She was there for me when I would have my brothers make fun of me for singing and making up songs.

She was there for me when I needed to learn my alphabet the week before kindergarten.

She was there for me when I would climb the fence from grade school to eat lunch with her.

She was there for me when I fell off the TV antenna and broke a piece off of my backbone on the edge of the concrete porch.

She was there for me when I didn’t want to do homework and she would push me and help me study for tests.

She was there for me when I just wanted some freedom and alone time in a tree in the back yard.

She was there for me to teach me that nothing is easy.   If you want it, you have to work for it.

She was there for me when I lost my first love and needed her to tell me it was OK.

She was there for me to teach me that you can’t do it all on your own.  (but sometimes you can try

She was there for me when my father died and I needed her to be a mom and a dad.

She was there for me when I wanted to go to college.

She was there for me when I needed to buy a car.

She was there for me when I thought I could do everything on my own and failed.

She was there for me when business didn’t go as it should or I needed someone to talk over my dreams.

She was there for me when I needed someone to argue with.  (I was her son, after all.)

She was there for me when I needed someone to pray for me.

She was there for me and loved me the very best she could.

She was there for me when I needed a friend.

She was there for me when I wasn’t there for her.

She was there for me to bring me back down to earth when I would get too full of myself.

She was there for me to remind me Who I needed to be grateful to all of the good things in my life.

She was there for me when I needed someone to watch over the kids.

“Oh yeah, I say life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone….”

I remember listening to that song blasting from a boom box walking across the Bowling Green campus during Buckeye Boys State between my Junior and Senior years in high school.  A story about Jack and Diane….  We would sing it “Mike and Diane” because of my friend and his girlfriend…  Good times.  True words.  Life keeps going on whether you want it to or not.  It went on after my father died while I was in high school.  It went on after losing my mother last year.  It goes on after the loss of my father-in-law this year.  It keeps going on, my kids keep growing up, my body continues to age, my memories continue to fade.  It keeps going on as the family house is sold and begins another generation of family.  It keeps going on as brothers age and their kids take up the torches of energetic youth and promise.  Looking at life through eternally young glasses.  Feeling the world is yours to have.  Life is yours to live.

I often wondered growing up why mom and dad would look at us kids and get that look in their eyes.  A smile on their faces, knowing that this youthful life ignorance is something you only get that one opportunity to experience.  I now get that same look and feeling when I see my kids just being kids.  I wish I could explain to them how important it is to hold tightly to it, savor every minute…  …but that would diminish the moment for them.  They can not really understand the moments they are living.  They will have to reflect on it some day, much as I am doing, to truly appreciate what they had for that brief moment in their lives.  My oldest brother would always tell me that youth is wasted on the young.  That God should have given us foresight instead of hindsight if He wanted to give us something useful.  I visited my oldest brother last week.  He is worn down a bit by time and poor health.  He lived through the 60′s, Vietnam, marriage, family, grandkids, and still has joy.  He taught me how to not allow things to upset me.  He taught me a lot of what it meant to be a man.  He and his wife took me into their home when I went to college and treated me better than I deserved to be treated.  They put up with my “know it all” ways.  They let me become a part of their family and I love them for that.  My niece was only five years younger than me and was more of a sister than a niece.  She was and still is a friend.

Sometimes I worry when I get into this frame of mind.  I linger a bit too much on the past.  My dad always said to “remember, but not linger” on those things that carry so much somberness.  There are paths you can go down that don’t have ways back.  There are things you can never undo.  There are people you can never unhurt.  Time is one way.  Life goes on.  Life always goes on.  My kids will grab onto life with all of there might and see where it takes them.  I will live through the changes of being a son, to being a husband, being a father and someday being a grandfather.  If I am fortunate enough, I will live through being a great grandfather and help my great grandchildren see themselves through my eyes.  And that is life.

I lost my father-in-law and friend last week and today would have been his 70th birthday.  He was an incredible friend and I miss him dearly.  He, like my dad, had a battle with cancer that ended up taking him away too early.  He still had so many things to do.  He left a void I cannot fill with my wife.  He was her biggest advocate.  He left a void I cannot fill in my kids.  This is especially true of my youngest daughter.  They were thick as thieves and were so supportive of one another that I cannot imagine her pain right now.  Life without her Papa is unbearable for me, so I can only imagine what it is like for my kids.  We went from caregivers to mourners in a day, and it feels like we still need to be helping him but he is no longer here to help.  He had to take this last part of his journey by himself and I wish I could have helped him through it.  Now the healing has to begin for us.

It was about a year ago when my mother had her stroke.  The news was a real kick in the head for me and I have been trying to make sense of the stroke, her eventual death, and my inability to make peace with it all.  Probably more so my inability to make peace with her.  She was the hardest working person I have ever met.  She had several little sayings about work effort and coming from a farming home she was no stranger of hard work.  Most of my work memories of her were her efforts around the house to keep it picked up, painted, presentable, as if she was always waiting for an inspection that never came.  Probably some left over feelings from her own parents and their work ethic.  Grandma and grandpa eked out a living doing whatever they had to in making ends meet as farmers in Tennessee.  The were the real working class.  Agrarian in their ways and lifestyle.  Knowing there were few shortcuts in life, and that you could only depend upon yourself and your own.

I guess that is where most of my peace has failed to rest.  For many years I was the go to person for mom.  Her and I went through many things together and were there for each other.  Her and I were very different people as my upbringing was so much easier than her own.  I was able to live in a small town with my dad having steady work at the Ford Motor Company.  Was loved deeply by two parents and five brothers.  Even though we had our sibling issues, the age differences made it so that I had six dads.  I had summers of leisure.  Fishing, playing ball…  Had dozens of kids my own age to play with and get into assorted trouble.  Could jump on my bicycle and ride anywhere I wanted to at just about any time of the day.  Schools were safe.  Neighbors were friendly and helped each other out.  Mom stayed home and made sure we were all well fed, clothed and clean.

I was never able to pay her back for her being her.  Even though I could never really do it anyway, I don’t feel like my effort in returning her effort ever came across.  I was too wrapped up in myself and my own life.  I don’t have much of a point to my ramblings other than wandering through ghosts and memories.  Even my worst memories are now like cherished dreams I want to hold onto.

It is interesting how something as simple as music can take you back.  I had someone remind me of an old radio station out of Detroit/Windsor area on the AM dial, CKLW, that I used to listen to on a small transistor radio.  It didn’t take long to grab YouTube, pull up a bunch of radio checks and bury myself back in the past.  Life is to be lived.  I lived it closer to the edge back then.   Nothing like old motown music to really take you back.  I was just a kid.  Summers were sweet.  Family was all there.

Sometimes, when memories make you sad you just need to make new ones.  Today was one of those days.  After getting buried in snow, today was a day to dig out, enjoy time outside and remember wonderful times.  The last huge snow I remember in my home town consisted of about the same amount we had here and the school parking lot and playground was COVERED.  The plows pushed all of the snow to the edge of the playground making giant hills surrounding the entire area.  My buddy Brad and I took GI Joes over and dug out snow caves and played for hours in the sunny few days that seemed to follow such fantastic storms.  I can still place myself there lying on the side of the snow hill digging out a base camp for one of the army guys.  Thinking that life was great.  No worries.  No cares.  Wow, I really miss those times of life but also enjoyed building memories like mine for my kids today.  The kids sled down the hill, played in the woods, built a snow tunnel, all of the things I still hold in memories as being part of being a kid.  Cold winter days laughing and playing in the snow.  Warm summer days playing baseball and kickball until the street lights come on and moms all over begin the ritual of calling their sons and daughters in for the evening.  Life is such a great thing.  My heart is at peace today.

I have been trying to walk a fine line between remembering and celebrating my past and becoming engulfed in the grief of losing people who meant so much to me.  I don’t know how well I am doing with it, but it sure seems writing about it has helped both address the losses and channel the good memories.

I think today I will write about a memory, if I can think of one that I can write about.  I want to think of a time that both my mom and dad were around.  It is hard to do because it was around 16 years of my life, and about half of that life holds few vivid memories worthy of writing.

My Uncle Carl lived in Tennessee.  He worked as a Roadway truck driver and lived in a house with his wife and their small dog.  His kids were all grown, so when we went there I was the only kid around.  My mom and dad enjoyed Uncle Carl and his wife.  I could tell that they must have known each other well as their stories were always something to make them smile and laugh.  Dad liked Carl quite a bit.  We went to a large lake and campground where Uncle Carl had a silver GulfStream trailer and a boat that he either owned or rented at the park.  He, Dad and I were going to take the boat to fish.  Dad hadn’t brought any gear with him and only had his Ohio fishing license so we went to the park office so Dad could purchase a single or couple day fishing license, some tackle and worms.  My memory of the boat was that it was huge, but I am sure it was probably only 16 feet.  My memory does not allow me to fill in too many fishing details other than the feeling of happiness and joy at being able to see my dad out with his brother doing what they loved to do.  I remember after fishing and going back to the trailer to eat that we went back to Carl’s house.  Karl and dad were hillbillies.  I say that with admiration.  They were simple men with passion for life, a respect for nature, and a slightly twisted world view.  At Carl’s house, we went out in his front yard and Carl showed Dad a small 25 Cal pistol.  He pulled it out of his pocket showed it to dad, and then shot all six rounds into the ground!  Mind you, he lived in a typical suburban type of an area with neighbors all around him.  But funnier still, not a single neighbor even came to their window or even looked down the road to see what was going on.  You have to love Tennessee!  On this same trip, Uncle Carl gave me two of what would be my most valued possessions for a ten year old; a stainless steel hunting knife and a Roadway baseball cap.  His poor little dog had heart worm and I went with Carl to the vet’s office to have him checked out while we were there.  I don’t remember the house much, other than the front yard and garage.  It was a good time.  My mom was happy.  My dad was happy.  My life was good.

Entered a new decade over the weekend.  It is the beginning of a totally new phase of my life.  The first twenty years of my life were spent wrapped around me.  I was young and bullet proof.  Even with the loss of my dad at 16, I still thought that I was untouchable and that everything just goes my way.  Seems odd now as life was not that easy, but my optimism carried me on.

Then the next twenty years were about family and “the climb.”  College, family and chasing the American dream were at the root of my existence.  I think a BIG part of those twenty years were spent in an odd sort of pseudo-reality.  I can’t really explain it but would love to see if it was unique to me or if most men go through this period of “suspended animation” where you are going through the motions every day while your kids and wife morph into graduates and a mom.  I can even look at pictures of myself and I seem almost vacant.  Like it is someone else in my body and my mind is preoccupied with something.  I don’t know what, but I just don’t have a lot of “memorable” items that break those decades into years or months.  Sure, I have the birth of children, buy a house, vacation or twenty, but not living each day ALIVE.

Now, here I am five years into the third of most likely four phases of my life.  I have experienced death again and this time it hit me square between the eyes.  No youth-like indifference.  No fall back.  A giant blow to the very core of who I am.  I am an orphan.  My life line, my advocate, my mom is gone.  It feels like it is now up to me to force my life to mean something.  To somehow live for those who came before me.  I am deeper into genealogy than is probably healthy.  I am digging up relatives I haven’t seen since the first phase of my life.  I am trying to remember the first two phases and make sense of them.  I am realizing that I am not independent.  I need people.  I need my family.  I need my friends.  I need my mom.  And for that matter, they need me.  It is that interdependence that I learned too late for some of those who I needed and needed me.  It is a bittersweet realization.

I usually don’t make resolutions, but I am breaking a lot of my old thoughts and patterns.  I am going to resolve to do a few things differently this year:

Make life memorable.  Make it memorable for me and for others I influence.

Put the big rocks in first.  Get a plan together for the bigger items I would like to see happen.

Love my wife.  I don’t know how she puts up with me.  I am unloving.  I am grumpy.  I wallow in my own emotional filth.  That stops today.

Love my kids.  Don’t give them, or me, reason to regret.  Take advantage of what I am given.

Reconnect with those I have cut ties with.

Take control.  Stop letting life roll over, under and around me.

As Christmas nears day by day I am growing a bit too introspective.  My recent trip driving to Florida started the deep swelling of emotion as we drove through Tennessee through places I used to go as a child with my parents and family.  The trip down was at night so only the signs to La Follette, Knoxville, Crossville, Oak Ridge and the Great Smokey Mountains caused my heart to stir.  On the way home, seeing many of them looming in the mountains made me sorely miss a much simpler time of life.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am happily married,  have wonderful kids, great business partners and a real love for life.  God has richly blessed me in many ways.  What I miss is born more out of my ignorance and naivety of life as I took so many of those things for granted.  Now that I am old enough and have gone through the sorrow of losing both of my parents through sickness and having brothers strewn across the United States it is too late to use most of this new found wisdom.  In talking to one of my older brothers last night, we came to the same conclusion.  We weren’t sure if the loss of our father was just not as hard of a loss because of his long illness and suffering or just the timing in our lives.  When you are younger, you are invincible.  Life is black and white and you are fighting your way through it on your own not capable of seeing around your self imposed blinders.  Maybe it was the relationship with Dad.  He was not the care giver.  He worked hard to provide for us, but it was Mom that stayed at home and made sure we kids were taken care of and raised to be good men.  You could never really disappoint her.  She would kick your butt one day and then love you like it never happened the next.  (Believe me, she could hold a grudge, but she never let it get in the way of supporting or defending her boys.)  She could piss me off to the point where I would not talk to her for an entire year.  This is very funny considering these last several years I talked to her almost every day.  The point is, and I made it before on this blog, that she loved ME.  Each boy could say that.  Not she loved US, which is not so personal, but that she loved ME.  It gets back to the lifeline issue.  I could call Mom at any hour of any day or night and she would drop everything she was doing to help me.  I do not know of anyone I could say the same about.  Nobody in this world puts me in front of their own needs to do that.  Nobody could be more interested in my own life.  Nobody else would focus their attention on that and that alone.  Not waiting for the opportunity to just speak about themselves or whatever was on their mind but focusing like a laser on just what was bothering me or celebrating singularly whatever life victory I was experiencing.  That is one heck of a tall order for anyone, but she did it.  With all of her faults, and like all of us, she wasn’t perfect,  she was there.  I guess that really sums it all up.  She was there.

She was there for me.  I need to think about that for awhile.

This one is hard to hear this year.  Christmas has always been a magical time of the year for me.  It is the time of the year for family get togethers and for your mind to turn to deeper thoughts and evaluation.

Unfortunately, one of the deeper thoughts for me is that my mom has passed away this year and won’t be around to celebrate.  One of the more positive thoughts was that she would be happy that we had other family over to the house for a get together.  She always wanted to know what was going on with my oldest brother, but didn’t drive any more to come down and visit or see for herself.  She would ask me to call or stop by or see how he was doing and report back to her.  Funny how she cared in her odd way about all of her sons.  She had a harder time showing it all the time, but I had more moments of it than probably the rest of them combined and  I appreciate and cherish that.

It was good connecting to family.  I don’t get to visit them as much as I would like to but even at once or twice a year we can keep each other caught up on our lives and families.  I have mentioned before that I find it odd how our (or my) psyche works.  I can’t wait to see certain people, but it can then be hard to keep the intensity level up while visiting.  You can only pull people into your inner circle for so long at a time without it wearing you down or feeling like you need to push them away.  There are a few exceptions.  I know when I would visit Mom by myself that we had shared enough life and pain that we could be happy just sitting around enjoying the presence of the other person.  I am like that with my wife, kids and son-in-law.  There is a comfort to their presence.  You don’t feel like you have to engage.  You can just BE THERE.  That is, I guess, what I miss most.  That quiet intimacy.  Just knowing someone is there and their presence is all you really need.