Empathy, Loss, and the Social Contract

So, I get it, it's part of the human condition we must say something in times of great loss. It was one of my least favorite parts of dealing with losing Jake. The well meant, banal platitudes. Saying something, while essentially saying nothing.

Fortunately no one to my memory trotted out my least favorite of these "I know how you feel." Really, no, you don't... The only people, I would've accepted that from, my parents, said, we understand losing a child, but not at the level you guys do. Taking nothing away from their grief at the loss of their eldest child, my brother survived 40 hours before he passed. Jacob was a year and half. 

Grief, the process of accepting, understanding, and coming to terms with the loss of someone we love, is a unique, and individual journey. I know how I feel/felt about the loss of my grandmother and grandfather. Losing them was like losing two of the brightest stars in my sky. Compass points I could always turn to on my journey, if I felt I was getting lost. However, I can't presume I understood that loss to the same level as my mother and her siblings did. It's different, it just is, the nature of the relationship colors everything, including how you grieve. 

No one who comes into my life now will understand the dynamic of my grief over Jacob. And even Traci's grief, is different than my own. We are getting closer and closer to this divorce being fully realized and finalized, but I can't imagine no matter where life takes us as we travel separate roads for the first time in half our lives, that we won't check in with each other and probably share some tears every August and February. 

And even people offering advice and well meaning platitudes about the divorce don't understand either. Because while every divorce is generally the same, the relationships being separated by it are different. Traci and I spent the bulk of our married life getting by, waiting for the next crisis, and alternately leaning on/needing each other and hating/blaming each other for the problems we each saw. We never learned to communicate effectively, to work on what pulled us together in the first place, and to attack the problems while they were small chips, before they were major cracks.

That being said, I've seen that woman carry me on her back walking through Hell, laughing at the devil the whole way...She has iron in her veins. But she is also soft as butter on the Fourth of July. In our 16 years together, she taught me strength. I am forever indebted to her for that.

I know as I begin to let go of all these things I cling to, out of familiarity I will eventually come out the other side, brighter, stronger, more fully realized. I'm finding outlets for the grief, using it to begin growing, to begin rebuilding.

So be patient with me, share those well meant words of encouragement about how it'll get better, I'll be ok...but understand if I grumble about it.

Who knows, I may yet grow enough to not refer to the last year and a half as The Darkest Timeline. Maybe I'll grow, change, adapt, and look back at this time, and see all the points of light I can't/don't/won't see and I'll notice them, realizing how well lit this road really is.

Meanwhile the only way out is through, right, so I shuffle on, taking the steps, moving forward, only occasionally backward. 

What Being a Dad Means to Me

Being a dad is the single best thing I have ever done in my life. I look back on the days my two sons were born as the happiest and proudest moments of my life. With my wedding day and my college graduation as close seconds.

James Caan once said in an Esquire interview that he knew his dad had made some mistakes with him; and that he had made some mistakes with his own kids; but that one day if every generation learned from the previous one's mistakes one day there would be a perfect Caan.

That is maybe the best single quick answer to the idea of what being a dad - or a parent, period- really is. To me it is the absolute essence of the idea.

It hasn't always been the easiest or least stressful part of my life, but it is the single best thing I do as a part of my day. Watching my sons grow and helping to teach them things as they do is the most amazing thing ever. It gives me such an amazing feeling to watch either one of them learn a new skill. It is also fun to sort of compare the way they learn things. I know Tommy has a whole different set of challenges than Matty but they both have their own little flair to doing new things.

Matty always seems to be seeking validation when he picks up a new skill he seems like he is showing it off to us and looking at us like, isn't this cool mom and dad.Tommy seeks less validation, merely doing something new and letting mom and dad realize he has done it. Then the two of us cry over another victory, however big or small.

Watching my boys grow up I can't wait for the days when I can take them hunting and fishing with me. At Mass awhile back they were honoring the Cub and Boy Scouts from the church's troop and I was hit with just how badly I couldn't wait for my own boys to be big enough for Scouts and how much fun we could have.

Being a dad for me is also a reflection on my own father. He was a great example for me to learn from and try to live up to. Sometimes Traci gets mad over me not knowing how to do some "manly" chore and asks why I don't know how to do it. Things like that certainly are within my dad's skill set usually, but not mine. But that fault is all mine. I didn't take an interest in finding out how to do those things.

With all of that in mind, I guess I have to say my dad is obviously a big part of who I am and how I got that way. Because of my dad I learned a lot of things:

Things like:

• If you throw your pinewood derby car together at the last-minute so the paint is still drying as you race it, you are guaranteed to win. As opposed to the car you worked on for months the next year which didn't even win its qualifying heat. 
• Guns are to always be treated with respect and as the potentially deadly instruments they are. Briefly forgetting that lesson led to my gun privileges being temporarily, embarrassingly revoked once.
• I also learned that dry heaving over the mere idea of gutting your deer is a good way to sucker your son into getting his hands dirty. 
• My dad was also the one who taught all of us how to drive, which was probably a good thing I'm not sure my mom had the patience to do that. 
• I also learned that Tom Clancy is in fact a decent writer, it took awhile but I finally managed to get through one of his books and then I was hooked.

I guess what I am trying to say in all of this is that being a dad has been the greatest blessing of my life. I remember walking from the hotel to the hospital with my dad after Tommy was born and talking about being a dad and what it all meant.

Happy Father's Day everyone.

Musings on Mothers

With Mother's Day approaching I thought I would take sometime to reflect on motherhood, from the male perspective, or perhaps just to honor a few mothers I know.

First obviously would be my own mother. She has always been a tough cookie. I think she beat up every boy in her neighborhood when she was growing up, except my dad, and probably only because she liked him. We all know she loves us, but sometimes she can't express it maybe. But I remember once when I was maybe five years old, sick with the flu, just feeling rotten. She got home from work and she took care of me, cuddling me and making sure I was as ok as I could get. I wish I had some of that backbone she has, because I can be pretty weak willed at times and that bothers me.

One thing I did get from her is my faith, I can gripe about the fact I was behind in some of my sacraments, but she made sure I got them. I remember my sisters helped her out in teaching Sunday School. She taught the First Communion class and I finally got a chance in the last year or two she taught it to be her aide. I always liked that. In addition to just being able to help my mom out it was neat to teach the next generation some solid Catholic theology and respect for the Eucharist.

I also remember when I said I wanted to be an Altar Boy, she about died. Telling me I had a hard enough time getting through Mass as it was, she was probably right but the Lord usually kept me on my best behavior when I was on the altar.

For a stretch of my life Saturday late mornings into the early afternoon were our time. We would take her old Trans Am out wash it up, pay some bills and head to the library, or the mall, running errands and hanging out. Whatever we had to do that day we always ended it at Sonic for a cold drink. Good Times.

She's always good for advice too. I remember walking with her before my wedding and talking things out. I needed someone just to tell me to pull my head out and just enjoy the day. Then when Tommy was born I remember asking her how to deal with all of it. She gave me some great advice that I still use today, just get through the next minute, until you get through an hour than keep piling those up until you make it through the day.

So for all the times I have forgotten to say it over my last 30 years. I love you, mom. Thanks for being there, thanks for making sure your kids had someone we knew we could count on.

Of course she had a great example. My Memaw, was a saint whether the Catholic Church ever recognizes it or not. She had to have been to have raised 6 kids and dealt with my grandfather and not killed anyone :-).

I like to think of Memaw before she got sick, but somehow I think she taught me more when she was sick.

I remember when we would go see her at work sometimes, she always had the hook up for a Dum Dum pop. She was always so quiet I think it scared me the handful of times I heard her raise her voice. I think my favorite memory of her has really very little to do with her, other than she and Papaw were present at the time.

My dad and I had got up super early and left Las Cruces headed to Carlsbad for deer hunting, we were hunting our way to grandma's house essentially. We got to their house a little while after hunting had ended for the day and Memaw had a big thing of spaghetti waiting for us. I ate for all I was worth that night, best meal of my life.

Ask me sometime about my other story involving Memaw and deer hunting...but be warned its a little rough....

I still miss her, as we all do, it's hard wanting to show off my boys and my wife and not being able.

Speaking of my wife, how she does what she does I don't know. She is another tough cookie. She wears herself so thin working full-time and then giving her boys everything she has left till bedtime. We have two sons but like most women will tell you she is raising all of us.

But she puts up with me roughhousing the boys all over the house before bedtime on Monday nights for Living Room Wrestling. She puts up with my inability to throw things away immediately, I like to gather it all in at the end of the day, she hates that.

She takes care of all of us in ways she shouldn't have to. Somehow she just grits her teeth and throws her shoulder into it and gets it all done.

I don't think she believes me when I tell her I love the quiet grace she has about herself. She is my anchor. We make a perfect pair seeing as I usually have my head in the clouds and she has her feet firmly on the ground.

I know sometimes I do things that just make her so mad she would like to throw bricks at my head, but she hasn't....yet.

Her boys, all three of them, but especially the little guys just can't wait for Momma to get home at the end of every day. It's like the mommy tug of war as everyone wants a little piece of her. I worry that the two little ones are going to literally slug it out over her lap someday soon.

I know that God blessed me with more than I deserve when He made her fall in love with me. I just pray that someday He will let me pay it all back to her.

It cracks me up, but makes me a little jealous too, that when mommy is home the little man wants nothing to do with daddy. Sometimes she gets home and can't take him right away he will crawl down the hall, saying mom with his every move....cutest thing ever.

I have been blessed, I have gotten to see three truly amazing moms at work and am thankful for their influence and love in my life as it has helped to shape me into the man I am slowly becoming. I had hoped the process would be quicker, but alas.

So tell your mom you love her today, tell her how much she means to you, you might not have many more chances left.

Happy Mother's day to all you mother's out there. You are the first teachers of your children and their first examples of so many things, cherish those duties.

Tough To Swallow

Today was an interesting day here at the Musing's Mansion. After a bunch of discussion on the benefits and many false starts at getting one done, Tommy finally had a rehab swallow study.

To catch you up, if you need it, basically because of his craniofacial issues Tommy's ability/ease of swallowing things in his mouth has long been questioned and worried over. He had been working at school with his speech therapist getting small tastes of certain foods (yogurt, pudding, things of that consistency).

Daddy was left out of the actual exam, because I had to stay in the waiting room with Matty, but it wasn't to long before I got to go back and watch the video of the x-ray as he was fed. After a couple of nice successful swallows, there it was: one very bad, swallow that gulped the barium laced pudding down into his wind pipe.

Tommy had aspirated. He didn't even try to clear his windpipe or cough as the stuff went down. That is not good. So he officially has an uncoordinated/unsafe swallow. All is not lost to be sure. While the result was a disappointment, it isn't the end, it doesn't mean he can never eat it just means we need to back it off and work a little slower and perhaps train his swallow.

Perhaps the bad news is that the little goon is a silent aspirator. That might not be the best thing. But knowing he does aspirate perhaps alot of the times he has been "sick" have been aspiration related and not a real sickness.

It's another piece of the Tommy puzzle in place, another part of the present unwrapped, but I am not sure I liked the gift. So now we go back to square one and we work in little tiny tastes that he won't have to swallow and we build from there.

Meanwhile this evening Matty mowed down Cheerios like they were going out of style, ate a jar and a half of baby food, had a cookie, and his first piece of cooked pasta. It comes so easy for the little booger and Tommy has to work so hard at everything. Sometimes I wonder if big brother gets a little jealous of everything little brother can do already. I wonder if Tommy even understands jealousy.

I have to think he does. The other night his old care attendant came by with her daughter and baby daddy. Now, before the baby daddy, his care attendant was all his. Well he got us to give him to her and he climbed in her lap and stared her baby daddy down like "Whatchu gonna do about it...?" It was so cute, he knew exactly who to look at with a big old turd-eatin' grin plastered on his face like he was saying "Haha I showed you."


So the Church has patron saints for everything right, well, St. Blaise is the closest I can find for Tommy's issue. Anyone else got another...??

Saint Blaise, pray for us that we may not suffer from illnesses of the throat and pray that all who are suffering be healed by God's love. Amen.

I Wasn't Ready for That.....

This post deals with all the things that have happened in the three and a half years since I posted this:

The first part of the story is here

Little did I know that a week or so after that initial post I wasn't worried whether or not Tommy grew up a 49er fan. Reality crashed down on Traci and I hard after that. Tommy was born with Holoprosencephaly and owing to that he was born with a cleft lip and palate and deformities of his hands, feet and ears.

When the doc hands you your son and tells you there are problems before letting you hold your firstborn child, your whole world stops and shrinks to about the size of a half-filled balloon. Traci and I each hurried questions at our doctor, what problems, what do you mean, what, why, how.

It feels like getting punched in the face by Muhammad Ali. Everything catches in your throat. Your breath and your stomach meet around your Adam's apple. Then you start looking, looking for anything you recognize as part of yourself or your spouse.

Then the guilt comes. Did I/we do something to cause this? What did we do wrong?  

Tommy's face was the first one I had ever seen with an open cleft. Kid looked like he had lost a fight with Wolverine.  After my eyes adjusted to the reality of his face, I saw how beautiful he was. Tommy and I soon took to walking the halls of the family birth center while the doctor and nurses tended to Traci's follow-up checks. Mostly because I had to get out of that room.

Traci and I talk about it now: It's like Tommy died in that room. He didn't but the real Tommy wasn't our idealized Tommy either. In fact when the nurses asked us for his name I couldn't say it. I just kept thinking this isn't my Tommy.

The rest of that day is a blur as are the five weeks he was in Spokane at Sacred Heart. I do remember that first day after he and I got there on the helicopter and he was situated being sent down to the cafe with a meal ticket and zero cash. The meal ticket didn't cover my selection and I just started tearing up. The lady at the register just said don't worry about it and sent me along my way.

I remember trying to eat, being overwhelmed with grief and being so lonely. I had been taken an hour and a half from my wife with our child; my parents were en route to us but still probably in New Mexico. Her mom was supposed to come the next day. I was alone. I used the last little bit of life in my cell to call Traci and check on her.

I was so happy to see her when she finally got released from the hospital and was driven up to Spokane. I was whole again, battered but whole. We went to see Tommy sleeping peacefully in the NICU. We went back to the Ronald McDonald rooms at SHMC and tried to rest. My parents got in late that night/early the next morning and I got them situated at the hotel and took them to see Tommy, before I attempted to sleep on the hard floor of the room.

As I said the next five weeks were a blur of rounding doctors and tests and our little man's first surgery. I know August happened in 2007, but I don't remember much of it.

As for everyone in our community the outpouring of love and support they gave us was like a life raft in a raging sea. I know we will always hold Moscow special in our hearts regardless of where we end up.

So that covers the early days of Tommy, but now not only do we have Tommy but he has a little brother. He and Matty are co-presidents of the mutual admiration society.

"As The Young Man Held The Warm,
and Sleeping Bundle To His Chest,
he Saw The Imperfections,
and Although He Tried His Best,
he Couldn't Stop The Tears From Falling,
as He Held His Little [boy]
and In A Low And Trembling Voice,
he Gently Said These Words;

you're Beautiful In Every Way, So Beautiful.
how I've Waited For This Day.
if The World Was Offered To Me,I Just Couldn't Make The Trade.
cause You're Beautiful."

Bob Carlisle