Life and Death

“Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you”
Bookends- Simon and Garfunkel

I have written too many posts like this one. Too many comments about how short life is and how tenuous our grip upon it is.

Twenty-seven years ago we spent part of a summer together, counselor and camper. We weren’t the closest pair and truth is we probably didn’t have that many conversations but we were part of a group that built memories together.

Part of a group that took a moment in time and froze it, this I know because through the years many different members have talked about it and shared how it influenced their lives.

It changed some of us and had little impact upon others but those who took something from it gained quite a bit.

And He Slipped Under The Water, Gone But Not Forgotten

You didn’t drown and you weren’t lost in the sense that we couldn’t find you.

But you were taken from your family and your friends. Your children are going to have to find their way without your guidance and I am very sorry for that because I am a father and I cannot imagine how hard it must be to know that you have to let go before you are ready.

I talked about slipping under the water because I remember spending time with you at a beach and upon the banks of a river. Long ago when you were 15 and I was 18, back when the age difference between us was so much greater than now.

Now we are contemporaries, with little difference between us other than now you are gone and I am here. I don’t say that with glee, but with an acknowledgment that I am doing my best to live my life in a way that doesn’t allow me to just pass up opportunities to truly live.

That is how I try to honor those of you who haven’t gotten the same opportunity.

Sometimes I think about you who have gone on to wherever it is we go after this time as being in the vanguard. We have changed places because that summer we spent together was when I was in the vanguard and on the camping trips and hikes I was always at the front, always checking the path to make sure it was safe for the rest to pass.

Maybe that is what you are all doing now. Maybe you are among those who will guide the rest of us when we leave the bonds of the earth.

Or maybe not.

But I figure if there is nothing to come after our time here you are still guides because as I mentioned you are part of why I push to truly live life and to chase down dreams.

Time it was, and What a Time It Was

I don’t know what else to say or how else to deal with stories like this. Tales of cancer striking down those who are far too young. You were 42, far older than many and far younger than some.

All I can do is share these words and say I have fulfilled the promise I made earlier and I will continue to do my best to continue to do so.

Our lives may be brief but if we live with purpose and intention than we can help to make an impact upon others and there is merit in that, a sign of a life well lived.

If no one sees it happen does that mean no one will believe it did.

Confession: once while I was bench pressing I dropped the bar on my chest and got stuck. I was twenty something and at the end of my workout.

Because I was young and invincible I didn’t have a spotter and I figured that it was only 225 pounds. Since I could lift far more I arrogantly believed that even though I was exhausted I could run through a fourth set and all would be fine.

It was until my arms went on strike and I the bar came crashing down on my chest.

I refused to ask for help and began squirming my way into a position to push the bar off of me but was spared potential injury when someone noticed my struggle and ran over to help me.

I Lost Her Forever

“Daddy, mommy is crying in the kitchen. You need to help her.”

I looked at my daughter and told her this was one of those times where it was ok for an adult to be upset. My son looked at his sister and then at me, “dad we don’t know how she died.”

“I think she had a stroke, but I really don’t know. I am not sure that is the part that matters. Mom and Katie have been friends since they were four. Go give her a hug, you’ll help more than you know.”

Katie was only 44. She had was a very sweet woman but she was a mess and had been for years. If you wanted to see what mental and emotional abuse could do to a person she was a good example about why some parents should lose their kids.

I met her when my then fiancee introduced us in ’95. I liked Katie, she was nice and very sweet but I thought Vegas was a bad place for her and her husband to live. They drank and smoked too much for a place like that.

They thought so too so they moved out into the Nevada desert. I don’t know how much that helped or hurt, we didn’t see them often. Life got in the way.

“Dad, come here too, we all need to hug mom.”

“Jack, I lost her forever. I should have done more.”

“You did as much as you could, you couldn’t fix what was broken there.”

Later that evening my son asked me to explain.

“Dad, what was broken and why couldn’t it be fixed?”

“It is complicated. Her parents did a number on her, when she was little they told her she was bad and she never forgot that. Some things stick with you.”

Jerusalem, Texas & The Desert

I am standing in the  Judean Hills, alone in the moonlight staring off towards Jerusalem and thinking about the home I intend to build. It is not imminent, this home I want. I am 25 and though I want to be a father I know I am not ready.

Alone in the darkness I try to picture the life I want to create but even though I think I know what I want the images are blurry. I see faces but I can’t quite make them out.

Decades later I am wandering through Hulen Mall in Fort Worth and I realize I haven’t heard anyone speaking Hebrew in forever. It surprises me at how loud the silence is.

The guy at the counter hands me my pretzel and I sit down to eat, think and watch the people walk by. Once I was convinced I would live my life in Israel but now I am not sure if that will ever happen.

Texas is home.

I look around and think about how comfortable I feel. The silence in some areas is jarring but it is ok, because I have known for years that one day I would live here.

Never really understood it until now, but recognition settles in and I understand it is one of several places that just feels like home. One of several places that I am connected to, that I feel like I have long history with.

Many months later I’ll lock my apartment, hop into the car and head back towards LA.

Alone in the desert I’ll see more images in my head of the life I have had and the one I am creating but the faces aren’t completely blurred anymore.

Some are the same and some are…new.

The Gym

I can dunk a tennis ball on the ten foot rim and can even get a volleyball through but the basketball keeps slipping out of my grip.

Eventually I put one through, but I can’t tell you if I look like Jordan or some awkward kid flailing through the air. There is no video, no film nor photo of it.

It is just me and an empty gym.

Been thinking about my uncle, dad’s little brother and how much he has missed. Been thinking about how he died when he was only a few years older than I am now and how bizarre that feels to me now.

Wonder what life would have been like for him now. He was gay and I didn’t care, loved him just the same.+

Miss him sometimes because he is a connection to a past and part of the family that has changed dramatically. He is gone and so is my grandfather and my other uncle. The men on that side have been whittled down to my dad, me and my son.

His being gay is really immaterial, what I wonder about sometimes where the similarities between my grandfather, dad him and of course, me.

What is genetic? What sort of habits are learned?

Sometimes old posts are where I find inspiration for new posts. Fat, Ugly and Stupid Is No Way To Blog caught my eye or more accurately those words in the block quote. More on this later.

Wandering through Costco today I overheard some kid describe me as the fat old guy who wouldn’t get out of his way so he could grab a sample.

Part of me laughed with him because twenty years ago I would have looked at me and described the guy I saw as old.  Funny thing is lately several people have asked me what my secret is, they wanted to know why there are virtually no gray hairs on my head nd relatively few wrinkles.

One of the boys suggested that the only reason people don’t think I am 25 any more is because I have become…chunky.

I almost turned around and asked the kid if he wanted to have a contest to see who could do more push ups because the old guy does 100 a day and is working towards more. Might not look like the circus strong man but that is because I am not dressed in a spandex leotard, rocking the bald head and handlebar mustache.

The Story Doesn’t End There

They don’t know. They don’t understand AIDS is a death sentence. Once you are HIV+ it is just a matter of time before shit gets real and you don’t make jokes about being so sick you want to die because you will.

I was 17 when I found out my uncle was gay and twenty when I found out he was HIV+.

One day I walked into the kitchen at my parent’s house and tried to grab a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie and was told I couldn’t have it.

“Your uncle is having trouble keeping his weight up, so mom made him cookies.”

My dad said it in a normal tone of voice, plain expression on his face but I knew something was weird so I asked. Don’t remember what they said or how they said it, but it took a while to sink in.

It was 1989 and no one beat the disease. I didn’t know much about it. Really had a limited understanding but I understood it was a death sentence.

No one beat the disease. Back then that was all I remember hearing about it.

I loved my uncle and I was concerned for him, but I figured medical science was always coming up with new solutions and if he took care of himself he could see a cure come about. It wasn’t impossible.

What Makes You A Man?

The world I grew up in is very different from the one my children are growing up in. My uncle grew up in a time when same sex marriage was a pipe dream and you hid your sexuality.

From my perspective things didn’t change all that much between my uncle’s childhood and mine. One of the worst insults someone could hurl at you was to suggest you were gay.

And now my children have friends who have two moms or two dads and they think nothing of it but they don’t know I didn’t know whether I should hide my uncle’s sexuality from my friends.

I didn’t know how they would react. I didn’t care that my uncle was gay. I loved him the same but I won’t lie and say it didn’t make me wonder about the world and things, especially when I found out that I had another uncle who was gay.

Part of me was ambivalent about it because what difference did it make, but another part of me wondered how they knew.

I had a conversation with my uncle about it and we talked about having sex with women. He told me it never felt right to him and asked me if I ever felt that way.

He didn’t describe having sex with a man. Didn’t get into any details other than to tell me it felt right and that women never did.

Does Sleeping With a Woman Make You A Man?

I remember calling my girlfriend and telling her about my uncle. She didn’t care that he was gay and when I told I wanted to have a lot of sex she laughed. “I’ll do whatever you want but that doesn’t make you a man.”

She followed through on her promise but what I remember the most isn’t what we did it was her saying none of this makes you a man. It just means you are a guy who is physically capable of putting it in a woman.

I probably rolled my eyes at that but I didn’t quite get it then.

Twenty-five years later I am staring at this screen trying to put myself back there, wondering if I have used too many words or not enough, trying to figure out how to tell this story.

Thinking about how I would explain to my uncle what a blog is and how I didn’t have any idea what I was going to write about until I started writing. Thinking about how I am touching upon something I haven’t thought about much.

Most of the time when I think about him it is in the context of how much he missed and how I would have liked to have learned more from him.

But now I am thinking about how I felt then, trying to pick away at something that is bothering me and I am not quite sure what it is.

Nobody Beats The Disease

It is 1994 and my uncle has come to that place we always feared he would reach. The disease has grabbed a hold of him and it is beating the crap out of him.

My dad and grandfather drive up to San Francisco to go visit. I tell my dad I want to come and he says no. “Grandpa may not get a chance to see him again. This is the last time my family will be together. It is not personal.”

But it is personal to me, how can it not be.

When I think about it now it makes sense to me. I can understand my dad’s decision and see how he was trying to give my uncle and grandfather a chance to say goodbye.

Now it makes sense and part of me aches for my grandfather because as a father I cannot imagine having to say goodbye to my child.

And I know my father. I know how badly it must have hurt him to see his little brother like that. He needed that time to be a son and to be an older brother.

But we were all raised to look out for each other, so how could I not feel like maybe I could have helped.

There Is More To The Story

Twenty years later I understand things differently than I did then. Twenty years later I remember my uncle’s CD collection including music I liked and wondering how a 49 year-old man got into Guns N Roses.

Twenty years later I wonder what sort of conversations we would have now and how different some things would be. There wouldn’t be that memory of telling my grandfather that his son had died and the guilt I felt for making grandpa cry.

I think my uncle would have enjoyed Texas and encouraged me to do so many things.

Twenty years later the conversations about what makes you a man would have been far different. There is much more to this story but the time for telling it has ended…for now.

Editor’s note: The post below first ran here. Last night I found out that my dad’s kidneys have mutinied and he’ll either need a transplant or dialysis. It is not a death sentence, but it is not good and it reminded me of my dad’s heart attack. The old man ended up on life support, thankfully he didn’t die.

That time of my life was a big part of the impetus that turned me into a blogger. The experience changed me and I am not who I was, that is not supposed to be good or bad, just a comment about what is.

His health news is what prompted this post. It is also a reminder to myself to push harder to make the changes in my life that have to be made. Our time here is too short to waste.

Five Minutes

I find people to be…fascinating. They are endlessly amusing creatures who like to think that the things that they do are based upon logic and reason, yet they aren’t. They rarely do anything that isn’t arbitrary in nature. We don’t like to admit these things. We don’t like stare at our own foibles or accept our own mortality.

It is late afternoon and I am seated on an American Airlines airplane waiting to fly back to Los Angeles. The seat belt sign is on and the flight attendants are preparing for takeoff.

My toe is tapping and my knuckles are turning white from gripping the seat. For a moment I wonder if I can crush the armrest with nothing but my fingertips. I am trying hard to think about anything and everything other than my father.

He lies unconscious in a hospital bed some 30 miles away from the airport. He is being kept alive by machines and medication. The flight home will take almost six hours and it is possible that he will die while I am in the air.

A short time earlier I sat next to his bed and spoke softly to him. In the midst of the beeps, clicks, clacks and whirling noises made by the machines that keep him alive I told him about his grandson and reminded him that his daughter-in-law is pregnant

Asked him to wake up for me, begged him to open his eyes and acknowledge me. Asked him not to die because I needed him. Told him that I want him to celebrate my 35th birthday with me and squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze it back.

The captain makes a few announcements but I can barely focus. I don’t know what to do. I am not panicking because dad wouldn’t panic and so I won’t. But he is unconscious and I can’t do anything to help save his life- not from 3,000 miles away.

I close my eyes and think of my son. He is almost 3.5 and I can’t believe that there is a chance that my father will die before they really get to know each other. I can’t believe that he might not get to meet the baby who is yet to come.

Dad is a huge presence in my life and always has been. I feel guilty leaving him. I feel guilty leaving mom there. I hadn’t realized until this moment that he was/is human.

But I can’t stay. I am a father and I learned from my dad that I have to take care of my family. My grandparents don’t know how serious this is. I didn’t tell them that I wasn’t sure if he would survive long enough for me to fly out and now I have to do it all over again.

I remember telling dad and grandpa about my uncle dying. I remember the pain in my father’s eyes and how I made grandpa cry. I told him that his youngest son was dead. Am I going to be forced to tell him about his oldest too.

The plane pulls away from the gate and begins to taxi towards the runway. For a moment I consider jumping out of my seat and demanding that they let me go. I am sitting close to and emergency exit. I calculate the distance between the door and my seat, figure that I can get there fast enough to open it and jump.

It is crazy and I know it. But my father might die. There is a voice telling me that I am betraying him by not being by his side.

He wouldn’t have left me. That is not how our family works. I am the only son. I know him differently than my sisters. My grandfather wouldn’t leave me either. I can see him crying, can hear grandma say no. The moment haunts me. It is one of a few that stick with me.

The engines roar and as the plane gains speed I am pressed back into my seat. Now all I can do is wait and make silent promises to the future.

Tonight I take you back to a post from August 7, 2004:

I am still responsible for three 90 year-old grandparents and two households, not to mention an infant, a 3.5 year-old, wife, mortgage, the war in Iraq and the capture of OBL. Ok, that is an exaggeration too, perhaps I am more prone to hyperbole than I thought. Baby is crying, time to run.

If you have been around since the beginning you may have read the words above before. You might have read Life Is Challenging and seen these:

It was April 30th and I caught an early morning flight to New Jersey. I got on a plane not knowing if my father would still be living when I arrived and the knowledge of all of the responsibilities left behind.

You might remember the weight I felt and how I was worried not just about losing my father but having to tell my grandfather that his oldest son had died. It was exceptionally hard telling him about my uncle’s death and the thought of having to do it about my father was crushing. I felt like the Angel of Death but I got lucky and all I had to tell my grandfather was that dad had beaten the odds and was coming home.

What Is A Father’s Responsibility?

My father’s health issues didn’t end there. Even though he made this miraculous recovery the weight of watching his own father deteriorate and slip away was too much and he let himself go.

I have been thinking about this quite a bit. Been looking in the mirror at myself and thinking about my responsibilities to myself and to my family.

Been thinking about it because dad’s kidneys are failing and unless there is some sort of miracle dialysis or a transplant are in the future.

Been thinking about it because what happens to him should be a wake up call and warning to me. I wrote about it in Do What You Were Born To Do.

Was brutally honest about my own shortcomings there. Talked about how I punished myself and shared my concerns for my father’s health and wondered if I should be pushing him to do more to take care of himself.

I didn’t because I didn’t think it would help. I believed he would have to figure it out and decide it was too important to let go. Saw him make an effort several times but he never sustained it.

And I didn’t push because I was so caught up in my own mess that I had little to give. Was hard enough to keep pushing for the kids but I did it because they deserved it.

Still part of me feels a bit guilty because I wonder if I could have made things better. Wonder if I could have given him the kick in the ass that would have woken him up.

Where Is Your Focus?

Flip through the pages here and you’ll find lots of letters to my children and lots of talk about lots of different things. You might find some goofy headlines like Cheaper Than A $5 Whore With Less Risk of Infection or Jesus Hates Tim Tebow & 17 Other Reasons Why Your Blog is a Failure and wonder what is going on with me but I am cool with that.

Because as you go through you’ll come across things like The Most Important Things In Life,  Your Blog Bores Me and He Didn’t Die  you’ll see that I learned an awful lot from life.

I learned how to identify and distinguish between what I want and what I need. I learned to take time to slow down and enjoy the journey and forgive myself for not being able to win every battle or overcome every challenge.

And in the process I think I have become a better father. I think my children have benefited from it all and that has always been a goal.

When I think about what I owe my children I look at what my parents have given me and think about my own father as a role model. In most ways dad has been outstanding but he has fallen short in taking care of himself and that is one thing I can’t do to my children.

It is part of why I told them that I need a minimum of 20 minutes every day to exercise because I owe them a father who is healthy and one who shows them the important of regular exercise.

And now if you come closer I’ll tell you I am really worried about my dad. I am not just a father, I am a son too.