Category: My Family Gravestones

These are posts about my family… we all have one… in one way or another. A place of memorial.

Roll of the Dice…

“To the question, “Why am I old?” the usual answer is, “Because I am becoming dead.” But the facts show that I reveal more character as I age, not more death.”

― James Hillman, The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life
Photography 2019 ~Hudley Flipside

A time of family Closure. Steve’s only tattoo he got in the Navy Reserve, DICE.

I doubted my memory about this. A subtle move on Mike’s part if he even remembers me giving the badges to him. It is nice when The Fates send their gifts of magic. Helping me to remember more clearly, and helping me with the confidence to say, “Yes this it the truth. It really happened as I remember it happening.”

My oldest brother Steven J. Hudson died a couple of years ago. He was found in his apartment. These details are sketchy, and he is survived by his son and grandson.

Below is a story about my brother who spoke to me from the grave. I think he and Dennis Danell, the original bass player of Social Distortion, both are having some fun on the other side. They caught me in an “amber moment.” Affirming to me that the line between eternity and earthlings is often a fine line.

Brother Steve was a character… he died in his early 70s. He did so many things in life. He sailed, surfed, was a scuba diver, drank, ran marathons … he was a ladies’ man. He was a movie extra for years and knew many characters in the film industry too.

He told me once he kept books and documented all the shows and episodes he was on. I wish I had those books now.

Brother Greg and Steve once said they were going to write a memoir or novel about Steve’s movie experience. I told Steve I was eager to do it too. If Steve only asked me to do it… it would have been done.

I have viewed him on many shows. I like watching reruns from the 60s through the 80s because you never know where his mug will show up.

Here is the story documented … with images to boot… a real life from the beyond story.

I saw SD at their 40th anniversary last December. Mike / band was impressive. He was wearing the badges I gave to Dennis (rip) on his guitar belt. I stole those badges from my oldest brother Steve. He had several police badges and such. He got them as a movie actor / extra. He was pissed. A nice synchronicity.

After the show in 2019 I saw this episode a couple years later…

Crazy night, I am watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker and saw my brother Steve (rip). He was a movie extra for years.

I am watching the Bad Medicine episode.

Steve is playing a police officer! I took his badges … a few years later. He kept them in a basket in his apartment. Those badges have a story too!

He just affirmed it tonight! Wow … ❤️ kind of spooked!

Thanks Kolchak!

Steve Hudson
Photos taken from my TV

Notice the Browse star police badge on Steve’s shirt and Mike’s guitar belt… the touch point of humor from the other side.

Gregory Hudson

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”

― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

The last of the summer Dionysian Hollyhocks in my Garden

Grief and responsibility are two words that I am feeling right now after the death of my older brother Greg, or some call him Gregory.

When I was young, he was a fun and challenging responsible brother. As I got older, I found him distant and lacking the kind of responsibility that comes from a life that is often not perfect. We all have our demons, but Greg was not shy about his.

I am not going to write about his life here.

I have studied many esoteric books and I can give Greg the respect of inspiring me to look this direction.

He studied Rudolf Steiner and I others. I think we studied and experienced our share of mysticism and occult as well as Native American spirituality. We both grew up on the same hills that were wild and whimsical… calling us to our natural spirituality of questions.

I have learned that after death we are given the ability to look over our lives. All the good things and bad. What we did to ourselves and others. Yet when a family member dies, we too ‘the living’ indirectly go through a parallel experience.

I am letting my psyche grieve out. Like the rain today that is a gentle sprinkling while shearing, the cosmos gives back gems and reflections of memories too.

I love my brother Greg and I will miss him showing up out of nowhere, to get a pint from the local Pickwick pub with some Fish and Chips. He was not dependable, but he had a unique pattern about him that made life fun.

I have come to realize that I am a responsible person. Greg was too as a teacher who had good friends.

I like to document things, write, and take care of my family. I wish Greg followed through with some of his writing project ideas.

I can say that Greg had a good life holding many adventures, trials and loves. I wish him well on his journey away from us. I hope when he comes to me during his retrospection of life, he will find one of his four siblings doing what they do as reasonably happy and forgiving.

This is what we humans are made up of, our contrary ways. None of us get away with anything…

Greg had a dark side too. Our family does… standing up to them has been something I had to do. I am glad I did. “So It Goes.”

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”

― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly.

April 22, 22. A new edition to this real narrative.

An image / watercolor has come back to me. Greg sent this to me once. My mother framed it for me. She always kept the image in house. After they passed it soon was gone. One day Greg decided to go throughout my parent’s house. Cleaning and maybe taking things. He had some strange notion that the images and art on my parent’s walls had some vast hidden child favoritism. I did not see it that way. Yet my mom had a way of preserving many of the things of her kids. This image is one of them. So, the journey of this image is a profound one.

First in the 1970s Greg created it and sent it to me. I loved. Mom and I framed it. (1972) Then after our parent’s died Greg took the painting back with him to northern California. (2013) After Greg’s death his x-wife returned the watercolor back to me. (2022)

From Northern California Siobhan mailed it to Missoula Montana. My sister Sallie received it and mailed it back to me in southern California.

A strange journey for a watercolor.

It reminds me of the film The Ninth Configuration (also known as Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane). A sign was meant to be given to one of two friends. Whoever died first would give that special message. That life goes on after death.

I think this is a good affirmation from my brother that life goes on. My brother loved me. I loved him and thinking back to when I was a very young girl that meant all the world to me.

I went in shock after receiving this watercolor. Now the watercolor is framed and hangs on our living room wall near the hearth. Near mom’s clock frame which Greg hated. He wanted to through it against the wall every time it played this tune. “The Way We Were.”

Gorda Springs, Big Springs California.
May ’72.

The Chapel of the Oaks

A rose on the grounds of the Chapel of the Oaks

Epiphany January 6th

“a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.

“many believe this scene to represent an epiphany of the goddess”

“an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.”

I thought I might get past this day. The putting away the holiday decorations or watching the 13th speaker vote, or doing the laundry or cleaning the kitty cat litter boxes. Yet the word addressed me again …Epiphany. And while my ears are ringing and my old body wanes with the full moon of cancer … deep. I will continue to wallow in my wisdom as Buffalo told me. My mom is here today illuminating my life. Even though she died on this day some 15 years ago .

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Youngest son wanted to take a summer drive. We stopped by the local fast food for a ‘buck iced tea’ and away we flew. Driving up hills that ascended into our imagination as the trail turned our minds.  The Yucca plants were standing tall, hidden within the snake turns of the mountains. Familiar objects of man and earth passed us by. The road driven as a waterfall that flowed onto Topanga Canyon Boulevard. Then something winked in my heart to the right of the canyon at Lassen and Valley Circle. The Chapel of the Oaks.

A bright day at the Chapel

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It was bright today. The roses outside, and the stain glass windows inside the Chapel, were radiant. It was positively illuminated. Only one man was in the chapel as we sat down pulled into humbled silence.

A bright place .. no more darkness…

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We talked a bit. The man had just come from Portland Oregon to attend a service for his late Uncle. Son’s eyes lit up. He wants to go to Portland to view some steam engine trains this summer there. I listened as I reflected on the light while bathing in the ambiance of the beautiful small chapel.

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The Chapel has several stain glass windows of oak trees.

Was it five years ago when mother was positioned in a pine coffin before me? Then my experience of this place was a dark, cold coffin where my focus was drawn to her, only her. Mother was a very independent lady. She was stubborn and self-sufficient and kept to herself. She was dedicated to her children and codependent to her husband.

Today the gloom and grief lifted. I did not notice anything in the chapel before at mother’s funeral. Today, the Oaks Chapel transformed into a wonderful archetype of death, transformation and rebirth.

Son was so sweet and kind to me today. Very wise in his ways. My mother’s image, held in my mind and heart now, are happy, bright and brilliantly free. With closure new doors open.

https://hudleyflipside.com/2014/01/06/epiphany-last-of-the-holy-of-holy-days-a-revealing-scene-or-moment/

Dad’s Passing

Mom and Dad in the 1940s Santa Monica CA.

Saint Patrick’s Day 2013.

My siblings and I headed down to the local Pickwick Irish pub for a great traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage. We drank until the well was closed to us. Then we all went home. I think dad would have appreciated this. He told me that often at funerals people always talk so ceremoniously about the deceased. They usually always would lie about how great a person was instead of how they really were, the real stories about how they really really were. So, this day at the pub was how my dad would have celebrated or grieved a dead friend or family member, by getting fucking drunk with his friends. As we sure Do-Wah Diddy did.

A bittersweet time.

The year 1942 Greer Garson was 31 when she hit it as an actress, a very mature time for a woman to make it big . I enjoy watching her films. I enjoy her strength, femininity, and intuitive strategic nature.  Watching Classic films is so comforting. The films are the same year after year but somehow change with time. It is a matter of perspective; a film viewed at 5 is understood differently at 55. It is movie magic and in times of grief and sorrow films bring comfort and friendship.

Today is such a day where the line –up of films accentuates the durability of eternal grief, the motifs and archetypes of life and films.

A long night of seeming madness and then with a couple of button pushes the classic films begin at late morning and without even eyeglasses or coffee. Three Coins in the Fountain, Notorious and Dial M for Murder will embrace me today. Now an awake child of the cosmos I find my eyeglasses, coffee and make cabbage salad with bacon, red peppers, avocado, jalapeño, and dill-rye bread.

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Unfortunately, the real focus of this little dilly-dally of a transforming short story is about three things.

Two songs, my dad and death. He died on Saint Patrick’s Day.

It was a week ago today that he passed. A nurse from hospice, three siblings, and myself attended as classical music played in the background. Intense and with a call to my heart. I asked my brother to change the CD,

“Put on that CD you got for Dad a few years back for his birthday or was it Christmas!?”

It was the best of Frank Sinatra. We watched Dad move into the eternal and listened with a pleasant release and sad joy.  In a moment of time between the song The Young at Heart and Three Coins in a Fountain, dad left us. I imaged him dancing away with the spirit of our deceased mother or maybe Greer Garson.

In her youth mother looked similar to Greer Garson.

An Image of Mother’s Passing…

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. – G.B. Shaw

My brother called to tell me mom passed. There were few tears to shed.  A year before I shed my tears knowing that this day would come soon enough. Giving birth and waiting for death are so much alike in their ways. One waits and endures through the pain while caught in the eternity of this waiting. It passes. Human beings are born and then they die.

 

The funeral director was called by phone to come and receive my mother’s body in death. They arrived quickly. A gurney was brought into the house. The man asked if my father and I would like to join my brother downstairs.

“Many family members find it hard to witness their loved-one’s bodies being placed on a gurney.”

My father and I stayed. I watched as the mortician picked my mother up as a bride over the threshold. Her body hung down lifeless. A vivid image of Christ on the cross came to mind. Then she was placed on the purest white sheet I ever saw. Then they wrapped it round her. She was the center of a beautiful white Lilly. My father bent over and kissed her, I followed and kissed her, and he followed again. Then she was gone.