relationships – Page 8 – The Tao of Bill

Modern medicine

I heard a tragic story today.

A man was involved in a terrible car accident. Among his multiple injuries, he lost his penis in the crash.

Once the doctors treated his other injuries and he was stable, they began the difficult conversation of options for his future sexual health. Amazingly, the hospital was one of the few that had performed successful penis transplants so this was presented as an option.

The Doctors explained the process thoroughly to the patient and suggested that he discuss it with his wife. They explained that it was critical that they discuss every aspect of the transplant to avoid further upsetting their lives. Size, length, girth were all important to discuss. The doctors also informed the patient that there was a $10,000 grant available that he and his wife could use for anything they want.

That evening, the wife came to visit and the patient explained all of the criteria given him and ended with the $10,000 bonus. They talked for a while and she left. The patient summoned his doctor.

The doctor entered the room and asked: ” did you and your wife make a decision?”

The patient replied “yes, we did. She’d like to go with Granite Countertops.”

The stories within the story

Yesterday was quite the eventful day. As it turned out, it would be a story that actually contained many smaller but hugely significant stories.

Saturday night Mom and the boyfriend came back from dinner at around 7PM. He came in the door like a whirlwind and headed right to the bathroom and vomited. Mom came in a moment later and said that they had a wonderful dinner but the fish must have been too spicy. He went into the bedroom soon after and went to bed. He slept.

This morning when he woke he was feeling nauseous again and began shaking uncontrollably. I called 911, put the dog out back so that he wouldn’t be in the way and went to the end of the road to flag down the ambulance. Considering how remote we are I was impressed with how quickly the police arrived. The ambulance was only 2 minutes behind. I directed them into the driveway and then stayed on the deck to not be in the way. He was taken to the hospital moments later, Mom opted to stay behind with a promise that she would pack a bag and meet him there soon.

After the dust settled, the coffee was poured and the dog was let back into the house, I looked at my mother’s face. She was trying to hide it but I knew what she was thinking.

Not again…

As I stated at the beginning of this post, there is a lot of subtext in this story. Let’s start with the basics. My mother buried two husbands in 3 years. She cared for my father as Parkinson’s ravaged his body for 8 years. It took a tremendous toll on her. The ambulance came to this house many times during that 8 year period.

When he passed in 2013, she met another man 6 months later. Deciding that life is too short to worry about what others (me included) thought, she began dating Frank. At approximately one year into their relationship, he had a heart attack while driving and hit a tree head-on. The boat in tow crashed through the cabin of the truck and narrowly missed killing them both. He was badly hurt, my mother was unscathed. He would do his rehab in the same room (subtext) that my father passed away in at the rehab center. As she sat by his side she thought to herself, I can’t be a caretaker for another man. This is too much. He recovered, moved into her house and they got married. 3 months after the wedding, he was admitted to the hospital…by ambulance…from this house…for weakness and chest pain. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and died 10 days later.

Reluctantly, after about 9 months my mother began dating David. He is not without issues but to our knowledge, he is overall free from crippling medical issues. This morning, as the ambulance kicked up a big cloud of dust on the way out of our driveway, she was telling herself again…I can’t be a caretaker to another man.

I drove her to the hospital. It was the least that I could do to make it easier for her. The good news is that it’s only a UTI. With some rest, antibiotics and a few days away from the trans-gendered, intravenous-drug-using Philipino prostitutes he should be a new man.

Despite the anti-climactic ending to his ambulance ride, there are two more asides to the story that continue to resonate with me.

One is the dog. Our cute little Lhasa Apso is 12. For those who may think that dogs are dumb with only Short Term Memories I assure you they are not. He was there for all of the 911 calls to our house for my dad and Frank. He loves the alpha-male and is very drawn to the men in the house. The way he acted today after he saw the EMT’s has me convinced that he knows what it means, he has seen it before and he is really upset. He has been acting strange all day. And Dave doesn’t even live here. Smart dog.

The last, and possibly most disturbing piece of subtext is that of family dysfunction. Frank went through a nasty divorce many years before he met Mom and one of his boys never spoke to him after the divorce. I don’t know why, Frank swore that his son simply chose his mother. They both moved up here from MA many years ago and lived one town apart. Frank’s son became an EMT in our town. He was on the scene when his father was rushed to the hospital from this house and he was here today. When I saw him I was simply amazed at how cold the human heart can be. He never acknowledged his father during the entire time he was treating him, the ride to the hospital or after. He didn’t even attend the funeral. And today, he didn’t even give my mother, his father’s second wife, the courtesy of a hello. I hope I never become that cold-hearted towards anyone.

So much happened in one day. It was a lot to process. But the fortunate thing is, despite all of the bad memories and associations, David is going to be OK and my mother doesn’t have to worry about again assuming the role of caregiver.

It’s time for her to live her own life.

the joy of being irrelevant

Last night my wife posted on FB. It was a pretty powerful tirade about how much she values friendship and loyalty and was very upset that someone had very recently betrayed her. She was quite upset, it was obvious by her tone and use of punctuation. In addition, I know that she rarely uses FB other than to post pics of the family or nights out with friends. I skimmed over most of the post and reached for my phone to call her.

Then I reread the post. At the bottom, she had tagged her best friend and wrote: “be ready to hear this story tomorrow Lisa _____, I need you to listen and help me pick up the pieces”. A wave of clarity washed over me at that moment…even if we were still married I would have not been able to comfort her. She wouldn’t even have told me about it. It was a tiny, sobering reminder of what destroyed my marriage, the day she chose her friend (the one tagged in the post) over me as her support system.

Many years ago my wife decided that I was not someone she could talk to. She never came out and said it, or even gave me a heads up that she wanted to be closer (can I only assume she didn’t want to?). It was never an issue for us, we told each other everything. I knew that we were drifting apart, I just didn’t realize how severely. What I did notice was that she dropped most of her friends and limited herself to close friendships with only one friend at a time. I found it odd, but she was a hard-working mother who needed an outlet so when she made a good friend I embraced it.

A troubling trend emerged over the years. My wife would spend every available minute with one friend, way more than is healthy for any two people. She would join activities the other was involved in, I believe to spend more time with them, even activities that I had asked her to do with me to no success. It can only be described as obsessive. Eventually, familiarity would inevitably and predictably breed contempt and there would be a fallout. This happened twice. She was crushed both times but failed to tell me about it. “You wouldn’t understand, you don’t know me like she does” was what I heard both times.

Then she met Lisa. Lisa was a woman my wife met through the school. Our daughters were friends and the playdates led to them starting to hang out. At first it wasn’t too bad for me (yes, I know it wasn’t about me anyway), I liked her husband a lot and they were a part of a really cool scenario; two brothers married two sisters and they each had 4 children. They were a big, fun group and we got together often. The trouble began when the daughters had a falling out. They had a terrible fight and the fallout lasted a while. My wife’s reaction to it was the first sign that this friendship was problematic.

Instead of respecting my young daughter’s feelings, my wife forced them to be together. She even yelled at her one day, telling her “Just because you fucked up your friendship don’t think you’re fucking up mine!” I immediately jumped in and defended my daughter and of course that was as well received as a wet fart in Church. I created a solution. If she was insistent on seeing her friend and getting the families together, my daughter and I would find something else to do that day. It worked for a while and eventually, the girls became friends again. But what had developed was not lost on me. This friendship was bordering on the unusual.

I managed to tolerate the situation for a while. I looked the other way when my wife started smoking cigarettes, at age 31 a complete statistical anomaly, because she loved the smell of Lisa’s when she smoked. I tolerated being forced to spend every valuable weekend day and day off with Lisa’s family. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, but by it being decided by default it bothered me that I had no say in who I spent my time with. I took it for the team until I learned that the children felt the same way. I pushed back a bit against her on this and I was told to leave it alone. It was starting to affect our relationship in profound ways. I didn’t realize it was an obsession until the day when we were on the sofa, the kids were with Grandma and we were taking the opportunity to get busy. She was in the middle of giving me some cough cough oral gratification when the phone rang. She actually stopped what she was doing and checked the phone for the caller ID, the phone was in her hand the whole time. It was Lisa calling, she answered and I was left to zip up, shake my head in utter disbelief and walk away knowing that I had a much bigger problem than I had ever imagined.

Fast forward many obsessed, argument laden years (I simply can’t put you or myself through every example of how this friendship destroyed us) and I had completely resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going away. One day in 2011 I sat her down and asked her why she was so distant from me and so close to Lisa. I was told that I “didn’t get her” and that she didn’t feel comfortable talking to me. She told me, in not so many words, that I was not her support system and I needed to accept it. I tried, but never really wrapped my head entirely around it. We had so many other issues at that time that it just became one more thing to add to the shit heap.

When we split, I wasn’t even remotely surprised that she moved in with Lisa. The only real surprise is that they have yet to announce that they are Lesbians. That would be too easy I suppose, that might actually explain some things.

Now that we are divorced, I find myself thinking of her in a kinder light. I have tried to be more accepting and forgiving. To dwell on all that I was angry about is too consuming, requires too much energy and is extremely heavy cargo to carry around. When I saw her FB post last night, I really wanted to call her, to talk to her and be there for her. The realization that I would have been of no comfort to her hit me like a brick in the forehead and so many questions about my failed marriage came to the fore.

I was irrelevant long before I even became the “EX-husband.”

A bitter pill indeed

38,325 days…a life truly lived cont’d

to catch up on previous entries on this series you can check here, here, and here.

Marion embraced the role of Grandmother with enthusiasm and grace. During the two years that my father served out the remainder of his obligation to the Army National Guard, he was away almost as often as he was at home. I was an easy baby, or so I’m told, but maintaining the small apartment my parents had rented in a sleepy town North of Boston, working part-time and taking care of me was taxing on my mother. Marion gladly took me whenever she could. While I don’t remember the earliest years, as to be expected, it is well known that I spent a lot of time at my Grandmother’s house.

In 1968 my parents bought a house one town over from my Grandparents. Marion never cared for apartments and rarely visited us when we were in the cramped upstairs apartment with poor lighting, worse ventilation, and too much street noise. Once we graduated to Suburbia, Marion spent much time at our house. I have wonderful memories of this time period. As early as I can remember, Mom and Marion had tea in the kitchen and talked for hours as I raced around the house playing Speed Racer or the Red Baron or whatever was popular at the time. Unlike kids today, I easily amused myself and Mom and Marion enjoyed my independence. When my grandfather and father weren’t working, a truly rare occurrence indeed, they got together and got along famously. Looking back, I had wonderful role models when I was a child.

Hard work pays off and eventually, my parents got themselves financially above water enough to actually have a social life. They went dancing or out with friends and went out almost every Friday night. I never thought twice about it, what it meant to me was Friday night at the Grandparent’s house. It was always the go-to option, they were happy to have me and they never went out. By this point, their house was as familiar and welcoming to me as my own.

Friday night would consist of mom and dad pulling into the driveway, letting me out, making sure I got in safely through the front door (Grandma was always there waiting for me) and they would pull out. I would endure the hugs and sloppy kisses and immediately look for my Grandfather. This is where the games would begin.

“Grandpa I’m here!”

“Huh?”

“It’s me!”

“Who?”

He would then pretend to suddenly recognize me and give me a giant hug. Begrudgingly, he would change the channel to something I would watch and we spent the night watching TV, eating popcorn and indulging in the occasional Root Beer Float with real A & W Rootbeer. I would always go to bed early. After all, I had to be rested up for the festivities the following morning. If all went as planned, and it always did, Grandpa would put on a show for me. One that went back to my mother’s childhood. The show didn’t have a name but if it did it would be called Let’s piss Marion off and have a good laugh in the process. I loved the game, but as you can probably surmise, Marion did not.

To be continued…

Like it was yesterday

It’s been 3 years already. I can’t believe how recent if feels.

3 years ago this morning my phone vibrated for what seemed like the one-hundredth time that morning. I was stuck in another endless meeting and I knew that checking my phone was taboo. In order to see if it was an important message or an FB notification required me to dig my phone out, it was a gamble because my megalomaniac boss had a “thing” about cell phones during meetings. I gambled, unlike most in my office, my job required of me a lot of access by our customers so it wasn’t uncommon for me to take a call. It was a company phone after all. I put the phone in front of me while feigning interest in the monotony going on around me and glanced at the toolbar. It was an FB message from my mountain biking buddy Barbara.

Did you hear about Rick?

No, what?

He died last night

***shock sets in***

I’ll call you as soon as I can

That indelible moment when you realize you just lost a good friend.

Rick, Barbara, and I mountain biked together frequently. Barbara and I were part of a larger group but we paired up a lot because we were the same skill level, had similar schedules and were close friends. Rick was a Fire Chief by day who was a friend of a friend of Barbara’s who had recently joined us on some rides. Rick and I became fast friends and it wasn’t long before he and I would squeeze in an extra ride on nights when others weren’t available. The night before was one of those rides and I had the bloody shin and bruised ego to show for it.

Rick had gladly assumed the role of making me a better rider. He wasn’t much to look at but he was very athletic for his age and body type and surprisingly coordinated. He had been making me try increasingly difficult terrain and I was doing well. That night we went somewhere new, a State Forest notorious for its technical (difficult) terrain. 30 minutes and 2 miles in, I followed him across a makeshift bridge of 2X4’s over a muddy ravine. I panicked, helplessly watched as my front tire wobbled and I went in, face first.

It was horrible. There was only black, putrid mud. I went in elbows deep, my torso from my chest down was drenched. I stood up, in disbelief, starting scraping the shit off of me and there is Rick, laughing his ass off.

“I’m sorry to laugh, I should ask if you’re ok first.” He wasn’t sorry, he was having a blast. I must have been a sight!

I was a little bloody, but my ego was bruised worse than my leg. And my bike was broken, the front brakes were damaged. The wheel wouldn’t move. I was looking at a 2-mile hike carrying a bike. Then Rick somehow fixed it enough that I could ride it out. He just happened to have the tools.

In the parking lot, he looked at me and we both started laughing. I was a mess, covered in mosquito bites (the little bastards loved the smell of that mud) and I was stained black.

“Want a picture for memories sake?” Rick asked.

Defeated, I agreed.

I’m so thankful for this picture now, after all, how would I know that I would never see him again?

He died. At home. Of a heart attack about 4 hours after that picture was taken.

I stepped outside and called Barbara. She was an emotional wreck. She had found his body. She had gone to his house after he didn’t answer her calls. It would be then that I learned that she and Rick had been dating. She surmised that I may have been the last person to see him alive.

Rick was estranged from his wife, I knew that. He never mentioned her name, but told me that she was a “cheater and a liar” during our many conversations while pounding through the woods. She had betrayed him so he left her. I never interrupted as he talked of her, but if I did I could have told him a similar story. Mine was over 20 years ago but so similar.

Barbara asked if I would go to his wake with her. I gladly agreed.

Have you ever been to a Firefighter’s wake? Or a Chief’s for that matter? There were thousands of people, police details, Firefighters in full dress, friends, family and respectful citizens patiently waiting in a line that would wind through the old Victorian Funeral Home for 2 hours. Barbara and I and a few other Mountain Biking friends waited patiently together. Finally, as we reached the point where we could see into the viewing room, I saw a pair of legs that looked hauntingly familiar. The first thought that came to mind I immediately tried to chase out of my head.

No! The widow, AKA the cheater and liar is Deb?!?! I waited impatiently now, to get a better view. As I got closer I realized it was true. The widow was my first serious girlfriend out of High School. Not the one that got away, I let this one get away. She lied to me and cheated on me too. I, 20 years before Rick met her, parted ways with her for the same reasons.

She was the story I wanted to tell Rick about. What are the odds?

I got to the receiving line, Deb and I made very awkward small talk and I got the hell out of there. Outside, Barbara asked me why I looked so messed up. I told her. Her answer…

“Only you, dude. Only you could go to a funeral and have this happen.”

Barb and I would ride together for another year before I got sick again. We found a tree on our favorite trail and carved his initials in it. Every ride we would stop, take our helmets off and reflect, say a prayer by the side of the pond and then move on.

Rick was a very nice man. He walked the earth with zero pretense and true love for his fellow man. Our friendship was only beginning but I know we would have grown to be great friends had he lived. The world was a better place with him in it, that I know for sure.

As it turns out we shared a lot more than he would ever realize. I almost wish I could tell him about our common connection. I’m pretty sure that he would laugh his ass off. In fact, I know he would.

I bro-hugged Rick, mud and all, that night. I had every reason to believe that I would see him again but it felt right to let him know how I felt about him. That is the only real consolation I have. If you care about someone, tell them. You might not have another chance.

***segments of this post are borrowed from a previous post (of mine). Noone read it then so I added to and revised it on this 3rd anniversary of my dear friend’s passing***

38,325 days…a life truly lived. Cont’d

If you missed the first 2 installments of my tribute to my amazing Grandmother you can catch up here and here,

If having a normal childhood and maintaining friendships was possible to this point was challenging for my mother, it would prove to be a walk in the park after Mom’s recovery. This only suffered in comparison to when Mom started dating. When a young man “came-a-courtin” as my Grandfather so eloquently phrased it, he was subjected to a grilling that made the Spanish Inquisition look like a job interview. Marion wanted to know the entire family tree and required notarized copies of financials, in triplicate, before anyone would date her daughter. My grandfather thankfully balanced it out and usually managed to reassure the hapless young men that their testicles were safe…at least for the moment. Needless to say, Mom didn’t go on many dates, at least ones Marion knew about. It was just too much work for her and the poor guy. Of course, no man ever worried about his future reproductive viability than my Dad.

Mom was raised “middle middle-class” despite Marion’s attempts to present otherwise. Marion believed that if you carried yourself according to your aspirations then it would happen. Due to a lack of savings, Grandpa’s penchant for a new car every few years and a couple of failed business ventures they never graduated from that small but very nice, and homey, house North of Boston. Unfazed, Marion remained proper, well-dressed and impeccable of reputation.

I can only imagine her reaction when Mom brought home the handsome, hard-working boy from the “other side of the tracks” to meet the parents.

It wasn’t long before she found out that he wasn’t just from a poor family, but had come from a long line of poor families. When I say poor, I mean dirt floors and plastic on the windows poor. She did not approve of the pedigree at all. But Mom put her foot down, continued to date him and Marion would soon realize that her daughter was growing up despite her efforts to the contrary and that Billy Mac senior was not the type to be underestimated. He wasn’t going anywhere.

My dad may have been from the other side of town but he was by no means a typical resident. While raised in abject poverty, he was determined to break the cycle. He worked several jobs, earned and saved and most importantly treated my mother like a Princess. Marion eventually came to respect him. Mel really liked my Dad from day one, of course, he loved everyone. He would end up being the only one in his family to really make anything of himself, Marion either saw that or just had faith…as unlikely as that scenario is. In 1964, my dad on leave from Army training stateside at Fort Sam Houston, Texas they were married. In the wedding pictures, I can see a slight look of approval on Marion’s face.

She may not have had she known that I was in the picture as well, hidden neatly under the wedding dress.

Mom had to break the news to Marion that she was pregnant eventually, but if my understanding of the events is correct, no one really did the math after I was born. I was technically a “preemie.” In the summer of 1965, my very pregnant mother worried every day about my dad being sent overseas to Vietnam, His unit was notified in June that they would be called. Marion was doing everything in her power to keep mom away from all media. With regards to Vietnam, the news was all bad, She was unsuccessful and out of nervousness or panic, mom went into labor. When I entered the world, my dad was reassigned stateside where he would serve out the remainder of his enlistment. He visited us as often as he could.

Marion would become the backbone of her entire family until Dad came home. A role she was born to play.

to be continued…

the erroneous comment I wish I never heard about

“I overheard her say that she doesn’t love you anymore at the dinner table”

“Wait…what?”

“Yeah, I don’t know who she was saying it to, I caught it at the last second but she said it.”

I felt like I had just tripped over a wasp’s nest but I kept my composure as the words set in.

I was having a glass of wine with my mom’s boyfriend. He was telling me about the dinner he had the previous day with my mom, my ex-wife and my oldest daughter on Mother’s Day. They had all gotten together at the restaurant my son works. It was an impromptu get together. My mom and Dave went down to MA to decorate the family stones with flowers and my ex-wife had called her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. When they realized they were in the same state for once they made dinner plans. I didn’t even know about it until they got home that night. Mom told me all about it. The next night, that would be the time of this writing, it was just Dave and I for a while. I had just asked him of his account of the dinner, particularly because it was the first time he had met my ex-wife and oldest daughter. He had all good things to say and I was feeling good about it. Until he said that line about my ex-wife’s comment. Two questions came to mind; why did she say this and why do I care?

He continued talking as we watched the Red Sox play the A’s. I became noticeably quiet. Eventually, he asked me if he had crossed a line by telling me. I assured him that it was fine, I was just taken aback. While I was unsure why he mentioned it, it wasn’t done out of harm or malice. In fact, he probably mentioned it because it resonated with him after being in a terrible marriage himself. The pressing question remained. Why is this bothering me?

I truly don’t understand why I am having such trouble with this. I was married to this woman for 22 years and for the last 12 I would have chewed my arm off to escape her. There were times when I actually felt that I hated her. Towards the end, we de-escalated into a tolerant phase where we put up with each other but there was no love. Eventually, there was clearly no desire to even try to recapture what drew us together in the first place. When we separated I was relieved. When she asked for a divorce I was ready. When the divorce was finalized I felt liberated. So why am I surprised to hear, second-hand mind you, that she doesn’t love me anymore? It could easily have been said in the vein of “We still care about each other but aren’t in love anymore” as she explained to my mother, or my daughter, or the fucking waiter…again why does this bother me? Do I still even love her?

I do love her. I’m just not in love with her. I love her because we raised four wonderful children together. I love her because I spent most of my adult life with her and there were some good times. I can’t deny them.

I have dreams, vivid dreams of her. I dream of conversations in which she reveals past infidelities. I have dreamt of being with her, in the present, still married and talking about how we “almost split up.” Sadly, I even dreamt that I had died and she wasn’t at my funeral. These dreams are so lucid, so vivid that Freud and Jung could come back from the grave and revive their careers. When I wake from them I find myself wishing she was in my life. Then I shake it off and remind myself that I really don’t want what we had any longer. Still, I am wrought with these conflicting emotions.

I am burdened by memories, racked with guilt, saddled with regrets. A mere matter of months ago I was bitter, angry and resentful of her. Lately, I look back at photos in which we were all smiles. I find myself asking where it went wrong. I find myself asking if I could have done better by her. I remember how much she once loved me and I ask myself if I drove her away, caused her to morph into the cold, detached person that she was in the end. Did I, in the course of exorcising my demons and finding my real self, push her away?

I asked my mother last night if she had heard the comment at dinner. She said she had. It was said to one of my son’s friends who works at the same restaurant. He had come over to the table and asked my wife where I was. She had told him that we were divorced and he was surprised. So, she explained it. She cares about me, but she doesn’t love me anymore.

There you go, I have my explanation. For the comment at least. I still don’t know for the life of me why the explanation stings so badly.

38,325 days… installment 2

As I stated in the last installment, my Grandparents’ marriage was not without tragedy.

In 1948, on a typical late fall afternoon, my Grandmother had just finished making dinner. A fresh pot of coffee was percolating in the kitchen and my Grandmother had just asked Charles to run into the living room and tell my Grandfather that dinner was ready. The distance from the kitchen to the living room was not even 15 feet but Grandpa’s game was to ignore her until she yelled then he would come into the kitchen with a big smirk on his face. Marion didn’t want to deal with the game. Charles did as he was told, and dutifully ran down the short corridor to call his dad. As he did, he accidentally tripped the power cord to the ancient coffeemaker. As if in slow motion, my Grandmother watched helplessly as the pot tipped and the scalding hot coffee poured down his back. He screamed, immediately went into shock and was dead moments later. My mother tells me that a team of doctors, with today’s technology, could not have saved him. My grandparents were completely crushed. My grandfather would retreat into himself, my grandmother would deal by completely, and I say this without exaggeration, smothering my mother, her only remaining child.

Not the grieving types, life went on. The UK in them sustained them. Grandpa was from Scotland, Grandma was from England, they were built of sturdy stock. My grandfather found work as an Oil Burner repairman and worked several side jobs. My grandmother busied herself immersing herself in her daughter’s life. She would find fault, in as matronly a manner as possible, with her friends, their parents, their houses, and their clothes. No one or nothing was good enough for her daughter. It wasn’t snobbery, although it looked an awful lot like it, it was merely overprotection. My mother somehow managed to maintain a small circle of friends, she simply coached them to look past the interrogations and disapproving looks and see the nice, battle-worn woman within. She managed to have a fairly normal childhood. At least for a while.

As it would turn out, tragedy would unfold again. After going upstairs during her 7th birthday party because she didn’t feel well, my mother would be found unconscious in her room. The diagnosis would be Viral Spinal Meningitis. In 1952, this disease had no cure. She would languish in a coma for a week until a young doctor approached Mel and Marion with a glimmer of hope. He told them of an experimental serum that had shown promise but was not approved by the government yet. With little to nothing to lose. they agreed to try it. It would save her life. It would take a year of recovery, including learning how to walk again, but my mother made a full recovery. I only wish the same could be said about Marion. The smothering would escalate to epic proportions.

to be continued…

38,325 days…a life truly lived

Yesterday, May 2^nd is a tough day around this house. My mother was uncharacteristically quiet and I had no interest in pushing her to talk about it. I knew why, and wasn’t going to bring it up.

Over the course of several May 2nds for the last 16 years, my mother had lost her father, her mother, and her 2^nd husband. My Grandfather, a wonderful man who I have written more than one tribute to passed in 2002. He lived until 92, I miss him terribly but he didn’t owe anyone anything. My Grandmother died in 2015, 12 years to the day that my Grandfather passed. That was no coincidence, despite her semi-conscious state she knew what she was doing. 1 year ago, on May 2nd, my mother lost her second shot at love when her husband of 3 months passed from lung cancer. He lasted 10 days from diagnosis to departure. May 2^nd is, safe to say, her least favorite day of the year.But she doesn’t talk about her problems, she bottles them up and shoves them down deep where they can’t be felt.

I felt guilty being in a good mood yesterday knowing she was in such pain. I couldn’t help it. The sun was out, I was on the deck blogging in view of my beloved duck pond. I washed my truck without sucking wind and I was finally starting to feel better. I was grateful for all of the support I have gotten from friends, family and the WP community. As my buddy Bojana pointed out, I have been fortunate enough to have some wonderful people in my life. Especially those that have passed on. Instead of mourning, on March 2nd of this year, I chose to celebrate the memory of my Grandmother.

It is hard to be sad about losing someone who lived almost 105 years. In my estimation she graced God’s green Earth for 38,325 days give or take.

Born in 1910, Marion Francis Barnes lost her parents in a house fire when she was only ten years old. She was raised by her Grandmother, a tough as nails Yankee woman with ties to the Mayflower and as deft with a wooden spoon as a Ninja warrior and his sword. I barely knew her, but I heard the stories. She did an admirable job of raising Marion and her sister Bertha, both finishing High School as strong, independent women, as the Great Depression in 1929 ravaged the country. She wasn’t entirely unscathed by the atmosphere of the times, pictures of her then suggest a very serious, proper woman who valued etiquette and upbringing. If one didn’t know better, she was a snob. In actuality, the purest example of a New England “Blue-blooded” Yankee.

Marion would become a victim of the wiley charms of my future Grandfather, a hard-working young man who didn’t worry about his future because he could build, paint, repair, rebuild and refurbish anything. Another skill, he was not fazed by her Yankee sensibilities and I suspect that he was the first person to ever make her laugh. The unlikely couple married in 1935 and began their life of 65 years together. Family was the main goal, and once the house was built, by him, my Grandmother conceived 3, and lost, 2 babies. One was a miscarriage and one a stillborn. She became pregnant for the fourth time with my mother just before my grandfather enlisted in the Navy Seabees and went to fight in the Pacific in WW2. He tirelessly wrote her letters. I have them in a box, all of them expressing his love for her, his son Charles and my mother. I’ve read the letters, one thing that stood out was the guilt when he missed penning one letter a day.

Marion was busy doting over my mother. Having lost 2 children already, nothing was going to happen to Charles and my mother. She worried about her husband, feverishly wrote letters to him and friends and patiently waited for him to come home and resume their lives together. They, as one single couple, embodied the Greatest Generation. True to the nature of the said generation, when he came home, he didn’t relax. He didn’t talk or complain about what he saw (he saw a lot as I would later learn) but instead, he started making up for lost time.

My Grandfather returned from active duty in 1947. He spent 2 years working on battleships once the Pacific campaign was over. Charles was 6, my mother was 2. They acted as if they never skipped a beat. They would almost never be seen apart after that. Theirs was s love story for the ages. Life went on and they were a big, happy family again. But it was not without heartbreak, tragedy and incidents that tested the concrete foundation of their marriage.

Tragedy would strike a mere year later.

To be continued…

The mystery text…part deux

Approximately a year after I became sales manager Eric’s performance had reached an all-time low. His daughter was at the peak of her illness, his marriage was in disarray, he was missing work by starting late and leaving early. I suspected that he was drinking heavily due to the bags under his eyes and a noticeable weight gain. Never was it harder for me to walk the line between friend and manager. Up until this point we had made it work, he was receptive to my input and appreciated my attention to his performance. In turn, I treated him with the respect that a man of his experience deserved and I was as lenient as I could be with regards to the number of appointments he was committed to as the ordeal with his daughter continued on. Family court, doctors, and lawyers all work 9-5 and I couldn’t stand in his way in this difficult time. It soon became clear, however, that his work, and consequently my department was suffering. My leadership would soon be called into question.

Little Machiavelli, as Eric and I jokingly called him, summoned me to a meeting with the owner. The topic du jour was Eric’s performance. The owner was a very nice, highly intelligent man who knew everything about his business numbers wise. The rest he relied on my manager for. This relationship was at the center of all of the problems I had with the company. The owner was fed daily doses of one-sided information, carefully crafted to build up the performance of my manager while carefully chipping away at the accomplishments of the other players…like me. In addition, he ran some solid defense in not allowing us access to the owner, insisting on following the “chain of command”, aka the wall of misinformation. I sat before my two supervisors and patiently listened to a long list of things I already knew. Eric’s sales numbers were way down. He looked disheveled and overtired. His customers had been calling in more often, which usually suggested a rep wasn’t making his rounds. None of this was news to me. I was told that disciplinary action was in order. I had been expecting this but the dread that consumed me was as if it came out of the blue. It was also not lost on me that both of my supervisors had never, ever reprimanded him during Eric’s entire career because they were both extremely non-confrontational. I was to be the heavy. I told them that I would write up a disciplinary action proposal, sit him down in person and give him terms. We agreed that he would be subject to a 90-day probation period at the end of which time he would be deemed, by me, as satisfactory or unemployed.

I called Eric and asked him to come into the office the next morning before he started his rounds. He wanted to know why. I explained that I had to review some things with him and left it at that. I didn’t sleep that night. I hadn’t had to be the heavy up to this point and while certainly capable of the role, I didn’t like it. My style was one of collaboration, hands-on assistance and to lead by example. I had disciplined employees before, but not one that I cared as deeply about.

The next morning arrived and I was in early doing my daily reports. Eric had come in without my knowledge and was in my GM’s office. My first instinct was that he was fishing for information about why he was called in. My GM dutifully called me and I went in, made small talk for a few minutes and then asked Eric to join me in the conference room. I was nervous and extremely uncomfortable with the task at hand so I got right to it. I handed him my written disciplinary action which listed in great detail the concerns we had with his performance with statistics to support it. I sat in silence as he read it. At several points, he offered up objections but I was ready with a fact to support my position. Finally, he finished reading it, looked up defeatedly and asked: “Where do we go from here?”

I explained to him that he was grounded for the next three months. He was to be in the office, with me, working his customers from inside. He would leave only by a verified and legitimate appointment. It was explained that I would do whatever I could to help him and to count on my support. It was further explained that I would decide after those 90 days if he still had a job. It was painful for me to say the least. To his credit, he made no excuses and offered no arguments. Amazingly, he said, “This must be hard for you.” Interesting take, as accurate as it was, that he was concerned about me at this point. I accommodated him:

“This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do” I admitted.

The next 90 days were painful. It was difficult for him to be “grounded” and he struggled with the micro-management. I did my part and worked with him to rebuild his client base, making calls and visits when needed. His numbers began to turn around. As the deadline approached, I was again summoned by my GM regarding his fate. Was he doing the work? Has his attitude improved? Do you want to keep him on? I explained that I did want to keep him. I was then told, shockingly, that I didn’t have the “balls” to let him go. My response was “I’m the only one with enough balls to write him up. You sure didn’t.” This pissed him off to no end and I was told to do whatever I wanted. And I did. I told Eric the next morning that his job was secure and that my assistance would continue if needed. His response almost knocked me off of my chair. “Thank you, Bill,” he said. “You saved me when I couldn’t.”

We became even stronger at that point. Many things would happen after that. I would later be removed from sales because my previous department fell apart in my absence. Eric would be given my old job and we were true peers again, co-managers. He would deal with Little Machiavelli as I did and eventually would quit because of him. But we always stayed in touch until last year.

Our conversation would reveal that he is doing very well professionally and has a very nice girlfriend. While his daughter is still a tremendous emotional burden to him, the situation is “stable” so he is dealing with it. He was in a good place. It occurred to me that the tables have turned. I once sat across from him at the lowest point in his life, in a position of power. Today, he sat across from me as my life was at its lowest point ever. He had no power over me, but he is clearly doing much better than I. And he was kind. A lesser man may take advantage of my situation. I decided that I had to address the elephant in the room.

“You know, my Facebook post wasn’t intended to make anyone feel bad for me. That’s not me.”

“I know that. But your post reminded me that you were out there. That you weren’t feeling well. That maybe you needed a friend. You know, like you were to me.”

I thanked him for reaching out to me. He responded, “You’re one of the few people that I smile every time I think about. I needed to reach out to you, it’s the least I can do.”

He paid the tab, his theory was that now I owed him one and a second lunch was now guaranteed. I thanked him and we walked to the cars.

On the ride home, I marveled at how much he and I had been through together. I fondly remembered my working days. The good and the bad flashed through my mind as I drove. It seems so long ago, the days when my days were full of meetings, I was called upon to make decisions, my presence was felt and my absence was noticed. I accomplished things. My, how my life has changed. To imagine that it was only a mere 10 months ago.

Eric’s text reminded me of one thing, there are people who still care about me out there. That in itself provides hope where there once seemed to be none. I look forward to our next meeting.