In Memoriam
Frank A. Felice

Frank A. Felice

July 20, 1972  —  October 25, 2123

Thank you. I am sorry. I love you.

✦

If you’re reading this, it means I did what I always said I would: lived fully, honestly, and long enough to 151 just as expected. Longevity was never the goal; awareness was. I didn’t surprise any doctor, outlast any diagnosis, or cheat death through stubbornness. I simply lived.

I started life as a brutally honest, negative asshole. In my later years, I found peace through health, not habit. I freed myself from the doctor-prescribed brain-control medications that dulled my emotions instead of healing them. I stopped drinking not out of purity, but out of respect for a body that had carried me through more storms than it ever should have.

I was always honest about the chemicals I put into my body. Until the end, my Libertarian ideals remained firm about individual choice in drug use. The ones that expanded my world, deepened my empathy, opened my heart, healed my trauma, and occasionally pushed me too far or off our path were sometimes escapes. They weren’t always escapes; they were experiments in consciousness moments that reminded me how alive we all are when we allow ourselves to feel everything.

Through it all, I found clarity. I learned to listen to the quiet in my own mind the part that had been waiting decades to be heard. I learned that discipline is just devotion disguised as self-respect, and that healing isn’t clean it’s loud, messy, and real. In those later years, I chose to live cleanly, clearly, and consciously not to be perfect, but to be present.

Mandi

Life truly began when I met her and Paislee, who came with the deal. I was told they were a package, and I knew instantly: alignment had entered my life.

Mandi, my realtor, rolled into the Wal-Mart parking lot to show me homes heart-shaped glasses on, big smile, a smoke show in bell bottoms, and, oddly (but kinda cool), an open tall boy of Coors Light in the cup holder. I was immediately fucking impressed.

Whispered Wedding Vow

“You are my sexy as fuck… Bad Idea Bear, and always willing alibi. You are my lover, my friend, my partner, my peer, my role model… mi amore.”

“I say these vows not as promises but as privileges; I get to grow with you, grow older than you, witness each new day with Paislee, learn from you, want you, take care of you… until my dying breath.”

“I already knew I would spend the rest of my life with you… Sayulita was merely the scenery for our love story. From our first trip in the rain, to our ongoing cult recruiting trips, to our little family trips, dance parties with Pais and our wedding week event. It will be where I spend the rest of my breaths with you. Te amo con todo mi corazón y alma.”

We were the same in a lot of ways same tough upbringing, same hustle. We both had young parents who did the best they could with what they had. We didn’t grow up with much, but we grew up loved.

Mandi was my friend, my confidant, my lover, my compass. She was the mirror I had been afraid to look into one that reflected not just who I was, but who I could become. She pushed me to do more, want more, expect more from myself. She made me see my own worth.

We accepted the love we thought we deserved and Mandi gave me the greatest love of all, because she made me believe I deserved it, then made sure I grew into the man who actually did.

Together, we lived in motion. We traveled, explored, danced, got lost in cities, and found ourselves again and again in small corners of the world. We met strangers who became lifelong friends and found magic in the most ordinary days.

We loved live music, street food, stage crashing, sunsets, and beach snuggles with intoxicated, passed-out strangers general midlife mischief from two souls who had been lost and knew, almost instantly, that we’d finally found each other.

We weren’t the same people we were when we met. We grew, yet not always at the same pace. I was comfortable admitting I’d always been in second place with my growth behind her, but she was worth racing, worth chasing, worth becoming better for. She was worth evolving for fixing my loops, healing my past, so I could help shape our future. She made me a better man.

She showed me all the beautiful and giving things a mother does for her child. She reminded me of what my mom and Pops had done for us doing the best they could, loving us as much as they were able. Mandi and I believed you don’t get to blame where you came from you get to build from it. Life doesn’t happen to you; it happens for you. And that’s where the real growth begins.

Sayulita, Mexico became our sacred space the place where we were most ourselves.

Mandi remodeled our Sayulita house in 2025 with the same instinct she used to remodel my soul deliberately, intuitively, with meaning threaded into every room and brushstroke. She didn’t just upgrade walls or tile; she curated the best pieces of our life there and built them into the foundation. Every enhancement carried a story, a memory, a joke, a healing a reminder of who we were becoming. And in that same breath, she destroyed the spaces that held my saddest echoes. She believed a home should protect you, not replay your grief. So she rebuilt it like she rebuilt us with purpose, intention, and an almost spiritual understanding of what should stay and what needed to be released.

Lily was my best friend not just a dog, but the purest soul to ever follow me room to room, storm to storm. When she got sick right before our trip to Sayulita, I nearly flew home, but fate decided for us. The call came from the house sitter, and Lily was gone. I hid in our Mexico bathroom and cried harder than I had in years the kind of cry that breaks open something old and ancient in you. I didn’t want Mandi or Paislee to hear it, but they did because pain always finds its way through walls. Later, after she remodeled the house, Mandi told me quietly over dinner that this was why she’d eliminated that bathroom entirely, splitting it into two new ones to remove the place where she’d heard my heart break. It was one of the kindest, most intuitive acts of love I have ever been given a reminder that healing can be built, quite literally, into the walls around you.

When the United States Mexico Dual Citizenship Act of 2027 was signed into law by Presidents Duane “The Rock” Johnson and Dominik Mysterio, we celebrated our dual lives with laughter, Crazy Ghosts, cookies, and Topo Chicos under the Sayulita’s stars. One life in the rhythm of the U.S., and one life in Sayulita, where the world finally matched our frequency of peace, presence, and possibility.

Paislee was and always would be my moral compass and my north star. An old soul like her mom, wise beyond her years, emotionally intelligent, an empath, and honest in the way that only the good ones are. She had a gift for knowing when things were right, when they were real, and when they weren’t. She called me out, leveled me up, and most importantly to me called me her dad.

Watching her grow into the extraordinary person she became was the greatest honor of my life. Some of my favorite nights were under a palapa, guitar in my hands, Paislee singing, and Mandi listening from the distance her quiet presence as much a part of the song as any note we played. Harmony, laughter, and love all woven together into one perfect sound.

Evolution

I wasn’t always easy. I hurt, and I got hurt. Every pain, every mistake, every scar was part of evolution. I owned it. I learned. I evolved. I worked hard to become the man that Mandi, Paislee, my friends, family, and business partners deserved.

I know now that life was a mirror. The people we loved and the world we built around us reflected exactly who we were. I surrounded myself with the best mirrors people who reflected light, not ego. Together, we built families, communities, strong women, strong men, and strong, proud humans and businesses and people that built legacies and generational wealth for all of us who carried an abundance mindset as our compass, and a moral commitment to use our new powers in a positive manner.

I never believed in life after death, but I believed in serendipity in the kind of alignment that felt divine, even if it was just the universe doing its thing. And through every moment of alignment, through every joy, lesson, and detour, there was Mandi. She was the rhythm beneath it all my constant song. If eternity exists, she’s my definition of it.

The Music

Mandi and I met and fell in love through our shared taste in music.

We shared Spotify playlists before we shared spit, then we shared a drink, then we shared spit, a meal, a first trip to Sayulita, a home where all of our dogs could bark, a Mexico dream, a life, powerful, emotionally intelligent families. We shared and received everything we constructed for our thousand years and our hundred experiences we shared a legacy of positive influence.

The emotions we felt, the healing we found, the trauma we worked through it all had a soundtrack. The live shows we went to, the miles we traveled to see our favorite artists those were our pilgrimages. The experiences we gave each other through music were sacred gifts.

Empire of the Sun, Coachella, The Cure, NIN, Beck, Lady Gaga, Sia in my leather jacket and Mandi went to them all with me, even the ones that weren’t her favorites. She loved giving the gift of live music.

We greatly loved live music but I, annoyingly to some, loved music. Real music. Music played by human hands, hearts, and imperfection. I loved the wildness of it a melody catching fire, a solo that went on too long, a bass note that found its way into your spine.

In my later years, I played with my band, The Sayulita Kings one of the last all-human bands, except for Philip Gomez Ω 3.5, our temperamental, AI-based, Tesla Optimus 14.3 humanoid robot tambourine player, who swore he was “mostly organic.” That’s why he wore a monocle, sported sideburns, and had an unapologetic penchant for colorful ascots or, on occasion, a bolo tie.

Every Saturday night, we filled the Ático Hookah Bar with rock and roll loud, loose, and gloriously imperfect. We played for joy, for pulse, for the chaos of real sound made by living, sweating, laughing people.

But we had one sacred rule: there were songs and artists we would never, under any circumstances, play. Not out of spite out of principle. Or taste. Or mercy to the human ear.

The Sayulita Kings’ Do Not Play List

We weren’t just picky we were pure. We believed music should vibrate, not calculate. That it should have soul, not sponsorship. We were the last defenders of distortion, feedback, and truth at full volume.

Every Saturday night, under the smoke and stars of Sayulita, we played rock and roll anything but what the world expected. And Mandi, along with our cult of converts who now called Sayulita home, mixed seamlessly with our oldest friends, swaying on the swing bar. As she always did, Mandi merged our friend groups turning strangers into family and every night into a reunion.

Two years later, Mandi officially became the first U.S. Mexican dual citizen Mayor of Sayulita Alcaldesa Amanda Nilson.

After the Music

I left with regrets but I saw them as teachers. I left behind people I loved deeply but couldn’t keep close, because the connection caused more harm than healing. My granddaughter, Brinley, was one of them. When she finally found her own path to healing, took accountability, and apologized, I forgave her. And Mandi and Paislee both Scorpios, both empaths did what they do best: they felt everything, they forgave deeply, and they moved forward without forgetting.

I leave behind a lot of love Paislee, her family, her beautiful sisters and brothers, who I was lucky to spend so much time with; Mandi, Jed, and Heather and I’m proud that together, we built the kind of modern family people only dream about after the dust settles.

I left behind the sweet spirit and dark humor of my brother John, and his beloved wife Fawn, and I was proud of all the work they did with President “The Rock” Johnson on his “Can You Smell What The Rock Is Cookin’? A Better America” initiative putting tasty rolls back into school lunches where they belonged.

I also left behind a small zoo of joy thirteen genetic clones of my beloved Lily, a herd of goats, several rabbits, and many Sayulita cats and dogs.

I suspected I died from toxoplasmosis probably given to me by one of our bitchier cats Joan Clawford, Lady Portia Whiskerford III, or Ashlee, who spent a lifetime shitting on our pillows but never on our love.

I was preceded into the dark void by my love Mandi, her family who always treated me as their own, and my Pops and Mom. From them I learned what to carry forward, and what to set down and I’m grateful for both.

On My Death and What Comes After

In the past, I used to joke that I didn’t really care what happened to my body when I was gone. I don’t know why I said it maybe because sarcasm had always been my favorite armor, and humor was how I carried what hurt.

But with time, I learned that the words you say matter. Not just the words that you say, the ones you leave behind, the ones that echo when you’re no longer around to explain them.

My life was filled with friends and family, joy, love, and my death should be too. I wanted happiness, joy, love, gratitude, abundance, positivity, respect I wanted words and an experience that matter to celebrate not just my life, but my death.

When the time came, I wanted my cremated remains to be spread across the rocks and ocean off the hill where You + Me were married the place in Sayulita I always went in my thoughts when I needed to change my state, to think of my happiest time, to remember happiness, to remind me of mi amor.

Celebrate. Laugh. Cry. Play loud.

And fuck it… hire a band and play every one of those shitty, fucking songs from the artists I hated.

If there’s any message left in me for the world, it’s this:

Be your own mirror.
Evolve out loud.
Forgive.
Love harder, play louder.

When you’re unsure, don’t go quiet. Live louder. Be yourself so unapologetically that life sends its signal back raw, messy, real because that’s how you know you’re still alive.

Frank A. Felice