The Main Mom-and-Dad Thing

Every time I had an asthma attack, it felt like a ton of hot gravel had filled my lungs. My face would wash out white and I had to slump over to help me breathe better. And if I got a cold with my asthma, it became horrid no-sleep coughing jag for many nights, getting little to no sleep.

This was when I was little until I was a teen. The severe allergies and asthma I had as a child literally faded away in high school. But then they came back decades later in adulthood. Not as bad as then, but still bad, especially when I'd get a nasty cold combo.

When I was little, I suffered less because my mom did everything she could to comfort me and take care of me. My birth father and first father shared no love or support for me or my sister, but Mom never stopped caring for us. Never stopped caring for me when I was sick and felt like I could barely breathe.

When my wife Amy and I decided to have children, we went in fully invested in keeping them well. Or, as well as we could. From shared family throw-up bowls, to all-night comfort zones, to empathetically living their anguish when our kids were sick -- we were always there together. 

Especially Amy. I'm a loving, caring father, but I'm not the Mom. And that's okay. As an adult, Amy takes care of me and the kids when we're sick. I, of course, do the same, but I don't have the same softer empathic touch that she has. I'm just a little rougher around the edges when it comes to comfort. 

Regardless of our respective styles, we both care deeply when any of us don't feel good. Mentally or physically. When we dealt with our kids' middle school anxiety angst, we did it with patience, listening, and a lot of love. We were also grateful to provide them with whatever they needed to adapt and persevere. 

When our kids get physically sick, like with colds, it sucks all around for us all. It sucks for them because it simply sucks to be sick, and it sucks for us because Mom and I just want to make it all better, but we can't. It's got to run its course. We can comfort them and give them medicine if need be to treat the symptoms, like cold medicine and decongestant, which helped Bryce a few weeks ago. And after an urgent care visit for our oldest Beatrice recently, an inhaler. Such a bummer for both kids to get sick right after school started.

But we never thought that the cold medicine and inhaler would make Beatrice sick. An inhaler was always my go-to when I had allergy and asthma attacks, especially when it got exacerbated by a cold and a rough cough. Just like what Beatrice got, but for Beatrice, they just made her feel worse. 

Bea's on the mend now and catching up on the school she missed. Bryce did the same before her. Thankfully none of us get sick that often, but when we do, it sucks. It's hard enough when Mom and Dad get sick, because we have to keep doing our Mom-and-Dad things, like taking care of the family, the pets, the house, the work, the everything. To be fair, our teens do have their chores and help us around the house. 

But when the kids are sick, the main Mom-and-Dad thing is loving and caring for them, whether they're 5 and 7, or 15 and 17. I'm sure that will continue to be true for our family, even when they're taking care of us someday. 

Clap Along

"It might seem crazy what I am 'bout to say

Sunshine, she's here, you can take a break

I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space

With the air, like I don't care, baby by the way..."

—Pharrell Williams, Happy

We need more gentle, loving, and empathic souls in this world. If the past few years have shown us anything, it was how easy it's become to call each names, to demean and ridicule one another because of differences, beliefs, and perspectives. It's become cool to be toxic and tough again, for men and women alike. 

I've been guilty of that myself, which is why it became so important to meet people where they are without judgement. My wife Amy and I have really been working on that one, and our daughters help to keep us honest as well. They're old enough now to understand what we say and why we say it and have no problem calling us judgers. They may not always get the context of our intention right, but we've taught them well to be more empathic and inclusive, without ever compromising their health and safety. 

Yes, we need more gentle, empathic souls today. Sadly, we lost one recently to cancer -- our dear Aunt Julie. Married to Amy's Uncle Brian, she's was such a sweet presence in our lives for nearly 20 years. Brian and Julie had met around the time when Amy and I were married, although she didn't come to our wedding with him. We also didn't live near one another, but we've had many opportunities to be together starting with their wedding back in 2006. In 2007 we traveled to Boston together with them and had a wonderful time, which was when we decided to have a family (Beatrice arrived in 2008). 

Over the years they would visit us in California, or we'd visit them, whether in Illinois where they were from along with many of Amy's family, or in Oregon where they eventually settled. They were hopeful romantics like we are and had many adventures together, just like we've had. In fact, we just celebrated our anniversary and theirs was coming up. She was also a wonderful artist who inspired our girls and their artistic abilities. In recent years, Brian and Julie were on the similar spiritual path as us to become better loving and nurturing souls. But her illness overcame her and she recently left this world, finally free of her cancer and her pain. 

Sadly there's one less gentle and loving person in the world. One special memory we have of Julie was a visit from her and Brian and other family members years ago when our girls were only three and five years old. We had a dance party in the living room with the lights out and our disco ball swirling that filled the darkness with happy, vibrants colors. One of the songs we played was "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, which was new at the time, and quite appropriate for that visit. Julie loved it, having not heard it before then, and we all danced away to the "happy" song.

One of the song's lines is, "Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth," and we all definitely clapped along. Julie will be missed and our hearts go out to Brian. The only solace from the grief and pain of losing someone we love is that their happy and joyful soul remains in our hearts forever. With God's grace we can continue to clap along to this truth. 

Their Ultimate Wellbeing

The doctor was wrong.

"These areas here," the doctor said, tracing a few white streaks on youngest daughter Bryce's x-rays of her lungs, "are the beginning stages of pneumonia."

But we didn't know then he was wrong. Not until our primary doctor in Santa Cruz told us the radiologist's reading of the x-rays were that she didn't have pneumonia. Thank goodness, because Bryce just threw up the liquid antibiotic that he had prescribed. Over and over again. The four different times we tried to give it to her.

Bryce was the last to get the bad gunky hacking flu/cold (whatever it was) bug. And she had the worst of the symptoms out of the four of us. All while we were away from home visiting family. I'd been patient zero, bringing back the bug from my last work trip the week before. It came on fast; it felt like my body was being beat up from the inside out. Within 24 hours, Amy and our oldest daughter Beatrice went down in hacking flames. Then Bryce got it.

Then a few days later, I got on a plane for back-to-back work trips, first to Houston and then to Washington DC. Most likely infecting everyone in my breath's wake. No shaming, please. Then I flew to Reno to be with Amy and the girls in Carson City, where Amy's sister's family lives, her mom lives and her dad and step-mom live.

Infecting everyone in my wake along the way. And I'm sure my family did the same, too.

The last night we were in Carson City, of which to that point they/we were having a great time, Bryce had been coughing nonstop for most of the day. Our worry escalated with every cough. We shouldn't have kept dragging her around, going to a pizza party and then playing at a park where the cold Sierra high desert wind pierced all our already compromised lungs. She should've been resting in a warm bed instead.

So, that night, we weren't sure what to do. Go to urgent care? Call a family member for advice? We'd already given her enough doses of child's ibuprofen and my wife Amy had run to the store for cough syrup, which in the end helped Bryce stop coughing and she fell asleep around nine that night.

We all slept on it, but it was really stressful because of a pattern my wife and I have -- I defer many parenting decisions to her, even though we've been a team for most of our relationship. Of course she knows this, and so she doesn't expect me to insist on decision making most of the time. But when I do insist, I'm overbearing and aggressive about it; there's no middle ground for me.

I wanted to go to urgent care. She wanted to call a family member for advice. And then Bryce fell asleep.

We discussed it the next morning, because although I have this long-term regressive emotional latency problem, we communicate openly and honestly with each other and really strive to find common ground. I'd argue this has contributed to us being together for 22 years and further cementing our relationship, not driving us apart.

On the way home Bryce started coughing incessantly again and this time I called the Kaiser advice nurse as we drove home. I had to call more than once because of the off-and-on cell reception coming down out of the Sierra Nevadas, but we've had a good run with Kaiser to date and need some definitive advice and action.

We ended up scheduling a doctor appointment in Sacramento, three hours from home, but it was the right move. Bryce was just so sick and pale and coughing nonstop again. The timing was perfect and we got there only a few minutes late. It was also the last primary doctor appointment on a Sunday, so we were so thankful we took it.

But again, the doctor was wrong, and again thank goodness. We did make it home intact and knew that no matter the adult relationship issues we have to work on to improve our relationship as husband and wife, we're parents as well, and that priority superceded any fallibility we have. We will do whatever we have to do to keep our daughters healthy and safe, making mistakes along the way, but always with their ultimate wellbeing in mind. Amen.

The #SamStrong Perspective

"In the shadows of a golden age
A generation waits for dawn
Brave carry on
Bold and the strong..."

-Journey, Only the Young

I did not want to be there. From the moment I made the appointment, to parking the car in the lot across the street, to walking inside the lobby -- all I could selfishly think about was me not being there.

What was so wrong with that anyway? I had already recovered from multiple infections months earlier, feeling better and hoping (and praying) for it to never return. Yet, here I was waiting to talk with my doctor. Again.

"How are you doing today?" the physician assistant asked me.

"I don't want to be here, that much I know," I said.

She laughed. I was sure she heard that a lot. Then she added, "Let's take your blood pressure now."

I thought it would be higher since it sometimes spikes I get when I'm stressed, but thankfully it wasn't.

"Not bad," she said.

"Well, we'll see what the doc says."

She smiled. "I'm sure she'll have some good insight for you."

"The insight that nothing's there," I said.

Another smile. "All right, the doctor will see you shortly," she said and then she left.

Again, I waited alone in the examination room, only a sanitary paper blanket covering my lower half. Moments passed. I checked my watch in between each one. I felt cold. I rubbed my arms and read as many of the informative posters around the room that I could see from where I sat.

I checked work email on my phone and then I checked out Facebook. That's when I saw it again in the feed: the post titled I'm Still Standing. My wife's step-sister's husband had posted it two days earlier and it had been the latest update about their youngest son, two-year-old Sam.

Sam has acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In less than two weeks after he had initially gotten sick, they didn't know what was wrong and had taken him to urgent care. Shortly after that he was diagnosed. According to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer that affects the white blood cells. These cells fight infection and help protect the body against disease. Patients with ALL have too many immature white blood cells in their bone marrow. These cells crowd out normal white blood cells. Without enough normal white blood cells, the body has a harder time fighting infections.

I can't imagine. We can't imagine. Don't want to imagine. All their posts, updates and pictures with the hashtag #SamStrong that they've posted since his diagnosis have only captured a fraction of what they must be going through. He's scared and sick. They're scared and sick. They're all living in and out of the hospital while trying to continue any regularity of day-to-day life with work and school and another child, a big brother who probably doesn't really understand what the heck is going on.

The chemotherapy, while killing the cancer in Sam's body (and the cure rate is high for children), has now made their young son susceptible to other infections, wreaking havoc on his immune system. His fever keeps spiking, so now his hospital stay that should've ended was extended another few days.

What do you say to your young child who gets so sick like that? What do you say day after day of tests and treatments and long days and nights in the hospital? What do you say to each other? That it's going to be all right? You pray if you believe in God's healing, and/or you hope if you believe in the doctors' healing.

I remember when Beatrice was born, her difficult birth, and her delayed responses to the Apgar test, as she lay there wrapped up in hospital blankets. And then I remember the standard hearing test the next day when everything was fine, the diodes and wires strapped to her elongated forehead and her ears, and thought about how different it could have been. We worried that something could be wrong, the same somethings we will worry about their whole lives.

Even with the developmental delays Beatrice had early on, both our girls have been pretty healthy overall to date, and I'm so thankful for that, I thought. Both my wife and I have been pretty healthy, too. God bless Sam and his family. All we ever want is for our children to be healthy and outlive us.

I set my phone down atop my pants that sat like a lump on the chair next to me and waited for the doctor to arrive. I sat up straight and breathed in and out slowly, filling myself with a new resolve of family love and the #SamStrong perspective. It's going to be all right.

To Have All the Time I Need

“When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am…”

— Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

It was hard enough just to get through the workday, being depressed on my birthday. All I could do was selfishly think about me, of what was known and not known, and what I may miss if things got worse. Even with family and friends telling me happy birthday over and over, and asking me how I felt over and over, I didn't feel any better.

I just didn't hear a lot of it. Couldn't hear a lot of it. Didn't want to hear a lot of it. Not even the familiar daily banter from our children sharing what had happened at school that day. Then my wife, the Mama as I affectionately call her, started asking me questions about how I was feeling and what I should do next with the doctors, and what her and my sister talked about, and don't forget this, and don't forget that --

"Stop treating me like a child!"

That's the way it is with me. The emotional paralysis followed by the simmer to slow boil to trashing the familial stove with my angry froth. The Mama kept calm and waited for my next move.

"You make it sound like I don't know what I'm doing and that I underserve myself with the doctors, that I don't want to be well," I said.

"Sweetie, I just care about you and want to do everything we can to make sure you get better and it doesn't happen again. I'm not trying to treat you like a child."

"Well, that's what it sounds like when I talk to both you and my sister. I just want to be well, Amy. I just want to be well and it sucks that this happened and keeps happening. I take care of myself."

"I know, Sweetie. I'm sorry. I love you. I want you to be well, too."

"I just want to be well. And I'm worried when I go back in tomorrow, they're going to want me to stay in the hospital again.

"I know, I know. I love you."

All this within earshot of our two girls, already worried enough for about as much as a seven and nine-year-old can and will worry about circumstances such as these.

"Are you and Dad fighting?" Beatrice asked the Mama.

"No, honey. Just talking about Daddy getting better, that's all."

"Dad, it's your birthday," said Beatrice.

"Happy Birthday!" chimed in Bryce.

Yes, yes it is. It's my friggin' birthday and I'm alive, Sweetie. Amen.

Less than two weeks prior to this, I had a fever and painful lumps where there shouldn't have been any -- let's just say, where the sun don't shine. Over three days they seemed appear, although who knows how long they'd been brewing (there were other possibly connected precipitating factors since June). All I knew is that I had to go see my doctor, because within a week after that, I'd be traveling extensively again for work. Or not. That remained to be seen at that point.

But after visiting my primary care physician, she immediately urged me to go to urgent care. And then from urgent care, they recommended I go to the emergency room immediately. Because of being with Kaiser, which is still expanding in Santa Cruz, that meant we had to go to the hospital in San Jose. The Mama asked one of our dear friends to watch the girls overnight, not knowing what would happen next.

The Mama drove me to the hospital, but on the way first we stopped by to see the girls where our friend had taken them to dinner. That was painfully awkward, because our oldest knew something was up more than us telling her that "Daddy just needed to get some tests." Her stress was obvious, although my youngest seemed more oblivious, something I was thankful for. We gave them big hugs and were on our way.

Once at the hospital and the tests run and examinations complete, the consensus was that it was an infected abscess that had to be surgically treated, although they had no idea about the other areas at that point. Spending the night in hospital was inevitable at this point and they did try to reassure me that this happens to people of all ages. During recovery I missed my girls and worked, of course, and by midday the next day, I was discharged.

The whole time before and after the surgery, the only thing the Mama and I could think about was when my sister had gotten so sick the year before. Within three days she'd gone septic and had to be sedated for nearly two weeks, with a dismal prognosis overall. The fear of multiple infections, especially getting something more virulent while in the hospital, scared us to no end. Cancer never came up, and besides a high white blood cell count, was never considered (at least as of now).

All I could think about was my family first -- what would we have to do if things went south on us. That's a dark rabbit hole no one wants to go down.

And then there was everything else I'd been working on to prep for my nonprofit Talent Board's big one day symposium and awards gala in Nashville, less than a week away at that point. So much blood, sweat and tears that I wanted to see come to fruition, to celebrate with my team, our volunteers, sponsors and research participants.

However, the surgeons felt like I'd be okay if I kept the areas clean and if my wife helped with the dressing and the packing before I left, and then come back in one week to check in (after my event in Nashville). Now, there's no reason to go into detail here, but I have one amazing and loving wife for her to care for me the way she has. God bless that beautiful woman. We're now only one week from our 20-year anniversary from that one day on the beach.

Which brings me back to my birthday and just wanting to be well. To have decades more to spend with my wife and my children. Unfortunately there's another hot spot on my body being monitored and checked for other infections, but I do feel better overall. Antibiotics consumed and no fever since surgery and the other areas have nearly healed all the way.

Yes, it was hard enough just to get through the workday, being depressed on my birthday. But I'm alive and mostly well and live fully and comfortably within that life. Every single day. A life that's inextricably linked to my dear daughters and my amazing wife, and so many other family and friends who care enough to tell me happy birthday over and over, and that hope I feel better soon.

Because I just want to be well, to be there for them. To have all the time I need, for them and for me. I will not imagine otherwise. This is not how I am.

Feeling the Ceiling from the Bottom Up

“If you're not gonna tell the truth, then why start talking?” —Gene Wilder

And then humbly, from the mouths of babes:

"Daddy's going to die first, you know," said Beatrice.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because you're the oldest."

"Yeah," agreed Bryce.

"Daddy's going to live a long time," said the Mama.

"Yes I am."

Yes, I am. I feel great. 

Maybe it's self-deceit, feeling the proverbial ceiling of my life as I do now than ever before, primarily because of my age more than how I actually feel. And deceive ourselves we do, whether we feel good or not. My sister can attest to that, but she's thankfully a lot better today than she was just three months ago. And I feel pretty good myself after all these 50 years.

In fact, after all the millennia of evolution that helped us recognize patterns in the world that maybe kept us alive, even if the patterns didn't always play out, hence the deceiving ourselves just in case. Because if we didn't adapt quickly enough, we were dead.

This from a fascinating NPR TED Radio Hour episode all about Why We Lie. How up until the advent of written communication about 5,000 years ago, everything we shared our ancestors shared orally just disappeared in thin air. No record of truths or lies or all in between -- and the reality is a lot of us lie a little bit to ourselves and others -- all the time.

Today everything is documented all the time and that harsh fluorescent reality light shines on our lives nearly 24/7. You put something in an email or post it on Twitter and Facebook or look it up online via your browser of choice -- even if you delete it all -- the ghost of it all is fossilized forever. No take backs. Ever.

There's another form of this "written" record as well, our physical documentation, that we can never escape. That of which is inside each of us, and of what modern medicine can tell us about ourselves (or at least, tries too via tests and procedures and vast array of fantastical techno gadgetry -- even doctors self-deceive and directly deceive when they need to).

Recently I finally made time to take that magical test you take when you hit 50, the one that checks you out from the bottom up, if you know what I mean. Days before the test I joked with my wife that my bowels were having Braxton Hicks contractions. Thankfully she laughed. While the girls played nearby, we continued to discuss my pending preventative colonoscopy screening, and she asked me what I had to do to prep for the procedure.

"An all liquid diet 24 hours before and then that industrial sludge the night before. Ugh," I said.

"I know, but it'll be over before you know it," said the Mama.

"Is Daddy getting his blood taken?" asked Bryce.

"No, not exactly, Sweetie," said the Mama.

"Is he getting a shot?"

"No, not a shot. Sort of a surgical procedure."

"It's not a surgical procedure," said Daddy. "Should I tell them what it is?"

"Nope."

"But it's a horrible alien probe."

"Nope."

Sigh.

After a night of human Drano (what I drank was called GoLYTELY® -- it had a mild salt water taste), I laid on the examination table the next day under the influence of fentanyl looking inside myself on a TV monitor,  like Dennis Quaid injected into Martin Short in the old movie Interspace.

"Wow, you've got a big large intestine," said my Gastroenterologist. "Looking good so far."

"Great," I said. Big large intestine? What was that -- a double positive? 

At this point (and in that place, laying there as I was) there's no where to hide after 50 years of living, just like my knee surgery from two years ago that I watched in its entirety. Once the surgeon was inside my knee, he had to clean out loose cartilage he couldn't see in my MRI, and then drill holes in the head of my femur in order to draw blood and eventually create scar tissue, all after trimming my torn meniscus.

The body is a span of sped up geological time, with trace elements of everything ever inhaled, ingested, damaged and released internally by one precipitating factor or another, trapped forever, layer after layer, in cellular walls like hardened subatomic sediment. Although about 5 percent of adult men and women are diagnosed with colon cancer at some point in their lifetime, thankfully that wasn't something that ran in my family. Other cancers and auto-immune genetic anomalies may still lay dormant, but to date I continue to be in good shape.

So today I've gone from feeling the road as I do to feeling the ceiling from the bottom up, but the good news was that I got a A+ on my test. A big large double positive A+. Amen.

Take care of yourselves -- Dads, Moms and Kids -- and get any and all your preventative screenings when recommended. The body always tells the truth, even when we don't.

Dive In We Do

Her shrieks were maddening. Out of context a passerby listening might think we were drowning her. Fortunately with all the other parents, babies and children around us in the pool with swimming instructors instructing, we were in safe company.

Except that Beatrice hated it. Every single minute of it. The swimming instructors did their best to console her, as did we, each of us getting in the pool to hold her and guide her.

Yet she cried and howled and thrashed and wanted nothing to do with immersing any further in the warm pool water, especially when her head hit it. Thankfully six-month-old Bea wasn't the only crying baby and toddler being taught the fundamentals of floating and paddling in the water.

We tried to comfort her and acclimate her, but she was disdainfully vocal, if not the loudest. We only went a few times to those swimming lessons way back then. In the years since there have been more swimming lessons with more painfully visceral results, sometimes to the point of making herself sick. Even in the bathtub, she still hated putting her head under the water.

All because she was scared to death that she'd sink.

When she could articulate how she felt, that's what she expressed over and over again. Even today after finally being comfortable in the water, learning how to swim and submersing her head, she's still worried about sinking.

Conversely her younger sister Bryce is not only unafraid to put her head under water, we have to temper her desire to dive in head first nearly and literally every single time. Bryce has never really had a problem with wanting to swim, just the normal fear of going under the first time. Her shrieks are joyous and infectious when she's in the pool.

All because she eats "sink" for breakfast.

The dichotomous sister swimmers are now water-ready anywhere we go and look forward to it all. They are my lifetime metaphors personified -- to be deathly afraid of what could happen next or to boldly go with whatever happens next. What comes next for them is to learn how to manage the poles and all the in-between. And us grown ups know how much in-between there is.

"Can we go swimming at Auntie Kristen's World?" the girls asked when we told them we were going  to visit my sister again to see how she's doing and to help where we can.

They ask if my sister's house was an amusement park complete with swimming pool, just like when we take the girls to Disneyland and go swimming in the middle of the day to break up the park trekking. Damn, if only that were the case. My sister is now awake and doing better, although there's a long way to go with her "in between" and the healing that will hopefully come.

Of course we don't share everything with the girls at this age, but they do know she's sick and that she needs the family's help. They're already packing their stuffed animals while pretending to talk with them:

"We're going to Auntie Kristen's again."

"Awe, but why?"

"Because she needs our help again."

"Okay, let's go help her then."

"Yes, and then we'll all go swimming!"

"We can't wait!"

And so dive in we do.

The Why Is the Loneliness of Space

“I miss the earth so much
I miss my wife –
It’s lonely out in space…”

—Elton John, Rocket Man

I asked for it. I did. I wanted it. All of it. The back-to-back travel that came with the candidate experience half-day workshops we’ve been running via the research organization I work for. Since February I’ve gone to 10 cities across the U.S. with a Toronto trip coming up to culminate delivering 13 workshops overall.

Not a Herculean effort compared to those road warriors who travel every week for business.
And no, I’m not looking for a medal or a gold star next to my name. I love doing what I do. I keep saying over and over that I don’t like being away from my girls and my wife, but I do love what I do and love to travel. (And no, I’m not going to sing you Cats in the Cradle.)

Although I think I keep saying it over and over because I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t miss my family as much as I do, which I do. Yes, I talk to them every day that I’m gone and we see each other on FaceTime. Of course it’s not the same as when I can give my girls a hug and give my lovely wife a kiss.

Now, combine that with the fact that my sister’s in the hospital four hours away from where we live and it gets even more complicated. Not just for the fact of being there for her and her grown children due to the seriousness of her illness, but for all the things that have to get done when a loved one is down. All the additional expenses that add up when you’re coming back and forth with your family or just yourself. Keeping your kids out of school if they come with you. Having to rent a frickin’ car because one of yours is in the shop. Managing your work and business trips in between. Attempting to unravel the highly complex realities of the healthcare system. Dealing with rotating nurses and doctors and technicians and social workers and endless paperwork and questions and headaches that all the hopes and prayers in the world can't make enough magic to change.

We just did this a few years ago with our own parents, and now my sister is the one in the hospital. You tell yourself that these are just the things that you have to do, and you don’t count the costs when it comes to taking care of someone you love and all the things around them that need to be taken of.

But you do count them, you have to count them, and that’s okay (so don’t look at me that way). Love is powerful, yes, and yet there are asterisks and footnotes in the paperwork. It’s just a matter of reconciling with yourself that these are the things you can and are willing to do and sustain as long as it takes.

The other morning I sat in my sister’s hospital room watching her sleep. I was the only other one in room with her besides the nurse coming and going. Her bed rolled automatically underneath her to keep her body moving and to help prevent pressure sores. It was fluid and slow, as if she were in zero gravity; I imagined she was floating in space. Why are we here? I thought.

“Why?” I said aloud. Why? It was just an allegorical question. A simple and calm inquiry. No angry fist shaking at God and the universe. No toxic well of emotion spilling forth in frustration.

Why?

Then I imagined we were both in space and all the years growing up together swirled around us and moved us along like soundless solar winds. I realized the why was pointless because it will never give me the solace I seek. The why is a vacuum that nature abhors.

The why is the loneliness of space, and it's gonna be a long, long time. And through it all I pray for my sister and miss my family.

The Part Where I Went Wrong

“Make it easy on yourself
There's nothing more you can do
You're so full of what is right
You can't see what is true…”

—Rush, The Color of Right

We lost six years. All because I wanted to help and she didn’t want it and our entire family went to hell in an intimately woven handbasket.

Flame. Ash. Poof.

I wanted to be the one who was right. I obsessed over it. I went to therapy over it. I didn’t sleep because of it.

I just wanted to be right, which is where I went wrong. Not because I wanted to help my sister – that was as a noble gesture – but because I wanted to be right, to be acknowledged as the family champion saving the day. Instead, I was accused of destruction and then I chose to estrange myself from the family.

My sister and I, we lost six years, and it wasn’t until the Mama and I had children and our parents’ health deteriorated when we finally came together again and restored our relationship.

Then there we were – my wife, my sister and me – standing in silence around our mother's hospital bed. She lay swollen and silent, eyes closed, the only noise coming from the life support systems keeping her alive.

No more needing to be right. And so tired of being wrong. Just needing to be with one another, both our parents gone within four months of each other. Yes, heaven is being with those you love and to hell with everything else.

Nearly four years later and there she is. That can’t be her on the hospital bed. The swollen face and limbs. The endless tubes and pumps connected to her neck, arms and legs, feeding her antibiotics and fluids and oxygen. The pings, buzzes and alarms sounds from a myriad of machines displaying erratic vitals and undecipherable numbers.

It just can’t be her. No, my sister is at home working her butt off to keep the yard in shape. Running nearly every day to keep her body in shape. Working hard to earn a living on her own. Missing her two grown children, both far away from her, yet talking to them nearly every single day.

But there she is in the hospital bed. She’s laying there sedated, looking hauntingly like our mother, breathing on a respirator, her body in septic shock from a rapid infection. Right now it’s day by day, and we hope and pray that her strong will and her incremental improvements lead to a full recovery.

The part where I went wrong puts in all in perspective.

I love you, Sis. Happy Mother’s Day.

The Stainiest Years

"Ugh. Look -- a mustard stain and peanut butter oil smear on my pants. Dang it," said the Mama.

I smiled. "Honey, the stains have only just begun with these two." I tilted my head toward the backseat where Beatrice and Bryce sat snuggled in their car seats watching a movie.

The Mama shrugged. "Hey, I think these are the stainiest years."

"The stainiest years?"

"Yes, the stainiest years."

We both laughed. We were on our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for some Easter fish fun, but the "stainiest years" persisted for me like coffee spill in carpet padding that keeps seeping up month after month after month...

As parents of young children, many of us develop a visual eraser of sorts, one that scrubs away those new stains on the cabinets, the walls, the furniture, the bathtubs, the beds and the carpets. It's easier not to see them than to constantly clean them, especially when you're tired and still haven't completely cleaned off two-year-old hot chocolate stains from the dining room blinds.

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that the stainiest years for the B-hive have yet to come. The "stainiest" stains are the ones that come with the living years, the ones throughout childhood, teengage-land and adulthood.

There are the literal and minor yet pleasurable ones like the bacon grease stains on my San Jose State University sweatshirt I received when cooking breakfast for the family, or the bigger literal ones when the garage guest room carpet was rain soaked and stained because we neglected to clean the rain gutters (cleaned most of that up though).

Then there are those with much more visceral impact on our lives, the stainiest years that come and go. But mercy me do they always come, relentlessly and without apology. They can be a mix of joy and sorrow, although much of it we usually associate with the sorrow we experience in varying capacities through life, which we then try to erase with whatever measures at our disposal -- conscious and subconscious partitioning, therapy (of any kind) and drugs and/or alcohol. Hopefully there's also the self-awareness ability we learn and develop to assess, manage and adapt to the stainiest years.

The latter is one thing I've learned from the Mama as well as my parents. Unfortunately now the worst of stains are upon my parents, with my dad dying of cancer (since the radiations treatments didn't work), and my mom in the hospital yet again (being chronically ill for decades and for the rest of her life). I don't share this lightly; it's been an arduous journey for them both and we're working to provide them the best quality of life possible. However, their legacy of love and perseverance continues in them as well as in the lives in their five children, eight grandchildren, one great-grandchild, a myriad of other family and friends as well as an amazing church community where they live in Oregon.

Many of us want our worlds to be continually scrubbed clean, to be shiny and new, but our powerfully human stories move others from the stainiest years. We hope to teach our daughters to unfurl theirs on high, proudly and without regret.

The only idea I have is in what I know

Emotional paralysis doesn't have to mean helplessness, but it's paralysis nonetheless, however fleeting, thankfully mine no longer tainted with any guilt or resentment of old. Even in the moment of hesitation, the decision has already been made; the heart and mind united along the beachhead shoring up any breaches: the money to get there and back, the lost work time, the being away from my girls and the Mama.

"I have to go," I said.

"I know," she said. "We love you and we love them."

"I know," I said. "I love you."

But admittedly, there is helplessness in the helping, an oppressive feeling as if buried up to your neck in sand with the tide coming in. I arrived Wednesday night in Oregon to be with my tired, sick parents. Dad finishing his fifth week of radiation treatment for stage 3 melanoma, and Mom always struggling with a lifetime of auto-immune disorder as well as myriad of interrelated illnesses.


I watch them hold one another and I see the Titanic movie scene where the old couple lays together inside the sinking Titanic, about to go down with the ship. (This was actually based on the real characters Ida and Isador Strauss, who was the co-owner of Macy's department store. Both were offered a place on the lifeboat but Isador refused to go as long as there were still women aboard. His faithful wife refused to leave his side. The couple wasn't actually in bed when the ship went down, but rather on a pair of deck chairs.)

Whatever the story, the metaphor isn't lost on me and I again imagine us as them now; they will go down with their ship together just as the Mama and me have pledged to do, with nothing less than honor and timeless love.

I do know my being here for any length of time does help them emotionally if not physically (running errands and helping around the house). Taking my dad to his last three radiation treatments wasn't a lot, but I'm glad I was here to do it. He's amazingly stalwart and has been so each time he's faced medical adversity. Mom has the ability to draw strength from which there should be no more and does whatever she has to do, just as Dad does for her when he's well and she's not.

They thank God for watching over them and giving them strength and guidance. So do I.

I have no idea the pain they each experience -- no idea what it's like to be strapped to a table and have the sun's power channeled straight into my neck every day for weeks, no idea what it's like to be in constant pain as my body deteriorates more every day.

The only idea I have is in what I know, that I love them regardless and am glad I'm here, heart and mind united.

All done for now, Mom and Pop. All done for now.

We hold fast our whole lives

It was then I imagined us as them now. My voice broke, tears streamed.

Mom could barely speak. Dad more scared than he's ever been in his life. Both have battled back from diseases and surgeries before. Both of them always holding each other close and praying.

This time it's different. This time the choices of doing nothing with the melanoma-filled lymph nodes in his neck or removing them to be followed up with radiation treatments are like when my grandfather used to hold up his fists in a boxer stance and say:

"Six months in the hospital or sudden death?"

But now it's no joke. It's different and more real than it's ever been for them and for all of us.

Because it was then I knew as I've always known, that moment on the phone with my parents a little earlier today, why I love my wife as much as I do, and why we've always wanted to spend my entire life together.

And why we love our children so. Regardless of anything that's come to pass or has yet to.

From the ring my wife surprising me with on our wedding day all those years ago, the 15th-century French phrase "A Ma Vie De Coer Entier" etched along the surface.

You have my whole heart for my whole life.

To sharing the stomach bug with the B-hive this week, me a world away on a business trip unable to help the Mama.

The world is connected with tenuous tethers that snap with the slightest change in pressure, but for those of us who have the other, we hold fast our whole lives.

Every moment tomorrow will be a prayer for my mom and dad and the timeless love they share.

Displaced and mad as hell

Once it spreads to other parts of the body beyond the skin, it is difficult to treat.

Without even knowing his complete diagnosis yet, I can't get the "once it spreads -- it's difficult to treat" out of my head.

My father has melanoma, a very serious kind of cancer, and it's metastasized into his lymphatic system. How far beyond that we don't know yet. But he's mad as hell and he's beat the devil more than once (so's my mom for that matter).

Metastasis means "displacement" in Greek and that's how he feels, to be moved out of the proper place. When you're sick, there's a palatable disconnect from the rhythm of everyday life.

About 160,000 people are diagnosed each year with melanoma, more frequently in women than men.
How many of those become displaced from family, friends, co-workers and communities? Conversely as well?

Beyond displacement, nearly 50,000 people tragically die from melanoma every year, leaving hole-ridden hearts behind.

Sure it's all in the caring now, but this morning as Oakland and the rest of the world burns, I'm displaced and mad as hell.

All I want to do is dig a shallow grave in the backyard for all the world ills and my father's cancer and bury them.

Daddy K learns the truth of Snow’s strength

One of the Daddy blogs I try to keep up with is Building Camelot. One of Tyler's latest posts was about the late Tony Snow and he shared an essay from Tony that I thought was poignant and beautiful. While I don't subscribe to Tony's political beliefs, and don't exactly play by the same Christian playbook, his words moved me as a father-to-be and as someone who has loved ones who battle illness and others who have struggled with loss of many kinds.

There's nothing more for to say other than reposting the post below. Enjoy and God bless.

***

Political beliefs aside, this testimony from Tony Snow speaks to the heart of men, husbands and fathers about the importance of self sacrifice and humility in life.

His words emphasize the importance of being a strong, yet humble man for our children and wives. Although we may not be able to see, with as much clarity, the importance of our blessings in life, we can draw inspiration from his words and start living as better husbands and fathers.

When he talks about strength through humility, he is revealing the secret to building your own Camelot. We, as husbands and fathers, struggle with this on a daily basis and hopefully we'll realize this and work on it before it's too late.

Tony Snow died of cancer on July 12th 2008. He had three children.

***

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,' Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations. The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out. But despite this, or because of it, God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere. To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life, and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'

Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces. The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions. The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.

"it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give"

Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment. There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf. We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'

Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love. I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms. Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.

Tony Snow