That Too Is Legacy

You know how you usually fall asleep with some thought rattling around your head—something you’re trying to make sense of? Then sleep takes the wheel and swaps it for dreams. Sometimes fun, sometimes terrifying, always weird. Maybe dreams are the mind’s way of shining a light from the other side—flipping your world upside down just to see what shakes loose. Maybe. And then you wake up with something else entirely in your head.

Last night, I had an amazing ride before bed. Went out around 5:30, rolled around town, stopped for gas at 7, then kept going until almost 9. The air was perfect—cool across my face, the kind that makes you forget you’re on the same streets you’ve ridden a hundred times. The city was doing its thing; I was doing mine. Sometimes in parallel, sometimes headed in the opposite direction. I didn’t want it to end.

This morning, I woke up wrestling with something heavier: how friends see me right now. Some misread what I’m doing. Others doubt my sincerity. And the worst part is, it makes me doubt it too. That’s the cycle—we identify, push, question, doubt, and—if we’re lucky—reignite. We keep pushing until something takes shape. That’s the hope, anyway.

Since my triple-feature death experience, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of impact. Fifty years of living and I’m not sure I’ve left a dent. Sure, I have friends and family who’ll remember me—but after they’re gone? Nothing. My name and life erased within fifty years of my death. That thought has haunted me ever since. And if you’re wondering why I can’t just “let it go,” I imagine you’d feel the same if you’d been yanked back from the edge three times. You’d wonder: Why was I saved? Why was I chosen for death in the first place? And most of all—what the hell am I supposed to do with this second, third, fourth chance?

So to the friends and family who doubt me right now: please stop. I’m already doubting myself every waking second. But know this—everything I do now with meaning behind it is about chasing a legacy. Something that will last beyond me. Maybe I’ll get there. Maybe I won’t. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try.

This past weekend was good work. Saturday was for The Refusal, my Keeper universe novella—just the opening scene, but a solid foundation. Sunday, I dusted off And So, She Rose. It started as a memoir, beginning at my moment of death and moving forward. I don’t know if I want to add the “before” parts. The last three years—that survival and rebirth—that’s the story I still burn to tell. It’s too short for a novel, too long for most magazines. And I refuse to pad it just to make it fit somewhere. But if polishing these twelve chapters stirs up a few thousand more words, I’ll take them.

Either way, I’ll finish it this week, then turn my attention to getting it out there. After that, all roads lead back to the Keeper universe.

These were my thoughts—until the universe decided to weigh in.

I opened my texts and saw a message from one of my oldest friends, a brother from my Navy days. We were close in the way only two people can be when they’ve been shoved into the same pressure cooker of youth, service, and too many late nights. I’d sent him my “Fire and Grit” blog a while back—the first one—and he’d finally read it.

He wrote:

"I have always known since I came back to the barracks one night and there was a handwritten note on my door with one hell of a story about me having one’s bank card, that you had a talent for the written word. I don't think you need to look any further for your purpose or meaning in your life. You have found it. I can't wait to read more of anything you write. Your gift is to entertain for sure. Slut!!!!"

That’s the kind of thing that makes you stop. Surface still warm on your knees, fingers hovering over the keys, just… staring. I’d been sitting there before breakfast, second-guessing myself, wondering if the people in my life even believed in what I’m doing—and then one of the people who knew me before the world cracked me open reminded me the seed was planted long before I even knew it.

Thirty-five years later, he still remembers a note I wrote on a random night in the barracks—and that makes me smile, because that too is legacy.