June 22nd

 Today is Kris’ birthday.  He would have been 31.  On the morning he was born, I was staying with my grandparents.  My grandma had to wake Jake and me up to tell us we had a phone call.  I held the phone up to my ear as the sun shined through the kitchen window.  It was good news.  I remember the moment as if it had happened this morning. 

We get together every year on his birthday for dinner.  When we were all kids, pizza was how we celebrated every birthday.  For several years after Kris died, we kept this pizza tradition going.  This year we are changing things some and going to a centrally located park for a picnic and games for the kids.  The weather should be perfect with partially cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70’s.  Everyone is planning on being there. 

This year we almost had a major scheduling conflict with Nancy’s family.  Fortunately everything worked out when the other event was moved.  Actually, I didn’t even know about the conflict until it had already been resolved.  Even so, I was pretty frustrated about it and glad I wasn’t forced to make a choice.  This was a bit of a jolt that gave me some time to think about this yearly tradition with my family and what it means to me. 

Over the years, and for several reasons, the gathering has evolved to represent more than just Kris’ birthday.  The biggest reason is that most of the people coming tonight never met Kris.  When he died, almost 10 years ago, our family consisted of 10 people, including six adults, one teenager and three grandchildren under the age of three.  Now there are 11 grandchildren, none of whom have memories of their uncle Kris.  Additionally, the teenager, now 25, will bring along his girlfriend and her young daughter, bringing this year’s total up to 20 people. 

Since most of the people attending know or remember Kris only from stories and photos, change is inevitable.  Additionally, this is often the only family event everyone makes an effort to attend, and because most of my mom’s sons have birthdays in the summer, this celebration is almost as much for all of us who are there, as it is for the one who is not. 

That is not to say that Kris’ birthday will be pushed aside or forgotten in any way.  Oh no, my mother will never allow that.  She will have a big sheet cake with candles for the grandchildren to blow out.  She will have balloons for each child to release into the heavens at the end of the day.  She may even make everyone sing the happy birthday song, though this is less likely as the years roll on. 

In reality there was no scheduling conflict at all.  Tonight, like last year, and the years before, like next year and every year following, I’ve already chosen what I’m doing on the evening of the 22nd of June.  Regardless of what the weather is like, or what else is going on, or who else is there, I will be at dinner with my mother and brothers, celebrating the birth and life of my brother Kris. 

This isn’t an obligation for me, nor will it ever be an event I will just make an appearance at before quickly heading off to something else.  I go because I want to go and because it is important to me.  I go because I want to remember my brother’s birthday and because my other brothers will be there too.  I go because, well, even if there is no pizza, I like birthday parties.

Simple Ties

 
This is a repost from my old blog that is no more.
First posted 06-17-09

Last week we had the opportunity to tour the brand new Oquirrh Mountain Temple, prior to its dedication later this summer.  As we walked through, I pointed out to my daughter how the base molding changed subtly as we went through from room to room.  I have always been interested in the simple symbols used in architecture, used to demonstrate the importance of one area in relation to another.

In almost any building you can find simple things, like vaults or intricate flooring or larger windows, designed to accentuate and bring attention to an important area or room.  In our house the nicest molding is in the dining room.  It is still simple, but layered and painted in a way that gives the room prominence.

When we first moved into this house, we ripped out all base and casing of almost the entire upstairs.  We replaced the old, 2 ½”base with a simple, tall, flat molding that has a routed bead at the top.  Tonight as I sat in the baby’s room, rocking him to sleep, I noticed again how good it looks and thought about how well it fits us and this house.  Next to the original, single panel doors, it looks especially good, like it has always been here.

Like all out of control home improvement projects, we made this as complicated as possible by doing the trim a little different in almost every room.  Some rooms have wainscot, some rooms have crown molding or chair rail, and some rooms have bead board, etc.  To tie everything together, we always used the same 7 1/2” flat baseboards with the same 3” casing around the doors.

Earlier this evening, before dinner, our oldest son had been sent to his room for the night.  Later, Nancy decided he should be allowed come up to eat dinner with the family.  Her reasoning was that dinner is the only time we spend, sitting and eating together.  She is worried that this daily tradition of eating dinner as a family is losing its important place as our only time each day to come together and share the stories of our busy days.  In time, she persuaded me and up our son came to spend an hour, eating with the family.

This dinner together was nothing unusual as far as dinners go: always good, always loud, always entertaining.  Tonight we enjoyed a large loaf of delicious bread from a new recipe.  While we ate, one child told of his visit to Nana’s house, another child, dressed in her dance leotard and tiara, told us about her first day at piano lessons, and one child, wanting the dinner to last as long as possible, ate very, very slowly.

Though this meal together could be considered fairly typical, it can also, in very subtle ways, be considered a new beginning for us.  What it lacked in originality, it made up for in resolve.  Tonight was, in fact, history in the making.  Though we have eaten together thousands of times before, today it was forever set, no matter what, each day, as a family, we will always enjoy at least one meal together.

Once, a long time ago, and years before I had a family of my own, I saw a billboard in Chicago.  The message was clear to me then, and still rings just as true today.  It read, “A family that prays together, stays together.”  Yes, giving thanks, with and for your family, is essential because it, among other things, creates bonds that help to hold, or tie us together.  And it is to these ties that we can add depth and variety by stopping once a day, and sitting for a time in one another’s company, by telling stories, worries, and experiences, and by daily, with the ones we love, breaking and sharing a warm loaf of bread.

Letting Go

It was dark when I came in the house from working in the yard.  I was dirty and went immediately to the shower.  We have an old tub with an afterthought shower setup.  It includes a long chrome pipe, sticking out of the top of the tub faucet.  Normally, on newer houses, this runs inside the wall.  Ours is outside the wall, inside the shower.  Near the bottom is a second shower head on a hose.  To use one or the other, you turn a little valve.

Ever since we moved here, I have typically been the only one that uses the upper shower head.  Most everyone else uses the tub faucet or the shower head on the hose.  Lately though, one of my children has gotten into the habit of using the upper shower head.  This wouldn’t be a big deal except for he always changes the setting to massage, only the massage setting doesn’t really work.  Mineral deposits inside the shower head have locked the moving parts in place.  So instead of an alternating spray out of six holes, three at a time, the water shoots out in three laser beam streams. 

Okay, not a big deal.  I know this.  But I’m still bugged.  Maybe I’m bugged because I have asked him to change it back when he’s done, and still he doesn’t.  Or maybe it’s because he has to stand on the sides of the tub to reach the shower head and could easily slip or fall.  Or it could be that I get sprayed all over, trying to figure out which way to spin the little dial, returning it to the setting I like.  Lame as it sounds, the most likely answer is that the upper shower head is just mine, it’s always been mine, and I don’t like people touching it.  Like I said, I realize its lame.  

Tonight, as I reached up to change the head back to my setting, I thought about how it really isn’t a big deal, and maybe I could just let it go.  Suddenly, memory took me instantly to my high school days, when my old truck was in the shop, and my mom let me take her car once in a while.  She hated it when I adjusted the mirror in her car, and let me know about it whenever I forgot to change it back.  Eventually, it was easier to just stop adjusting it and use the other mirrors instead.  The mirror adjusting issue is so ingrained in my psyche that I still think about it almost every time I adjust the mirror in Nancy’s car. 

It was so strange for me to suddenly make this connection between these two seemingly unrelated events.  It’s also interesting that I didn’t make the correlation until I was actually reaching up, the way you would reach up to adjust a mirror, and at the same moment, I told myself to just let it go, the same way I wished my mother would have done for me.

Sometimes this boy and I don’t see things quite the same way.  He makes a lot of noise and has a hard time staying on task.  These two things are sometimes hard for me to deal with, especially when he should be clearing the table or going to bed.  I try so hard to be nice and to listen and to understand.  I constantly remind myself that his actions and behavior are all age appropriate, but, all too often I am just complaining about how he does this or that wrong, or how he could have done this or that differently or better. 

My own mother didn’t like a few things about me and tried to correct what she could.  But it was very rare for her to find fault or get on me about every petty thing.  She loved me, and I knew she loved me.  No matter what, I never questioned that about her.

She never let her frustrations with me get in the way of the relationship.  Or if she did, I never knew about it.  I honestly don’t know if my son can say the same thing about me.   

Today, when I got home, he ran up the stairs yelling, “Daddy’s home!”  He said it the same way all the kids did when they were younger, and grew out of saying when they reached the age of six or so.  I gave him a hug and rubbed his back for a minute.  “That feels good,” he cooed. 

I thought about how he doesn’t get much attention like this anymore, at least not from me.  I believe it’s time for that to change.  It’s time for me to change.  He is what he is.  He doesn’t know any other way.  I’m the one who’s wrong.  I’m the one who needs to let it go. 

“Daddy’s home.”  The words keep echoing in my mind.  Maybe I’m not completely there, but I’m working on it.  And I will keep working on it until the relationship is right, until I have let it all go, and until I can fully accept him for the person he is. 

I’m coming home.  And yes, that does feel good. 

Welcome to Summer

This is a repost from 06-04-09

Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids.  After that, everyone will be chillin at home, going on bike rides, reading books, playing rock band, and sipping lemonade in the yard – all while I’m at work.  Don’t get me wrong, I would much rather be employed than have the summer off without pay.  No question about that.  But, the first few days of summer are always kind of tough for me.
 
This year it seems to be a little harder than years past.  It might be partially because we don’t have much planned this summer as far as vacations.  Last year at this point I was planning on being out of town seven weekends before school started up again. 

It was not only a very fun summer, it was very expensive.  And this year we don’t have a ton of money saved up for going out of town.  So the vacations we do have will mostly be around the house.  I have tons of projects to finish in the yard.  So if I can get some of them done, I will be happy because we will be improving things around here. 

One of the biggest projects is the playhouse.  It would be nice if I could get it done before the kids move away.  I started it four years ago and got a ton done the first year.  But it hasn’t progressed much since then.  It turns out projects around the house are more expensive than vacations.  What seems like a simple need for gravel or mulch, eventually turns into an addition on the back of the house and a new roof too.  Oh, and our driveway is shot and desperately needs to be replaced.  

So, while it would be fun to take the summer off to travel, work in the yard, or spend a little time screaming into a microphone in the privacy of my basement, I guess I'll go ahead and keep the day job this year.  It does pay the bills, and it keeps food on the table.  And, ironic as it seems to me now, it’s also my best option for supporting my many home improvement habits.

Enjoy your summer kiddies.  I’ll see you at 5:30.

Old, Red, Brick House

 
About seven years ago my next door neighbor at the time told me they were moving.  He wondered if I knew anyone who wanted to buy their house.  I told them I could think of a few people and asked them to keep us posted.  About a year later, they finally got around to actually moving.  My neighbor asked if we wanted to take a tour of the house.  We agreed, thinking we could tell our friends about it.

Upon finishing the inspection, my neighbor tore a sheet of paper from a notebook.  “This is our offer to you,” he said, handing me the sheet.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, laughing.

He continued with his speech.  “We are giving you a good deal and won’t negotiate on the price.”

“But we aren’t in the market to buy a house,” I insisted.

“If you want the house,” he said with conviction, “this is the price.  Let us know your decision in the next few days.”

I was stunned by the odd conversation.  “Okay, thanks,” I replied, shaking my head.  “We will look this over.”

We went home but didn’t think much about it.  Nancy did make a comment about how the kitchen was bigger than ours.  And I may have wondered aloud a few times as to what they were thinking.  But we were definitely not in the market to buy a new home – at least not for a few hours anyway.


The very next day, I walked past the house and it seemed to call out to me.  “Look over here,” it whispered.  I turned my head to look and suddenly got a strange idea.  I pulled out my phone and called my dad in Oregon.

“Hello.”

“Dad, do you want to live in my house?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to rent it or buy it?”

“Buy it.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back later.”  Click.

The next day I called my next door neighbor and said we’d take it.


About four weeks later it was a done deal.  After closing, Nancy and I walked through the house and talked about what we would do with each of the rooms.  I had been in the house several times over the years, but this time was different.  Most recently, I had helped carry numerous armloads of stuff out to the moving van, parked out in the driveway.  In all those trips in and out of the house, I didn’t really think about it being mine.  I guess the superstitious part of me didn’t want to jinx things by getting too wrapped up in it before it was official.

But now the house was ours, and this gave the familiar spaces a different feel than before.  We ended our tour of the house in the kitchen.  I realized there how pleasantly satisfied I was with the purchase.  Without really thinking about what we were getting ourselves into, we had actually stumbled on a great find.  “I like this house,” I said.

Nancy gave me a look that I understood roughly as, “We just bought a house, before you were sure you liked it?”

“It’s a great house,” I said.  “I think we did pretty well.”

“Yes we did,” she agreed.  “I can’t believe you are just figuring that out.”

“Everything happened too fast,” I suggested.  “I just went with the gut on this one, and it turned out to be a good thing.”

In reply, she just gave me another look.


Years later, I have come to realize this whole thing was less about the choice I made to go with the gut, and more about our good neighbors, who were really looking out for us.  They knew the house was better for our growing family, they understood prices were going up faster than most people could afford, They knew we loved the neighborhood, and they also knew we would take care of the old place like they would approve.  I suspect they decided months, if not years earlier, that we were the ones for the house.  It turns out our good neighbors were right.  They slowly made things happen, and in time, we finally fell in step with the way they had things planned.

And by the way, it has been, and still is a great house.

Grampa Next Door

This is a repost from my old blog, dated June 7, 2009.

Today my dad took a couple of the youngest children for a walk.  Not ten steps past our driveway, still in front of our house, the preschooler fell down.

I was sitting in the kitchen nook when it happened, watching them head slowly up the street.  An overgrown flower bed blocked my view so I didn’t actually see him hit the ground.  My dad quickly leaned down and helped him up.  By the look on my sons face, it was easy to tell he had gone down hard.  He stood there, red faced and crying, while my dad brushed the dirt and bits of gravel off his clothing.  5, 10, 15 seconds passed while my son stood sobbing.  All the while, my dad knelt beside him, brushing his clothes.

Eventually the crying ended and the red in my son’s face subsided to its natural color.  As they continued on their journey, hand in hand up the road, I considered the relationship between this unlikely pair of neighbors and friends.

For most of my life, my dad has lived hundreds of miles away from me.   For the most part, our time together could be counted in hours, days or weeks, with an occasional month long visit at summer time.  My son was just barely born when my dad moved into the house next door.  This was a big and welcome change for all of us.  While it may have been new and unusual for most of us, to my son, who has lived his entire life in a house next door to his Grampa, this arrangement is perfectly normal.

Ever since he was old enough to let himself out of the house, my son could be found hanging out at my dad’s house.  The first few times he got out, we panicked and ran out into the yard and street, calling his name and thinking the worst had happened.  Each time, we eventually found him at my dad’s house, working in the yard, eating a snack at the kitchen table, or listening to my dad read a book or play the guitar. 

Even now, at least once a day, he will slink away next door for a visit or a treat.  And, since those first scary experiences, my dad has learned to let us know where the little guy is as soon as he gets there.   

Recently, my dad took a week off work to get his yard in shape.  My son would spend hours over there every day, chatting with Dad and working in the yard.  When my dad finally went back to work, his preschooler buddy was very distressed and sulked around the house for several hours.

Lest you think this relationship is all one sided, listen to this.  On several occasions, my dad, who will be 65 this week, has mentioned how much he enjoys having my son come and visit him.  Of course it’s great to get a visit now and then from a grandson.  And yes, clearly one is in charge, while the other is aimlessly following him around (but, even these rolls change from time to time).  All said, they really do seem to enjoy one another’s company as good, old friends should. 

I suspect the enjoyment of one another’s company is most of what makes this friendship work – or any friendship for that matter.  It’s the spending time with someone you like – and who likes you back just as much – that makes a friendship a friendship.

If all goes as planned – and of course things rarely go as planned – I imagine we have about 15 years or so until this four year old son heads out into the world on his own.  It will be interesting to watch his relationship with my dad as it evolves over those 15 years and beyond. 

As a very young boy, my dad and his mother lived for a short time with his own grandfather.  Now, over 60 years later, he often talks with great fondness about this period of his life.  He very much loved his grandfather and is thankful for the many firsthand memories he has of him.  I am thankful as well, that my children will have similar memories of growing up next door to their own Grampa.

The Tooth Fairy

 

Twice last month, the tooth fairy forgot about my kids.  Twice!  Once is bad enough, but twice?  That’s ridiculous.  Once is an oversight.  The second time was unforgiveable. 

The first time happened about two weeks ago.  I got the terrible news when my six year old came in, crying about how the tooth fairy had not come.  I was livid.  How cold!  How uncaring can this individual be?  I explained to my daughter that perhaps the tooth fairy was extra busy last night and was still on her way.  “It’s still pretty early,” I suggested.  “Maybe she had to pick up so many teeth last night that she is running behind.”  (Note: I use ‘she’ herein as a general reference term.  Because I have never met the tooth fairy face to face, I cannot be sure what gender he, or she is.  I did almost see her once, when I was a boy, but it was from behind and kind of dark in the room, so I wasn’t able to come to any decisive conclusion.  But, that thought assumes my children have the same tooth fairy as I did, which, I suspect is probably unlikely.  In any case, please substitute ‘he’ for ‘she’ if you feel so inclined.)

Of course telling my daughter the tooth fairy was busy was a lie (something I very much dislike about being a parent and avoid whenever possible).  Obviously, the tooth fairy just fell down on the job and misplaced the information about coming to our house that night.  But that was way too crushing for my sweet daughter to hear, and way too complicated for me to explain when I had just woken up. 

In the end, everything turned out okay because the tooth fairy came through while everyone was gone from the house.  In addition to the traditional one dollar bill, she even threw in an extra ten cents for having messed up so bad. 

You would think she would have learned her lesson.  And you would think she would want to try harder to hang onto her extra ten cents.  But no, like a week or ten days later, it’s the same old, same old around here.  This time it was my son who was ripped off.  But he’s a little older, and tougher, and I think also a little more forgiving.  He seemed to be okay with it and nonchalantly mentioned the incident at breakfast that morning. 

“Again?” I shouted.  Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him, but I was infuriated.  “This is an outrage!  Who does one complain to about these things?”  I gave him the same old, worn out speech about the tooth fairy being busy.  He seemed to be okay with that.  Besides, I think he was excited about the possibility of an extra dime. 

Later that night, as he went to bed, he casually asked, “Is the tooth fairy a man or a woman?”  Without giving us time to answer, he mentioned that if we saw the tooth fairy tonight, maybe we could remind him or her that he had lost a tooth.

“I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman,” I said.  “And we probably we won’t see him or her before we go to bed.  But, if we do, we will let him or her know.” 

Fortunately, without any prompting from us, the tooth fairy did make it to our house that night.   And again, he or she left a little something extra for my son’s troubles. 

Last month, all totaled, the tooth fairy came to our house four times.  Twice she caused a stir and twice she did her job flawlessly.  I’ve had a thought that makes me reconsider my position on the whole thing.  In baseball, a 50% average gets you instantly inducted into the hall of fame.  So maybe it’s not as bad as it could have been.

Come to think of it, it’s probably a tough job keeping track of all those kids and teeth and dollar bills.  And it’s got to be hard trying to never get caught, and then never getting any credit for all that sneaking around and stuff.  I suggest, everyone just forgive the tooth fairy for a little mistake here and there.  Maybe she’s new to the job or maybe it’s just a second job to help make ends meet.  Whatever her problem is, please forgive if you can.  But, if that’s too much to ask, maybe we should all just cut her a little slack. 

Clark