The Ringing In My Ears
After 30 years serving in law enforcement, fire investigation, the military and peer support, Josey, along with his family decided to make an enormous life change. One that came as our nation and the world was rapidly evolving into a new isolated and uncharted landscape. When the change brought uncertainty and loss, Josey found himself back in his place of solitude, doing what he does to bring peace to not only his own soul but to others as well. This book is the result of many hours among the trees, writing down the stories Josey uses to decipher the pathways of the heart and soul. Using them as a roadmap out of the darkness.
In Ringing In My Ears, Josey uses his laid-back, straightforward style to tell stories from his own life – in such a way that will help guide and encourage readers through their own critical incidents. While this book (the fourth in the collaborative efforts with Dr Jeffrey T Mitchell PhD of the Crucial Moments Book Series) focuses on the struggles and emotions of someone in a public service profession facing retirement, it is not solely for that audience. Anyone who is suffering with the loss of hope, the loss of trust, the loss of faith, or especially the feeling that they have lost their sense of self, will find comfort in these pages. And perhaps a balm to the ringing in their own ears.
Excerpts from The Ringing In My Ears
Introduction
“I have lost track of the day from my perch. The sun is now overhead. I have been in this magnolia tree for hours typing these final words to you. I internalize pain and loss. I have felt and witnessed them both. From the organized manicured grass of the cemetery, to the unorganized last minute family reunion as people like me and my friend have carried your loved one out to the front yard. For those that have left us with sharpness, it’s a reminder to live and love in the moment. There will always be a sharpness to the unpredictable life we live. As my father said, life is not fair. We should embrace and rejoice when we can go on our terms, surrounded by those who love us most. I’m confident most of us do not want to be carried, but I am confident we like to be held. When I’ve carried someone from the sharpness or from their own terms, I have held a part of them that allowed them to dance in the wind like a green magnolia leaf. A part of them that allowed them to embrace us and to embrace life. A part of them that held and nurtured others. Yes, it’s just a body, but it allowed them to be with us. It allowed them to physically touch us. Our job as those who carry, those who watch, and those who mourn, is to carry their love deep in our souls once their body has been laid to rest. It does not matter if they passed or died, there is a day to wear the black. There will be days that the sun does not etch across the sky, and some days the wind does not blow. But the rest of the days we need to join those other magnolia leaves, embrace the sun, and allow the wind to let us touch others…”
Three Forty Seven
“I ask that you scan between the sentences looking for my struggles that I was unaware of. I ask that you learn from my struggles. As a man who has crawled out of the hole I can tell you that finding that switch or being able to idle down that self-propelled purpose is a process. I do not feel there is a quick fix or three-step solution. I think what kept me from being a statistic was my family, my system to keep my head straight, my faith in life and God and hope. In the pages that follow I unveil my heart and soul to strangers in the hope that one person sitting on the sofa at three a.m. realizes one man acknowledges the struggle, that you are not alone, and that same man found his way back home…”
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