still kickin

Sharing some quasi-random thoughts...

I am taking a class about teaching writing; in such classes they make you do a lot of writing from all these brainstorming activities that you can then transfer to your own classroom. This is kinda cool, and I've done such things before (which I'd previously looked to post here, but realized I've lost the digital copies in the course of my various computers/accounts) On top of that, I'm already working with a new group of students on writing activities, and I'm realizing one thing: every brainstorming activity that I participate in, I'm having to edit myself heavily. I don't just mean skipping my drinking days, or any other nefarious endeavors, but not talking about Joel. Not that discussing my personal life with 14 year olds is a priority in my life, but it is a bit difficult when trying to model these activities, and "think aloud" when the eye of every storm is a topic that would, amongst other things, steal everyone else's thunder.

As for my class, I already put it out there in my introductory bio, so they can just deal with it if I keep heading to that same well all semester long. Not going to that well for the purpose of this blog is just an issue of motivation and time. When I say motivation it is more along the lines of motivation to silently push myself through those experiences again when I'm doing so well at immersing myself in pop-culture and work to the point of total distraction and lack of introspection. (okay...I'm kinda lying when I say I'm immersed in work...)

but hey, maybe I'll have some fresh material soon.

I should change the "would be alcoholic" part of my bio...

Restless Spirit

I'll just be honest here: I've spent what I feel like is a whole helluva lot of time helping Jules sleep. He is a restless kid, always has been.

In the hospital, just hours into the light and the pollution, his eyes held focus on everything. It was the general comment from all his onlookers: "he's so...aware." Aware. Always noticing things going on, even when all he could do was wake up or squirm in response. Noise he never seemed to mind (except our voices or the animals), but light, commotion; these things stirred him.

He never slept in the car; he was either content or cried. And by cried I mean wailed; torturous cries that made you think something horrible was happening back there. He was persistent in these cries. Unrelenting and inconsolable; no pacifiers, no bottles, no songs or rubs: just get me the fuck out. It was this way until past his fist birthday, really.

A sleep schedule? Only in the past few months have we established something resembling a sleep schedule. On average he takes an hour to bed down without being held and rocked. He tends to just keep going: tapping fingers, rubbing legs, fiddling with his hair (many a late, late night I've wanted to shave that pretty little head) or, my favorite, just sitting straight up as I do my best Splinter Cell out of the room, even after he fails to respond after I raise his arm the third time, and THEN slowly count to 60 to make sure he is out cold.

Before he was a person -- you know, back when he was just a squirming mass of cute and chub, sucking in as much formula and information as possible -- getting him to sleep required this ridiculous amount of stimulation: patting, rubbing, walking, bouncing. I developed what I came to call my Rastafarian dance; this long-strided bounce paired with deep toned humming of song while patting and rubbing my easily bored offspring. It was the only thing that ever would get him to sleep in less than 20 minutes. Seriously, he could be dead tired, and still to this day, when the lights go out for bed, he's awake.

On average -- even now, with his willingness to go to bed, and a two storybook a night habit -- he takes about an hour to get to sleep. I don't mind it. It has certainly become easier. And he's sweet about it all.

He still hates the state of being asleep though -- or maybe its the state of grogginess that he hates: if he moves towards conciousness at all, he becomes pretty upset (something else we've slowly worked on). He'll cry out, or lumber into the hall, "Daddy hol' me". Yeah, its pretty damned heart melting.

Thing is, this is all preface. This is not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about tonight's storm. One of those classic, summer night, thunder and lightning extravaganzas. Rumbles as if Great Cthulhu were rising and flashes so bright you can't help but to get the feeling stepping into their light would reveal some truth of the soul. Yes, the kind of storm that makes you get all crazy on adjective porn.

Whatever it is in me that wants to stand in the rain felt especially strong tonight. Like there were layers of filth that needed not only to be washed off, but burned away in the blinding spark of that summer lightning. I guess you could say there's something a bit wild to it; something primal.

"Daddy hol' me"

and like that, I don't need the lightning, or the thunder, or that swell of ancient Viking spirit to reveal any truth to me. The dirts still there, perhaps somethings buried inside, but for now, I'm good. Very good.

Guess that's what 'Daddy' is all about.

cripes

It's an interesting phenomenon of my brain that when I am required to write something (read: grad school, lesson plans, etc.) I become greatly in-tune with the great truths of the world. More specifically, the great truths that have absolutely nothing to do with what I am supposed to be doing.

As such, I have plenty of bloggy thoughts right now, but I have to be somewhere else, typing for even fewer people than I do here (if you can believe that).

For one thing, I've found the urge to finally do the most obvious thing for this blog that I have somehow failed to do up to this point: recall the days and moments surrounding Joel's death. No promise on when that will be posted, but it is coming. Definitely over the course of a few entries.

I'm also going to finally post something I mentioned a long-ass time ago. It's a little thing that rattles around in the back of my head; the synopsis for a comic (or something) that my wife and I came up with. "Action 8" Imagine your quirky ass local news team. Now imagine they have to cover shit like zombies and alien invasions. I dunno, we just wanted to make up passive-aggressive conversations between Tony Cavalier and Tim Irr.

Yes, we're odd.

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...who the hell lives in Tazewell, Va?

Happy Birthday!

With my birthday coming up, I had been thinking quite a bit about my family. Not just my wife and boys, but my parents and extended family. As usually seems to be the case when I feel bad about things with my family, someone stepped up to make me feel a little better...well, at least justified.

This is a facebook exchange I had on my birthday.

Some required backstory: "Auntie P", a childhood favorite, has sent me a few messages on holidays, but I hadn't responded for reasons ranging from: "I'm too sad for this" to "how are you nice to me and shitty to my wife?" to "...just waiting for you to talk about what I want to talk about..."

I haven't edited anything but names.

and ooooooh, a link to my facebook. Screw it, I'll leave it.

Auntie P July 5 at 12:43pm Report

Happy Birthday to you!! Even tho you no love me no more....I still love you!!! Hope you have a great day...what are you now...like 50?

Me July 5 at 1:40pm

Thank you, and I do still love you. The thing is that there are things that have never been said that maybe should have been. And I don't like that I get sent nice, happy messages, when at the same time my wife receives not-very-nice messages, or anonymous messages about me not replying to Christmas greetings, as if it had anything to do with her. It's two-faced, and I don't like it.

and if anyone really gave a damn about how I actually feel, they would've sent a message on May 28th AND they would've apologized for enabling their bastard brother being such a worthless piece of garbage for so many years (Steve laughing at my wife at Joel's funeral and mocking his death in a subsequent email)

I read over your Christmas message several times because it gave me joy to know B and R are doing so well, but the fact is I was really too sad to respond on what should've been my second son's first Christmas.

So yeah, I have a lot of hurt feelings and confounding thoughts in regard to family right now and really, until my son gets some acknowledgement, or I at least get a "yes, steve really is a piece of shit and theres no excuse for it" I really don't have much to say to anyone, despite how much they may try to make themselves feel better by sending me messages.

I love you, I truly do, and I wish you and your boys, and the rest of our family, only the best because you have been nothing but wonderful to me my whole life, but none of that excuses the past year.

Auntie P July 5 at 3:43pm Report

what happened on May 28th? I have my own "BEEF" with members of the fam. but have learned to live and let live...guess it's easier that way for me. I understand alot of your frustrations but I exiled myself from my mom for over a year and in the end it just hurts more looking back. I pray for you all...including baby Joel. I can't even imagine your pain at his loss and I want you to know that he is a part of ME too!! Please tell Kyle Julian about me and his cousins. I love that little fella even though I have never seen him.

Me July 5 at 5:17pm

Joel was born on May 28th, and clearly if you think ignoring the existence of a child, and mocking his death is something to "live and let live" well then you are correct, you cannot imagine our pain. I think we are done here.

What happend on May 28th? Really?? You couldn't GUESS? Ah well, let's just keep on not talking about it.

Sorry, but I'm just not going to soil his memory by forgiving anything without a little show of remorse. And damn, now that I've said that in a public forum, it suddenly becomes more difficult for me to acknowledge an apology. Oh the games we play...

but seriously, it's been a good birthday.

ah, dammit! Cut that out!

No one ever told me that being in the DB club makes you an asshole to your next kid.

Every time he is sleeping quietly for more than five minutes, I poke him.

"Hey. pssst, hey. You alive?"

"bluurgle *squeeak* aaahh"

"YAY!"

(yes, babies sound like tires deflating in mud.)

Ask a DB Dad: Why does God have big, clumsy feet?

**Note: I've been dancing around getting this written for what seems like an eternity, my apologies to any of you who may have been waiting for it.

Sometimes the "grace of God" ain't so graceful...

off topic observation: usage of the word ain't to create a playful tone. Is that indirectly mocking those that use ain't in normal speech?

which reminds me that I need to re-teach some students that in (or just n) is not the correct spelling of and.

moving on...

Being in the unfortunate position of having a dead child, one quickly discovers that most people have no idea what to say to you. In that case, they turn to religion. Okay, so perhaps that is a gross generalization, but living in the upper portion of the Bible b elt it is a pretty good one. So let's keep in mind that I know a lot of what I am saying is based on generalization because otherwise I'm going to be here all day covering a gazillion bases.

It was what should have been Joel's first holiday season; obviously, we were a little down. You'll find holidays are just another part of the year where you spend extra time remembering your child, which just makes everyone else not remembering sting so much more. (for more on this subject, read every DB blog out there)

I was actually a little hopeful when we received a package, a gift for our first son, from a family member.

I'll save the family issues for now, but its worth noting that this family member has suffered a loss as well; a miscarriage. Of course, at the time, the family directive I received was to not speak of it. When news of Joel's death hit the wire, this person was one of the first to call and she offered to talk since she'd been through something similar. We really appreciated that, even though we never took her up on the offer; we just weren't ready to talk to someone just yet.

So yeah, the package. Included was a card; a religious card. Now I never received any Muslim words of comfort, or Jewish or Hindi (at least I don't think so...) so I can't say what kind of stuff they might say, but I know Christianity is always good for throwing out some quotes without a whole lot of thought for how they'll be read (how did it take me this long to get to my thesis??).

Of the card in question, it is long gone at the time I'm finally writing this, so an exact quote I cannot give. The basic idea, however, was letting the Lord take our earthly sorrows, although I occasionally remember it as "small, earthly troubles". Thing is, we only had one earthly sorrow, which we didn't find to be small at all, we certainly didn't consider it merely 'earthly', and, to be perfectly honest, we already had a bit of a bone to pick with the guy that was supposed to make it better!

I know what the sentiment was, but the words, they just weren't right. Kind of like, "you're child is in the arms of Jesus" Well thanks Jesus, but I'd prefer to be holding him; I'm not keen on strangers holding my baby, and no offense, but they didn't have a lot of Purell in Nazareth, so if you would be so kind...

"God works in mysterious ways" What? like Batman? Sorry, even Batman wouldn't kill my baby.

Now it isn't that I'm some angry Atheist or just mad at God or something. In fact, I understand and believe that religion can be quite a comfort. The thing is, religion is just like the rest of the world: it can be good or bad, depending on how you use it.

I certainly like to believe that everyone who misspoke or did something to add salt to our wound had the best of intentions. However, it is undeniable, and probably unavoidable, that there are a great and many things that occur once you enter the DB-parent club that send the message, "hurry up and get the fuck over it." Or there are the dismissive items, like the card in the gift. My apologies to Anonymous, but sometimes the thought just doesn't count; sometimes shitty gifts/words are just plain shitty.

Some of the people who comforted us most did not throw scripture at us, they simply "walked the walk" and acted like good Christians, which, believe it or not, is the same way a good Muslim, Jew, Hindi (...I think), or any other religion (Pastafarians included) would behave: they were nice to us. The real 'grace' came from the kindness of the people we were around. Those that found ways to comfort us and show their care sometimes by doing nothing more than acknowledging our pain and offering to be there, or just being respectful.

One may choose to believe that scripture is the absolute Word of God, and they have that right, but words are still words, with multiple definitions, connotations, interpretations and other -ations. So if you find yourself in the unenviable position of needing to comfort a grieving parent, maybe, just maybe, it is better to follow the instructions instead of trying to hand them out.