At 15 years of age, I would have answered that I wanted to work with aircraft in some form or fashion. I was fascinated with the vehicles associated with flight, specifically of the military variety, but my inherited poor vision shot down any chance of piloting. Aerospace engineering as a career came to my attention as a sophomore, and I might have pursued it full-throttle, had not our family’s life changed dramatically at the close of the school year, when we all moved to post-Soviet Ukraine in 1992. At some point following our sojourn, which lasted a year, I abandoned this passion almost imperceptibly as it gave way to other interests over the years to come.
I have never been one of the rare, seemingly fortunate souls who knew for as long as they could remember what they were put on this earth to do, though I’ve met a few in my nearly 50 years, but only a few. It may be why I’ve learned to place little stock in 5, 10, or 20 year projections about where one might end up in life. I certainly couldn’t have predicted my own path, either personal or professional, but I’m convinced where we end up, by God’s providence, is often far more interesting than whatever we might have imagined for ourselves.
After graduating college with a degree in Christian Studies with an emphasis in Greek and Hebrew, serving a satisfying 18-year career as a public librarian instead of in ministry or religious education, followed by a 2 1/2 year hiatus from the professional world to manage house and home, I’m a single state exam away from receiving a license to practice real estate agency in Texas.
This isn’t a logically linear path that, to me, makes any sense traced out on paper, yet here we are. I’m excited for both the transition and the challenge that awaits, though I admit I have to pass the test first, of course. Nevertheless, how interesting life is! It’s good counsel for my own kids on the cusp of venturing out on their own — do your best wherever you find yourself, and neither despair nor panic if “wherever” is far from what you planned or expected.
In any event, soon enough, I hope to transition from helping you find information to helping you find (or sell) a home. When (or if) that time comes, feel free to look me up.
I’ve sought to say something poignant and meaningful about my grandmother’s passing at 95 yesterday evening, yet I’ve struggled to do so. I’ve thought at length about my grandfather’s death a few months ago, and I admit most of my tears were shed then, in part for both of them in anticipation of hers as well as she continued to decline. So, the deepest grief has, in a sense, given way instead to observation of how she chose to finish her final hours.
My college philosophy professor, arguably the most challenging instructor on campus from which to earn an ‘A,’ said to each of his students at the outset concerning the subject, “I intend to teach you two things: 1) how to live with people, and 2) how to die alone.” My fellow students and I likely pretended to understand what he meant, though we wouldn’t have guessed that would have been the way to begin such a course. I have a better appreciation for it, however, 25 years since, and I think my grandmother, who was not a student of philosophy, probably had a better understanding at the end than almost anyone I know.
I’ve already written about the memories and the legacy she left to me. These last few weeks and months, however, she left behind something quite different. Contrasted with many of us who do our best to avoid the subject of death or thoughts of it, especially the inevitability of our own, my grandmother faced it bravely, even with anticipation. This isn’t to say it was rooted in a depressive state of mind. No, it was born of hope, built for decades upon a solid foundation of what she believed, that this isn’t the end, that all was simply preparation for these final days and what awaited her after.
My parents, both having finished their working life in the care of others in hospice, know well when the end is near, having sat at the bedsides of innumerable individuals. They know well that not all welcome the end, that it can be a time of great anguish for the dying, and not merely for any physical pains. Fear is most powerful for those who have distracted their thoughts, consciously or not, far from any considerations of the end. Witnessing this can be just as troubling for any observer as it is for the one forced, finally, to face it.
Not so for my grandmother. And I’m glad for this and for what my parents have shared with me, since I was not able to be present. Not only did she share feebly from her bed that both her partner of 77 years, my Papaw, and her son, Jimmy, were present, but expressed joy — yes, joy — when hearing that she would probably become unresponsive before too much longer, indicating to her that she was close. The only comparison I have is our children in anticipation of a trip, just prior to stepping onto a plane for departure. She couldn’t wait. Her faith in God and the promises she cherished all her life prepared her for the transition.
I have no idea when my own end will arrive. I have significant doubts I’ll make it to 95, if for no other reason than I don’t believe I’ve taken quite as good care of myself as my grandmother. But I do hope, in the years to come, I would have learned as well as her how to live with others and how to die not simply alone but well.
Death does not have to be a fearful event. It can, and, I might argue, should be beautiful and meaningful. This was the final legacy my grandmother left me.
When I survey each decade of my life, my 40s will, unquestionably, be all about parenting. Whether I did it poorly or well remains to be seen once they attempt to launch post-graduation. Our first attempt at a “launch” is just around the corner with our oldest at the close of next school year, and preparations and plans are currently underway. I certainly hope the mission isn’t scrubbed multiple times for various reasons, though, with kids, few things work perfectly the first time every time. “Flexibility is key,” someone told me prior to parenting, and I have found, for the most part, they were right.
I’d say our experience has been unique with three adopted kiddos and no biological, but I have nothing else personally to which to compare it. Our experience has been our experience, and so there it is. They’ve willingly come “home” after school at the end of each day for the last several years and they still call us “mom” and “dad” despite having a history prior to us, so we must be doing something right, though I often feel I’m doing it wrong. Parenting has been the one thing I’ve earnestly attempted in my life at which I’ve felt I haven’t excelled, though, I admit and have learned, results aren’t entirely up to you.
Nonetheless, there are moments you may permit that you must be doing something right. One of those moments is when they willingly make a decision to accept your faith as their own. This bears even greater significance for an adoptive parent since, again, they have a history prior to you and are clearly aware of it. For each of them to make such a choice is to align themselves further with you and your influence upon them as parents. The meaningfulness behind such a choice can’t be overstated.
This evening, our youngest, Calib, will be baptized here at Pine Cove family camp at Crier Creek, a place he, like us, has grown to cherish after seven summers. He made his own decision to follow the very day my grandfather passed away, and we all agreed to make it even more special by immersing him here. Each day, he has reminded us with an eager smile how many days are left until then, and now the day is here.
I have the privilege as his adoptive father to baptize him, as I did our oldest. The scriptural imagery of being adopted into the fold by a Heavenly Father doesn’t escape me. I’m about as imperfect a father as it gets, but how fortunate I am that they each grasped the meaning behind it and allowed the unique creation of a family and spiritual memory.
“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth,” said John in his third epistle to his “spiritual” children. But it’s an easy fit for parents.
Let’s be clear: This kid knows how to drive me crazy, and I often find my patience tested. He knows this, and so do I. But today, he is most excited about one thing, and that is being baptized by his dad.
Offer me riches or fame to give it up if you like, but I’ll pass. The memory, much more valuable, will last a lot longer — into eternity, in fact.
My mother’s text to my brother, sister, and me, we had been anticipating for at least a year, though what we couldn’t foresee was whether it would first concern our grandfather or grandmother. In their mid-90s and each declining steadily in different ways, it was impossible to tell whose body would be the first to fail. The early afternoon of May 7th, 2024, while seated in his living room recliner, my grandfather’s heart, subject to several attacks over his late but full life, began to struggle once more, this time, however, resisting any and all remedies. By the time the following day dawned, he would be unresponsive, my weak and frail grandmother doing her best to comfort him through her tears as his chest heaved violently and mechanically, the body doing its best to survive even in absence of consciousness.
After innumerable messages and calls as time slipped away, I would answer the final call from my mother 24 hours after it had begun. Relief commingled with grief choked in my throat, as I held back the bitter emotions when she spoke the long-expected yet unwelcome words.
“It’s over. He’s gone.”
My earliest memory of my maternal grandparents is a regrettable scene in which I brought my grandmother to tears. I’m not more than 3 or 4 years old and seated in her recliner in the room they long referred to as the “den.” Her chair is adjacent to the television at an angle plainly unsuited for comfortable viewing, an arrangement that implies little interest for her in what the box has to offer. The armrests of the recliner are fashioned of polished wood rather than cushioned upholstery. In my hand is a small, die-cast, jet airplane toy.
Why I did what I did next, I can’t excuse to anything other than idle, childish curiosity. Like a hammer driving a nail, I point the nose of the toy plane in my hand down and poke the surface of the armrest. Instantly, an indentation is left in the formerly smooth, glossy wood. The thought that I’ve permanently damaged something that belongs to someone else never crosses my impressionable toddler mind. Instead, there is only youthful interest. So, naturally, like a busy woodpecker, I drop the nose again and again and get to work, experimenting dutifully with the phenomenon of cause and effect. Before long, the armrest is blanketed with a sea of tiny depressions.
I don’t recall precisely what may have happened next, but what I do remember, accurate or not, is my grandfather trying his best to console my grandmother upon surveying the irreparable damage. Whether or not I was reprimanded, I can’t say. What is clear to me, though, is that this final scene is what made the deepest impact upon me. I could see my actions had made an emotional dent, so to speak, on an adult, no less, much like the physical dents left in the armrest. I learned an unexpected, more poignant lesson about causality; and I would consequently not make that particular mistake again.
Memories are curious things. I’m sure there was more to this one, and it’s likely my grandparents would have told it differently. But the details just described that have remained in my mind all these years, real or imagined, would seem to be most important and, moreover, critically formative in learning respect for the feelings of others. Fortunately, the tenor of this first memory is not representative of the vast collection I have of my grandparents or their personal history.
We all start with a name, and the oldest grandchild bears the distinct privilege of determining what new moniker grandparents will assume. You may argue that it’s parents who introduce them to the child and refer to them in one way or the other. This may be true. However, I would argue that no matter what you articulate, a child will pronounce whatever it is they think they hear. For my part, I heard “Meme” and “Papaw.” And so they are to this day.
The closing decade of their lives found them, as many in their 80s and 90s, having lost general interest in common things and common pursuits. The world was reduced, willingly, to their living space, a modest, single-level, duplex apartment a few short miles from my parents. Freedoms that our oldest children were beginning to enjoy had been in steady retreat for them. Time and frailty forced them to give ground days, months, and years at a pace until naught was left to them but to survey their past and make peace with it or take pleasure in it. I would contest the scales of their life tipped decidedly toward the latter.
James Raymond Tomlin and Frances Gladine Taylor were born in late Great Depression-era Arkansas. My grandfather grew up with a small army of siblings, an emotionally-distant mother, and an absent father. My grandmother enjoyed the company of her older sister and brother and her kindhearted mother, whom I had the privilege of knowing as “Nana.” My grandmother also grew up without the presence of a father — a fact for both of them not lost on me, a “stay-at-home” dad to kids who also have no relationship whatsoever with their own fathers. To say they did without modern comforts would be an understatement. Like many in their time, they learned to work hard for everything they earned, and, to my knowledge, they didn’t complain that they had to do so. The world was what it was. The reality prompts a pause both for myself and in consideration of the youth of today, many of whom, while worthy of admiration in some ways, are provided with a host of privileges that seem to be accompanied by a host of entitled behaviors. But I digress.
They eventually found one another in their late teens, he having influenced her religiously by taking her with him to church. Over the years, her faith became the stronger of the two. As I’ve mentioned before, unscheduled trips by my siblings or me to the bathroom at their home in the middle of the night often found my grandmother devotedly studying and praying while crouched ascetically on the carpeted floor of their front bedroom, a practice which began following the death of their son. In any event, they married only months after meeting and began what would become the longest marriage I’ve ever known personally, at an almost inconceivable 77 years.
My grandfather’s working life was a matter of pride, as I observed in the handful of times he took the intentional opportunity to share about his first job selling newspapers on street corners as a child still in single-digits. In time, after resettling in the Lone Star State, following a series of jobs, he completed his education as a trade electrician and spent the remainder of his working life with Dow Chemical in Freeport. I still remember weekdays, as a kid, Papaw arriving home promptly at 4:30, Meme dutifully having the table set and ready for what anyone else except for them would consider an early dinner.
“Dutiful” is the best description I could stamp firmly upon the character of my grandmother. Her life was spent, almost iconically in their time, in the devoted care of house and home. She never, in all her years, took on a professional occupation or expressed much of an interest in it. Any task she took on willingly was seldom reimbursed; money, for her, was no motivator. Arriving on Fridays for a weekend visit was a timed arrangement for our family due to her routinely volunteering her time at the local hospital, where, for years, she assisted patients moving from here to there or with various tasks seemingly beneath the responsibilities of paid staff.
Such was their life before my grandfather’s retirement. Following this, their lives remained active, maintaining one of several houses he and my grandmother owned and rented out, tending to their gardens, serving those with various needs at their church, or completing one of many woodworking projects in the shop he and my grandmother built in their backyard.
In short, as dull as it might read to young modern eyes, their life was not full of exceptional YOLO adventures worthy of Instagram or Facebook posts. They did not bury themselves in frenzied busyness, often mistaken today as the hallmark of a meaningful life, but in routine and deliberate occupation, understanding and accepting the purposes of their daily activity. Undistracted, uninterrupted habits of daily life afford moments of reflection that the digital noise of today drowns out, as I’ve often observed myself. My grandparents, however, lived in such regular, clockwork-like routines–disciplines, if you will–and have left me with an observed and admirable example to which I am compelled to return when life becomes too hurried even to hear one’s own thoughts. I have wondered that such careful, hasteless attention to their life and the lives of others was the profound effect of the most prominent milestone in their timeline: a sudden, heartbreaking death that preceded theirs by decades, a death not any sympathetic, caring soul would wish upon any parent.
He coasted into the oncoming lane, thinking the maneuver would allow him to avoid the car that had drifted into his just ahead. The other driver drifted back, however, and then once more as each responded in kind. They collided at the last second, too late to correct.
The police report took longer to read than the event itself, which was a theory, at best, since no witnesses were present. The drifting driver was drunk, and he would languish in the hospital for another week, his life ending ironically on the day my grandparents and mother were to celebrate when my uncle’s began. His life, however, ended instantly that night on the road.
I would never have the privilege of knowing my mother’s brother, who exists for me only in various stories and a few photographs. I’ve thought it odd that he should survive the many deadly perils of the Vietnam War as a marine only to meet his end at the hands of a careless driver once home, and this not long after his return. The best years of his life should have been yet to come, but it was not to be.
My mother had anticipated upon his return a relationship as adults better than that they had shared as children, which was often strained. My grandparents had to endure the tragedy of burying their child, a fate no parent would wish upon themselves or others. For each of them, the grief of the loss became what felt much like a physical affliction, lingering and painful, deep into the marrow. There would be no closure.
(Reprinted from “Hope,” published on July 26, 2022)
The birth of James “Jimmy” Raymond Tomlin, Jr., on August 9, 1949, transitioned my grandparents into the tumultuous experience of parenthood as the “happy days” of the 1950s got underway. Almost four years later, my mother entered the world on May 13, 1953, as their second and final child. I can still see in my mind’s eye hanging on the wall of my grandparents’ master bedroom the large, framed black-and-white portrait of the two of them together as children, happy and smiling, eyes fixed off-camera as if anticipating what lied ahead for each of them. The seemingly idyllic image would belie in a few short years a relationship fraught with tension as childhood gave way to adolescence.
The absence of one parent or another early in life would have an impact on anyone. Though I never recall my grandfather speaking at length about it, I know his father’s absence had to have informed his own style of parenting, which, unfortunately, was as a strict authoritarian. While my mother made it through, reluctantly, her older brother inherited their father’s stubborn resolve, which sustained a palpable, trauma-inducing tension, until my grandfather eventually ordered their son angrily out of the home, once and for all. Soon after, he would join the Marine Corps as an odd act of rebellion, but not until his recruiter issued his first order to him, once he was made aware his parents would not have offered their approval: “Call your mother and tell her what you’re doing.”
The news would devastate my grandmother. No parent wishes to send their child off to war, and Vietnam was the divisive conflict of the day that had claimed the lives of many young men. Such was her fear when they saw him once more before he shipped off to the East, where he was to serve as a forward observer.
I can only imagine what horrors he witnessed on his front-line assignment, which I’ve read from veteran accounts offered a relatively brief life-expectancy. Yet, somehow, he survived, and in 1971 was welcomed back home to return to civilian life. He would never share the details of his experiences, however, nor would he ever have the opportunity. His life would end abruptly on his way to work on a road outside of town just a week shy of his 22nd birthday.
Two moments following his passing permitted them a sense of closure to their grief and allowed them to press on with the business of living. My grandmother shared that she received a vision late one night. Stirring awake, she found her son’s form standing serenely near the end of their bed, and he conveyed to her that, not to worry, he was alright and would be alright. The simple message of comfort was all she needed to begin moving on, and so she did. It would reinforce her growing faith in God and would allow her to make peace with her son’s absence. My mother and her father had no such vision. Theirs, by contrast, was a silent, shared moment. While feelings remained raw, my mother entered their den one day to find her father sitting pensively in his recliner. She sat down next to him and, after a pause, allowed herself to weep for her lost sibling. As she leaned against him, he soon allowed his own repressed tears to flow. It was a rare, vulnerable moment for each of them that would connect them in a way they had not been until then.
“I’ve lived with a lot of regret over my brother,” my mother has said. Never were they afforded sufficient time or opportunity after his return to repair their relationship; nor were my grandparents. This reality informed how she related to her parents thereafter and is one of the reasons her children enjoyed as close a relationship as kids can have with their grandparents, who were altered as a result, and who I remember as kind, generous, and loving souls to the three of us. His death changed them all.
Backyard rides in the wheelbarrow, Friday nights watching television with popcorn and Diet Pepsi, visiting with them on their back patio during a rainstorm, eating Meme’s Jello and whipped cream out of bronze tins, helping Papaw with one of various projects in his shop or at one of his rent houses . . . I will remember many things about them. What I will remember best, however, will not be any of these as a child but a brief and special time I spent with them during my budding years as an adult.
In January of 2004, I relocated from DFW after completing my graduate degree to begin my life’s occupation as a public librarian. This brought me back to Houston, and just under an hour from their house in the blue-collar town of Angleton, where they had spent most of their adult life. They opened their home to me for the time it would take to find a place closer to work, and so I would live with them for a month until I landed in an apartment complex situated directly next to Space Center Houston in the suburb of Clear Lake.
For a brief time, my life would intertwine with their daily rhythms. Although I had every intention of pulling my own weight, hardly intending to mooch or take advantage of the arrangement, my grandmother could not help her homemaking habits during my stay. I would often return at the end of each workday to laundry clean and folded, accompanied by warm, homemade, chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter. Dinner would be ready as well, and rarely was I expected to lift a finger. The exception might be weekends, when my grandfather recruited me for a project or two—time and effort I was happy to offer in exchange. Standing on the cusp of the rest of my life, it doesn’t escape me that their own son, whose name I shared, once stood in a similar place years before. I don’t know if either of them made such an observation as well, but by all appearances, it was a second opportunity to send one of their own out into the world, this time with the confidence and assurance of a relationship at peace with them, and vice versa, come what may.
I made regular, weekend visits after that month and for several years following, until foresight and aging suggested that they relocate closer to my parents in DFW so that they could look after them as they anticipated their closing years. And close, they did. As I write, it has been a single week since my grandfather’s passing, and my grandmother is sure to follow in due time, though much of her careworn demeanor has ebbed in the last several days, no doubt from the calm of knowing she no longer has to worry about her partner.
During the final hours, as my grandfather’s body struggled to capture air and he slipped into unconsciousness, she never left his side, pained tremendously at his body’s struggle to hang on, shedding all of her tears here at the last. “You go on ahead,” she would tell him, “but not too fast, because I’ll be right behind you.”
“Guys, I don’t know if I can do this.” My mother kept us updated via text, my brother, sister, and I each with our own families, unable to make the trek up to be present as it transpired. My parents’ final calling in life before retiring was as hospice caregivers, so they were no stranger to death and dying, having attended the waning moments of many, many strangers. My mother’s words, however, were very telling, indicative of how much more painful it is when it involves someone about whom you care very deeply. The process of dying is often unpleasant. The very end can be a peaceful moment, but until that point, the body often fights aggressively, almost clumsily, to stay alive. They asked us to pray that it would end soon for his own sake, and so we did.
As he struggled, I chose, I suppose as a means of honoring him, to engage in an activity he thoroughly enjoyed in life, and in which he seemed to be proud that I had taken an interest. I stepped into the garage and continued working on an oak end table I was building for my wife, its partner having been completed a couple of weeks before. I made my final cuts and fastened the side and top panels patiently and deliberately into place, much as he would have, as I thought about the number of times I had assisted him in the backyard just outside of his shop. One of the last builds I helped him with was a bookshelf, which he constructed for me, and which, incidentally, happened to be made of oak as well. I still have it and will never dispose of it, likely passing it down to my kids before my time is up.
Shortly thereafter, my mother made the call I had long been expecting. It was over.
The day before, I had just picked up our youngest from school when my mother called to share an update. It came in through the van’s speaker, so my son heard it all. After we ended the call, he asked to know what it was about, and I told him that Papaw, whom he had met only a handful of times, was dying. Shortly after his questions ceased, it became unusually quiet as we neared home. As I glanced back at him, silent tears streamed down his cheeks. In spite of his lack of a close relationship with my grandfather, the reality of his imminent death struck a chord, and he wept for him. I did my best to comfort him, but little helped soothe his grief, and it would be several hours before he was consoled.
The following day, again on the drive home from school, I shared with him that Papaw had passed a couple of hours earlier. While still expressing sadness upon hearing the news, his grief expressed the day before was enough to provide him with emotional closure, and so I used it instead as an opportunity to discuss what it all meant, where we, as Christians, believe Papaw was now, and what it meant to be a Christian. Much of it he had heard many times before both in church and in his private school, so he was no stranger to the gospel message, which we had also shared with him personally in the past in an effort to plant a seed.
“Whenever you’re ready to make that decision, buddy, you just let mom and I know,” I said, just as I had on a few different occasions in the past. Whether or not I expected him to respond, I couldn’t say, but I left it there with him. After a brief pause, he decidedly looked at me and said, “Can we do that now?”
We had not yet exited the van and sat parked in the driveway. I called my wife down from upstairs where she was working from home, asking her to meet us where we remained in our seats. And right there, on the very day my grandfather breathed his last, our son began his life anew.
By the time he had said his prayer of confession and acceptance, my grandfather’s body was on its way to its terminal destination, where its form would be reduced to ashes prior to burial, delayed until my grandmother would eventually join him. As I considered the wonder of death and life realized within hours of each, I couldn’t help but think of the ancient, mythical phoenix, a storied creature that, at its own end. consumed itself in flame, leaving naught but a pile of ashes, only to have another miraculously reborn from the same ashes.
I have my own sense of the legacy my grandparents have left behind, just as my siblings each have theirs. Our son’s decision that afternoon, however, left each of us with a shared sense of his legacy of faith. Of all of the ups and downs experienced in parenting, few equal the unique and special joy of having your children willingly accept your chosen faith as their own; even more so for children not born to you, whose personal history began with years of which you were not a part.
Theirs was not a life that others might consider exciting or worthy of popular attention. The vain, ambitious teenagers among us might even classify it as somewhat boring. They did not travel the world, make a million dollars, accumulate thousands of social media followers, nor attain widespread fame. Yet, they meant more to me than almost anyone I could name in the almost 50 years that I’ve been alive, and this simply for their calm and steady dedication to their responsibilities, their faith, and their relationships. Despite a few bumps in the road and imperfections of character, on the whole, they lived and loved what mattered.
None of us need a world of strangers to love us in order to matter. Only a few, even one, I would argue, is enough. They mattered to me, and that’s enough.
My first day of kindergarten was an attached child’s nightmare. While the vividness of the anxious memory has faded appreciably over the years, a trace of the feelings associated with the experience have lingered. I was the firstborn, and my parents duly spent plenty of their willing effort and time in my formative years to ensure that I felt fully connected to the two of them. Few others felt as safe as they did, so, naturally, to expect that I would take to the supervision of another as happily as a bird freed from a cage was pure folly. So it is with most birth parents and children, I expect. At any rate, as mom departed, leaving me in the care of this elder, pale, otherwise sweet raven-haired stranger called a schoolteacher, I wept bitterly as if I’d just become an orphan. It was as close as I’d ever truly understand such a sensation, so the nascent trauma likely registered imperceptibly on the scale, especially once mom faithfully arrived several hours later in the afternoon, along with each weekday after that, and I learned to trust that I was not, in fact, nor would I ever be, abandoned.
In the developing years to follow, I always believed kids would be a part of my future, given that I found the right partner. While I wouldn’t say I viscerally longed for it the way some do, I knew parenthood was an experience I would always regret not choosing. I simply could not have foreseen, however, that I would pursue it as late as I did with my chosen spouse in the manner that we did.
As I recline here on a beach lounge chair next to my wife in the adults-only section of a cruise ship, our children, old enough to wander safely about on their own (to both our independent delight and theirs), the horn sounds and the ship thrusts laterally from the pier to begin the journey home from Cozumel. It’s the kids’ first cruise, and they have, by most accounts, thoroughly enjoyed it. Two of our three have enjoyed every rich, new minute, our youngest only upset when we have to remove him from the fun, while one out of three hasn’t yet had her moment of self-discovery to learn how much of a homebody she is at heart and that fatigue does not always make her the most pleasant company. Such are annual family vacations in our diverse company.
We spent the day on an excursion at a nearby “dolphin encounter.” While the activists among us, I thought, might see the darker side of the smartest of sea animals performing interactive tricks for food in several ample seaside pens, albeit while being treated perceptibly well, it seemed fun for fish and footwalkers alike by all involved. While mom and I did not fare quite so gracefully with either the dorsal-fin pull or the snout “foot-push” ride provided by both Olivia and Miranda, our esteemed waterborne mammals, our oldest, Deztinee, easily the most athletic among us, rode like a seasoned pro. Equally stellar has been both her company and overall attitude on the trip, which, as any parents out there would echo, is not always the case when traveling with your children, even more so with your teen.
Now 16 and in her junior year of school, Deztinee has come around to a late adolescent stage in which one’s parents are not necessarily the uncool companions they once were thought to be, and the two of us couldn’t be more delighted about it; not that we were ever treated very poorly by her, but, again, the parents among us know how teenagers can be. It’s a rocky road at times, but we’re in as good a place now as we could have hoped. And the places in which she had once been could just as easily shaped her character negatively, as I’m sure it would have mine under similar circumstances.
Our introduction to our oldest, other than a photograph, was at a CPS agency on the west side of town in the spring of 2016. Jenny and I arrived both nervous and excited, like any parent meeting their child for the first time. The staff person charged with transporting both her and her younger brother, Calib, arrived after we did. Soon enough, the two of them ambled cautiously in, Deztinee an 8-year-old in a pretty yellow dress holding the hand of chunky toddler Calib, hair braided tight to his forehead. We were guided to a room for our first interaction with each other, and while Calib had little understanding of what was going on but played along, Deztinee’s emotions mirrored our own, and she comprehended fairly well the likelihood of the two of us becoming her new parents. The brief visit left us all anticipating the months to come, and as the two of them returned to their respective foster homes until placement, our next stop was the dealership, where we immediately traded my compact, zippy Honda Fit for the first family van — an eager push of our chips all-in for the next big play in our lives.
I’ve written once before about the day she and Calib arrived in our home. Their sister, Dezira, would join them, unbeknownst to all of us, the following year. Her arrival would not quite reflect their experience of the transition, though just as welcome, but that’s a story for another time. Calib, being the youngest, would take the shortest road to bonding with the two of us over the coming months, while Deztinee, though willingly calling us “mom” and “dad” from day one, would travel a little longer, over the years protectively holding a part of herself in reserve.
I distinctly remember one of my early impressions about the attempt to connect, which is the penultimate goal of adoption. We were visiting another couple friends of ours one pleasant afternoon, and I couldn’t help but observe how he interacted so comfortably with Deztinee, like a father should. I felt very little confidence about my own similar attempts, lacking assurance that I would ever successfully bond with her, a child who looked nothing like me and whose early experience of growing up I couldn’t identify with. It plagued my mind and worries over the days to come to the point that I wondered if we had made a mistake, if I was, as it were, the wrong person for the job.
It’s said that time heals all wounds, though this is no guarantee. While I was not the wounded party, we could only hope this would hold true for the trauma our children might have experienced, even as we learned to become the parents they needed, albeit imperfectly. There is much in Deztinee’s history prior to us that testifies to her now living in a better place, but I still must respect it as her own, not to be shared publicly until such time as she would permit. Suffice it to say, she would quickly learn soon under our roof how her previous circumstances were less than ideal rather than simply just the way life was.
The unofficial rule-of-thumb regarding the time needed for a child to feel connected to their adoptive parent, or so we’ve heard, is the same age at which they arrived. So, at almost 3 years of age, our youngest would feel fully bonded at 6, though we know it happened much, much sooner for him. For Deztinee, it should have been ostensibly somewhere around the 16-18 year mark. Based on the status of our relationship, this loose rule seems to hold up. It doesn’t hurt that she’s been characterized as an “old soul,” either.
Another lesser but still helpful and important target with adoption is the ability to facilitate conversations about your child’s history before you entered the picture. Such conversations can be tricky and have to be handled delicately depending on the level of trauma. Accepting and/or coming to terms with one’s past and present history is critical for anyone, and all the more so for an upbringing that changed from at least one primary caregiver to the next. Discussing the majority of the past with Deztinee has become rather effortless, attesting to her growing maturity. One might find it hard to hear your adopted child use the same terms of “mom” and “dad” when speaking of those who held the title between then versus now, as if it’s a judgment of your current role or attachment, yet somehow, I’ve learned, it isn’t. I can’t imagine what it’s like to form an identity with such a splintered personal history of caregivers and yet live fully connected to both, yet she’s managing it, as with many other things, like a pro, which, though ultimately up to her, I hope provides me at long last with some confidence that maybe one becomes the right parent for the job.
Adoption can be felt as an unwelcome stigma for some kids, especially among friends and classmates who remain with their biological parents. A couple of years ago, we learned that during introductions in such an environment, Deztinee had shared that she was adopted, which elicited a plaintive “Aww,” from someone present. The reaction, she shared, confused her, because she herself didn’t feel similarly about it. I’d like to imprint a self-serving “Adoption: You’re doing it right” under this word picture, but, again, it takes two to tango. Both child and parent have to choose placid, calmer waters, and Deztinee has elected to sail along.
I realize I may sound as if I’m painting a picture of perfection, and that would be plainly unfair and inaccurate. Like a good photographer or artist, you prefer to show only your best work. Ups and downs are packaged with any experience of parenting. But it’s difficult not to feel merely hopeful but also expectant of good things to come for your child, even more so for one who had a rough start for which you were not present.
College is just around the corner, and many conversations of late have danced around this exciting transition. The fact that this is not only a possibility but an impending reality for her is a reminder of how different things could have been. I shared with Deztinee roughly a year ago how impressed I am with her, that her overall attitude and outlook remains positive in spite of her early circumstances, for which none of us have a choice. And thank God for that. I was once acquainted with a kindergartner who could hardly have adjusted as well.
I ambled across the street from the house to the collection of mailboxes planted at the center of our neighborhood. A car pulled up alongside the curb and stopped, its driver ostensibly intent on gathering his or her mail as well. Out of the driver’s seat climbed Tony, a local septuagenarian I’ve passed on plenty of evening walks with his Toto-sized canine companion.
As I approached, he offered not a greeting but an observation that I was moving with a slight limp. “Yeah,” I replied, sharing what I had just learned from the orthopedist an hour ago, to which he responded not with sympathy but a wiggle of his waist. “I just got a new hip. Welcome to aging!” I remarked to this unwelcome reply that this year, my 47th, is shaping out to be the year my body has begun to inform me wordlessly of its high mileage and the mortal fact that I can no longer maneuver it as if it just drove off the lot. “That’s when it happened for me!” he expressed excitedly, leaving me with the stark realization that I had now reached an age when one’s ailments are an acceptable topic of small talk.
Four weeks earlier, my son’s final soccer practice offered parents the opportunity to face-off in a friendly game versus their grade-school charges. I willingly lined up on the field, in spite of the fact I was 40 pounds and several years removed from such rigorous physical activity. No matter, I thought, as I pushed my flabby fortysomething physique to play as if a carefree, nimble twentysomething. When my labored breathing between points was ignored as a warning I ought to settle down and act my age, 20 minutes into the game—a game the parents were shamelessly dominating, I might add—my body forced a stop to this foolish nonsense.
As I attempted to juke right with the ball, pushing off with my left leg, a loud “POP!” issued from my left knee, and I collapsed to the ground in excruciating pain. Play continued to swirl around me, though a couple of concerned fellow parents helped me limp to the edge of the field to wait out what was hopefully nothing more than something akin to cracking one’s knuckles. After a few patient minutes, I attempted to stand with my right leg and try a few steps. As I placed my weight on my left leg, however, my knee joint now felt unsupported and preferred to move unnaturally in almost any direction except for the correct one, which was accompanied by the same agonizing pain I felt at the moment something, I now surmised, had snapped like an overextended rubber band, something I couldn’t yet name that was now either entirely missing or out of place.
X-rays conducted shortly thereafter that evening at the nearby strip-center ER, to which I struggled to drive myself using my good right leg, yielded no break, and I was advised to visit my primary care physician the following day to see about the possibility of a MRI. I’ll spare the banal and frustrating saga of struggling with insurance for three weeks to agree to cover the cost of the scan. Suffice it to say that once done, a short visit thereafter with the orthopedist, preceding my chat with neighbor Tony, yielded results that confirmed what my wife had correctly suspected at the moment of injury: a fully torn ACL.
__________________
The anterior cruciate ligament is a small, tough, flexible band of tissue whose sole purpose is to keep the knee stable and is situated between the bottom of the femur and top of the tibia. An overextensive twist of the joint during strenuous physical activity is all it can take to snap it, especially if the surrounding muscles and tissues are not strong enough to support the movement. It’s one of the most common athletic injuries, especially in sports that involve sudden changes in motion. I myself was first made aware of it several years ago while playing weekly games of ultimate frisbee with friends, many of whom were carried off the field for a full or partial tear of the ligament, my wife included.
Depending on one’s lifestyle, there are at least a couple of treatment options available. If you don’t plan on regularly putting stress on your knees for the remainder of your life on, say, a competitive field of play, you can likely live out your days well enough with a regimen of physical therapy to build up strength around the joint, especially if it’s only a partial tear, such as that sustained by my wife, who has since been able to successfully participate in a number of half marathons. Or, you can opt for surgery not to repair but to reconstruct the ligament with tissue harvested from another part of your leg or from a cadaver. The choice is yours, but, especially with a full tear, surgery is a favorable option in order to stave off osteoarthritis that is likely to develop at an accelerated rate due to stress placed upon the remaining cartilage.
After the injury and prior to treatment, if you’re careful, you eventually learn how to maneuver and walk relatively safely without further pain, though certain movements are out of the question, especially those aforementioned sudden changes in direction, especially lateral. While pondering the options there in the exam room with the orthopedist, I explained that there had been at least half a dozen times since the injury when I was brought to the ground from the pain due to what before should have been typical motion. One of those was on a long walk with our dog, an otherwise normal, everyday sort of activity.
Beaux and I made our way on this particular day to the local Petsmart for a treat to carry home for him. I had moved almost perfectly and painlessly for the distance, until, that is, we approached the store. As we walked across the parking lot, my phone slipped out of my hand and fell on the pavement behind me. As I doubled back suddenly to reach down for it, pain shot through my joint and I fell to the cold, solid concrete. I sat immobilized and grimacing as I gripped my leg, waiting for the discomfort to subside, dangerously in the way of any traffic that might decide to pass through the lot. After a minute or two, I found the strength to stand with my good leg, hobbled into the store to complete the intended purchase, and then slowly and deliberately made the trek home. Half a dozen similar incidents since the injury sounded far too many to the orthopedist, and after a brief conversation with my wife, it was decided we would schedule the surgery.
I have (knock on wood) been fortunate enough to have avoided heretofore the necessity of lying on a surgeon’s table, though I vaguely recall in my scattered, incomplete memory as not more than a toddler a brief stay in the hospital to cauterize vessels in my nose due to frequent nosebleeds. Beyond that, I have only been a visitor, never a patient subject to the scalpel. I’ve long expected my day would come along with age, however, though uncertain of how or for what ailment(s). While the news might leave most anxious or disconcerted, I found myself oddly anticipating the new experience. I recall writer and humorist David Sedaris once remarked regarding a personal incident that could have been perceived in an unfortunate light that, well, at least he had something to write about. No experience is wasted on a story worth telling later.
__________________
Overnight Friday evening visits to my grandparents, while they still lived independently in the blue-collar town of Angleton, unofficially consisted of at least a handful of things: popcorn, Diet Pepsi, and the investigative news program 20/20, hosted at the time by Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters. One of the show’s many stories that has remained with me all of these years reported the horror endured by those who went under the knife only to become conscious during the procedure, physically paralyzed by anesthesia and unable to alert their OR attendants of the sudden, undesired awareness of their bodies being sliced and opened. It’s a phenomenon reported occasionally even today though not experienced generally by the mass of surgical patients. I’ve long stowed away this unique fear, expecting it to surface when once I would require surgery myself.
After 6 weeks, the day arrived. I was remarkably not anxious for such a first as this and had second thoughts only due to the fact that I had learned over the duration to walk on it relatively normally now without any pain or discomfort, though I was reminded on occasion of its instability. There are those, the orthopedist mentioned, who opt out of surgery and instead strengthen the muscles around it and avoid what would be considered athletic activity. The risk, however, is developing osteoarthritis sooner than most without the support of the ACL in the joint. The way I saw it, I was going to have to strengthen those muscles and avoid such activity regardless of either option, so might as well put off degeneration for as long as I can and endure the recovery period post-surgery. Additionally, the adult version of myself tends to appreciate and value most new experiences, a fact as far from my younger self’s character as one could be. I rarely dread even a jury summons as others do and instead look forward to engaging in a part of the process and having a story to tell.
The morning began as it always does, waking myself and our middle and youngest kids up at 5:30 am. Our oldest received her license and a car a few months ago and manages herself from sunup to sundown for the most part now, which has been an invaluable help to me especially. Our youngest relishes arriving at 6:45 for what’s known as “early care” at his school so he can play and interact with friends before the actual school day begins, and I’ve been more than accommodating since it provides me with more time to get things done around the house, though Jenny is able on most days to get him there before she heads to work. Our middle was offered the manager job on her school basketball team, a position which is right up her alley and allows her to interact with most of her friends without the rigorous physhcal regimen of players, though it does expect her to arrive at 6:30 just like everyone else. The dog eagerly travels with us for drop off and typically can’t hide his eagerness, racing through the back gate and leaping into the backseat as soon as I remotely open the minivan door. Today, he’ll be at the local kennel for doggy daycare, and once he realizes it a few minutes later as we drive up after getting Dezira to practice, it’s consumes all of his effort not to leap out of the van window from the parking lot. He once excitedly and without warning bolted out of my front door after I stepped out, though I had no reason to fear him escaping into neighborhoods beyond. He patiently waited leashless at the kennel door for me to open it and begin his own day with the two things he loves most in life, in no particular order: people and other dogs.
After dropping the dog off, it was a return trip home for an Uber on the way to deposit me at the medical center. My wife would join me soon after in our well-traveled 200K+ mile minivan after finishing a couple of urgent work meetings. Though simply starting it now is a risky affair, bearing a striking resemblance to the sound of an elderly gentleman struggling out of bed while coughing and clearing his lungs in the morning, it would be much easier for me to slide into, we decided, post-surgery than her sleek new sedan. In 5 minutes time arrived the driver, an aged man who had immigrated to the area several years ago from Pakistan, where he was employed with their version of the Federal Reserve. Much of his extended family had moved here many years previously and resided either here or in New Jersey. As he happily answered my questions, though I generally enjoy learning about the lives of these random drivers, I observed that perhaps a casual chat wasn’t the best idea as he carelessly blew through at least one red light, failed to signal lane changes, and seemed distractedly to stay far under the speed limit when it wasn’t advisable to do so, earning a honk or two from other harried morning drivers. I might lose my life on this short trip to surgery, I thought, but at least, I guess, a couple of strangers had a pleasant conversation on the way.
We made it in one piece, thankfully, to die another day, and I wished him well as I shut the door and walked into the surgical center. Registration, paperwork, and copay completed, I lingered alone with strangers, trying not to think about food as my stomach begged for it. “The Today Show” reported on the waiting room television on each U.S. State’s most popular Christmas movie and an app that lulls listeners to sleep as an AI Jimmy Stewart reads you a Christmas story. Soon enough my name was called, and I headed through the double-doors for prep.
A few years ago I took the time to read “The Butchering Art,” by Lindsey Fitzharris. If ever there was a reason to be grateful for mankind’s innovations, I’d gladly set aside any and all of them involving personal technology or entertaining distractions for achievements in the field of medicine. Nineteenth century surgical practices, which Fitzharris describes in sufficient detail, were enough to persuade one to avoid the doctor altogether. Hospitals had earned from many the reputation of places where one goes not to receive life-saving treatments but to die. My first experience with surgery would prove to be as far from what the author described, earning my gratitude for all those who have gone before and have suffered for the sake of the improvements we now enjoy. Minimizing pain and discomfort in the preparation and process of surgery is a priority in modern medicine, I’m pleased to say, and any fears I had about everything leading up to and during it were unfounded. Granted, there are many whose ailments are severe enough to have endured a less favorable experience, but by and large, physicians and nurses strive to alleviate the pain associated with “going under the knife.”
I undressed as instructed and did my best to relax in the bed before the nurse returned. After taking vitals, which revealed elevated blood pressure, a fact that had become more common over the year, I was informed about what would be happening in the moments to follow as Jenny, my wife, finally arrived after finishing up details remotely for work. The anesthesiologist paid a visit, indicating how his job would play out with my care, asking if there were any objections to the use of a “nerve block” once administered. I had no reason to refuse, having had no experience with it, and he assured me not to worry about a thing. Jenny was instructed to leave the room soon thereafter and did so once we exchanged affections. Several minutes later the anesthesiologist returned with a large syringe, which he did not then administer, but answered affirmatively when the attending nurse asked if she should get the IV fluid going.
“Do you need any help getting that on?” a different nurse inquired, referring to my shirt. I didn’t recall shutting my eyes even for a moment, but somehow someone else had randomly appeared, my leg was now wrapped and stationary, and the procedure was finished. I felt a little drowsy, as if I had been out, but the transition one feels and is aware of when falling into and rousing from sleep was absent. One second I was awaiting what followed, the next trying to process that it had all passed, as if I had missed it all in a single blink of the eyes. Three hours were, strangely, missing, like a lost item that could not and would never be found again. The time was simply gone.
I got my shirt back on, and I vaguely remember receiving help putting on my shoes, but it didn’t occur to me until the day after that I was unaware how my shorts returned to my waist. Maybe best not to know. In any case, the phenomena of time lost due to anesthesia was fascinating to me, and I now realized why such professionals are respected and paid as well as they are. Their scientific art skillfully removes the trauma and pain from the process. I had nothing to fear after all from the dreadful 20/20 report in my youth of patients becoming conscious during the proceedings. To the contrary, I had knowledge of nothing having actually taken place. Ignorance, in this case, was a kind of anticlimactic bliss.
Recovery, I would learn, is the most unpleasant part of the process. Real, authentic pain would not arrive until day three, when the nerve block, as they called it, would begin to dissipate. My wife had planned to take the kids to church that morning, but my sudden discomfort and consequent challenge making even the short trip to the restroom and back forced them to stay put. The next several days would find me gradually forcing a little more independent movement around the house in my impatience to heal up and get back to responsibilities. Eventually able to run select errands on my own, I would lose count of the number of folks who observed the leg brace and correctly identified it as an ACL injury, commenting on their lack of envy for my recovery.
Officially, four weeks of PT still lie ahead of me as I write. A bookshelf I was constructing for our middle before surgery remains unfinished until I can stand for any length of time on my own. I feel like I’m there now and eager to get it done, but I slept uncharacteristically for 13 hours last night after driving four hours to in-laws and an intense PT session. Under any other circumstances, nothing about these two activities should exhaust anyone, but normal movement can be brutal when a part of you has been cut open and reconstructed.
I was reminded as well why there are those out there, often men, who avoid the doctor as a rule. You may not like what he/she has to say. Since surgery, my resting blood pressure was revealed to be way too high without medication, and a periodic tingle in my ring and pinky finger on my right hand over the last couple years has become almost constant, mirroring something known as ulnar nerve entrapment. These, layered on top of the ACL reconstruction and reading glasses, has made it eminently clear that 2023 will go down as the year the warranty on my personal health expired.
It’s not all bleak, however. I am slowly regaining movement in the knee as I get a little closer everyday to that elusive 90-degree bend. I’m without the brace around the house, which isn’t advisable but I think is pretty good for a little over two weeks out. I’ll be back to movement soon enough, but any aspirations of participating in athletic activities went “poof” when I heard the “pop” on the soccer field.
I heard a friend comment recently that aging is a privilege. I’m sure she’s right, but its onset can feel rudely unannounced. In the meantime, I’m trying to accept what is just the beginning of unwelcome changes to come. Staying off the soccer field is not the worst start.
It’s the onomatopoeic sound of fireworks, an exploding balloon, popcorn, and a weasel, as the familiar yet peculiar nursery rhyme would have us believe. It’s generally a thrilling sound under most circumstances and always grabs one’s attention without fail. It was also the uncharacteristically unpleasant sound my left knee painfully made 20 minutes into my son’s parents-versus-kids final soccer practice of the fall season.
As I fell to the ground, grimacing on the soft, damp grass, I attempted in vain to rise and stand, only to be brought back down decidedly to the turf, my 47-year-old body cluing me in to the harsh reality that 10 years and 40 pounds removed from routine exercise have adjusted the scale of what should be defined as “strenuous activity.” I sat on the sideline for the remainder of the match and then hobbled with assistance to the edge of the field where an uninjured parent kindly drove my van to where I stood waiting, bracing myself on the coach’s right shoulder.
After driving my son home with my functional right lower limb and arranging for his older sister to put him to bed, I drove cautiously to the nearest urgent care to determine what damage had been done. As I reclined in an exam room waiting for an x-ray that would return negative results for a break, on the tv was broadcast, ironically and mockingly, a soccer match. I would depart with a knee brace and a set of tall crutches, leaving me to arrange a MRI the following day to determine if any damage had been sustained to the ligaments, as my wife, who was inconveniently out of town for a work trip, suspected.
The first 20 years or so of your life can feel like a lifetime. So many rich and varied stages of development take place in the early years between infancy and the beginning of adulthood and pack plenty of meaning and memories into the space of two decades. No one tells you, however, how much more rapidly the following 20 years or so will pass you by.
The passage of time notwithstanding, October 2023 is shaping out to be a personal watershed year for the reality of aging, as I’m discovering. Not three weeks ago, I purchased my first pair of reading glasses. I’ve inconsistently required them, but I can’t deny they were just what I needed in select moments; anyone, and I do mean anyone, younger than me can’t say the same. Within a few days time, my son tactlessly offered the observation returning from the park one afternoon that I had a number of white hairs in my beard that he hadn’t noticed before. And now here was my knee loudly and painfully announcing its collapse, as if to herald the end of an era and to punish me for how much I had taken its heretofore reliable operation for granted.
I tell myself 47 isn’t that old, and I’m sure many would agree with me. It’s all perspective, I say. In less medically progressive times, my lifespan might be nearing its natural end. Yet, it occurred to me the other day that my dear grandparents, who are as frail and fragile as a living soul can exist in their 90s, were roughly my age when I, their first grandchild, arrived. If my age otherwise qualifies me for a grandchild, then it’s time to consider that the vibrancy of youth, at least physically, is now a distant memory.
Parenting, I would argue, has the potential to accelerate the process a bit. Any supremely stressful primary responsibility, come to think of it, would equally qualify. I once heard my parents remark many years ago concerning a president leaving office how much it appeared he had aged over the relatively short span of years. I couldn’t help but agree when viewing the before and after pics. The task of guiding a nation can take its toll on one’s whole person in much the same way the job of raising one’s children can, especially if things aren’t living up to expectations. And if I were honest, I find that I don’t always cope very well with unmet personal expectations for my kids in the areas of emotions, academics, or just plain development. And there is a very good reason for that, as I’ve come to realize.
My sweet wife, on occasion, feels compelled to apologize for the fact that she might have been absent with work and career while I was trying to take care of something with the home or children. I typically neither express nor feel blame towards her for any absence because, after all, she is doing her job, and I, in truth, am trying to do mine. The kids are my job, though we may share the responsibility on the weekends and evenings. I have always taken my own work seriously and tried to do my best, and I think this is reflected in my history. However, kids are another story entirely, I find. At least, that should be the case. If they are my job, as I believe they are, and if they are not performing up to expectations, as the logic goes, however fallible it may be, then I am failing at my job. This pervasive, unexpressed thought and feeling plagues my mind and, I think, contributes to the age I’m beginning to feel, if I’m honest.
I recently had the privilege of taking part in a podcast in acknowledgement of National Adoption Month. I and two of my former colleagues shared our experiences and challenges with one another and with listeners, each of us at various stages and having approached adoption from a different point of origin and with different family dynamics. At one point in the discussion, however, we all agreed that our adoption experience required the adjustment of expectations for our children. Trauma almost always affects development in one or many of the aspects of a person, and especially during the most formative years of a child. What one will need to address with one’s children plays out gradually; issues may manifest themselves inconveniently over days, weeks, months, or even years while you attempt to connect and become a family. Plan and hope for the best, but be prepared for the fact that expectations you have long had for your own personal standards of success may need to be jettisoned in order to redefine what success is for your kids.
I confess that I forget this almost daily. And I often feel a failure at my job because of it, which, it would seem, is unfair not only to my kids but also to me. Oh, how we beam with pride when our kids take the trophy, applauding ourselves for our skilled and focused, intentional parenting. Just as easy to take the blame, though, as I’ve found innumerable times, if they don’t, or if they fail to meet standards, whether they be of your own creation or of others. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the criticism I used to privately harbor against parents has largely disappeared since I’ve become one; many parents often take far too much credit and blame for their kids, I’m convinced.
Our van is currently undergoing repairs and has been for the last couple of days, even as I wait to find out if I require any repairs for my aged knee. We purchased it on the very day we met our children for the first time over seven years ago, driving home from the visit with delight and, dare I say, expectations. In a very real sense, the van is, for me, a visible representation of my parenting experience. It feels like a war buddy, replete with battle scars visible from every chosen angle. It’s pure function and no fun, but I knew what I was getting into; at least, I thought I did. The only thing missing is a simple, modest and plain bumper sticker I happened to notice on the back of another former childless fellow’s minivan, the message issuing an excuse, or apology, for his chosen make and model: “I used to be cool.”
“It’s not the years but the mileage,” the saying goes. I’ve known plenty of drivers who have faithfully kept their vehicles for a greater number of years, but 209,000 miles is more than I’ve traveled in any of mine. It’ll be fixed soon enough and back on the road for school and sports practice dropoffs, grocery store runs, and doctor visits. The day is fast approaching to put it to pasture, and I will be pleased and relieved to find myself driving a fresh set of wheels, but I won’t be surprised if I shed a tear or two, soulless though it may be. It’s done its job, dings and dents notwithstanding. To the contrary, such imperfections, perhaps, serve as evidence of a job well-done.
If so, I ought to take heed. I do believe parenting has aged me and will continue to; I’m sure others would agree for themselves. Stress ages us, and we all stress over success. Daily redefining success, moreover, for this adoptive parent is a challenge, I confess, that I fall short on. And it’s seldom with parenting as one’s primary job that you receive feedback about a job well-done, unlike the professional world. I pray my own dings and dents, in time, will be evidence of not simply years but the miles successfully traveled, however that may look for our own kids.
The question arises from time to time as we swipe through personal photos on the phone, suggesting that it’s a broad, encompassing experience in our collective distant past, and thank God it is. Hearing now the occasional news of the day that so-and-so just contracted it no longer carries with it the alarm and concern it once did. In many ways, it’s been reduced to the severity of the common cold as new strains’ potency has waned even as our own constitutions have become better conditioned through vaccinations or previous exposure. One family member of mine recently learned he had been infected yet found himself able to carry on capably with the tasks of the day. How easy it’s been to forget what changes were wrought both near and far in our lives once the virus took hold.
Routines were radically altered in a moment. The way we interacted with others, the way we spent our money, the way we traveled, whether across borders or the short drive to the store — all of it changed, and caught in the middle of this were our kids, who relied on us, as always, for a sense of safety and security in spite of the panic and fear that existed beyond the front yard. Many children found themselves irreversibly altered, faced with new anxieties their parents still struggle to alleviate.
Daily thrown-together, makeshift homeschooling — it’s own unique, fresh hell for parents such as us who were not trained as educators — tested our nerves and patience. One friend of ours said it best over a phone conversation at the time, excusing himself from the call as it was that cherished time of day to endure “rage math” with his grade-schooler. Lessons with our youngest were typically characterized as such and were actually tag-team matches between my wife and me, desperately tapping out once voices were elevated and tears of frustration began flowing freely for both of us.
For all of the uncomfortable realities created, the year of COVID also fostered a wealth of pleasant experiences and memories for many families, ours included. We as parents were compelled within the forced isolation to explore and implement new routines to keep our progeny engaged and distracted from the stresses presented by a 24-hour pandemic news cycle. We were no different. Our breaks between dreaded school assignments involved trips to a local park, followed by drinks from Sonic and “name-that-Disney-tune” on the drive back home.
Following a game of hide-and-seek in the park during one of these homeschool breaks, I captured a casual selfie of the kids and me, unaware that it would become my favorite picture of the four of us. It would later sit framed on my work desk prior to exiting the professional world, and it now sits on a shelf in our bedroom beside my favorite photo of my wife in her flowing white dress on our wedding day. Not to brag, but, as far as pictures go, to me, it’s perfect and is in need of no editing or correction.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, for a period of time, I dabbled in photography as a hobby. Time spent in study and practice taught me a thing or two specifically about composition, which isn’t necessarily aided with the use of high-priced, high-tech equipment. The most priceless purchase I ever made while engaged in the hobby was a simple, inexpensive, overlooked book with the banal title How to Take Good Pictures, published by Kodak, which had much to say about the subject of composition with little use of the word itself. I still recommend it to any budding enthusiast. Contained within the ten tips are two this favored picture employs, notably, “move in close/fill the frame,” and “use a plain background.” I would argue that these two points alone remarkably improve almost any picture captured with any camera.
Technical aspects aside, there is much to be divined from each of the kids’ personalities and character in this frozen, candid moment. Deztinee, our oldest, stands apart but otherwise upbeat in the background, willingly included but happily reserved. Dezira sits almost inconspicuously in the corner of the frame, careful not to forget Charlie, the diminutive family pet, who joined us reluctantly, I’m sure, on a few of these trips to the park. Her natural, felt kinship of cute, furry creatures is on full display. Calib, our youngest, appears prepared to tumble exuberantly over me and into the lens. The most closely connected of our children to my wife and me, he comfortably presses tight against my shoulder, clueing the viewer in to his unequivocal attachment to us.
It’s all there, and I’m sure much more could be said. The smiles are genuine. There’s no unpleasant subtext lurking behind the subjects, no hint of misery due to a global pandemic. The happiness is real and palpable.
More than a picture, I realize, it’s a critical lesson for times of trouble or misfortune. Joy is present and available if you choose it. Maybe this is another, perhaps subconscious, reason I cherish the photograph. God knows how I can feel beleaguered by the stresses of the day. Yet, here is proof positive that even I can feel differently, in spite of the fact that the entire world itself, at that very moment in time, was drenched in uncertainty and fear. I pray it serves as a stark reminder to my kids as well in the unknown future that awaits each of them.
The narrow blade sliced cleanly and effortlessly through the short cedar post. I felt as precise as a surgeon with scalpel in hand as I carved out the curved edge of what would become one of three corbels I’d attach to the gardeners potting bench I was building for my wife’s 48th birthday, at her request. “I like this tool,” I texted her simply. I switched off the shiny, new band saw gifted to me on our 11th “steel” anniversary and secured the final pieces to the upper posts, displeased only with the fact that, after a coat of weather sealant, the project was over.
I’ve always enjoyed putting things together. Much of my childhood was spent connecting Lego bricks to fashion whatever my imagination could cook up or cementing and decaling plastic model aircraft. As for the former, once a year, I still treat myself to the purchase of an “18+” kit, typically around my birthday. This year, it was the 1,872 piece Delorean from Back to the Future. I relish even the chance to assemble furniture kits, in spite of the frustration included with your purchase in the form of vague instructions and diagrams. Writing (i.e., “wordsmithing”) is likewise an opportunity to create piece by piece, though one doesn’t lay hands on the kinds of tools found in a hardware store. For each of these, the process itself provides the fun, though nothing beats the unique pleasure in thereafter admiring a well-constructed finished product.
Woodworking feels like an adult upgrade to this love of creative assembly, and I could almost characterize it as an accidental hobby. My wife challenged me for her 47th birthday to build a patio table, though I had theretofore expressed no interest and had demonstrated no viable skills with lumber. She found DIY plans online, nevertheless, and so I willingly gathered the materials to try my hand at a job I could only imagine my grandfather or father-in-law completing successfully.
When asked if I know how to cook, I typically respond with, “Well, I know how to follow directions.” As I dove headfirst into into the task, I found the project closely reflected this sentiment. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying since one does, after all, require specific, sometimes pricey tools for the job and needs to take the time to figure them out, but well-laid plans, which she provided, make a world of difference. So, after a couple of weeks of hot and sweaty effort in the makeshift workshop that was our garage, I proudly presented to my wife the (unstained) herringbone-patterned table and promised her a couple of modified benches to match in the weeks to come.
In spite of my beginner status, I completed this project alone, save allowing a couple of our kids the chance to tap a few carefully-placed brad nails into the surface. Though a solo effort, it struck me how often during the process I revisited moments in my early years when I was “voluntold” by my grandfather to assist him with various builds during weekend visits to their home an hour away. As I cut, nailed, and assembled the pine (a poor choice of wood, I would later learn, for an outdoor piece), I couldn’t help feeling as if I was channeling him and his long, self-made experience in handiwork. I had not considered it before, but legacy, I realized, isn’t something that is necessarily left behind at the moment we pass out of this life but can begin long before the end, anytime we may find ourselves alone and moved almost instinctively to act or think as someone has influenced us. All of the seemingly tedious moments helping my grandfather with the construction of a shelf, a shed, etc., returned to inform me now, when, finally, I gained an interest, and so there he was with me from start to finish.
James Raymond Tomlin, my maternal grandfather, had no such legacy left to him. His father passed very early in his life, and what few memories remain to him involve his patriarch lying uselessly in bed due to illness until the disappointing end. He had little or no involvement with him or his seven siblings’ young lives prior to this and was often absent, rarely fulfilling the role as a provider to the family in the mid-Depression era. My beloved grandmother, his wife, Frances, had a similar experience with her own father, as did, I understand, many in their time. They simply weren’t around. The reality, for me, effectively casts doubt on the myth of the “good ol’ days,” especially when I feel guilt about how I may or may not spend time with my own children as a “stay-at-home-dad.” Maybe I’m not a perfect father, but I suppose they’ll at least remember that I was present and available.
His has been a working life. Before he reached double digits, he took up his first job selling newspapers on the street to help support the family, a fact which I would be remiss to forget since he has proudly shared it numerous times. Schooling took a back seat to work for the span of his years, having abandoned it by necessity after the 8th grade, though he would, not long into married life, earn certification for his chosen trade as an electrician for Dow Chemical in Freeport. He retired as a foreman shortly after I reached high school and then spent his free hours not wasting away in a rocking chair sipping coffee but either personally addressing the various needs of several rent houses he and my grandmother owned or putting his hands to use as a carpenter in the backyard shop he and my grandmother built from the ground up themselves many years earlier. They were do-it-yourselfers long before the convenience of HGTV or the internet offered easy-access to information for any improvement project. To be honest, I’m not sure how he acquired his skills as a handyman other than trial and error and a few books here and there, though there was the occasional leisurely viewing of the latest episode of This Old House on PBS.
“Papaw,” as my siblings and I still know him, would spend all day on the task at hand, and if you were his help, though I’ve never been sure he actually needed it, the lunch hour might stretch later into the day than yesterday depending on his current stage in a project. It wasn’t always clear to me while holding something in place for him when he might interrupt his progress for a break as my stomach pined for a sandwich. Mealtimes were a moving target depending on what needed to be done, and though I never expressed my frustration with this since I loved and respected him, I admit that I get it now. When you enjoy what you’re constructing, “just one more step” is a challenging thought to put aside, especially when you can see with your own two eyes how close you are to the satisfying feeling of completion.
I’ve lost count of the number of projects he finished for others, but I still have a few pieces he made exclusively for me with my minimal assistance, never imagining I would ever possess similar tools of my own. Among my collection are an oak bookshelf, frames for each of my degrees, and a television stand/cabinet. Furniture may come and go over the years, but I will never part with these for the meaning they have to me as so much more than mere functional objects.
Just over a decade ago, my grandfather, along with my grandmother, gradually began the difficult but necessary process of relinquishing rights to privileges, some of which our oldest at 16 is only now earning. If one lives long enough, there’s a cruel ebb and flow to age as one’s body and mind return to a feeble state of the helplessness of infancy. The tools, the driver license, and other freedoms taken for granted by the rest of us are now lost to him in his mid-90s, though I’m still amazed they both have made it this far. He neither hears nor says much these days, but it is possible, as I’ve discovered, to gain his interest in a conversation. A recent visit of mine transitioned to what I was working on, which brought a smile to his typically weary facade. We shared a brief but satisfying conversation, one hobbyist to another, which concluded with his invitation to sort through the outdoor closet of the modest duplex they now inhabit and see what tools I might be able to take along with me since he no longer had need of them. I loaded the minivan with a router, air compressor, and various hand tools, understanding that they were likely to remain with me for the remainder of my life, if for no other reason than their totemic significance of my grandfather’s legacy of honest, hard work, now left to me.
This same visit resulted in a request from my mother, his daughter and only child, for an outdoor side patio table, which I completed at home with spare cedar soon after. “You’re already finished?” was the best unwitting compliment my wife and our middle could have paid me, which they did after a couple of days. In any case, I now find myself creating for others just as he did, as if taking up the mantle age has forced him to set aside.
A casual glance a year later at my first build, the patio table, would evidence to anyone I still have much to learn. What sections haven’t been chewed up thoroughly by our youthful goldendoodle reveal bowing and warping, not to mention a poorly selected and applied coat of stain. It’s still functional as a table, however, as are the accompanying benches, and I find myself nonetheless pleased with it as a first project. I’ve informed my wife I would prefer to rebuild it at some point, starting with a more experienced choice of wood that suffers the elements much better. That day may come again, and I’ll likely then, as now, I hope, proudly sense with each piece selected, cut, and assembled, my grandfather’s enduring presence and legacy.
“Somebody donated these to the bookstore. I thought you might find a use for them.”
John Lottinville, one of several Friends of the Library board members and bookstore volunteers, reached across my office desk and handed me a set of old NASA prints of the Apollo 12 mission, released years ago and of no special value to anyone but a collector of early NASA memorabilia. John himself was a retired lawyer for the Johnson Space Center and retained a lingering esteem for the program, having met plenty of astronauts himself during his career, including those featured in the prints. I thanked him for the thought and took a closer look at his acquisition: over half a dozen cardstock prints each slightly larger than a legal-sized sheet of paper, featuring photos of various moments of the mission that followed the historic first landing.
Among the three crew members, which included mission commander Pete Conrad and command module pilot Dick Gordon, was lunar module pilot Al Bean — a wholly uninspiring name for a historical figure, in my humble opinion. He did, however, bear the distinction of having been the fourth man to set foot on the moon and was tied to Ted Freeman, whose memorial library I had, at the time, been managing for a few years.
“Ted Freeman“ isn’t a name many outside of NASA circles or fandom would recognize. Prior to 2004, I didn’t either. That was the year I began my professional career as a public librarian in Clear Lake, the southeast corner of Houston, in an updated facility named after an astronaut who, tragically, never had the chance to ride a rocket. It’s likely he would have been among those who would eventually find himself venturing into space or bouncing and gliding across the bright lunar surface, were it not for a bird strike that forced him to make the valiant yet fateful decision to avoid crashing his T-38 into residences below and veer off into open ground, undoubtedly saving lives in the process — save his own, that is.
Freeman and Bean joined NASA as a part of Astronaut Group 3, which included, among others, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. As I studied the prints, I recalled this connection between the two of them. It then occurred to me that Bean was one of the few Apollo astronauts still living, and, as it just so happened, residing right here in the Bayou City.
Buzz Aldrin with Ted Freeman, October 30, 1964, one of the last photos ever taken of him. His T-38 accident occurred the following day.
I had found it fruitless in recent months to solicit a visit by an Apollo astronaut for the library’s 50th anniversary. Appearance fees for any of the most recognizable names are almost as lofty as the altitudes they reached during their missions, I learned, and public libraries are hardly blessed with the budgets of the many energy companies that envelop Houston. “Maybe I can’t persuade them to visit,” I thought, “but perhaps there’s another way to give the public at this library a closer connection to the program that began right here in their own neighborhood.”
I pivoted over to the computer, searched, and found that Bean, as many did, maintained a website, much of it featuring his art, a hobby he enthusiastically took up following his awe-inspiring trip to the moon. Clicking on the “contact” section, I punched in the details, noting Mr. Bean’s link to Freeman as a “classmate,” mentioning the acquired prints, and humbly requesting just a single autograph on only one of them so that they could be placed on permanent display for the public. My expectation after submitting the message was, in all honesty, to receive a response from an aide or site manager weeks later stating that Mr. Bean appreciates the request but would respectfully have to decline. I had read enough such polite refusals to expect nothing less.
Once and a while, however, persistence pays off. “Ask and ye shall receive.” A mere hour later, in my email inbox appeared a new message. Figuring it to be either an automated or stale, noncommittal response, I clicked, opened, and read the following casual reply as if the sender were texting a familiar friend:
Jim,
Can you send a picture of the prints?
Al
Now, few accomplishments top a trip to the moon. The first to attempt the journey were a uniquely capable breed of individuals who willingly risked their very lives to travel faster and farther than any humans in history. If any could be forgiven for possessing even a dim shade of an ego, they’d likely qualify. Yet, here I was, having been offered the special courtesy of a swift answer not by an assistant or secretary, but by the very astronaut who stepped out onto the lunar surface himself.
After taking a moment to register my shock that I was now engaged in an unexpectedly comfortable email conversation with a moonwalker, I gushingly replied with gratitude and haste, attaching pics of each and every print, offering to send them with a postage-paid return envelope. Within minutes, he again replied that he would be glad to accept my request and to send them his way to the provided address.
The following morning, I wasted no time and sent them on. I waited only a week for the large, prepaid envelope to return to me. Sitting at my desk, I carefully sliced open the narrow end expecting to find his autograph on the one print featuring his official NASA photograph with his crewmates. In this, I was not disappointed. But as I removed and laid out each of the remaining prints, I was delighted to find that Al had decided to do me one better.
On each of the others, featuring a photograph of his and Conrad’s activity on the lunar surface, he detailed by his own hand and in as much space as the print would allow what he and his commander were doing in the image at that specific frozen moment in time. I marveled at what I was seeing. I took great pleasure in realizing what a staggering gift this was to this library and how it would further cement its significant, local connection to the space program. Bean had been beyond gracious to share these with his deceased colleague’s memorial building, and I couldn’t have been happier.
One of several autographed prints by Bean on display at the Freeman Library. This one, a photo he snapped himself, reads: “Pete Conrad holds out the American flag. The pin that was designed to hold it out was broken.”
Bean passed away a few short years after this gift to the library. Today, these signed prints remain on display on the second floor for the public to enjoy, right next to an American flag carried into space on Gemini V by his friend and Apollo 12 commander, Pete Conrad. I never had another encounter with an Apollo astronaut, but it remains one of my favorite stories during my time managing the Freeman Library.
Living and working in Clear Lake, you run into plenty of NASA professionals, all with their own unique jobs but all with the singular goal of sustaining man’s presence in space. I became a fan not long after becoming employed by the county library and learning all I could about the first full decade of the program in the 60s. The astronauts themselves, both past and present, walk among us here, and I’ve found few of them carry themselves as if celebrities. I once paid my rent to a former astronaut, attended church with another, and even had occasional interactions with one who received an embarrassing share of national publicity for an unfortunate personal mistake. It’s easy to forget those few among us tasked with such important, high-profile jobs that deserve the title of “missions” also shop for groceries, pay bills, and argue with their teenagers, just like the rest of us.
Next year, after over 50 years, four crewmates in many ways just like the rest of us will return to the same moon Al Bean walked upon, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The first landing is one of the only events in all of recorded history that drew the attention of the entire world. It’s my hope that once again, for at least a moment, there will be peace on earth as all eyes are fixed on the moon above.
I’ve shared with several that I’d be happy to sweep the floors at JSC just to say I worked for NASA. I continue to be inspired by their efforts to explore, take risks, and challenge what’s possible. Alas, they’ve never called to offer a job, but I’ve nonetheless been grateful to have worked in the library that serves the NASA community. I’ll likely in years to come bore my grandchildren and great grandchildren with the story of my email conversation with the fourth man to set foot on the moon.
Time in a Bottle 