Saturday, January 20, 2018, afternoon. I left my Mom at the Hospice House in Englewood, FL, as I went to run some errands and let the dogs out at the house. I knew, as I heard "Drift Away" play on radio while driving, that my Dad had passed, just as he was alone with Mom. Sure enough, my phone rang, with a message from a hospice nurse, asking me to come back. Mom was at his bedside, still holding his hand, choking back the tears. We sat together, the three of us, for the last time, my father finally at peace.
Because it's 2018, and the world has gone mad.
And the only way to start healing from nightmares is to expand and shift your perspective. Miriam Makeba, Mama Africa, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and musician. Especially on the national and global issues, we can learn so much by looking at the recent history of South Africa.
2018 is not complete without this song. It was part of the soundtrack to the video we produced for F1's Webelos den before they bridged to Boy Scouts, and part of the ambient soundtrack wherever we went. This song internalizes the struggle of 2018 and gives us a path to rise above it.
Sinead and I lived out of suitcases for much of 2018, with business trips to Europe and India, and several trips back to the east coast to care for family. We both discovered LP independently. During one of my trips to Florida, Sinead found herself putting this song on repeat all night, and when I heard, I did the same thing. It's wonderful to still have moments together, despite being far apart.
Space Camp began with Sinead taking the boys out to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse while I tried to sleep off what felt like a virus. I didn't hear Sunflower until two weeks later, after I woke up, in Huntsville Hospital.
Candles were lit for me around the world as I fell into septic shock from flesh eating bacteria on December 29, 2018.
As I lay unconscious for ten days at Huntsville Hospital, Sinead didn't know whether or not I would pull through, and struggled with the decision to send the kids back to California or not.
As Sinead drove her dad and the boys up to Nashville to fly back to California on January 3, her phone kicked in and played random music from her library:
"It's All Good" was played almost nonstop by both of us while healing in Huntsville.
I watched a lot of Lucifer in Huntsville, and we binged watched seasons 3 and 4 from home in the spring. When Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia's character) is struggling with her faith, she has a breakout moment where she concludes:
I don't think it's right for me to base my faith on whether everything is good and unicorns and ice cream. I don't think its God's job to stop the bad. I actually think he's there to give us the strength to get through it.
I woke up January 8 and began my long road to recovery. My kidneys had been trashed by the sepsis, so once the NF was under control, getting them back was the priority before we thought about transferring back home or doing any skin grafts. Watching my pee transform from brown to yellow over a period of 10 days, and then graduating from needing dialysis, was certainly a highlight of our stay in Huntsville.
Ah, Huntsville. You go your way, and I'll go your way too.
Feb 1 Sinead and I took a private Lear jet with a full ICU worth of medical equipment from Huntsville to San Jose, reuniting us with our children, and depositing me in the ICU Burn Unit of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where I had two skin graft surgeries to put my leg back together.
Michael Franti has been a large part of my life in California since living in San Francisco in 2000-2003. His music is always about healing from the bad ...
... and celebrating life.