This morning I dreamed we gave Cameron
a $90,000 Rolex
with a broken watch band
that we’d found somewhere
and counted as our lottery win,
our ticket forward.
Yet we handed it over to Cameron
so he could marry his girl
and have his own future.
I don’t think the dream’s about dollars, though.
It could be about time.
About the 90,000 hours he’s missed of his own
this-time-around life.
Or the 90,000 beats of my heart,
within not one of which he’s been absent.
Or the 90,000 bits of bone and ash
still waiting to be scattered.
Or the exponential expanse of time
he’s now experiencing.
All the time,
not just in the world,
but in the Universe
to live in love and freedom.
Or the energy of nine, which is endings
and the magnified energy of zero,
which is eternity,
infinity,
and the real truth of his passing.
There was a day I would have handed over $90,000
or 9 times $90,000
to buy his happiness.
But happiness is an inside job,
not to be bought, but created
day by day,
heartbeat by heartbeat,
tick by tick of this $90,000 Rolex we call life.
He taught me that
through the grief of his leaving.
in memory of
Cameron David Perkins
4/2/1978 ~ 5/3/2004