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Chapter 11: Oh, How Mom & I Have Grown

10/17/2015

I didn't do any rummaging through the archives tonight aboard the old raft, but I did think of some things I could have rummaged through. Mostly I was thinking of digging through the secret treasures I keep in an old laptop case that are all related to my dad--no, a laptop isn't one of them. Many of the things inside it were placed there around the time he died--many are items he gave me just a couple weeks before he died. I'm not going to say what treasures are in there--not tonight anyway--but I will only say they are treasures indeed. Aside from my Alice Cooper action figure (still in the package, of course) that's autographed by both Alice Cooper AND Todd McFarlane (creator of the action figure), several items inside that case are my most prized possessions.

I was very close to retrieving the sacred laptop case and sifting through it again tonight, but I decided against it. It's not that I didn't want to, of course, it's that it occurred to me I really haven't spoken much of my mom yet on this blog, and the time is overdue for me to do so. Before I go on more about my mom and what this season means to us, here is a song I wrote and recorded for her as a Mother's Day gift..it was 2001 I believe, but could have been 2002. It's inaccurate to credit the song as Atomic Honey, as we were still almost a decade away from me forming Atomic Honey...but I digress.

As many of you will know, my father was both born and died in November, so it's always an interesting season for us, and thoughts of him tend to permeate whatever else happens to be going on in our lives at the same time. As we get closer to November, thoughts of him--and sometimes even dreams--increase, and carry on right through the holidays. Mom and I have discussed this at length, and it happens to both of us in much the same way. In all honesty, that's what tempted me to sift through the laptop case filled with treasure...but my heart told me it was time to share about my mom, so I left the case alone for now.

My mom, as most of you would guess, is a very sensitive and compassionate human being--those traits I most certainly inherited from her, and I'm grateful for it. My dad taught me strength, and how to stay calm under pressure, and how to stand up for yourself when you needed to; but my mom taught me compassion: how to hug and say "I love you" without feeling awkward. No disrespect intended in the least, but strength has never been my mom's forte. If you needed to know how to comfort someone and make them feel they mattered, she was perfect; if you crashed on your bike and needed a bandage, she was perfect for that too. But if you were being bullied at school, her counsel would very likely get you pummeled ten times worse, and destroy any chance you might have had at a happy social life. I'm exaggerating, but not by much.

See, my mom was sheltered as a child: she wasn't allowed to date or even go to a rock concert. Her father actually escorted her to her senior prom (that's no joke or exaggeration, unfortunately). So of course the first thing she did when she graduated from high school was get married. That's a happy thing in the sense that I exist because of it, but my mom never had a chance to be independent--never had her own bank account, never had her own apartment or car...never had the chance to so much as change a light bulb. She was totally unprepared for the dog-eat-dog world we live in. And of course, my dad did a fantastic job of caring for me and my mom, so she remained dependent for the most part even after she escaped her parents. This is the extremely abridged version--there are a million stories I could share about my mom over the years--and maybe some of those will make their way into later chapters of this journal.

Fast forward now to August of 2006: my dad is diagnosed with a brain tumor, and all our lives are suddenly turned upside-down. For my mom, that meant--for the first time in her life--facing the very real possibility of having to fend for herself. It meant having to deal with things breaking around the house, balancing checkbooks, paying bills, mowing the lawn, raking leaves...oh yeah, and it meant she would be without her companion of more than 30 years--the love of her life. She'd eventually go to sleep to an empty California King bed each night, and wake up alone. All for the first time.

It occurs to me now that I should tell you my mother had held different jobs over the years (she even has one now!), and had her own car many of those years--my dad took care of her, but he didn't shelter her. When I was with them, I wasn't at an age to contemplate these types of things, but I suspect in retrospect that my dad worked very hard to help her grow after they were married. She did learn a lot of new skills over the years, but strength was never her forte. Like I said, this is the extremely abridged version. I sorta digress.

I did the best I could to help her through all the transitions after my dad died, but it was difficult. I grieved along with her, of course, but it's one thing to lose a father, and another thing completely to lose your only human companion. I tried to empathize as much as I could, but it was impossible for me to see things completely from her perspective. This turned out to be a good and beautiful thing over time.

As it turns out, I was a product of both my mom AND my dad: I had the compassion to empathize just enough because of her, and I had the strength and calmness-under-pressure because of him. I'm leaving out all the details for the purpose of this journal (I'm sure it will come up again sometime), but over time I learned how to apply what I learned from both of them to help her through this. During difficult days (and there were many early on), I was able to say, "Well, Dad would say/do this I think" and so on. And she would listen. As she told me more about herself, I would tell her more about myself, and we started growing together. Yes, we have always grown together, but we did so on a different level after Dad died. She started seeing me as a male role model in her life (her parents have long been dead), and I started seeing her as someone who was starting their adult life all over again. In an odd way, it was a bit like she was my daughter that had went away to college. We have never been closer than we are today, despite our geographical distance. I think I have embraced my new role in her life, and she has embraced her new role in mine. It's really a beautiful thing. We are both very blessed and grateful, and we discuss that often.

Mom is always quick to tell me how proud she is of me, and I'm quick to shrug it off and say "You guys taught me well. If you feel the need to thank me, you should thank yourself first." I tell her how proud I am of her too, but not quite as often--I have to keep my image up you know, just like Dad taught me *wink, wink*.

I really am so super proud of her though. I could write many pages on just how and why I'm so proud of her, but I won't. Not yet anyway. She has become so much stronger and more calm under pressure with each passing year since Dad left us, and I'm so honored to be a part of her journey. Truly, a person could not ask for a better mother.

November 30 this year will mark year 8 without us having Dad with us in the flesh. Much as I miss him, I've no doubt things worked out just the way they were supposed to. If you're listening, Dad: Mom & I have found ways to be very happy even though we miss you--not every day of course--we have good and bad days which you taught me is normal in this life.You would be happily amazed to see how she's grown...and in all honesty, Dad, I think she was much stronger to begin with than we ever gave her credit for. Thank you for helping me help her. You are the best father a person could ask for. We will all be together again when the time is right--even my baby sister Trisha. I trust you & Trisha enjoy your time together, even as I type this--please tell her I said "hello" and that I love her.

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Chapter 10: An Unexpected Visit & A Fatality Move

10/6/2015

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My rummaging process through the old raft was pleasantly interrupted this last week by an unexpected visit by Weasel...a much-needed visit for both of us, I think. The visit didn't last as long as I would have liked (no matter how long a visit is with your children, it's always too short), but I'm very grateful for the few days we had together.

Without going into too many details, Weasel had been living up to his name--at school, and at his mother and stepfather's house in Arizona. He was caught doing more than his share of lying, had been somewhat defiant (out-of-character for him), and was failing all subjects in school. Yes, all of them. It turned out that though he was the top of his class on his tests each week, he hadn't done a single page of his daily work--neither at home or at school. For my digression of the night, I'm reminded how I did the same exact thing when I took Chemistry in high school (though I didn't lie, my parents just never asked)...except that I was able to pull off a C+ for the year.

My Chemistry teacher, Mr. Pritchett, had pissed me off by asking me if I was stoned one time in front of the whole class while he was giving a lecture and I wasn't paying attention. A friend of mine, John, and I, were looking at Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books and giggling during the lecture. I didn't mind that he called me out for not paying attention, but I didn't like being wrongly accused of being on drugs--especially in front of the whole class (and the irony of it was that my friend John probably WAS actually stoned, lol). I let Mr. Pritchett know as much as class let out. He pointed out that I hadn't done any of my daily work and that there was no way to pass his class without doing the daily work. I, of course, took that as a challenge, and made a point of doing none of the daily work the rest of the year. I read the chapters, though, and my friend John and I were always in the top 3 on test scores out of all his classes. Mr. Pritchett was so pissed about having to give me a C+ that he wouldn't speak to me for many, many years. Anchorage is a small town, so you run into people at grocery stores and what not; so I of course would run into him on occasion. Every time I saw him somewhere I would say "Hi, Mr. Pritchett" in a sincere and pleasant tone...he wouldn't return the "Hello" and would instead glare at me, grumble, and walk past me. This went on for many years--even after he'd long been retired from teaching--until about three years ago. I bumped into him at Costco a few years ago and tried again with my "Hi, Mr. Pritchett," and, much to my surprise, he smiled and was so gracious. He took my extended hands with both of his and held them so warmly, and I could feel he was genuinely happy to see me. We exchanged small talk for a few minutes and parted ways...it was such a beautiful moment though. I haven't seen him since then, but I'll always have that fond memory.

In fairness to Mr. Pritchett, I did give him much more cause to be pissed at me than simply not doing my daily work and acing the tests. He was out one time for a seminar for a couple days, and had left a notebook of instructions for his substitute sitting on his desk. I scanned over it and noticed that he had instructed him to make 2.0 liters of sodium something-or-other solution, and he had handily written the instructions in pencil so I was able to erase the "." from the page. Mr. Pritchett nearly exploded when he came back to 20 liters of sodium something-or-other solution and spent most of an entire class letting us all know how upset he was. I never did fess up to that one, though I imagine he always suspected me.

And there was the time I squirted a girl on the backside with a water gun--Amy, I think it was--and he sent me to the principal's office. Amy (if it was her) even pleaded with him not to bust me, as we were friends and I was just messing around, and she didn't really mind...but he'd have none of it. So I went to the office, and was issued a week's worth of work details. Mr. Pritchett was satisfied with that, until he later found out that I never actually had to serve any of them. There was another girl--Cassie, I think was her name--who was a friend of mine who worked in the school office, so she marked me off on my work details each day to reflect that I had served them. She offered to do this for me, because she felt the punishment was unjust. Since I seem to be sort of confessing things here, I should point out that the way Mr. Pritchett learned that I never actually served the work details was by me telling him so--on the last day of school. I made a special trip to his classroom to let him know as I was on my way out the door of East Anchorage High school for the last time. So now that I think about it, I guess I deserved years of him glaring and grumbling at me. But all's well that ends well, right? Hopefully Mr. Pritchett never reads this and learns I was responsible for the sodium something-or-other debacle.

There were other things too, but those were the big ones--and I've already let this digression run on too long. I'll finish the digression by saying I actually wasn't a bad kid in school at all--I was an honor student, and, for the most part, what every mother wanted their high school kid to be. The only punishment I ever received in school at all were the work details issued after the squirt gun incident that I never served. A squeaky clean record aside from that. Anyway, on with the unexpected Weasel visit.

Weasel spent three days and two nights with me here at My Blue Heaven, and it was all quality time. We didn't talk too much about his troubles at school and home, but enough I think. When he left the other night he promised me that he'll graduate the 5th grade, so I'm taking him at his word. We ran some errands together and ate out a few times, but mostly we hung out and played video games. We mostly played Primal Rage (which he knows I was addicted to when I was in my mid 20's), but we also played Mortal Kombat--both II and III. Thank God for the retro games they release for Xbox by the way!
I kicked his ass on Primal Rage, of course, because I knew all the special moves; then he returned the favor on Mortal Kombat because he knew THOSE special moves. While we were playing Mortal Kombat, I discovered I was putting up a much better fight against him when I was playing as Mileena, so I just kept playing as her. I even won a few rounds against him, which annoyed him enough to start playing as her. Even when we were both playing as Mileena, I was putting up a good fight against Weasel every round (though I didn't win them all). The highlight, though, was that I successfully executed a finishing move against him, which in Mortal Kombat is called a fatality. This particular fatality had me eating him then spitting out the bones. He was very pissed about this...that is the moment captured in the photo above. He accused me of "button spamming" as he calls it, though I honestly wasn't. I was trying a sequence of buttons as an experiment that was intentional, and the fatality happened. I've always understood "button spamming" (I call it "button mashing") as just randomly hitting different buttons, having no intention or idea what you're doing. The jury is still out.

It was also nice to have someone to watch Thursday Night Football with...we both enjoyed watching the game together I think, and I'm glad he's at an age now where we can have football in common. In all honesty, though, that kind of went off the rails: since we both can always muster enough flatulence for our own entertainment, we engaged in plenty of that during the football game, and we ended up making associations between penalty calls and farts. Gas Interference, Illegal Shift (lifting your butt up to let the stink out), Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Holding (pinching your nose), Roughing the Gasser (punching someone after they fart), Delay Of Game (a fart that lingers too long), Illegal Contact (butt cheeks actually touching the other person when you fart)...and so on. I think you get the idea. It was fun in a father/son kind of way, with no ladies present.

We also watched the Adam Sandler movie "Click" as Weasel really liked that one and I had never seen it. I've enjoyed many Adam Sandler movies over the years, by the way (Happy Gilmore has always been my favorite), but "Click" was one I hadn't seen. We enjoyed that very much too, and made no fart associations with it that I know of--though I'm sure we both still engaged in flatulence while watching it.

We also had found a copy of the Indiana Jones Lego's game for Xbox for $5 at Ian's Game Paradise, so we picked that up and spent some time on that one too. And we farted some more. And we watched cartoon episodes of "Clarence" and "Regular Show" on demand that we both enjoy...and were likely farting during those as well. Maybe I should have worked "flatulence" into the title of this chapter?

In summary, I'm so grateful for the few days Weasel and I had together. He is much more grown up every time I see him (I last saw him late in July, when he and Butterfly were here), and not just in stature. I don't always know that I'm a good father (though my intentions are always good), but I always know that I'm a father...and that goes a long way in defining me I think. No matter where any of us are, no matter what we are doing, I am always a father and always will be. And I'm grateful for that every single day. Dynamic as life is, that is something that can never be taken away from me--in this life or any other. Sometimes life is heavy and we aren't always where we want to be, but we always have to believe that we are where we are supposed to be that moment. We have to believe that the best things in life cannot be changed--that we build our houses (or rafts) upon a rock instead of the sand; and that our rivers always lead us to good so long as we remember that.

Rock on.

I love you, Weasel and Butterfly. I always will.

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Chapter 11: Oh, How Mom & I Have Grown

Chapter 10: An Unexpected Visit & A Fatality Move

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