One Final Touch

I got some news today that made me think. It made me think hard…

One day, a few years ago, we were riding around looking for yard sales. We didn’t have a whole lot of money, but that’s not the whole point of yard sales. Part of it is to be together doing something fun. We had gone miles away and found some things, nothing of real importance, and we were headed home. On the road we lived on, we saw one more yard sale, and we pulled in. No one was outside, so we started looking around. My daughter was probably about five years old and my son was just an infant. They had what most yard sales have; candles, glass jars, unwanted gifts from well-meaning aunts, and knick-knacks galore. This yard sale was no different. As we were looking around, an older lady came out and hung around just in case we were the ones to buy her out. We did small talk for a while, and in the conversation, discovered that her husband was into the VW scene. Of course, that got my interest and when he came out, we ended up talking for what seemed like hours. He took me to his barn to show me his project Beetle and all the “barn find” parts hidden away on shelves. I considered him a new acquaintance and a future friend.

Children have this habit of saying whatever is on their mind. It doesn’t matter what it is, even if others would think what was said would be otherwise seen as being rude. My daughter is no different. When the lady’s husband was talking to me, my daughter looked at him and said rather bluntly, “You’re old. You’re going to die”. I was almost shocked, but this honest statement from a small child tickled him. He started laughing, which then made us all laugh. Words from a small child brought us closer together at that moment. Every time we saw him after that, he would reminisce about that day and laugh about it all over again. We didn’t become close friends, but we would stop in every now and then to visit, and he when he got his Beetle on the road, he would stop in by my house and talk about what he had been doing to it and what still needed to be done. His wife even allowed us to dig up flowers and plants that had gotten out of control at her house and transplant them in our yard. Those plants and flowers still grow today and are a constant reminder of who gave them to us.

The news I heard today was not good. I knew that the old guy (Clyde was his name, by the way) had been having some health issues. I thought about him from time to time, but rarely took the time to stop in anymore. I always meant to, but other things seemed more important at the time. I heard today that he had died. When I heard that, I just about cried. Not because I was necessarily sad…I am, but what made me think was this: I should have stopped at least one of those times that I had thought about it. I should have taken the time to check in, even if it was just for a second. Now it is too late. The only thing I can do now is offer condolences. I can’t tell him how nice his Beetle looks. I can’t sit with him and have coffee and just talk. I can’t walk in his creek with my daughter and have him tell her to “turn over that rock and see if there are some crawdads under it”. I can’t do any of these things because he is gone.

Death is a part of life, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. I have been thinking about a phone call I received from a dear friend a few months ago. This is a man whom I would really dare to call one of my closest friends in the world. I don't have very many of those. This man is a big man, tall and thick. His attitude is what I would call domineering. He wouldn't hesitate to back his friends up in any kind of disturbance, and he has my back. That's a good thing, because he is not the kind of person that I would want to get on his bad side.

Anyway, he has had some health issues arise in the past few months. Actually, these issues arose from other issues he has had for many years. He suffers from an extreme case of psoriasis. Without medication, his skin gets all scaly and itchy, red and irritated. He had been taking medication in pill form, but they changed it to taking weekly injections of whatever it is they had him on. He went into this regimen fully aware of the side effects and consequences that could arise in some cases. But the alternative would be to live with dry, itchy irritated skin.

Now, this big hulk of a man told me about his predicament and I just about wanted to cry. The medicine that he has been taking to help one problem has created another problem. One of the side effects that have been reported is liver damage. He told me that he is looking at a liver transplant operation. I was in shock, as you would guess. He then sent me a link to a website where he posts pictures. What I saw when I opened up the page was heartbreaking. There was this man, this dear friend of mine, looking thinner than I had ever seen him. His face looks sallow and sickly. His eyes are sunken in. I thought I was looking at an overweight skeleton. I about cried. He has lost over 50 lbs., which in any other case would be a reason for celebration. His skin has a yellowish tint to it (he said that he even doctored the photos to make himself look less yellow).

How am I supposed to feel? He is one of my dearest friends, yet I am almost afraid to let him know how sad I am for him. Manly men don't cry or show weakness. Which brings me to another thing...I don't think I cried when my sister died. I can't remember doing it, at least.

I can't recall many memories of her and me from when we were kids. Some I can...riding our bikes on the hilly streets near our house, going to birthday parties of a now unknown friend, visiting our grandparents, and other bits and pieces of memories. I can't even say we were close as we grew up. Why can't I remember many of the times we had together? I don't know. The story of her last year is a tearjerker...that I do remember. It was 1993-1994. She had been working as a secretary in an X-ray department of a hospital. She met someone, fell in love, and got married in January of '94. But in September of '93, she had been diagnosed with uterine cancer. The doctors did what they had to in order to try and stop the cancer...they took out her uterus. Put her on radiation therapy. Injected medicines into her to fight the cancer. Nothing seemed to help. She quickly spiraled downward into the ravages of what cancer does to a body. Toward the end, she lost so much weight she looked like a skeleton with skin.

Months before she died, my ex and I were married. That would have been in July of '94. My sister was too sick to make it up here for the wedding, so she sent a video message for us wishing us luck and a bright future. She did this for me when she knew she was dying!! Even though we hadn't been close for quite a while, I felt so close to her at that moment, when she didn't think of her situation and thought only of me. On our honeymoon, we stopped in and saw her. It was the most painful thing I have ever witnessed. Her crying out in pain and then falling silent when the morphine took effect. I cried then.

She died in September of '94, only a year after being diagnosed. Only 8 months after getting married to her soul mate. Only 2 months after I saw her last.

Makes me think about my own mortality. Especially when I am faced with the prospect of a man, much bigger than me, much stronger than me, and a hell of a better man than me, facing a medical operation, that if things don't go right, could lead to his own death. Makes me want to quickly do all the things that I have wanted to do. Makes me want to be with the people I want to be with. Makes me want to touch base with those almost forgotten about. Makes me want to tell those I love that I do love them. And it makes me think about my future with friends, family and lovers.

I need to give my friend a call. I really do. I don’t want another person I know to go away without some sort of contact, a small touch, even if it is online, over the phone, or by text message. I can’t let that happen.

(Some of this post comes from a letter I wrote to someone special a while back. You know who you are and I do think about you.)

Happiness Lies and a Highlighted Path

Time is slipping away. Each and every day brings me closer to the big day, the day that I am not looking forward to nor am I ready for. I’m not ready for it emotionally, physically, or financially. One day I will get the letter in the mail from the bank, telling me to “get the hell out of the house, you loser”. I’m sure that a time frame will be given…sure hope to God the letter won’t say to leave immediately. It sucks to live with this doom over my head like it is. It really does. I have been packing stuff almost every day and hauling it to my rented storage space. It seems like I have moved so much, yet there is so much more to go. The back wall of the unit is lined with boxes almost to the ceiling, and the side walls have begun to fill as well. I’m not positive, but I think that all I have to move over there will actually fit. My life in a 10 X 15 room.

I was upstairs this evening trying to stay ahead of the game by going through stuff and throwing away unwanted items…items such as bank statements nearly 8 years old; folder upon folder of utility stubs and pay stubs; and various other parchments of paper defining a former life. I found some old atlases. I wondered why they were still around, so I opened them up. The first one was from 1993. I had a feeling, so I opened up the page with Florida on it. Yep. I was right. A yellow highlighter had shown us the way to the Keys. Written in ink near the island of Islamorada was, “Honeymoon and stars here” and an ink arrow pointing further east to “Grand Bahama Island”. I knew why the atlas was still in my possession. It was for happy reasons. Honeymoon and stars; moped and bicycle rentals; beads, braids, and Bacardi 101. Open air dining halls and tiled floor chalets. Raccoons and little 12 room hotels. Cloud lightning and bridges to nowhere and sharks just offshore. Happiness.

Another atlas from another year: 1995. I knew why it was not in the recycle bin. Phish and Plattsburgh, NY. Clifford Ball. Another yellow highlighted trail blazing the path to another happy time. We took a trip with friends to see what 300,000 others took a trip to see. 3 days of musical bliss, 3 days of like minded unknown friends, 3 days of happiness. Oh, and happiness was with us, it sure was.

I think I will hold on to those atlases. I know…more junk to take up more space. But they are not that thick. They won’t take up too much space. I want to keep them because they are reminders that there were some happy times. I don’t want to forget them. They are almost as good as the books of photos that are upstairs too. They tell a story just by looking at them. It doesn’t matter what the story is.

Happiness. It’s a state of mind that defines a feeling of well being. Not sad. Not angry or mad. Not unfeeling. Happy. In love with life and with all that it brings. You would think that happiness wouldn’t lie to you. Why would it? I was happy. I was obliviously happy and in love. I still have that love, but I think that happiness led me on. Happiness put the set of blinders on me and all I could see was what was in front of me, while all the things I should have been seeing were just off to the left and right of my field of vision. Happiness lied to me. Happiness led me to trust it, when I should have known better…I should have known that you can’t always trust happiness…

With your love I was complete
Like a haven safe from harm
Till the bitter stole the sweet
I was perfect in your arms
A precious while I had your smile
Till it all fell apart with one change of heart

The pain and regret will fade but a
fact of love will still remain
You can't always trust happiness
Love like a sweet parade till the
saddest part when the music fades
You can't always trust happiness

If a single star I see
Ever made a wish come true
It would bring you back to me
But the best my heart can do
Is to love again, I don't know when
Still it's worth all I fear, the heartaches and the tears

Love like a lesson learned when we
pass the point of no return
You can't always trust happiness
There in love's steady glow hides the power to hurt us so
You can't always trust happiness

(Allison Krauss- You Can’t Always Trust Happiness)

Even though happiness can’t be trusted, I would rather be in the company of happiness than sadness. I’ve been sad a lot lately. No, I’m not sad all the time. I make myself be happy. And even others make me happy. But there are those short, temporary times of intense sadness. These times make the happy days seem so far apart. I don’t know how to keep those times to a minimum. There are ways, I know. Perhaps, just like in the above song, the best my heart can do is to love again. I don’t know when, but still, it is worth all I fear, the heartaches and the tears. Love and happiness go hand in hand…even though love harbors pain, hidden in the inner workings of the heart and mind, waiting for you to let down your guard and attack with ferocious intent. But love is worth it all.

So, just like the act of packing up and moving out of this house that holds so many memories; that so much love, blood, sweat and tears has gone into, so will it be with love and happiness. I am going to be ready when the time comes. I just have to continue as I am, holding on and holding out, steadily preparing myself for the inevitable.

It’s all I can do.

No Loitering

“Forever is composed of nows.” – Emily Dickinson

“Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.” – Franz Kafka

Things don’t last forever. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. The day lasts all day, the night lasts all night, and then they are gone. Of course there is a next day, and a next night after that, but each one only lasts as long as its allotted time, then it disappears. A picked rose soon withers and dies. The dying process starts the minute you cut it from the bush. You can add plant food to the water in the flower vase, but it will only prolong the beauty for so long. Food left in the fridge won’t last for long. Leftovers need to be eaten as soon as possible before they mutate into fuzzy green fridge monsters that smell just as lovely as they look. Prepackaged food usually comes with a use-by date. Heed those dates…they are printed on the package for a reason. Relationships fail for one reason or another. I know that they do. I have had a few failed ones that I really, really wanted to work. But they haven’t. And it is well known that people don’t live forever either. As soon as we are born, we begin to die. It may take longer for some than others, but we all end up in the same prone position in an antiseptically smelling funeral home, being admired by loved ones just before the great dirt nap.

My phone hates me. Just yesterday I was talking about getting a new phone. My two-year contract with my cell provider is up today and I am able to renew my contract and get a new phone at a discounted rate. My phone must have heard me talking about doing this and decided to revolt. Yesterday, when I received a call, the ringer started this awful garbling sound and then fell silent. After completing my call, I fooled around and tried to get some sound from the little speakers. Nothing. No music, no ring tone, no nothing. Later today, I put the speaker up to my ear and tried to hear a song. The faintest sound could be heard trying to escape the inner workings of the phone. Taking things into my own hands, I tried my hand at phone repair. I removed the four visible screws under the battery and tried to disassemble the phone, hoping to see why I had no sound. These phone manufacturers must take these self-diagnosis scenarios into mind, for surely they have hidden some more screws to thwart this behavior. I could not get the phone apart without resorting to destructive measures. So I gave up, telling the phone that its days were numbered. I’ll probably keep it just for the Breakout game installed on it. I have become addicted to it. I want to keep it.

Don’t even get addicted to a television series. For just as soon as you start to religiously watch it, begin to relate to the characters, get deep into the storyline, and anticipate the following season, that’s when the show will get cancelled. I really loved a show on UPN called Veronica Mars. I had missed the first season which really put me behind in the storyline. Veronica was a senior in high school who worked as secretary for her dad (the former sheriff and now private detective) and solved mysteries for other kids at school. Her best friend ends up getting killed by her boyfriend’s father, a bus load of kids from her school go plunging over a cliff on a field trip, biker gangs rebel, principals end up dead, things go missing, people disappear…and Veronica solves them all for a price. Characters fall in and out of love, get in and out of trouble, and generally have a Hollywood fantasy life that normal people will never live. Just as I had caught up on the story and began looking forward to the next week’s show, it was cancelled after only the 3^rd season. Of course, they had to wrap up all the unsolved mysteries in the last few episodes, but left viewers hanging with some questions unanswered. I thought it was the best shallow and pointless reason to watch the square box that glowed in the darkness of my living room.

I read a blog of a friend of a friend (who is/will be my friend as well) who had to put his dog to sleep recently. The dog (Brisbane, by name, Bear by affection) was nearly 17 years old…supposedly nearly 122 in dog years. That’s a long time to have a dog, but a short time for someone considered a member of the family. I know all about his loss. I lost my two dogs last year. They died about a few months apart. They were brother and sister, part lab, part chow. I remember when they were born, over 14 years ago. They were twins in color, black with brown markings on their faces and legs. They were so cute that we knew that they were the ones we were going to keep. Over the years, we took them camping, hiking, and just plain lazing around on the river. They loved water, and would jump in after a stick if we threw it in. If we walked up on the hill behind our house, they would run and run and run, sometimes to the point of us not being able to hear them anymore. Then they would find something and start barking, giving away their location for us to find them. We didn’t take them much of anywhere in the last years of their life. They were like the typical brother and sister who lived together their entire lives. They “loved” each other, but grumpiness would kick in every now and then, mostly when it came to dinnertime. It was rough losing them, but just like everything else, I knew they wouldn’t live forever.

Love is supposed to last forever. At least that’s what every happy love song and happily-ever-after tale leads you to believe. The prince and princess fall in love, move into the cold, dark and damp castle where they will live the rest of their lives in the eternal bliss of true love. We are all taught that love will endure the tests of time. Love will be here when everything else is gone, when all you know is dead, after all is said and done. I’m one of those people that are convinced that it will do as such. But right now, love has simply taken a vacation. It has gone to a place without telephones or post offices; with no way to keep in touch…off the grid, so to speak. It has taken a temporary leave while it is looking for the next thing. It may be walking to Mecca, flying to Nirvana, or just hiding around the corner. I don’t know. It is gone, of that there is no doubt. But it will return. Of that I am sure. If not sure, I am at least hopeful that it will.

I just wonder how long it will be gone and what to do except twiddle my thumbs in the meantime…

Just an Island

(I started writing this last night while in a deep funk. I have climbed up a little, but my fingers just can’t get a grip on the rim)

I am alone; utterly, completely, and absolutely alone. I know this is not the case, but try telling that to my heart; have my heart tell it to my head; have my head tell it to my soul. I’ll bet you that somewhere in the information process between those parts of myself, communication will break down. Like the game of “Pass it on”, by the time it gets to my soul, the words will have lost their meaning and will have changed to something dissonantly different than the original statement.

One is the loneliest number. I have heard that in song in the over-exaggerated statement of “a million times”. One stands alone. The only number less than one is zero, and to be zero must be even lonelier…and to be less than zero, well, that must be the ultimate in loneliness.

I don’t even know why I am feeling like this. I must be in a “backwards step” point. I have lots of friends and even more acquaintances. I have two beautiful children whom I love with all my heart. I have family within minutes of my house and even more on the other end of a telephone call. But at this moment in time, they are not with me. No one is with me.

I feel as if I have lost so much. I know I have lots of stuff. I have things that I have always wanted; things to call my own. Stuff fills the void between nothing and everything. But stuff doesn’t bring you comfort when you are down. Stuff doesn’t tell you that you are important. Stuff can’t give you love.

I had someone who I care a lot about tell me (and I paraphrase), “It's just STUFF... my health (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) is most important. If I do not have that, I cannot be a good parent, citizen, friend, companion, you name it. I can't BE anything for anyone else unless I take care of myself in those three main areas…there's nothing at all to worry about. Like I said before, life is good. Do what you gotta do, and look for the positive in everything. It IS there, only to be seen and gleaned from.”

Now, since it is just “stuff”, I would trade everything I own to have a certain someone back in my life. I would give it all freely just to have the love of my life back in my life, not in the way that she is in my life now…but back to the way it was. And not even back to the way it was, really. The “way it was” was not the way it should have been, apparently. No, I should say back to the way it should have been.

How should it have been? I don’t know exactly. I guess it should have been just like what is said in wedding vows, although even they seem to come from fairy tales as well. For better or for worse; through thick and thin. That means that whatever came our way, we were to take it head on, push through whatever was tearing us down, build up our love as strong as a great wall and repulse the invading hordes of trials and tribulations that attacked that wall. It means that we were to love each other enough to communicate our wants, desires, pains, and disappointments to each other, and work together to get through whatever came our way. That’s what is should have been.

I was with my kids and ex tonight. It was kindergarten orientation and ice cream social at my daughter’s school (and next year, it will be my son’s as well). I saw her in the auditorium, sitting near the front. The principal was taking the kindergartners away to play while we adults had our orientation. I walked up to where she was and sat down beside her. Her hair was up in the back, she was wearing a dress that I had seen her wear many times before. She was so pretty. I just wanted to scoop her up, tell her how much I loved her, and just be. But I knew I couldn’t…I wouldn’t…and she wouldn’t either. Later, she was ahead of me and I just couldn’t stop thinking how pretty she was, how much I missed her, and remembering…I don’t know why I remembered this, but on our wedding day, I apparently kept touching her rear. I was nervous and I was probably doing it subconsciously, and didn’t even know it. But when we finally saw our wedding video, sure enough, I was touching her butt every now and then, plain as day. Right there in front of parents, friends and family. Oh well.

Something else I was thinking about. The other day, she was the one who slipped and called me “baby”. Not just once, but twice. I made fun with the first one and said, “Huh? What did you say?” But the second time I didn’t even let her know that I had heard her. It made me sad to hear it, but happy at the same time. Why sad? Because I knew it was just a slip. Fifteen years of terms of endearment are hard to get rid of. I know. I know so much. Why happy? Because the simple slip gave me the feeling that she did care for me still. Not enough to make it matter so much, but enough to know that she doesn’t resent or hate me. That feels so good.

Wow. I can really get sidetracked. That is not what I intended to write about at all. But I gotta go with the flow and it was flowing from me. Loneliness. That is what I was talking about. I feel lots of lonely days ahead of me. I thought that I had this funk kicked. I thought that I had finally risen above the zero mark and was steadily getting ready for some mathematics...namely, addition. But I seem to suck at math lately. In my life, 1 +1 does not always equal 2. The equation is more like 1+1=2-1=1. But at least it is not zero. Tonight, my son, doing his counting and addition thing I mentioned before, tells me, “Zero is nothing”. There is no way that he knew what was going on in my mind and what I had already put down here in this writing. I held back the tears and told him yes, that zero is nothing. It is nothing and it never will be anything. No matter how hard you try, or no matter what you do, zero will never be one. It will never be more than what it is. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. It will never be more until something is added to it.

On another note, I am proud to say that a poem that I posted on a peer-critiqued website has been number one in it’s category since the day I posted it. I think that is pretty good, for a sub-par writer such as myself. The meaning behind it is for you to come up with for yourself. I know what I was thinking when I wrote it, but you can have your own meaning. I’ll post it and then give a link to the rest of what I have posted there. Feel free to visit and read, or just ignore if you wish. I don’t care one way or the other.

Broken Promise

A man, passing a certain point
on a certain sidewalk,
looks back,
reflects upon his being
and is beset by memories.

The sweet fragrance of her perfume;
Her hair, like silken scarves.
The touch of her body with skin so soft.
All taken away but a lifetime too soon.

And a promise to never love again…

He tries to forget what he has remembered
but the floodgates open wide,
pouring out into a paramount vision
of his life without living.

He sees her in the clouds
(They form her silhouette)
He hears her voice in the night
(The wind carries her song)
He feels her in his very soul
(Yearning to break free)

Tears flow, his vision is obscured by hazy clouds.
He sees her in the gloom ahead.
Is it her? He can’t tell.
She turns around, face full in front
of his tear blurred sight.

No, it isn’t her
but she is there.

It happened so fast, he doesn’t believe.
He wouldn’t let go he steadfast truth
that love cannot live
after pain, suffering and grief
have left signs of passing.

But not now.

Inside his heart a feeling begins to break
the chains of self-pity
imprisoning him for so long.

They are wrenched apart,
torn,
broken,
and bleeding.

The promise breaks free from it’s cold,
dark prison and flies away,
blown on the breeze to fall
unnoticed to the street.

And this man takes her hand in his.
He had found his love again; he would never let it go.

“Do you love?” she whispered,
and whirling around, whisked him into
the still, cold night;
laughing, then falling silent.

Tooting my own horn here; nine of my poems and essays are in the top five in their respective categories. The website is at Helium.com

Good night folks.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Turn and face the strain. Damn straight.

My son’s birthday is today. He is now five years old. It sure doesn’t seem like he should be five already. He should still be in diapers, drinking from a bottle, eating strained peas, and just learning to walk. He should be cutting teeth, sweeping the floor with his belly while crawling, goo-gooing and gaa-gaaing. I still remember the day he was born. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day or the day my daughter was born either. The whole baby thing wasn’t new with him, but the whole concept of having a boy sure was. Why didn’t anyone tell me that it was going to be so much harder with a boy? I wonder if I caused my parents (or at least my dad…mom died when I was only 20 months old) this much trouble. I’m not saying that my son is trouble. He is probably like all boys are or have been, including myself.

I remember him sitting in his bouncy seat. You know the thing that attaches to the door frame and the kid sits in it and bounces and bounces and bounces…he loved it. He would bounce and then he would spin it round and round. Woe be unto anything that was sitting in the trays of the seat. They would go flying! One of my favorite pictures from that time is him falling asleep in that thing. His bounce bounced out of him; his spin all spun out, head down in the tray. Cute as can be, he was.

It wasn’t too long until he was walking. While they are crawling around the floor in a military crawl like a soldier in a barb wire obstacle course, you can’t wait for them to start walking. Once they start walking though, you wish that they were crawling again. Whether they are crawling or walking, you’ve got child-high cabinets to child proof; outlets to cover with those plug inserts. You got floors to keep spotless and toilets to check before flushing (large toys don’t flush so well). Locking gates to install on porch steps and household cleaners to put above arm’s reach. All sorts of nightmarish possibilities await your paranoid mind once they get mobile.

He’s five already. Time surely has sped up since both of my kids were born. I know that when my son was born and I took on the responsibility of staying home and “saving” money on daycare, I was with him and my daughter every day of the week. Time, although still marching on in the way that it does, seemed to be slower. Changes happened, but because I was with them all the time, the changes weren’t as noticeable. Of course they aged, we all age; but the changes I saw and see in them are like the changes you see in yourself. I know I do, but do you know what I mean? You look at yourself in the mirror. You may see a few more lines and wrinkles, your hairline may be just a little bit higher on your forehead, but the person you see is the same person you saw 20 years ago. Subtle changes. Little changes. But you are still the same person. You look the same to yourself. The same goes for someone you hadn’t seen in a while, say, a friend from high school. You didn’t see them change from a child to an adult. You only knew them as when you were together. When you see them now, you still see the same person you knew way back then. They may look totally different, but to your eye, they are still the same.

Now, I look at my kids and this doesn’t apply. I don’t “see” them as babies anymore. I can’t even see a resemblance to the infant or even early toddler that they were. But I do see changes that are going on today. The main reason for that is this: I am no longer with them every day. There are times when they go to their mother’s for a week at a time. This is when the great changes take place. When they return, it seems like they have grown an inch or more, put on weight, started college, married with children. In essence, I can see the changes taking place…and it makes me sad and happy all at the same time. Sad, in the fact that there is no going back. There is no way to stop time and keep them as they are forever. Happy, in the fact that they are growing up. And sad for the same reason.

We went to see Speed Racer in the theater today. It’s all he’s been asking for. So we did it. I remember a time when sitting through a movie with him was pure torture. He didn’t want to be there at all. Too loud, too many other distractions, too dark. But today he was enraptured with the movie. Not all the way through, though. Towards the end he got a little distracted, but would yell out “Yes” every time Speed Racer would do something cool with his car, hit a bad guy, or win the race (I’m going to spoil the movie here…Speed Racer wins. Duh.), so I knew he was still watching even though he didn’t seem to be. After the movie, we came to my house for cake (that I made…quite the homemaker that I am). It was just a plain old vanilla cake with chocolate frosting with a big “5” candle on it. What fun to see him blow out the candle and open his gifts.

I could see something today and can see it every day we are together. He’s getting older. And smarter too. His newest thing is adding numbers together. He’ll say something like, “Two and seven are what?” Then when you give him the answer, he says “Yes” like he knew the answer all along. But he says it when he asks what one-hundred-thirty-two plus sixty-seven is too.

Changes. They happen every day, but only once is this going to happen. Only once will he have a fifth birthday. I want him to stay little, but that’s not going to happen. I also want him to grow into a fine young man, one who treats people with respect, treats women in the way that they should be treated, and has an outlook on life filled with morality and honesty. I strive to instill that in him. I know I’m not the best father. There are oh, so many things that I could improve on. I know my shortcomings. There are times when he pushes me to my limit. My temper is one of the things that I strive to work on controlling. He can drive you bananas. Hell, he drives me bananas. But you know what? He’s my little boy and I love him with all my heart. I know he is a good boy.

I just have to bring that out in him. I want him to be a good man. Just like daddy wants to be...