With this apocalypse between them

How do I tell them that one day they may not speak?

That no matter how close as sisters and friends they may be with one another growing up, one day one of them may leave, to return but to never live here again, and how this will start an irreversible chain of events. Events that will propel the one who stayed into the cold vacuum of space where no one else can see; where no one else can know. Where black ice and rock will collect and grow...

Years will pass while the Mama and I love each of them proudly, marrying their hopes and realities to our own pasts, their futures, until one day the one who stayed will hit a wall at full speed, while the one who left will try to tear it down. Misunderstandings, mistrust and betrayals will then cause a rift in the entire family; the rubble of the wall too heavy to clear.

And at the same time, somewhere deep in space, all that black ice and rock will become something behemoth that one day falls back to earth. It will reenter the atmosphere close to the speed of light, under the cover of night, and lay waste in its wake, boiling oceans and cratering continents. Fires will burn uncontrollably for seemingly a millennia. The sky will be a perpetual ceiling of gray ash.

With this apocalypse between them, one day something may happen to the Mama and me, we may get sick, and there will have to be a coming together, a temporary reckoning in order to take care of family business.

We will tell them both, "She's your only sister."

And one will say, "That's not the way it works."

And the other will say, "I never did anything wrong."

And we will both say, "But she's your only sister, and we love you both."

And then the first one will say, "But blood does not trump the healing reciprocity of forgiveness. I can only do for me, not for both."

And I will think, you're right, it does not, and you can only do for you, as your sister can only do for her. Nor does any of this require a Hollywood ending where uplifting music will play and hugs and tears abound. But I know we will still love them both no matter what. 

In the shadowy distance, a green shoot will spring from a dry, blackened crater.

So how do I tell them all this some day?

And do I?

Oh our stars!

"Oh my stars!"

That's a new fun one I've got the girls saying and doing. I say the words with an animated face and put both hands atop my head.

"Oh my stars!"

Bea so sweet because her inflection and word emphasis changes each time she says the phrase.

"OH my stars!"

"Oh MY stars!"

"Oh my STARS!"

Then Bryce follows suit, not quite saying the words yet, but putting her hands on her head in synch with Bea's.

The Mama and I watch them and laugh, knowing these B's are our stars.

We'll keep reaching for them. No worries there.

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.

Seeing the Other Side, Brother

"See you on the other side, Brother."


[blink]


My plane landed in Sydney, Australia, at 6:30 a.m. last Tuesday, exactly 18 hours in the future from my present and where I spent the next five and a half days.


Half of that time was spent at a new conference called the Recruiters' Hub Conference (RHUB) where I was invited to speak about marketing to HR and talent communities, while the other half spent exploring greater Sydney and the Blue Mountains. From the Three Sisters to Echo Point to Flat Rock to Featherdale Wildlife Park to Watson's Bay to the Opera house to Circular Quay to the Sydney Harbor Bridge to Hyde Park -- the scenes went from picture books to visceral experience for me.


I underestimated how transformative this trip would actually become for me, although I'm not sure we can ever estimate how transformative anything will be until we're transformed. My professional and personal life were about to become further elevated and integrated than ever before, what Jason Seiden calls being Profersonal.


To be immersed with a people not too dissimilar from my own, except of course the accent and Australian and English expressions like "right" and "fair enough" and "crikey".


To be around "brilliant" HR and recruitment professionals, agencies, tech suppliers and thought leaders alike who share the trends and challenges we do -- the growing contingent workforce, the complexity of government regulations, aligning corporate recruiting with recruiting agencies, recruiting technology innovation and efficiencies, and all things social including recruiting, marketing and PR.


To be moved and schooled by others while finding my voice when presenting. To connect and become friends with others who've also become comfortable their own skin, and who each day grow to like it more and more.


Indeed.

My Blue Mountains tour guide Paul was overheard paying homage to the show Lost, hence the quote up top. (He really looked like the character Desmond.) He was just one of many amazing people and connections I made during my brief time travel.

The time travel lifeline remained intact, however. Seeing and talking with the Mama and the B-hive on Skype sustained me with love while away, as well as being able to check on my dad and mom.


The transformative crescendo came all at once my last evening in Sydney as I sat in the greatest of company, surrounded by locals and tourists eating and drinking and enjoying each other's company at the Opera Bar as the lights of the harbor came on at dusk. Fireworks from an event at Hyde Park lit up behind us. Once the colors faded an unknown constellation shimmered in the early evening.


"Look, there's the Southern Cross! You wanted to see it!"

In that moment, I remembered many things all at once: man-handling old ghosts while growing comfortable with my own skin, meeting my wife on the beach, Beatrice's birth and Bryce's birth, my dad surviving radiation treatments and my mom just surviving, and meeting new amazing friends.
I saw the other side, Brother; I saw the future.

And I can't wait to do it all over again.

"When you see the Southern Cross

For the first time,

You understand now

Why you came this way.

'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from

Is so small.

But it's as big as the promise

The promise of a comin' day."

--Crosby, Stills and Nash

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.

To captain a milk carton boat

The rain stopped. I splashed happily outside and ran to our yard's edge. The swollen gutter rushed along, carrying sticks and other debris to the storm drain depths at the end of the street.

Mesmerized, I bent slowly and set the milk carton boat into the churning water. I held on for a moment, unsure I should let it go. A stick hit the back of the boat and then flipped around and shot downstream from the force of the water.

I let go. Oddly the boat didn't move at first as though it were anchored in place, but then I gave it a nudge and it was off!

I chased the boat down the street electrified and practically elevated off the ground. I imagined I captained the boat, battling the rapids and the junk swirling around me, surging onward with full sail to the point of no return --

The world we grow up to know, sometimes mindful of the rapids, sometimes carried away.

Ah, to captain a milk carton boat...

"Hey Sis, you know how to drive this thing, right?"

"Sure thing. What's this wheel for again?"

Right on, girls. Godspeed.

 

BE HAPPY: But Watch Your Step

"Good morning, Beatrice. How are you this morning?"

"Happy!"

What a sweet thing to hear on a day when business world bullies punched me in the gut. What a crappy difference a hump day makes.

As I knelt crumpled over and holding my belly, I flashed back to my walk through Natural Bridges with the girls the weekend before. Both Beatrice and Bryce running around in the heart of the eucalyptus tree grove, us all laughing with abandon.

The girls kept running back and forth in front sign posted on the fence:

CAUTION: Watch Your Step

Bryce kept spinning and then eventually lost her footing and fell, giggling. Thankfully she wasn't hurt. Bea followed suit, but on purpose to be silly. It was such a fun time for me watching my girls play so freely and happily.

Being hit in the gut seemed inconsequential after that. Blows like that always do. I've learned to fight back and kill 'em with transcendent success. Screw the kindness (but don't tell my girls that).

BE HAPPY: But Watch Your Step. And sometimes it's okay to put all your B's in the same basket.