For Granted (Patreon)

Originally, I was going to write and upload a post-mortem about my last video, it's certainly do. However, when my Mother happened to be over, I heard the news that someone she knew, an artist, a man who my Father had known for decades, one he made a show with, more like a brother than a friend, had died.

The man was very private, even in death; cancer, of which he told very few.

Let's call him, Vek.

I'm not writing out of personal sadness. Vek's privacy meant I only met him a handful of times, when I was a child, a time that I've forgotten entire years of. I couldn't describe to you his voice, catch-phrases, or dress. I can only say he meant a lot to the people who raised me, no matter if their friendship had dissolved, or how much time had passed.

Last month I'd asked Mom about the Man, if it'd be possible for me to meet with him; whenever Dad told me a story of his life, there's a fifty percent chance Vek was in it, doubting my Dad's word before something insane happened to the both of them, before laughing about it the next day.

I wanted to hear the other side of the story.

Ironically, it's my Parents and their… disagreements that taught me from a very young age the importance of perspective, how the only way a complete picture of an event even has the chance of being painted, is if someone collects everyone's perspective.

Mother and Father would individually tell me stories with the same location, date, and catalyst, only to arrive at two conclusions that were impossible to co-exist. It's not even that one of them is lying. It's that neither of them can see the complete picture.

I wanted to know what the complete picture was of my Dad's earlier life, and Vek could've been a step closer to having it.

Could've…

I'm also not writing this out of guilt. You never know when someone is going to go, and you can't map your life decisions based on when other people are suddenly taken from us. I didn't choose to keep Vek's cancer secret, Vek did, and from what I do know of him, it's not surprising for him to have done so.

I'm not sure if he even would've wanted me to sit down and have him recount the stories of his past…

But I would've liked to have tried, because that story, his story, is now less likely to ever be heard. His perspective is quite literally, gone, left to now be told by those close enough to recount them.

It makes me wonder if the stories that we do eventually tell, maybe even write, film, draw, sing, and perform, are they just the fraction of what we could've told?

I don't have the time to tell you everything… or maybe I do, and I just don't know how? Seeing Vek have so much to say, to the point that he had to express it through a brush, a microphone, a studio, yet still depart with so much more tell… I honestly don't know what it makes me feel.

All I know is that I can't take people for granted, and if there's something I want, it's to hear their stories.

It helps me tell mine.