Saying “Goodbye” to Dad

THE NEWS

It was the day after Thanksgiving.  I was outside doing some yard work when a call came from my sister.  Dad had cancer.  Pancreatic cancer.  The prognosis was clear.  Without any treatment, he had a few months to live, at best.  With a regimen of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy he might get a month or two extra.  After weighing the benefits of aggressive treatment against the misery of that grueling experience, Dad decided to stay home to spend his final days in familiar surroundings rather than as a clinical statistic in a constant cycle of treatment and hospital visits.

SOME BACKGROUND

Dad left when I was three years old.  Our encounters after that were rare.  The next time I saw him was seven years later when I spent half the summer with he and his wife.  Three more years passed.  My brother Phil and I had a short stay with Dad before Mom moved us to Wyoming.  A couple of years summers later, the two of us had another brief visit.  I graduated from high school in 1977, then moved back to California in 1978.  In 1980, I drove my orange Mazda GLC up to Yermo to see Dad after five years without communication.  Driving home in the dark, I wondered what the visit meant to me, to him.  We had said so little.  He had spent part of the afternoon working in his garage.

Karen and I got married in 1981.  Dad decided it would be better if he stayed away, since the rest of our family might feel uncomfortable.  In the fall of 1987, Dad’s wife Marguritte died from cancer.  Karen was pregnant with our first daughter Candace when we went up for the funeral.  In 1995, my wife and two daughters went to see Dad and his new wife Lorna May.  Candace and Aimee were small.  The wives kept the conversation going, our girls kept it from being too quiet.  It was the last time I saw Dad.

In 1999, my brother Phil died in an accident.  While Mom and my sisters dealt with the aftermath, I was elected to call Dad.  I have never been good calling people.  A phone call is too close, too personal, especially when delivering very bad news to someone whom I had not spoken with in years.  After explaining what I knew about the circumstances, there was an awkward pause.  Then Dad remarked how Phil had a hard life.  Then I asked if he would be coming back for the funeral.  No, I can’t travel because of my back.  I can’t sit for that long.  That was the last time we would speak to each other for sixteen years.

WHAT TO DO

After ending the call with Renee that afternoon last November, I had a decision to make.  One my sister wasn’t ready to approach yet.  Of all of us, she was the most outraged by Dad’s unwillingness to come to his own son’s funeral.  In her mind, Dad was a non-entity.  She wasn’t going to call him.

I had not seen him in over twenty years. We were strangers, vague acquaintances with a biological link.  Time had kept rolling along and the distance between us had grown.  Oh, I would send him our annual family Christmas letter.  Father’s Day in June reminded me his birthday was coming in July.  Sometimes I would send a card with a little note.  Mostly, I just watched the day go by, wondering what the man whose genes shaped me was doing in the desert a few hours away.  

My younger daughters would ask about the grandfather they had never met.  I knew in my gut that I should do something.  But I never did.  Our last two encounters had been exercises in awkwardness.  Dad and I share a discomfort with extended social activities.  I was busy making a living and raising a family and figuring out life, trying to be a father without much to go on from my own growing up years.

Now, the stranger was dying.  The tomorrows which always seemed plentiful were few and disappearing rapidly.  So, after a few days of agonizing, I picked up the phone and dialed the number.

WHAT DO YOU TALK ABOUT WITH A DYING MAN?

I had no plan beyond this: I owed the man my life and wanted to let him know that my 50-plus years had been blessed beyond measure, in spite of the rift between us.  When he answered, I recognized the voice immediately.  A little less firm, a little more rough.  But it was Dad.

So, we talked: about his disease, about his wife Anne, about how he was feeling, about my family and my work.  He had read each Christmas letter, so he knew a lot.  I got the first hint of what he was enduring when he told me he only weighed 114 pounds.  The last time he had weighed that was at the tail end of his tour in Korea.  He didn’t say what his normal weight was, but it had to be a good 70 pounds more.

I told him I was thankful for my life, glad I had a father.  And he admitted he hadn’t been much of one.  Then, I told him that if it weren’t for the circumstances of the divorce, I would have never ended up (along with Mom and the rest of my siblings) in a little church where my life would take a radically different turn.  How because of that, I met my wife and her family which have been so vital in shaping the life I now enjoy.  That Providence has a plan and we don’t necessarily see it all.  

At a certain point, I could tell he was getting tired and it was time to go.  I told him I would call again soon.  Then, he asked if I could text him instead.  It was easier for him to respond to because his sleep schedule was erratic and being on the phone took a lot of energy.  After I got off the phone, I sent a short message to him.  He almost immediately responded.  

Valjean Robidoux:

Hi Dad. Glad we got to talk tonight. 

Maurice Robidoux:

I am too. I don't know if I can ever explain what happened in our lives and we can't change it. Let's just go from here. 

And so I spent the next several weeks texting with a dying man.  It was is if my life suddenly was focused down the wrong end of a telescope, looking at a tragic event taking place from far, far away.  The rest of my life faded into the background.  My morning and evening ride on the commuter train to and from work became my window into Dad’s world as we texted back and forth.  Not every day, but more often than not.  Dad didn’t always have strength to respond right away.  And knowing, always, that time was rapidly running out.  Not in that vague sense that we all have that our earthly lives our finite, but in the very real sense that life is fighting a rear guard action against an overwhelming disease for enough time to negotiate a peaceful surrender.  Dad did that.  He came to terms with his end.  That gave him the freedom in those short weeks to say those things to his children that he knew in his heart needed to be said, to acknowledge failings of the past, to move forward in hope and charity, to give and receive love long dormant.

Dad passed away on February 22nd.  I was sitting in corporate headquarters in New Jersey, participating in a meeting that did not need my particular skills or input.  The text came from Anne.  It was over: the weeks of wondering which day would be his last; the snatched fragments of texted conversations that Dad could muster with his disease-ravaged body.  Just a few hundred words.  But enough to bridge the chasm that had been between us for over 50 years.  He was finally able to admit who he was, I was finally able to accept it.  

Rather than a selfish ogre willfully neglecting his offspring, I caught glimpses of a man who struggled to understand the bitter conflict between his own parents and did not want to inflict that on his children, who silently carried the brutal experience of serving his country under MacArthur in Korea, from Inchon to the ghastly battle for Chosin Reservoir in December of 1950.  But, he placed no blame, he took full responsibility for the choices he made.  He was a patriot and had no regrets about doing his duty.  He admitted his failings as a father when he left behind a shamble of a first marriage.

This quiet, flawed man who had outlived two wives in his remote desert home, was now experiencing “till death us do part” for the third time.  He was the one who would be parting.  His Anne, his wife of short seven years, loved my father dearly.  She was bearing the grief of each day with humor and tender care for her man.  Young love knows no boundaries of age.

Dad was a maker.  He rebuilt dozens of cars, though he didn’t collect them.  For him, the joy was in the craftsmanship — solving the problem of fitting diverse automotive components together into a unified, functional piece of mechanical art.  He was always at home in the garage, rarely comfortable elsewhere for long.  The last shop he built had the same square footage as the home I live in.

While on tour in Korea, Dad picked up the guitar.  He was self-taught, like many men from that era, including my father-in-law.  To someone like me who cannot play any musical instrument, the notion of someone teaching themselves to play guitar is a kind of magic.  He played acoustic, electric, and electric bass guitar.  For a man who liked to be busy with his hands, the guitar was a pleasing alternative after a day using mechanic’s tools.  And, as he put it, music was good therapy.

THE END

When Dad’s time came, none of his children were there.  Always a private man, he also had a sense of dignity.  And death by cancer is not dignified.  So Dad wanted as few visitors as possible.  Mostly, he just wanted to be with his dear wife Anne, whom he referred to often as his angel.  Thankfully, Anne had her children nearby who did what good children do - giving support when needed and space when that was needed.

If I believe in anything, it is redemption.  That somehow, in spite of wasted years and hurt and doubt, there is still a chance for restoration.  We almost missed it.  Yet, in those few weeks, we were given a beautiful grace to say those things that needed to be said, especially “I love you.”  Saying “I love you” is a good habit we have tried to nurture in our home, a reminder of why we go the extra mile for each other, especially after a family squabble.  For Dad and I, this was the first time we used those words in all those long, distant years.  I cannot explain the significance of “hearing” those words for the first time from my father after decades of silence.  To know that as hard as it was for him, as hard as it was for me, a bridge had been built over what seemed an impossibly wide and deep chasm.

As I told Anne: “Words. Just a few words sent out into space. And because of them I have grown closer to my dad than I thought possible.”  Though I have my concerns about what we miss by having our noses glued to our smart phones, that technology was vital during Dad’s final earthly days.  Critical bonds between father and daughters and son were forged or mended.  Honest words of the heart allowed Dad to slip into eternity knowing that he was loved, that his children were okay, that forgiveness is a magnificent restorer of the soul.  All through text messages.

Some deaths are sudden, leaving no room for goodbyes.  Some hearts are too frozen even when there is time and the words remain trapped inside until it is too late.  I am thankful for just enough time and light and warmth and courage for my sisters and I to share what was vital and beautiful with Dad.  Will the regret for ‘what might have been’ ever be gone?  Oh, I am sure it linger.  But our own years will roll to their conclusion and then we will know fully and the ‘might have been’ will be eclipsed by what will be.

Matters of Life and Death

Here in California, Governor Jerry Brown just signed into law a bill that gives people the ‘right to die’, ostensibly on their own terms.  But think about it.  The terms are that two doctors have agreed that you have less than six months to live and that the illness that is killing you will do so with extreme pain and suffering.  It is now legal in California to hasten that dying, to shorten the miserable end that is your prognosis.  So, rather than dying on your own terms, I would call this a fearful choice between two heartrending options: actually choosing to end your own life immediately or hoping that your last days will not be a harrowing journey of immense pain, limited function, and being a burden to loved ones.  I find the timing of this legislation fascinating since I just finished Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande, in the past month.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In The End was published precisely a year ago today.  It is a surgeon’s account of coming to grips with the limits of his profession to make living better for people as they approach the end of their physical existence.  As he discovers in the lives of his own patients and in the life of his ailing father, over-treatment is often more harmful than under treatment in the terminally ill.  Caring families with their

‘safety first’ approach often hasten the physical, spiritual and mental demise of their loved ones by taking away what makes living worthwhile — autonomy and purpose.  Effective health ‘care’ at the end is more about making the moments that remain enjoyable or at least bearable through effective pain management in a setting of familiarity - home.

Too often, the last months of those with terminal illness are spent grasping at yet another round of treatment in the hopes that this will prolong life.  Sometimes it does.  But the weight of evidence is beginning to show that the death most of us will face in an advanced society — of slowly diminishing physical and mental capabilities as our bodies wear out — will come less slowly and with less suffering when treatment is focused on care rather than cure.  Because we all die in the end.

Though still in good health, I can see the encroaching effects of aging.  My children inadvertently remind me that the vibrancy of my youth is long past.  While I hope to have a number of productive working years yet, I can also sense the narrowing of opportunity that comes after investing decades in a particular skill set no longer as in demand as it once was.  Whether I have a less than a decade or multiple decades remaining, this book made me pause and ask: Have I invested my time wisely for the past many years?  Have I shown in word and deed to my wife and daughters what is vital and beautiful and good?  Or have I been deterred from the essentials of real living by the lure of financial security?  When my time comes to release this mortal frame, will I grasp at every possible life-extending option, regardless of how unlikely it is to succeed, or will I go gently and gratefully into the stream of eternity?  

Read Being Mortal for an encouraging prescription for how to prepare for the wearing out of the human body we inhabit.  It is a useful guide both for ourselves and those we love, in a system that knows much about treatment, but often not enough about real caring.  Consider reading it in close proximity with my favorite book in recent memory, Gilead, where author Marilynne Robinson reflects on the themes of aging and eternity in an entirely different way.

Perhaps most importantly, give grace to those whose suffering forces them to consider the awful choice of ending life early.  And live each day with your own mortality in mind, considering how you want to be remembered by those you will leave behind and those you will join on that mysterious other side.

In The Moment

Well into my sixth decade, I have found it deceptively easy to let days slip by unremarked, to mistake similarity for sameness, to let time disappear not because it is moving faster, but because I am less attentive.

Oh, what did you do today?  Went to work, spent hours looking at a computer screen, solved a couple of problems, sat through a couple of meetings.  

What was your weekend like?  Oh, the usual.  Did some work around the house, went to church, had a lunch date with my wife.  Just another weekend.

And on and on and another year, another birthday, another Christmas and where did they all go?  The same as they did when I was five or twenty-five or forty-five.  So, this week, I decided to pay attention, to look, to see, to be aware that each day, no matter how routine, is a unique experience.  

I am at Barnes & Noble almost every weekend, doing my part to delay the death of the Last Great Bookseller.  But this was Thursday.  It was about 85 degrees outside that evening and nearly that warm inside our home.  We were wilting.  Aubrey, the girl who loves getting out the house no matter how much she has already been out and about on a given day, pleaded, “Please, can we pleeeeeeeeease go to Barnes and Noble?”  It was miserable in the house relative to the comfort of the air conditioning at B&N and I had taken the next day off.  So, what harm could there be in taking a couple of hours out of the evening in the familiar halls of the bookstore?  So, with the appropriate feigned reluctance, I said, “Yes”. 

Shortly after we arrived, the girls were in the kids section at the back of the store, absorbed.  I decided to go to the front to check on a book I was interested in.  In the background,  B&N had music playing from a CD on sale in their music section, as they always do.  Usually, it is just background noise.  In this case, the tune was familiar and caught my ear.  It was a vocal group singing, of all things, a hearty version of “Amazing Grace”.  (I found out later that the album was The Very Best of Celtic Thunder, which also includes such spiritual tunes as “Seven Drunken Nights” and “Galway Girl”).  Then, as I started to walk up the aisle towards the front, I heard someone singing along.  That is, a real, live person in the store.  Not loudly, but clear and noticeable.  I smiled at the thought of someone enjoying the old tune enough to sing along in such a public place.  Out of the next cross aisle, a young man appeared, probably in his late teens, at the most in his early twenties.  He crossed a few feet in front of me.  His hair-cut almost certainly identified him as a member of the Marine Corps.  He walked with a bounce in his stride, still singing.  Then, he caught my eye and saw my smile.  He stopped singing just long enough to return my smile, tip his head in my direction, say “Sir,” and go right back to singing.  I kept on smiling as I watched him go.  Two total strangers in the local bookstore sharing a moment of appreciation for an old song sung in a fresh way.

A day later.  The usual pattern for Friday evenings is that our eldest daughter, her husband, and their kids come over.  Grandkids on Friday.  Part of the routine.  Easy to become commonplace.  Hold me Grandpa.  Look at this Grandpa.  Push me on the swing, Grandpa.  Earlier, I had spent most of my day ‘off’ in a lot of physical activity:   cleaning the garage on the hottest day of the year.  I was spent.  So, when the grandkids arrived in the late afternoon, I was laying down trying to recharge.  They started playing in back along with our girls.  Their happy chatter drifting in our bedroom window roused me out of my lethargy, somewhat.  Grandpa doesn’t always have the stamina he did when his own girls were small.  I headed outside towards the play set and plopped into one of the swings, watching all the activity.  Then, my eldest grandson came over.

“Can I swing?” 

I thought at first he wanted me to push him and I started to get up.  Slowly.

“Can I swing with you, Grandpa?”

Now that is a different proposition altogether.  Not necessarily any easier for me, but not what he usually asks for.  I sat back down and he climbed onto my lap.

“Hold on tight.  I don’t want you to fall off.”  Standard instructions for grandchildren.  It is in the manual.  Page 36.  

And the instructions worked for a few swings as we gained altitude.  Then, he decided holding on tight was not so important and not nearly as much fun.  

Picture the upswing: laying back, arms straight, feet pointed towards the sky.  If I let go, disaster.  If he lets go, there is grandpa and centrifugal force keeping him safely in place.  So, there we are, grandson relaxing with his arms by his sides on the grandpa recliner.  Except we soon have a problem: we reach the apex and start the downswing, normally the signal to lean forward and kick your feet back.  But, I can’t do that or Charlie ends up in the gravel and I live with years of guilt.  So, I stayed mostly horizontal, my arms holding my weight and the additional weight of my grandson, kicking my feet just enough to keep our momentum from failing while not catching them on the ground.  It didn’t take long for my arms to start protesting at this unnatural swinging technique.  But I had to ignore my arms, because how often does a 4-year-old get to swing through the air, up-and-back, up-and-back, without holding on at all?  The only thing keeping him in place is gravity and his trust that Grandpa would never let him fall down.  And I wouldn’t.

While my arms ached, the blue sky and horizon of the fence and trees and the house next door moved up-and-down.  I tried to imagine my 4-year-old self so long ago and what kind of magic it would have been to have a Big Person right there supporting me while I flew through the air holding nothing.  Then, just soon enough, my grandson said to me, “Down.  I want Down.”  

“You’re all done swinging?”  I tried not to sound too hopeful.

“Uh-huh.  All done.”

So I let my feet drag in the gravel and we slowed to a stop and soon he was off to his next adventure, leaving me to wonder at the one he had just finished.

Two magic moments.  I wonder what it will be today?

The Day I Knew My Sister Loved Me

If you grew up in a family with more than one child as I did, you were part of a pecking order.  (I apologize in advance to any chickens who may be offended by this vernacular.)  To put it another way, there is no such thing as equality among children, no matter how fair parents try to be or how noble we envision untainted childhood.  Providence and circumstances, or nature and nurture if you prefer, conspire to ensure that the vacuum of leadership is always filled, particularly when parents are not on the premises.  Birth order obviously has an impact.  The younger you are, the less clout you have in childhood until the late teen years mitigates the advantage older siblings have.  Then there is some shifting in the peckological order, but it never goes away.  Adults are right now thinking about their last family get-together and nodding their heads.

In our family, I was number three on the depth chart, ahead of only one brother.  The roost was dominated by our two older sisters, one nearly three years older than I, the other nearly four years older.  When you are in the wonder years of elementary school, anyone that is a teenager seems vastly older, smarter, more powerful.  That was my sisters.  When Mom was gone, they ran the show.  My younger brother and I were just peons scarcely worth consideration in the realm of home life.

There was a constantly simmering feud between my sisters.  It was not pretty.  If you’ve ever seen girls fight - physically or verbally - well, they don’t call it a cat fight for nothing.  (My apologies to cats, of course).  The best my younger brother and I could do when things got hot was stay out of the way.  My second sister was endowed with a forceful personality which collided with the assumed natural rights of the first born.  Still, there was no denying she was a born leader in the mold of the great dictators of history.  If you did what she wanted, life was at least tolerable.  If she ignored you, life was a bit better.  If you crossed her, then life was horrible.  There was more than one literal knock-down, drag-out session when I tried to get out of my obeisance.  Once pounded into submission, I grudgingly toed the line.  In the grand scheme of things, when Mom was gone, Renee was queen.

What made matters worse was that both sisters doted on my younger brother, who was two and a half years younger than I.  He was little, he was cute, he needed attention.  While I was big enough to fend for myself, his adorability unleashed all the nascent mothering instincts of two teenage girls.  Woe to me if ever one of them caught me asserting my rights as an older brother to pick on my younger brother.  Did I resent this?  Of course.

Against the sheer force of the dictator-queen, my eldest sister and I had in our favor that we were rule-keepers.  So, when Mom came home, we had a glowing report of our accomplishments, while Renee and Philip were often found wanting.  Renee simply had other priorities than the rest of us and Philip was too small to do much that was useful.  So, that tended to put Denise and I into an alliance of necessity which pushed Renee even more into favoring Philip.

This somewhat volatile mix of home life left me with the basic assumption that my queen sister despised me, that I was just an inconvenient organism in the petri dish of our tiny trailer.  (Apologies to bacteria).  My oldest sister tolerated me as that helped with the balance of power.  My younger brother always wanted to play with me, while the same immaturity that made him so sweet to my sisters meant he was just annoying to me.  Most of the time, I was isolated in a crowd of siblings.

One weekday evening during this era, Mom was gone.  Which was odd because she didn’t go many places during the work week other than the Wednesday night prayer meeting at church.  I have no recollection where my eldest sister Denise was.  It is likely that dear baby brother was with Mom.  Since I fell into the category of being less than no company at all, Renee had brought a friend over.  Renee always had friends in our neighborhood.  And enemies.  There were no neutrals.  This minion was a guy about her age named Mike.  He had straight brown hair all one length hanging down near his collar, typical of the late 60’s and early 70’s.  Mike was a big, stocky, dark-complected kid and, by virtue of his bulk, inclined to being a bully.  

They were hanging out in the living room listening to the rock ’n’ roll music that would never be played when Mom was home and I wandered up from the back of the trailer out of curiosity.  I knew that Mom didn’t want anyone in the house when she was gone and I also knew that Renee disregarded most rules as a matter of course.  Still, it always fascinated me to see this in action.  Here was an obvious breaking of THE RULES.  I never quite grasped how it was that Renee could thumb her nose at the rules and not worry about consequences.  Oh, there were consequences, but she didn’t seem to care.  In the trade-off between consequences and freedom, some pick freedom, others chose to avoid consequences.  I was the latter.

As I came in, Mike’s alpha male instinct inspired him to start picking on me.  He unloaded all the humiliating things he could think to say about a scrawny and quiet underling.  Why I stayed to endure it was a wonder.  As he continued along this vein, Renee came to my defense.  I am not sure who was more surprised, me or Mike.  Well, Mike’s bullying nature overcame his good sense and he challenged Renee to do something about it.  While Renee was physically the dominant person among the children in our home, Mike was a different matter.  He was imposingly large in my view of things.  He smiled the confident smile of a person who is used to getting his way.

How the kitchen knife happened to be sitting within Renee’s reach, I don’t recall.  But she picked it up.  It wasn’t too big or too sharp, but it was a knife.  Renee implied that she wasn’t afraid to use it if Mike didn’t back down.  How to describe that moment when the stakes have been raised to a crucial point and someone has to fold?  My gut churned with an onslaught of adrenaline.  Even though I had been on the receiving end of Renee’s fisticuffs, did not think she would go that far.  Nor did Mike.  So, he just kept on pushing.

And Renee threw the knife at him.

Now, there are all sorts of ways that could have turned out.  Since it wasn’t a particularly heavy or sharp knife, if it had hit him in his torso it probably would have bounced off his clothing.  Or it could have hit him in the eye, which would have been a far worse outcome.  As it happened, it hit him in the forehead where even a blunt knife at high velocity can do some damage.

I had a fleeting glimpse of the shocking realization on Mike’s face before he howled in pain when the blade struck him.  Blood began running down Mike’s face as he instinctively grabbed the wound.    

“Are you crazy?” he bellowed.

“No.  You just don’t mess with my family,” she replied with remarkable calm, considering the circumstances.

“I’m bleeding!” 

“Calm down.  It’s only a cut.”

Head wounds, even small ones, can produce a lot of blood, a sight Mike was apparently not fond of.  The half-inch gash was leaking quite a bit.  A red line was running down his hands and a few drops had hit the carpet.  Renee found a dish-towel and pressed it to his head.

“I gotta go home.”

“Yep.  I’ll go with you.  And don’t be such a baby.  You’ll be fine.”

I remained frozen in place throughout the entire incident.

Then they left.  I may or may not have ever seen again Mike after that day.  I am sure there was some kind of fall out that both Renee and Mom had to deal with.  I mean, you can’t assault someone with a knife and go unnoticed.  But, that night, there was birthed in my mind the realization that when push came to shove, Renee had my back.

With that realization came a novel idea: my sister loved me.  And still does.

Bear in mind that this event happened about 45 years ago and the only video recording was the one that wanders around in the dusty archives of my memory.  The dialogue in particular is imaginative at best.  I am thankful to have Renee on my side after all these years.

Education of a Home School Dad

It started out as a grand mission, a noble ambition to raise children who would be spiritually whole, academically competent, relationally compassionate.  We had heard the stories about home-educated National Spelling bee winners, about 1600 SAT scores, about brilliant people in history who learned at home.  We met homeschool graduates and heard their success stories.  We also heard about the horrors of public school curriculum and bureaucracy, the corrupting influence of peers, media, and secular humanism.

So, out of the same desire nearly all parents have — to do what is best for our children — we started on the homeschool adventure.  Eighteen years later, we certainly know more about ourselves, more about parenting, and more about education.  Do I have regrets?  A few.  Do I wish we had done something completely different?  No.  But I have learned that the benefits propounded by well-intentioned home education advocates do not all pan out in that very long haul from kindergarten to high school.  So, while there is much good that can come from parents educating their own children, the process has its own unique pitfalls, particularly when one is wearing the blinders of spectacular expectations that morph into fallacies.  So, what follows is a brief synopsis of those home education notions that have proven in our experience to be more than a desert mirage once we got closer to the destination, yet still considerably less than we had hoped for at the beginning.

Parents Make Better Teachers  

Yes, parents normally have a far greater interest in their own children than a teacher can have.  Parental love is a powerful motivator.  But that does not translate directly into better teaching.  In the early clueless years, especially if starting out with younger children, there is little harm you can do, frankly.  Likewise, there is much that children can learn from nothing more than a little readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic.  In that respect, our early years were blissful.  We discovered a lot of new things, made new friends, bought a lot of curriculum, read so many, many books.  Our children seemed to make reasonable progress.  But as they got older, the gaps in parental teaching skills, both in terms of subject matter knowledge and the ability to communicate it, became more and more apparent.  We had to find other options.  That flexibility is part of the benefit of home educating.  It is also part of the stress of home educating.  You are constantly on the search for solutions to the educational limitations of your home school - that is, your own limits as Mom and Dad being surrogate teachers.

Education Can Be Tailored To Each Child  

The reality is that mastering a single curriculum in a multi-student, multi-grade environment is quite an achievement, particularly when pre-schoolers crawl between the legs of the Teacher Mom while she attempts to educate her school-age children.  Every homeschool family I know has spent significant amounts of money and time on under-utilized curriculum in search for that perfect fit: the self-teaching curriculum.  What ended up happening in our home and many others is that they settled on a curriculum that worked for the parents.  The parents understood it.  Whether it was really best for their children may not have been clear until much further down the road.  As the years unfolded, we did get better at evaluating curriculum and how it fit our children.  But, that still leaves the unbending limit of how much time a parent-teacher can put in to shaping a custom education for each of their offspring.  So, we picked a method and, for the most part, have stuck with it.  As we got smarter, our teaching improved, but it wasn't customized for each child.

The Bible Is A Science Text  

No, I’m sorry to say, it isn’t.  I have friends who have been ostracized for not toeing the line of ‘Young Earth Creationism’.  I myself have had to take a vow of silence on this topic so as to not alienate people whom I otherwise hold in high regard.  I understand that the Bible and its veracity are foundational to the Christian faith.  What I don’t understand is jettisoning ‘love one another’ — which the Bible clearly teaches — for the sake of non-essential positions on the purported scientific framework of Scripture.  Since most of church history leans toward treating the Bible as moral and theological, rather than technical and scientific, I can only attribute this contemporary effort at reconciling ancient writings with modern science as an indicator of ignorance both of science and Scripture.

A Large Family Means Success  

I love my children.  We have more than the average American family.  I love my grand-children.  In fact, the people I get along with best are those from age zero to about four years old.  I don’t know what the ‘right’ answer is about how many children your family should have or my family should have.  All the wailing and hand-wringing about ‘carbon footprint’ hasn’t convinced me that we are in a population epidemic.  But I do know that a subtle worship of fertility in home school circles does two things.  It creates a stratified culture where those who have fewer children are seen as less committed to the mission; those who have followed the plan and have a large brood are expected to handle with a ‘stiff upper lip’ the concomitant financial and relational stress that comes with raising large numbers of children in an urban society and adding in homeschooling on top of it.  The mothers in homeschool families that I know are dreadfully weary.  Most of the time.  And they are heroic.  But I also think they carry a big sense of failure with them because they see the near impossibility of the task, yet have no space to admit it.  In the case of my own treasured wife, I know this is true. 

Everyone Should Do It  

Teaching is hard.  It is not a skill that everyone can develop.  There still are excellent teachers who actually want children to learn and can inspire them to do so.  No doubt, there are issues with the public school system as a whole and with particular public schools.  Private schools are often prohibitively expensive.  But, that simply means that parents need to evaluate the options of the schools available for their children and determine as best as they can what will be the right solution for their family: public school, charter school, private school, home school.

Character Formation Will Be Better  

Character formation of children, when exclusively the domain of the parents, becomes reflective of the strengths and weaknesses of the parents, which may or may not be ‘better’.  Conversely, children with broader exposure to other positive role models and experiences outside the home gain character in ways simply not possible when limited to two people known as parents.  While this precept of home education had children in mind, the challenge of this monumental task certainly is character forming.  For parents.  

Families Should Do Everything Together  

Because, the more you do together as a family, the closer your family relationships will be.  While this sounds good in theory, in reality, the differences can become volatile the more time you spend together.  The sun provides warmth and light.  Focus it through a magnifying glass and it produces smoke and fire.  This is particularly true in the home where the muting effect of public visibility goes away behind the walls of the homeschool castle.  Each one of our children are unique, significantly different from their siblings.  While we are confident that they will remain close to each other into adulthood, it is highly likely that they will, like their parents, form bonds with friends outside the family that will be closer than the relationships they have within the family.

Children Will Become Better Adults

I have seen the anecdotal evidence in homeschool publications.  I have also seen personal examples of people I know.  My un-scientific conclusion is that homeschooling certainly affects how children transition to adulthood.  While sometimes the homeschool greenhouse results in stronger plants once they get out into ‘the wild’ of the larger society, I have also seen homeschoolers wilt when confronted with something far different than they experienced, or take a totally different path than their parents ever envisioned because they never had options before.

Still Miles To Go

I treasure memories of time spent helping my children grow in wisdom and knowledge.  Our children have a shared literary heritage of many wise and delightful works.  I have made deep and dear friendships with other parents on this journey.  I enjoy being closely connected to my children through their years of education.  But, I have learned my limits.  I can look back on moments of despair when I realized I was failing my children in a big way.  I am not a good teacher.  At best, in a certain limited sphere, I am adequate.  I am grateful for where each of my children are today and that they have grown sometimes because of and sometimes in spite of my tutelage.  That, I suppose, is true of parenting as a whole.  I will continue to participate in my children’s education, but I have learned that they do not need to validate my aspirations for their future.  My children answer to a higher call than mine.  Sometimes, that means getting out of the way and letting them hear that call for themselves, perhaps through experiences and voices I would never have anticipated.

It's A(nother) Wonderful Life

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. 

When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Nearly every New Year’s Eve, we watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  We did again this year.  As, I understand, many other families do each Christmas Season.  Released in 1946, “It’s A Wonderful Life” has became a classic in the truest sense of the word — an artistic work of enduring value.  So, what made George Bailey’s life Wonderful?

Two themes grip me in George’s story.  One is the portrayal of a boy, then a young man, than a mature father and husband confronted time after time with the hard choice of doing what was right instead of what was easy; of doing what was good for someone else rather than fulfill his own ambitions.  George Bailey’s choices are rarely pleasant, starting with disobeying Mr. Gower in the drugstore, then sticking by the old Building and Loan after his father’s death, letting his brother Harry pursue his dreams while George is stuck in Bedford Falls, turning down Mr. Potter’s attempt to buy him out.

The other element is the life that George and Mary Bailey build — together.  What makes a marriage work?  Initially, there is that indefinable something that attracts you to this person unlike any other.  You recognize in them a fit for the empty places in your life, strength for your weakness, calmness for your anxiety, someone whose mere presence enlivens you.  But at some point, there has to be more.  There has to be a shared desire to subsume what “I” could accomplish to what “we” will accomplish together.  Often, especially at the beginning, this is nothing more than a vague thought encompassed in the desire to “live happily ever after”.  

One might think it was George who did all the sacrificing.  Mary got her dream - George and the Old Granville House on 320 Sycamore with every room occupied by one of their brood.  But, it was Mary who made a crucial choice on their wedding day to fork over their honeymoon funds to keep the doors of the Building & Loan open.  It was Mary who participated in the house-warming for the Martini’s in Bailey Park and, by implication, so many others that netted very little financial gain for the Building & Loan or the Bailey’s.  It was Mary who by some mysterious insight knew that the heart of her man was a good one.  It was Mary who knew when it was time to tell her children to “pray very hard” and when it was time to take action, too.

My personal dreams were not nearly as well defined as George Bailey’s.  But, like George, there are times when I have felt the frustration of the "drafty old house" and "why did we have to have all these children, anyway" and the inconveniences of the Uncle Billy’s in life.  I have had my moments as a "warped, frustrated young man" whose anger caused the same kind of tearful, “Oh, Daddy” in my children and brought a reproach from my wife and their mother.  In spite of that, my ‘Mary’ has seen something in my heart which I sometimes lose sight of.  She has known when to pray very hard and when to take action.  We have built something special together that I never could have experienced alone.

I may never get out of my Bedford Falls, I will never build that skyscraper, and I will likely continue working with mundane financial software for a number of years yet.  But as I was reminded by more than one response to our Christmas family picture, I have indeed been blessed with a wonderful life. I have a wife and children and grandchildren and friends who are priceless.  I am pretty darn close to being "the richest man in town".

You ought to be ashamed

This is worth getting out of bed for.

The aroma of bacon in the morning takes me back to childhood school days.  Mom would

come into the bedroom I shared with my brother and wake us.  
“Time to get up, boys.”
At that moment, groaning and going back to sleep was what I wanted.  Then, the smell of bacon wafted in the door.  It was enticing in a way that no maternal pleading could match.  We didn’t have bacon all that often.  It was a treat, really.  But it sure made getting out of bed a whole lot easier.

I remember one morning in particular when I was in about 5th grade.  I had gotten dressed and headed out to the front of our trailer, following the scent of bacon.  Our compact eight foot square kitchen-dining room had just enough space opposite the stove and sink for a small circular table that we used for most meals.  The bacon was crisp and on my plate, bread was in the toaster, an egg was sizzling pleasantly in the skillet where the bacon had been fried.  A single mom had little time to spare on weekday mornings with four kids to send off to their various destinations before she left for work.  So she often started breakfast cooking, then we would have to finish the job.  If you want to eat, there is a strong incentive to keep an eye on the stove and the toaster.  The toast popped up and I slathered some butter on it while the egg neared over-medium perfection.  Mom disappeared to finish getting ready for work.

[As an aside, I suspect I am not the only person who finds a delightful irony in the 21st century ‘discovery’ that eggs and meat and butter and other fats are not nearly the evil they were thought to be in the cholesterol-crazed 80’s and 90’s.  Fascinating how science has come nearly full circle and found that the classic breakfast my mom fed me was actually quite beneficial, particularly for a growing boy who needed proteins and fats and carbohydrates in large quantities.]

Soon my egg was done.  I turned off the gas burner and scooped it up with the spatula to transfer it to my plate.  Unfortunately, the same bacon grease that made it easy to get the egg out of the skillet was just as effective in reducing the friction co-efficient between the egg and my plate.  The egg kept right on going when it hit the plate, sliding off and plummeting down to the floor at my feet.  A yellow explosion of yolk with bits of grease-coated egg-white splattered my shoes and the linoleum floor.  In a frozen moment of time, several realities hit me:  I had a mess to clean up;  I had wasted food; there wasn’t time to cook another egg; I had barely enough time to eat breakfast before I had to leave for the bus stop; my morning routine was shattered.  

Did that just come out of MY mouth?

And I swore like a sailor.  

Well, maybe not precisely as a sailor would have sworn if a sailor had been in my egg-besotted sneakers, because I hadn’t been around sailors enough to know how one swore.  What I did swear like was a school-aged boy who not only learned formal English in school, but during recess also acquired a repertoire of colorful words not found in the grammar book.  In fact, the group of boys I hung out with had developed a skill of seeing how many different swear words they could string together without taking a breath.  So, what goes in must come out.  Or, as the Man from Galilee said, “Out of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 15:18).  My anger and frustration had burst out in colorful language matching the colorful mess on the floor.  

As I turned to put my plate on the table, I noticed Mom had reappeared in the front of the trailer.  I looked at her and she looked at me.  Instinctively, instantly, I knew I done something far worse than dumping my egg on the floor.  I had disappointed Mom.  A deep sorrow welled up in my gut.  I was ashamed.  Ashamed that Mom had heard those words; words that no-one should ever hear, but especially not Mom.  Ashamed that the boy that could recite his Sunday School memory verse without fail was exposed as a sham.  Tears began to roll down my face, I crumpled into a chair head in hands and the only words I could get out of my mouth were “I’m sorry.”  Over and over.

Mom’s just know things.  It is why they are mothers.  She put a hand on my shoulder and quietly said, 

“It’s only an egg.”  

We both knew it was more than just an egg, but that short phrase let me know that she still loved her boy, even in his fallen state.  Then, she told me to eat the rest of my breakfast while she cleaned up my mess.  The act of biting and chewing calmed my aching heart.  Mom wiped up the egg with an efficiency I marveled at while I sniffled over my hasty meal.

Not much more was said about that outburst of mine.  I had a school bus to catch, Mom had to get to work.  But I never forgot.

Over forty years later, when movies and songs and books and magazines and electronic text are heavily weighted with the profane, my childhood incident seems so trivial.  Shame is an outdated notion in this era of self-actualization where being true to yourself is more important than who you might offend in the process; where people flaunt their indiscretions on talk shows and Facebook.  But it seems to me that in ridding ourselves of shame, we have lost some fundamental dignity, both in how we view ourselves and how we treat others.

Those unprintable words I learned in childhood are etched deeply into my neural network.  I still have moments of muttering #&@!% in moments of anger or frustration.  The sad truth is, there are things I have done since that day that are far more shameful.  The best inside of me is still tainted.  Yet, I am grateful that those experiences have not cauterized my conscience, but instead have been lessons in forgiveness like that early one Mom taught me.  And forgiveness is nothing to be ashamed of.

Safe With Me

A bruised and battered woman, a celebrity male.  Emotion, passion, codependency, a baby, money, fame.  All on awkward public display.  The sad story of NFL player Ray Rice and his wife Janay.  It has played out many times in many ways as long as men and women have been uniting in love or lust or both.  In the middle of all the conjecture about why his anger leads to violence and why she is so ready to defend him, something stands out to me.

Regardless of whether you see marriage as ‘fair’ or not, the majority of women end up hitching their lives to a man in a vast leap of faith.  Granted, the man is taking some risk, too.  But, culturally and biologically and practically, it is the woman whose identity becomes subsumed in the relationship.  She becomes wife and mother.  He remains identified by what he does.  

One feminist response has been: Women must be independent of men if they are to thrive.  Men cannot be trusted.  Who am I to blame them?  When we live in a culture where the first thought upon seeing a woman with a bruise is “Who hit her?”, something is dreadfully off track.  But in spite of that, men and women keep trying.  We still need each other in ways profound and mysterious and fundamental.

In the ‘Why I stayed’ narrative, we hear horrific tales of other women trapped in dangerous relationships.  We hear about why women are afraid to leave and what may be the root cause for men’s anger.  But I wonder, where are the men saying: we need to be worthy of the trust women place in us?   

In the “Liturgy of Solemnization of Matrimony" from the Anglican Book of Common prayer, mostly unchanged since 1559, are these familiar words: 

I _________ take thee ________ to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.*

That section is followed by one that has become less popular over time: 

WITH this Ring I thee wed, with my Body I thee worship, and with all my worldly Goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Those lines “with my Body I thee worship” call to mind even older words: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.

In the middle of calls for prosecutions and resignations and “something needs to be done”, the most compelling alternative is the man who can answer with one, and only one example: his treatment of the woman who has risked her personhood by committing her life to his.  The testimony that this woman has always been and will always be safe with him.

For those men I know who are walking that path, thank you for the example you are setting in your home, your extended family, your community.  Thank you for teaching by example that women are to be honored, protected and cherished.  Thank you for laying down your life for the sake of another.  That is manhood.  And that is why she will stay.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

*Here is an excellent explanation of “I plight thee my troth”.  But to spare you the lengthy, delightful linguistic detail, a more modern rendering and just as meaningful is “I promise you I will be true”.

A Few Tickets, A Few Years Ago

There we were, the four of us packed into a booth at the local ice cream parlor, two on either side of the worn formica-topped table.  Mom, my older sister, my wife, my cousin.  Each of us were relishing a cold ice cream on a warm summer night and swapping stories.  About traffic violations.   

Some stories are compellingly rare, such as winning the lottery or taking an exotic trip to Nepal, or taking an exotic trip to Nepal funded by lottery winnings.  Traffic ticket stories are commonplace.  Most Americans of driving age have at least one.  Still, since these events constitute the extent to which most of us experience the ‘wrong’ side of the law, we remember them.  

Other stories are made worthy by the teller - the selection of words, the timing of the delivery, the inflection of the voice, facial expression.  Add in an appreciative audience with a shared history and the thread of humor fairly hums with mirthful joy.  I heard one such story while sitting in that ice cream parlor in Wyoming.  Though it will lose something in the translation from oral to written form, here it is as best as I remember it, with a bit of literary embellishing to fill in what I don't remember.

Once upon a time, in 1978 or 1979, when the United States was in the middle of a gas crisis and Jimmy Carter was President, there lived a young man, barely eighteen.  His home was in central Wyoming.  He may have looked something like the picture shown here.  Like many men of his age, he was trying to make his way in life as best as he could.  He had no grand ambitions, except perhaps to earn a little money, have a little fun, avoid hurting anyone, and learn something along the way.

The young man was employed by a meat packing plant, where livestock are turned into marketable chunks of dense animal protein for human consumption.  It was physically demanding work, but not the most mentally stimulating.  Early one afternoon when the work was a bit slow, the owner of the plant came through looking for volunteers.  He needed a couple of workers to drive a load of ‘inedibles’ down to a rendering plant in Denver.  Inedibles would be the stuff that, well, is what you have left when all the edible stuff has been packaged.  Guts, fat, floor scrapings, bones.  Nasty.

The hero of our story did a quick mental comparison.
    “Should I stay here cleaning freezer floors and meat hooks or drive to Denver?”  
He quickly concluded that the road trip would be a more interesting way to spend the afternoon and raised his arm to signal his willingness to volunteer.  A second employee, another young man perhaps two or three years older, also signed up. 

After hearing some brief instructions about their destination and obtaining the keys to the vehicle, out to the truck they went.  It turned out to be a bit bigger than either of them had expected.

The older of the two got in behind the driver’s seat, while my cousin took shotgun.  They sat bewildered for a moment at the sight of not just one, but three levers sticking up from the floor.  Finally, the driver said to his companion, “Ya ever driven one of these before?”
    “Nope.  Have you?”
    “Well, no, but it can’t be that different from a regular truck, can it?”
    “Probably not.”

After fiddling with the levers for a bit, they discovered that one was indeed the gear shift.  The second one seemed to have something to do with shifting as well.  Sort of an in between or half-gear shifter that required an extraordinary amount of eye, hand, and foot coordination to operate in tandem with the primary gear shift.  The third lever engaged an additional drive axle.  After grinding their way through the levers a few times, they settled on keeping the extra axle out of operation and using only the primary shifter.  This last decision meant winding the engine up pretty tight to make sure that dropping into the next full gear wouldn’t stall the truck.  Shortly, with a little revving and grinding, they were on the road.

Now, you may be wondering what employer in his right mind would send two inexperienced drivers with a commercial truck out on the highway for a round trip in excess of 300 miles.  In the wild west of Wyoming and likely most places in the U.S., the cost differential between a licensed commercial driver and a couple of unskilled laborers in a meat-packing plant was and is significant.  So, rather than pay to have a driver around that wouldn’t be kept busy most of the time, or hire one temporarily, it was quite a potential savings over the course of a year to use the ‘volunteer’ method.  Legal?  No.  Cheap?  Yes.

As the adventurous duo cruised within a few miles of their destination, they began to notice an odd smell.  The closer they came, the worse it got until it was overpowering.  It had something to do with the rotting contents of the rendering vats where all the ‘leavings’ are chopped, sliced, diced, cooked and separated into various chemical compounds used in an astonishing variety of ways. 

Needless to say, our two stalwarts were highly motivated to leave their load and be on their way.  After emptying the truck, they switched places and were back on the road north.  As they approached the border between Colorado and Wyoming, they came upon the port of entry with a sign saying that all commercial vehicles needed to stop.  The younger driver looked at his partner.
    “Are we a commercial truck?”
    “I dunno.  Don’t think so.”
    “Well, should we stop?”
    “I didn’t stop on the way down.”
    “Right.”
So, they kept on going.  Not long after passing the port of entry, however, they saw the dreaded flashing lights of a patrol car in the rear view mirrors.  After they stopped, the Wyoming state trooper pulled up behind them and walked up to the truck.

    “Do you know you were going 63 in a 55 mile-per-hour zone?” he inquired. 
(At the time, with gas prices having soared over a dollar per gallon, the government had deemed it necessary to throttle back freeway speeds as a means to conserve petroleum.)
    “Well, um, no.  I didn’t think it would go that fast.”
The trooper, who had heard his share of creative excuses by speeding drivers, glared incredulously into the cab.
    “You didn’t think?  What do you mean, you didn’t think it would go that fast?”
     “I couldn’t really tell how fast I was goin’.  The speedometer’s busted.”

That revelation dramatically changed the tone of the encounter.  In spite of the ignorance of the two drivers, they were indeed driving a commercial vehicle.  Regulations covering commercial vehicles specify that all components be in proper working order.  Having a broken speedometer set off alarms in the troopers mind. On the spot he initiated a complete vehicle inspection.  In addition to the broken speedometer, there were six other violations, for a total of eight tickets, when including the speeding citation.

The zealous trooper, in his eagerness to do a thorough vehicle inspection, neglected to ask for the log which drivers of commercial trucks are required to maintain.  Since, to our knowledge, Wyoming has no published criminal statute of limitations on traffic violations, we are not saying that the log wasn't filled out, just that the officer failed to verify the log.  Whether he confirmed that the driver had a commercial rating on his license is also lost in the murky historical record.

That collection of citations cost the owners of the truck a cool grand in fines, as well as the cost of repairs.  However, it is unlikely the experience changed their business practice.  In the years since, my cousin has done more commercial driving, but without any more 8-ticket experiences.

Saints

http://www.catholic.com/blog/
matt-fradd/becoming-saints

“Thus, there is another definition of what a Saint is. It is this: One who, with the object of pleasing God, does his ordinary duties extraordinarily well. Such a life may be lived out without a single wonder in it, arouse little notice, be soon forgotten, and yet be the life of one of God's dearest friends.”  Frank Duff

Who is a saint?  Catholics and Protestants will wrangle over the precise definition, with some having a much more complicated formula than others.  As for me, I just know a saint when I see one.  In action.  Someone whose presence reveals a Transcendence that is beyond human, even though they themselves may not be aware of what they carry in the earthen vessel of their flesh.  When the pressure of a crisis bears down, true character is revealed.  Our family experienced a heart-wrenching tragedy recently with the sudden and unexpected death of my nephew.  In the midst of sorrow and questions and painful pragmatic details, I encountered saints.

The first saints we met was upon our arrival in the small Wyoming town for the funeral.  Every hotel, and there aren’t many, was booked solid.  This part of Wyoming is experiencing an oil ‘fracking’ boom so accommodations are hard to come by.  On short notice, a couple who knows our family welcomed my wife and I and our girls into their home, made us comfortable, fed us breakfast, cared for us.  Saints.

Then there was the pastor of the church who left behind a group of kids at summer camp and made a 150 mile drive to officiate the service.  Though it is a small church, he could have delegated the responsibility to his associate.  Another pastor who knew my nephew was there as well.  But, that home-town pastor made the drive, prayed with us before the service, spoke words of truth and comfort to those gathered, sat with family members for the meal afterwards.  Only when most of the cleanup was finished did he finally say his goodbyes and make that 150 mile drive back to his other responsibilities.  A saint.

There is something particularly wholesome about a shared meal after a funeral.  It is an older tradition not always followed.  Breaking bread together, mourners can share grief and fond memories with the helpful distraction of chewing when words fail.  But that is only possible if someone takes care of the preparation, serving, and cleanup for the meal.  In the crowded basement below the sanctuary, three ladies worked tirelessly to ensure that happened.  They seemed particularly grateful when I brought over a few abandoned, food-stained paper plates from my table.  Of course, they insisted that we take some of the leftovers home.  Three dear saints.

You might say, well that is just what people do at times like that.  No, ‘people’, that collective identifier for the individual components of humanity, do not do that.  Only ‘certain people’, those rare and unique treasures who make joys brighter and sorrows lighter and who in simplest sincerity will tell you that they are merely unworthy servants, doing their duty to their Master.  Saints. I am so thankful for them.  And if you look around, you will see them, too.

I Would Do It For You, Wouldn't I?

One of the benefits of young adults in the house is that I am exposed to more, MUCH more, contemporary music than I would be if we had an empty nest like other 50-somethings.  Sometimes it feels like psy-ops aimed at subverting the home life my wife and I have tried to establish.  But for the sake of this discussion, I am considering it a benefit.  I get a window into the soul of the next generation and I hear some pretty darn good music that I would miss out on otherwise.  One such song is Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips.  It is a pledge of undying love with loads of examples of the lengths the singer will go to prove his love.  I am not a music stylist, but I know what I like in 'pop' music and it tends towards the simple, acoustic, bluesy.  Like this song.  If you want a true musical review, go here.  After listening to Gone, Gone, Gone a few times (well, more than a few times - thank you, dear daughter), I picked up on a subtle truth in the lyrics that struck me.  It may have just been a device used by the writers to bridge between the verses and the chorus, but I noticed something:

Give me reasons to believe
 That you would do the same for me.
 And I would do it for you, for you.

I surrender honestly.
 You've always done the same for me.
 So I would do it for you, for you.

Give me reasons to believe... AND I would do it for you.
You've always done the same for me... SO I would it do it for you.

I checked with my household grammar wizards to confirm that AND and SO are acting as conditional conjunctions.  What the song is communicating then is what I experience.  I want to love those who are dear to me passionately, unreservedly, sacrificially.  But, in spite of my ideals, which are wrapped up in a Christian ethic of love modeled by Jesus, I need something back.  I have a strong martyr complex and can give for a long time with no kudos or reciprocation.  Not forever.  And I have never had to.  I am crazy spoiled with love.  I have never faced what some know all to well: a love that started out with mutual joy and passion that somewhere, somehow became a one-way street to a soul-draining loneliness of endless giving until the well was dry.

Then it occurred to me.  Am I the one holding back, sucking the life out of others without giving them even a sustaining crumb of affection?  In the limits of my human condition, I struggle to express affection.  Today, I want to be awake to the hunger and give back what I have been given.

You've always done the same for me.
So I would do it for you.

Allegiant and the whole 'Young Adult Lit' thingy

As mentioned earlier, I was at the tail-end of the Divergent trilogy in January.  My review is here at Goodreads.  Veronica Roth is not long out of college and wrote much of the trilogy while still in college.  I am not sure what that says about college, but it is an impressive feat of writing to put together a coherent 3-volume narrative in that time span while otherwise academically occupied.  I am convinced that even the most creative fiction authors are still autobiographers.  Who Veronica Roth is seeps deeply into the characterizations in Divergent-Insurgent-Allegiant, particularly the values that Tris holds and her view of her parents.

The YA genre works because it is idealistic, fast-paced, emotional, reactionary.  Exactly.  I was a teenager once.  Which is why I am not recommending a steady diet of this for my daughters or anyone else for that matter.  However, in the inescapable buzz of our media-saturated culture, the Divergent movie will be this year's Hunger Games.  Oh, wait, Hunger Games 2 is this year's Hunger Games…  Anyway, I am not sure about watching the Divergent movie because there are some parts in the book that could lend themselves to overly violent or overly sexual imagery.  Have to wait for some reviews.

Whether anyone in my family reads the books or not, the story will be out there.  And I want to be part of that story with my daughters.

Some great questions are raised, not necessarily answered, by the series:
What does it mean to be loyal to family, friends, your culture?
What do you do about conflicting loyalties?
How much does your genetic heritage determine who you are?
Can you overcome a horrible childhood or even a slightly flawed childhood?
What is the place of faith in an often violent and unjust world?

Those are precisely the kind of questions I should be discussing with my idealistic, fast-paced, emotional, reactionary teenage daughter.  :-)

Why Dads Need To Be There (Late Christmas Commentary)

Yes, though the 12th day of Christmas is well behind us, I need to mention one last thing about that beloved season.  As, I suppose, a large swath of the the American populous does in December, we use our normal Friday Night Movie Night for Christmas movies.  Our #1 Doctor Who fan discovered that David Tennant (Doctor #10?) was in this Christmas movie: Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger and acquired it so we could be further impressed by Mr. Tennant.

BRIEF REVIEW
If you go in for highly improbable, deeply sentimental children's Christmas movies with a large dose of slapstick British humor (or should I say humour?), then this is for you.  Which, what is Christmas if not a story about the highly improbable and deeply sentimental?  Needless to say, our family does fit, given that we are either chronologically or mentally all still in our childhoods.  If you need to be impressed by taut story lines and brilliant acting, though, you will be disappointed.  This dichotomy is obvious when comparing the average reviews by average people (high end) to the average critical reviews (low end).

POINT OF THIS

Along with the fun and music - lots of quite singable music, even for me - Nativity 2 had a secondary theme about the influence of Dad's, highlighted in part by the strained relationship between the main character and his father.  But the real kicker, given my background, was this song plunked into the middle of things:

When I was a boy, I dreamed he'd find me

Fall down from the sky, to come and guide me

Take me by the hand of life and show me all he's learned…

Everybody's got a dad but me

Everybody's got a dad but me

I need a Dad to keep the demons from my door,

I need a Dad to stand beside me, 

Slay the dragons, fight my battles, help me win the war,

Show me what this heart inside me, 

is still beating for.

Now I am a man, I still dream he'll find me

Catch me if you can, the ties still bind me

Lead me down the rocky road, 

Show me who I am...

Everybody's got a dad but me

Everybody's got a dad but me

There are times when I think I have finally 'outgrown' that vague emptiness resulting from an absent father, then along comes a little reminder like this that I can't get out of my mind.  Two things usually result.  First, a sense of regret for that loss of relationship with my Dad.  Second, a renewed determination to do the very big job I have been assigned as father to my girls.  When they are watching Christmas movies years from now, I want them to smile at their memories of Dad.