Gratitude Doesn’t Cover It
by Adam Carico
I love talking the night away—so many tangents to veer off on. And the words themselves don’t really matter because it’s the action of the dialogue itself that I remember the most.
I wish I could do this forever. I wish I could just interact like this on some forever moonlit night, sending thoughts and laughter and moments back and forth like photons between two perfectly placed mirrors. It’s moments like this that make me smile with complete honesty. It’s moments like this that make me feel like it’s worthwhile. It’s moments like this that keep me going. I can feel that possibilities really are stretching into the infinite. I can feel that it’s really worth trying. I can feel that I’m not just wasting away. I can remember that it’s ok to be happy. I can remember that I like what I like and that’s all that really matters. I can feel that somehow this will all make sense in some ridiculously brilliant flash of epiphany, as my last breaths escape my withering body.
Sometimes, this is all too much to take and the gratitude I feel cannot be expressed by mere words. At times like this, I’m reminded of why I’m choosing to have “Truth”, by Devin Townsend, played at my funeral, because I want everyone to try and get at least a glimpse of what I feel. Sometimes, I just want this feeling to be spread to everyone so that you could all, just once, at the exact time, be knocked down and lifted up as I sometimes feel.
It’s so unbelievable, and there’s no way I can accurately describe exactly what I’m trying to convey: a clear fall day picking dandelions as a 3 year old, smelling the crisp air and the faint aroma of hickory from nearby chimneys; hearing my grandmother’s final words to me on her deathbed, smiling, 95 pounds with cancer eating her from the inside out, telling me not to cry, which only made me cry harder; being told “I love you” and knowing it was meant, only by the way she was looking at me; almost drowning and being saved by a boy I didn't even know when I was 10 and never forgetting his name (Austin); trying to fathom the size of the universe; eating a steaming hot cheeseburger; hearing a musical harmony so beautiful it made me cry; watching a bird struggle to live, wing twitching, until it just stopped breathing; looking into a newborn’s eyes and feeling the storm of your mind quiet as you look at this miracle in your hands; dreaming; learning; understanding; reaching; falling; failing; trying; trying so hard.
“So in the corner by the dock where there’s no light, it smells like piss but no one knows, and right now just to sleep would be alright.” – Devin Townsend. “Bastard”. Ocean Machine.