25AD (After Dad), letter to my father 2023

in

Hey dad.

We’re now into our 3rd year of COVID, things are as back to normal as they are going to get in the world on that front. Vladimir Putin is still trying to wage a war in Ukraine and has made threats to use nuclear weapons. Some level of mass-hysteria has started with weather balloons flying over the United States and Canada with U.S. fighter jets shooting them down and blaming China. Interesting times…

That artificial intelligence company my friend Sam Altman co-founded released something really cool called ChatGPT. It is “AI” that does really cool things and is taking the world by storm this year, here’s ChatGPT telling you about itself:

“I am ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI. I can understand and generate natural language text, and I am designed to assist users in answering their questions or providing information on a wide range of topics. My training data includes a vast amount of text from the internet, including books, articles, and websites. Using this training data, I have learned to understand language patterns and generate text that is similar to what a human might write.”
— Quote Source


It’s really interesting. I’ll end this letter by having it write a ballad to you based on your obituary. I use it for a lot of stuff, including work, I can tell it in plain English what I want a spreadsheet to do on the computer, and 95% of the time, it will correctly spit out a formula that does exactly what I wanted it to do in literal seconds.

I rode 1,000,000 meters on my indoor bicycle, just hit the milestone a couple of weeks ago, and now my target is 5,000,000 meters.

I’m still forcing myself through school. This makes year… 20 of pursuing a 4-year college degree, few more years to go if I keep at it at my current pace.

Baptismal work was done for your mother in the temple last year by some kind stranger.

Not much else to report. It’s been a fairly tame year with no robot overlords, no aliens, no bad pandemic, just some saber rattling by other countries. Now, I promised you a ballad…


Your obituary:

“MARK A. MERCER, 45, Indianapolis, died March 11. He was a detective with the Indiana State Police for 19 years. He was a member of the State Police Alliance, Northern Valley Scottish Rite and New Haven Masonic Lodge, Fort Wayne. Memorial contributions may be made to Indiana Concerns of Police Survivors, in care of Indianapolis Police Department Credit Union, 1502 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, Ind.

46201. Services: 10 a.m. March 14 in Speedway United Methodist Church, of which he was a member. Calling: 1 to 8 p.m. March 13 in Flanner & Buchanan Speedway Mortuary. Burial: Floral Park West Cemetery. Survivors: wife Pamela M.

Hager Mercer; son Ryan Mercer; stepson William Lawrence; father and stepmother Carl “Jack” and Marilyn Mercer: brothers Doug, Curt Mercer.”
— Quote Source

The ChatGPT generated ballad:

“Mark A. Mercer, a detective bold,
Served with Indiana’s finest fold,
For nineteen years, he kept the peace,
In his hands, justice would release.

A member of the Masonic Lodge,
And the Scottish Rite with all its awe,
His heart was pure, his spirit bright,
And to those he loved, he held on tight.

His memory lives on in his kin,
His beloved wife and son within,
Stepson and family by his side,
Mark’s legacy will never subside.

We honor his bravery and his name,
A hero, true, who played life’s game,
Rest in peace, dear Mark A. Mercer,
Your service we will always treasure.”
— Quote Source







19 AD (After Dad), letter to my father 2017

in

(past year's letters can be found at https://www.ryanmercer.com/?category=dad )

Well dad... in just 8 days it'll have been 19 years since you passed. It seems like just yesterday I was writing last year's letter to you.

A girl I went out with a few times last summer, she was amazing...she made me smile and she just had this light in her eyes and was curious about some of the same peculiar things that I am... she shot and killed herself. That, that was something I wasn't really equipped to handle. We'd met through a mutual friend and I'd come home from work and watched some television then was getting up to head to my room to read a bit before bed when word came from the mutual friend that Stephie had shot and killed herself earlier that day. I sat down at my desk and effectively went catatonic for several hours. I didn't go to Lodge the next day because I was so tired and just generally out of it. For weeks I was a shell of a man trying to process it. I'd not spoken to the girl in a couple of months, she basically vanished after our three dates and to be honest I'd all but forgotten her and moved on. 5 months later and I still try and rationalize what she did even though I know there's no point. A week or two before we'd put down the dog we got after we had to put Mila down.

I've been on vacation this past week and honestly I didn't even realize it was so close to your anniversary. A young woman I am friends with on this thing called Facebook that is like a digital bulletin board recently lost her father and some hours ago I found myself poking through her posts to see if I could judge how well she's coping and then I went about my evening putting no more thought to it. Sitting here taking in some videos I thought I'd share with her that I write you letters every year and I looked at the date and realized wow, 8 more days until your anniversary.

I left Speedway Lodge last year after they voted to change their number from 729 to 500 after Oriental Evergreen merged with another Lodge and the Grand Master at the time offered it to them. I was against it, I was the only person against it, so I transferred my membership to another Lodge. Here it is March and that Lodge has yet to send me a dues request and I'm just done. I'm done with Freemasonry. They can't be bothered to send me a request for dues so I'm not going to go out of my way to pay them. If they mark me as NPD oh well. To be honest I only pursued Freemasonry because it was a way for me to connect with you and your grandfather, a way to have similar experiences as the two of you while death separated us. I suppose it gave me something in common with Joe too, I know he was alive for at least my EA although he was in no condition to come down for it... I don't recall if he was still alive when I was raised. It has always been my understanding he nudged you towards the Craft.

I don't know how Curt, Doug or Dick are doing. For that matter I don't even know if they are alive. I'm still painfully and chronically single. For all intents and purposes I am the last Mercer. I turn 32 in 20 days and have yet to have a meaningful relationship in my life so as things go I am most uncertain as to if the Mercer name will see another generation. I fund a college savings plan for a future child even though I have no one to even have a child with.

As the years pass I wonder more and more if I'll ever make any meaningful contribution to society, or even a single soul.

Memories are starting to flood back, like when we sat in the dark on your bed... that moment when with unspoken words we both told each other we knew you weren't long for this world. It was so long ago, I was 12. It was 19 years ago. I can close my eyes and be in that moment as if it was happening now though. I've long forgotten what your voice sounded like but everything else is crystal clear.

I miss you dad.

Mark Allen Mercer - Ryan Carl Mercer

Update March 24th: Curt has moved to Arizona with his daughter. Dick died more than a year ago and neither Rhonda or Brad bothered to tell us. My birthday was mostly uneventful. I worked and watched television. My co-worker bought me a really neat tin litho elephant that was made in West Berlin between 1945 and 1950, they key does not wind the action but if you push the scooter down a bit and move it forward it springs to life still. That was the only thing that remotely made yesterday feel like a birthday.

 

Letter to my father, 2015. Year 17.

in

Well dad, in 3 days it will have been 17 years since I watched you draw your last breath and you'd think by now writing these annual letters would be easy but they are still rather difficult.

Not much has changed since last year, I started CrossFit which is a fitness regime that's a lot of chaotic repetitive stuff combined with Olympic lifting. I also made more money last year than any year before by a long shot and probably more than I'll ever make in any year to come. Sadly I'm in the process of shutting down my business (well, at least the part making all the money) for various reasons and realistically I don't see myself ever being able to make the kind of money I am from it again.

I honestly don't have much else to say. Every day is basically the same in my life and honestly they all seem to blur together. It's quite boring and absurdly repetitive. I miss you dad, maybe I'll have something better to share next year.