Lenny came home today. There was a knock on the door. A few seconds later, he was gently placed on my favorite chair—the one with soft gray and green pussy willows. And there he sat while I sensed his essence, imagining how he would laugh at the whole spectacle.
Before he arrived, while his postage was being calculated, I used my dowsing pendulum to inquire, “Would Len be happier here or there?” It’s a bit late to be asking such questions. The reality is it did not matter to him. He is on the next leg of the journey, having left earth some six years prior, and could not have cared less.
So, bring him home. And what exactly is the definition of home? Perhaps all of us would find this definition helpful regardless of our stage of life.
Was it in Florida on our cousin’s garage shelf while she contemplated sprinkling him in the garden? Or was his home with me, in my living room, 3,000 miles away from where he lived for the past 40 or so years?
I loved him fiercely. And for me, there was no closure until his ashes were intentionally placed. And that equated to “not on the garage shelf.”
The USPS box sat for a few days. To be honest, I was afraid to open it. I knew he was not in an urn. We all know that sprinkling negates the notion of an urn.
The postal service has rules about shipping cremated remains. One hundred and thirty-four dollars later, his ashes were delivered in a plastic bag with a twist tie, housed in a cardboard box with his credentials. Then another cardboard box, then a second cardboard box—one that the post office referred to as a “chuck.” Then the postal service box. I’m hoping the fee was the cost of his plane ride and not the cost of the “chuck,” which for any logical reason identifies as a cardboard box. But he is here.
Everyone loved Len. I can’t think of one person—family, random acquaintance, co-worker—who didn’t love Len. He commanded respect just walking into the room. He had presence.
There were three specific things about him that just made you love him.
He was so funny. I know people who say things thinking they are funny. But Len, oh my God. Someone would make a comment, and Len’s brain had the comeback instantaneously. And instead of reading the room and keeping his mouth shut, that comeback shot right out—unannounced and unpredictable. His mind worked in such a way that usually his comments made us all feel awkward because they were the truth. Then rolls of laughter from the listening folks. Even when Mom was meting out some punishment, she had to turn her head to hide the laughter. Len was that good.
He was an intuitive who seemed to exude light. In our twenties, Len exposed me to Seth. After that conversation that scared the hell out of me, while sleeping I experienced my first encounter with astral travel. Len shared his adventures with wide-eyed listeners, and the tales were a strong mix of believable and “Are you serious? No way.”
Have fun with this example—and I sure wish he was here to tell it in full detail. He and his friend Johnny were driving home in a storm. It was rainy and pitch black on a country road. They picked up a hitchhiker who introduced himself as Michael. All three rode for a bit, then encountered a downed tree obstructing the roadway. The men struggled to clear the way, then hopped back in the car. Not very far down the road, the hitchhiker said they could let him out right there. But there was nothing there—no house, no cross street, nothing.
They let him out and continued home.
Till the day he passed, Len swore that the hitchhiker was St. Michael and appeared just so they would have help with the downed tree in the middle of a rainy and dark night.
He had one story after another with similar encounters. If you knew Len, you knew the stories were surely true.
He was a highly successful and sought-after artist. From the time he drew pencil duplications as a youngster—not tracings—of Mad Magazine comics until he created the AT&T fiber optics map that hung in New York City’s Times Square, he was always creating.
All kinds of clients sought him out. The City of DeLand, Florida, commissioned him to create their 12-foot-tall wooden soldiers for their holiday displays. He built trolleys. Various companies hired him to create three-dimensional logos; high-end restaurants featured his hand-crafted bar tops. And the most amazing part of all of this: he didn’t have a manufacturing plant that was prepared for any of this. He would get the order, then brainstorm how to create the piece.
My beloved brother was brilliant.
And that brilliance, like a phoenix rising from ashes, had an incredibly hard life.
The maternal rejection set the tone. He was bullied in school. He was bullied at home. In my wisdom years, I now understand why he didn’t fit in. He was not society’s child—and we are all better for it.
When he was a teen, Mom sent him to a boys’ home because he wouldn’t obey. “Obey” meant having no agency and no voice, and Len just could not conform to that.
Although the “obey” part reminds me of a story. Our family dog had one puppy. Len wanted to take the pup to school for show and tell. We, meaning us kids, discussed it, and I gave my blessing. Mind you, I was also in grade school. The puppy whined all during class, the teacher had a fit. Len’s response to her was, “Well, my sister said it was okay.” For years, the private joke between us was “my sister said.” Whenever anyone was ready to do something stupid—or at least questionable—we’d look at one another and chime, “my sister said!”
I’ve been wanting to write Len’s obituary. We didn’t even have a celebration of life because of logistics and, of course, Covid.
After all this information about his escapades with angelic beings, of course it makes sense that he really doesn’t care where his ashes are. But I do. I’m glad he’s home.
