Dylan Stafford

Good morning up in heaven sister Lisa,

I dropped the ball last year and forgot to write you on the 4th of July for 2022. My goal was to write you every year for the first twelve years after your passing. I failed last year.

Progress, not perfection: that’s what you taught me when you introduced me to twelve-step living. So I’m forgiving myself for not keeping a perfect streak of writing each 4th of July, and I’m back at the keyboard this year to type you a letter.

This year is the eighth 4th of July since your passing in 2016. This year I thinking about strength. And I’m thinking about art. And I’m thinking about you.

Art, first.

We got to go to Italy this summer. We took the boys on a pilgrimage to art, to the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica and Venice and the beauty of Italy. Marisa planned for a year. She put so much care into the itinerary. Sharing this experience with our boys is a gift I will always remember.

St. Peter’s knocked me back. Walking into the sanctuary, raising my eyes to take in the enormity of the space, it hit me. The centuries of work. The generations of effort. All looking up to something higher. I’d been to Italy before, but I’m older now. I’m starting to be mature enough to be humbled by the immensity of the beauty.

Life is short. Art is long.

All the planners and popes and craftsmen who built that space. Centuries in the making. Working an entire lifetime and yet not seeing the finished product. Working on something your father and grandfather worked on. What is it like to live like that? What could I aspire to in the second half of my life, that I could pass forward to my sons? We go on pilgrimage to ask bigger questions, to be reminded to look up.

Standing there, staring up at the beauty, it hit me–like a pulse went through me, as if I’d struck my breast with my fist, but across my whole body. It was an instant of impact.

I won’t philosophize too much more. Let me say that we need beauty. We need art. We need to be reminded of how beautiful life is, for when life gets hard. Because life will be hard.

Strength, next.

This week Christian is in a basketball camp. He’s learning new skills. He doesn’t know anyone at the camp. We are in Phoenix, in a different state, for this camp. It’s a big deal in his life, getting to be here. He was nervous and excited yesterday, for the first day. And it went great. Last night he had so much to share from the lessons of day one.

He’s getting stronger. He’s eleven. He starts sixth grade this year. Middle school. How will this summer of art and practice help him grow?

This month Jackson is away to be a camp counselor. He left Sunday morning early. He’s growing too. Sixteen. Six foot, two-and-a-half inches tall. A rising junior. This month will be longest away from him we’ve ever been. There’s a Jackson-shaped-hole in our family constellation this week, with the looming departure to college over the horizon.

I trust Jackson will be strong and true and do-the-right-things-when-no-one-is-looking–or not. Kids have to grow and learn their own lessons and sometimes we learn most from messing up. But he’s on-the-court. He’s sixteen and we’ve given him the best we were capable of to get this far. He gets to drive the car of his life this month.

Being a parent, fumbling forward, being committed to the growth and development of our children. Art and Strength. We spend time and money and effort to introduce our children to art, and to help them become strong: bodily, mentally and spiritually. We do our best.

Life always changes. Up and down. Good and bad. Like the weather. Like when you left us Lisa, too early.

With children, we aim at getting our children ready for the rest of their lives. We have eighteen years to prepare them to live for eighty years: to be strong and to appreciate beauty and to carry on without us. We want to introduce them to possibilities. We want to teach them to discern their own gifts and talents. We want them to know beauty, to look up and aspire. We want them to have strength, to be able to set an aim and trudge toward it over months and years and decades: to lead lives of significance.

You, last.

I miss you Lisa.

You loved beauty.

You were very strong.

And, you’re not here any more and there’s a hole in my life shaped just like your spirit. Even your absence is still a presence. Your spirit still hovers like I’ve written you before, effervescent like the clouds and ever in the background and heights of my life.

Thank you for the gift of sobriety. Thank you for holding my hand and guiding me into twelve-step living. Your legacy of generosity lives on even after you’ve gone. The man I get to be as a husband and as a father owes its existence to you. You give me strength, even though you’ve passed, to keep going and to do the work to be a husband and dad and to pay-it-forward.

Sobriety taught me how to look down. How to stare into the abyss instead of floating on the surface. Looking down taught me that I’m broken, and it’s that crack where God comes in. And, looking down gives me access to looking up, to being awed by life. That’s what happened at St. Peter’s Basilica this year. That pulse that hit me, I was oblivious on past trips in earlier decades of my life. I’d not yet been broken enough yet to let all that beauty hit me. Sobriety broke me, the grain of wheat began to die. Your leaving us broke me all over again.

Lisa, we all miss you: Mom and Dad and Jon and Marisa and the boys, all of us.

I miss you too sister Lisa. I love you.

Have a happy 4th of July. Enjoy the fireworks from your perch in heaven.

Your brother Dylan

Quick notes before it fades.

Yesterday.

Christian’s 11th birthday party.

Harry Potter theme.

Sunday, 11am – 3pm. 16 friends. All either 10- or 11-years old. Lot of energy.

My wife: preparation. Six weeks before. Email invitations. Right addresses. Wrong addresses. Late RSVPs.

The cake: Doby the house-elf. Modeling chocolate. Sculpting all week. Hiding Doby in the closet.

The pinata: A golden snitch. Paper mache. In the window sill all week. One more layer. How to attach the hanger?

Wands: Marisa has a method. Build in advance. Do 11-year-olds still respond to arts and crafts? Yes, if we set the stage well.

Scavenger hunt: In the park. Placing the clues. Big brother helping in advance.

Quidditch: Really? Yes. We can do this. Brooms. Blue team. Red team. Quaffles. Bludgers. Skip the snitch. Hula hoops hanging from trees.

Bernie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans: Marisa created a trivia game. You guessed the Harry Potter question, then you got a cup with 4 beans, and you had to guess the flavors. Lots of gross outs and gags and laughs. Perfect.

Memories: Prior Harry Potter party. May 2, 2015. Older brother Jackson was 8-years old then. That worked. This will work.

Our team: My mom flew from Texas. Our best friends: Aunt Jen, Aunt Nat, Uncle Eric. It takes a village.

Best part? Debriefing at dinner afterwards. Hearing Christian’s favorite memories. Seeing my mom smile. Watching my older son feel satisfaction from helping with the scavenger hunt. Seeing the accomplishment in my wife’s eyes. Grateful for family, for celebration, for life.

Amen.

20 minutes. Timer is set. Writing snippets of gratitude on this Holy Day.

The Moment:
Back from 7:30am church service at St. Monica’s. Box of fresh donuts. Family visiting from out-of-town. Easter meal will happen here. Refrigerator overflowing. Prepped parts of the celebration meal. Friends and family will join us. Serving at 12:30.

First time back in physical church today:
Masks still. No masks new. Full but not overflowing. Not back to pre-Covid Easter volume, but still a lot of people. A victory on the road to recovery.

Music:
The art form to which all art forms aspire.
Joyful, joyful we adore Thee.
Hallelujah Hallelujah.
Weeping–and not knowing why. The music, the Spirit, flowing through me and pouring out in tears of gratitude.
Seeing the musicians in person, the faces of the people who we watched on zoom the last two years. My wife Marisa thanking them. Me crying as I added my appreciation: “Thank you for your ministry through Covid.” There were church services with over 1,000 attendees on zoom, spread all over Santa Monica, California, and the world. The miracle of music. The creation of community.

Pray for the Dead:
My sister Lisa. My grandparents. Our dog Coco, who we lost on Easter afternoon 2018, when he bolted out the door and across the street. More tears. More weeping.

Service:
The hospitality ministers; the volunteers who make a village a community, a safe and welcoming home. What did they do during Covid? These beautiful servants who could not serve, who had to sit on their hands during Covid, and wait for their opportunity to contribute again. Blessed to see them again.
The Priests. Giving up a worldy life to serve a community. Life from a small room. A huge life in fellowship with the community.

Art:
The paintings. The walls adorned with images of saints. Aspiration. Look up. Yes, we are broken. But what do we do with our brokenness? It’s the crack in our vessel where the Holy Spirit pours in. Jesus did not come to preach to the winners in society. He brought his message of love and forgiveness to the prostitutes and tax collectors, the bottom of society and not the top. Comfort the afflicted. They will know us by our love. To teach. To touch. To heal.

Easter:
Resurrection. A miracle. A new birth. The beginning of history. A story that doesn’t die. A story that outlasts worldly realms and endures. A direction to look. Seek Ye first the Kingdom of God.

Weeping:
Sitting in my pew. Surrounded by community. Begin with gratitude. Happiness is wanting what you have. United, in the promise of the United States of America. Problems? of course. Gaps? of course. Broken? Yes.
And, in spite of all that. Hopeful. Looking up. Arising from the dead. Seeking. Looking. Asking for guidance.
The tears flow. There’s too much. And that is ok. I’m a speck of dust in the universe. And yet I’m known. I’m not alone. I’m not forgotten.
Neither are you.

Amen:
Final hymn. Photos in front of the flowers. Thanks to the priests and the musicians and the youth director. Back to the car. Stop for the donuts. Easter baskets back at home. Let the dogs out. Get ready to prepare the meal. All is well. 2 minutes left on the 20-minute timer. First draft/final version. All-in-one. One-in-all. Can’t be hateful when I’m grateful. I’m grateful.

Blessings on you and yours this holiday weekend, no matter what your tradition.

Amen.