Excerpt: In my time of dying

I chose to live my life as I do.

Every little thing I do, every little way it's different from the next man's, I chose it. The lack of formal education, the lack of family background, working through things that I may have taken for granted otherwise - I chose that. The risk, the danger - I chose them. The love, the sensual pleasure - I chose them too. Working what I do, doing it as well as I do, with the people I do? I chose that too.

And whenever it comes time to close the curtain, I'll do my best to choose that too.

For one thing, with all the danger? I choose to make sure that final call isn't anytime too soon. There are risks, true, there always are. There are risks in however one lives one's life, really; perhaps I am just a little more aware of them than most people are. Which is part of how I do make sure I don't come to an untimely end soon. Realistic estimation of situations. Knowing that everything carries its danger with it. Not underestimating anything or anybody if I can help it, and also sometimes trying to make people underestimate me, if possible, so that when they prepare for what they think my best is, I can do better.

Always trying to do better. Better than the next guy, better than the enemies. Better than I have before. Never static, never satisfied with something being 'good enough'. In life, nothing is 'good enough'. Not in my life, at least. There is always a better way, may be a harder one, more difficult, but there's a better way. Which I look for. Always. Always up for finding the full potential, the most of a situation, the furthest reach, the longest draught, the brightest person to work with, the most efficient way to get out of a situation - not just for me, but with respect to other lives and, if possible, transported items if that's the case, as well. Always.

Because that's the point. I can choose, but the only sense I can make of that ability to choose is to drink up what all my choices bring about. To the dregs. Sometimes those can turn out to be good too, by the way; it's only that people think of dregs when they get to the bitter part that they don't realize they chose in the first place.

I try not to do that. Choose with my eyes wide open. That way, I know there's bitterness coming. Nothing is free, nothing is sweet only. I cherish the bitter along with the sweet. That's how I chose to be.

I'd choose to live forever, if I could. There's so much that is great about being alive the way I am - sensuously, openly. It'd be worth going at it forever. I know, I know. Age will change things. I'll probably grow tired, though I doubt ever too tired to be able to appreciate all. My powers will grow, my senses will weaken, that's how it usually goes with us wizards. And I'll embrace that too. Weigh in my place, as it were. (And thanks to Stephen, and to Claudia, for letting me find a real place, rather than drifting with the current until I lost sight of why it mattered to choose and drowned. My loves. And then the children...)

Of course, I do know that living forever it's not really a choice I'm likely to get. For that matter, with the job I do have, chances that I'll really truly live to get old are very slim. If I get to be able to, it'd be my choice, always. Never to leave those who have my loyalty to try and fill my absence up somehow. I've ran before, true. But not unless my loyalty has been betrayed first. And the life I have now? It's proven to me over and over again that I've made the right choices. That the people whom I've given my faith to are well worth that faith.

So I drink that all fully. However much I have to live, I take each moment and make it good. When I work, I go at it thoroughly. No holding back, no slacking, no regrets or looking back on previous mistakes when it can be distracting. Focus on what is, and what we aim for it to be, Stephen and I - because it is his work, and I do my share to make sure his objectives are met. When time for preparation is out and time for action is at hand, do that, and well. Better than those we're fighting against expect. Watch each other's backs. Get out alive; if possible, get the goods out. Life is more important than items usually though. And we are not fighting for a cause, not for territory. Not attacking (well, not unless one of ours has been taken, and those are really rare exceptions, dammit, Stephen!). So running, or rather retreating with minimizing damage? Totally permissible. Actually, commendable.

Drink in the adrenaline rush. Drink in the lives of the, well, comrades. Drink in the partnership we have, the rapport if need be. If any fall... drink in the memories of them. Even their loss. That's among the bitter parts, you know, even if we've only worked together on one job. The cost to getting the work done.

I chose this work... when I was almost impossibly young. Not yet eighteen, as a matter of fact. I'd made my run out of two homes; and I'd lost the other one to machinations that a kid that age shouldn't have to be made to see, I suppose. It seemed an awesome choice. It turned out that it was, and I wouldn't change it for the world, but it's not an easy one either. Not in the eyes of the man I work for; nor in my wife's eyes, nor in my children's. When nothing else is there, I go and risk my life. Sure, I try to stay on top of things, and make the odds always skewed up in my favor, but it's a risk. More of a risk than they want, possibly than they deserve for me to take.

But it's the cost for my having the life that I do. It's now a part of who I am, and I couldn't be all that I am without it any longer. Oh I can possibly choose to quit my work. Yeah, I won't, because Stephen knows what I am and how I work and relies on me, and I, for all the running away I've done, do not want to betray anybody's trust. Especially not that kind of trust he has in me. But I could quit. He'd still be all the rest that he is in my life, I have no doubts about it. By now, between what I have and what Dia has, our children would be provided for, I believe.

But I am who I've chosen to become, and that's the man who chose to risk his life to make sure others' lives are safe. Or even others' property. And that's the choice that brought all that's good in my life.

Namely, Stephen de la Marck and Claudia Parker. Born Gates-Jones, technically Pietrovitch. And our children. The reasons I do know what I did was right. The part of any cup I choose to drink that make it more worth than just the taste.

The people whose presence alone I can get drunk on, rich and fulfilling and heady and absolute. The first two, the people whose touch and smell and taste and sound and sight and feel I know better than my own, and would not have it otherwise. Who own my heart, my soul, my loyalty. The toil of my hands - or, more usually, mind and magical talent. The sweat of my brow, as it were. They get all of that. And they return it to me a thousandfold. I, who had nothing but my own wits, have the love of two people, amazing, great people as those two. I, who had nothing but my undereducated self to go by, have a place in the world that many would envy, and with good reason.

Each day, I choose to be what they grew to know. And each day, I choose to be the best of what they grew to know.

Yes, there is a price. I know it. They know it. The price? Makes them both sadder. But they both know me enough, thankfully, to know better than ask me to undo my choice. Because the life I have? The energy I exude? It comes in partly out of why I need to be always on the outlook. The appreciation I have for every little thing in life? Comes with the constant brushing up against death too, with my eyes open and my chin up.

It's all connected. I couldn't be as alive, as aware of all, couldn't be as good as they deserve me to be - if I didn't have myself to place between that danger and whoever that danger was aimed at. I make myself into what I am by my choices, and denying my choices always makes me less than I am.

I'm not sure just when each of them realized it. Stephen and Claudia, I mean. Dia and Stephen. The two people who know I started out like a child looking at candy through a store-window and never daring to ask for it, not even to go in to ask for it. And offered, generously and completely, without waiting for me to have to ask. And offered, and offered again, until they'd brought the point through - that I was welcome to go in and ask for what they have to offer. It took a while, for somebody who learns as quick as I do.

Because I've always known I'm good, I'm among the best at what I do... but it didn't seem enough to give the homeless a home. To undo the wrong I'd done by betraying already. It didn't seem enough to be trusted more than I trusted myself, and that was on specific things alone.

And then there was Stephen. Who let me have a shot at my own spot in the world, my very own. And later, also through him, there was Dia. Who let me have a shot at family.

They let me fill the slate I'd forced clean, with something that was worth being put down.

And all of that, because of how I chose. Because I chose to let them. To help them.

My choices... they matter. Being always aware of them matters. And I've been blessed by people who see that, in my life.

And it also matters so much when I am not made to choose. I live and I love, and I take it all fully - and both Dia and Stephen know I could choose between them, if I was forced to. But it would make me less than I am too. Less than what they know and love. And it is a sign of their love that I do not have to choose. Their choices, each separate. They could break me if they decided to, each of them. But being... belonging to both. It's better than anything else I could imagine. Or wish to. And it's taking each moment as is, tasting it to the fullest. And that's what I do. And that's what they grew to know... and my choice to stand by each of them's side is why they want me there too.

Alive. It's a greater miracle than most people realize. And it's a better choice too. A choice that allows all other choices, in fact. And whoever tells you that you have no choice? Would as easily see you dead. Do not trust those. Choose to choose. Choose to live, each moment for itself and with a full heart, open mind, alert awareness, senses out and taking the world in.

I did. I have. I do.

However long I have of it? I'm not wasting a single moment.

---

I'm not perfect. Nobody is. I never tried to be perfect nor claimed to be perfect, and anybody can say, myself included, that I've made mistakes. Small ones, big screw-ups, all in-between, the full range.

But every one I've made? Has been my choice too, and I don't regret it. I take it, and learn form it, or try to. And put it behind my back if the consequences allow it, or tried to make amends otherwise. Tried to be fair.

Tried to be the best that I can be, and I think I'm not doing that bad a job of it. Not even with all the eyerolling I cause, because, damn, Stephen, I've grown to like it when you do that. Not with all the exasperation that I cause when I need to be stitched up - skin or clothes - and, yes, Dia, I love that half-glare you give me when you need to do that, too.

I'm a person. Not perfect, and not horrible, and have my ups and downs, and never tried to avoid owning up to them, because there's only one life I have to live, and I never meant to do less than experience it fully.

All the love that is being given to me, I tried to earn, to be worthy of, every moment of every day, and to give it back, and I think I'm managing that. Because you, all of you who have witnessed my life, who have cared about it, who have loved it - all of you are worth it.

Sometimes I like to think I'm living my life by principles. To drink the joy of life, as my mother taught me; honor, as my mentor showed me, loyalty as I see it and need it and need to give it. Honesty, to those who have been honest to me. Excellence. I think I follow them, and truth, as much as was possible, and... other things that might be considered good.

But even more, I like to think that I live my life with people. For people, through people, as a person, and a decent one at that. People, people are more important than principle, when you look right down to it. People live and breathe and feel pain and joy and they can give back and need, while principles are cold, unyielding, unnegotiable. People are the reason for principles, every which way you look at it, or at least every way I look at it. I'd like to believe I live my life, I make my choices, in a way that is worthy of the people in my life.

Myself, honestly, included.

And I like to think I live my life responsibly. In awareness of what I'm doing, why I am doing it, what will come to pass because of it. Yeah, sometimes all of the choices available honestly and completely suck. There's no choosing the lesser evil then, there is just choosing. Making the choice that might, if used correctly - if used smartly - allow for more choices, which might eventually lead to something that is more decent. Choosing to stay in a situation where I will continually have no choice? Not me.

And that's why I'm reliable. Because I won't let myself stay someplayce that I don't want to be. One way or another, I'll get back to soemthing that I can do. I may not like it, you may not like it, but you can bet that the 'bad' guys will like it a lot, a whole of a lot less. Because I am indeed awesome like that.

I'm effective, I'm good with what I have, and I have a lot, and I give my all to what I decide to do. Because I'm certain that what I'm doing is what I want to do, what I should be doing, and what needs to be done by me.

Which is why I can enjoy the times when the fruits of what I've chosen come rolling. And they do, they have. No, really, there's often some serious rolling. Enjoyed by all the parties. Rolling, and rocking, and pressing against walls, and riding of laps, or all kinds of good things, done in passion, once upon a time, and for a very long, wonderful time, done in love. The greatest principle one can follow really. Follow, learn about, embrace.

Yeah, and a lot of embracing. I like embracing. I don't think that's really surprising to anybody, but I do. So I take a lot of it, regularly.

In fact, I take a lot of everything I like, regularly. I don't waste the opportunities for the good things. And I don't waste good things by doing them halfway, no, I don't waste anything by doing it halfway. All-out effort, doing things well, and that's that. Nothing else is good enough.

There's only one road I'm walking. Ever. The road that I chose, the road that I choose, day by day. There is no backtracking along it because there are no regrets, and I don't plan on there being any. That way no matter what, I'm staying the person who can be trusted, and loved, and found over and over again, regardless of the specific circumstances or events. If you think I'm lost to you, remember who I am and how I'd act, because if you feel the loss you know me well enough for that - and I'll be there with you. And that's a solemn promise.

And you know I keep to my word. It's my mark on the world, it's who I am. It's why I'm careful about giving it, but when I do, it's generous. It's complete. Overall, I do give fully - generously. And that's part of the reason why you all enjoy my presence and give back as freely.

Because I know that whatever's worth doing is worth doing well, and I live by that.

In the end, I do it all, all, the way I want to. The good, the foolish, the brave, the funny, and even the occasionally smart. That is and will be my mark on the world.

So if I happen to die in a fight, if I happen to die early - and you all know what I do can make that happen, makes it more than a little likely - then, as was written on a wall, in a movie, I can say:

Max Parker was here.

Nobody can deny that. Nobody can take that away from me.

Nobody can take it away from you either. No matter what.

Keep it in mind, alright?