#3: I Still Miss Someone

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
because I still miss someone
-Johnny Cash, I Still Miss Someone

The days come unceasingly, an infinite march of moments, meetings, and must-do's that occupy the minutes.  There is often little time for reflection.  When it does come, however, the silence does not travel alone.  It brings with it a cadre of thoughts that seep forward from the subconscious.  When the bustle of the day dies down, when the endless army of technological distractions go dark, her memory sweeps in like the winds on the high plains.

It was last fall when my dad called to tell me that my Grandma Jo had died.  It was bittersweet news because after battling illness for so long, my Grandma would no longer endure suffering.  It was bittersweet because after carrying the loneliness of missing my Grandpa for over 21 years, my Grandma would be reunited with her lifelong love.  Here's how I put it at her funeral:

A conversation I had with Grandma makes today a little more bearable.  We were talking about all the tests and treatments and doctor's visits Grandma had been through, and then she paused.  She said, 'I want to get better.  I want to be with all of you as long as I can.  But I've missed your Grandpa for so long now, that if it's not meant to be, I'm ready to go see him.'

Bittersweet.  I'm happy for my Grandma.  But seven months later, her absence still leaves a tremendous void. 

I read once that Abraham Lincoln didn't necessarily believe in heaven in the traditional sense.  Death took many of his loved ones at a very early age in his life.  When his mother died, she told him, "Abraham, I'm leaving you now, and I will never see you again."  Instead, Lincoln came to believe that one could live on in eternity if they accomplished something worthy enough that it preserved their memory in this lifetime.

I think of my Grandma Jo in this way, too.  I see her in so many different places and feel her in so many ways, too many to name, really.  I'm reminded of her when my mom or dad will tell a humorous story about her.  I'm reminded of her when I come to work in the town she once lived in.  I even find myself driving by her old house and picturing her sitting on the front porch.  I'm reminded of her when we gather as a family for the holidays or a milestone event.  I'm reminded of her when I see my baby girl that carries her name.  I'm reminded of her when I see the chest that was always in her home and is now my daughter's toy box. 

In all these moments, I can see her smile and hear her laugh. I can sense her pride in her family.  All these thoughts and feelings give me comfort.

But I still miss someone.

#2 Give Thanks

Admittedly, it has been quite awhile since I spent much time working on this little endeavor.  Life seems to find a way of constantly consuming what little bit of free time I have, making my ability to spend time writing rather constrained.

Funny, then, that it is the Thanksgiving holiday that brought back my focus.  Funny because we are about to enter one of the most hyper-busy seasons of the year, when focus and sanity become optional, at best.  Funny, too, because it seems to me that when we let life consume us and it feels like we are stuck on a warp-speed treadmill, it is easy to forget to stop and reflect on all the goodness in our lives and all the reasons for which we should be grateful.  In fact, as much as we would all like to imagine that our lives are SO MUCH CRAZIER!!! nowadays, it was actually President George Washington who realized the need for the nation to pause and reflect on their many blessings.  As such, he proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26th, 1789 as "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God."  Thank George for your day off tomorrow.

Some of you have been using social media this month to announce each day something for which you are grateful.  I admire that, and I think the world needs more of these gestures, not less.  For many years, a sports columnist in the Kansas City Star would write a piece giving thanks for a wide array of things.  For me, stopping to give thanks is not as routine as it should be.  I find myself appreciative of the many good fortunes in my life, but I'm not sure I stop as often as I should to actively reflect on these blessings and give thanks for them.  As I get older, and I realize how finite so many things in life truly are, it dons on me that I should hold fast to these blessings and give thanks for every wonderful thing in my life, great and small.  

Ahem:

I'm thankful for a country and for a government that, more often than not, tries to do the greatest good for the greatest number over the long haul.  I'm thankful for the men and women who dedicate their careers to the noble calling of public service, and I'm thankful I've been given the opportunity to share in that sacred trust and try to make people's lives just a little bit better.

I'm thankful, as I'm sure you all are, for family and for the unique and powerful relationships I have with each member of my family.  I'm thankful for my daughter, Caroline, who at this very moment has discovered her vocal cords and is making some of the loudest, squeakiest, shrillest sounds you've ever heard.  I'm also thankful for those calm moments, like the other morning when she grabbed my finger tightly, nuzzled her head into my chest, and drifted back to sleep. 

I'm thankful for my son, Brett, who seems wiser and stronger and more talented that his age would suggest.  I'm thankful for the times we get to play baseball in the back yard and his imagination runs wild with scenarios and drama.  I'm thankful for the times he climbs up into my lap and starts asking questions about a game, like who the players are and what number they are and where they are playing.  I'm also thankful for those moments just before bed, when we howl with the Wild Things and sing Waylon Jennings songs.

I'm thankful for my wife, who never touches a life without making it better.  Her ability to genuinely listen to people and help them sort out their troubles is truly rare and precious.  I'm thankful she has chosen her life's work around this talent, and I'm thankful for the children who's lives she helps to put back together.

I'm thankful for my parents, who I still depend on to this day.  I don't know the first thing about being a parent, but I try to emulate what they did for me in hopes my children will feel the same love and support I did.  They were involved with every aspect of my childhood, from the mundane to the magnificent, and I'm thankful they've chosen to be just as involved with my children.

I'm thankful for a tremendous group of friends, many of whom I have now known for decades.  I'm thankful that they are always there to help, like moving my family on a brutally hot day in July a few years ago, and I'm thankful that we all still care enough to get together as frequently as we do, like the great Mancation we took to Wisconsin this year.

I'm thankful for life's little pleasures as well.  I'm thankful for doubles down the line, plays at the plate, buzzer-beating shots, overtime, and Hail Mary passes.  I'm thankful for Alex Gordon's glove, Jamaal Charles' legs, and Billy Butler's bat.  I'm thankful for college football Saturdays, Lee Corso, tailgating at the corner of Stadium and College, and SEC football at The Zou.

 I'm thankful for Foo's Frozen Custard (Java the Hut!), the Roasterie (Chocolate Mocha!), Jack Stack BBQ (Poor Russ!), and all the Mexican restaurants on Southwest Boulevard (Dos-a-Ritas!).  I'm thankful for Boulevard Wheat, Coors Lite, and my parents new love for making wine.

I'm thankful for Kansas City, which has become our home.  I'm thankful for the places we've lived, and I get sentimental when we go downtown and drive by our old apartment and townhouse.  I'm thankful for the convenience of getting around, the friendly nature and hospitality of people, and the beautiful homes and neighborhoods.  I'm thankful for the cultural amenities and family activities that are offered. I'm thankful for walks in Loose Park, crazy afternoons at Crown Center, and relaxing strolls on the Plaza. I'm particularly thankful for Christmas time, when the City really seems at its best.

I could go on and on, but the point is this: in everything you do, give thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:18).  Stop and remember all the things, big and little, for which you are grateful.  When you do, I think you'll be surprised by the bountiful harvest in your own life, and I think you'll feel just a little bit better about your lot in life.

#1: Return to Neverland

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

Thus begins Sir James Barrie's literary classic, Peter Pan. This story has long been a favorite of mine, and one which I have read to both of my children while they were but yet a bun in the oven. The first line of the story captures my imagination for its simple yet harsh reality: all children, except one, grow up. Try as we might, all of us get older.*

*Though not necessarily any more mature. Why yes, I do still actively deploy the services of my fart machine I bought as a kid, thank you very much.

As I mentioned in my intro to this funny and strange little project, being on the threshold of thirty has me waxing poetic about what it means to be at this point, and how I want to approach the third decade of my life. 

And as I got to thinking about where to start...

Hold on a second Brett...

I started thinking about what it meant to be a parent... 

Not right now Brett...

And how not long ago I was like Wendy from Peter Pan and two was the beginning of the end for me...

What did you just swallow Brett? Can't you just follow the rules? WHO'S THE BOSS?!?!

Wow. When did I turn into Mr. Darling?

They say a great thing about being a parent is that you get to be a kid all over again, but unless you're living some Lord of the Flies lifestyle, you know this isn't exactly true. We parents spend an inordinate amount of time laying out the rules, enforcing the rules, restating the rules, and taking quick pulls straight off the wine bottle that we forget what it's like to actually be a kid.  Clearly, it was time for me to get back to Neverland. 

To do so, and to begin my 30 for 30 project, I laid aside my parent hat for the day and put my three year old son in charge.* Brett would be Peter Pan, and we would be his dutiful Lost Boys. Now lest you call the Division of Family Services on me, recall that the Lost Boys sometimes know better than Peter, but they have to make suggestions in such a way that Peter thinks the idea was his in the first place. The same sort of logic applied to our circumstance.

*My wife, she of the rational thought process, required some convincing and deserves a great deal of kudos for supporting this rather frightening proposition.

Literally, most anything Brett suggested would fly.  A literally, we did this for an entire day. The joy and hilarity and amusement this brought cannot be understated, but allow me to focus on just one part of the day.  Brett said he wanted to play mini golf. I fully intended to keep score for him, but two problems arose. One, Brett carded a 22 on the first hole, making counting a bit trying. Two, Brett decided in his version of the game that he would pick his ball up and place it as close to the hole as he deemed altogether appropriate. Penalty strokes were an issue, so the photo below is about as close as we got to mimicking Kansas City Golf Legend Tom Watson:

Tom on the bridge:

 

Brett on the bridge:

 



Four important observations from the most atrocious and hilarious display of putting you've ever seen:

1. Rules, though important in some circumstances, can hamper the creative spirit. Watching Brett go all Happy Gilmore on his ball* and move it around the course not only gave me a youthful laugh, it reminded me that given a certain latitude, there lies within each of us an imaginative spirit.  Too often, we adults get caught in the trap of adhering to the rules, real or imagined, that we fail to allow our creative selves shine through.  Follow the rules, sure, but don't be afraid to look for creative ways around the rules when appropriate. And don't become so married to following the rules you forget to have fun. 

*At one point, on a hole with a massive incline, Brett yelled at his ball, 'Hold still, you dummy ball, I'm trying to hit you!"

2. On the eighth hole, Brett became fixated on hitting his ball into the metal box that allows the player to complete play on that hole and count the strokes taken. After no less than 10 minutes of trying to get the ball in this box, we pushed Brett to move to the next hole. Brett, how to put this delicately...disagreed. He threw himself upon the ground and let loose with a wailing heretofore unknown to Cool Crest Garden Golf Center. So fixated on accomplishing this task was Brett that anything less than total completion would be unacceptable. Moreover, Brett wouldn't accept any help from any of his "Lost Boys" in getting the ball in the metal box. And in that moment, I realized, as my friend Julie puts it, Brett was just reacting the way we all wish we could-society just frowns upon it.  How many times have you found yourself seemingly close to finishing a task but unable to get it done just right? Awful feeling, no? Brett and the other children of the world are no different.  Allow yourself and others room to be frustrated, but know when it's time to seek-and accept-someone's help.

3. It's a big world to us adults.  It's an even bigger world to the kids.  Allow yourself to put yourself at their vantage point-literally and figuratively-and remember what it was like, not so long ago, to be simultaneously awed and excited full of wonder and a little bit afraid.  if you are being true with yourself, the world around you probably still fills you with awe and excitement and wonder and fear.

4. Given the latitude, Brett makes pretty good and safe choices.  He didn't need constant reminders from us to walk-not-run, to not tee off on his ball*, or to take turns.

*Ok, that one was a lie. Finesse is not his strongest attribute at this stage.

I've titled this post "Return to Neverland." There was a movie in the early 1990's in which Robin Williams played attorney Peter Banning.  On a trip to London, Banning finds his kids missing from his adopted mother's-Wendy-home.  He wakes up in Neverland, and though Tinkerbell tries to tell the Lost Boys this is Peter Pan, none of them believe him.  None except a little boy who, upon closer examination declares, "Oh! There you are, Peter!" 

You may have kids. You may not. You may have kids who are grown adults now.  What unites us all, however, is that each and every one of us was once a kid. Each of us had to grow up, because there is only one who can remain a child.  But the story doesn't say the child within us has to go away.  It was still in Peter Banning. It is still within each of us.  We just have to take a closer look and remember how it was we once saw the world around us.

 

More Jimmy V, Less Jack Arnold: A Challenge is Born

Do you remember the last moment when time stood still for you?

I do. For me, it was the last class of the last day of my junior year of high school. May 2001.*  I'm sitting there in Mr. Takatsuka's classroom, and the minutes are dragging by painfully slow.  Sure, this was due in part to the impending desire to begin all the glorious things that come with your Senior Year Summer.

*To note how long ago that was: gas was around a buck, "Weapons of Mass Destruction" wasn't a part of our lexicon, and Britney Spears hadn't shaved her head.

But there was another reason, too.  For as excited as I was about starting life at the top of the public-school* food chain, there was within me an overriding fear; a realization that the countdown to young adulthood was about to begin.  A year from now, I'd be removed from the veritable empire I'd established, a world that included three guaranteed meals a day, a closet full of clean clothes, and a list of responsibilities that seems astonishingly embarrassing in retrospect.

*Fort Dodge Senior High, for the St. Louis readers.

So there, in that moment, time stood still long enough for me to realize, if not fully appreciate, the amazing degree of good fortune I'd been blessed with in 17 short years, and the degree of work it was going to translate "good fortune" into "hard-earned". 

Now sure, I've had my emotions moved in other ways since then.  When I came back to school that fall, the unbridled enthusiasm of Senior Year was interrupted by the shock, then fear, of September 11th and what that might mean for me and my soon-to-be-draft-eligible classmates.  During an internship in college, I had every breath in my body knocked from my lungs by the most gorgeous woman I'd ever seen.  Three years later, that same woman knocked the breath right back out of me when she walked my way down the aisle at our wedding.  When my son was born, I cried for three days straight at the combination of joy, amazement, and fear.

But ever since May 2001, these and other events have been but interludes in what has become an increasingly breakneck pace to life. As funny as it sounds, daily routines seem to not slow the pace any, but rather make it fly by faster and faster: run to work late, catch up at work, drive to daycare at speeds that would make Jeff Gordon blush,* make something quick for dinner, sleep, repeat.  Remember the dad on the TV show "The Wonder Years"?  His name was Jack Arnold, and he had this great line in response to his kid asking him what he does for a living: "I get up at 5am, I fight traffic, I bust my hump all day, I fight traffic again, and come home... [smiles] And I pay my taxes." Jack Arnold was not one to spend much time in thoughtful reflection, folks.

*$10 per minute for every minute you're late, ya'll!

Now lest you think I've gone off the deep end or that I'm having some sort of quarter-life crisis, let me get to the point of all of this.  Maybe its not that May 2001 was the last day time stood still.  Maybe its just the last day I purposefully took time to stop and reflect on where I had been in life's journey, where I was then, and where I was headed.  That becomes harder and harder to do as we get older (read: more responsibility), but its importance does not diminish.

I love the Jimmy V speech.  The one they show on ESPN where he implores the audience "Don't give up, don't ever give up." Well, there's another great line in there that fits the spirit of this post. Coach Valvano says, "To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special."

I'm turning 30 in 333 days.* And it has me thinking, for the first time since May 2001, about where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going.  There's something about turning 30 that makes me feel like I should turn back, salute the young man I was, and begin to embrace the, what, more seasoned man I'm about to become? You get my drift. 

*I looked it up. God bless the internet.

As I've stated, reflecting is a hard thing to do these days.  So, I'm going to make an effort to force myself to do it in the next 333 days. I'm going to accomplish this in two ways. One, I'm going to keep a blog so that people like my friend Ted can harass me if I go to long without posting.*

*I had a blog in college about the Kansas City Royals. Ted still asks me to this day when I'm going to post on it again.

Second, inspired by my favorite show I never watch-ESPN's 30 for 30 series-I'm going to tackle a list of 30 yet-to-be-determined items. I'm going to act on the challenge laid forth so eloquently by Jimmy V and laugh, think, and cry.  Some things may be funny, some may be in the "deep-thoughts" vein. I'm not really sure beyond that where this project will take me.

I hope, too, that this will inspire some of you to do something similar. Maybe it won't be to risk public humiliation by blogging about thirty different things over the next sort-of year. But at a minimum, I hope you'll use it as a purposeful reminder to pump the breaks on your own life from time to time and reflect at the world around you.