Life races onward to the finish, where death holds the trophy

The last few days have left me with little else on my mind besides beginnings and endings.  Kate is literally on the verge of giving birth, and she might be induced as early as Thursday (by the way, for anyone wondering which blog will be the baby one, it’s probably this one).  I’m both excited and scared about becoming a parent.  Some folks I know are having some issues with their kids, and I keep thinking I’ll either be too strict or too much of a pushover.  Everything I’m told is that life “is never the same again” and “your whole world changes”.  I’ve gotten rather used to my world, and while I’m very excited to share it with one of the planet’s new residents, it also has me thinking about my life, things my parents did and didn’t do, and if I’m up to the task and am willing to let my life change as much as I keep hearing it will.  Just typing that makes me feel and sound selfish.  I’m trying to just chalk it up to pre-dad jitters, but it gives me pause to wonder if I’m cut out for it. 

The end on my mind of late deals with my step-dad.  He’s in the hospital with possible blood clots on his lung.  My mind has been a wreck the last 24 hours.  Kate thinks I think about death too much, but my step-dad is 87, and my mom is 75 (and a 50+ year smoker).  I still vividly remember my dad and grandparents passing away in a four year stretch before I was even ten years old.   Other than an aunt and uncle that I was close to passing away, I’ve been lucky in regards to close family passing away.  I’ve not been untouched by death, especially in the last few  years.  I’ve been to the funeral of a co-worker, the infant daughter of a friend, my boss’s father, and the mother of my wife’s best friend.  I cried a lot at three of the four, and it took all I had for the other.  On top of that, I cried when Charles Schulz passed away, as he had felt like a friend I’ve never known all my life.  I know that sounds crazy, but some of my earliest memories are of reading Charlie Brown books and watching Snoopy cartoons. 

What probably makes me the most sad about my step-dad being in the hospital is how much I still want to tell him, and how bad I feel about how I treated him for so long.  I fought my mom tooth and nail about marrying him out of some misplaced loyalty to my dad (I’m sure he’d have wanted her to re-marry, as he lost his first wife before my brother or I were born).  I didn’t have a lot of father-son time alone with him, because of the same reason.  For years after I left home for college and my career, I’d send father’s day cards, but I only sent step-dad ones, and I didn’t even sign them.  I wrote him a letter at urging of my girlfriend at the time, and I said I was sorry for a lot of things, but in the last 24 hours it hasn’t seemed like enough.  I don’t know if I’ll ever do or say enough to make me feel better about it, or to feel like I’ve made it right.  It’s too bad it takes something like this to realize how important someone is to me.  The night of the day I found out, I was crying upstairs and Kate was trying to console me.  Without thinking I cried out “I don’t want to lose a dad again” which only made me cry even more.  I’d resisted thinking of him that way for so long, and yet the whole time that’s exactly how I’ve thought of him.  As of last night, things were looking up and he was probably coming home.  My mom cheered me up in the most unusual way.  See, my step-dad likes to complain constantly about his health, and in regards to that my mom said “he’s been talking about dying for fifteen years and I told him it hasn’t worked yet”.  If you know my mom, it really helps the humor.  She has a very unique perspective.  What brought me back down was her talking about how she was thinking that she was next.  Which brings me back to thinking about death more than I should.

Today, things are calm.  Tomorrow could bring joy, or pain, or both.  God and luck willing, in a few weeks I’ll make that long drive to Veblen.  On that day I hope the beginnings are on time, and the endings are postponed.  Even if he doesn’t remember it, I want Braden to meet his grandpa Ernest.

[This is part two of a blog that started at Verbiage Dump.  The blog, in its entirety, can be seen at my MySpace blog.  I split it on wordpress because VD is where I talk mostly about music, and this one is where I talk about more personal things.]

If this blog was a song, it wouldn’t rhyme

It was quite a weather weekend in the Midwest.  South Dakota got off light, as the touchdown near Hugo caused a lot more havoc, and sadly one death.  Once again, if you ever catch me saying “I’ve never seen a tornado in person” with a wistful look in my eye, smack me.

Speaking of smacks, Brookings gets kudos for the week’s unique collision.  The last line of the story gets an extra kudo.

I found a new reason to visit Huron.  Actually, now I have a reason to visit Huron, as I’ve actually only been there once that I can remember, and that’s where I ate.

I hope this gal isn’t running for anything, because I don’t see South Dakotans supporting this idea.

I’d like to add another blog to my list of must clicks.  A friend of mine is an award winning writer for the P&D, and if you like to follow South Dakota sports I’d recommend you check it out.

Over the weekend Kate and I made the trip to visit my mom and step-dad in Veblen.  I was hoping to do a video blog during the trip.  Heck, we even brought two different cameras to do it on and a fresh memory card.  Sadly, due to weather and me having an emotional fit the video never happened.  Sometimes when I’m home I get some powerful waves of sadness from a lot of places.  That condition was exacerbated by visiting my grandparents’ and father’s graves.  My emotions about my father are…complicated.  For most of my grade school, junior high, high school and college life I didn’t really think much about it.  Sometime around the release of Saving Private Ryan and opening up emotionally to someone about heavy matters for the first time, things changed.  Now if I think about it for very long I’m a total wreck.  My dad’s desk is out in my mom’s garage, and I was looking through a few old things that remained.  I found an old ledger and some bank stuff, which wasn’t affecting me.  Then I saw the calendar on the door.  It was for 1979, and that calendar remained taped to that door all these years.  Most of the desk was frozen in that moment, and so was part of me.  It was all I could do not to cry in front of my parents before we left.  I thought time had healed that wound, but now time seems to only be making it worse.  Worse because of all the cracks and peeling paint on my parent’s house.  Worse because my step-dad is 87 and someday I’ll lose another father.  Worse because my mom is 75 and I know someday I’ll be a wreck for weeks or months when she passes.  Worse because every time I go to Veblen I wonder how many more trips I’ll make to the town I grew up in, because once my parents are gone I’ll have no reason to return, and no place to stay if I do.  Worse because I’ve got my own son on the way, and someday he might have to deal with all these feelings, and I don’t wish them on anyone.  I miss my old brain, the one that didn’t think about these things. 

I was going to write some lame smart-ass comment to close this out, but it didn’t seem to fit.  Too often I give the glib response.  I don’t have it in me tonight.  Maybe next time.