42

Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me, "Norman, you like to write stories." And I said "Yes, I do." Then he said, "Someday, when you're ready you might tell our family story. Only then will you understand what happened and why."
A River Runs Through It



"Why did Granny buy me this?" Wy asked.

Such a simple question. One that would lead to a powerful epiphany. But that came seven days later. Remember. I'm king of the dipshits. I suck in real time.

"Why did Granny buy you what?" I asked turning around to see what Wyatt meant. This being our Mr. Mom vacation, at the time of his question I was in the Gulf of Mexico off Crystal Beach with my back turned to him. Not that I wasn't on point. In fact, I was positioned in what I considered the middle ground between Wy playing in the surf and E who was back on the beach putting the finishing touches on an elaborate sand castle complex.

"Oh. You mean your surfboard." I said since he was holding up his boogie board (which he calls a surfboard.)

"Yeah." Wy said. "Why did Granny buy me this?"

"She bought that for you, and one for your brother when we came to Galveston." I said. "We went to Stewart Beach. That place we drove by earlier today on our way to the ferry. She bought it at that place I pointed out to you and Ethan that was destroyed. That they are rebuilding."

"I didn't like Stewart Beach." Wy said.

"Really? I'm amazed you even remember that. You were really little." I said.

"Yeah." He said with a serious look on his face. "But why did she buy it for me?"

"She liked to buy you guys stuff." I explained. "And I guess she wanted to get you something from the beach."

"Yeah," he said again, "But why did she buy it for me?"

Again, let me remind you that I am a dipshit in real time. Which is why I didn't get Wy's point so I snippily said, "I just told you why she bought it for you."

"Yeah." Wy said dejectedly, giving up.

"She'd be happy you..." I said stopping mid-sentence because the proverbially light bulb went off over my king of the dipshits crown.

"You want to know why she bought you your surfboard when you were so little? Is that what you mean?"

"Yeah." He said smiling. Happy that I had caught up.

"I'm not sure. Like I said, she liked to buy you guys stuff. And if we went somewhere she would usually buy you guys a souvenir or something. She usually got t-shirts though. But I remember on this trip she walked up and down the beach with you a lot. You were in your stroller. I have photos of that."

"Yeah." He said.

"On this trip though she really wanted to get you guys a surfboard or something so you could play in the ocean. I remember her walking around and looking for a place to buy it. It was kind of odd. You were still in a stroller on that trip. You couldn't play in the ocean with a surfboard. You couldn't swim."

Then almost to myself I said, "You guys were really little then. That was July 2005. Four years ago."

"Yeah." Wy said looking as if he was still not satisfied with my half ass thinking out loud answer.

"You know what?" I asked.

"What?"

"Even though I'm not exactly sure why Granny bought it for you, I do know one thing."

"What" Wy asked.

"It would make her very happy that you've enjoyed it as much as you have, and that we still have the surfboards four years later."

"Yeah." Wy said smiling.

"And she'd love the fact that you are out here riding the waves like you've been doing today. Using the surfboard she got for you. She'd have loved to see to you do that. You're a good surfer."

"I know." Wy said.

I wanted to tell Wy that Granny was up in heaven looking down and watching him surf. But I couldn''t do that. I don't know if that is true. And my lack of faith would make me preface it with a big nasty if there is a heaven, which would have sullied our moment. So Instead I said what I know is true, not what I hoped was true.

"She loved you son."

"I know." He said.

I didn't know the real answer though. Or what I'm pretty certain the real answer is. Took me seven days to get it. Finally hitting me while I was viewing photos of our Mr. Mom trip online and replaying our conversation in my head.

"Why did Granny buy me this?"

Because she knew she was dying.

That is why she was so hell-bent on getting two surfboards that were not age appropriate for the Boy(s.) She knew her cancer was terminal. And that her time was limited.

She was right.

A year later we tried to get her to come to Galveston for the day to watch the Boy(s) play in the surf. She couldn't. By then she could barely walk. A month after that, over Labor Day weekend, she told me she had six months to live.

This time she was wrong.

She had six weeks.

Until I BLOG again...Those that are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head.

Read the epilogue to 42 here.

Just like Rock and Roll

E: We didn't have dinner?!?!
Me: Are you hungry?
E & Wy: No.
Me: Then what's your point?
Wy: Mom feeds us dinner.
Me: I'm not Mom.
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Wy: I don't want to go. If I go with you he won't play with me.
Me: He will. He'll forget.
Wy: No. He won't.
Me: Yes. He will.
Wy: No. He keeps a list so he won't forget.
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E: I'll take a shower. But I don't want to use soap.
Me: You need to use soap.
E: No.
Me: Yes.
E: NO!!!
Me: Yes.
E: But it's supposed to be vacation!?!?!
----------------
Wy: Email Mom.
Me: Ok. What do you want me to say?
Wy: Say, I'm so annoyed with these boys.
Me: You think Mom will believe that?
Wy: Be sure and sign your name so she knows it's from you.
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E: I see the rainbow flag over there on that building.
Me: Like I explained yesterday. That means it's a gay friendly establishment. That's a gay bar.
Wy: Really?!?!
Me: Yes.
Wy: I'm going to go in and say, I'm gay. And I don't mean happy.
E: Laughs.
Me: What do you think they would do if you did that?
Wy: (Few seconds pause as he considers the question.) Probably kick me out.
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Wy: E and me are different. I like to surf. He likes to play in the sand.
Me: You guys are flip sides of the same coin.
Wy: Coin?!?! Can I get a gum ball?
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A few sound bites from our Galveston Beach vacation (a.k.a. Mr. Mom Trip.) If you are hungry for more. You can see photos from our trip by clicking here (you can view as a set or slide show.) Or check out this video.

Until I BLOG again...Well it's plain to see you were meant for me.

No Line on the Horizon

I'm a fucking hypocrite. I had just called the Elder Boy out for playing the blame game when less than 24 hours later I was playing the same fucking game in my feeble ass attempt to ascribe blame for my mid July melancholy funk. The contenders? A. Farrah Fawcett, B. Otitis media, and C. My birthday (which is more about the person who gave me life no longer being around.)

Seriously.

God knows I've posted enough my poor Mom, the original Granny, was eaten up by fucking cancer, on this here BLOG.

The original Granny. That's what E called her. It made me laugh. Hard. Which made him look at me like I was nuts, trying to discern that age old question. Is he laughing with me. Or at me.

For the record, I was laughing with him. Like Fat Tony said: "It's funny because it's true."

What wasn't funny because it's true was watching a special on Farrah Fawcett with clips from Farrah's Story while I lay in bed feeling like shit because of a nasty ear infection. I'm not even sure how I ended up on the channel (read Lifetime.) Probably trying to escape the frenzy that was (is) Michael Jackson's death.

Watching that special was disturbing. I was transfixed by the juxtaposition of old photos and clips of the young, healthy Farrah with the clips, interviews and stories of those that were with her during her long battle with cancer. And at the end. Their descriptions of her last days a mirror for me to see the reflection of my own grief. A grief that can amazingly still rear its ugly head. I'm left wondering yet again, is there a limit of statutation on grief. Or does it depend on the way in which you lost your loved one? Perhaps a better question is this. Can you reset memory. Erase the final days of a loved one's life when you lose them in such a slow and debilitating way? And if you can. Would you?

Alas, even I, ever the dipshit, realize to eradicate the cancer riddled deathbed version of my Mom that I see when grief jumps out of the bushes and kicks me in the nuts would be to miss the point. Even if said point is a self created illusion on my part.

“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

The Boy(s) and I stayed at Pops and Janie's house on a recent trip to Tulsa, which reminded me of a mashup song, only with furniture and household items.

We were sitting in the living room when all of a sudden Wy jumped up and took off down the hall calling out, "Granny..."

The empathetic expression on E's face as he turned to look at me, to gage my reaction was something I'll never forget. He said nothing so I said, "It's Ok, son. You guys can call Janie whatever you want to call Janie. She's Pops' wife. Your Grandma. Or Granny. Or Mimi. I'm sure it would make her feel really good if you guys called her one of those instead of Janie and Daddy is OK with that. I promise."

The answer was D.

All of the above.

Which is usually the case in this life.

Until I BLOG again...The songs in your head are now on my mind, you put me on pause, I try to rewind, love, and replay.

Yakety Yak

"Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

Just a stressed look on the Elder Boy's face followed by jerky nervous foot to foot action as he hopped from pile to pile of detritus strewn all over his bedroom floor.

"Boy," I said much more forcibly than I had intended. "Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

"What are these?" I asked holding up a ziplock bag full of cardboard pieces. "Did you cut these out of a toy box?"

Nothing.

"Why would you keep these?" I asked shaking my head in amazement.

"I need them."

"You need them?"

"Yeah."

"They were buried under all this gimme toy crap from Adventure Landing. You probably didn't even know they were in this drawer. What do you need them for?"

"Need what?" Wyatt said as he jumped over two large trash bags full of shit in the doorway into E's room.

"Get out of here!" Ethan screamed.

"Wy," I said. "Go play video games. Leave us alone. Please."

Oblivious to our requests Wy asked, "Where's Mom?"

"She's not here. She couldn't take this. She'd lose it." I said.

"Why does Ethan keep all this stuff?" Wy asked.

"WYATT!" Ethan raged.

"Good question." I said. "But I did ask you to leave. So go. NOW."

"Ah man," Wy said as he jumped across the piles of crap and ran down the hall.

"So, Boy, why do you need this?" I asked again holding up the bag of cut-out cardboard pieces.

"You're making me angry!" He shouted.

"Dude," I started. "If we're going to reorganize and decorate your room so you can have these Lego areas you keep talking about, we have to get rid of all this shit you have rat holed in your room. This is nuts. It's just stuff."

"I like it."

"I know you do son. But I think you think you have to keep every little thing because it reminds you of stuff. But it's just stuff. The memories are in you. In your heart. In your head. You don't need all of this to keep them. Does that make sense?"

Nothing.

"I feel like I'm trapped in a freaking Clean House episode."

"So, let me ask you again. Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

"Ok then. I'm going to throw what I think should be thrown away, away. If I question something, or think we should save it, I'll ask you."

"Got it?"

"Yeah." He said.

"Good," I said as I grabbed a handful of gimme toy crap from a particularly large cache in his upper right dresser drawer which exposed six rolls of scotch tape.

"Fuck me." I'm afraid to say, I said. "There's six roles of tape in this drawer? Mom is always asking where the tape went. Now we know!?!?"

"Don't throw that away." He said ignoring my tape complaint.

"What? This gimme toy crap from Adventure Landing?"

"Don't throw that away. I want to keep it."

"What could you possible need these for?" I asked. "It's junk son. Half of it is broke."

"I like it." He said.

And so it went.

For four grueling hours.

Our very own special episode of Clean House featuring Raymond Babbitt, playing a crazy ass don't touch that, cat-and-mouse game, over each cache of shit.

When it was all over we had seven (four trash, three going to Goodwill) large bags of shit piled in the hallway.

Surveying his room I said, "Your room looks good. Your Mom is going to freak out when she sees it."

"Yeah." He said smiling.

"She won't believe it."

"Yeah." He said. "Let me show her, OK?"

"Sure." I said. "You can show her."

"Let's keep my door closed so I can surprise her. OK?"

"Ok." I answered.

"You know what son?"

"What?"

"I'm proud of you. This wasn't easy for you to do. But you did it anyway. Good job."

Nothing.

Just a sweet and proud smile on his face.

Until I BLOG again...Your father's hip; he knows what cooks.