Palespyder’s Web

Today is the 8th anniversary of your death my son. In the past 8 years I have come to understand a great many things and to learn a lot about life, love, and death. What I have not learned is how to be a father, that lesson was stolen from me. When you were taken from me, it “broke” me in a way that I can never repair. The love I had for you is just as strong today as it has always been, yet I feel like I should be in a different place in my life.

These are the times I was supposed to be teaching you how to be a good man, a good husband, a good father, a good friend, and a productive member of the community. I should have been helping you get through a broken heart, I should have been the voice of reason when your mind has flights of fancy. I should have been giving you the stability, discipline, and friendship that only a father can offer, instead that was all taken from us.

Know my son that there is seldom a day that you don’t go through my mind. There is hardly a time when I do not think of you when something special happens or I see something beautiful. Your laugh, like a soothing waterfall to my ears, still echos in my mind and the perfect sound of you calling me Daddy still warms my soul.

I do not know what will happen in the future, but I do know I will start living my life to the fullest when I have fulfilled my vow of grieving. Today, as every other day, I miss you more then I can ever express, I love you, and I will see you again someday. Rest well my son.

I have now accepted that this is most likely not my path. I am unable to travel enough to ever even get Fyrded, let alone make it to Knighthood one day. I will be contented with learning to make armour, spending time with my wife, and working on my house.

Reality slapping you in the face is a sobering experience. I will strove to become Knightly, but my dream of one day being a Knight in the SCA, is just that.

Found this on the Armour Archive:

Æiric Ørvender

In Arms:

- To fight at your utmost in every battle, to give your all to every opponent.
- To Offer no insult to someone who may be inferior in prowess by ‘toning down’ a fight, unless it is a ‘teaching fight’
- To teach and train ALL who seek skill in arms, to do so in a respectful and optimistic manner but never fail to speak the ‘hard truth’ where/when it is needed.
- To be honorable in every fight, to never ‘loose it’, to keen honor stainless even at the cost of losing a battle to an ‘overly armored’ opponent.
- To always strive to the next level in martial prowess, especially with the knowledge that the will always be a higher level to obtain.

In Court:

- To be a steadfast supporter of the Kingdom, Crown, and it’s People. One must not always like the person who wears the Crown but one must always respect the Position the Crown represents… and always do Honor to the Kingdom, it’s People and it’s Land.
- To strive in areas other than the singularly martial, to excel in all endeavors before the People and The Crown to bring Honor through actions to the Kingdom.
- To Serve

In Camp:

- To strive to a better representation of Persona, through research, application and action.
- To inspire by example, to create for others an goal in which to reach for, and to assist others in achieving that goal.

So I have always had one. I kept myself from trying a good many things in my life due to an insane fear of failure. I could sit here and blame my bastard of a stepfather who beat it into my head that I was not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, but that would just be a cop out. See, I am a believer that you have the choice to change that view, sometimes we don’t do it out of fear of the unknown or the fear of change, but the choice to change it is always there.

I am supposed to Herald this weekend, I will be doing a Knighting and 11 awards. Raven told me last night that everything is written down and God bless her, she gave me an out, a way to punk out and no do court if I so choose to do it. I cannot with good conscience do that. I would feel terrible and I think it would actually end up making me feel worse then I do now.

I do think I will step down as Caltrop. I thought I could do the job, I thought I could do the job well, but I truly believe their Excellencies would be better served by someone else. I was not as emotionally and mentally prepared for this as I thought I was and I need to just enjoy being in the SCA again, as a good, learning a nifty skill and showing up to fight a bit. Things like cleanup and setup/teardown are more my forte. Making things for the Barony is probably more where my strongpoints lie.

After Ren Faire I will be stepping down, I will work to get them a better replacement and then I will just spend some time working on my hobby and playing my game, I hope they understand.