Naming the beast

I remember giving my car a cleaning that day that was even more thorough than the almost hourly one I gave it most every other day. It was my seventeenth birthday and I was taking my girlfriend out to eat at a nice restaurant thirty miles up the road in Macon. While it is hard to imagine my fifteen year old daughter navigating the distance and traffic of a town larger than the little one we call home, it was no big deal for me; I had been banging my father’s old Dodge truck through the woods for many years at this point and I was a confident pilot.

The evening began normally as we launched our late afternoon trip to the big city. My girlfriend and I had been dating for at least a year, so the conversation was light and relaxed; we were both looking forward to a big dinner and a romantic evening. I admit that I considered every evening with her special, but I had plans for an extra special one. It was my birthday!

A few miles short of the halfway point I noticed a small car up ahead that seemed to be both in our lane and headed directly toward us. The car was at least a half a mile in front of us, and while I expected them to correct the problem before we collided, I sat up a little straighter and prepared for disaster. Everything happened very quickly at this point, and while I did manage to avoid the disaster, the driver of the small car did not. At the last second I veered into the left lane as it struck a large culvert on my side of the road!

I had come to almost a complete stop at this point, so a quick shift into reverse and I was staring through the passenger window at a crumpled Volkswagen that I felt sure contained a deceased driver; nobody could have survived that impact! I feel sure no more than a few seconds elapsed before the driver climbed out of the shattered window, but it seemed like several hours and multiple indecisions. What should I do?

What happened next has haunted me off and on for most of my life. When the screaming blood-soaked driver flopped on the trunk of my car I just sat there; I froze. Another driver had stopped to help at this point, and when he grabbed the hysterical woman, I pulled my car up a few feet and out of the road. I did manage to roll my window down and tell the Good Samaritan that I would drive to a store down the road and call an ambulance, but what I really wanted was to get away.

If it makes any difference, the driver of the wrecked car was fine. I know this because I drove to the local police station the next day and inquired. A small cut on her forehead had drenched her face and shirt with blood, but she was otherwise unharmed. I was relieved for her, but I admit that this did little to settle the uneasiness I felt for having failed her when she needed me most. I remember my girlfriend being gracious in her attempts at consolation, but this did little for me and it was really the beginning of the end of our relationship...and the confidence of a seventeen year old.

I could have gone the rest of my life without telling this story from so long ago; it is certainly not something I’m proud of and few have heard it. But this morning as my daughter and I walked the dog I decided to begin with her. No one likes to give tragedies a name; if you speak of them you invite them. If you slip you must knock wood.

But I want us both to be prepared. It breaks my heart to tell my baby what I think she should do when (God forbid) the shooting starts, but what if I never mentioned it? Do I believe that any amount of preparation will change the outcome of how one reacts when it really matters? I don’t know and I hope I never have to find out again. But as of today at least it has a name.

Damaged?

I’m sure somewhere out there in this vast country I call home there is a man that actually looks forward to the ending of daylight saving time; maybe one day I will meet him. I probably wouldn't have much in common with this mystery man because I hate it! The days are naturally getting shorter anyway… aren't we going about this backward? I feel like it gets dark right after lunch and I’m ready for bed at 7:30!

Today I decided to try and fool Mother Nature and actually do something outside after work. I had stopped by Lowes earlier in the day to purchase a few bags of cow manure (you can now purchase land one bag at a time) for my winter garden, but I would have to hurry if I wanted to get it spread before dark. I know this is not much of a job, but with so little time and a dog that had been penned up all day vying for my attention, I knew it was going to be close.

I dropped the truck’s tailgate and as I pulled the wagon closer I noticed one of the tires was flat. Now I would have to either lug the bags to my garden or take the time to find my little compressor and inflate the tire! Things were certainly not going as planned and they were compounded by a fifty pound dog-child that wanted to be absolutely sure that her evening walk was not forgotten. I swear this dog will attempt to sniff the hammer in full swing, but that is a story for another day. The easy answer was to simply lug the individual bags to the garden!

After dropping off the first bag I headed back to the truck for the others. It is not uncommon for my energetic dog to streak past me when I work outside (or inside for that matter), but I noticed that it was not me that held her interest. With ears pinned flat against her head, I watched as she rocketed toward the street! It was at this point I noticed that her focus was a young woman; walking stick in hand…ears sealed with head phones…new to the neighborhood…walking past my driveway! I knew my screams would go unheard; the walker was listening to music and everybody knows that a dog’s ears close off when they run at sixty miles an hour;  I screamed anyway.

Naturally neither heard me and in the blink of an eye, Sunshine (my streak of white lightning) had reached the walker. She screamed as the dog cut in front of her and placed both front feet on her chest! Luckily the walker’s first reaction was to remove the ear phones (not swing the stick) and unplugged she could now hear my pleas. I can only imagine how fast her heart was beating as she looked at the retreating dog and struggled to say “that is one friendly dog!” Welcome to the neighborhood.

I have to say that I consider myself lucky; the lady was nice about everything and nobody was injured. Sunshine, on the other hand, received a piece of my mind that I could tell she didn't fully understand. Of course some of the browbeating I gave her was for the walker to hear, but once she was out of earshot I started to feel a little guilty. I know this is unacceptable behavior and someone could have been hurt, but how does one explain this to a dog whose only intention was to spread some love?

This dog spent most of her two years in what really amounts to an orphanage. I don’t want to give the impression that I think the care and attention given her at ARF was anything less than stellar, but it will never be the same as a real home. I have to know that as she watched other dogs come and go hope was hard to hold on to. While she had many friends, she never had a family of her own. But as damaged as she may be, her natural reaction to a stranger was one of love and happiness, not fear and mistrust. Innocent until proven guilty; thank you Sunshine!

We love you too

I remember standing in my grandparent’s driveway in Stone Mountain saying our goodbyes as we prepared to make the two hour trip back home to Milledgeville. They were both in their early seventies and I was a fairly young married man. My grandparents were easy folks to hang around with and luckily my wife enjoyed them as much as I did, but the hundred mile journey made our visits infrequent. After releasing my grandfather from a decent man hug, I held his hand and told him that I loved him. At this point his eyes searched his shoelaces as he managed an almost inaudible mumble of, “well, we love you too”.

They have both been gone now for many years, but I think of this moment often. Of course I have wished that I had spent more time with them, and I do wish that I had told them more often that I loved them. But that is really not what I think of when I recall this moment and I feel content in the notion that they both knew exactly how much I loved them. Miss them? I do…kick myself? I do not. We had some great times and I consider myself lucky to share a gene pool with such great people.

What I think of when I think of this day is my grandfather’s reaction to my declaration of love. He, of course, was from a generation where a man making such a statement to another man was akin to saying he wanted some 3” leopard skin heels for Christmas! Yes you loved those around you, but while it was okay to show it, saying it was an open invitation to take over the household ironing duties. A man’s emotions, so as not to be misunderstood, were something best kept to himself. The fact that he could not face me at this point told me everything I needed to know; he loved me too.

Luckily we have become much more of an open group these days. “I love yous” are slung around freely by men and women alike, and while honestly they may be somewhat devalued by this, it beats the alternative! There is no longer any excuse for those around you not to know exactly how you feel. I know this is true, but I don't understand why the older I get the more familiar I become with the intricate pattern of my shoelaces?

White knuckle weekend

Daredevil is one of those terms, like mean or cheap, that really doesn't mean much when it is used to describe someone. Of course it is a relative term as well; what I consider life threatening may just be another day at the office for some. And for those who think that reckless abandon is a trait they will possess all of their lives, let me clear that up now, advanced age will take a generous portion of that away! Man that hurt, and man I’m going to miss a week of work mean two completely different things!

Growing up as the middle son of three boys certainly had its challenges and I wonder if this is what brought out the risk taker in me. Looking back I realize that I usually felt like I HAD to outperform the younger brother (this just seemed like simple physics) and the older one was there to set a higher bar to reach for. Sounds like an exhausting childhood (though primarily self-imposed) even to me! But I explain this only as an attempt to justify some of the crazy and dangerous things I've done in the past.

Perhaps trying to ride an unbroken horse is one of the stupidest things I’ve attempted, but sometimes I wonder if surviving this with only a concussion and a Baltimore Colts team logo stamped on my chest did more harm than good. Nothing speeds up the learning curve like a permanent limp. And diving in the water from a 100’ cliff? I guess this answers the old question of “would you jump off a bridge just because someone else did?” We know now that the answer is often yes.

I’m not sure why these two episodes from 30 years ago stand out so clearly to me now because, trust me, there were countless others. Running from a cab driver in a city 500 miles from home that would probably have killed me for the $62 flashing on his meter was not very smart, but hiding under a train car for over an hour so that he wouldn't find me is probably even dumber! But there was no permanent damage from this event and I know now that the only reason I did this was for the thrill…and because the guy sitting beside me yelled “Run” when the cab stopped. There’s that bridge again.

But the older I get the less I enjoy the palpitations these actions invoke; actually I think they call it high blood pressure at my current age and it’s probably more dangerous than before! Nothing speeds up the learning curve like dropping dead after a prank! Let’s just say that today I go out of my way to avoid these scenarios. But try as I may, sometimes they sneak up on me and rope me in before I realize what happened. Last weekend was a good example. Me, my wife, daughter and oblivious dog loaded up for a 10 mile trip to my parents’ house. We were almost out of the driveway when my 15 year old daughter asked “Isn’t this one of those times when I should be driving?” Did my dog just yell run? If you've never seen a man clutching a white knuckled dog you don’t know what you’re missing!

My 911

Every anniversary of the September 11 2001 terrorist attack in New York seems more powerful than the previous one. The stories told by survivors, witnesses and responders are often almost too sad to watch. If you send a loved one to combat you always fear that late night phone call or early morning knock on the door, but when the toughest war you face is for the parking spot closest to the door, the thought of your loved ones not returning home rarely crosses your mind. 911 began as just another average day.

I thought of telling my story of that day in 2001, and while it is an ironic one, compared to the losses suffered by others it is a trivial one. I decided to wait a few days so as not to minimize the genuine suffering of others. But I will say that I learned a big lesson that day.

We had a small television in our dining room at the time and we often watched the evening news during our evening meal. This was certainly an exceptional news day, and while this early in the game there was nothing really new about the incident to offer, we watched an endless loop of the two airplanes crashing in to the twin towers. Our attempts to explain what was happening to a four year old were tough ones and honestly just trying not to convey fear and hysteria was our goal as parents.

I though we both had been doing a pretty good job of down-playing the events to my daughter, when out of a blue and cloudless sky, lightning struck the ground a few feet from our home. I couldn’t say exactly what my daughter thought about this explosion, but my wife and I were pretty sure we had just been bombed! What could we think? It was like someone jumping out of closet when you returned home from a horror movie!

I won’t go in to great detail about the damage that lightning strike did to my home or the money it cost to repair this damage; it really does seem trivial after all this time especially when so many others lost so much more. This also has nothing to do with the lesson I learned that day anyway.

That fatal morning I learned that I would spend the rest of my life with my heart outside of my body. I’m not an uncaring person, but as I watched the second airplane crash in to that building, thousands of miles from my home, all I could think of was my heart. After thirty five years of being trapped inside my body, my new heart now had a short ponytail and it was wearing a yellow dress. I had just left it beating unprotected twenty miles away in a classroom with nineteen other innocent and oblivious Pre-K kids. That valuable muscle I had protected for so long now belonged to someone else.

Clinical apathy

It seems like now days you can hardly have a decent conversation with anyone without politics sneaking in and taking over. Personally I don’t remember an election as polarized and charged as this one, but perhaps my brain is just protecting me from a previous bad experience. It’s kind of like how good that old girlfriend begins to look after the restraining order lapses.

But this conversation didn’t really make me mad as much as it scared me. Of course I have my own ideas about the candidates, and while I may not post them on Twitter or Facebook, if you want to discuss them face to face I will be more than happy to engage you. Facebook is the bumper sticker of the new millennium…I didn’t buy in to the real bumper stickers of the old millennium!

What scared me most about this conversation was that it was based on a concept that, try as I may, I just don’t understand. It is the concept of apathy. “I don’t like or trust either candidate so I will vote for neither. I don’t want to give either one of those SOBs my vote. I’m writing in_______ to show the world what I really think”. Sounds like we’re talking about a murder trial!

Like it or not one of these candidates will win. I think you have to learn to treat these elections as if they were a civil trial and not a criminal one. In a criminal trial you decide to convict when you determine guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” as opposed to civil trial where guilt is determined by “a preponderance of the evidence”. If I don’t like every single trait that my spouse or close family members possess, how can I expect to do so with a political candidate? My decision will have to be a weighted one.

We are all very different people is this great big country and I have to admit that there are probably those that genuinely don’t care which party or candidate takes over in November. But I do think this number is lower than you might believe. I truly believe that if most voters, that vow and declare to be possessed with a case of genuine apathy, were to make a list of likes and dislikes; wants and exclusions; beliefs and disbeliefs; they would discover that they could easily chose one over another. But I guess this is harder than doing nothing!

If you complete the list and it turns out that you have viable, documented case of clinical apathy…stay home, I’ll take your parking spot. But if you decide that your list tips the scales in either direction, deciding not to vote is no different than voting for the one you don’t like!

Day one

Last week was one of those rare times when my wife and I both were able to go with my daughter for her quarterly visit to her diabetes doctor. Usually only one of us goes and it’s often a struggle remembering and relating exactly what the doctor had to say, or better yet what my daughter actually told him! But as luck would have it a phone call kept me sidelined in the waiting room after all; at least we could discuss the visit while it was still fresh on her mind. Annual blood work would accompany this visit as well, so I was just glad to be there anyway.

As I sat in the waiting room I couldn’t help but think about just how far we’ve come since her initial diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes almost five years ago. To say we’ve come instead of she’s come may sound strange to some, but any parent of a child with a lifelong and incurable disease will understand. When she was first diagnosed at 10 years of age I could hardly bear to let her out of my sight. When she went back to school I met her in the nurse’s office every day before lunch to help her test and give her her shot. I did this for almost six months. She didn’t need me as much as I needed to be there. If she had to do this, the least I could do was be there.

Of course my daughter is the one with the real job. She has to constantly test her blood sugar, count (and guess) carbs and take injections of insulin seven days a week, 365 days a year, for the rest of her life. We had to wait a year after her diagnosis before she got an insulin pump; it is important that diabetics know how to take care of themselves the “old fashioned way” before they are allowed this luxury. It’s akin to survival training. But really all the pump does is deliver the insulin without having to take a shot. She still has to draw blood, test her blood sugar and interpret the results. The pump is connected by a slender IV line to a short needle that stays under her skin for 3-4 days before it must be changed. This is a fragile, expensive, battery powered device that she depends on for survival.

But not only has she survived, she has thrived. She is a virtual dictionary of carbohydrate numbers and a master manipulator of the pump itself. She does whatever she wants to whenever she feels like it. She’s been away to camps and vacationed at the beach with friends; she is by all appearances a normal teenager. Do I still worry about her when she is out of my sight? Do I worry as I watch her eat something that I know she probably should not? Do I look her in the eyes and try to guess her blood sugar? Well, of course, and I probably always will. But I keep these things to myself; she is first and foremost a teenager. Knowing how far she has come in these five long years makes me swell with pride as I write this now!

 I decided that I had been sitting in the waiting room for far too long when the door to the patient rooms opened. I placed the magazine back on the table, but before I could stand and hold the door for my wife and daughter, I realized that it was not them after all. Standing in their place was a little girl; pig tails and a dress, every bit of four years old. Around her neck was the strap of a pink camouflage canvas lunch box that I knew all too well. It contained the “starter kit” of test meter, syringes and a bottle of insulin given as a sample by the doctor’s office and drug companies.

The parents quickly caught up with the little girl as they crossed the room and headed for the front door. But before they could exit the building her father gave me a quick glance that erased the comfort I had begun to feel over the last five years. Day one for another family.