The Hardest Day of My Life as Father

Nothing prepares you for this! There is no class or education; no online course or adult learning offered by the town; and no books or magazines. The day that your child is born is the most incredible day of your life and from that day forward you live in almost constant fear that the decisions that you are making while you raise that child will be the wrong decisions. You second guess everything you do and you constantly hope that your child will be okay. When my eldest son graduated from High School, he was full of opportunity, ambition, and hope. As this was the first child of ours to graduate, I was full of fear of the unknown for him; trepidation because I did not know if he was ready for the world; and in some ways, satisfaction because I felt I had raised a good and honest young man.

On that day I gave him a letter that I had written to tell him how proud I was of him. I wanted him to know how hard it is to be a father and that I was hopeful that even though I had made mistakes, in my mind he was prepared to be a man. I reread that letter this morning after what was the most difficult day as a father of my life and I want to share some of it now.

"I remember when you finally came into this world, the Doctor was concerned about your breathing, so we didn’t get to hold you right away. I was afraid for you in that brief moment while we waited for them to check you out and give you a thumbs-up. Then you were ours! Your mother held you and wept. Then she called grandma and couldn’t speak so she put me on the phone to tell her that you had arrived and that everyone was okay.

It was early morning and the sun was shining, it was a beautiful winter day. I could not stay with you and mom anymore so I got in my car and drove home. I got about two miles from the hospital and this overwhelming sense of relieve and joy overcame me at that moment. I started to cry. I cried because I was so happy that you and mom were okay; I cried because I was relieved; I cried because I was excited about watching you grow up; I cried because the built up anticipation of that moment was too much for me to bear. You were here! The people in passing cars stared at me; they must have thought that I was a nut case.

In my opinion, that is the moment in my life when I became a man. Having a new born baby is a huge responsibility and it causes you to look at life differently. I became more serious, more driven, more focused on my career. I wanted more than anything else to be able to provide for you and mom and to be able to give you everything in life. They say that life’s lessons never stop. I have learned so much because I became a father. There is no rule book, no instruction book, and no code of behavior. You have to learn on the fly and I learned by trial and error. I made tons of mistakes and I got some things right, but you have become the man that I wanted you to become and I am so proud of you!"

In that letter I gave him a long list of life's little instructions. Things that people don't tell you or that you can easily forget; things that are important in life and how to handle yourself as an adult. To say the very least I was hopeful and optimistic about him although still concerned as a father. I closed the letter to him with the following:

"As I put this list together I realized that you may not understand some of this advice because it’s not relevant to you now. Times will come in your life when items on this list will become relevant and I am hopeful that you will refer back to these things for guidance. I’ve accepted that you need me less and less these days, but always remember that I will be there for you if you need me.

On August 16, 2009 you will leave our home for the first time and live on your own. It has been hard for me to accept that the past 18 years have gone by so fast and that you are now an adult. I am scared that the world will overwhelm you and that I have not prepared you well enough, but I think these fears are natural. Deep down in my heart I know how strong you are and I know how prepared you are for life.

Attack life with reckless abandon and leave your mark on the world!"

When my second son graduated from High School this past June I gave him a similar letter. I am not foolish enough to think that my letters, words, discussions, guidance, direction, and general parenting would always keep them from harm or provide them with the sense to always do the right thing. People make mistakes and I make mistakes, I can't control the decisions that they make when I am not around nor can I control how other people impact them. Nevertheless, I have always remained optimistic that the way I raised them would guide them towards making good decisions or at least help them learn from the mistakes that they make.

In both the letters to my sons I told them that I would always be there for them. Yesterday I had to break that promise because I had to ask them to leave my house. Their behavior has had serious and detrimental impact on me, my wife, my daughter, our jobs, and our lives. I still don't know for sure and I may never know if I've made the right decision.  

Two years ago my eldest son went off to college and my wife and I were gleaming with hope and pride. Today he has a serious drug problem; he is unemployed; he has no direction in life or desire to do anything productive with himself; he is as lost today as he was when he was two-years old. Now it has come to light that his younger brother is not only as deep into the drugs (and possibly deeper), but he may in fact be the driving force behind his brothers inability to get himself straight. Number 2 has always been the leader and number 1 follows him through everything. While we were working with number 1 to try to get him straight, number 2 was sabotaging our efforts.

We have been told that they have to reach rock bottom before they will make a change. After the incident yesterday with the boys and after I kicked them out, we called the police to insure that they had some record of the issue and that they could keep an eye out for them. As I explained to the trooper everything that we have done to try to help the boys, rehab, legal help, counseling, environmental control, etc., he assured my wife and I that we had exhausted our options and that we probably allowed the behavior to go on too long before finally taking a more drastic step. He also said that maybe being without a place to life, food, or money will be enough to force a change in their behavior. I still think even though they now have no place to live two-weeks before Christmas that they are a long way from rock-bottom.  None of the support is reassuring.

To this day neither one of them thinks that anything is wrong! They think the drug use is no big deal and that even society deems smoking Marijuana as a minor infraction. If they get caught they will just get a ticket (as number 2 puts it)! What they don't see is that for both of them it is not recreational use, it has become a way of life. Number 1 has spent every penny he has made over the last two-years on drugs and alcohol. They both get stoned everyday, not to have fun or to party but to get through the day. They continue to bring drugs into my house even though I have told them that they will not be allowed to live here if they continue to break the rules. I have even threatened to call the police to have them arrested when they are in possession.

They don't see what this has done to our family and I need to protect my wife, daughter and I. I have no idea what the next few days or weeks will bring for us. I am hopeful that this step is the start of a new positive beginning for them both, but I am more concerned that rock bottom doesn't hit until one of them is dead or in jail.

Parenthood The Movie

My wife and I watched a movie when it came out in 1989 - 1990 called Parenthood staring Steve Martin.  The story revolves around four adult siblings, there individual families and the challenges of life as a parent.  Each siblings lot in life is individual and the situation that they find themselves trying to survive in the movie are distinctly different.  I was in a much different parental position back then (I can't remember if son #1 was born yet but if he wasn't he was on his way) compared with today and my ability to relate to the main character was difficult.  Now 21 years later I can clearly relate to both the main character, Steve Martin and his parents who have multiple kids with different troubles but in the end all they hope for is that each of them will find happiness.

I've seen the movie recently so I've had an opportunity to reconnect to the characters and to think about the movies messaging.  The most illuminating message for me really comes to a head at the end of the movie when the Steve Martin character, Gil, is watching his young daughter in a school play and his even younger son climbs on stage to protect his sister, when at a point in the play he feels she is threatened and then all hell breaks loose.  Gil starts to panic as his son starts to tear apart the stage set and suddenly you hear the sound of a Roller Coaster clicking away as if climbing the track towards the precipice.  Eventually the Roller Coaster sound reaches the top, crests, and then begins it's sudden drop to the bottom!  As it falls and twists you see Gil rolling and shifting in his seat as if he were on the Roller Coaster.  The look on Gil's face as he watches this disaster unfold in front of him is one of shear terror.  He glances to his wife seated next to him and sees that she is laughing and enjoying the ride.

The message that is very clear to me now and that has so much more meaning for me now than 21 years ago is that life is a Roller Coaster and you can either choose to sit back and enjoy the ride or not, but you can't control it.  I believe people are predisposed to either enjoy the ride or to fret over every detail and problem that life throws at you.  In the movie, Gil was not capable of just accepting the way things are.  He second guessed every decision he made; and he was constantly worried.  Gil's wife on the other hand was enjoying the ride in every was possible.  To her, life was about the ride and the experience that the ride provided.

Now here is my problem, my wife and I are both Gil's!  We have a tendency to lose sleep over the challenges presented to us in our lives and we react poorly to tough situations.  Don't get me wrong, the last two years of our lives together have been no picnic.  Two years ago we both were in a great spot with health and our weight loss journey; our oldest son was in college; son #2 was in High School, our daughter was in private school and they were all thriving; our relationship was stronger than ever; I enjoyed my job and our financial situation was very solid.

Today both sons are unemployed; #1 has no aspirations after failing out of college twice, was fired from his last job because he took money for drugs, and is in drug and alcohol rehab; #2 drove my wife's car into the ground and the money that he saved to buy himself a car, we had to use to pay for a lawyer to get him out of trouble, so he has no way to get back and forth to anywhere including school or a job.  I took a promotion a year and a half ago that I don't like the new job because it puts me on the road several days a week (overnight) and because of business challenges driven by the economy, I actually have earned less in the last two years.  My wife's business has dropped significantly as well, as a result of the economy, so it is hard for us to stay on top of the family debt, and my wife and I rarely spend time together.

With all that and much more this Roller Coaster ride lately has felt more like a death ride spinning out of control and has not been much fun.  But I know that I control my own happiness and that only I can allow myself to get down about all this.  I have a lot to be thankful for including my health and the health of my family, a loving wife, opportunity, and people around me who love me.

There are so many people out there who have much tougher challenges than I do and many of them seem to be happy.  In the grand scheme of things it all amounts to the life equivalency of a hangnail and I know that.  But it's my hangnail and sometimes it hurts like hell.  I need to work on enjoying the Roller Coaster ride.  I know well that if I focus on the bad things, then I will miss the good things!

Oh God of Gadgets Be Good to Thine!

Scientifically speaking, gravity is a bitch!  Gravity is a force of nature that we just learn to deal with in our daily lives and although at times gravity is a good thing; as a person who enjoys the game of golf I can tell you that the game is so much easier when the ball eventually lands on the ground rather than continues into the stratosphere after I hit it!  But the realities of gravity mean that occasionally it will bite you in the ass, or at the least cause your ass to sag when you reach a certain age.  Nonetheless, like gravity there are forces that I can't control in life, some are proven scientific theories like gravity and some are more religious theory like Karma.

Karma is described in Indian Religions as the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.  I do not practice Hinduism or Buddhism, but as I grow older I subscribe more to the idea that making positive decisions and doing positive things has a positive effect on my future.  I do not believe that a higher being exists that keeps a ledger of good and bad and that based on the running total of my behavior he/she doles out good things like candy.  But I do think that when you make good choices and behave positively your mindset becomes more positive and with a positive mindset, inherently more positive things happen to you.

Okay so given that, I think I am mostly a good person.  If the size of the proverbial angel on one shoulder and devil on the other is a key indicator of a persons relative goodness or badness, my angel would be much larger than my devil.  In fact I think my angel could kick my devil's ass in a fair fight!Not to say that I don't have a devilish streak (just ask my wife), but I usually make decisions that are not selfish; I am considerate of everyone around me; and I always trying to do the right thing.

It seems however, that my Karma ledger has more bad than good on it of late.  Not sure why, but I seem to have hit a streak of nasty over the last few months.  I am not sure how to classify this nastiness either because my bad luck has come almost entirely mechanically.  In other words, all the mechanical things around me seem to be self destructing.  In the past six months I have lost a flat screen TV, a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a washing machine, and my wife's car has needed repair work that has cost more than $3K.  How do you explain all this?  It could just be that appliances and automobiles are crap these days.  It seems they make them now so that you have to replace them every five years (all my appliances are five-years old or less because they were purchased new when we built our house), or it could be that the Karma god of all things mechanical, I'll call him the Gadget God, is pissed at me!

These mechanical challenges coupled with the other current life challenges that I have discussed (work, health, and kids) at times is overwhelming.  I need to change my Karma so I have to change my behavior towards mechanical things and try to appeal to the god of all gadgets.  So now before I go to bed each night I repeat the following prayer in an effort to change my Mechanical Karma:

Our Fathers in Silicone Valley and Detroit,
hallowed be your name.
Your gears and bytes come,
your mechanisms will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily conveniences,
and forgive us our laziness,
as we also have forgiven our ineptness.
And lead us not into electronic darkness,
but deliver us from Sears

This ought to work, but if not I have the fortune cookie message that I got this week to fall back on.  It said "Your luck will completely change this week" and this happened the same day that I found a quarter in a parking lot!  Nothing can stop me now, unless my car dies!

Where did all the Bikinis Go!

What's in a name?  How about the name "Alfred"?  Pretty innocuous on the surface but according to an online baby book the name means "supernatural".  When you consider this, it seems fitting that the local news channel decided to name the first winter storm event of 2011, Alfred.  Alfred dumped at least 8" of f$&@#*& snow on my yard yesterday and last night! 

I ran an "Alfred" Google search as well and I found very little that was remarkable about the name.  In fact the only notable person (at least notable to me) with the name that surfaced was Alfred Hitchcock.  That seems appropriate also because the first image that pops into my head when I think of Alfred Hitchcock is of birds yanking out eyeballs!  Having my eyeball plucked from my head by a crow might be more fun than 8 inches of snow in October!

Most years we might get a flurry or two prior to the new year but not this year.  Last winter we had record breaking snow fall, and I was so hoping this year would balance out last with record breaking no-snow fall, but this doesn't bode well for us this year!  In some ways looking out the window at a blanket of white covering the yard, is soothing!  At the very least it's pretty, but I can only take short bursts of winter.  The ideal winter to me would be four or five quick snow storms between December (including a nice thick storm on Christmas eve) and February mixed in with mostly 90-degree sunny days.  Where can I move to get that?   

Even though it's enough to piss off the Pope, I am in good spirits because I had a good week and lost a bunch of weight.  Don't get me wrong, there are things about this time of year that I like.  I like football and fall baseball; I like the warmth of a fire in the fireplace; I like fall/winter meals like Butternut Squash, Stew and Chilis, Roasts, and everything Apple; I like crisp morning golf; and I like the fall colors in the trees.  But trust me, I would give all that up for 365 days of tropical splendor!

One snow storm in and here is what I miss aleady:

The smell of fresh cut grass
Warm summer breeze coming through my car windows
Margaritas and BBQ on the back porch
The sound of wind through the trees
The warmth of the sun on my face at the beach

And Bikinis, I think I will miss Bikinis most of all!  It's going to be a long Winter!

Clearing the Smoke from My Eyes!

I work in the food service industry and specifically I manage people who manage dining contracts at institutions of higher education.  On the surface, my industry seems simple.  I worked for someone once who said "at the end of the day it is really just about serving hamburgers and fries".  But in reality it is a very complex business where my day can be interwoven with discussions about multi-million dollar deals, an occasional labor issue, customer and client satisfaction challenges, and the development of strategic and tactical planning, and less challenging issues like cold oatmeal and fruit flies. 

What has a tendency to make the day-to-day dealings of my job more difficult at times is that we work for crazy people.  It is my believe that college campuses are islands of insanity, where insane people are hired and then allowed to thrive.  I have a client who expect's the leaves falling from the trees in October to be raked up as they hit the ground (I thought I was anal, but more about that in a minute); I have a client who pays us to run the business but then wants to be involved in every decision right down to the font style that we put on our menus; and I have a client who bases personel decisions not on experience or education but on looks and age.  One would think that college campuses are bastions of political correctness but mostly they are not.

I like my work most days and other than the occasional run-in with insanity, it is satisfying.  The stress in my work comes mostly from the unknown.  Not knowing when the call will come-in because my manager went off the deep-end at an event and threatened to kill the host; or the call from a client who has decided after a long partnership to take proposals from our compeitors because they feel we make too much profit,  I guess in reality I put out fires for a living!

On average a fire starts for me almost once a week and they are usually complicated enough to take several days or weeks to snuff out.  I did not set-out in the business to put out fires and I generally don't like doing it.  I know people who do like it and in fact they thrive on it.  I think these are the same people who like anarchy and find comfort in messes.  I am of the mindset that fires mean that someone has made a significant error and since that someone invaribly works for me, I made the error.  My desire to avoid failure outweighs everything about me and many would say that I am anal.  I like neatness and order and I expect everyone around me to be neat and orderly.  I wash my driveway; I will remow the lawn if my kids mow it and the lines are crooked; I refold the towels that are folded incorrectly before putting them away; I park and repark my car until it looks like I am positioned in the middle of the white lines; When I play golf, the area around where I am hitting the ball must be clean, I pick-up broken golf tees, leaves, twigs, wrappers, before I hit;  I may have issues!

I am getting better though, a dirty sneaker on the garage floor no longer sends me over the edge and I avoid looking into my kids bedrooms all toghether.  It's dealing with the stress of all this that has previously always led me to food.  In fact as I write this stuff now, I keep thinking "man I could really go for a Pizza" even though I just had lunch. 

This past weekend would have historically been a food-free-for-all event for me.  I had a long week last week with tons of issues and I have a stressful schedule this week.  My normal Friday night mindset on these occassions has been that I work very hard and deserve to have a nice meal (or meals), I owe this to myself!  Then as you can imagine, one bad meal leads to more bad meals, which lead to other bad health decisions, like two days of aggressive couch sitting.  This unsettled healthless period ends only when I am able to get it under control again.  I wonder what would happen if I never got control again!  I can see the headline now "Man Shot Dead after 12-state Twinkie Massacre".  But thankfully none of that happened this past weekend.  I went to WW Saturday morning and my wife and I had a great weekend of good healthy decision making!  I awoke this morning feeling very positive and alive!  So I am off to gather my fire hose and helmet to tackle the week ahead!

Humans, Amoebas, and Whales

I am going to try not to get too existential or philosophical today but I've been thinking recently about how funny it really is to be a human being.  Comparing humans to almost every other relatively well developed life form is an exercise in parody.  Yet the things that set us apart from other earthly co-inhabitants are not necessarily that vast.

All animals have one main purpose in life, to survive.  In the case of human beings, we all survive in our own way.  You've heard people say "I can't live without (fill in the blank)", and often that necessity of life is something ridiculous like mustache wax, or a subscription to Cosmo.  In reality what we can't live without is food and water and that's probably about it.  So we go about our animal existence with the sole purpose of survival occupying most of our time.  Or does it?  What about survival requires us to covet things that we don't really need; or makes us self medicate with alcohol, tobacco, food, or drugs, to feel better; or makes us get angry and throw small pets at the TV when the Bills lose!  It doesn't make any real sense does it?

If all we did was focus on survival like lions, tigers, and bears, (oh my!), life would be much simpler.  The gift of cognitive thought is what separates us most significantly from other animals.  This allows us to think, reason and remember, unlike an amoeba as an example.  Maybe some days life would be easier as an amoeba, there you are floating along in an unknown vat of liquid.  You travel only as the ebb and flow of the liquid that surrounds you moves.  You think nothing, you feel nothing, you have nothing, and your entire existence can last only seconds.  Is this better?  Are amoeba's happy? Do they know what happy is?  Who cares, in the end life for them is the same as it is for us.  It starts with some form of birth and ends in some form of death, and the middle part is completely filled with survival and the occasional wedge of cheesecake!  Okay maybe amoeba's don't eat cheesecake but I like to think that they would if they could!

I am happy to have the ability to think like a human (and I really like the opposable thumb thing too, it makes the remote control so much more enjoyable) and I think for now I'll keep working through life and figuring out the little nuances until the end comes. 

As a kid I was a huge fan of the book series by Douglas Adams called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  I have never forgotten one passage about a whale free falling from space at rapid speeds.  I laughed when I was a kid and it still makes me laugh, but it is also a very interesting way of metaphorically over simplifying our existence.

It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell:

The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!

That's all for now!

Sheep

My daughter commented yesterday that she thought the title of my blog was "feminine".  I am not sure why she thinks that, but it did help me realize that it would probably be beneficial to some if I explained my choice of titles and themes.

Sheep are animals who can generally be found standing peacefully in a field of grass with no purpose in life; and no direction that was not predetermined by a sheep dog.  Sometimes as life gets to me in the many ways that it does, I feel like a sheep aimlessly wandering around a field.  So metaphorically we may all be sheep.

When I started thinking about what I wanted my blog to represent, it's that paradigm that I found most interesting.  We were raised as sheep and we raise our kids to be sheep and every single day we allow society to make us more sheep like.  We need to accept responsibility for ourselves and not follow the path that everyone else follows.  At times that is easier said then done!  Mind you this is not a blog about rising up to overthrow the government like the animals overthrew the farmer in George Orwell's book Animal Farm. This is more the Pink Floyd song Sheep:

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air

You better watch out
There may be dogs about
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel

What a surprise
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets

For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water

Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old