Dad Revisited

You want your children to learn as much as they can. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. So you send them away on school overnight trips. With this in mind, my son prepared for two wonderful travel opportunities in the span of two weeks.

Of course, the day before he leaves, something tragic happens in his family, and he ends up visiting with a grandparent, perhaps for the last time. This trauma affects him deeply, but he stands tall and tries to ignore the possibilities while trying to enjoy himself on the trip. The trip goes off as scheduled, and when he returns (after 3 days out of cellular range) he gets to see his grandparent, who has managed to not only survive, but to thrive.

Then he packs and plans for an international trip. We equipped him with an international calling card. We gave him an international cellular phone. He visited again with his ailing grandparent, who will likely still be here upon his return, but will almost certainly not be home any time soon. Again, he was upbeat, even though he knows that when he returns, we’ll have one more in the house. He agrees it would be wrong to leave one in a house alone while the other is in a rehab facility. And so, when he returns, we will no longer be nuclear, but extended.

Off he goes, landing uneventfully in Paris. Checking in at the hostel, he begins his international adventure with enthusiasm and joy. After a few days, he leaves the hostel to head home. Not home to us, but a temporary home with the student he hosted in November. For us as parents, a much more comforting time. What could be better than having him stay with a family? We had hosted their child, we imagined a quid pro quo would allow him to be protected and comfortable.

Who could predict that we’d have trouble figuring out how to text message from abroad? Who would have predicted we’d have to try a variety of ways to call from his cellular to mine? Who would expect a tragedy in their household? Who could predict that the family would be devastated in a way that would make it impossible for them to continue to host him? Who would know that he would be thrust into a circumstance which would be nearly impossible to manage in English, with a family you know well? How can he possibly be expected to manage it in French, with a family he barely knows, on their worst day ever?

I consider myself to be an outstanding planner, but some things you just can’t be expected to predict. Be safe and well, Skippy. Hugs are waiting for you at home.

My friend Chris, who is writing curriculum for his music students, is crafting Essential Questions for his lessons. Essential Questions are those which, if you have developed and taught your lesson well, all will be able to answer at the end. He believes educators must also ask themselves Essential Questions as they do their jobs. I believe, especially of late, that each of us as people must answer Essential Questions. I believe those questions differ depending on your age and where you ‘are’ in your life.

Individuals with children face these questions: Should I be more or less involved in the lives of my children? Should I choose for them, or let them choose? Should I steer them away from all risks, or let them discover the world for what it really is and has become? Should I keep my ’safe’ job, or take a risk that could put my family in financial jeopardy?

If you are in a marriage or relationship, you face different, but similarly important questions. Is this the person for me? Do I want to spend the rest of my life in this relationship? Is my partner happy? Am I doing all I can to make this relationship happy, successful, and sustainable? Will we be better off if I subjugate myself to him/her right now? Are we healthy together? Are we better apart?

As individuals, we must answer the more basic questions. Am I happy? Can I be a better person? Should I be more charitable? Is it time to sit down and take it, or stand up and fight? What are my goals, my visions, my dreams? Can I attain them? Is what is good for me in keeping with the greater good? Does that matter to me? Take a good look at these questions, because they are cumulative. We all answer the basic questions. Those of us married and with children must answer them all.

But I’ve left out the most basic, most essential question of all. It’s not “How shall I live?” buy “Shall I live?” if you believe that life requires an energy, a force of will, than this becomes a critical question. But why, WHY would someone answer no? Certainly we’ve seen those who, in a fit of loneliness, pain, or alienation have thought living was no longer valuable. What of the father, who for years has supported his family, who now cannot do so? Perhaps he’s discovered he’s worth more fiscally dead than alive. Maybe he simply cannot watch as his family struggles to stay alive. Maybe the guilt (justified or not) he feels in his failures weighs too heavily on his soul. These days, many individuals must be in this mindset. I’ve felt their pain. All I can say for them is that no family is better off in their absence. No amount of money would ever replace a loving parent, or assuage the pain and guilt stemming from their absence.

What of those who are older? If life requires an energy force, how long can any of us sustain it? Have you 50 years in you? 65? 80? 90? There are days where I wonder how I will find a forty fourth. If you reach 80 years, haveyou worked hard enough? Could you hang on to be with your mate. Hopefully your children are settled and no longer need your care. If you’ve taught them everything they need to know, can you give up without guilt?

As I sit with my mother-in-law, I consider the gifts I have, the gifts she’s given me, and the life force she’s carried for so long. Clearly I haven’t been paying attention during the lesson. I can’t answer the Essential Question.

Photo from Love-Sessions.com

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to spend more time with my wife and value that relationship more. She and I took our first step by having the first Date Night we’ve had in a while.

Getting out of the house for date night is no easy task these days. Going on a date before kids is as easy as picking up the phone, saying “do you have plans?” and heading out the door. Once you have kids, it gets much more complicated. When they were younger, it was about finding a babysitter for the two of them. Then as my son got to be old enough, it was “whose house is he playing at and who will watch my daughter?” Now that they are 15 and 11, it’s become complicated in other ways. Read the rest of this entry »

Taking a blog hiatus means I’m a little behind in my blogging to-do list. I thought it would be a good idea to set some goals for myself in each of the core areas of this blog. You know, offer a little focus to my quest for self-improvement.

Resolution 1- Lose Weight and Improve General Health

A few years ago, I weighed in at 250 pounds. I felt terrible at that weight, so I put myself on a self-designed regimen of exercise (walking every day for about 2 miles) and diet (more vegetables and fruits, much less volume of everything else.) It worked, and I lost 30 pounds.

Now, I’ve regained all the weight, and then some! When I’m fat, I’m not as good as father as I should be. I finish work and want to go to sleep. I don’t have the energy to play or even talk with the kids most days. I don’t feel attractive, so it has an impact on my, er, um, marriage. Not to mention the fact that if I drop the weight, I increase my life span significantly. I’ll be a much better father and husband if I am, in fact, alive. Of course, I am worth a significant amount of money deceased, so there is a potential fail/win if I don’t lose the weight. However, I resolve to get my weight down to 220 pounds.

Resolution 2- Learn from The Cobbler

I’ve heard many times about The Cobbler whose kids have no shoes. I will make sure my children have shoes… no, wait! That’s not it. Actually, my kids are both extremely talented musically. My son is even considering going into Music Education. You would think that I’d be on that like white on rice. I’m not.

There are a variety of factors that contribute. Distance is a big one. We’re apart for 4 night every week, so we don’t get to touch base all week on things like practice. Then I come home for the weekend and get dragged into things that are more pressing but less important. I resolve to make more time to foster my children’s musical talents.

Resolution 3- Remember The Most Important Earthly Relationship

We are all a collection of our experiences and relationships. Many are by chance. We do not pick our mother, nor do we pick our father. Our children are born to us. We choose to have them (usually) but we must play the hand we’re dealt. You can’t just bail on your kids if the relationship is in trouble. They are yours for keeps.

We make one truly important choice in our lives: the choice of a mate. I remind my kids when they get particularly thorny with their mother that “she was the one I chose to spend my life with. I love them, but she comes first.” The truth of that is often forgotten in the heat of whatever family moment we are in. I need to remember each and every moment that the most important person in my life is my wife. The fact that she is so wonderful should make me get down on my knees each day to give thanks. What it actually does is allow me to put her needs second, third, and last, knowing that she is so special she will never hold it against me. She deserves better, and I would like to try to give her better. I resolve to spend at least two nights each month putting her needs first and foremost.

Check out my resolutions on Faith and Technology.

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Advent is a temporal paradox. It is the end of the calendar year, but also the beginning of the liturgical year. It is a chance for a fresh start with your faith. It is, in fact, one of the two holiest seasons in our Christian year. It may also be the time where we are weakest in our faith.

Consider Black Friday. Were you your most faithful on that day? Were you considering what was best for all those about you, or for you alone? Were you among an angry mob of folks banging on a door, remarking that the sign says 5am and it is most certainly 5:02 already? Were you waiting patiently to be served, or did you foster anger and impatience among those about you?

Consider the holiday season in general. Are you considering your faith as you set out your menorah? Are you contemplating how oil sufficient for a single day of light should burn for eight? When I put out my creche, and I considering the miracle of a virgin birth? Or am I contemplating how another holiday is coming, and I have so much to do that I can’t see straight? Am I thinking the worst of my family because I do all the work on the holidays, and they have merely to show up with a tray of veggies as an admission ticket?

Am I yielding to the stranger in the parking lot who may have a baby, a pregnant wife, or an invalid relative in the car? Or am I stealing that spot because gracious I am in a serious hurry and you couldn’t possibly be on as tight a schedule as I am?

Am I letting the woman with three items go ahead of me in the grocery line when I have an entire cart full of provisions? Or am I justifying myself by thinking “no one ever lets me get in front so why should I do it for a stranger?”

Sure, we make our resolutions when we hang that pristine new paper calendar on the refrigerator. But do we truly make resolutions when the new year begins? The liturgical one? In this religious time of renewal (at least for Christians) perhaps we should consider making our resolutions on a schedule that makes sense in keeping our faith, and not with an artificially imposed governmental order.

If we live in a society where a man at a Walmart can be trampled to death by a group of people trying to buy discount televisions, it’s time for all of us to stop and reconsider who we are and what we do. Once we have our own houses in order, we can test the theory that I hope from the deepest reaches of my soul is true:

Good will is contagious.

So join what I hope becomes the largest scientific study ever conducted by a blogger. Come on this site and share with us all a tale of good will done unto you, and how you plan to do unto others. If you haven’t found any good will yet, tell us how you are spreading it in your life.

Thanksgiving trials and tribulations are so common that most years there is some sort of fight. It’s easy to do, really. All you have to do is let the stress get to you, suspend common sense, and let it fly.

The holidays are a very stressful time of year, mental health professionals say. I don’t have empirical data on this, nor a source you can check. I’ve heard it said, so I repeat it. This is the Internet so it must be true. I figure Thanksgiving fights come from the fact that tomorrow is Black Friday, and I just know I’ll be wrestling some old lady in the morning for the last $20 DVD Player at Target.

Some of the biggest and most memorable disasters we’ve had:
- The Great Gravy Incident, where my sister-in-law finished helping with the food for all the kids, and by the time she got to the table, the gravy was gone. I think that was the last time we saw her that night. She didn’t speak to anyone that year.
- The Bonanza Buy-a-Hand Brush-Up, where my brother-in-law bid $.25 for a hand in a penny card game. My sister-in-laws previous bid had been $.03. They didn’t speak for a while after that.
- The Drunken Douche Dust-Off, where my wife and I had a fight because her family was particularly aggravating and I let her know. She said I was ruining her day with my complaining. We didn’t speak for a day or two.
- The “Share Share That’s Fair” Scare, when I complained that I never see my family on the holidays anymore. The next year we solved that problem by actually seeing my family. I remembered why we don’t see them, so it’s better now.

The past three years are memorable because again we’ve been fighting over gravy. The first year someone was supposed to bring it and arrived asking “do you have a cookbook?” We ended up using jar gravy. Last year the gravy came out so bad that we had to reach into the cabinet and pull out packaged gravy (which we laid in just in case.) This year after an hour of preparation, the gravy was not thickening (which wasn’t mentioned at all on the Internet recipe she consulted) so we added the proverbial  emergency package of gravy mix to thicken it up.

And so we wrap up another Thanksgiving Day, joyfully sending our families on their way, reciting the mantra we hope to remember for next year…

“I couldn’t ask you to do the gravy. That’s too much. What vegetable would you like to bring?”

Hope you had a happy day!

Western Grace, originally uploaded by kretyen.

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, I’m considering what I will say at the table. Not for small talk, but in prayer before the meal. As the guy who works at a church, people assume I must be the most religious in the room at our Thanksgiving feast. I’m not. My wife is far more religious, but she would prefer that I do the public speaking. I used to be reluctant, but I’ve come to accept it, and now relish the idea of having a pulpit.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I know that “Thank you Lord for all that I am. Bless us all, now pass the yams” won’t do. I don’t know what I’ll say, but perhaps it will sound like this:

The world has been a difficult and dangerous place lately. Thousands of American men and women will be spending this holiday in harms way, while their families pray that the empty chair at their table will soon be filled again. Others worry about losing their homes, keeping their jobs, feeding their families, or affording a doctors visit for their children.

But with thanks to you, Lord, we know that a new day is dawning. We pray that conscience and faith will guide President-Elect Obama and his team in doing that which is necessary to protect and support our nation and it’s people. And although this is a welcome change, we know that we have always had reason to give thanks, because we have always had that which is most important.

We stand here today with our family, connected not only by blood but by unconditional love. Although at times we may be separated by arrogance, ego, or foolishness, we know that family is inviolate. We promise to love and care for one another, and we pray that you may bless others in the same ways we are blessed… with clothing, food, homes, jobs, and loved ones.

We ask this in His name. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I’m told I have a hearing problem. Either that or an earring bra bum. It’s hard to tell. But to quote Inigo Montoya, “I do not think that means what you think it means.”

I do have trouble with my hearing. Years of sitting in front of the trumpets in Band, coaching and playing drums in Marching Band, and a childhood punctured eardrum have taken their toll on my hearing. That’s not the true issue.

When I don’t hear you, I politely request a repetition. It’s when I think I know what you said that creates a problem. My wife is the most frequent victim of this problem.

“Do the dishes” says she. I respond “OK.” But I know the fishes died years ago. Why should I feed dead fish? She must have forgotten, so I ignore it. “Clean the bathroom” she says. “Yes” I agree. I see the math room. It’s also the science room and the English room. The kids do all their homework there.

What I find strange is how things get stuck in your ears. Yes, that kindergarten jelly bean debacle is one example, but there are other things that get stuck. Requests appear to be larger than other statements and get wedged in there for a while. They are only dislodged when the person who made the request reiterated the request. Apparently the combined force of the request doubled pushes it through. I’m no scientist, but I’m sure there is research on that. The largest phrase of all appears to be “pick up milk.” That phrase never seems to gets through.

I’m often amazed at how things get turned around before they get to the brain. I can’t figure out how “no, we can’t afford that” turns into “make sure they throw in the extended warranty.” I haven’t figured that out no matter how I try.

Unfortunately it appears to be genetic. My children have the same issue. “Be home by eleven” becomes “hope your date is heaven.” “Clean your room” becomes “see you soon.” “Do your homework” turns to “I’m a big jerk.” (I assume that’s what it sounds like. Their reaction when I say it appears to confirm that fact.)

It’s contagious too! Entire discussions I’ve had with my wife seem to disappear in her ear canal. I need not imagine how frustrated others must be when I am so afflicted as I feel it myself as I exclaim “we TALKED about this. You were there! How can you not remember?” Or so I think. It’s possible that was an old discussion dislodged by a gallon of milk.

Well, I need to go now. I have to make a bid on a pool. I don’t know why she wants me to do that now! The kids have to get to school!

I took one for the team today.

I went and saw Duchess with my wife. On opening night. At 8:05 p.m. I was not the only guy there. There were about 25 people in the theater. 3 of them were men. 1 of them was French, so I don’t think that counts, but I was one of two American guys there.

It’s tough being a guy at a chick flick. However, I have created a protocol you can follow to help you survive the experience with your dignity intact, and actually have a little fun at the same time.

Guy at a Chick Flick Protocol

1. If you have not come out with another couple, find the other guy or guys in the theater This is important to do in the beginning, while the lighting is available. You will need to find them later, and in the rush to exit the theater, you want to have your path to them planned well in advance.
2. Acknowledge their pain with a similarly pained look. It’s not difficult to do, but if you are not a good mimic, practice in the Men’s Room mirror prior to entering the theater proper. You want to achieve a look somwhere between’Oprah? Do we HAVE to watch Oprah?‘ and  ‘Ick! I just found that old gym bag with the clothes still in it!!!‘
3. Mention a television or sporting event that you are NOT seeing or attending in order to be at the movie. State it simply. “No Rangers tonight, huh?” This will put you on a common ground, and make it clear to your new wingman that you are a straight husband with his wife, and not a gay guy out with a female friend. Caution:  Project Runway and Dancing With The Stars are not acceptable at this point in the discussion. (See step #7 for when they may be allowed.)
4. Find a seat nearby. You need to be close enough to overhear their conversation. This is important. (Seating location is very important for steps #5 and 6.)
5. Make certain you speak in a loud enough voice to be overheard by your wingman.
6. When one of you says something stupid, or gets into a difficult position, as wingman the other is responsible for saying something similarly insensitive or misogynistic to deflect some of the animus which might ensue. This is an important task, because it allows for deniability later. (See step #10)
7. Make sure to mention other less-than-masculine things that your wife has made you do. These may included watching shows like Project Runway, Oprah, or Dancing With The Stars. Play along with one another, but understand that each of you must make disdainful looks at your wives during these comments. (You must effectively convey to your wife a “this guy is a jerk” attitude to prepare for step #10.)
8. Go to the snack bar or the Men’s Room. You can commiserate with your wingman while you are out, and get your last breath of fresh air before the onslaught of estrogen begins.
9. When the film is over, make a big deal about ANY aspects of the film that might be enjoyable for a guy. A gruesome death, nudity, explicit scenes, or anything especially, er, intimate between women is a winner. Your wife chose a movie that has appeal for you, and she should hear about it as soon as possible. Use the same voice you used for step #5, and acknowledge the comments of your wingman. It’s OK. You can get away with it now that we’ve come to step #10.
10. You will never see him again, so throw your buddy under the bus. “Can you believe what a jerk that guy was? The only reason I went along with him was to be polite. You KNOW I don’t feel that way. I actually liked the movie!” Don’t sweat it. He’s doing the same thing to you. Even if you meet again, you’ll still be “that jerk” and you can both complain about your wives with impunity.

Now the disclaimers:

• My wife NEVER makes me go to chick flicks.
• She usually goes to movies where stuff blows up to keep me happy.
• Neither one of us really liked the movie.
• There was an especially intimate scene with Keira and her female friend. I liked it. I told my wife. She knew I was going to mention it.
• The hats and hair were pretty cool.
• Keira Knightley looks good in just about anything. She is one of the few movie actresses who looks better dressed than undressed.