Grief

You may remember this post, where I wondered if anyone would tell me if my father had passed on. Two weeks ago I received my answer in the form of a phone call from my mother. My father passed away on July 11, 2011, a few days after his 66th birthday.

Grief is one of those human experiences that we study obsessively through our stories and art, as we try to understand it and prepare for it when it touches our own lives. My fear had been that I would feel no sadness or loss from his passing, and because of that, I would be revealed as some kind of defective, emotionally dysfunctional human monster. I’m still afraid of not being normal, of people finding out that I’m broken, and yes, I know this is an irrational fear.

I wasn’t numb or unaffected. I had not seen my father for almost 20 years, and the last few years of our family life together were ugly for everyone involved, but the news of his death was a punch to my gut. A sinking sense of finality. I felt the urge to lash out and rage in response to the news, but some presence of mind kept me from that. Instead, I finished the phone call and  decided to go out for a run to process my feelings.

I set out along one of my normal routes, with no set time frame or distance in mind. As I made my way down the street, I looked up into the sky at the television broadcast tower that loomed in the distance. I grew up in the shadow of that tower, with our backyard backing onto the field that the tower stands in. The tower marks the location of my first memories, a real-life map pin that shows where my life began.

I plotted out a new route, one that took me into my old neighborhood and past my childhood home. As I ran towards the old house, I went through the scattered snapshot memories that I have of my childhood. I rummaged through those few memories for nice moments involving my dad.

I jogged down my old street and I slowed down to a walk as I passed in front of the old house. I looked at the front yard where my dad, my brother and I played ball and tag. The yard where my dad taught me how to throw a ball and swing a bat. Through the front window, I saw the living room where we had watched the space shuttle Columbia launch in 1982, and my dad remarking afterwards “hey, that’s the first time you’ve ever whistled.” And I remembered the one conversation in the basement when he told me how sad he was that I never had a chance to meet his father.  “He was a great guy. You would have liked him”.

Goodbye dad.

Somewhere between return and relaunch

Ah yes, a blog post about blogging. who doesn’t love such a thing? Anyway, you may have noticed a complete lack of blog posts for the last little while. Perhaps you’ve wondered if I had been abducted by an Amish community and therefore was unable to communicate electronically. Or, you chocked it up to powerful bout of laziness and went about your business.

The answer is neither (though the Amish are an ever-present threat). Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to improve my ability to focus on my highest priority tasks. With the increasing number of commitments that are competing for my attention, I have to get better at picking my battles and letting the less important ones slide. And not to crush the spirits of the blog-fans out there, but this blog was one of the things I let slide. The prospect of forcing myself to blog on a schedule and post up content even when I didn’t have anything to say was unpalatable.

Despite the armada of interesting but unprofitable activities I take part in, my primary focus has been my next novel. It’s gone a little bit more slowly than I hoped, but I’m plucking away and I’ve finished the first third of it. And as I’ve been toiling away on  it, I’ve still been gathering up ideas and themes for a variety of blog posts. Some topics have been thrust upon me unwillingly, as my life takes an occasional unpleasant turn or two, but that’s the cost of doing business.

You may have also noticed that I’ve changed the name of the blog to something much less interesting.  There are too many topics I’d like to cover that have almost nothing to do with parenting, and it felt like I was misleading you, my wonderful audience. “I wanted to read about his kid and now he’s talking politics? WTF!” A classic bait’n’switch. So, by changing the blog into something a little more generic, I can write about the disparate bundle of ideas that clutter up my thinking without feeling like I’ve tricked you with false advertising.

Putting in the time

I think we’ve stumbled upon my a prospective best friend for my little dude, and as with every childhood bond of deep friendship, it’s primarily based on proximity. We’ve found another family living in our townhouse complex who have a son who is almost exactly the same age as Max, even born in the same month. This means that they’ll both be going into junior kindergarten at the same time, and they’ll both attend the school right around the corner. Like magic, my anxiety about the new school and the strangeness of it all has almost entirely vanished. He’s going to have a class buddy! Someone familiar who will accompany him as he embarks upon the journey into the mysteries of primary school.

And, to allay any concerns that their nearness to each other is the only commonality between them, please rest assured that they get along like peas and carrots. They are both smart, energetic, outgoing and creative dudes and they rally enjoy each others company. Of course, this means I now have double the amount of 4-year-old negotiating and pleading when I try to split the two of them up, but it’s a small price to pay.

It’s funny, I normally would feel very awkward about dropping in on a relative stranger, and a younger version of myself would have avoided doing that at all costs. But now, I can do it without really flinching, all because I want the relationship between Max and Shane to grow.

The trick to doing things you’re not comfortable with is having the right motivation. Before I found pursuits that I really believed in, it was impossible to challenge my own limitations and barriers. Now that there are a wealth of causes and goals that I’m chasing after, the intermediary steps I have to take to achieve those goals don’t seem insurmountable. As another example, I set up a meeting with a complete stranger, to talk about their involvement in my riding association. And not only did I set up the meeting, I was excited to go. For someone who used to describe himself as socially anxious, this is a surprising development (and a pretty cool one).