This is a copy of a bit of writing i have given to many of the people closest to me.  I have debated sharing it, but I believe that it should be...

The following is a gift, a debt both owed and paid. It is a celebration and a sorrow.  The words that are my signature are well known, and to my way, quite true.  But they are not the gift, the gift, the debt is thus:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.  I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there.  I did not die.

The reality of this thing is quite severe.  It is not a bad dream, or a simple illness; it is both serious and profound.  To survive it will take all that I have learned, all that I have felt, all that I have believed.  My people say my one great characteristic is that I survive.  That is what my people have done and it is the best that can be hoped for.  At the end of the game, if we are still here, we won, no matter how much we lost along the way; we endured.  We survived.  Maybe I will, too.  I won't quit.  All I have to do is keep getting back up when I fall.  I just have to be too stupid to stay down.

There is also the possibility that I will fall and can't rise again. Sometimes, no matter how righteous the struggle, how dear the cause, how brave the warrior, you can still lose.  The "no win scenario" is a falsehood, but losing is a harsh reality.  If I lose, I must find a victory in the defeat, show my sons how a man dies if I cannot show them how a man lives.

I have been and am fortunate.  My family and my people still live by the Once Ways.  We still find meaning in the struggle of life.  We live equally in This World and the Other World.  One foot in mundane and one foot in magic.  One thought in the Past, one in the Future, the Present only the briefest connection between the two.

If these events are some of the last of my life in this time, I can at least know that I can proudly stand with my ancestors, knowing that I have not forsaken my identity, that special words may be spoken. That I have had for friends some fine and noble people.  That I have always been what I am. The words, as fire consumes what remnant of a vessel I may leave, spoken as the spirits dance, spoken as the ash is cast upon the water, carried upon the wind, remembered by the stones, and reborn in the earth are simple:

Home is the Hunter from the Hill,
    And the Sailor from the Sea...

I do profoundly hope that these words are a long time coming, past more children and grandchildren and their children.  I do dearly hope to be around for my family and my people during the hard times.  And I do wish for many years of joy and happiness with those who have become so dear to me.

You are some of those people, and nothing can ever change that.  As much for anything, I fight for my survival for those of you who care so much for me and mine.

The Gift?  The Debt?  The same thing.  Human Love.  By our beliefs nothing holds higher.  We believe that the human race exists only because a decision was once made out of love, sacrifices laid down for something greater than ourselves; the love we fell for others.

Feel the world around you.  Feel the love people hold with you.  Hang onto the light it brings to the darkness.  I believe in Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.  I believe I am a Warrior in a great struggle between these things, a struggle between the freedom of mankind and his enslavement.  I believe we are all in this great war, but many choose to not see it.  Darkness has many weapons and tactics which strike at and corrupt the hearts of men, subverts them.  Darkness has much to offer and those who follow seem to have much to gain, but we who serve Light have something they can never have and never understand.

Love. 

And all that comes with it: loyalty, duty, honor, sacrifice, trust.  The things that make life worth the struggle.

So, you have what I have already given you, and what you have given me:  Love.

Two different people, Two different families, Two different tribes, Two different spirits.

The celebration?  That we got to meet in this life.  Which I would not trade for all the days left to me in this life or the next.

And I will be, until the stars grow old and the sun grows cold....


With all the I am to You,

John Robert Harvey


Part of Love is Trust.  You have earned all of mine and more.  Ask what you will of me; if I is within my reach I will do for you whatever can be done.  Believe that.


Below, I end the piece as I do my personal letters; with signature quotes that are core to my beliefs.  I hope that any who read this can transfer the gift to another.

--
"To live without Honor would be to die without Grace."

"All that Evil needs to triumph in this World is for Good men to do nothing."

"In the Warrior's Code, there is NO surrender!  Though the body says stop, the Spirit cries NEVER!!!!!"

"I won't be wronged; I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them"

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

"Every warrior hopes that a good death will find him."

"What we do in this in this life, echoes in eternity."

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