The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for March 2010

Hump Day Notes

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“And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.”
The End– The Beatles

“This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free”
The End– The Doors

A million thoughts and ideas are flowing through my mind. There are an endless number of projects and things to do that are fighting for space alongside the impending end for grandma. I find myself a mix of bemused and bewildered with an extra dose of grumpiness.

Last night I watched LOST and wondered what would happen if I were to walk around the island. It is a television show so this is nothing but the foolish speculation of a man who is putting off running some errands. But as I watched the show unfold I wondered if I walked the hills would  I find my dead waiting for me.

It is not an uncommon thought or theme. There have been many stories in which the hero encounters their dead. Sometimes they are loved ones and sometimes they are not. Oftentimes the dead bear messages that can help or hinder the hero.

So I sit for a moment and wonder who would I see and what would they say. Would it be praise or criticism? Would it matter, have I ever paid attention to it. I suppose that it is fair to say that I have acknowledged it, that I have noticed when it has come or not come.

But at the same time I have a history of doing as I will, so what does it matter.

My son is well aware of the situation involving his great grandmother. He knows that she isn’t going to make it and has asked a few questions. I have begun thinking about how to address this and what to do.The docs don’t think that it will be long, but no one really knows. Could be a few days or a week or two.

What sort of prep work do I do if any and how do I tailor it so that both of the kids are covered.

And I sit here wondering about myself. What else do I want to say to grandma, if anything. I told her that I loved her and I may tell her again. But she is really out of it, so much of this comes back to what is important to me. What do I need to do to feel good about this? Not real sure yet, but I’ll figure it out.

And now, on to the next post.

Grandma’s Dying & Grandpa Has Cancer

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Grandma’s Dying & Grandpa Has Cancer. That should be the name of some sort of country music song shouldn’t it. Really, I can see Tim McGraw doing it. He has more than a few songs that I like but this isn’t a song title, it is my life.

How is that for drama. Not bad, huh. If you are among the 17 long time readers than none of this is that much of a surprise. My life is just like your life, filled with a tapestry of good and bad. Stories about those we he have lost and those we haven’t are scattered through it. Some of them make you smile and some of them make you cry.

This morning as the kids got ready to head off to school I told them that my grandmother had fallen and needed to go the hospital. They looked at me and said, “again?” I smiled and told them that she had fallen again and was besieged with a thousand questions about how and why it happened. It was a bittersweet moment.

What I didn’t tell them was that she broke her hip and that due to her age and heart condition surgery is highly unlikely. I didn’t tell them that their aunt, my little sister, looked to her big brother for guidance on whether she should get on a plane because grandma is dying. I didn’t tell them that my mother, their grandmother asked me to help do some research on hospice and other end of life issues. I didn’t tell them about my visit with my grandparents on Sunday.

Because, I was there. Not when she fell but several hours before. I sat with her and my grandfather and chewed the fat. I intentionally went without the kids. It was a chance for me to focus on being a grandson and not a father. Both are important, but had the kids been there it would have been difficult to focus on the grandparents the way that I wanted to.

You see, my grandfather turned 96 last week but I was unable to be there. I had some sort of stomach bug so I bugged out but promised my grandpa that I would come as soon as possible. And let’s be real at 96 you never know how much time you have left so you do what you can to take advantage of the time when you can.

Last year we helped them celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary and watched them dance one last time. Anyway, my grandmother’s health has been declining for a while now and while that is to be expected, the dementia that has accompanied has not been. Maybe we should have anticipated or expected it, but if you knew how strong and energetic my grandmother was you’d understand why it is surprising.

She carried a laundry basket up and down a flight of stairs into her eighties and until a few years ago still exercised regularly. The change may have taken a few years, but the decline is still shocking to us. But to my grandfather it has been heartbreaking.

So in addition to spending time with my grandparents the goal is to give my grandfather a little help. So when grandma asks the same question repeatedly there is someone else to help.

I wasn’t upset with the children when they asked why grandma keeps falling. Nor was I upset when my son asked if getting older means that you break frequently and easily. But I was sad because they will never know the grandmother that I know. They won’t have a real understanding of who she was and still is.

They weren’t there on Sunday when my grandfather held onto my arm and fought back tears about how hard it is to see his girl like this. How he told me again that the worst part of aging is being robbed of the ability to take care of her the way that he wants to. About how he used to give her piggy back rides and listen to her laugh or so many other memories that he shared with me.

I sat and listened and did what I could to make it easier for him. And when my grandmother called me by mother’s name I didn’t flinch, even though I have a full beard and stand close to a foot taller than she does.

In a short time I am going to leave the office and head over to the hospital to visit grandma. She is sedated and barely awake. It is unclear whether she’ll be cognizant of my being there. I don’t know if this visit will be the last time I see her. The docs aren’t entirely certain, it could go on for a while.

But this is not a long term proposition. Regardless of how long we have Grandma will not be at the seder or at my sister’s wedding. And you can say what you will about her being there in spirit, but there still will be an empty seat that should have been hers.

And in the not so distant future I will have to have another discussion with my children about death and what that means. But I’ll save that moment for whenever it may come because for now she is still here.

Dad, Can You Teach me About Girls?

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Slowly but surely the wheels of time are moving closer to the day in which my son stops pretending that he hates girls and admits that there is something intriguing about them. At the moment most of his comments are of the appropriate sort for an almost ten year-old boy.

He wrinkles his nose and looks upon them disdainfully. At school they don’t play the same games as him and his friends and when they do get involved there is almost always a disagreement. He tells me that he sees them in groups laughing about stupid things, but just what those stupid things are he isn’t really sure. When I ask him for an example he looks at me like I am crazy and tells me that “they’re girls.”

Periodically I’ll find two or three chasing him and his friends. I am not really sure what the game is other than the boys run and the girls chase them. I have told him to be careful because one of them just might decide that they want to catch him.

He doesn’t quite understand what I am saying, but he knows that there is something going on. He tells me that his sister has become quite adept at getting him in trouble. I ask why and he tells me that girls are good at figuring out how to get boys in trouble. I laugh and tell him that he has no idea. He doesn’t understand why I am laughing and tells me that something has happened to my old brain.

It seems that he can’t quite figure it out, why I like girls that is. I ask him how he knows and he tells me that he knows that I have kissed at least one other girl besides his mother. And for a moment, just a moment his curiosity gets the best of him and he asks a question that is sort of related to intercourse, breasts and female curves in general.

I pause and consider how to respond. I am not sure that he really wants to know all this yet. He knows how to be direct, but he was awkward in his phrasing. It is more akin to how he acts when he is embarrassed then uncertain.

It leaves me with the question of how much information will satisfy his curiosity because I don’t want to say one word more. He is approaching the age but certainly not ready for it. And even if he said that he is I am not. Dad won’t ignore the question, but not going to go over it in detail.

I have a good friend whose daughter has already partaken in the festival of the flesh. He walked in on her and her boyfriend and I have seen the scars on his eyeballs. That was enough for me, but I digress.

So I give him a short answer that one day he’ll realize that he appreciates them, girls that is. And that is when he asks me if when that day comes I can teach him. I chuckle for a moment and ask him what he needs to know.

He tells me that he wants to know everything about girls so that if he does decide that he likes them he can be an expert. Now I laugh out loud and tell him that part of the fun of life is figuring out the mystery of people. He glares at me and tells me that he wants a real answer.

I smile at him and say that I don’t have a uniform answer. Girls are a different sort of animal. It is the sort of expression that will get me in trouble with his mother and grandmothers, but I live for trouble so I move on with my explanation.

“Some of them will do things that make no sense to you. You’ll think that it is dumb, but you’ll find yourself doing the dumb thing with them. And maybe you’ll decide that the dumb thing is kind of fun.”

He says ok and tells me that he has another question. “Do they all get fat when they’re having babies?”

I almost fall out of my seat with laughter, but somehow stifle it. “We don’t tell them that they are fat,” I start to say. But before I can finish he shouts “you mean we have to lie to them about the dumb thing and the fat stuff.”

This is not going where I want it to so I remind him that we don’t lie but that doesn’t work for him. I just told him that we don’t call them fat when they are pregnant. So now I find myself dealing with nuances and expressions, or trying to explain them to a 9.5 year old boy.

Without further ado I pull out the trump card and ask him if he wants to learn how to kiss a girl now. He shrieks something about no way and is silent. I nod my head and pull out a Lego set down from a shelf and we start building.

Somehow I survived, but I think that I need to think about how to approach this when it comes up again because it will be back.

Dad’s Drinking Again Because He Just Doesn’t Care

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The following story is fiction in the sense that it is not based upon one person’s story. However it has elements of truth from many and that lends itself to a certain reality. Take it for what it is worth.

“Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad tracks
Goin’ someplace there’s no goin’ back
Highway patrol choppers comin’ up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin’ round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad”

The Ghost of Tom Joad- Bruce Springsteen

It was almost noon, the first Monday of a new spring and the last week of a month he needed to forget. He was three beers and two shots into the day and there was no bartender yelling out last call. The train had left the station and there was no doubt that at some point it was going to go off the tracks.

Deep inside his head he could hear the laughter of the demons he had once overcome. They knew that their jailor was on the verge of giving up. It wouldn’t take much more to push him over the edge and once that happened they would be released from their bondage and set free to do as they will.

This wasn’t what he had planned for. It wasn’t the life he was supposed to lead. This kind of thing didn’t happen to people like him. Educated, hard working upper middle class people who paid their bills and gave back to society. They didn’t get railroaded by the banks. They didn’t have to tell their children that because daddy couldn’t get a job they couldn’t stay in their home.

They didn’t tell their children that daddy had tried his best but that wasn’t good enough. They taught their children that if they worked hard good things would happen. They taught them to hold themselves to high standards and that if they did they would reap the rewards of those efforts.

No, they didn’t tell them that it didn’t work for daddy. They didn’t want them to think that all their time and effort was for nothing, that the system was built upon a lie. But that was the thing of it, the system was the reason that they were losing everything. The system was the reason why the world was collapsing upon them.

It didn’t make any sense when he was sober and far less when he was drunk, but he didn’t care anymore. It was a nightmare that was unending and inescapable. It followed him even when he closed his eyes.

He started to laugh and he knew not why. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe not. Better find out he thought and with that he popped open another bottle. Two gulps later the bottle was sent flying into the mirror in the dining room. The crash of the bottle and the sound of glass breaking were surprisingly pleasant.

He had read about the angry men who burned down their soon to be foreclosed homes or went crazy in public but never understood why. Now he did. He was a very proud man who had been forced to his knees by this. Forced to do things that in the past he never could have imagined doing.

And now he was on the verge of something else. Another swig of whiskey made it easy to envision his standing right on the edge of the precipice. Would he be dragged over the side kicking and screaming or would he choose a different route like the jumpers from 9-11.

He had witnessed more than one person fling themselves into the air and had wondered if they had held out hope that somehow, someway they would survive the fall. Had they prayed for wings or that somehow they would land in the palm of God’s hand. Or had they just resigned themselves for the horrible ending that was coming at them with ridiculous speed.

It didn’t matter, not really. Even though he was drunk he knew that there really wasn’t a comparison between them and him. The one thing that they shared in common was that none of them were in that situation out of their own choice. But they would always been seen as martyrs and he would not.

Damn. The alcohol wouldn’t rob him completely of logic and reason. It wouldn’t make him forget and it wouldn’t make him do the unthinkable, at least not yet.

He sighed deeply and wondered again how it was he found himself walking through hell. And then the demons broke free of their cage. He wanted to fight. He wanted to slam his fist into someone and to feel the rush that would bring.

With a loud roar he sprang to his feet, grabbed his house keys and walked out the door. He knew that there was no way that he could drive so he marched by the car and headed up the street. The local dive bar was the destination.

He had no idea who or what he would find there. Just knew that somewhere in the distance trouble was calling and he wanted to answer. For just a moment he thought that he heard someone saying no, but he shrugged that off and muttered Dad’s Drinking Again Because He Just Doesn’t Care.

Festival Of The Fathers- A Blog Experience Part III

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I am Jack and I’m pleased to welcome you to the third edition of the Festival Of The Fathers- A Blog Experience. It is a collection of posts from throughout the daddy blogosphere. It is a diverse group of men of varying backgrounds and experiences.

Though we may have our differences we share the joy and challenges of being fathers. Take a moment to walk through and learn a little bit more about some very fine men and how we handle fatherhood. I also want to say thank you to the kind hosts who allowed me to serve as guest blogger this week.

PapaRocks6:Dad’s Represent
DadWagon; Which Way Home
PDX Dad: Though it be madness there be method to it
And Triplets Make Six: Triplet Standard Time
Random Thoughts: Dad, What is Prostate Cancer?
Elisson: THINGS MY FATHER TAUGHT ME
Clark Kent’s Lunchbox: Washeteria
The Daddy Files: I Hear Dead People
Tessa’s Dad: #FatherhoodFriday – My first gut check as a dad
Sex and The Single Dad: March Hotness
Toner Mishap: King of the Wild Frontier RIP