Turning Point: Fife After Death

last year in July… I lost a close friend and business partner, who was a genius level problem solver, and genuinely the most heart of gold person I have ever known, lando (lance) the legend. I met him at the most strange time under the most weird circumstances, we never shared too much of our personal lives, I brought him into flute making and he helped me tremendously, I created inner space, lance kept it alive, we dreamed, we plotted and planned, but we both had addiction issues and all of the problems that inevitably brings, but we had a plan, we were making things work, we were flute making peas in an acoustic pod, we were brothers, he was a bright light in my life, in June of ‘25 he was making great progress and making big changes and we were going to do big things, then tragedy struck and a bad accident caused just a bit too much brain damage to survive, after a few weeks in a coma… fuck it, you know what happened, I cant give up on everything we worked for throughout the years, and I cant enjoy the milestones or even keep going because it feels so wrong, me being here and him being gone, I was supposed to build this and we were supposed to operate it, and he was to inherit it and run it as I age out, I needed to do this to reliably provide for my family and all he wanted to do was provide for his grandparents and siblings, the summer of ‘25 was supposed to be our clean and clear headed comeback, do it right this time, build up a new workshop, new methods, new everything and we were on track to be selling in a major outlet with a ton of locations, we were supposed to relaunch on a Monday in late June of ‘25, his sister texted me from his phone and told me he was in the hospital and non responsive after massive seizures, lance has always survived it all, bounced back through what would have killed most others, I thought he would be right as rain by the time I finished the new space… he didn’t bounce back, I still cant believe it, I would stare at the door for hours, I would see him walking in with a smile telling me about some crazy shit that went down we would laugh and make cool things all day, then reality would catch up id snap out of it and realize I was sitting on a floor of a garage full of useless old broken things… (I fit right in) and he will never be walking back through that door, I was clearing out and building up the shop of our dreams from the rubble of our past and trying to get it done so he could see it soon, I just kept working and trying to get it ready so when he recovered he would have lit up like a star seeing what I cobbled together for us, and one day, I got the call, lance is gone, nothing happened after that, months of me in an empty space doing nothing, after my wife and kids he is the most important person in my life who I thought would surely outlive me no matter what, now I am alone and his family will never know what he was working so hard for and now it seems it will just dissolve because… I cant do this alone, we had a weird relationship, we never got too close, we both have the type of past that prevents a future, when we met there was not much left of either of us ,nothing behind us worth remembering or talking about, we only focused on the day we were in and talked about how we can make the future different, this is not the different I signed up for, now it is over a year later, a guy from Texas… the one and only dean, gave me what I needed to pull together and start social media (I have already reached over sixty thousand people all over the world so… thank you dean!), I was lucky to spend six months with him, but it was not his path and as a wanderer does… he wandered on, I wish him the best, wandering works for him, I was the same way when I was younger, I miss dean, I am realizing I am just so isolated and so alone in this that most days I still cant bring myself to make or play anything unless it is for someone, when I talk to or play for people it is really just trying to rebottle the energy that I felt when playing for lance, I loved playing for lance, I don’t know why I am typing at all, I came in here to make a flute playing video, and instead, just started typing, this is personal so thank god no one reads my thoughts page, this is just my version of screaming into the void because the pain is overwhelming, type where no one goes to read, a dead blog on a page of a website of a paralyzed business, flute making saved my life, it is all I have left, and now it hurts so much, but is is the biggest part of me and if I stop making flutes… I fear my life will go backwards, even if forward is a death march of failures all the way to the grave, having failed everyone I care about and loosing what we were working so hard for, I would go forward, because there are some lives not worth rewinding, my life is one of them, back is not survivable, it is why so much of me is missing, and why even my closest friend was at a distance, I would have opened up more if I knew what we were building would end so soon, I miss you man, ISF will continue for now, but even if it works… it can never be what we had, that… was nothing short of magic, absolute magic, I love you man, shit now I am crying you asshole, first time since joe killed himself, I miss you too dude, I have some work to do here for joes kids, but I really cant wait to see you guys again, fife after death huh? that’s my path now, all roads left me here, maybe when dean finds his center out there after much wandering he can come back to inner space, last men standing, one on a wander, and then there is me, in a garage too far from reality to feel human, so I do the only thing I can, I wander around here and there locally, playing a flute, just giving people the smiles I am no longer capable of truly feeling for myself, so if you see some hobo looking half squatch out there playing a flute for strangers… its just me, a failed flute maker who cant make it in this world, but I do what I can, I make smiles, I offer little happy magic moments, its all I can do, use the wind to make people smile and believe in magic again, I cant feel it anymore, but I can give it away every chance I get, so I do, and it got me through today. this is my first flog (flute blog) entry since lance passed, buckle up folks, things are horrible right now, but I can still put smiles on faces and warmth in hearts, if I cant make ISF work… random peoples smiles is the new currency, and that business is going so good you would think I knew magic, I am a millionaire is strangers smiles, I make as many as I can every where I go, I will never stop doing that, it reminds me of playing for lance in the early days, he just stared at me like I was some kind of wizard, I have to stop typing now, and dean… I hope you find what you are looking for, cant wait to see you in the space again, nothing happened after lance passed until the one and only dean showed up, he is the reason I could drag myself forward and put myself out there again, no one but dean could have done that, if anyone out there believes in inner space… thank dean, because without him I would have let the business dissolve by now, he reminded me of life, dean helped me when lance could not, then got back to his life, what a bad ass! I still want that book back though (meh meh meh), seriously dude, you are truly inner space royalty, if our paths don’t cross again, that’s life, if you come back to inner space, your coming back home, ill be here, or somewhere nearby, casting the smile spell on strangers! okay, emotional breakdown is complete, I have to stop typing I am exhausted and if anyone reads all of this I am sorry, just had to vent, ill bring this flog back to flute stuff, I just really miss lance, so much.