moment.
Dragonflies are another species that I have always felt a connection with. During my time as a professional musician, the dragonfly was my logo. In fact, it’s still the favicon for this site.
I knew with certainty that this was another visit from my father.
And then there was the dream. These things always happen in threes, right?
During the time before the funeral, my family and I spent a lot of time together, going through my father’s things and cleaning out his huge garage full of toys. All of this was done over many beers and bottles of wine. It was more like a party than a funeral. We laughed and cried and drank and then repeated the cycle. The drinking continued through the funeral and into my nights in Atlanta. I had been back in Atlanta for a couple of weeks, classes had started and slowly I was returning to the routine of everyday life in grad school, wake-class-work-study-sleep-wake. My downtime was spent enjoying the much-needed support of my friends, and of course, this always involved drinks, maybe a few too many drinks. It would have been clear to anyone on the outside that I was drowning my sorrows in alcohol, but it wasn’t clear to me.
One night, after a stint of studying, I drifted off into a deep sleep. I dreamed I was at a party at one of my favorite drinking buddy’s house. The party had dwindled down and it was a typical late night scene, only the serious drinkers still up and at it. There were bottles of liquor strewn about and ashtrays full of cigarette butts, not the kind of scene you would want your father to walk in on, but suddenly there he was, smiling from ear to ear. Even in my dream state, I knew this couldn’t be happening. I shook it off and told myself, “He’s not really here. He is dead.” I kept talking to my friends and pretended to not see him. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw him walking toward me. I looked at him again, still smiling, like he was so happy to surprise me like this. I looked at him, confused, and said, “You’re not really here. You’re dead.”
“No, I AM here,” he said smiling, waiting for me to figure it out.
“How is that possible? You died weeks ago. I was there. You can’t possibly be here right now.”
“I know! But I am here, isn’t it great?”
We proceeded to have a long conversation about how it was possible that he was there, the meaning of life, what happens in the afterlife and where he was headed after this little bypass to the party I was currently at. I remember thinking to myself, “I have GOT to remember this conversation when I wake up.” But of course, I didn’t. The one thing I did remember was the final thing my father said to me before he left me, this time for the final time.
His smiled diminished into a fatherly expression of concern, “Honey, are you ok?”
I looked around at the dismal scene of the late-night after-party, and then I turned to him and said, “No, but I will be.”
The only thing I remember from this point is slowly rising from this extremely realistic dreamworld conversation with my dad, fighting it, reaching out to my father the whole way up, not wanting to say goodbye, as if I knew deep down this was the last time, and then there I was, awake and back in my dark bedroom in Atlanta.
I burst into sobs.
THIS was the final goodbye. I felt it. He came to check on me, to make sure that I would be ok before he set off on his new adventure into the afterlife. I have never dreamed of my father since. I have never felt his presence since, no dragonflies, no dolphins. I have some friends whose departed parent still visit them in dreams, years after their passing, but not my father. He couldn’t wait around in the ether, checking in on me from time to time. He had things to do. He was an explorer, like me. And it was time for his next adventure.
The next year was one of the hardest of my life, finishing grad school while working two jobs and dealing with my father’s estate was a lot for any person to handle, but throughout it and ever since, when things got really hard, I remembered that last promise I made to my father, “I will be ok.” That has been a powerful mantra. I promised my father that I would rise above. That I would be ok. And that is a sacred vow that I intend to keep.
And so it was that one of the worst years of my life blossomed into one of the best, a year that led to my accepting a job in Congo and changing the trajectory of my life in a huge and lasting way.
These experiences of my father’s passing, too powerful to be considered coincidence, and my continued connection with him after made it so that this time of grieving was one filled with sorrow, but also filled with magic. I could not feel depressed. I was sad of course, but I had never felt so connected and in the flow with existence. This mysterious universe became something beautiful, filled with light and color and magic. This connection gave me a deep and profound joy underneath the sadness. A warmth. As if I were still that baby, safe in my father’s arms.
I was so touched by this experience that I wrote a song one night about the loss of my father. The chorus went like this:
All the Magic. All the Magic. Sometimes comes to light after something tragic.
And so this blog is dedicated to him. He was the hardest working man I knew and it wasn’t until his death that I fully appreciated the scale of sacrifices he made so that I could have a better life than he did. He grew up dirt poor, sharing one bed with his five siblings. Got his first job at thirteen, graduated from high school and went directly into the Navy. He retired from both the Navy and Diebold, INC. He worked his ass off his entire life, bought land and built our home, paid for my college and many of my own adventures, and always supported my fleeting and ever-changing interests, talents and dreams, whether he liked it or not. He gave me so much.
And I will not waste it.
I have been on the move ever since his passing. I have been searching, learning about the world. Discovering what is the best way to make a difference in this world. I have been on the front lines, sometimes even of war. I have come to understand that the best use of my time is sharing this connection. Promoting this love. This Magic. Because THIS is it. This ever-present joy that exists in us. THIS is what life is all about. Finding and nurturing that joy that allows us to connect with others. To understand others. THIS is what the world needs. More people in tune with THIS. Because when I look at the world and the problems we are facing, whether it be the genocidal wars breaking out in Congo or the extinction of elephants for their ivory, or the destruction of our seas, it all boils down to one REAL underlying issue: greed. This lust for power and one’s own selfish pursuits of materialistic pleasures can only exist in a world where people have lost their connection to others, their connection to this love that exists in all of us.
So this blog is not just about my travels and photography, but also about the magical experiences I encounter along the way, those times of sacred connectivity when one knows it’s not a coincidence, but something deeper. Something magical. I have been chronicling these experiences, both past and present, under the category “Magic.” I hope by reading you will also step into that place with me. That place of truth. I hope it will bring you closer to the ONE. The ONE that some call god, some call love, some call nothing, but all, when they are really connected and present, ALL feel inside their heart. The one. The warmth. The magic.
Magic 52/365, All the Magic, Jacksonville, Florida, 1979ish
