I had an interesting day. Typically this week every year has been filled with sadness and severe depression. My father passed away from Leukemia Feb 16th 1999 not even 2 months after I turned 18. This year marks the 19th year of his passing. So it's technically extra tough weighing in on my mind because he will now have officially been gone longer than he was ever even in it. It was a tough thing watching a 3rd degree black belt in tae qwan do from korea and a U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame and Airborne Hall of Fame member extinguish his flame the way he did. It wasn't like the glorious war movies you grow up on and you see the hero go down in a blaze of glory. It was really heartbreaking and has effected me to this day.
I was forced to grow up extremely young and have had to deal with never knowing if he approved of my life or who I am today because of those choices.
He was the reason why I enlisted as a Combat Photographer and pursued that dangerous path for 10 years 36 months of which were in Iraq. Over the past 6 years I've been focusing and figuring out who I want to be in life. I've had major up's and down's since leaving the military and trying to get my life together all the while dealing with post traumatic stress disorder from all of the lovely sights and images left in my head after all those months on the front lines documenting life and history.
Over the past 2 years, things have been exceptionally tough but very fullfilling. I left an extremely well paying job to fully pursue my photography which ended up with me having to crash on couches, in my truck, etc. All the while just focusing on my photography. Over the past few weeks serious events have started unfolding for me and doors I thought were closed have completely fallen off the hinges. To be contacted by an extremely high profile alternative model and being booked for a 5 hour shoot was the beginning of this year. That one has left me more nervous than any of my time overseas, covering Marilyn Manson, or even when I shot Faith No More at the Masquerade in Atlanta. This one actually has left me semi sick to my stomach out of excitement and worry.
The next big thing finally happening is a book. After a lot of time and many thousands and thousands of images taken over the past couple of years I had finally decided to put a coffee table book together and out of nowhere funding started coming in for that and support I never dreamed would happen has happened. I'm always used to having to fend for myself and to never place faith in another human being for too much out of fear of being left abandoned or fucked over at some point.
The last pretty rad news for this "typically week of sadness" was that I was asked to be the featured artist in a hardback coffee table book for a newsstand tattoo publication coming out this year. So after these past few years of feeling like I was running in mud and only digging myself deeper and deeper everything seems to be coming together and maybe some of my father is catching on and helping push me onto this final leap of good things to let me know it's time to not dwell on sadness and loss especially at this point in time, but to focus on the future and how to do things correctly and to do whatever I would think would make him proud of who I have become.
Oh yeah. And at court this morning my charge was dismissed. So extra double tiddies for that.
So cheers to my father and maybe this year on the 16th it won't be completely as bad as it has been in the past with all these good things beginning to happen. I hope I am still living up to who you raised me to be and you keep smiling down on me from whatever plane of existence you are on now.