I was 25 years old when I met the original Reggie; it a was time when “just staying away from a drink” was not enough to soothe my incarcerated spirit; and the psychic and emotional pain grabbing me by the throat.
In the turbulence of confusion, I didn’t know what to do or what to do with not knowing what to do.
My words tumbled out thoughtlessly, piercing my own hollow heart that held a thin veneer of false promise … as I sank deeper into the rapture of victim, terror, bewilderment, behind a narrow bar of bland gratitude.
It takes great tenacity to persevere as Reggie did with me …
like patient oxen yoked together through the fields of sorrow and fields of joy.
Reggie’s love was tender … and relentless … it was a love with teeth.
A love that ambushes, unbuttons, unbolts, un-arms and throws you on the floor.
It’s in a Love like that we are re-born in the font of forgiveness, swaddled in the golden robes of Faith and Hope.
It’s in a Love like that we’re radiant, filled with the sweet green sap of confidence, utterly mad with passion, grace and willingness to go beyond any present circumstance.
Reggie amassed steady, unmitigated wisdom about the potential that came from surrendering … and he often reminded me and us to surrender to win.
For Reggie surrendering was the main vessel to connecting to Divine and Human Intelligence. Surrendering had unleashed Reggie’s fierce love for recovery, his family … children, grandchildren, teachers and mentors, and the extraordinary life recovery had blessed him … for which he was tremendously grateful.
The potent alchemy of Reggies unconditional love, dedication and commitment to Judith, his wife, connected like precious pearls strung on a thread of adventure, fun, dancing on the beach, travel and community.
Reggie and Judith aka Jones & Clarke Associates Incorporated walked the walk and the talk! Together … in partnership they rooted themselves in the heart and soul of the recovery community and the unbounded power of their presence, experience, expertise and leadership led them to helping individuals, couples and families throughout RI.
Their mantra … Transformation is possible!! If you are willing to do the work. It takes time, patience, commitment and … money.
And the benefits priceless …
Nothing could tame or amputate the joy and privilege that I experienced bearing witness to their personal and professional partnership for nearly three decades … and how they chose each other, again and again and again. No matter what.
I remember one day early on in my journey of recovery Reggie asked me, “What do you want?”
Asking me that question was enough to shake loose something within so generous … so puzzling … so benevolent that –I envisioned that I could forgive, discern and summon the courage to love bravely … to surrender in perfect safety … crumple into being … comforted.
That I didn’t have to stay stuck in a one-dimensional sitcom of selfishness, self-centeredness and immaturity, that I could risk sharing myself more deeply, more honestly, and drink from the fountain of the aliveness, vitality and joy that comes from loving and being loved.
I became brave enough to peep around the walls of mimicking righteous truths of someone else, dogmatic belief systems and judgments that kept me imprisoned in shackles of right and wrong/good and bad/should’s and ought’s …and I was able to truly glimpse the golden orb of Being with Reggie.
Being with Reggie meant being in the presence of someone who knew there was nothing glamorous about resurrecting one’s true self from the depths of alcoholism and addiction … and at the same time held your greatness far enough away that you had to be committed to reaching out and grabbing it.
Being with Reggie meant being in the presence of someone who knew there was nothing glamorous about fixing the cracks in the soul while battling the urge to drink …
Being with Reggie meant being with someone who knew that to lance the boil of grief was not to plot revenge, shrink or superglue the jagged cracks of our hearts. Tasting the salt of our own tears softens the hearts … and through grief we build a monument to Love.
Being with Reggie meant being in the mystery and stillness that come from the powerful, immutable commitment to the sacredness of relationship, a relationship that awakens one from the slumber of disillusionment, realizing that we will collide with situations and behaviors that test our tenacity, and bring us face to face with ourselves – and each other … not to stay stuck in a furrow of resentment, struggle, cynicism or frustration or walk away before the alchemy has worked its magic.
Being with Reggie meant being with someone … ready to join his energies with another and take a quantum leap into clearing away the thorny brambles of fear, ambivalence, self-will … and all that obstructs the spiritual path … knowing that our hands would bleed and we would sometimes thirst for an easier softer way.
Being with Reggie meant being with someone who focused on living the questions …because it’s in not knowing, the trembling of anticipation that something new opens up and we rise up in the unimaginable and land in a blaze of limitless possibilities.
Being with Reggie meant being with someone who knew that the pathologies we carry from hurt and feeling unloved are just portals into a rich landscape of vibrant colors where we will know a new freedom and happiness and not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
Reggie believed, “the best way out is always through …” He’d go one and say … “It is too … Half measures availed us nothing.”
The volume of Reggie’s output of unconditional love was matched by a propulsive intensity that hurtled down the human terrain, sometimes in fragments and echoes that dislocated stories of dis-ease, dysfunction, hesitancy, horror, hunger and vulnerability with in-your-face determinacy and clarity … while sanctioning a silent rhythm that altered the very structure of one’s soul … a soul that quivers in amazement, curiosity and vitality when he stretched his hand out and said … Welcome Here!
Being with Reggie meant discovering answers to my own unanswered questions: And therefore I could claim the space to KNOW for myself. “To thine own self be true.”
Being with Reggie meant knowing that you were truly loved for who you are.
The journey of Being with Reggie rendered me irrevocably, changed.
Reggie’s presence will continue to lead us through Love’s labyrinth where we must take the final turn in the pathway and recognize that it is our Self we meet unmasked, soul naked without the artifice of appeasing smiles, and without the heavy jacket of excuses that we have worn for so many years.
Reggie’s presence will live on in us rambunctiously, silently, tearfully, vigorously, magnificently, soulfully because he passed-on the type of Love that’s made and re-made, refined and re-authored, cracked and restored, that embraces and transcends …
And where we are graced to live sober one day at a time, and celebrate our very human, holy, longing to be seen, valued, loved and accepted as way we are.
One of the last moments I spent Being with Reggie he said, “Life is not about ‘Fear knows.’ Life is about SUCCESS. Life is about consistency, completion and … completion.
So today, one year later …
Missing you … Original Reginald … The “Human Whisperer.”
I’m still on the journey that you mentored, one day at a time, loving, living and passing-it-on.
