Coincidentally that’s the length of time I’d been very sick . . . and not posting either.

It started Wednesday night.  My throat felt like someone had scoured it with steel wool and my head immediately began to fill up.  I thought then it was simply a cold.

By Saturday I was having a hard time breathing.

By Sunday I was in the doctor getting a very strong antibiotic – they said this particular bug was resistant to a lot of them – and I’d come down in just a matter of two days with pneumonia.

This isn’t an uncommon worry for me.  I have asthma, though not the severe kind that would put you in the hospital.  Still, any cold immediately triggers the worry it might go into my chest, which it did.

The interesting thing for me, though, was not the worry that I wasn’t getting better.  It was watching my kids as I progressively got sicker and sicker.  My oldest sat next to me on the couch spending less time in her room.  Noah, one of the twins, was constantly coming over to give me hugs and tell me he hopes I feel better soon.  His face was drawn and a little pale.  In fact, I noticed that he was getting up in the night to check on me.  It wasn’t hard to see since I was unable to sleep much anyway.

By Sunday I knew that where in years past I would have stuck it out as long as possible and worked through anyway, I couldn’t now.  The kids know full well that their Mom got pneumonia, was in the hospital on Tuesday and passed away by Saturday.  They were reasonably apprehensive.

As a result I could see them watching and waiting.  Rightfully so.

I also put on a much brighter face as a result.  I still made dinner every night.  When Noah or Sam would come over I’d tickle them.  I made sure they heard me staying up when I put them to bed.

Still…didn’t get them to do the dishes any more often than before.

Really.

That’s all we needed to make it the perfect holiday.

I get it, there are those of you who might tell me that perfection would have been having my late spouse here with me and the kids, and perhaps they might have said the same thing at certain points in the day.  But only at certain points.

I devoted the end of the 24th and all of the 25th to them . . . and the random pictures, texts and messages to others to wish them their happy holidays.  I didn’t blog, I didn’t write, and I didn’t take time away from them . . . until now, when everyone is in bed.  No mice stirring, just the ants who’ve somehow invaded Abbi’s bathroom and the kitchen.

I worry, sure.  I was terribly worried about this Christmas.  I over-compensated last year and bought way too much stuff with money leftover from an old retirement account and stock options.  We needed a new car, the old one dying, and the money left over from that went toward paying for all their Christmas presents.  This year I didn’t have much.  We had to pay for college applications and doctor’s bills and auto repairs.  There wasn’t much left over for presents.

Still . . . I needn’t have worried.  The kids, in their infinite wisdom – wisdom beyond their years, by the way – just didn’t ask for much.  They didn’t want much.  They really didn’t.  I had bought some presents . . . Hannah and some books for the kids . . . months ago, just hadn’t wrapped them.  We considered opening gifts late on Christmas Eve, but the kids wanted to wait.

So that night I took the boys up and all the kids sat as I read How the Grinch Stole Christmas rather than our normal book routine.

I had a tradition – only my own since my wife fell asleep every year waiting for Santa – watching Jack Lemmon in The Apartment as I prepped for the next day.  I did it again this year, just because it is comforting to me.  I didn’t feel alone, I just mapped out where the big man in the red suit would put everything.  You know, to help him out.  It was about 1:30 Christmas morning by the time I went to bed.  That, of course, led to the inevitable 5am wakeup by the kids.

But the things they got from Santa were more than they had asked and therefore more than they expected.  They played their new games all day and I didn’t stop them.  They ate too many sugary treats and I didn’t stop them.  We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then opened our gifts.  Where I worried I hadn’t gotten them enough . . .their favorite gifts were from their grandparents anyway.  Three of the kids’ favorite things were stocking caps.  They wore them all day long!

Angry birds for Sam:

A green hat for Hannah:

And the most successful – a sock monkey hat for Noah.

We made cookies, Christmas cookies, the kind Abbi’d been dying to have for months.

Spritz cookies – shaped like little Christmas trees!

I made a Christmas dinner, a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes . . . everything you’d expect, I supposed.  No china or silver, but we ate in the dining room, the first time since last year, I think.  We laid out the table and even the boys ate more than they should, which is rare.  It was a great day.

At the end of the day we watched two shows recorded . . . and that we were dying to see.  The kids all went to bed and as they were going they all looked at me and said “this was the best Christmas, Daddy!”  They weren’t doing it to make me feel better nor themselves.  They truly liked their day.

And you know what . . . so did I.  It wasn’t a Christmas their Mom would have prepared or tried or even thought about.  The presents were ones I’d come up with (with some help from Abbi).

Then we got word that Abbi had been accepted to one of the schools she’d been hoping to attend.  It made her Christmas.

None of today was the kind of Christmas we’d have had two or three years ago.  Didn’t matter . . . we were really happy.  The year’s almost over, but that’s okay.  It’s really been a good year.  It’s been a good Christmas.

And now I go to bed, not with sugarplums, but my smiling kids’ faces dancing in my heads.

Merry Christmas to you all.

]]> http://our-story-begins.com/2012/12/24/its-christmas-dont-be-sad-for-me/ Mon, 24 Dec 2012 17:15:36 +0000 manoucheri http://our-story-begins.com/2012/12/24/its-christmas-dont-be-sad-for-me/ There’s a recurring phrase that is uttered throughout this time of year.  Not to each other, it’s not a common phrase like “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” or “Happy New Year” . . . nothing like that.  It’s a phrase that I hear a lot . . .and it’s not just me.  I know others who lost their spouse and they get it too:

“It must just be so hard this time of year.”

Well . . . sure, it’s kind of hard.  But the thing is it’s not as hard as you think.

I know, I know, I’ve written about this before, here and on Good Enough Mother.

Still, I think it’s worth exploring just one more time.

A photo of one of our early, chaotic Christmases . . .

Fall and Christmas are my favorite times of the year, they always have been.  I absolutely marvel at the change in the scenery, the firey red leaves and the muted earth tones that nature herself foists upon us as the weather turns colder.  The hardest part of the year . . . and it’s no coincidence that the blog started right then . . . was the fall that first year.  I love the crisp change in the season and the ability to put on a warm sweater and then find the person you love and just hold them.  It’s not sexual, it’s not lascivious, it’s sensual.  It’s loving and close and just . . . warm, inside and out.  I loved walking and hearing the leaves crunch under our feet.  I loved making drinks after and warming up and relaxing and starting a fire and just enjoying the season.

Christmas was the same.  It was stressful, painful, difficult, expensive, and just plain ridiculous.  I loved every m

Getting the Tree

inute of it.

That first Fall and Christmas were really hard for me and I don’t remember much about them.  Sure, I remember the presents and how the kids reacted, but the season?  Nothing.

But we made it through the cold.  It was a hard fought year, not one without its own stresses, but we made it.  We’re okay.  That’s hard for people to understand or believe, that we could possibly be okay.  I get that, it’s hard to imagine what you would do if the circumstances happened to you.  I didn’t have to imagine.

Still, last Christmas was great.  This one . . . though we don’t have as much money and I couldn’t get us out to visit my folks . . . it’s still great.  Why?  The kids and I are together and that’s all that matters.  We’re stronger together than when we’re apart.

As much as I love this time of year, last year I still woke up every morning having to adjust to the emptiness next to me in the bed.  This year I get up and do my routine.  That’s not losing her, that’s living with living without her.

It was important to me . . . the kids . . . all the family that we not lose the holidays to our loss.  It would be so easy to despair and make it a horrible time of year.  Instead, we embraced the holiday.  We bought the tree, we listened to Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas record, and we didn’t let little things get to us.

Tonight I made two pies, tarts and cookies.  We have the stuff for Christmas meal.  We have the stuff we need for the holiday.  I’m not sad, I’m excited.  The routines that could have killed us I embrace and enjoy.

So tomorrow night . . . well, tonight, since it’s now after Midnight as I write this, I’ll prepare for the big guy in the red suit to get credit for being the Christmas hero.  I’ll do what I’ve done every Christmas Eve since we lived in Texas . . . I’ll turn on one of my favorite movies - The Apartment with Jack Lemmon, and ready the house for Santa’s presents.  I’ll take a moment to realize my own Miss Kubelik isn’t here but still love every minute of the exhaustion that the season brings with it.  Sure, I’ll have twinges and memories.  That wound inside will always have moments that hurt.  Sights, smells, songs, even routines and traditions will bring that.  But it’s about remembering and honoring as much as it is moving forward.  The kids and I deserve to have great, happy, Merry Christmases.

It’s not about loss, you see.  It’s about life.

But then come days like today when I have nobody to watch the same-said three children due to the fact that it’s Thursday, they have a half-day, and there’s no extended-day program.  Hannah, my 13-year-old, along with Noah and Sam, the twin 9-year-0lds, needed to be picked up at noon. The issue there was the fact that I was in the middle of a meeting in Oakland, at least two hours away.  I found out about the EDP closure just a day before.

My meeting place: Jack London Square, Oakland

So what do you do?

Well, I have a list of friends I can call, but that’s really hard to contend with every time the school schedule changes.  Like most schools, there are a lot of schedule changes.  It’s not that that’s anybody’s fault, I suppose.  Still, being the sole parent of four kids and three of them go to a school where there’s noon release you’re in a bind.  For me, I was two hours away, which always seems to happen when I need to be able to pick up my kids.

My oldest daughter, Abbi, had finals up until noon.

She also came up with the solution.

So in the middle of the evening last night we had the discussion . . . what do we do?
“my group is the first to do their final for drama at 11,” she told me.  I asked how long she’d be and it wasn’t the full hour . . . still, the teacher would have to know.  The school would have to give her a pass to get off campus.

Bear in mind, however, that this was roughly 9:30pm at night.  Abbi and I were trying to work out details.  I had a noon meeting and lunch in Oakland.  No way I’m getting there. So I was emailing the drama teacher at 10 at night and calling the attendance office to get a pass for my daughter at 11:30 just so I could get the other three kids picked up.  Then . . . Abbi drops them off, goes to her job, has Hannah fix the boys lunch and wait until either she comes home or I get home at 6.

I’m not saying this is any more work than any other parent has to contend with.  It’s not.  But the difference for me, obviously, is that I don’t have that second parent to help with the solutions.  I am blessed – and I don’t use that word often – with my oldest daughter mainly because she’s now old enough and has always been smart enough for me to bounce those ideas off of her.  Amid all that, though, she’s still my daughter and she looks to me to both come up with the ideas and to ultimately make the decisions.

And that’s been the biggest adjustment over the last couple years, I have to say.  Not just living without the person you loved, that’s a different, emotional challenge.  You learn to embrace the smells, sounds and memories that flood through you when you’re reminded of the person you lost.  But decisions . . . those were always joint ventures.  When we needed to find a way to get the kids it was a negotiation: who took off work last time?  Do you have sick time or vacation?  Do I?  Who does this?  You dance with each other, not in a debate but in a waltz of analysis.  You look at who is affected least and come up with the answer together.

Now, there’s no choice.  I make the decisions.  Yes, I get input from Abbi, but it’s not a joint venture, and it shouldn’t be.  She gives input, even gives me many of the ideas for solutions to our problems.  At the end of the day, though, I have to make that ultimate decision on what to do about it, given the information.

Still . . . I sit here tonight, writing this, and realize that we’ve pulled it off again.  I look at the little door mouse, realize that we’ve figured out how to get the kids supervised for tomorrow, too, since they’re off of school . . . and I smile.

Because how can you not look at a felt door mouse and smile?

The Felt Door Mouse

Here it is at the end of a double-song set from 1976, I think, in Germany.  Lowell George there on guitar, wearing his Craftsman socket and Tele pickup at the bridge position of his Strat.

This morning something spontaneous and amazing happened.

We burst into song.

Yes, I know, I’m a musician and that shouldn’t surprise me.  I am, after all, the person who wrote in his own bio that “I see rhythm and harmony in the world.”

But that’s not always applicable to the four miniature human beings that reside with me every day.  They like music, too, they really don’t have a choice.  We pick out LP’s or CD’s and listen to music every night we have a chance to eat at the table.

One of our nightly musical excursions.

I also play a little game when the radio’s on or I pick music that has any kind of history or background.  I cover up the radio, I hide the song and LP titles, and I quiz the kids on who it is.  There’s a misnomer from some out there that I only like music recorded between 1967 and 1975.  That’s not true.  I have a love of jazz, particularly Brubeck, Coltrane, early Miles Davis, all that.  Aretha, Ray Charles, even some Sinatra here and there.  Classic rock hangs in my head a lot, sure.  I have a deep and abiding respect for Eric Clapton.  I think Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs might possibly be the greatest rock album ever recorded.

But I also listen with the kids to the Black Keys.  I have Amanda Palmer’s new album.  (Okay, she was in the New York Dolls, but still, it’s new music)  The kids pick Adele and Bruno Mars along with Brian Setzer and Bonnie Raitt.  I take pride in exposing them to good music while we listen to some of the auto-tuned pop that dominates the recording industry today.

But this morning we were on the way to school and I had a CD in the car, something the kids hadn’t realized, and it started playing.

Ba dump.  Bump.  Ba dump, bump . . . went the bass.

“Who is it, Hannah,” I asked.
She screwed her face up tight, looking like she might know but couldn’t figure it out.
Then the vocals started:
“I seen the bright lights of Memphis . . . “

“Oh!  It’s Little Feat!”

Then Hannah, Noah, Sam and I broke into song.
“And the Commodore Hotel . . . and underneath a streetlamp, I met a Southern Belle”

More than breaking into song, I realized that the kids actually knew all the words.  Now, I get it . . . probably shouldn’t have my 9-year-olds singing “boy do I remember the strain of her refrain, and the nights we spent together, and the way she called my name…”

Still, I was singing The Joker and other songs at their age.  Still – “probably shouldn’t be singing this song at school,” was my line to them.
“Oh, we know,” Hannah says.
“Why?” asks Noah, who can’t let the question go.
“Just don’t, okay?  Most people wouldn’t understand.”

But then Hannah recounted my tale . . . how Lowell George changed the back pickup in his Stratocaster to a Telecaster one.  How he used a Craftsman socket as a slide.  How – and this is going way back – my cousin, Tom, was the only other person I’d ever heard sound exactly like Lowell George . . . with or without the slide.  I was proud.

We sang the entire way to school.  Everything from the low-down Southern whiskey to the white picket fence and boardwalk of the house at the edge of town.

My kids love the music in the car, at dinner, and the way it permeates the house.  If you wonder why I recount this tale, remember that music was still big when my wife was alive . . . but not part of our lives.  Guitars were relegated to the back room.  Music wasn’t played at dinner.  The stereo was put away.

Today, in the middle of a simple drive to school, my kids broke free, finally, of their past as well.  Belting out Dixie Chicken - an odd choice, I’ll grant you – they showed we’ve become our own strange, little family now.

Thankfully, no notes came home saying they were singing the song at school.  And it could have been worse . . . we could have been singing Fat Man in the Bathtub.

Fat Man In the Bathtub by Little Feat

One of the things that our real estate agent told us was to remove all our family photos.
“Why,” was my question?
“Because people don’t want to see family photos, they want to see themselves in a home.”

Don’t get me wrong, she was likely correct in her assumption, but I wouldn’t do it.  This was still our home, we were comfortable, and I liked how we had our pictures placed.

But the pictures, artwork, all of that told a story.  You could see a visual history of our family on the wall.  Sure, by that point we didn’t know that part of our history was more than half over.  Still, we had the pictures of the kids as they grew, the family photos taken by our friend who started her own studio.

The place our story begins . . . our new home.

When we moved to California we had the same.  It’s the first thing I put up in our rental home when we moved after the funeral.  It’s the inspiration for this blog: a saying Abbi – my 18-year-old oldest child – found at work one day.  ”Home: The Place Your Story Begins” was the phrase in vinyl lettering and I put it on the wall for the way up the stairs.  It’s surrounded by pictures of all of us – Andrea included.  Still, it shouldn’t be mistaken for a shrine.  This isn’t some melancholy worship of the past.  This was the reference of our story.  It’s like we’ve started writing our own series and the first one ended on a cliffhanger.  Joss Whedon would have been proud – a central character, turning her life around, getting healthier . . . then passes away from an unexpected cause.  It left the five of us to figure out where we were going.

So I put up the photos . . . but then I added more.  There’s the new family picture, none of us dressed up, taken by my sister-in-law when we visited Nebraska on the year anniversary of Andrea’s death.  The folk art that had followed us through four homes came off the wall and I replaced it with the kids’ amazing pictures.  I don’t say that lightly, either, I honestly believe they’ve gotten very talented.

Two of the kids’ artwork

Then tonight I came home and was flooded with four faces all talking at once.  They all wanted to recount their day in graphic detail.  It’s like an aural pummeling to have that flood you when you’re still carrying your laptop and wearing your coat.  They hear the garage door and corner you in the alcove between the dining room and the garage.

I held up my hands, informing them that they all know they’re supposed to go one at a time, otherwise it’s white noise.  I heard about how bad AP science was.  I heard about how Sam wants to join the choir again.  Then I heard about “dark matter” from Hannah, who is doing a report on the expanding nature of the universe.

Then, as I began to get dinner ready, I felt a little tap on my back and there was Noah.
“Can I show you what my art homework looks like,” he said rather meekly.
I looked down and there was a pencil drawing of the profile of a woman.  It wasn’t meant to be realist, it was meant to be interpretive . . . and it was beautiful.  It truly was.
“That’s amazing, little moo, did you do that all by yourself?!”
“Yes.  I’ve been working on it since we got home.”
Then Sam showed me his . . . another woman, different in aspect, but just as amazing.

I immediately informed them that they’d get honorable places on the wall.  In fact, we’re going to take new pictures, too, and those will go up on the wall.  They might even replace some older photos.

You see, last week I took Andrea’s name off our home email address, nearly two years later.  I also took her last picture – the one she’d given me for Christmas – off the dresser in my bedroom.  It was no longer “our” bedroom.  I kept trying, when I moved in, to act like it was but it simply wasn’t.  It was time to make this my room, to make it our home.

It’s time to get another picture and let the walls of our home – wherever we might reside – start telling our story now.

My family, today, taken by Amy Renz’s Hunny Bee Photography

Kids in front of the tree

Yes, I know, I’m behind the times.  Most people in my neighborhood managed to get their lights put on the house on Thanksgiving Day.  I know I sound Dickensian when I say this, and will manage to aggravate so many suburban residents out there, but . . . what the hell is wrong with you people?!  Look, I get that there’s not a lot of time and you want to keep up with the Joneses and all that.  I also know that you want to be all celebratory.  I’m not disputing that, Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

But what the hell?!

Thanksgiving is spent for me making too many pies – and this year screwing up in baking two of them – and then driving around town to relatives.  Never mind the meals the next day, working before the day, all of that.  How in God’s name did these people find time to get the lights on the house?  Some hired them done . . . I know that, and I realize full-well that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of my doing that.  I couldn’t afford it and there’s just something, I don’t know, odd about doing that for me.  I can’t figure out why I’d pay triple for lights for about a month when I could simply put some lights on the house myself.

So after all that, with yet another splitting headache, I took to the roof of our home.  (Well, it’s not our home, we’re renting, but you get it)  My oldest daughter, Abbi, saw me suffering and my vision a bit blurried and decided that it was worth helping me to ensure I didn’t fall to the bushes below the roof.  Never mind the fact it was a convenient excuse to ignore the homework she didn’t want to do.  I would say it was easy, organized, and perfectly suited since we’d managed to get the lights up on-time last year but I’d be lying.  Like so many things from last Christmas I don’t remember much.  We did manage lights, tree, presents, all that, but I don’t remember doing it.  Autopilot must have been a major part of my life last year because we managed to get through the holidays, I wasn’t a mess, and the kids enjoyed themselves.

This year I looked at all the lights put away, the giant snowflakes that I remembered hanging down at least one of the peaks on the house, and I scratched my head.  Maybe it was the headache, or maybe it’s because my brain has slowly filled up with useless information.  Either way, I didn’t remember how the hell we’d gotten the lights up on the roof.  I had tons of strands of green outdoor lights and then tons of strands of white outdoor lights.

“These don’t match,” I told Abbi as I stood staring at the storage containers.
“No . . . they don’t.  Does it matter?”
I had to think about that.  It used to.  Andrea, my late wife, used to have conniptions about anything going against “the plan.”  The plan, you see, was her vision.  Given my ways, particularly early in our marriage, you’d have been able to land an F-16 on our roof with the lights I wanted to do.  Patterns and colors be damned, I want to see my house from the International Space Station!  That didn’t go well.  I argued, I fought, I groused . . . and like always I gave in.  You know what, it was always classy, minimal, and beautiful.  She had a knack for it, this woman, and it always looked good.

So I stood looking at the lights and could only muster “well . . . “
“I mean, we could do the snowflakes like last year . . . but put the green lights on the bottom eave . . .then up on the top one,” Abbi pondered.
“They won’t match,” I told her.
“So.  I’m not Mom, neither are you.  She’s the only one that really bothered.  It’s not worth all that work.”
She was right, too.  I got up on the roof, managed to match the white snowflakes with white strands and separated the green ones in separate areas.

We turned on the lights, fixed the broken bulbs to eliminate the dark patches, and suddenly . . . we were a lighted home.
“Your Mom would have hated this,” I said.
“Yeah . . . but Mom’s way took three days, which we don’t have, and we’d both be exhausted,” Abbi said.
“You’re absolutely right.”

The other kids came out and hugged my saying simply “yay!” and dancing in the dark of the street.  I went in satisfied, knowing it was perfect.  In the dark all you saw was the colored lights, and they sparkled against the eaves.  You couldn’t see the wires.  In the window you could see the tree lit up and even it was contrary to the way Andrea would have decorated.  There was no theme . . . except we decorated with our own materials and ornaments.  No leopard spotted bows, no ribbons instead of tinsel, it was a traditional tree.

By that I mean it was traditional for us.

Photo from Newtown via the Newtown Bee, and the Associated Press

It’s rare I post twice in a day, but while I do research for my work and take a break to inhale a lap burger I have some thoughts.

I could sit and pander and say the same things you’ve already heard on social media and television – “go home and hug your kids a little tighter” – but that doesn’t help.

I’m in a unique and strange position to have to both live through tragedies and report on them as well as be a parent and talk to kids who range from eighteen to nine – the same age as many of the kids who attend that very school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Years ago I got some flack for making my then-eight-year-old daughter leave CNN on the television and watch the events of 9/11 unfold.  I was told that she was too little . . . too formative . . . too innocent to have to face people jumping out of buildings or the towers falling knowing that there were people inside there.  But was I really being bad?  Was I doing a disservice?

One of the things I live by when it comes to my kids is the fact that they’re smarter than adults give them credit for being.  Kids know when you’re scared, worried, and freaked out.  They look to you for stability as their parent.  I cannot fathom losing any of my children in such a violent, horrific manner.  What I don’t believe is that people should lie to or avoid the topic for their kids.  Schools will go on lockdown drills, the news will be on – it has to in my house, I work in the news.

So what do I tell them?  I tell them the truth.  This is a horrible thing, and as of right now, nobody knows what went on in that room other than someone went off the handle and killed twenty kids and seven adults.  When they ask if it could happen here you cannot lie . . . the reality is you tell them you just don’t know.  The hard and near impossible thing is to get inside this person’s head and know, for sure, why they would do something this awful.

But the last thing in the world I’d do is make them feel it’s worse.  If I was to take them out of school, hover over them, and panic they’d panic.  If they feel I feel they are safe at school, they’ll feel safe.  If they are scared I allay their fears.  If they need hugs or support they have it, unequivocally.  They will know this.

My kids come to me, their father who works in news, for information.  When 9/11 happened my daughter wanted to know why and I told her – our world has changed forever.  Some people dislike the west, our wealth, our power, our freedom.  Freedom scares them and they don’t understand and your first instinct is to attack what scares you.  I worked sources and was in DC and saw the gaping hole in the Pentagon, yet I told my kids they can’t walk in fear.  Bad things happen . . . but if you make that your focus on every thing you’ll never see the good.

When the shuttle Columbia went down I was part of the hundreds of media racing around East Texas, live in Nacadoches and blinded by soft boxes and white teeth recounting the last minutes of the astronauts.  When I felt ghoulish and dirty I called home and my wife and kids told me it was important I was there . . . it was important because they needed to know.  Not why, but what in this case, happened.

So today, while I’ll be hugging the hell out of my kids I’ll also tell them the truth.  This is scary, sure.  Could it happen at their school?  I don’t know, but I feel safe enough to send them.

We cannot go through life worrying that only the worst will happen.  But if it does, there are people who will hold you up, keep you tall, and not let you fall.  Bad things happen, but we can’t worry every moment of our lives about the worst or we will never see the best.

To close, I posted something from Fred Rogers not long ago – I leave you with his wisdom:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

But that led to a day of the car being nearly empty, missing my first train out to work and getting a ticket on said train because I actually had forgotten my pass on the endtable by my bed.  I managed to get a bunch of work done and turn the day around only to have to head home early because the rash had come back with a vengeance.  It’s almost like hives . . . almost like he’d eaten something that caused him to react.

So I got home, put some more prescription cream on his little arms and cheeks and gave him a Benadryl.  It should have been the end of the day.

But . . . it wasn’t.  This was also my kids’ Christmas play night.

Of course it was.

Kids right after the play

You’d think that would stress me out.  In the last few years the Christmas play had been a source of constant consternation for our household.  Andrea had gotten to the point her knees hurt so bad that she couldn’t walk very well.  If we didn’t get to the play at least 40 minutes early there were no seats.  If you had known my wife at all you would realize that there was no feasible way that we’d get anywhere early . . . we were lucky if we were only a few minutes late.  So standing at the back of a church to watch the play wasn’t something that she would have been able to do.  I was in a catch-22.  I’d save a seat if I got there first – which happened a lot – we might get a seat.

Tonight, though, the boys were dressed.  Hannah stayed at the Extended Day Program and was already at the church in her costume.  I got there a half-hour early and even then had to stand at the back of the church and watch the play.  I didn’t mind, not really.  The kids came out, and like every year the littlest ones were adorable.  Kindergartners and first graders singing with their tiny voices.

In the last few months I’ve been good.  I’ve had good times, I’ve laughed, and I’ve even enjoyed the moments that I have together with my kids.  I’ve talked with friends, renewed friendships and even gotten close to people.  None of it hurt, in fact it’s been good.

But tonight . . . tonight I heard her voice for the first time in over a year.

Hannah and her classmates

When our sons were singing, and our daughter stood there in a townspeople costume, I heard her voice.  When the little kindergartners – even though we know none of them – started singing off-key I felt her hand squeeze mine and her voice swoop up to falsetto as she said “oooohhhh!  They’re so cute!”

It should have hurt.  It should have made me tear up . . . and it did a little . . . but I smiled in spite of myself.  I missed her, but it didn’t hurt me like it used to.  I remembered how much she loved me and in particular our children and as the program ended I smiled.

I found out it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

The whole crew

Last year I had money I could burn.  I’d cashed out some stock options and financial investments left over from my previous job and that allowed me to pay for a bigger Christmas than the kids were even expecting.  In fact, after the presents were all wrapped and under the tree my oldest, Abbi, looked up and said – without prodding – “Dad, that’s too much, why did you buy all those presents?”

This year’s different, though.  I’m staring at the twelve days of Christmas and realizing that I have only three presents in my possession.  That’s more than a bit disconcerting.

Christmas last year

Two years ago I was in the same financial balancing act to get gifts and everything for the kids.  The difference there was that I had a second brain to help me process the wants and needs from reality.  My wife, Andrea, was great at making things happen when it seemed bleak.  That was, unless it involved her . . . then she just fell apart.  This is, after all, the woman who went back to school to become a pharmacist, took out tens of thousands in college loans, and then complained that she only wanted to work part-time.

But I digress . . . this isn’t a piece to complain about my wife, she was wonderful in thousands of ways.

So this year we managed to get our tree, put it up, even had Abbi decide that we should move the tree to a totally different place and fill the room with the Yule Log.  She was right, by the way, even though I was skeptical myself.

But as we started to put the Christmas tree together and get the decorations – tubs and tubs of decorations – I realized that things were just not as organized and that I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a decorator.  Still, things were  different before, and they’re certainly different now.  Andrea liked flash and flare and . . . getting things totally and completely her own way.  For the first many years, even after we had two kids, she had a plan for our Christmas tree and even if the kids made ornaments at daycare or school they never made the tree if they didn’t match the theme.  We had a bow on the top rather than a star or angel.  Fancy, expensive-looking ornaments were okay but sentimentality had no place.

This bothered me and led to lots of arguments when I had stockings made by my Grandma that I wanted to hang up.  They didn’t match, you see.  I was, after all, the husband, though, and there was no winning the arguments.  I did consider it one of my better influences that in the last few years we managed to turn that obsessive-compulsive need to decorate like an interior decorator to a Mom . . . who wanted to put the memories of Christmas from the past onto thee tree.

Last year we managed to get decorated and it really was a bit of a healing process to get Christmas going.  This year I was actually happier and looking forward to decorating.  Still, it’s interesting to see where your kids’ lives have moved through their eyes.  My sons and daughters are amazing little human beings, they really are, and they have an amazing capacity for understanding, love, and strength.  But where many of the old ornaments from Andrea’s childhood – ornaments that Andrea was sure her father had given us because they didn’t have room for them, not because they were being sentimental – the kids got misty-eyed.  It’s absolutely normal to have that happen.  I didn’t want that to color our Christmas with a dark ink, though.  This is still, even being the second year alone, my favorite time of year.

So we decorated, though it’s not even as nice or thorough as last year.  The leopard-spotted bows that Andrea loved and meticulously tied to the garland on the banister every year seem a bit . . . well, let’s be honest . . . not me.   I am not sure what to put there, even with just 12 days remaining, but something will go there.  We still have the fancy stockings . . . I just put my Grandma’s up in the dining room, tied to the staircase, in view of the tree.

Christmas, you see, is all about sentimentality and looking back . . . but it still needs to be your holiday as much as it is your past’s.  That . . . and I know what to get for presents.

At the end of the day, there were no tears, no sobs, and no depressed mulling over what we lost.  The main factor is we’re together.  Sounds like a cheesy Hallmark card, but there it is.

Our Tree

I write every week – many times twice a week while I contribute to the Good Enough Guys and then I re-post.

But my writing all started when I filled out a questionnaire for her segment by the name up there in the headline.  This week my daughter Abbi filled it out.

It was so good they posted it today.  I put it here for your perusal, please take the link to her segment.  She’s a great kid and I must have done something right.

http://www.goodenoughmother.com/2012/12/life-lessons-abbi-manoucheri/

We didn’t eat at the table, though it was clean.  The exhaustion of the day and the stress of trying to budget for Christmas presents – which I still haven’t finished getting – has been getting to me.  So we ate hamburgers and tater-tots on the living room floor and watched the original version of Miracle on 34th Street.  My sons were already moaning about the fact some “old movie” was going to be on and that they had to watch it.

As we watched, I put up the stockings, the five of our names embroidered on the tops.  They’re one of the holdouts from my wife’s decorating scheme, something that cost a pretty penny.  My oldest, Abbi, looked and said “we have enough we put them up and we can put Mom’s here.”

Our stockings – 5 of them

It took me back a year ago where I had this debate with myself – what do I do with Andrea’s stocking?  It was last year I made the determination that we just shouldn’t put hers up.  It’s not being mean and it’s not trying to hide that she was part of our lives, something that people had speculated we were doing.  No, I didn’t put it up because I didn’t want to confuse the kids.  If you put the stocking up and it’s filled by Santa . . . what is that telling them?  Is Mom still here?  Can the 9-year-old’s mind handle that Santa still fills her stocking?  And what if it’s not filled?  Is that just another message, again, that Mom isn’t here any more?

I looked at Abbi and said “I didn’t put it out last year, kiddo.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.  I thought it’s the wrong message.  What do you tell Noah, Sam and Hannah if it’s not filled?  Or worse yet, if it is?!”
Abbi stood there and thought for a really long time.  I could see in her eyes she wanted to put the stocking up but the logic of the debate was raging in her head.
“I see what you mean.  We don’t have to, I mean . . . ” and the conversation tapered off.

But the movie was on and the key scene was coming . . . men in the post office saying how the “dead letter office” was filled with letters from Santa and they should get rid of them this way.

“Hey!”
My son Sam had suddenly registered what the postmen were doing.
“They can’t just throw out kids’ letters to Santa, that’s just mean!”
I looked and Abbi burst out giggling.
“Awww.  I love you, Sammy!  They’re not throwing them out!”
I chimed in here.  ”They’re saying that Kris is Santa, so they’re giving him the letters. “
“Oh.  Okay, that’s fine, I guess, but why didn’t they just send him the letters in the first place?!”

It’s amazing how a little boy’s innocence will steer you on the right path.  We put the five stockings in their places and left the last holder blank.  It’s not like we ignore Andrea, she’s always here.  She’s hard to ignore, even when she’s no longer with us.  But it’s also part of moving forward with our lives.  We can’t expect that she’s going to prod us to Christmas or help.  The ideas she’d have given for Christmas presents are gone.  The life we were supposed to lead is gone as well.  We had to write a different story, basing it on what we already had of  our life together.

But it’s always great to see that no matter how rough things get, there’s a certainty that hangs in the air, and all I have to do is look every once in awhile through my son’s eyes.

Over the weekend I ran a piece on Rene Syler’s site - Good Enough Mother that informed the world that yes, I had managed to toss out one of the hundreds of “traditions” that my wife had brought to our family.

You see, my wife loooooved to celebrate St. Nicholas Day, which basically involved putting confections into smelly kids’ shoes.  My wife, you see, loved her traditions she just didn’t want to be the one who actually did the work for them.  That’s not me being mean, it’s just reality.

But this weekend we did another one . . . one that seems more like our own than one that involved Andrea.

Indian Rock Tree Farm

Some years ago, when stumbling through the Sierra foothills looking for a tree farm to buy a fresh-cut Christmas tree, we happened upon this small, family-run tree farm.  We’d bought a really nice tree, they treated us very well, and the kids had a lot of fun.  We hadn’t gone back, though.  Of all the traditions that my wife loved to keep she never really kept up the idea that we go to the same places or frequent the same spots.  We had to have the family traditions from her upbringing – even if they made me absolutely freaking crazy.

So last year, when we needed a tree and I didn’t want to use the artificial one that we’d been using for so long since the Indian Rock Tree Farm in the Sierras trip, I decided to go back to one of my family traditions.  I remember, years ago when I was a kid, going out to my grandparents’ old farm, where a massive couple shelterbelts stood sentry on either side of the road into the lot.  I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6, but we went in, had hot chocolate in a thermos, trudged in the snow, and took turns sawing down a tree for the house.  We sang O Christmas Tree and danced around and had just a great, memorable time.

So last year I took to the internet and found the place we’d cut the tree those years ago.  It was time to start our own traditions again.  I did again today.

The Indian Rock Tree Farm isn’t a huge place, it’s really a small little family run place.  There’s a fire in an old barrel, candy canes for the kids, and it’s just beautiful.  As you get out of the car you can smell the pine . . . it’s nestled between two peaks and you see nothing but trees and smell the air.  It’s the closest to the Black Hills of South Dakota anyplace has come for me.

The kids…at the tree farm

This year we found a tree in record time.  It was a little crisp, our breath snaking out in wisps as we walked.  Abbi looked at me and – as she has every time it gets cold, in a routine we’d developed when she was a tiny girl – goes “I’m a dragon!” and blew the steam upward.  Last year there were arguments, and the stress of being in the holidays made it hard to find a tree.  The loss still weighed a little heavy on us.  But this year . . . the tree just appeared and we all agreed.  It was maybe 10 minutes and we had it!

Waiting by the fire

We waited by the fire as they bundled up the tree and smiled.  We Cleaned up the area for the tree at home.  Then, as the day turned to night, I made some cookies and hot chocolate and we started decorating.  I put on Vince Guaraldi’s Christmas record, another tradition of mine, and Sam decided to wear the lights as we tested them making us all giggle.  We all marveled at pictures of the kids as they were tiny in the ornaments.  We reminisced about the ornaments that we’d all gotten as gifts: a crystal angel that my Grandma gave Abbi.  Another one – a snowflake – given to me and Andrea during our first year together by my Grandma as well.  It felt, by leaps and bounds, like it was Christmas.

Sam being silly

A lot of people come to me and say “it must be so hard this time of year for you!”  Yes, there are those moments – where Hannah finds an old ornament of Andrea’s; when an ornament with “wish” on it sparks Noah to say “maybe I should wish for Mom to come back!”

But I handle those things with aplomb now.  ”Let’s think about wishing for things we can make come true.  How about that?” I ask him.
“Yeah…that’s true,” he says, and there’s no breakdown moment.  There’s no darkening of the mood.  Christmas comes every year, and though Andrea did it up brilliantly every year, I refuse to let the amazing feeling I get every winter be spoiled by loss.  I want all four of them to remember this like it’s the best time every year, too.  Sure, Andrea’s gone, physically, but we honor her and my Grandpa and everyone in our family by celebrating.  It’s not a small thing, it’s a beautiful thing.

Traditions are just that – things that bring you comfort.  There’s a reason I have 1 tub of stuff to decorate in the fall and something like 8 of them for Christmas.  Traditions like putting food in shoes – those were little things that brought treats and appeased kids for my wife and her family.  But Christmas in my house . . . Christmas is the tradition.  Getting the tree, decorating, eating cookies and cocoa, those all make me smile.

I put the angel on top the tree, looking like a cross between Andrea and Abbi, and nobody gets sad. “I picked out that tree topper, I thought it was beautiful,” Abbi says  with a smile.

I come down from the stool and quote Linus Van Pelt from Charlie Brown’s Christmas special – “I never thought it was such a bad little tree.  It’s not bad at all, really.”
Then the kids chimed in . . . “it just needed a little love!”  A truer statement couldn’t be said.

Our Tree

My smiley son Sam

I wasn’t really looking forward to the evening’s events tonight.  Not really.

My day had been long, covering a murder trial’s sentencing that ultimately ended in the death penalty for the man convicted, I was already a bit stressed out.

Understand, I’ve described my day before as a sort of “Dad Sandwich.”  I wake up in the morning, make sure that the kids get a good breakfast – this morning it was waffles I’d made and frozen over the weekend.  Then it’s getting them situated, making sure their socks match, belts are on, pants aren’t too small (Sam, one of the twins, had put on a pair that was a size too small and looked like a scientist at Google . . . just needed the horned rims and tape between the lenses)  and that they have their shoes.  Both shoes.  I swear, one day I’ll write my autobiography and it will be called “One Shoe – the things that drove this singular parent to the cliffs of insanity!”

In the middle of this I was medicating my oldest daughter who has a cold so nasty I’m just counting down the minutes until I catch it myself.

This comes to the point where I work, as an investigative journalist, and spend my eight hours trying to pry information out of people who don’t want to give me information.  It’s rewarding, sometimes entertaining, and more often very stressful.  My day usually ends, then, with my getting home, making dinner, getting the kids in order, arguing with them to clean up the dishes, then doing the bedtime routine.  That’s followed by planning breakfast for tomorrow and making lunches as well so that I’m not up at 4am trying to do it all then.

On my way out the door today I shouted at my middle daughter, Hannah, that the dishes and kitchen needed to be cleaned.  She did it two days ago and apparently believes that she can do them once a week and that’s enough.  I’ve since stopped cleaning up the kitchen and informed the other 3 children that if Hannah doesn’t do her chores and I can’t get to the stove we’re not eating.

Tonight, though, they were saved . . . saved by, of all things, that murder trial.  I had taken the light rail into work, which is fairly typical, but I had to work to the last train out, which usually gets me home just after 7pm.  I had to take out some pre-made stuff from the freezer, throw it in the oven, and that in turn alleviated the stove from the equation.  That’s good, you see, because Hannah, without a doubt, had not put a single dish into the dishwasher, even.   I was exhausted, grimy from the light rail car, and just in a cruddy mood.

I shouldn’t ever come in the door in a crummy mood, by the way.  That’s not fair to the kids – who have been waiting all day to tell me about their afternoon.  I walk in and see the table a mess, the stove dirty, and no dishes cleaned up.  Hannah is nowhere to be found – and it’s her chore today – and sitting in among the dishes is a strange looking cup.

It’s a snowman.

A ceramic coffee cup, carrot for a nose, scarf rolling around its head . . . it’s the hollowed out head of a snowman turned coffee cup.  It’s the cutest thing in the room at the moment, I have to say.

“Where’d this come from?” I asked knowing the flood of expository remarks were coming.
“That’s Sam’s.”
Sam then entered . . . “We get to buy things with points and I used them to get this . . . and a pocket frisbee.”

He immediately removed a tiny circular bag which he unzipped and removed a circular cloth frisbee that went “pop” every time.
“I got one of those too,” Noah expounded, and then ran to his backpack and regaled me with the tale of every…single…detail of how he paid for them, what his search entailed, and how he got that, a couple koosh balls, and a memory card game.

“Yeah, I just got the frisbee, some Christmas stickers, and the cup,” Sam tells me, but he’s got this pleasant little Stan Laurel smile on his face.

We ate, so late by this point that the bedtime routine was shoved back and we only read a few pages of their book - A Wrinkle in Time tonight.  I was grumpy, had cut them all off of their descriptions more than once as they tried to recount their days.  Hannah walked in with a piece of artwork and I grumpily told her I’d look at it if she ever managed to get the kitchen cleaned up.

As I finished reading and was tucking in my kids, Sam looks at me and says “do you like the snowman cup, Dad?”
“Yeah, kiddo, it’s really cute.  Totally you, I can see that.”
“Good . . . because it’s yours, Daddy!”
“What?”
“I got it for you.  I’d been waiting to get enough points and I wanted to get it for you so you could use it before Christmas!”
By this point I was deeply touched . . . I truly was.
“You used your good behavior and classroom stuff, Sam, you can keep it.”
“Oh . . . I didn’t want the cup, Daddy, I thought you would like.  I always wanted to give it to you!”

I tucked them both in, and gave Sam a huge hug.
“Thank you kiddo.”
“Merry Christmas, Daddy!”

I went downstairs, having seen that all four kids were in bed . . . and decided that tonight I could do the dishes myself.

Except for the snowman cup.  That I used to drink some hot chocolate . . . and smiled my own Stan Laurel smile as I drank out of it.

Dave Brubeck on the Cover of Time

I normally talk about my own, 5-person family and limit this space to that.  And it’s not that tonight’s is too different from that.

Except I want to devote my few hundred words to a man who I don’t know but touched my life very deeply.

When you read this, likely, it would have been visionary Jazz musician Dave Brubeck’s 92nd birthday.  If you’re older or from the West coast, you know who that is.  If you’re younger and not then you likely won’t.

In today’s world of hip-hop re-hashed sampled music mixed with auto-tuned pop songs with no real talent or inspiration behind them, the thought and composition of this man stands out, to this day, in my mind.

Brubeck was never one to stick with the mainstream.  If the atypical piece of music in the 1950′s and 1960′s was a 4/4 time piece of music, Brubeck wanted to see what classical themes and off-time signatures could do for the medium.  It aggravated so-called “jazz purists” at the time.  It sparked the imagination of his own mentor, Duke Ellington, who said it sounded like jazz to him . . .and it swings!

Jumping off that statement, while I realize that a 5/4 time signature can confound the toe-tappers when his crossover hit “Take Five” starts to play, I dare you not to smile and swing with it.

I grew up with Brubeck.  It’s not that he was – at the time – a popular artist when I was a child.  Growing up in the ’70s/’80s you listened to rock and roll.  Led Zeppelin and The Eagles and Steve Miller with some Carlos Santana thrown in for good measure.  But my father had the same eclectic musical tastes I did so I also got to hear BB King mixed in with Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and . . . of course . . . Dave Brubeck.  There was quite a bit of him in the record collection.  Why?  In the ’50s Brubeck had done a college tour, hundreds of campuses, including Creighton University – where my father went to college.  He saw the original quartet – with the sax player Paul Desmond.

The music always wraps around me like a comfortable, warm blanket.  Desmond’s sax playing is so smooth and flowing it’s like a velvet glove lined in silk.  His playing isn’t deliberate, it’s improvised for sure, but it’s just fluid.  I’ve never heard another sax player sound precisely like him and that’s too bad because he was just so brilliant.  However, with all the recorded material through the original quartet, it’s great there is so much.

Brubeck wasn’t just a pioneer in the music world, either.  He played jazz on the front lines because his commanding officers told him it was good for morale and even when bombs were falling he wasn’t allowed to stop playing.  When he struck out with the classic quartet: Dave himself, Paul Desmond, Tom Morello and Eugene Wright, he lost tons of profitable gigs.  Why?  Because Wright was an African-American bass player and the Southern campuses (and probably some Northern ones, too) wouldn’t let them play or at best – wouldn’t let Wright come in the front door.  Brubeck hated that and took a stand, choosing smaller venues and avoiding the profitable places that wouldn’t treat every member of his quartet with respect.  He wrote jazz, classical, hymns, and standards.  His music was covered by Miles Davis and Robben Ford alike.  (Ford has said before he always wanted to play like Paul Desmond sounded)

I was fortunate enough to see Dave Brubeck twice in my life.  The first ranks up as one of the most amazing concerts I’ve seen in my life and it almost didn’t happen.  I had bought two tickets to Brubeck’s show in 1989.  He was performing with the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, doing portions from the Mass he’d written and all of his standards.  I had a date for the show, someone I’d been dying to go out with . . . and she cancelled.  (It might be wise to tell you I don’t even remember her name now, that’s how well things went!)  I wasn’t happy, I was down, and I almost didn’t go.  Even back then, dates by yourself are just simply . . . rough.  Add to that it was the symphony, so I had to dress up.  That’s doubly difficult.

But I went, and I got there insanely early.  I was down in front, the show nowhere near starting, and this man came out, moving slowly, hair disheveled, wearing a cardigan and blue jeans.  I only ever saw his back and he was making adjustments to the piano, so I assumed he was with the theater.  As I walked to leave the man sat behind the keys and started playing “Strange Meadowlark” from the album Time Out, and I realized then I had seen the man himself.  As I turned around to go ask him to sign an LP he was gone.  That night, though, he came out, crisp tuxedo, and the evening was brilliant!  He did symphonic arrangements of some standards, an Ellington song, and then he told the symphony to leave and he played roaring renditions of Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk that took up a good half hour of the show.  It was after that the conductor came back and extolled that only Dave Brubeck could – four short weeks before – have a quadruple bypass and come back playing like this.

I saw him again, just a few years ago, here in Sacramento.  He played in a pavilion at the Radisson Hotel and he was far older, far more frail looking, but I had a date.  My wife, who loved Brubeck as well, came with me and we saw him from something like 5th or 6th row.  Even at that age he still could swing!  He told the story of the first record store he’d frequented, including buying St. Louis Blues . . . and then simply sat down and said “well, we’ll just play it for you” and did . . . in stellar fashion.

It was a beautiful night, possibly the extension of what that first show should have been.

But my point to all this . . . is that this amazing musician did amazing things, and not all of them limited to music.  He was on the cover of Time magazine.  He held the record for most performances at the Newport Jazz Festival.  He was on the forefront of the civil rights movement, even writing a musical for  Louis Armstrong that never got performed – perhaps due to the subject material.

Dave Brubeck was an amazing man and an even more brilliant musician.  The world is less off-beat for him leaving us.  And perhaps that’s why I like his music so much – it’s just enough off-beat, just confounding enough to do 5/4 and 7/4 time that you scratch your head but love it all . . .

I am fortunate in that my kids, with no hesitation, will recognize a Brubeck song when they hear it.  They know the odd signatures and cool, smooth tone and brilliant musicianship.  Sure, they listen to Flo Rida here and there and rock out to the Black Keys a lot.  I have my own rock and blues background.  But good music, folks, is good music, and I’m proud to expose them to it.

Like the song said, he lived a philosophy, and I learned – if a little – from him to live your life In Your Own Sweet Way.

Finally, after days, I’d convinced my middle daughter, Hannah, to do her chores, and she’d done them well.  The kitchen was clean, the dishes running in the dishwasher, even the pots and pans cleaned up and put in their proper places.  It was amazing!  I had decided, if she’d done it, I’d make homemade enchiladas for them all – something they all love.  I was in a pretty good mood.

But then I walked into the living room and saw Noah.

Last night he’d gotten some sort of rash on his cheeks, the little bumps showing up.  I put some hydrocortisone cream on them the night before, even gave him some Claritin hoping the allergy medicine might take care of it.  It was a reaction to something.  something.  I just didn’t, for the life of me know what.

So last night I’m racking my brain . . . all the laundry detergents are dye and perfume-free (I hate the over-perfumed stuff, not because I’m a hypoallergenic nut).  He’s had nothing horribly different in his diet . . . except the fact I got lazy and bought strawberry Uncrustables sandwiches.  They’ve had the grape ones before, but not strawberry, not in a long time.  He’s eaten strawberries before, but this looked like a strawberry allergy.

Tonight I went up to Noah and his cheeks had gotten worse.  And then I felt his cheeks . . . and they were hot.  Not a fever, his forehead, rest of his body, all of those were fine.  His cheeks, though, those were not.  I sighed, looked at my oldest daughter, asking if she’d looked at him and she said she hadn’t noticed anything.  I looked at him, though, and his face looked like he’d gotten rug burn from being drug by his face across the carpet.

“I have to go to the store,” I told them all.  ”I’m getting some Benadryl.”

Here’s where having a brother, late wife, and father who are pharmacists kicks in.  It’s like learning in osmosis.  The rash, the symptoms, no nausea, no other problems . . . it was a classic food allergy look.  I even called my folks who said the same thing.

I know what you’re thinking, and yes . . .normally I would have Benadryl in my cabinet.  I hadn’t realize we were out.

So I picked up the Benadryl, gave it to Noah . . . who looked and asked “will this make me really tired?”
“Yeah, kiddo, sorry.”

Umm…Dad, can we put some stuff on my cheeks, this looks bad.

So I put some on his cheeks, rubbed his head, and went into the kitchen.

Needless to say, no enchiladas.  Frozen Tombstone pizzas tonight. . . but the kids could have cared less.  His oldest sister gave him a hug, told him she was sorry she hadn’t noticed his rash.  We ate dinner together, not at the table, I let them rest in the living room.

Then as I read the last chapter of the last Harry Potter book, I noticed Noah had already drifted off to sleep, Sam watching him to make sure he was okay.

And I realized . . . as worried as I was, it was a pretty good night.

Noah, pre-rash

My girls…Hannah on the left, Abbi on the right

This morning saw something that doesn’t happen very often . . . my two daughters arguing with each other.  Not screaming, “I hate you!” kind of arguments but just . . . sniping at each other.

I, of course, was harping on the middle daughter, Hannah, already because the kitchen – her one chore every day – was a gigantic mess.  From my peripheral vision I noticed Abbi, hair wet, towel wrapped around her diminutive form, barreling down the stairs shouting “I don’t care if you take them but tell me!”

The “them” she’s referring to, of course, is the feminine hygiene products in the home.  Apparently that time of the month had arrived for my oldest and she was out of tampons.

That’s right, I said tampons.

Yes, I’m a guy, but no . . . I’m not flabbergasted or red-faced when I say the word.  I can use lots of feminine hygienic words like maxi-pad, tampon, panty liner, period, uterine flow, Kotex, Tampax . . . need I really go on?  I was already on the way out the door to take the other three – Hannah, Noah and Sam – to school.  Knowing how an 18-year-old without these products would suffer . . . okay, I don’t know, but you know, I know.  It cannot be easy, so I shouted, on the way out the door “I’ll stop at the store after dropping them off and get you more.”

It’s a big thing for your oldest to come to terms with and embrace the fact that her father is buying tampons for her.  The middle daughter apparently cannot come to terms with that yet.  How do I know this?  Because every month I find at least one or more pairs of underwear either in the garbage – which I cannot afford to keep buying new panties every month – or in the laundry let’s say more than a week past their wear date and they’re less than pleasant.  About as pleasant as when her 9-year-old brothers sneak a pair of soiled underwear in there.

Now, before every woman on the planet starts lambasting me, let me inform you that my oldest already told me how embarrassing it is for a girl to have only her Dad to tell her these things.  I understand that.  It would be like the boys having their mother or aunt telling them the specifics of having sex . . . not really a conversation you want to have with a female authority figure.

The problem is, though, there are two older people in the house that she has: Abbi – who is really her sister and not always as responsible as she could be . . . and me.  That’s it.  You can’t call your Aunt to tell them you’re out of maxi-pads and your underwear is soiled.  You can’t tell your sister because . . . let’s face it, I’m the one who does the laundry.  I’m also the one who ends up cleaning the bathrooms – for both girls and myself.  So when that time of the month comes . . . as much as the feminine products dress their boxes up with day-glo colors and butterflies and flowers . . . it’s not the most, shall we say, sanitary of things, those sanitary napkins.

I don’t say this to complain about what women go through.  I don’t pretend I can understand what it feels like or what they go through.  But I am their father . . . I can empathize, I’ve done my best to try.  So when things happen, and I know they will, just tell me.  If you’re too embarrassed . . . then fix it yourself!  Put a liner in the trash can!  Clean your own toilet!  I’ve shown Hannah the tips – peroxide in cold water for your underwear.  Buying dark colored or black panties.  Calendars to track your cycle.  Hell . . . borrow tampons or pads from your sister, but as her sister said . . . tell them!

It should show the progress I’ve made as the sole parent and being a father that my biggest complaint about running to the store and looking specifically for the Kotex brand of tampons wasn’t going to the checkout with tampons . . . it was the fact that I got to work a half-hour late because I had to buy tampons.

But then . . . I never said it would be easy, did I?

A picture of my from High School…(photo cred-Jenny Turner)

Back Where It All Begins by the Allman Brothers Band

I delved deep into my own past over the weekend.

I won’t go into graphic detail, but was asked to write a letter to some students at my former high school.  The reasons and the ideas are not worth repeating, I don’t suppose, except that I had to work very hard to pull the little, minute details needed to write an intelligent and inspirational letter.  Unfortunately, the successive years I’ve endured have purged many of the memories that I hadn’t really thought I’d need again.

But like so many of my thought here, a friend asked me what it was like thinking back to being the age my own daughter is now.  What did I think?

The reality is, it didn’t bother me as much as I guess it should have.

There are a couple reasons for this: first, I can look back on those days now with a legitimate amount of fondness.  At the time I was – to quote a classic rock song – an angry young man.  I felt misunderstood.  I felt I didn’t fit in with the norm.  I wanted to break out, not feel stifled.  Yet through all that I kept close ties to home and my family.  I also could very well have closed off some very good people who very truly made an impact on my life.

I was lucky, though, that I met a woman in college who basically looked at me and said “so what?!”  So what if you feel that way, it’s your life.  And by the way . . . are you really that way, or are you just being closed-minded?  What’s stopping you from being the person you want to be, certainly not other people . . . the only person preventing you from doing that is you.  Get some confidence, for God’s sake.  That’s what it was, too, a lack of confidence…in myself and the abilities I already knew I had.

In my youth…in the years I dated Andrea

It’s like lifting a curtain from in front of you.  I was married to her for eighteen years until she passed.  She helped me to see that I had a great foundation, something that really shouldn’t weigh my mind like I’d been letting it do.

And by the way, take a look at what those high school years propelled me toward: I became a journalist.  I’ve seen amazing things.  I have met presidents. . . world leaders . . . I saw the Pentagon with the gaping hole left by terrorists; I uncovered a loophole in the FDA’s regulations; I found pieces of the Space Shuttle Columbia that fell to the ground after it crashed; I climbed a waterfall in Jamaica; I repelled down a cliff to get to a story in Arizona; I met BB King; I met Kenny Burrell; I’ve been to Afghanistan and seen wounded soldiers rescued.  I also started my own band, opened for and got stiffed by Foghat; played multiple music festivals; I recorded two CD’s and one of them is still selling copies on iTunes.  All those things are possible because I propelled myself to greater heights.  I wasn’t stifled by my youth, I was encouraged by it.  I just needed to understand that.

But back to my initial thoughts . . . so what is my thought about having been that age and my daughter at that age now?  I’m proud.  I can look back at those years and actually see that those years propelled me to where I am.  Sure, I’m the only parent in my household now, but I am strong, solid, and knowledgeable enough to handle that.  My daughter doesn’t have that chip on her shoulder, she’s a smart, funny, quirky and talented kid.  She knows it.  We all – the five of us in this house – faced adversity.  Now we walk another road.

But I can look at what I did and see my daughter doing better.  Isn’t that the path we all want?  She’s going off – with my encouragement – to do her passion in life.  Each of my kids have different talents, but I make sure they are confident in those talents.  I was encouraged but for whatever reason I never thought I had the strength to handle it all.

I faced a tragedy.  So did my kids.  But we are not defined by tragedy.  We build on our lives looking back at that experience.  I lost my wife . . . but I have gotten closer to others in the successive 20 months since.  I’ve walked my own road and done things differently that I did the last 18.  That’s okay.

I look at my kids and see them making their own paths as well.  It’s interesting to see my own past and think about what I might have thought my life was going to be.

No, my life’s not what I thought it would be at this point.  But in many, many ways . . . it’s been much better.

During the buildup to the Iraq War

Yes, I know that’s the 3rd or 4th time this week, and some might argue that “this seems more your problem than your kids.’”  But they’d be wrong.

You see, the one thing . . . the singular . . . solitary . . . thing I’d asked my middle daughter to do when I walked out the door this morning and got in the car to take her and her brothers to school was to do her chores.

My recap for you is this:

I dole out chores to each of the kids.  It’s not like they’re parenting each other or anything, but I’m one guy.  I cook, I get the groceries, I do the laundry, I vacuum, I end up cleaning all the bathrooms each week, I plan the meals, I get to drama club shows, I see Christmas plays, I go to events and such.  I also have a job where I work 40 hours a week at minimum.  The result is that the kids have to do something around the house or we’re in a world of hurt.  So here’s the breakdown:

Abbi: pick up the kids and watch them.  Homework has to be completed at the Extended Day Program as well as at home if there’s still some left when she gets them.  Then she ensures the house doesn’t burn down or anything.

My girls…Hannah on the left

Hannah: Dishes/kitchen cleanup.  That’s it.  One job.  It’s a daily job, to be sure, but it’s one job.  I had it as a kid, so did both my brothers.  Not rocket surgery.

Noah and Sam: fold and put away the laundry.  That’s everybody’s, not just theirs.  On top of that, dirty clothes need to go in the hamper if they’re lying around.

Shouldn’t be hard, right?  I mean if I cook the meals how hard is it for them to clean up?

Apparently as difficult as translating the Rosetta Stone.

So let me explain why I lost it so badly.  I told my daughter, Hannah, on the way down the stairs this morning that the dishes had to be done.  There were, literally, no plates, bowls, spoons or forks to eat with this morning.  None.  I told her that if we didn’t have them done not only did we have nothing to eat off there was nothing to cook on either.

So fast-forward to about 6pm.  We’re in the break between storm #1 and storm #2 of a 3-storm frenzy here in Sacramento.  A so-called “Pineapple Express” is on its way and we’re about to get plastered.  It’s not even raining or windy and the drivers here have lost their minds.  Either too slow and rubber-necking (which drives me bat-sh*t crazy!) the wrecks on the opposite side of the freeway or weaving because they’re on their cell phones.  My normally 40-minute commute in a car (normally I take the train, but it was raining) took me 1 1/2 hours.

So I stop at Target, get – as a treat for the girls – soup, including Panera’s Broccoli-Cheddar for a warm comfort-food meal. Don’t do it often, but got that and Disney-fied Phineus and Pherb chicken noodle for the boys.  I had split pea.

But walking in the door I hear “X-Factor” on the television upstairs and the kitchen is actually worse off than when I left.  I opened the dishwasher and it’s full of the same dishes from 2 days ago!  I lost it.  I put the bags down and trying to be calm I sat on the couch and turned on the television and sat there.

Hannah came down the stairs . . . after about 20 minutes . . . and was excited to tell me something.  I interrupted her.

“You have any idea how pissed I am right now?!”
“Why?”
“Look to your right.  What do you see in the kitchen?”
“Dirty dishes.”
“What was the one thing . . . the one thing I asked you to do tonight!”
“Clean the kitchen.”

The boys walked in . . . “what’s for dinner?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?!”
“Nope . . . I have no way to cook it.  No pans.  No spoons.  No bowls.  No dishes . . . no dinner. If they’re not done by bedtime no dinner tonight.  Sorry.”

See . . . even if she’d run the dishwasher there was at least an hour wait and it was almost 8pm already.

She went in and washed three pans . . . five bowls . . . and all the spoons.  By hand.

After we all ate and sated ourselves I informed them that, again, there’s no dessert.  No pans, no utensils . . . no dessert.  Heads hanging they did their bedtime routines and got ready.  As Hannah started to head up with us I stopped her:
“Get back down there and do the dishes!”
“oh.”
“yeah…oh.”

She did them . . . to the extent that the dishwasher – already full – was run.  She snuck to bed and left another massive mess on the counter.

My balancing act here, though, is that I have to make the lunches and such.  While I wouldn’t have starved my kids, I can’t skimp on their lunches because there are too many people who would make a fuss and be nosy and just a pain in my behind if I didn’t give them a full lunch.  So I made a small pan of brownies and that was it.

Their older sister, you see, had tons of homework and didn’t know how to juggle the responsibilities . . . along with her own part-time job.  Tonight, though, I’m sicking her on them.

If the kitchen is still a mess . . . I might just go to the movies . . . alone . . . and let them fend for themselves.

Lunar Eclipse, courtesy Nasa Image Exchange

I have talked about the full moon before . . . the bad moon rising.  But it never ceases to amaze me how that amber-colored rock can seem to throw my kids off the deep end.

Today was worse.  Today she was blood red from the eclipse.  No, I didn’t see it, she was obscured by clouds, but that just delayed the inevitable.  It really did.

Think I’m wrong?  Well then . . . the day’s events:

Abbi, my oldest, had another improv night, one I didn’t think she was going to be on stage during, so I skipped it.  She came home telling me I’d missed her – she performed more tonight.  This, after she had a massive headache and drank all my coffee.  So . . . no morning java for Dad.  Love that, now I predict my headache until I either get to the grocery store or Starbucks.  Then she proceeded to tell me that her homework wasn’t finished and she’d be up all night trying to finish it all.  Don’t get me wrong, I empathize, but I also know that it’s the verbal “feeling out” of Dad to see if there’s any way that, again, she might be called out sick.  I could very well be wrong, and probably am, but regardless . . . she’s been out so many times this semester I’m waiting for the truant officer to knock on the door.

Then there’s Hannah and the boys.  I got home, pizzas in hand because I was lazy tonight, and there wasn’t a single inch of space to put two large pizza boxes down.  The kitchen is filled with crap.  I mentioned (read shouted) I was more than a little upset that playing the Wii seemed more important to them than cleaning up the kitchen.  It fell on deaf ears.

Then came notification that I should have bought paper lunch sacks because the boys were having their field trip and needed a bag lunch.  This, since it was not precariously late and past closing hours for the grocery store, followed by the inevitable screaming fit because I broke out two Target shopping bags and told them to put their names on them.  That didn’t go over well – not with them, and certainly not with me.  Next, in the middle of the lunch bag tirade Hannah comes down and informs me the one bit of good news in the night – that she’s managed to change her Social Studies grade from an F to a C.  Now, that should make me really happy, except, in the middle of the arguments and screaming she wants to get her guitar back.  Losing her guitar, you see, was punishment for failing the easiest freaking class that you take in middle school.  (I mean, if you can’t find the answer to a social studies question in your textbook there’s probably some Wikipedia page that has it!  It’s not like this is Newtonian Physics, for God’s sake!)

Now comes the time when arguments over the uniforms began.  The boys have to wear jeans, but they have to have a “hoodie” to wear.  But wait, the kids are told they have to have a hoodie, but it can’t be a “home hoodie” it has to be a uniform one.  But there are no uniform “hoodies” because that’s called “spirit wear” since it’s not the regular uniform.  I ask, stupidly, how they expect you to have a hoodie but then tell you that you can’t wear same said hoodie because it’s not the uniform.
“Daaaad, you can’t wear it in class!”
“Oh…well you’re going to Sutter’s Fort, not the classroom wear you school hoodie”
“Daaaaad! We start in the classroom!  You can’t wear it there!”

This follows Noah telling me he’s wearing his regular uniform sweatshirt – the one he grabbed was 2 sizes too small, by the way – and then pulled out a hoodie.

“NO!  You’re not wearing a sweatshirt over a damned sweatshirt!” I was losing my cool by now.
“But Daaaaad!”
It’s here I blew.
“If you two give me one more attitude-fueled tirade about your uniform crap I’m going to . . . “
Then Hannah came down the stairs.
“Hey Dad, I don’t know what this song is but it sounds familiar!”
This entered the fray of:
“Daaaad!”
“musical interlude of bad version of Stairway to Heaven”
“I’m WEARING THE SWEATSHIRT!!!!”
“You know what this song is?”
“Dad I’m wearing my plaid sweatshirt”
“more stairway . . . “
“Daaaad!  Sam can’t wear plaid it’s a home hoodie!”
“Why don’t I know this song, Dad?”
“Why can’t I wear this and the hoodie?”
“It’s Stairway to Heaven, Hannah, how can you not know that?!”
“Dad!  Hannah hit me with the headstock from her guitar!”
“Dad!  Noah threw my guitar out of tune!  And it is not Stairway to Heaven!”
“Dad!  Why can’t I wear plaid?!”

I shouted here.
“Knock it off!“

I grabbed Noah by the cheeks: “put the sweatshirt away!  You’re wearing the hoodie because the teacher told you to and you can just carry it until it’s time to go on the field trip!”
I looked at Sam and said: “Same damn thing goes for you!  Take the sweatshirt and put it in your backpack!”
I looked at all three: “If you’d told me you needed paper bags I’d have bought them.  It’s a little late now!”

I then yanked the guitar off Hannah’s shoulder and played the entire intro to Stairway to Heaven and began singing the song.
“Oooooohhhh!  Yeah.  I guess it is Stairway to Heaven!”

I chased them all upstairs, Noah getting angry and giving me that depressed, indifferent, ticked off look and I told him if he didn’t knock it off I’d slap it off his face.  (I wouldn’t, but it sounds good)

I got them into their pajamas, teeth brushed . . . only to realize they’d stolen my toothpaste from the bathroom . . . and then read them a chapter of Harry Potter.  Hannah was forced to put her guitar away.

I looked outside and the clouds covered the stars and moon . . . but I knew they were there.  I finally took a deep breath, considered drinking a glass of 18-year-old Glenfiddich . . . and stared out the window.

I know you’re there, you witch . . . I just want you to know . . . you haven’t beaten me yet!

It’s an appropriate title because it’s something that seems to weigh on myself and those around me an awful lot.  I talked a bit yesterday about Joel Sartore’s segment on CBS’ Sunday Morning program on Sunday.  The part I didn’t really say as succinctly as I should of is how I totally understood the “looks” that he got from people who had just heard what his family was going through.  To recap for him: his wife came down with breast cancer a number of years ago.  At the beginning of this year she had a recurrence.  Not long after treatments her mother passed away.  Then in the summer, their son was diagnosed with Hotchkins Lymphoma and has to have chemotherapy for the rest of the year.

One of the things people don’t get is how you can have a sense of humor about these things.  Joel’s line in the middle of the piece was “I thought the only way things could get much worse would be if she backed over the dog in the driveway.”  How true that is.

My own situation, though not like Joel’s, is not too dissimilar.  My wife passed away on the day of our 18th wedding anniversary.  Then we lost our house.  My work decided to “make a change” just a couple weeks after I returned.  I couldn’t afford the school my oldest, Abbi, was attending so I had to move her to the public school.  If you wrote all this down, as the events unfolded, in detail, nobody would believe that it was true.

My oldest, Abbi

Abbi and I had a discussion just about an hour ago and I think it’s what was keeping her from falling asleep.  Abbi is not like her mother, she’s more like me.  I may write about how things happen here, but I don’t share them person-t0-person often.  Nor do I talk about them here, not most of them.  This is a snippet of our day, not the whole day.  But she was affected by someone asking her if she helped her Mom make Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s a simple enough question, but for her, or any of us, the reaction to her answer is much more weighty.  Like Joel’s line in his segment, he mentioned that people walked up to him, tears in their eyes, acting like their son had already passed away.  We get that . . . a lot.  She gets the glassy-eyed sympathy.  I get the “how do you do it alone?” thing.

What people don’t get is that we’re okay.  Could we be better?  Well . . . yeah, what the hell do you think?  But couldn’t everybody?  I mean, short of Richard Branson, who can say their lives are perfect?  Even before losing Andrea our lives were far from perfect.  They were hard.  Now they’re hard in another way.

What worries all of us, though, is meeting that person the first time and wondering if they’re sincere or nice . . . or if they’re just pitying us.

Don’t you pity me.

Please, don’t.  If you don’t like me, then fine.  Don’t.  I can honestly tell you that I could really give a sh*t.  My kids love me.  I have a close cadre of friends who are amazing.  I have people around me who care and help, even if I’ve been neglectful and failed to talk to them for a long time.  Don’t pity me, Abbi, Hannah, Noah or Sam.  It’s easy to look at us and say “oh . . . if she’d just lived on. . . “

My four munchkins…

The discussion I had with Abbi centered around the fact that other people can’t accept that we could be happy.  They can’t accept that, maybe, we’re okay.  We are.  I’m not saying it to convince myself!  It took a really, really long time to come to terms with the fact that we could be okay without Andrea.  It took even longer to come to terms with the fact that, in some ways, some things are better.  You never want to admit that.

But I told Abbi the same thing I’ve said here before: we have to keep going, not necessarily by choice.  Andrea gets to be pretty and perfect and sweet in the memories in our minds and we have to keep trudging along.  It’s harsh and difficult sometimes, yes, but it’s just the way it is.  I could sit and wallow in misery or grief but then there are four kids who suffer because of it.  People assume, my daughter said, that she’s picked up all the slack and is doing tons more.  They don’t believe her when she says she simply ferries the kids and watches them for a couple hours until I get home.  They look at her and wonder how Hannah, Noah, Sam and I will cope when she’s gone and won’t accept it when she says: “they’ll figure something out.  My Dad will do it.”

When you face what others see as unimaginable they can’t fathom that you come out on the other side unscathed.  The reality is, we’re not unscathed.  We’re strong, though.  We’re bonded.  Holidays aren’t as hard as you might think, it’s the buildup to them and the questioning after that are harder.

In the end, when asked if she helped her Mom with the dinner, Abbi said she simply said “no…I didn’t” and left it at that.  It’s easier, sometimes, not to have to tell the story all…over…again.

Beside, Abbi told me, “Mom wouldn’t have cooked any of it anyway . . . and I know for a fact I probably wouldn’t have helped.”

That’s my girl.

I’m going to echo some sentiments stated on Sunday by one of the best still photographers I’ve known: Joel Sartore.

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I can’t begin to say I know what things are like in his household, I’ve faced far different circumstances than Joel has and is facing now.  But what I find extremely interesting is what he has to say about his circumstances.

I guess I should give you the background: Joel is a professional journalist and photographer.  He was just made a National Geographic Fellow and is in the middle of documenting some of the rarest, most endangered species on the planet by getting the species that are housed in zoos across the country.  He’s talented, driven, and one of the funniest men I’ve ever met.

I met Joel years ago when I worked in Omaha, Nebraska.  Joel works and lives in Lincoln, NE, and his wife convinced him to call our station to get a major phone issue fixed by our consumer unit.  It’s a problem we tackled for him and he and I have talked occasionally ever since.  I even give prints of Joel’s as gifts, I like his work that much.  If you can find his Geographic Explorer segment on Grizzlies in Alaska it’s one of the most beautiful, funniest segments ever shot on the series.

But this isn’t about Joel’s or my work.  It actually starts with his wife, who I mentioned up there.  Joel’s wife, Kathy, was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago.  Then this year she had a recurrence, but the prognosis looks good.  That would be difficult enough.  He saw a major change in how he worked so he could stay home.

But in August, their son was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma.  Cole is 18, but the prognosis, again, is good.  So is the family, who Joel highlighted today on CBS’ Sunday Morning.

What really hit home for me, though, was the way Joel and his family have said they’re handling the situation.

They’re thankful.  They really are.

The thing I really seemed to relate to was how everyone else seemed to handle Joel’s problems like their entire world had come crashing down:  

“Friends approach us haltingly, as if we’ve already lost a child. They ask us to tell the story just one more time, ‘How is he doing? What happened? Why you?’ Some even tear up.

We tell them that we’re doing okay, but they don’t believe us, not for a minute.

But you know what? We actually are okay. And by that I mean we’re doing well.”

Now, bear in mind, I cannot relate to having family members sick, nor can I relate to the adversity of dealing with breast cancer or lymphoma treatments.  I know it has to be stressful, but I have to admit, I can get what he’s saying.

In the weeks after losing my wife, Andrea, we had a lot of bad things happen: I’d lost my wife, but then we lost our home.  I had my bosses tell me they wanted to “make a change” and my career came crashing around me.  All this while trying to figure out how to raise four kids all by myself.  Where I can relate to Joel is how everyone reacted . . . hell, even still reacts.  I even wrote about how we tell people we’re okay in a column for Good Enough Mother.  We’re okay, we really are.  Are we excellent?  Well, some days we really are.  Are we horrible, well, most times we’re really not.  I got those same, tearful, upset questions about how we’re doing and then the disbelief that we could.

All of us

I have always liked Joel’s work and his attitude.  To be thankful and outgoing and happy . . . well, that’s no surprise to me.  But I take a bit of satisfaction in knowing that two years ago I might have been one of those same sad, sympathetic people but today . . . I’ve got a similar, though not exact, perspective.

It’s an interesting character study that so many people come up, trying to envision themselves in your place and then feel that the adversity is just too much.  I would guess people have no idea how they’d handle tragic events, but nobody does, really.  I didn’t see my life going this direction, but my life isn’t horrible.  I took it minute by minute (to steal a Doobie Brothers line).  Then day by day. I’m maybe looking a week ahead now, though it seems to go months at times.

There’s a clarity to that way of thinking.  I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who sees good things happening and much to be thankful for.

That said, and since the season’s about to begin, I’m going to tell you a true Thanksgiving story.  Many of you won’t believe it, some might.  I need to preface this with the fact that our story pre-dates a now famous (infamous?) episode of the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.  In that episode, in a surprise publicity stunt, the station’s general manager decided to drop live turkeys out of the back of a helicopter to disastrous results.  ”As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly . . . “

I don’t know if the episode’s writer – dubbed Turkeys Away - Hugh Wilson has family in or knew people in my hometown, but the similarities to this story are eerie.  Bear in mind, I don’t remember the year but I have vague recollections of the events.  Added to that is the hilarious tale that my father tells, but only when asked of it.  It’s not a Thanksgiving tradition or anything.

When I was a kid giveaways and publicity stunts were normal things.  It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, not by any stretch of the imagination, but if you wanted to crowd of people to come to your store or restaurant or what have you a giveaway was the norm.  It never ceases to amaze me that if you cut the price of something by 50% people would still hem and haw and try to get a lower price.  But give them something free . . . even the craziest, most worthless item . . . and they come in droves.

This was the mentality of one Thanksgiving promotion at the Gibson’s store in my hometown.  If you haven’t heard of Gibson’s, and I’m sure many of you haven’t, it was a chain that existed years ago in the Midwest and parts of the Mountain zones of the country.  Think Pamida or Sears on a smaller scale.  It’s like the old Ben Franklin stores from the ’50s and ’60s.  Think of it as a medium-box store, a smaller version of Target.  My father at the time was still a pharmacist and this was years before he’d started his own separate store.  He owned and ran the pharmacy inside that Gibson’s so he was privy to the goings-on.  Not involved in the day-to-day decisions of the rest of the store, but he knew what was happening.

The giveaway was simple: come to Gibson’s parking lot at the precise time on the exact day . . . several days before Thanksgiving . . . and you will get a free turkey.  Sounds pretty simple, right?  No big deal.  Think about all the turkey giveaways you’ve seen in your lifetime.  Frozen turkeys given out and the frenzy of people in a Rugby-style scrum trying to vie for position to get the best, largest, most succulent bird of the bunch.

Except these weren’t frozen turkeys.

The manager of the store had contacted a local farmer who was raising turkeys.  Now, the local farmer sold these turkeys, as you can imagine, for a good price to people in the surrounding area.  I would venture to guess he had a reputation for raising a good bird as I can’t imagine how the store manager might have gotten his name otherwise.  Still, the reality was he was happy to have sold a large number of birds to the biggest retail store in the county.

The day of the giveaway arrived and the Gibson’s manager wasn’t particularly sure how many people would arrive for the giveaway, I’m sure, but he needn’t have worried.  This was, of course, free merchandise.  My father, in an effort to either document the events to come . . . or perhaps he just thought this would be comedy for the next several decades, was in the lot ready to take pictures as the giveaway unfolded.

The farmer arrived in the parking lot in his four-door.  The Gibson’s manager and the employees tasked with implementing the giveaway were more than a little confused as the car arrived with no sign of the turkeys.  Yet I choose to believe that in the middle of their confused questioning they could hear the muffled “gobbles” coming from the rear of the car.

It’s worth pointing out, in case the PETA folks start to furiously pick at their iPhone screens and email me that 1) this happened decades ago and it was a far different time and 2) Gibson’s no longer exists and 3) cars back then had trunks so big you could fit a side of beef inside them . . . uncut.  (sorry PETA, but it is the Midwest after all, and I loves my steaks)

The farmer opened up the trunk and there, crowded into the expansive luggage compartment were as many turkeys as he could fit.  Bear in mind, this wasn’t like a city drive.  The farm was miles out of town and over gravel, sometimes washboard roads.  So by the time the trunk was opened these turkeys were already dizzied from the drive.  Add the confusion and the fact that, really, they’re just not that smart a fowl, they were more than a little dismayed.

The number of people in the parking lot was likely far larger than they’d either hoped or even imagined.  It’s here that details, at least for me, are a bit shaky.  Maybe the large number of people involved forced the manager to think they needed distance from the burgeoning crowd.  Perhaps it was the plan all along.  Still, the decision was made at this point, that they would take the turkeys up to the roof of the store and toss them into the expanding crowd.  First-come, first served.  On the roof, I believe, were the manager and assistant-manager of the store, proud of their achievement and the success of their publicity stunt.

The two men picked up the gobbling Turkey-day fowl, and tossed them over the edge of the roof.  It wasn’t a massive space, this was what would be the second story of a normal building.  It was a one-floor, medium-box store, after all.  They waited as the turkeys flapped their wings, I imagine in my head feathers fluttering off and floating to the ground, and tossed the turkeys over the edge, waiting for the first couple people to walk away with their prizes.

Except, that’s not what happened.

It’s worth pointing our here that turkeys have wings, feathers, and as such, can spread said wings and feathers.  This is what our fine feathered friends did on this day.  But rather than landing in the waiting arms of the shuffling crowd the turkeys glided . . . yards and yards away.  Some perspective here . . . this was a rather large parking lot.  Bordering the lot, with driveways in and out, was Nebraska State Highway 20.  Highway 20 eventually turned into Main Street, but the Gibson’s store was on the East end of town and as such was in an area where the speed limit was faster and the traffic more bustling.  Those turkeys tossed over the edge spread their wings and soared over the parking lot, across Highway 20 and into the lot of the truck stop and auto dealership across the highway.  This, however, did not deter the crowd there for the free turkeys and, in the middle of near-highway speed traffic, they chased those turkeys across the highway, into the neighboring lots and . . . well let’s just say it wasn’t a good day to be a turkey.

It’s here that someone got the idea that this was becoming more than a little dangerous.  The best thing now was not, though, to end the turkey giveaway.  No, the best thing now was to clip their wings.  If they can’t fly they don’t glide and nobody (well, except maybe the turkeys eventually) will get hurt.

So clip the turkey wings they did . . . and like Les Nessman’s bane in WKRP years later . . . the turkeys plummeted to the ground.  Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever actually lifted a turkey . . . not frozen even a store turkey’s pretty heavy.  Add in the giblets and the head and feet and all the other . . . umm . . . parts that are not in the turkey when you buy it frozen and it’s even heavier!  The turkeys, to borrow from the same Les Nessman, hit like bags of wet cement.  Some were caught.  Others slammed into the hoods of cars.  Windshields.  People.  Some of the people were chasing the turkeys and clawing at each other to get the birds.  Others hid or ran because of the turkey bombs flying from the roof.

Only two pictures that I know of exist from that day.  Even those are little help.  You see, my father, taking the photos from a safe distance, was laughing so uncontrollably that the photos are nothing but blurry blobs.  Still . . . you can see the dark blob of a turkey in midair . . . one photo showing them flying.  Another showing them falling like a stone.

Eventually, the store had to pay out hundreds of dollars in body damage and windshield replacement for cars.  I have to think some people were even hurt . . . and maybe a few weren’t but claimed they were anyway.  The free turkey giveaway probably did net an uptick in sales for the store for the day . . . but then were those sales enough to offset the damage?  I don’t know and probably never will.

Years later, watching the CBS network television show WKRP in Cincinnati what seemed an innocuous program about Thanksgiving, we all laughed harder than we’d laughed before.  As Les Nessman described the turkeys coming out of the back of a helicopter we all pictured that day in the Gibson’s parking lot and thought it was the funniest thing we’d ever seen.

Then we all wondered . . . had someone in Hollywood stood in a parking lot in a small Midwestern town and think up the line: “as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly?”

I get occasional pieces of advice and emails and notes that are meant to be helpful, and I truly take those in the spirit in which they are intended.  I don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t like or am disappointed in the advice, but I’ll be the first to admit there isn’t a lot of information or advice out there for – well, for people like me.  A very good friend who lost her husband touches base with me occasionally and her advice – as she’s a good 2 years ahead of me and raising her kids and dating a great guy and the like – has been invaluable.

Here’s something I have noticed, and I think she’s felt the same…losing a spouse as opposed to ending a marriage or ending a relationship isn’t the same thing.  Yes, the phrase still fits – my marriage has ended.  The difference here, I have to say, is that there was no decision to end that marriage.  Let’s put aside the possibilities of abusive or violent relationships, those factors really don’t apply to my situation.  But the biggest difference is the fact that where divorce or breakups happen, there is still the option of seeing your ex again.  That’s not an option for me.  My wife didn’t want to end our marriage and neither did I.  So the negative connotations just aren’t there.

So the latest pieces sent to me had to do with “moving on,” so to speak.  Some were just coping with losing a spouse – which most of that information was for where I stood more than a  year ago.  Now I’m getting stuff about how I’m supposed to handle things and how the move forward in my life is supposed to go.

But the interesting thing about most the “help” that has come my way is the fact that the majority of it was from internet bulletin boards and articles written by someone who’s in a relationship with a widower, not the widower (or widow) him(her)self.  I was more than a bit disturbed by the number that had headlines like “getting a widower to love you” or “girlfriend of widower” or “wife of widower” and how to handle the ever-present “shadow of the late wife.”

Some of the articles listed guys who had a shrine to their wife, and a sealed off room for only her family to visit.  For the record…I don’t have a shrine or a secret room.

Some talked about clothes and items kept pristine and neat in the house so she’s still there.  Most of Andrea’s clothes had to go when we had to move.  It wasn’t easy, but the clothes didn’t make her Andrea.  They didn’t smell like her, her presence wasn’t in there.  The ones I kept were expensive, professional clothes that I thought our daughter might be able to wear in the future.  Classic pieces.  Sweatshirts my oldest wears because they make her feel comfortable.  They’re not enshrined anywhere.  The only thing I did keep was the wedding gown because it’s preserved and…well, it’s her wedding gown.  It’s not on display, it’s on a shelf in the closet.

The more disturbing thing to me was the number of – and I’m sorry if this offends, but it’s true – but the number of women who were simply put out because the late wife was present, mentioned or even in pictures throughout the guy’s home.  Here’s where I have concerns: Andrea is present in a ton of photos in our home.  It wasn’t done, though, as a shrine.  (many of the comments talked about people counting the number of pictures…then the number that had the late wife in them.  I thought that was a bit creepy.  I don’t even know how many pictures I have hanging up.)  There’s one solo picture of my wife in my house and it’s mine.  I have one of her – just one – at my desk.  There are a bunch, though, where it’s her and the kids.  Family photos and portraits.  I choose to believe there are just as many without her up on the walls.  I’ve added photos of the kids and I to the litany of black and white and color snapshots but that’s each time we get new ones.

My family, today, taken by Amy Renz’s Hunny Bee Photography

The stuff sent me is from a perspective of someone who hasn’t lost and hasn’t thought about the past and the kids.  It’s assuming the reader is dating – which I’m not right now.  Comments are even more disturbing – telling the woman the late husband has to remove the photos.  She’s his girl now.  She’s his life, shouldn’t talk about her, shouldn’t come up . . . none of it.

Look, I write about Andrea here and there in this blog…maybe more than here and there at times.  But I cannot simply turn off that part of our lives.  That’s what I just don’t understand.  I’ve known tons of men and women who have had a breakup and even a year and a half later are ragging on the ex.  That’s apparently acceptable.

I have female friends – a number of them.  Some are friends that Andrea and I had together.  Some are her friends.  When Andrea’s name comes up I talk about her with fondness and joke about the not-so-fond moments.  But at no point am I pulled into the pit of despair when her name comes up.  I am quite aware that it’s unfair to compare friends, relatives, the kids or even someone I might be close with to Andrea.  They’re nowhere near the same people, nor should they be.  Would I seek out someone just like her again?  I doubt that, I’m not the same person, nor was she.

But here’s where the advice columnists and the commenters and the information superhighway and I differ.  I know, compared to a lot of the people described in some of these articles, that I seem a bit more stable.  I don’t have “shrines” or “monuments” to Andrea.  I’m well aware how imperfect she was.  There were things she did drove me batty – and the kids all have one or more of those same tendencies.  But don’t ask me to not have her in context to points in my life.  Half my life – literally – was spent in the company of this woman.  As each day goes by that influence diminishes a little more, but to erase that would be to erase the great things she did for me.

I’ve said this before – I was always the person I am now . . . but I wasn’t able to let him out, I’d walled him in some dark space of my own making.  Andrea saw that person and just never allowed me to stay in those places.  I came into the light and have been there since.  But it’s also true that in a lot of ways she didn’t understand me . . . and it took a lot of time for her to try to understand me.  We had strong days in the last year of her life, but we had many, many awful ones halfway through it as well.  I cannot remove those influences, to do so would eliminate a part of who I am.

It would also hurt the kids, like we’re trying to get rid of their mother.

So know this, folks, advice is just one person’s opinion.  I’m not giving it here, not really.  But for me, my life, my kids . . . I know that she’s a perspective…a harkening back to a different time in our lives.  As much as her life influenced us, her loss cannot help but influence us as well.

The past has its shadow, for sure.  However. . . every little bit of light brightens memories of it as well.  I’m not influenced on a daily basis by the eighteen years of marriage, but I have been shaped by it.  But our life is our life, not hers.  I can make decisions and have thoughts on my own without her.  I can also think about how she helped us as well and both situations are good.  I can’t erase my past or her life and its imprint on our history.  Some may say that’s bad, but I think that’s a good thing.

I don’t ignore my history but I just don’t live in the past.