Love’s Lessons, part 47

My Grandmother passed away, a week ago Wednesday. Her obituary is here. I think that everyone present would agree that it was a good time, overall, for a far-flung family to gather in a way that will never happen again, to tell stories – new and old, and honor a life well lived.

One of the things that I’ve been personally aware of, for some time, is that a great deal of sorrow can be spawned by ‘unfinished business’ – the good, bad, but not indifferent currency of a relationship. Grandma and I were paid up, our accounts reconciled, with the exception(of course) that I will always owe her my gratitude and respect for her legacy and love – that's off the books. I think you know what I mean. Dementia had taken a large part of her, some time ago, her physical departure was merely an inevitable reality.

Serendipities occurred. I was able to make three quarters of my journey with either my parents or my sister. I seemed to make some new connections with a couple of cousins, whom I’ve only seen once or twice.

The funeral was on Saturday. The last time we were all together was at the graveside, and there weren’t any more ‘group’ plans made after that. Uncle Bob had casually invited me out to his home on Sunday to see his ‘57 Chevy project. I waffled, and decided not to go. It was a 45 minute drive out and back, for maybe an hours visit before I climbed on a plane for another 4 hours or so. I immediately began concocting a plan to bring Sam out to see the car when it was completed, but I didn’t have a chance to talk to Bob about it. I found out later that he and my Uncle Cliff had gone to an OU football game Saturday night – plans made in advance, and which Hazel would have surely approved.

Sunday’s flight was actually pleasant, and I was home in time for dinner. I’d taken Monday off because, well, I could. The phone rang at about 8:15 am. It was Dad, and Uncle Bob had just died. His obituary is here. I think Dad said that he and Cliff had ‘taken down a couple of trees’ at Bob’s on Sunday (I haven’t had any real conversation with anyone, my folks are returning home tomorrow). Clifford is a doctor, and he and my Aunt Althea were staying there. When he had chest pains, I guess Cliff kept him going till they got him to the ambulance and the hospital. His funeral was yesterday.

I’ve written this post, many times and many ways, since Monday. Excuses, mostly. Unfinished Business. I didn’t tell him in person; I actually wanted to send him a letter -  in writing to show that I wasn’t saying what I was supposed to in the moment, that I really meant it – telling him how grateful I was to him for taking care of Hazel all of these years, that his example  sets the standard. How he waded through the family and personal issues to not only do the job, but do it extremely well. How I wanted Sam to meet him and get to know him, if only as little as I had. I will try and express these things to Aunt Janice, but it just won’t be the same.

I so now wish that I’d been willing to make myself mildly uncomfortable for an hour and a half, last Sunday.This is at least the second time I’ve been taught this lesson, and I hope that it’s the last:

Do not pass up an opportunity to spend time with the ones you love. It could very well be your last.

FB Flashback

Point Loma College Soccer Team, 1977

I’d just returned from a summer trip to England, with a church group, where I’d actually been asked for autographs after doing my finest Larry Norman impression. It’s now my freshman year in college. I’ve got a steady girlfriend, which kinda messes up my BMOC vibe, but I’m in love. I’ve got a car, which gives me the freedom to get away from the Shangri-La that is PLC, mostly to get to said girlfriend, who goes to State. Classes are fine, dorm life is “Animal House” without the sex, alcohol, and fun – close quarter living with smelly people in a moldy 12-person ‘quad’- “Das Boot” without the camaraderie. Young Hall was awful, even if it was only 400 yards from the Pacific Ocean. Of course, I had no idea at the time, but life was pretty stinkin’ good – and I do mean ‘stinkin’. We had to gang up on Charles at about week 7 to force him into the shower, clothes and all.

Then there were these guys. One of them was already a good friend. Others would become so. This was a team that had started as a ‘club’, and it would be some years before it would became a viable, completely supported, competitive part of the athletic program. I was coming to PLC, having been part of the startup of my high school soccer team - we'd gone from nil to third place in three years - my senior year had been a very good one. At Point Loma, we were doing our best, but usually got our heads handed to us by the likes of Simon Fraser and USIU – teams of international students here on scholarships. I am only aware of one game in my 3 years playing where statistics were kept – I think it was So. Cal Baptist College or something, in 1978. They had 38 shots on goal. We only lost 7-1, that day. For those of you, like me, who don’t care for math, that means that I had 31 saves. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have had a better time, but that has been my nature - still workin’ on that. I do take pleasure in memories like playing in Aztec Bowl, which no longer exists. Even if it was against SDSU's "C" squad.

We usually got to take the little bus to away games. Boredom and bus hijinks, like the time we all mooned the guard shack at the entrance to PLC upon our return. On a couple of rare occasions, we even got to clean out a restaurant or two, out of town, late at night, returning from a game way up the coast. Yeah, we were geeks, but guys like Dan Brown made sure that we had good times.

Dave, third from the left, front row. Left wing. Gets a yellow card for some infraction – continues to yell “I’m not sorry! I’m not sorry!” at the ref. Makes me laugh out loud, today. Dave Oakes, next to the coach - a great fullback and encouraging presence on the field - we cracked knees, one day, his gave way, mine didn't. It killed his entire season. I still feel like crap about that. He made a lousy martyr - I would have done the job much more effectively.

Yeah, I was that skinny, and yeah, that was my real hair. For those of you who weren't there, or otherwise haven't figured out that I was the keeper, I'm #3 on the left, back row.
Robert Martin, third from the right, put this pic up this morning on FB. Just sent me spinning into nostalgia. Thanks, guys.

Emma’s 10th Birthday Bash

It was everything it was supposed to be. Candles, cake, presents. Emma’s got a bit of a summer cold or something; she was a bit subdued, but always manages to be the life of the party. Here’s the annual video:

Emma's 10th Birthday Cake Video from Jeff Goble on Vimeo.

My thanks and appreciation to all who gave us the better part of their day to make Emma’s birthday party a wonderful one for her and us.

Emma’s Birthday is Tomorrow

I remember it like it was yesterday. I can still see it. It took me about nine years and ten months to gather the courage to watch it on the screen. What I found was not what I remembered. It’s taken the other two months to sort out what did happen. It’s time I wrote it down. I’ve shared parts of this with others, but I’ve never really written it, for myself. My motive is not to make you sad; it is to take you on another part of the journey, with some perspective.

Dressed in my bunny suit and bouffant hat, I stood dutifully in the operating room, holding Vicky’s hand on her side of the drape separating us from the business at hand. I saw the smoke and smelled the smell of the cauterizing scalpel. I watched as Doc Williams pulled Emma out of the (gratefully obscured) field of surgery by one foot, into the air. Emma, moments before had been ‘breech’, with one leg cocked up over her shoulder. Low muscle tone equals amazing flexibility. She started to cry (Emma, not the Doc), and was quickly handed off to the assistants gathered about a warmer. That’s when I started up the camera.

Through the lens, I watched them clean her up, wrap her up, and she was rolled away; about two minutes. What I saw, watching it now, was three women; one picks up Emma’s foot, fingers her toes, kinda flopping her foot back onto the bed, they look back and forth at each other, and then get back to business. At a point between then and now, I’d have been angry enough to find out who they were and tried to get them fired. Emma was evaluated and dismissed within minutes of entering this world. Now it just stings. Looking back, I’m pretty sure that the Doc had had her suspicions, kept them to herself, and probably diagnosed her as she lifted Emma into the air. I’ve never asked her, although I’ve had plenty of opportunities. Doesn’t matter now.

I don’t remember what happened, exactly, next – the show in the OR was over, and I wanted to follow Emma to the nursery to record her first bath and checkup. At some point, I left Vicky and was directed to the Special Care Nursery. There was some cause for concern for her oxygen levels, or something. I wasn’t particularly worried, and headed over there with my camera. When I got there, and checked in, Emma was unattended in a warmer to the right of the nurses’ station. Having worked in there in the past, it was not an alien place to me, the atmosphere and hardware weren’t at all foreboding. I turned the camera on, secured the lens cap, and walked over and bent over to capture my daughter’s face. That’s when I saw her. Her eyes. I froze. This was the moment that I waited ten years to witness again. It wasn’t there on the tape. Evidently, I never pushed the record button.

Emma had Down Syndrome. No one had to tell me. I turned, and sat down at a round table a few feet away. I remember putting the lens cap back on the camera, turning it off, and then something happened that I have not experienced before or since. I saw a little blond girl, running into my arms. I was opening the door to our home, greeting her first date. Watching her drive off. Walking her down the aisle in her wedding dress. Taking a baby from her arms. A lifetime of expectations paraded in front of me in a matter of moments. It was a feeling of deep sadness that struck to my core. It was all gone. I sat there until the Doc came in and told me of her suspicions. I remember saying, “I saw.” I needed no karyotype.

As you all know, I have a little blonde girl who runs into my arms. I have learned that the majority of what I knew of Down Syndrome from what were then 20 year-old textbooks was wrong, but in those moments a lifetime had been lost. The next few hours and days were filled with grief, much of it fed by those around me who either knew nothing about our life ahead, or, in most cases, had no idea whatever to say. Some did and said some extraordinary things, and they hold a dear and precious place in my heart. Teresa. Cliff, the ex-steelworker who, when he saw me, said nothing; threw his arms around me and hugged me like there was no tomorrow (he is raising a granddaughter with CP). There were others.

Emma was born a little before midnight. About 10 a.m., the next day, I headed down to the cafeteria for something to eat. Into the elevator came an acquaintance, a psychiatrist. I told him about Emma, and he turned, looked at me with with surprise, and asked, “Didn’t you have an amnio?” It was not the reaction that I had anticipated from him, not then. In my exhausted honesty, more than any sort of practiced nobility, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “It wouldn’t have mattered.” I found out later that, at that moment in time, he was involved in a troubled pregnancy, struggling with his own decisions. Her reality precluded any pleasantries, or even any empathy toward me, the idea of her cut his sensibilities like a knife. This has proven to be the case with Emma: She requires you to deal with who you are; you cannot pretend, pretense means nothing. There is no denial available.

I can’t predict the future (I gave up on expectations some time ago), but I will not be surprised when Emma becomes a cheerleader. She’s sitting across from me now, negotiating her way through sesamestreet.org. She may not be completely accurate, but she can be very articulate. Her sense of humor demonstrates an intellect that one can only experience to appreciate. In the realm of human measurement, she can be ‘less than’ and ‘more than’ in the same moment. We were told, on the second day, “She is more like you than she is not.” It was a comfort through a period of learning. It is a partial truth – the reality is that she is you. You just didn’t know it, before now.

Emma’s birth was an end, and it was a beginning. The end of every assumption I’ve ever had, with the possible exception of gravity. The beginning of a widening breadth of the experience of loss, gain, tragedy, joy, but most of all love. Seeing Emma through that lens, I began to see life through different eyes. This piece began, in my head, by wanting to share that moment with you, show you the video. That it doesn’t exist, doesn’t really matter, in the end. What matters is that you’ve been changed, know a wider world, and we share it together with love because of Emma.
Bittersweet.

The cake video and celebratory stuff will be coming, the party’s on Saturday. Sweet!

FaceSpace all a-Twitter

Now, I don’t know this guy, but I am familiar with all of the hardware
(and no, that’s not me in 1982. I was much thinner)

I finally joined Facebook, yesterday. I’d been resisting it for one main reason; the prompting of a loved one finally pushed me over the brink. Joining was easy, it even scanned my email contacts for friends. Put in your schools, easy enough. Started accumulating friends immediately, and several addicts fed their habits by contacting me within minutes. It was, as I anticipated, overwhelming. It helped me over one other brink – the reason I’d resisted – I can no longer be everywhere, online, all the time, anymore. The truth is that I never was, but I felt a certain proficiency right up until, oh, say 2005, when I added a Steam account. I’ve felt “it” slipping away, ever since, my grip on my control of my online persona.

So, I start weeding through my ‘newfound’ friends, really old friends, but some new info and perspective. That’s great. A few ‘conversations’ with some that haven’t kept up via other means. Really good. Hit the “find friends” link and started looking through those identified as college graduate-mates. See a few familiar names, none that I really knew, started thinking about how few of them I really befriended – having a fiancée at State, and all. Their photos all look so, well, let’s just say I didn’t recognize any of them. On to the Upland High School Class of ‘77. Dallas! No, didn’t add him, just smiled at the thought. Went through several pages. Interesting locations for some, interesting pics of others. Then, WHAM! there it was. One of the reasons I’d forgotten not to get on Facebook. No pic, just the name. A quite unpleasant memory involving physical threats, property damage, and the authorities. Three minutes later, and my new profile settings read “Friends only.” I fully understand that I and my physical location can be found in a matter of moments, online, but I certainly am not going to make it any easier for this person (and yeah, he probably doesn’t know how to get a picture into his profile) to be reminded of me, let alone find me. In about 40 minutes, I’d revisited several snippets of my life history that I’d left by the sides of those roads. Facebook, guess what, bittersweet. Go figure.

So, privacy somewhat assured, we move on. I’m looking forward to communicating with the one person who hasn’t contacted me, yet, of course, the one who kept inviting me. The past lies there in Facebook, just as it always has IRL (‘in real life’ for those of you older than I, like, you know, as if). I’ll check in, but don’t look for me to camp it and hang on your every word. I just can’t, ok? I’ve got all those other accounts to keep up with. And blog. And mow the lawn, every quarter, whether it needs it or not. If you want, you can look up my address on Google Street View and see the dead truck, bald-patched lawn and house in need of painting, too. Let’s keep moving forward, shall we?

Frail Grasp On The Big Picture*

There was a story related to me, this week. I do not mean to diminish anyone’s faith. This has been bothering me, though. I did not comment on it where it was published; I felt that by doing so, I would incite side-taking and the inevitable hurt that religious discussion causes on the internet. This is different, those reading here should have a grasp of why I’m bringing it forward, why I’m saying what I’m saying, and hopefully possess the grace to forgive me if I don’t meet their expectations – a fundamental requirement for an ongoing relationship with me, anyway. So, with that ominous introduction:

The story is of a head-on collision between a wrong way driver on the interstate; a small vehicle and a van with “differently-abled adults” inside. Both drivers and three of the adults in the van died. The poster goes on to describe their pastor speaking about the accident the following Sunday. One of the surviving adults from the van is a close childhood friend of his. By the pastor’s account, this man’s customary seat was behind the bus driver. He did so on this day, on the way to the destination. On the fatal return trip, he stated that he “was a big boy” and from now on he was sitting in the back. This, of course, saved his life. The pastor used this as an illustration that “he believed that the Holy Spirit was alive and well.”

I know that this pastor is a human being. I know that his good friend has just been spared. He’s reacting to a powerful event with powerful emotions. I think, however, that this is the sort of thing that is quite irresponsible from the pulpit. I have become wary of those who see God’s will when things turn out the way they’d like them to.

Five people were killed, but God spared the pastor’s friend? Why? Was he the only Christian? Were the other 3 adults “not-abled” enough, spiritually? Maybe that was the reason, God was taking them home early to spare them further pain here on Earth. And why was this the event to be celebrated, why assign The Holy Spirit credit for sparing one life over another? Should we do no more than be grateful for what we have, rather than claim Divine Providence? Perhaps that in itself is what Divine Providence is; the rest is what it is. God only knows.

The more I turn the little I know of this event over and around, in my mind, all I come up with are the same things I always come up with: This was either a set of random events, a very small event in a highly choreographed dance that we are deigned to play out, or something in-between. One can place one’s faith at any point along this continuum, balancing the unlimited, omniscient power of God against Man’s free will to choose. The danger, to me, comes in where we assign responsibility for another’s choices – God’s and yours, more specifically. I’ll take responsibility for mine, although there was lead in the paint in that house in Globe, and Mom put Karo syrup in my formula, and. . .

We see through a glass, darkly. The life of Christ, for me, comes to a point of full maturity and near complete purpose when, on the Cross, after submitting to the Father’s will, still cries out “Why have you forsaken me?” God incarnate asking, "Why?" If they are “three in one”, the experience had to have shaken even God’s all-knowing, timeless heart. I cannot and will not, of course, say that the Holy Spirit did none of this. I just have a really hard time understanding how it would be so selective. That a Minister of the Gospel could be so sure, gives me pause. There is a greater message, and I’m not so sure that he was sending the right one.

And no, I don’t feel any better having written this. Thanks for asking.

*credit to Glenn Frey and Don Henley

Barbie will always be older than I am,

but just barely.

I reached a couple of milestones last week. First, I received my invitation to join AARP. Ironic, in the sense that I seriously doubt that I will ever “retire”; I seem to have inherited most of the physical characteristics of my shortest-living related predecessors, and the government keeps raising the retirement age. I figure that, if I should reach that age, there’ll be a campaign against “the other ‘R’ word” (yeah, small joke). Second, I started using a pocket protector at work. I have been putting it off for some time, oh, at least 12 years or so. The practicality of the object has finally won out over the nerd/geek/maintenance guy stigma. What it does is now more important than what it means. It actually suits my bifocals, when you think about it. Like it or not, I’m one of the old guys, now. You should see the punks they’re hiring, these days. “Smarten up!”, we tell ‘em. They don’t listen.

Achieving a new number with a trailing zero always seems to bring some reflection. It’s an opportunity, welcome or not, to catalogue the things that will forever be lost from your grasp, still remain in the realm of possibility, along with what you do have. These days, I am more content (as in contentment, not volume, ok?) than driven, due more to those around me than from within. I have been blessed in some wonderful and often unbelievable ways.

I would have liked to play a stadium, just once. I did get to perform in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo., one time, but it wasn’t quite the same. 10,000+ people and my Vox Beatle amp to cover the room – not even a meaningless connection to the soundboard to make me feel better about it. It’s amazing, the memories that stick with you. It could still happen, of course, but I’d need to get busy. Short of jumping the stage and wrestling that ugly green axe from Adam Clayton’s hands in November, I don’t see it happening. I have played some amazing venues, even signed a few autographs. Back then, I hoped they were IOU’s for a future payoff.

I’d have liked to have seen more of the world. I’ve seen a bunch, but still. It’s true that I’ve often traded insecurity for security, and I’m comfortable with that. Yes, I’m trying to be funny; that’s a funny sentence.  Read it out loud and it’ll be funnier.

One of the things I’ve learned is that I can pick through all of the yardsticks that exist in the human grid, and come up short. I’m not the tallest, wisest, richest, most intellectual, no great talent; I sit squarely near the middle along the bell curve of my species. I do have a few gifts, and I find most pleasure by trying to give them at my best. I’m my harshest critic, most competent and least productive therapist, and, the older I get, more and more grateful for those who bless me with their gifts of time, attention, love, and care.

Me, me, me. Blah Blah Blah. Thanks for reading. Thanks for your friendship and love, some of it crossing seas, continents, and even the difficulties of us both speaking English. I’m now in the running to be considered one of your oldest friends. You’ll just have to be more patient, more often, while I explain how it used to be.