Remembrance

Friday was an emotional day, much of it spent memorializing those who have passed on.  The day began with the awful news that my sister-in-law made another failed suicide attempt the night before. Then while the rest of the house readied themselves for one memorial, I got myself and baby ready to attend a separate one.  The first event was an annual golf benefit for cancer held in memory of my brother-in-law who succumbed to lung cancer while I was in Iraq.  I don't really golf, so I went on behalf of the family to pay respects at the funeral mass for my elderly neighbor who passed of natural causes earlier this week.

My brother-in-law married my sister when I was just a child.  They had been married more than 20 years and had four healthy boys together.  My father always said my brother-in-law worked like a dog to support his family.  He was a mason, but he was not rough around the edges at all.  He was mild mannered and easy going and always a kind face at family functions.  This means a lot in a giant family where the feelings between people can sometimes be contentious.

His fight against cancer began before I left for Iraq, and I prayed for him every night.  When his lung cancer appeared to be gone, I thought God really did answer prayers.  But then they discovered that it had spread to his brain.  When he died, no one told me.  They didn't want to upset me.  It was only a week or so before my tour ended, and we were scheduled to come home.  I learned he had passed from my nephew's Myspace status.  It read: "Loosing your dad really sucks."

I hated not being there for my sister and my family while they were grieving, but the worst part was I never got to say goodbye.  I only saw my brother-in-law once since he was diagnosed, and he was reeling from chemo and radiation therapy.  I never got a chance to talk to him during his remission.  I never got to talk to him at all really after he got sick.  His last Christmas happened to be the first Christmas in 10 years that all of my brothers and sisters were together, celebrating with my parents on Christmas Eve, but I was in Iraq.  It's nobody's fault.  That's just the way it happened.  If I had just had the opportunity to spend that last Christmas, or a family function, or some other holiday with him, I think I'd be more at peace with being in Iraq when he died.  It was a somber note to come home on.

I never really got a chance to say goodbye to my neighbor either.  He was an elderly man and also a veteran. I didn't have too many conversations with him, but my husband, who was very fond of him, had many. When we first moved here, my neighbor was lively and energetic.  On warm days he was always outside tending to his flowers and his landscaping.  He was a pretty spunky old guy who sort of grouched out everything he said in a way that made you laugh.  But after his heart attack, everything changed for him.  He made a strong recovery at first, but then he had a back operation that left him permanently paralyzed in one leg.

A man like him was never meant to be wheelchair bound.  EMS made frequent visits because he often  fell down trying to do things without help.  My husband finally told his wife to call us before calling the ambulance, and he generally ran next door about once a week to help pick poor Charlie up off the floor.  Once, when my husband was at work, I went in his place.  Charlie's wife was doubtful little old me had the strength to pick him up off the floor, but I assured her my combat load was much heavier than little ole' Charlie.

We knew the end was near when hospice started making house calls and their out-of-town children came up to visit.  It was one of those awkward situations where I wanted to stop by but I didn't want to intrude.  One morning, shortly after his children left, I woke up and saw out my window a dark station wagon backed up to their garage.  I knew then  he had passed.

The funeral service was held at the church by a priest whose services are always eloquent and inspiring.  Refreshingly, he talked a lot about how at the official level, the church doesn't pretend to know what happens to us after we die.  He said a few kind words about Charlie, but I had a hard time focusing on why I was there.  In basic training, even the atheists found a Sunday service to attend.  It was the only hour or so out of the entire week you could escape the drill sergeants and think about something other than training.  For some reason, these services were very emotional for me, and it was the same whenever I attended a service in Iraq.  Ever since, for reasons I can't entirely explain or put into words, church services feel almost overwhelming to me.  All I could keep thinking at the funeral service was that there had to be something after this, because if there's not, what's the point?

My father believes when you die, you shut off like a light switch.  Everything goes dark and that's it.  You just cease to exist.  I can't fathom that.  Maybe it's just the limits of my rational mind, like my inability to conceive of infinity even though I know, by logical necessity, either the universe itself or the original cause must be infinite, but I simply cannot imagine it anymore than I can imagine the end of my own existence.  If there's nothing after this life, why bother doing anything but trying to feel good while you're here?  If in the end, I will simply cease to exist, what difference does it make if it happens today or 50 years from now?  What difference does it make what kind of legacy I leave behind me if we are all just some random cosmic accident that will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs?  Anyway, this is where my thoughts kept drifting to while trying to honor my neighbor's memory.

In between the funeral and the benefit dinner I attended after the golf tournament, I made a stop home to put the baby down for his nap.  There were only two stories bouncing back and forth on the news: Mayor Bloomberg called for the first mandatory evacuation of flood zones for the first time in the history of NYC, and Former President George W. Bush gives an exclusive interview with the National Geographic Channel discussing his thoughts for the upcoming 10th anniversary of September 11th.  In a clip, Bush described how walking onto Ground Zero was like walking into hell.  In one big rush, I remembered how in the days following 9-11, walking through the city, how seeing my fellow New Yorkers and the looks on their faces was like bearing witness to each individual's own personal hell, and  I choked back tears.  I don't know why everything seemed to intersect on one random Friday last week, but it made for a very heavy day, leaving me with the thought that there has to be more than this, that this life must be part of some bigger plan we just aren't privy to, because if it's not, what the hell is the point?

Just Another Day

This week, like most weeks, began with trying to make sure dad didn't inadvertently poison my two-year old son in one way or another.  If it's not the ashtray full of half-smoked mini cigars left next to the porch door, or the tray of rat-poison he's left out for some imaginary rodent menace on the deck, it's the can of Raid left on a shelf well within reach.  The other morning it was the yard fog he sprayed under the kitchen sink in an attempt to kill off an army of ants that mysteriously appear when he is the only one around to see them.  Luckily we were all still safe behind bedroom doors in the wee hours of the morning when he decided this was a good idea, but the smell was still lingering in the kitchen when we all woke up, and I had to wonder how much of the food had been contaminated.

It's not that he doesn't care about the welfare of his grandson.  It's just that he simply refuses to believe any of his actions are actually harmful, no matter how many people try to tell him in no matter how many different ways.  The more time we share a house with him, the more I wonder how on Earth we ever survived our childhood.  But then I have to remind myself that, in keeping with his generation, my father's number one responsibility as a parent was to go out and work, not stay home and raise kids.  At least once a day my son asks him to change his diaper, and it doesn't get any less funny no matter how many times he asks.  I can't think of anything that could possibly be more foreign to my dad than changing a diaper.  It's such an exotic concept to him, changing at least one diaper in his lifetime really should be on his bucket list.  So I can't hold it too strongly against him when he just does not understand that the first thing a two year old will do if he gets his hands on an aerosol can is point it directly at his own face and spray.  I just wish to God he would take the women of the house at our word when we try to explain it to him.

Discipline

Growing up, my father loved to tell us, "You kids have no discipline.  That's one thing I learned in the Army--discipline."  My father was not a stereotypical Army dad by any means.  He joined the Army after altering his birth certificate when he was only 16, and then spent every second of his enlistment counting down the number of days he had left til he got out.  But the one thing he took away from the Army that he always seemed to value highly was discipline. I was always the first person to agree with him that I had absolutely none.  Before I joined the Army, my alarm clock was the bane of my existence.  What I didn't understand was why, if my father prized discipline so much, he didn't teach it to us rather than constantly remind us how lacking we were in it.  Either way, if I were to be completely honest about all of my own motivations for joining the Army, I would have to admit that the hope of acquiring, perhaps through osmosis, this elusive and oft referenced character trait weighed heavily in the decision making process.

I would have to say my father wasn't lying.  Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons a soldier walks away from the Army with is those that pertain to self-discipline.  A huge piece of being disciplined is following through with your responsibilities when there is something more fun you'd much rather be doing.  Whether it's your responsibility to get your ass out of bed in the morning when the more fun choice is throwing the alarm clock against the wall and going back to sleep, or it's the college student who passes up a Friday night out when they know they have a huge term paper due on Monday, often times discipline boils down to saying "No" to something you want to do in favor of just doing something you'd rather not do.

So this week, as I was preparing for my third and final foot surgery, I made sure I had all my ducks in a row so that I could spend two days recovering, then wake up and go sell soap at the flea market on Sunday.  (Making soap is one of the many hats I wear while I'm making other plans, waiting for a real job to come through).  I spent the two days before my surgery making soap and stocking up my inventory for the market.  I spent Thursday in surgery and Friday doing a comparative market analysis for my father while still glued to the couch in a pain-killer induced haze because dad wants to contest his property taxes on Wednesday.  Saturday I shrink wrapped and labeled soap for the market on Sunday.  In the meantime, my mother spent all week trying to talk me out of going to the market on Sunday because she wanted me to join her and my niece for brunch at a lovely golf course instead.  Sunday brunch sounded far more appealing than selling soap with a bum foot, but I reminded myself that doing the responsible thing usually means passing on the fun thing.  Saturday night rolls around, and my husband decides he wants to go out with some friends who we haven't seen in a long time.  I can't remember the last time we had an available babysitter (aka nana) and an invitation to go out coincide on the same night.  To say the invitation was extremely tempting would be a gross understatement, but I knew I had an early morning, and still being exhausted from my foot surgery, it was a terrible night to socialize.  Finally I agreed to go when my husband promised to have me home by midnight.  Exactly two hours and two beers later, I nudged my husband to pull around the carriage, and we made it home just in time for it to turn back into a pumpkin.

I was feeling pretty good about myself when I pulled my butt out of bed this morning and started hobbling around with one good foot to get ready for a day of selling soap.  My husband loaded up the truck because I still can't do any heavy lifting, but I figured I could handle sitting in a lawn chair under a tent all day.  Everyone who tries my soap seems to really love it, but the business has been incredibly slow going getting off the ground.  The flea market is the only place where I've generated any kind of real sales volume, albeit small volume due to poor foot traffic, but definite sales none-the-less.  It's only once a week, and it's the best shot I have of promoting the webstore and getting my name out there.  So although it was difficult to say "no" to all the fun things I would have rather been doing than going to bed at a reasonable hour and waking up early to go sell soap, I was thankful the Army helped me obtain some of that incredibly useful discipline my father was always talking about.  It would have really come in handy if we didn't get all the way up to the market to find it cancelled because not enough vendors showed up.  Guess they didn't get the memo about discipline.

A Little Background

Writing was one of my many abandoned careers before I decided to quit my last job, give up my highly coveted--albeit tiny--rent-stabilized studio on the Upper-Upper East Side of Manhattan, and enlist in the Army.  I wouldn't say I always had a passion for writing.  It was more like a compulsion to write.  I had this compulsion most of my life, and before the birth of my son, I was an obsessive journaler.  After college I managed to eek out a living as small newspaper reporter and newsradio writer, but I found that trying to make money writing took the joy out of doing it.  Working in a newsroom following the events of September 11th led to further frustration as I increasingly felt a growing need to do more, to contribute more.  Ironically, most people are drawn to journalism because they feel it's a career path where they can make a difference in the world, but for some reason, for me, it just never felt like enough.  So I left the land of news and retreated back to the university where I immersed myself in the world of math and physics (a world I miss very much) until I finally mustered up the courage to answer the calling I had to become a soldier.  After the most amazing journey of my life, which took me all the way to Iraq and back, I left the Army to get married and raise a family.  My journey into motherhood has been every bit as amazing and challenging as my journey onto the battlefield, but sometimes it leaves me feeling a little disconnected with the outside world where I once felt so engaged.  I'm new to the world of blogging, but I'm hoping that, paradoxically, it will help me feel reconnected to the world outside myself again.  My even greater hope is that some reader of my blog will find something I share here relevant to his or her own life in some way, however big or small.