“When time sits still, the love you remember is what moves you forward.“
– Jon Beebe

If you’ve been following along, you might have noticed that the much-promised monthly updates have been, well… missing.

When I said content would flow like a river through 2027, I meant it… At least up until the real world tossed a log jam my way.

Long story short: since my last post in March, I hit a wall that made the creative block of your average writer look like a pebble in the road.

On May 30, 2025 everything ground to a halt when my father died unexpectedly.

Whatever “wind in my sails” I had left was promptly rerouted to a cave of solitude, powered by tissues, existential pondering, and many glasses of bourbon (the Golden Guardians remained undaunted sponsors; the only thing truly absent was my momentum).

In this involuntary sabbatical, I read mountains of books: philosophy, consciousness, quantum physics, and accounts of death and near-death experiences. “Stalking the Wild Pendulum” by Itzhak Bentov became both a companion and a conversation with Dad. It was so good, in fact, that as soon as I finished it, I started again from the beginning. For weeks, lost in those pages and lost in my own, I wandered through every memory I had of my dad, grateful (and sometimes cursed) to remember it all in vivid detail.

There is something surreal about replaying your life through a new perspective, especially when you realize how much your parent shaped the very metaphysics of your imagination. My father wrote an unpublished book, “Once Upon 8 Time,” and he spent years insisting to anyone who would listen that time is neither linear nor real (in the traditional sense).

It is fair to say that my entire concept of Magonia owes a quiet debt to those ideas, and to every longwinded dinner-time explanation of quantum entanglement, photons and “reality as resonance.”

In our last conversation, Dad talked quantum physics as easily as other fathers discuss sportsball. I tied it to Spookaluca and the world of Magonia, and according to my mom, he set down the phone and said, “Jon truly gets it… he gets it… he sees it.” That may have been the last thing he said about me. Not the worst final review.

I had planned to keep the real-life inspiration for certain Spookaluca characters out of the “Aetheric Archives” as a mild spoiler. But after his death, I have to admit that my dad’s perspective on time, love and mentoring me (in the aetheric arts or otherwise) shaped Magonia’s world in ways even I hadn’t noticed. While the role of “villain” for Ghobli never truly suits him, the role of cosmic mentor and Grand Magus of Magonia fit perfectly, peanut butter and cheese sandwiches aside.

Through all of this, one thing became clear: When time sits still, the love you remember is what moves you forward. Death and creation, it seems, resonate at the same frequency.

Below is the eulogy I gave at Dad’s funeral. I share it with you all, not as a plot twist, but as a reminder that stories, across lifetimes, timelines, or even newsletters, always come back to love.

Time is a funny thing. We often live our lives by the clock; its hours, minutes, and seconds dictating when we should rise, eat, work, and play. Its years, months, weeks, and days measuring our milestones and growth, trauma and triumph.

Yet we often take time for granted — losing track of it when our attention, emotions, or sympathies are engaged; or when it’s convenient. It’s the awkward hug that lasts way too long, or waiting in line at a convenience store while the clerk checks a price… The book you never wanted to end, or your favorite tv show that was cancelled before the story arc was resolved.

Many of us wish we had more of it, while others don’t mind wasting it.

I’m sure we all wish we had more time with my dad… But here’s the thing: My dad never believed time was real… Not in the traditional sense, at least.

“Time isn’t linear,” my dad once told me once over dinner. “Everything is now… past, present and future — they’re all the same. It’s just easier for our brains to take in the signals from our senses to interpret the interaction of waves, observed as particles and photons, as they collide and resonate with one another.”

“That’s great, dad.” I said at five years old, “Could you pass the ketchup, please?”

As a child, my dad helped shape my fundamental understanding of physical and quantum (or spiritual) reality; limited by our five senses, and how our brains interpret what we perceive from the world around us.

This very moment, radio waves are playing annoying polka music we (thankfully) can’t hear, satellites are beaming invisible cellular signals that carry voices through the air, and dogs are hearing frequencies beyond our ability (I just wish they would hear mine). Some people can see more colors than others. And, if you’ve ever witnessed my dad eating a peanut butter and cheese sandwich, you’ll appreciate that everyone clearly has a very different sense of taste.

My dad saw time and reality, differently than most. He looked through time, and was able to understand the mysteries of God and the universe in a way few could fathom. And with this understanding, he was able to share his and God’s love with others, with ripples and waves that will last through eternity.

That’s not to say that his view of time was always practical…

I’ll never forget childhood road trips from Oklahoma to Michigan, where his urgency to arrive ahead of time had our family of six avoiding “unnecessary” stops. This resulted in my brother and me using empty pringles cans for urinals (which we conveniently tossed out the window after), while my sisters and mom… well, they developed bladders of steel.

My earliest memories of my dad are of him reading to me… Not picture books, but novels. We began with Chronicles of Narnia, and completed the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy by age seven. While some might consider them a bit “advanced” for a child to comprehend, he always took the time to explain, in detail, the nuance of these stories to relate them to my understanding of the world, or their parallels with the Bible.

Perhaps my favorite childhood memory of him was when, at age seven, I accompanied him to his overnight shift as a lab technician at the City of Faith hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While he was busy examining fecal specimens under a microscope, I occupied myself at a computer terminal creating dozens of new patients in the hospital’s medical records system… which he had to expire.

That night, he took me up to the 60th floor of the hospital tower, where we watched a lightning storm together. He explained electrical currents, conductors, plasma, and the positive and negative ions that created the light show we witnessed. He held me in his arms that evening as lightning danced across the horizon, and thunder reverberated off of the building. I wish that night never ended.

As a teen, our time together became more complex and precious, as did our conversations. While he worked long hours as a physician, I would often walk to his practice after school, waiting for him until midnight in hopes of having deep, heart-to-heart discussions on our way home.

We shared secrets, hopes, dreams, and everything in between. He would always offer his timeless wisdom and insight, helping me navigate adolescent drama, insecurities, and, of course, quantum theory.

Every night, before bed, he would always hold my hand and pray for me. “May Jon’s body on the outside reflect the giant within,” he would pray every time. And while I only grew to be 5-foot, 4-inches tall, I appreciated his intention, nonetheless.

There was the time he created a science fair project for me at 2 a.m. — the day it was due. The time he caught me smoking — and didn’t tell my mom. The time he gave me cash for my first tattoo. The time he answered my panic-attack call at 3 a.m. The time he offered to teach my mom and me how to dance the cha-cha… I’m sure we all can remember times like these with him. Time after time, he proved his genuine love and care for us.

Yet, as an adult, time and distance could often get the best of us. There were certainly times we disappointed one another, yet we always came back to the simple truth: We love each other… past, present, and future. Nothing can change that, for eternity.

While his death took all of us by surprise, I’ve felt incredible peace in the understanding of time he gifted to me… He knew this life was a blink of an eye. That, outside of time, we’re already together, united, and living in the fulness of love and joy. I’m comforted by this knowledge, and forever grateful for the love and time we shared together.”