Jesus – Lord of the Dump

My boys love for me to tell the story of how I thought I saw GOD as I was coming home from work one winter evening.  Traffic had been a bear, slowly creeping along, growling with the stop-and-go rumble of impatient engines.  The sides of the highway were littered with the wounded and exhausted, giving flesh to imaginings of the path through Dante’s Inferno.  Fumes rose and exhaust steamed in the cold, winter air.  After having battled my way down the expressway to my exit, my relief at having reached it was short lived as the 4-lane suburban thruway was also blocked by an accident.  Typically, by the time I reached the 4-lane road, traffic opened up all the way through to my turnoff.  Not that night.

A Beacon in the Night

Finding myself sitting still, anger simmering, stuck behind some SUV that could not be seen around, having no idea of the when or where of this new accident, I hit my steering wheel and cursed the situation.  WHY!  WHY AGAIN!  Growing ever more frustrated, I turned the radio to a news/talk station to see if the accident had been reported.  Of course, being way out in the ‘burbs, there was no mention of this new accident, of this fresh hell!

I hit the dashboard and slumped back into my seat, forehead in one hand, steering wheel in the other.  I closed my eyes and laid my head against the cold glass of the driver side window.  It shouldn’t take 2 hours to get home from work, I thought.

Someone honked their horn and I inched forward a couple of feet to once again sit and wait.  Trying to look ahead of the car in front of me, I saw a traffic light ahead and realized that I could possibly backtrack around traffic to get to the house.  A convoluted path, free of traffic, was better than a straight path at a dead stop.

Refusing to wait, I pulled onto the side of the road, slinging dirt and gravel, and drove to the turning lane.  Waiting my turn at the light, I finally turned out of traffic and onto an empty, country road.  Home loomed ahead, wrapped in the dark, winter night.  I navigated through the blackness of these roads, with only my headlights to light the way.  The roads had many twists and turns which I took at too great a speed as I raced to get home.

Feeling my way around a black curve, blinded by the night, I was stunned to see ahead of me a flame in the sky.  A column of fire, roiling and licking up into the brutal cold air.  Floating before me in silent brilliance.  Seeming to find me in the dark, not giving direction or advice.  Reds and yellows, blues and purples, intertwining in the living white light of this colossal flame.  I slowed the car, enveloped in this unbelievable sight.  Awed by this sight and reminded of the Exodus story of the Children of Israel led through the desert nights by the pillar of flame, I wondered to myself – Is this it?  Has time ended?  Is the game up?   Has CHRIST come again?  Is it JESUS?

It is at this point of the story that my boys begin to giggle.

As I pull closer to the flame, I realize that I am at a stop sign and sitting across from the county dump.  The flame before me is the methane burn off from the buried refuse of our little city.  I have not seen the CHRIST.  I have only seen the dump.

The boys howl.  They roll in the floor laughing at my gullibility.  I smile with them, a little chagrined at my naivete.  I also marvel at their faith.  JESUS is not a flame at the dump.  He is LORD of ALL.  How could you make such a silly mistake?  How could you be so easily fooled?  How could you not know him at first glance?

Even years after that cold winter evening, I am astounded and unable to answer the questions at the heart of their laughter.  Am I so ready to believe the ridiculousness of a flame in the sky, but not the reality of GOD in our everyday life?  How often to I miss seeing GOD at work in my life?  Do I really know him after all?

And yet, here I am still thinking about a flame in the sky.  A flame that appeared when I took a less traveled road.  A flame that came to me when I could not see.  It found me in my need.  It did not condemn or rebuke.  It found me at a crossroads, at a dump.  It towered over the refuse, purifying the stench, burning off the chaff.  It quieted my fear, but made we wonder at the state of my heart.

Children are so ready to believe, so accepting of faith, so impressed with the covering of the book that they don’t have to be convinced by the words inside.  We adults though, steeped in our failings and mistakes, are unwilling to understand the simplicity and profundity of belief and faith.  We see back over the littered roadways of our life, knowing the mistakes, clutching them to us as shameful children, unable to just let them go.  Afraid to admit our errors, scared to show our faults, fearful of a damning and vengeful creator.

I did not see GOD on that cold, winter night coming home from work – I encountered HIM.  HE came to me in a way that appealed to me on mulitple levels, with many meanings.  HE found me and showed HIMSELF in a way that was just for me.  I am a failed adult man, crippled with failings of the past.   I don’t know the answers.  I don’t understand the questions.  I can’t comprehend the depths of love and grace and forgiveness that are constantly afforded me by a loving, father GOD.

I only know this.  I believe in JESUS.  A flame burning bright over a world of refuse.  A light in darkness.  A purifier of uncleanliness.  A beacon in the night.  I believe.

Old Men

Old Men

About a month ago, we were in the mountains with our boys, camping with friends at one of our favorite state parks.  We’ve camped there many times before.  We knew the park, the lake, the hiking trails well.  But this year, it seemed at little different, a little more vivid and more real than camping trips of the past.  We didn’t do anything particularly new or out of the ordinary:  we fished in the creek, hiked the trails, swam at the lake, braved the weather and the bugs.

It happened one day as I was walking back from the lake to our tent.  I chanced to look up and was stopped in my tracks. Do you remember as a child, playing outside in the quiet of a summer day?  You didn’t really notice the silence, and then suddenly you were stuck by it, deafened by the seemingly impossible quiet.  Looking around, your childlike senses telling that it wasn’t that there was no sound, it was that all was white noise, like an ocean wave cresting, a cacophony of cicadas, droning on and on, washing over you.  I stopped in my tracks and saw the trees as if I had never seen them before.  Like the cicadas of my youth, it was as if I had been blind to the trees when suddenly they were there, presiding over us.

Surrounded by both the colossal and the new, I slowly moved amongst these verdant dignitaries, these silent sentries.  The dignity of their presence was overwhelming.  Like a lost child, I looked upward to find a familiar face amongst the strangers.  Finding none, I gathered my wits and quickly moved on to my safehaven.  There at the campsite, I couldn’t shake the strangeness of my realization.  The trees, arms uplifted, sheltering, shading, stood in groups and alone, like old men.  Old men, in faded overalls and old fashioned Sunday clothes.  Old men patiently biding their time, indulgently watching youngsters below.  Holding their tongues and keeping their comments to themselves.  Old men, waiting for….waiting…

Earlier in our stay we had taken the boys to the creek, where they had planned to catch a fish barehanded.  I sat and watched as they played in the clear water, the bright sunshine.  Now in recollection, it seemed that the trees too leaned in to watch the boys at their folly.  Old men straining to get a better look at these youth, still untarnished by disappointment.  Leaning in to give counsel and direction, to admonish and encourage.  And then, the high breeze moved through the trees like memories of old men telling tales and laughing, rocking slowly with the hilarity of their jokes.  Throwing back their heads and slapping their knees, sunburnished and gilded in the golden light of late afternoon, they roared their delight.

As we hiked the trails around the park, the trees stood reverently, in forests of their own thoughts.  Moving in worshipful single file, we climbed the mountains like walking cathedral aisles, the green leaves like myriad panes of stained glass.  The breeze flowing through the branches like the hallowed breath of GOD, ecstatically reinvigorating the immobile congregants.

Standing on the spine the mountain and looking down, there was a bittersweet moment of sadness.  We had made it to the top, and the old men, reaching upward, struggling against one another, straining toward the summit, they had not.  Looking down on them, they seemed to sigh, resigned to their circumstance, waiting for….waiting…

A Shave and a Haircut

The other day I was cleaning bathrooms after coming home to plumbing problems after a weekend of camping.  The master bath shower had sprung a leak and now we had a soggy ceiling in the dining room.  Awaiting a plumber friend to fix the problem sometime in the next week, my lovely bride and I are now showering in the boys bathroom – thus the bathroom cleaning.  Anyone with boys knows that no amount of regular cleaning can keep their bathroom clean enough for adults.

I was cleaning off their vanity counter top when one of the boys walked by, popped his head in, looked at me as if to say “what are you doing” and then walked on.  He needs a haircut, I thought.  I turned and looked at myself in the mirror and thought, I need a hair cut – a shave and a haircut.  I have worn a goatee for a couple of years now.  My wife likes it.  I think it gives my face some needed definition.  It also hides some of the weight I carry in my face.

As for my hair, well….let’s just say that I can cut my own hair with hand held clippers and just need to knock down the “weeds” as it were.  I gave up any dreams of being a hair model many, many years ago.  I’m not terribly vain about it, but I do miss having the option to wear my hair anyway I want.  I miss feeling my wife run her fingers through it.  I miss feeling the wind in it.  And being bald, middle aged and pudgy doesn’t make me a contender for Sexiest Man Alive anytime soon either.

My boys like to poke fun at me about my hair.  They chide me for being bald, asking what takes me so long when dressing for church, and reminding me to wear a ball cap when we go outside.  They snicker at me when I forget and get too much sun, burning my head to a bright red.  Admittedly, it’s not the best look for me.  They also like to take turns with the clippers,  shaving my head every couple of weeks to make sure that I don’t have some Greek fringe.  After the cut, they like the soft, close cropped fuzz that remains and they like to rub my head with their small, cool hands.

My wife doesn’t mind my hair.  She says it makes me look distinguished.  I think that is code for “there’s not a lot that you can do about it so make lemonade out of the lemons you’ve been given.”  I love her for handling me gently, and helping to maintain my facade.

I am brought back to reality as the oldest walks past the bathroom, giving me a pitying, questioning glance as he passes.  He needs a haircut too, I think.  Of late, my oldest has slowly begun to take more note of his hair.  Last summer, he got his first real haircut.  Not just a little boy trim, but a real cut that had some style to it, based on his input and suited to his face and lifestyle.  It looked great on him – slightly skater rad, clean enough for church, cool enough for school.  It hurt my heart.  My baby was growing up.  This 5lb. baby boy that I had brought home, was beginning to have a say in the way the world sees him.

Finished with the bathroom cleaning, I stood looking in the mirror, stroking my whiskered chin, staring at my deserted pate.  What is it about staring into a mirror that transports one to a place of deep and considered thought?  Is it the truth of the reflection, the unvarnished reality?  Is it that there is no hiding what is there in front of you?  That you can’t soothe with words, what you can see with your very own eyes?  Placing my hands on the cool marble of the vanity and leaning into the mirror I took a deep long look.  And instead of hair and whiskers and the beginnings of crows feet, I saw time slipping past.  I saw little boys growing up, finding their own way, pursuing their own dreams.  I saw precious moments lost to chores and work and traffic and computers and video games.  I saw meaningless disagreements, and thoughtless remarks, and neglected feelings.  I saw three boys and a woman who need me, and get irritated with me, and tolerate me, and in their own unique and humbling way, choose to love me in spite of myself.

I was reminded of small hands that slipped into mine to cross the parking lot.  Little feet standing on mine to dance around the house.  Sweet little kisses, hard hugs, scraped knees and stubbed toes.  I recalled sleepless nights hanging on the edge of a twin bed.  Standing in the men’s room while my little one tries to show me how he can “do it” himself.  I remember late night runs to the grocery store for diapers and tummy meds.  First steps and last bottles, first days of school and last days of nursery.  Wagons, tricycles, bicycles.  Crawling, toddling, walking.

In the nakedness of that moment, clarity loomed in the mirror.   Time is slipping past.  Weeds are beginning to grow.  I need a haircut – a shave and a haircut.  I need a change of look.  A change of outlook.

Fishing Around

Silver, sluicing, sun-dappled, the icy sliver of creek cuts through the center of the park before dog-legging over to the right.  Sun-kissed boys play in the shallow water, scheming to catch the slick, slithery fish that dart to and fro.  Sparkling patterns reflect on the surface of the water and again across the floor of the creek.  Rainbow Trout hover, floating in the water, watching, waiting, then shooting, slipstream through the water, stopping to hover again on the other side of the creek.

Standing in the water, poised to like lumbering giants, the boys plan their attack.  Surrounding the  flitting fish, unmoved by the rushing water, their strategy takes form.  They will corral the fish within the circle of their legs, quickly reaching into the bracing water to grab the hapless creature.

Lounging contentedly on the nearby bank, I watch the boys intently, smiling at their boldness, chuckling at their foolhardiness.  Never speaking, never offering advise, only watching from my Adirondack chair.  I wonder what the fish think.

A fishy existence must be one of manic relaxation and panicked motion.  Life within the thin layer of water between the inhospitable surface and the murky, mucky creek bed, but running in infinite horizontals.  Darting from one motionless floating rest to another, and then leisurely swimming up and downstream.  Staring intently at rocks and each other, while completely ignoring the alien intruders that drop in from the surface, only occasionally nibbling and then YANK!

The boys and their friends close in on the fish, smuggly trash talking and cajoling.  So smart.  So sure. So…

Dart!  Flash!

The fish zip through their legs, reconvening their floating conference on the other side of the creek.  The boys, empty handed, stare at the still rushing water and the rocks below, their unwitting prey having outwitted them.  Laughter and comments of amazed disbelief, jostling and attempts at pushing each other into the water, mark the end of their campaign.

Returning to camp to finish setting up our tents and campers, to count the things that we had forgotten or broken, we settled into easy chit chat, breezy summer reading and playful games of cards.  The fish forgotten.

Climb Every Mountain!

We have made our annual trek to the mountains, to spend a long weekend with friends and to enjoy the rustic flavors of the Appalachians.  After loading the van beyond capacity, and not realizing what we had forgotten, we hit the road for the long haul.  The trip is not so long, but watching the geography go from relatively flat to mountains seems to expand the duration of the trip along with the sharp curvy roads and inclines that slow us to a crawl.

We had fallen into a conversational lull having passed the last of suburbia when the road began its slow ascent.  Steepening inclines began as slight uphillls.  The engine began to strain against gravity as our van pulled us ever higher.  After climbing several long and sloping slants, we rounded a curve that opened to a panorama of the mountains ahead.  The view stole my breath and fired my soul.

The mountains lay like beautiful naked women, their legs and hips lounging languorously, teasing the evening sky.  The range stretched coyly across the horizon, coaxing the coming close of day.  Mountain peaks like supple breasts rose to softly touch the sky.  Pink and white dusk tinged clouds brushed across their tops, thrilling toward the final moments of the setting sun.  Gentle breezes amorously teased the summer leaves, intoxicating us with the perfume of their sighs.  The lush greens and sapphire blues like silky shimmering scarves yielding seductively to the zephyrs nuzzling the mountain slopes.  Higher and higher our van strided into the mountains, drawing ever closer to our destination.

The curves began to come faster and closer, rising higher and higher. Making quick, astute adjustments, the van hugged the road, gripping ever tighter with every turn.  Rise and curve, road and turn, accelerate and break, driver and vehicle, rocking from turn to turn, a rhythm was established.  Striving ever closer, our destination was within reach.  With one final acceleration, we topped the mountain, reaching our cabin in the woods just as the sun dropped from the sky.

The hood of the van steaming in the dewy darkness, we extricated ourselves from its cramped interior, happy to have finally arrived.

The Name Game

Last week, my bride and I attended an awards program for my middle son.  Ever the proud parents, we beamed and applauded each time his name was called.  Merit Roll for the year, Young Artist for the 4th grade, President’s Council on Physical Fitness Gold medal.  We tried to contain our genuine, but slightly smug adoration of this our blonde-headed, blue-eyed boy.  Sandwiched in between two academically gifted brothers, our middle son is the “normal” kid.  He didn’t read at 3 like his older brother, he’s not discussing the ethical dilemma presented by the existence of a Santa Claus that does not give the “bad” kids a lump of coal like his younger brother.  The middle one is normal.  He read, wrote, walked, laughed, tripped, fell, and ate paste all at the normal and customary times.  But, being between these other two, he sometimes feels…less than.  So it was with much pride and admonishment that we congratulated him on his 4th grade accomplishments and told him how we “knew” he could do it!

As the program drew to a close, my wife and I decided to eat with our son as the lunch hour had arrived and we wanted to continue to celebrate with he and his friends their many accomplishments.  Taking our trays to the lunch table and wedging ourselves onto the tiny stool-like seat beneath the smallish table, we sat opposite our son and his friends.  I looked at their bright faces, each smiling back, glad to have an adult at the table.  When parents eat with the students, the rules for talking and eating are eased so that the adults can chat with the kids without too many regulated interruptions.

So proud of my “normal” son, I began to have some doubts about his average friends.  It has been awhile since I have discussed the dating concerns of a 4th grade boy.  To hear them talk, they were really have a hard time determining which of the myriad of female classmates they liked, had dated, hadn’t dated, wouldn’t date, etc.  My son is not interested in girls at this point.  He still gets really mad when some of the little girls call him at home…and they do…already.  I was impressed to hear how many times one little boy had broken his arm.  But my awe turned to dismay as I looked down the table to see another little boy putting his fist in his mouth.  His whole fist, all the way into his mouth.  I stared.  He stared back.  Then he smiled.  This kid is going to be able to vote one day.

At the other end of the table was the studderer.  He was very excited to join in the conversation and so was telling us…I’m not sure what he was trying to tell us as he was never really able to get to the point.  But the other boys chattered on with him good naturedly, accepting of his speech impediment, and embracing him as one of “them”.  Beside the studderer, was another little boy that had shoved an entire orange section in his mouth.  Grinning from ear to ear, he wanted everyone to see what new thing he had learned to do with his food.

And then the conversation turned to my son and his middle name.  He doesn’t like it, which hurts me because I picked it out.  His friends all turned to me to tell them his middle name.  I found myself in something of a conundrum.  I also do not like my middle name.  But mine is stupid and dorky and will go to my grave with me if I have anything to do with it.  So here I am crammed at an elementary lunch table, sitting on the hot seat.

Will I tell them?  Should I tell them?  The kid with the orange grin pleads with his eyes.  The studderer tries to cajole.  The daters all consult with my son as they begin to guess.  There is a cork “pop” at the other end of the table as the kid with his fist in his mouth jerks it out to guess, “Is it Ethan?”

I look up and down at the row of boys, stopping at the smiling but  pleading face of my son.  “Don’t blow it Dad,” we both seem to be saying to ourselves.   There is an element of the cool factor in jeopardy here.  But I like his middle name.  It’s Emerson, like the American poet and essayist.  Emerson is one of my favorite writers and thinkers.  I picked it to bestow a sense of nonconformity into the mix of my son’s life.  And now, we sit facing each other, one begging the other for conformity.

I smile at the boys and tell them that my son will have to tell them his name.  Crisis averted.  Arsenals powering down.  A sigh of relief and a look of gratitude escape from my son, before cool indifference and nonchalance retake his expressions.

But, as lunch wound down and my wife and I readied to depart, I committed the unforgivable.  See, I have this habit of calling all of my sons by their first AND middle names.  As I got up from the table, I looked at my son and, calling him by both names, asked him if he had any input for dinner that night.  Stunned at my gaff, we both looked at each other, locked in stasis on the head of a pin, waiting for one of his friends to acknowledge what I had just done.  Like waiting for that loud crash of thunder after the flash of lightening.  Like waiting to breath after coming up from the deep end of the pool.  Had anyone heard me?

Nope, not a one.  The daters had turned back to their chaste love lives.  The studderer doggedly forged ahead with some tangent of a conversation.  The kid at the end of the table had already put his fist back into his mouth.  My son and I smiled triumphantly at each other.  “That was a close one , huh?”  I said.  “Yeah,” he laughed.

My wife and I left, waving to our son, who was too cool to wave back.

Signature Moments

The other night as my wife and I were settling down for the evening, my youngest son sheepishly sidled into our bedroom.  Wearily he rubbed at his eyes and lamented that he couldn’t sleep.  This has become somewhat of a routine since we moved into our new house.  Before we moved, the 2 little boys shared a bedroom.  In fact, the youngest has shared a room since he climbed out of the crib for the last time.  Sharing a room is all he had ever known.

When we decided to put the old house on the market, we were bursting at the seams.  We were 5 people, 1 dog and 3 cats, living in 12o0 square feet.  My wife and I had lived in our starter home for 14 years.  We bought it new, and broke it in good.  We brought all three of our babies home to that house.  But as the boys got bigger and we acquired more stuff, what once seemed like a house we would never fill up, became a house we had outgrown.  We needed another bedroom.  The 2 older boys were thrilled with the news.  The little one, not so much.

Over the next 2 and a half months, with a steady stream of lookers, we quickly sold our old house and purchased our dream home.  We set the time for closing on both houses.  Tears filled my eyes as we signed away our old house.  It still holds so many wonderful moments.  A few hours later on that very same day, we sat in another attorneys office on the other side of town signing another mountain of paperwork to become the proud owners of the house we had worked for so long.  Such moments are pivotal and precious and scary!

My wife and I were unaware of what a pivot point our move was to our youngest son.

At first he was afraid to be upstairs alone.  Whenever he discovered that we were all downstairs, he would call out, freak out, and then come running down the steps, tears streaming.  Sleeping in his own room has been no better.  Every night, he comes to tell us that he:

• can’t sleep
• heard something
  • under the bed
  • in the closet
  • outside his window
  • on the other side of the wall (he sleeps on the second floor with nothing on the other side of the wall but air)
• is thirsty
• is bored
• is tired but can’t fall asleep
• can’t get comfortable because:
  • it’s too hot
  • it’s too cold
  • the covers are messed up
  • the cat is bothering him
  • the dog won’t get off his bed

We get it.  He’s scared.  Usually, we encourage him to go back and try again, but after 3 or 4 tries and numerous glasses of water /monster exterminations / closet and drawer reviews….sometimes we lose our patience.  Finally, I will walk him back to his room, tuck him in, turn on his small desk light, stretch out in the floor, and read.

Lately I’ve been reading him a book on…well…um…the Declaration of Independence.  It knocks him out.  I’ve really enjoyed reading about the behind the scenes maneuvers that led up to the signing of this historic document.  The other night, I pulled out the replica copy of the Declaration included with the book and looked at all the names.  Spotting Thomas Jefferson’s, I wandered to myself if he was scared when he signed.  Did he feel the magnitude of the moment?  Was he afraid of the unknown ushered in by his signing?  Did he know how significantly he was changing history?  Was he afraid of the looming darkness?

As I lay in the floor looking at the document illuminated in the circle of light cast from the desk lamp, I glanced up and looked around my son’s bedroom and recalled the signing of the closing documents to buy this house.  I remembered feeling the weight of the world as we agreed to 30 years of commitment.  I remembered trying to quiet the butterflies as we sat at the conference table with realtors and attorneys awaiting finalized financial documents. I remembered looking bravely into the unknown future and wondering what new histories this house would bring.

Softly, a deep contented breath signaled that my son had faced his darkness and bravely soldiered forward.  Conquering his fear, he had slipped peacefully into sleep.  Our nightly routine concluded.

Now, I’m not trying to equate the historical significance of these individual events in the global sense.  But on a human, personal level, where we really are all the same, how can one diminish facing fear, no matter the age or lifestage or even historical significance.  These are the signature moments that life is built on.

My son turned over, resting up to face tomorrow’s challenges.

Bitty

We have a new kitten.  Not because we wanted one.  Not because we needed one.  Not for any other reason but that I am married to Ellie Mae!  Apparently a mother cat had abandon its kittens outside of a house in our neighborhood.  The boys and one of their friends found the kittens while they prowling the neighborhood late one afternoon after school.  Being the tenderhearted boys that they are, they immediately ran to us parents to plead for the lives of these kittens.    Well they ran to find their mother.  They knew what I would say.  My wife though, they knew how to play her.  How could she say no to these sweet little boys?

My wife is a soft touch.

Now, I don’t say this lightly.   I’ve know my wife for almost 20 years.  She is a smart, kind, beautiful woman.  She could have done much better than me.  But, she has a soft spot for strays and goofy guys!

Don’t get me wrong here – I like animals, but I prefer some distance to them.  My oldest son is the same.  But my wife and the two younger boys, they are nuts for the pets.  Currently, in addition to the new kitten, we have a black lab, and 2 other cats.  Over the years we’ve had  any number of stray cats and dogs take up at our home.  Each greeted by my wife and the little boys with exuberant joy and promises of renewed responsibility.  Once we even had an Opossum try to take up residence with us.  The ‘possum found the cat’s food on the deck and managed to walk the food bowl across the deck toward the backdoor as it ate.  We heard scratching at the door, and opened it to let the “cat” in.  But when the possum poked it’s nose in  and tried to come in….well, let’s just say it decided that the shrieking of the people in the house was more than it was willing to put up with!

So we are adjusting to life with a brand new kitten that still needs to nurse and cuddle with it’s mama.  And who, you may ask, is the new mama?  ME!  Even as I write, the kitten is circling on my chest, routing around under my chin.  She likes to bite my ears and my lips.  When I write on my laptop in the living room, she likes to sleep on my shoulders, between me and sofa cushions, or by cramming herself between my hip and the sofa arm.  At night when I’m trying to sleep, she kneads at my chest and bites at my lips.

It’s cute and it’s sweet, but it’s surprising too.  My wife has always been the favorite.  The boys, the animals, the In-laws (both mine and hers) all like her the best!   But this sweet little kitty has chosen me.  Apparently she doesn’t know that I’m the authoritarian, the yeller, the kill-joy, the realist.  She has decided to follow me around the house like her momma.  I’m ashamed to say that I’ve stepped on her twice and, in a drowsy stupor early one morning, slung her across the room when she bit my lip.   But, other than that, we are still enjoying a honeymoon period.

Welp – Bitty has decided that this article is finished.  Yeah, I named her Bitty ’cause she a witty, bitty, wittle sweetie baby, yes she is! (Scratch, scratch, cuddle, cuddle.)  She’s swatting at my fingers as I type and has become intrigued with the letters appearing across the page.

I guess we will keep her, for a while anyway.

Swinging in the Rain

It has been a rainy Memorial Day holiday here at home.  Not a steady downpour, but enough to keep everything wet, with a tinge of cold.  The weeds in the flowerbeds seem to be relishing the situation, visibly and defiantly propagating themselves right under my nose.  The mornings have been gray and dim, giving way only to a slightly brighter afternoon.

I am not a fan of rain.  I know that we need it.  I realize its value.  I still don’t like it.

I was hoping for a fun holiday weekend.  We had hoped to invite some friends over to cookout, laugh, have a couple of drinks and enjoy the freedoms purchased this day.  Instead, I stare out the window of my office as the misting rain drifts through the backyard, rain dripping from the seats of the boys’ swings, drops circling the edges of the patio table to slide down an arbitrarily chosen leg.

Arbitrary.  Random.  Chance.  Willful.  Seems like the rain is a grand metaphor for life at the moment.  So many things seem to be out of reach, just beyond control, of their own mind.

Yesterday afternoon in the quiet of the house as we all took advantage of the day of “rest”, I sat at my desk, again looking out the window at the intermittent rain.  My flower beds revealing bright green intruders, embolded by the rain.  Out of the corner of my eye, just over my shoulder and out the window, I saw movement.  A flash of white.  A zig-zag through my peripheral vision.  I looked down to see my youngest son running through the yard toward the treehouse/swingset.

Arbitrary.  Random.  Chance.  Willful.  He ran for his favorite swing.  Picking up the seat, he emptied it of the standing water, an unexpected and overly tidy action for this slapdash boy.  Satisfied that it was now “dry”, he sat down, leaned back and kicked off.  He swung, high and reaching.  Stretching his legs forward, turning his face toward the sky, smiling into the rain as it softly fell on him.

Back and forth, up-down-up, he swang for some time.  I watched him from my office perch.  “That little stinker,” I thought.  “I told him not to do that when he asked, because he’s got a little spring cold.”  My brow wrinkled as I tallied the cost of a doctor’s visit, medicine, the coughing and not sleeping.  I looked back out the window.  He continued to swing, smiling and stretching with each motion.

My brow began to smooth as I realized the joy of the moment for him.  Nothing else seemed to matter in his little world.  This was the totality of his world.  I remembered how, as a child and then latter in high school, my sister and I would steal away to a park nearby, late in the night, and we would swing.  These stolen moments of freedom, underscored by the joy of the wind on our skin.  Reaching the thrilling apex of the motion and then falling backwards through the air to try again.  The streetlights spotlighting our childlike rebellion.  My sister and I would swing, and talk, and wish.  We would reach and lean, reach and lean, strive and want, strive and want.  We would smile and fall, smile and fall, paying no mind to the pendulum that ticked away as we swang.

I looked back to the swing and my son was gone.  The moment over, the only artifact a slowly rotating swing, blowing in the gently falling rain.  I reran the numbers in my head to add in the sweetness of the moment, the joy of the motion, the defiance of the act.  I realized the net gain in the moment, and began to understand the medicinal value of my son’s act.  How swinging in the rain can be salve for the soul, a rewinding of the clock.

Beatings of the Heart

My seven year-old has been working on his end of the year project for his gifted class.  He picked the heart.  Last year, he picked the brain.  I hope I’m not seeing a trend that I won’t be able to afford….but I digress.  We’ve worked on his project for the last few weeks, researching what the heart is, what it does, how it works.  It’s physical complexities revealed itself to my son in many ways.  I am more struck by the metaphysics of this wondrous organ.

And then my wife finds a butcher nearby that is willing to give us a pig’s heart to go on display with the boy’s project.  Porcine hearts are very similar to human ones in the physical sense.  I remember when Atlanta’s favorite son, Lewis Grizzard, had to have a cardiac valve replaced in his heart with one from a pig.  He asked if he would feel differently about barbeque afterword.

My wife brought the heart into the kitchen in a cooler, moving to get a steel baking sheet to display it on.  Donning latex gloves she had purchased for this project, she placed the grizzly assemblage on display in the middle of the breakfast table.  The boys, like vultures, swooped in to ogle and poke at the naked organ lying there on the metal slab.  How fascinated they were.

My mother called me today to tell me that a friend of the family had died last night.  Friend of the family may not be right.  It imports that there was a process of selection on our behalf.  There wasn’t.  He was a nice man.  I’m sure under different circumstances our families might have become friends.  But here again, we had no control over those circumstances either.  It’s strange – what do you call the man that received your brother’s heart?

Ten years ago this July, my little brother died in a tragic and senseless incident in the parking lot of a shopping center.  He was hanging out with his friends, trading barbs and smack talk with others hanging out in the same parking lot.  But he shouted out one too many, and assigning an unfortunate title to the sister of a local hothead, he found himself in a headlock that ultimately took his life.  The arteries in the back of his head were ruptured when the young man wrenched my brother’s neck around.  His life’s blood began to slowly weep into his cranial cavity.  He was 16.

By the time the police arrived on the scene, my baby brother lay on the asphalt, posturing, as his body tried to make sense of the garbled messages from his ruined brain. In the months of legal procedings that followed, we saw the video from the police cruiser, brutal in its clarity.  He lay on the ground as anonymous feet and legs rushed past him.  People tried to attend him, moving at a glacial pace in comparison to the speed of his destiny.  We, his family, believe that he died that July night, there on the scene.

But there is a mighty GOD and he was at work in that moment.  Miraculously, the EMTs were able to restart my brother’s heart.  He was lifeflighted to one of the country’s best trauma centers, where for 4 days we awaited the fateful news that he was indeed gone.  His body labored on only in response to the timed mechanical workings of the equipment that lined the walls of his room.  Ultimately we donated his organs and tissues, as was his wish.  We were told by the organization that handled the harvesting and transplanting of his vital organs, that there would be no contact between us and the recipients unless the recipient initiated it, and then on an anonymous and impersonal level.  We were heart broken by this sudden and tragic loss.  Mother was devastated and slowly settled into a numbed denial that ended only a couple of years ago.

Like navigating land mines, we picked our way through the next weeks and months.  We reached out to each other in our limited ways, not really turning to each other, but rather just being transported individually to our new destinations on the same lurching vehicle.  We marked the firsts.  His first birthday, only weeks after his passing.  The first thanksgiving.  The first Christmas.

Then, with the new year, came a new explosion, as riveting and horrifying and thrilling as the one the previous July.  The family of the man that received my brother’s heart found us.  They had followed the story in the news and put the puzzle pieces together.  We had been told that my brother’s gift of his body had brought renewed life to a young mother who had been awaiting a liver.  He had given sight  and bone marrow.  He had given hip and shoulder joints.  We knew his heart had gone to an older man.  We never dreamed we would meet him.

And now today, Mother called to say that this man had passed away.

How do you mark this moment?  What do you do?  What do you say?  I asked Mother how she felt.  She said that she didn’t know.  The man that had received the heart of her young son taken too soon, has now departed this human plane.  My brother’s heart is now at rest.  What do you feel?  What can you say?

It puts my youngest son’s project in a different light now.  That heart lying there still, on that metal sheet, being looked at with wonder and awe.  A heart the once pumped and bled life.  Now lying lifeless.  Solemn and cold.  Without function, no longer with purpose.

My boys never really knew, nor can they remember, my brother.  They hear me talk about him.  They know his name, but little else.  What significance can little boys assign to a life lost long ago?

My son gave his presentation today.  He told his classmates about the amazing heart.  He demonstrated its size with his little hands, and showed them how it pumped blood throughout the body.  He told them where they could find their pulse and how that showed the beating of their heart.

I guess the news of the day has revealed the beating of my heart, too.