The Everlasting Staircase"Jeffrey McDanielWhen the call came, saying twenty-four hours to live,my first thought was: can't she postpone her exitfrom this planet for a week? I've got places to do,people to be. Then grief hit between the ribs,said disappear or reappear more fully. so I boardeda red eyeball and shot across America,hoping the nurses had enough quarters to keepthe jukebox of Grandma's heart playing. She grew uppoor in Appalachia. And while world war IIfunctioned like Prozac for the Great Depression,she believed poverty was a double feature,that the comfort of her adult years was merelyan intermission, that hunger would hobble back,hurl its prosthetic leg through her window,so she clipped, clipped, clipped -- became the JacquesCousteau of the bargain bin, her wetsuitstuffed with coupons. And now --pupils fixed, chindangling like the boots of a hanged man --I press my ear to her lampshade-thin chestand listen to that little soldier march toward whateverplateau, or simply exhaust his arsenal of beats.I hate when people ask if she even knew I was there.The point is I knew, holding the one-sidedconversation of her hand. Once I believed the heartwas like a bar of soap -- the more you use it,the smaller it gets; care too much and it'll snap offin your grasp. But when Grandma's last breathwaltzed from that room, my heart openedwide like a parachute, and I realized she didn't die.She simply found a silence she could call her own.
I’m passing the bar Where you first got in my car I’m not ashamed to admit That it’s you I won’t forget I saved your cigarettes andBad habits I regret But the hours flew by like cloudsWhenever I had you around Parachute loverTake me awayFrom the plane that went crashing And the earth that’s in flamesSaving you is saving me High above the redwood treesBut down below I see shadows And parachute debris We're drifting like children Along for the rideEach time we find love Another parachute arrivesOur madness will burn As bright as the sunAnd I’ll keep finding lovers But you were the one
Joining a gang is like sky diving without a parachute. Oh, at first it’s all fun, as you take on gravity in a thrilling and exhilarating free fall towards earth. The truth is, anything that is risky and dangerous always starts out as fun. But the odds are always stacked in gravity’s favor, for you will eventually come face to face with the earth, and mother earth always wins those battles. The same thing can be said about being in a gang.