Seasons Change; So Did I

Seasons change. A month-and-a-half ago it was Summer. Now it is Fall. As Fall progressed, the leaves turned bright shades of yellows, oranges, and reds. Now, in mid-Fall, they have turned brown and fallen off the trees. The bright greens and dark reds of the deciduous trees are gone and we’re left with the darker greens of the evergreens. The frequency of blue skies with no clouds or the puffy cumulus clouds have been gradually replaced with an overcast of various shades of gray, and the rains are coming more frequently here in the Pacific Northwest. From now through winter, other than the occasion break in the clouds showing patches of blue, it becomes rather monochromatic here in Washington. It’s the price we pay for a beautiful, green late spring when the deciduous trees sprout their lighter, brighter green leaves and the flowers begin to bloom again.

The seasons change as the year progresses, and no matter which season we are experiencing, there are sure to be weather changes within each season. Superficially, our lives seem to parallel nature this way. The difference is that when we are confronted with change, it alters us emotionally. Sometimes that emotional change is temporary, sometimes it is truly life-changing. Everyone who has experienced change knows it can be good or bad. Good experiences leave us feeling satisfied, happy, sometimes even euphoric. Sometimes the good experiences can change us for life. Bad or unhappy experiences take all the good feelings away and leave us hurt, wanting, sad, unhappy, afraid, angry, or a confusing combination of all those emotions. They, too, can change us for life. I think most of us have had both good and bad experiences that have profoundly changed us and our outlooks on the way we view life. Have you ever tried to remember what you were really like as a child and then compare that to what you’re like as an adult, and then wonder why you changed, and what made you change? Well, buckle up! This is going to be a long one.

Personally, bad or unhappy physical and emotional experiences seem to have had a more profound and permanent effect on my emotions a bit more than good experiences. Both good and bad experiences have affected the way I think, the way I act, the way I emote, the choices I’ve made, my outlook on life…and death…but I believe the bad experiences have made me more of what I am today. Only lately have I begun to wonder about this, and the three things that have had the most effect on me, the three things that have elicited the biggest changes in me, have been music, anger and death. I learned about them all at a fairly young age. I would add that I have believed in God since I can remember. Even after being confronted by Catholic summer school and atheists, I still chose to believe in God because for me to only believe in Man and Mankind, and even myself, they and I will usually let me down. For me, it’s a matter of faith. At one time, however, I wondered if He believed in me. I felt abandoned for a while, until I turned and sought Him…but that’s a different story.

As a child, I was happy, friendly, curious, adventurous, and even-tempered. I had no reason to be afraid of very much because my world was full of love, gentleness, fun, and a developing sense of adventure. One of my first real memories, however, involved music. My mother was a classical pianist, and I was brought up on Rachmaninoff, Bach, Beethoven, and Debussy. When my dad was working, building his fishing resort, mom and I would be home. She would fix me breakfast, tidy up the house and I would help her, and she’d play with me for a while before she’d sit down at the piano, a beautiful little spinet, and play.

One day, for some unknown reason, I dragged a cushion off the couch, placed it at the end of the piano, and sat on it to listen to her. I leaned back on the side of the piano and suddenly, I could not only hear what she played, I could feel the music and the emotion through the wood, through the back of my head to my teeth, and through my back all the way to my breastbone. It felt as though I was part of the music…and I was hooked. I was three years old. To this day, sixty-eight years later, I can still lose myself in music, even when I sing and play my guitar at home, or in church with our praise team. This is one of the good experiences that has changed my life and helped me cope with life’s twists and turns as I got older.

Where did the anger originate? In retrospect, I believe my anger was born out of fear and dread, and that began shortly after I started school. I was smaller than most of my classmates and a bit more ‘brown,’ too. I guess that made me a good target. I got picked on by a few of the bigger kids, two of which turned out to be my nemeses. It seemed that I got pushed around at least three or four times a week beginning in the second grade. By the time I was in third grade, I dreaded going to school because I knew I was going to be picked on, shoved around, knocked down, and my shirt pockets torn off because the worst one was finally in my classroom. He made me afraid to go to school until my mother taught me how to fight. She also taught me, because I was smaller than my bullies, to turn my fear into anger and use my anger to my advantage. She told me that I would have to get mad, to get very angry…not the shouting and yelling angry, but quietly angry inside and look for the bully’s weak spots, and then use my anger to find a way to hurt him back. When my dad found out she taught me how to fight, he took me aside and had a little talk with me. He told me it was good that mom taught me how to fight, but that I should never start one…or he would be the one to end it. It was better to not fight, to try to walk away from it, but if there was no alternative, if I was cornered, then I should fight. I should fight to win, not only that fight, that battle, but fight to win the war for all time so I’d not ever have to fight that person again. If someone else started it, I should finish it any way I could. There were no rules, it was just a fight to win forever.

The day did come where the bully came after me, and I fought him to a draw. He hurt me, but I really hurt him back. He never touched me again. That gave me the courage to step between other bullies and those they were pushing around, the rest of the way through school. But it was while I was in the Army that I learned hand-to-hand combat and how to harness my anger and turn it to rage. Not a ranting, screaming, uncontrolled rage, but a cold, calculating, seething, hateful rage that I could control until I needed it. Then I would use it to physically punish whoever wanted a piece of me. It eventually got me demoted and sent to Vietnam. Only after the Star Wars movie premiered in 1977, and the series that followed, that I could describe it in just a few words: There is power in the Dark Side. I may have learned too well because, even today, and depending on my surroundings, it is never too far from the surface.

Throughout the years, though, it has been death that affected me the most. After losing my best friend, Pam, when I was six, I was sad for a while, but life went on. When I lost my Grandpa Ellison when I was eleven, I was sad and angry that my mom and dad wouldn’t let me go to his funeral. I had to stay home and look after my little brother. I was in shock when my first fiancée was killed in a one-car accident on White Pass during Christmas break. Her car skidded off the icy road on her way to the lodge to call me. I was twenty-years-old. We were both in college and my grief was too hard to handle at the same time I was going to school. I opted for a ‘geographical cure’ and I dropped out of school to enlist in the Army to get away.

While in the Army, I saw and did a lot of things that can’t be unseen or undone no matter how hard I tried, especially in Vietnam. One thing that cut me to the heart, though, was when I watched a young Army Private die in my hospital room from burns that covered 95% of his body after our charter plane crashed on take-off in Anchorage, Alaska after a refueling stop. I had met him just a few hours earlier. He was a nice, polite young man and it was the first time he’d ever been away from his home in Houston, Texas, except for Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training at Ft. Bliss. We were on our way to Vietnam, and I was going back for my second tour and to reenlist once I got back there. I had protected him from three other soldiers who were bullying him in the McChord Air Force Base Terminal just prior to take-off. We ended up sitting in the same row during the flight to Anchorage, so we chatted. I marveled at his innocence, his naivete, and his love for his family. He made me wonder where and when my innocence left me. I was twenty-two. He had just turned nineteen when I watched him take his last breath. Even under heavy anesthesia, I watched as a doctor and nurses tried to revive him, tried to give him an emergency tracheotomy, and finally stopped and hung their heads. I heard the doctor say, “He’s gone,” just before I faded out. When I awoke, his bed was vacant, freshly made. He still had some innocence left, he was a nice guy, and it left me sad, angry and confused that he should die instead of me. Of the two hundred thirty-nine military and dependents aboard that plane, forty-seven died in the crash. Forty-five were military. He was the last to die. I was haunted by that for forty years.

Two days later, when the weather cleared, I was air-evacuated out of Alaska with a dozen other burned soldiers and flown non-stop to the Burn Ward at Brook Army Medical Center (BAMC), San Antonio, Texas in a C-141 hospital plane. My four months in that hospital with others that were burned worse than I, with others who were not only burned but had lost limbs and parts of their faces, taught me courage and to look past injuries to see the real people behind them, and to understand that they wanted no more than to heal and to be accepted for the people they were.

Burns just plain hurt like no other physical pain. I watched others, mostly military, sit silently, with clenched teeth and tears running down their faces from the pain as dead, charred skin was removed, as bandages were being changed, from scrubbing their own eschar from their burns because it hurt just a little less than if someone else did it. I began realize how special my fellow patients were. There were very few who felt sorry for themselves. Over half of them had more injuries and were burned worse than I. They wanted no special treatment above what anyone else had, no matter what rank they held or how badly they were hurt. They wanted to be looked at and treated like normal people instead of burn victims. They worked hard at their physical therapy to regain strength and flexibility. It was slow and painful, and I saw a lot of tears roll down burned faces, but nobody cried out, and no one complained. I respected them immensely. I admired them. I understood them, I empathized with them, and being with them, healing with them, changed me forever in both positive and negative ways.

You see, I learned to tolerate physical pain and keep going despite it, and keep my complaints to a minimum. I learned to look past burns and scars and deformities and missing limbs, and see those men as they wanted to be seen, as I wanted to be seen…as human beings with souls who wanted to live and love and walk again. At the same time, I developed an intolerance for those who whined, for those who wanted pity, for those who quit trying because something was too hard, for those who needed drama in their lives, for those whose lives were governed only by emotion instead of reason, for those who cried over anything and everything, and for those whose feelings were too easily hurt. Little did I know what awaited me years later.

Seven years after I was discharged from the hospital and the Army, my dad passed away suddenly when I was thirty. I didn’t get a chance to grieve because my brother and I were taking care of my mother while she grieved, as well as all the legal matters and dad’s funeral, and then I went home to my wife and two children. We divorced about three years later, and I remarried two years after that. I lost my mother when I was forty, and once again I did not have a chance to grieve the way I needed to because my brother and I took care of the legal matters and funeral before returning home to our families and to work.

Then, in November of 2010, after two previous bouts of cancer, lymph nodes in 2005 and triple negative breast cancer in 2008 that were ‘cured,’ my wife of twenty-eight years, Lou, died from the effects of brain tumors that metastasized from her breast cancer when I was sixty-three. I was her primary caregiver until she passed away at home, on my watch. I knew it was inevitable, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I held on to the smallest chance for a miracle, but when it didn’t happen I was crushed. One is never ready to lose a loved one, though it is imminent. I was in shock for days and went through all the motions of taking care of legal matters, writing an obituary, and taking care of her cremation as she wanted. After her memorial service, closure was there for everyone else, but not for me. After twenty-eight years, I was alone with nothing to do and I began to grieve. I holed up in the house, going out only for groceries and my prescriptions because I didn’t want to be seen. I only communicated by email because I couldn’t bear to see anyone or talk with anyone. I didn’t know what to do except weep shamefully in the privacy of my home. I had become one of those weaklings, one of those criers that I could not tolerate.

How does a man cope with the loss of his wife? I had no idea. I was a fighter but there was nothing for me to fight except myself. I tried to fight back the tears and the heartache, but it was impossible. I wasn’t strong enough to do that. What made it worse was that I finally realized how my mother felt after dad died, how dad felt when grandpa died, how lonely I was when Grandpa Ellison died, how I felt and how my first fiancée’s family felt when she died, how I felt when I watched Private Charles Echols breathe his last breath in my hospital room and how his parents would have felt, how I bottled up my grief over the loss of my dad and then my mom because I didn’t have the time to grieve, and now it was all coming down on me. I not only grieved over the loss of my wife, I was grieving the deaths of all who touched me. It was almost too much for me to take.

I had no idea how to deal with such deep emotions, especially my own. I looked for some thing to fight, but there was only me and my grief to fight. But how was I supposed to do that? In a sudden flash of awareness, I understood why men would suddenly die after the loss of their wives, or why a man would commit suicide after the loss of his wife. Yes, I understood now what being this alone could do to one. I wasn’t about to take my own life, but I did pray every night…just before I fell asleep from exhaustion…that I would die in my sleep. I also remember how disappointed I felt when I’d awaken four hours later to the same old ceiling. I began to spend a lot of time on the computer, trying to find out how men coped with the loss of their wives. Very little was written about the depth and breadth of emotion or how to cope with it. The only comments I could find were (paraphrased), “It’s normal to feel that way after the loss of a spouse.” Normal? So what? How do I cope with it? What can I do? One thing I did get from my internet journeys was that it was helpful to write about how one felt. I had been doing that since my wife was placed in hospice care at home. I had decided to keep a journal so our sons would know how much I loved their mother, and the things she and I went through as I cared for her and watched her fade a little more every day until she finally died. I wanted them to see us as real people, not just mom and dad. I had continued that after she passed away, but there had to be more.

It was just after Lou’s memorial service that I received an envelope from Franciscan Hospice Bereavement Services. In the envelope, I found a card that offered bereavement counseling in a group setting that was limited to twelve. The head of the bereavement services name and phone number were on the card, along a message to please call soon to reserve a place in the eight, weekly two-hour group sessions that were to begin on February 1, 2011. I stared at that card for a couple of minutes before I tossed it onto the coffee table and sat down. I thought about it for a few minutes before I got up to go back into the office to write in my journal. I remember staring at the computer screen and thinking it might be helpful to attend that bereavement group, but I would be admitting that I was weak, that I couldn’t go through this by myself. I felt ashamed I even thought of it. Thankfully, I spent Christmas with my sons and grandchildren in Olympia. It was a welcomed break, something different to look forward to for a day.

After Christmas, the days passed with the sameness of the previous day until it was New Year’s Eve. I had been invited to a get-together by friends of ours, and there would be three couples and me. I didn’t want to be the ‘odd man out,’ so I declined. I spent New Year’s Eve finishing up my journal, then I sat down and watched movies on HBO. I could hardly wait for 2011, just to get out of the year that Lou died. Just before midnight, I turned the channel to watch the New Year’s festivities and the countdown. When the clock struck midnight and ushered in 2011, I couldn’t help but break down and cry. It was my first New Year’s Eve/Day without my wife in twenty-eight years. I guess it was around 1:00 a.m. before I went to bed, but I reminded myself it was now 2011, and 2010 was now a memory…albeit a sad one.

When I awoke late in the morning, I made my way to the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot and TV to college football bowl games, I saw the card from Franciscan Hospice Bereavement Services still lying on the coffee table. I left it there, got my coffee and sat down to watch football. I went through the motions of living through that day, much the same as every other day before since Lou died, until I went to bed. It was like living through the movie, Groundhog Day. January 2 was the same as January 1. I awoke to the same old ceiling realizing that I didn’t die in my sleep once again, dragged myself out of bed and went to the kitchen to make my coffee…again. I sat down in the living room with my freshly brewed coffee and saw the card on the coffee table…again. I stared at it and drank my coffee. How weak was I that I couldn’t get through this by myself? How did other men do it? I’d have taken a bullet for Lou, I’d have taken her cancer from her if I could have and would have died in her place, but I had no idea how to cope with the overwhelming heartache and loneliness that seemed to wash continuously over me and through me. I picked up the card and reached for the phone. I made the call, feeling like a weakling, like I betrayed whatever Man Code there was about sucking it up and moving on. After talking with the head of the bereavement services and securing a place in the group sessions, I cried once again. It felt a little different this time because there was almost a sense of relief. However, the guilt from being weak did not leave.

As February 1 approached, I began to have doubts about going to the group sessions. I wondered how many men would be there, and would I be the only one? I began to try to talk myself out of going, including the morning of February 1 when I awoke. I laid in bed, not wanting to go, not wanting to show my weakness. Nevertheless, I got up, showered, got dressed, made myself some breakfast, took a deep breath, and left the house. I told myself I could always sit in on the first session and then just not return. I got to the building, parked the car, and walked into the office. I was greeted warmly by the receptionist and she showed me the way to the conference room where the session was to be. On the way, I was greeted by the hospice people who had taken care of Lou and showed me how to in their absence. I took a deep breath…again…and walked in. I saw mostly women, and then saw two other men. I breathed a sigh of relief and joined them. The facilitator came into the room, closed the door and introduced herself. She was younger than all of us, but she told us her story. She had lost her husband three years ago and decided to join a bereavement group because none of her friends understood what it was like to lose a spouse. It made no difference how old we were, whether we were male or female, what race or creed we were, whether we were rich, poor or in-between, or what the age differences in the room were, we were united by one common thing: Someone we loved very much and dedicated our lives to had died, and now we were grieving our loss.

We all sat there with tears in our eyes. She sat down and had us go around the table introducing ourselves and telling the others who we had lost and why we decided to attend these sessions. When it got to me, I introduced myself, and through a veil of tears that rolled down my cheeks, told everyone how long my wife and I were married, when she passed away and from what, and that I felt weak for having to come to the sessions because I didn’t know how to handle my grief. I didn’t know how to fight it. There was a moment of silence, and then she told me that I wasn’t weak, that it took a great deal of courage to come forward, to decide to make the call and attend the sessions instead of holing up at home with the grief eating my insides out until I got sick. She said there was no right or wrong way to grieve, there was simply grief, and it was an individual thing unique to each of us that we should acknowledge. She said there was no time limit on grief and it would take as long as it took, and we should let it. She told me that the room we were in was a safe place for all of us to talk about how we felt because we all were suffering from loss, and that we were not alone in our grief. After we had all finished introducing ourselves and telling everyone why we were there, we took a ten-minute break.

Most of us stood, visited the restrooms, or got a drink of water. Of all the people in the room, two of the women didn’t lose their husbands. The youngest, who was somewhere in her mid-to late thirties, had lost her father. The other, who was in her mid-fifties, had lost her mother. The rest of us had lost our spouses. The three of us men found ourselves talking with each other. I was the youngest of them by two years. One was sixty-five and had been married for thirty-four years, and the other was eighty-two and had been married for fifty-eight years. He wanted to leave the group as I had thought I would, but the other gentleman and I had decided to stay because we felt we couldn’t do this by ourselves. The older gentleman thought about it, and said he’d stay if we did. I believe it was the best decision I could have made at that point in my life. I believe it saved my life.

Our group bonded as the sessions progressed. It didn’t take long to realize that we were in a safe place because we were with others who suffered a similar loss and felt the same pain, the same loneliness, the same emptiness, the same fear of not knowing how to cope, and the same fear of being among those who didn’t understand. We drew strength from each other because we understood each other, we listened to each other without judgement, we talked and bared our souls to each other, we cried in front of each other, and no one judged another because we knew how they felt because it was how we felt. Even after the eight sessions ended, we, as a group, did not think we were quite ready to be without each other. We found two different places to meet in the four weeks that followed, then decided to meet at a local restaurant for brunch on the same day at the same time as our previous group sessions. By this time, our original group of twelve was down to eight. In the last five years, the youngest woman who lost her father moved to a different area, another lady lost her only daughter a year after she lost her husband and she joined another group, the oldest gentleman passed away two years ago, and the oldest lady moved to an assisted living facility last year. Now, over seven-and-a-half years after that first session, there are four of us who still meet every Tuesday at 11:00am for brunch. We have become like an extended family to each other.

So how has all this changed me? First, I must admit that my stay in the Burn Ward of Brook Army Medical Center, hardened me to the point that I had little sympathy for people with ‘small’ injuries, including my own. To even see pro football players take a hit and lie writhing about on the ground, then being attended to by the trainers, and finally rolling over and getting to their feet to run off the field for one play, was hard for me to stomach, especially after seeing helicopter pilots and co-pilots get shot more than once and still be able to fly their choppers back to base, bouncing a landing sideways and smoking and crawl away from the wreckage, or seeing the other door-gunner get shot and return fire using only one arm. It took me a few years to realize that those chopper pilots, co-pilots and door gunners were a cut or two above most civilians I knew, and I should not have bothered to compare them. I had to relearn or reawaken compassion for people who had no idea what I saw military personnel and veterans go through. I am still a work in progress.

After my wife died, I became one of those weaklings that I had become intolerant of. For the first time in decades, I cried. I wept. My heart ached, I wanted to give up and die because I could not handle my emotions. It would have been easier had I shut down like I did when my first fiancée died and I joined the Army. Yes, I did have other relationships afterward, but when I felt that I was getting too close and could get hurt, I’d distance myself a bit and then tell whoever I was with, “Well, I guess I’d best be movin’ right along,” and then I’d leave. It took a long time to recover my feelings, and it was difficult feel vulnerable again, but I did it. I had to if I wanted to have any kind of a meaningful relationship, if I really wanted to fall in love with someone. And I did!

When my wife died, there was a point that I could have ‘turned it off’ and gone on, but I made a choice not to. I made a choice that I would never again shut down, that I would feel every nuance of my loss, as hard as it was for as long as it took. I hurt so badly I wanted to die, I prayed that I’d die. I had never felt that way before…ever! And then I was in it and had no idea how to handle it. It has been said that God only gives a person what he or she can handle. I used to believe that, but I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that things happen and God is just there waiting to be turned to, waiting to be asked for love, for support, for strength, for comfort. I don’t believe that God is like a spiritual ATM that will give you money or make you rich if you pray for it. He has told us, through His Son, Jesus Christ, that His Kingdom is not of this world. After what I’ve seen and experienced, I believe that. I also believe that my faith in Him has provided the support I’ve needed to make it through some tough times. Even though I was angry at God for letting my wife die, I realized I still believed in Him because I was angry at Him. There were so many times I would rail at Him, ask Him why, even though I knew the answer. He lets things happen and life on earth goes on with or without one, yet He is always there for us. When the weight of my grief would drop me to my knees and I could barely breathe because of the ache in my chest, I would ask Him for respite and He would grant it. Every time. It’s a matter of Faith. I have a relationship with God.

I also believe that the amount of grief one feels is directly proportional to how much he or she loved. Grief is the price of Love. I was beginning to understand, and I was grateful for that. With the understanding, came the empathy, being able to understand what others were going through when they lost a spouse or loved one. It’s difficult enough to lose family members, especially one’s own children because they are the flesh and blood of a union between a husband and wife who chose to love each other, and that is what makes losing a spouse to death so hard. A spouse is not family until he or she is chosen by the other to love and cherish, and they choose you back. Once I learned all this, I wanted to pay it forward, to give what I learned to those who need it, to those who want it. I will always be a work-in-progress. Someday, I hope to be the person God wants me to be. This is what I hope.

Oh! And yes, though I experienced such crushing grief, not shutting down emotionally turned out to be a most wonderful thing! I have found love again, with my Debbie.

Life can be…and is…good! Keep the Faith!

This is how I’ve changed.

An Overdue Letter to My Mom

Hi, Mama.

Here’s wishing you a Happy (and very) Belated Birthday and also a belated Happy Mother’s Day! I can’t believe you’d have been ninety-six on May 17. It’s hard to believe you’ve been gone for thirty years, but I’m glad you’re with Dad now. I’ve missed you both and think of you both almost every day…still. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing to you after all these years, but I’ve wanted to tell you for a very long time how much you have shaped my life and to thank you for all you did for me. I am proud to be your son. I’m sure you heard it from Dad since I wrote to him first, but I wanted you to know that you are my hero. Yes, I told Dad in a letter to him a few months ago, but now I want you to hear it from me. You are the most amazing person, and by far, the strongest, most steadfast person I’ve ever known.

Things sure have changed here since you went home to God, but I think you know that. I’ll bet you’re glad you don’t have to teach under the conditions that many teachers do nowadays. It seems the kids have more rights now than those who teach them, and so many parents hold those teachers accountable for the failure of their children instead of the children themselves, or because those parents were too permissive and didn’t instill any respect or values in them like you and dad did with Jim and me. It doesn’t take “a village to raise a child,” it takes real parents like you were.

Mom, Grandpa Ariong, Uncle Tony, Grandma Naty, Uncle Severo

Do you know why you are my hero, Mom? It’s because you refused to be defeated throughout your life. You led a rather protected life in the Philippines, in a beautiful large house with manicured grounds surrounded by a high wall and gated where your family had maids, a gardener, a chef, a butler/chauffeur, and you even had your own maid. You played the piano so well you could have been a concert pianist. Your father was a city engineer for Manila, your family were frequent guests at the President’s palace and highlighted in the Society section of the Manila newspapers. Many of your relatives were either doctors, attorneys or senators in the Philippine government. You had it made.

You went to an all-girls Catholic school from grades one through twelve, and continued at a Catholic University until you were a sophomore and the Japanese bombed Manila during World War II. The incendiary bombs almost burned Manila to the ground, and your entire household packed all the food and family silver and left Manila on foot. Your beautiful home burned to the ground, and then your maid was shot by a Japanese sniper. Your father’s knowledge of the terrain surrounding Manila helped you escape the city by hiding out in the swamps, and it took you some time before you reached Baguio in the north, where you stayed with your aunt at her villa. When the Japanese finally occupied Baguio, I know they took your father to design and build bridges for them through the mountains and the swamps to help the Japanese keep supply lines open. That’s probably what kept the rest of your family safe. Still, your father was able to get information past his Japanese captors to the guerilla fighters so they could plant explosive charges and blow up his bridges after they were completed. You didn’t find out about that part until after the American forces landed and drove the Japanese forces from Baguio. I remember him as being one of the kindest and gentlest men I’ve ever known.

Isn’t that when you finally met dad? You told me the American forces asked permission of your aunt to set up their headquarters on her property near her villa and she consented. Dad was one of the general’s aides, wasn’t he? I know that you told me you met at a dance and he was such a handsome soldier. He was a major by then, wasn’t he? I’m thankful you told me these things, Mom. I thought it was so respectful of Dad to ask your father for your hand in marriage, and incredibly insightful of your father to tell him yes, but only under the condition that he had to return to the United States when the war ended, think it over, and if he was serious and truly loved you, he would return to the Philippines to marry you. I guess you know the answer to that, don’t you?

Mom’s and Dad’s wedding photo, July 1946

He did! I’ve seen the photos of you both when you were living in the Philippines and Dad worked for the State Department, and then with me as a baby. You both were so young and such a beautiful couple. I know it had to be difficult to make the decision to leave your home, your family, your country to accompany Dad back to the United States to really begin your new life. I know it was even more difficult to end up living next door to Grandma and Grandpa Ellison, especially when Grandma Ellison didn’t think you were good enough to marry her only son because you were Filipina and Catholic. Wow. Two strikes right there. I think the single, saving grace was the kindness and acceptance of us by Grandpa Ellison. He was a good man, and I can see where Dad got his character and his values. In a way, I can understand why we ended up living beside Grandma and Grandpa Ellison. Dad was their only child and loved his parents very much.

Dad, Mom, and me at one month

I know it was difficult for you, Mom, but you must know that Dad loved you so much and was so proud of you, regardless of what Grandma thought, or thought she wanted for him. He knew what he wanted…you! I know that. I could see it whenever he looked at you. You knew nothing of housekeeping, washing clothes or cooking when you first came to the U.S., but you learned. All you knew how to do was to play the piano. I still have your first Betty Crocker Cookbook. I also know that Dad spent an inordinate amount of time away from home because he was building his dream, the resort. He wanted that resort so much and he wanted it to be a success to provide for you. I know those years were tight, especially when you gave birth to Jim. You even learned to sew and used to buy material to make our clothes. Do you know that I still remember the Davy Crockett flannel shirt you made for me? I loved it, Mom, because it was a Davy Crockett shirt, and that you made it for me. And I loved all the sweater vests you made for me, too. I was proud to wear them.

That’s me, holding my 1 month-old brother, Jim

I also know it was a little easier when Dad and Sig Stockholm built our new home a bit farther away from Grandma. It almost seemed we were in a different world there and we could breathe easier. I know that your dad designed it and that the mahogany ‘tiles’ for the walls was Philippine mahogany. Bill Permenter built our beautiful Arizona sandstone fireplace. It was beautiful home, Mom, and Dad wanted that for you and all of us.

You even became a Naturalized Citizen of the United States! I remember the day we all went to Seattle to watch you and be with you when you took the oath to become a citizen. You studied for the exam, aced it, and then you became an American Citizen. I know how proud you were, and I know how proud Dad was of you! It wasn’t too long after that when you were asked to teach Spanish at Langley, was it? I remember the State of Washington even granted you a special certificate to teach, even though the war interrupted your college education in the Philippines. You taught, and then went to the University of Washington during the summers to get your degree. You stayed at the dorm during the week and came home on weekends. I took care of Jim, Dad took care of both of us and ran the resort, and you studied so hard and did so well. I remember the summer quarter that you challenged some classes and got twenty-two credits! You were amazing! I also remember how angry you were when you got a B. You graduated with a degree in Romance Languages with a minor in Education, and you got your Phi Beta Kappa key, too. No more special certificate for you! You even got your Master’s Degree. We were all so proud of you! I still am.

Everything you did, you did to the very best of your ability. You could have been a concert pianist, Mom. Though you weren’t, you gave me my appreciation for music. One of my first memories was when I was three and we lived in the ‘little house’ next to Grandma’s. I dragged a cushion off the couch, put it on the floor and sat on it. You were playing a Rachmaninoff concerto and when I leaned back against the side of your spinet piano, I was shocked to be able to not only hear the music, but to feel it all the way through my back to my breast bone and forehead. I could feel the emotion with which you played, Mom, and it has stuck with me all these years. When I sing in church with our praise team band, I sing that way…with emotion. Music became a salve for my soul a long time ago because of you! Thank you for that gift. I wish you could have heard me sing in church just once. It’s okay, though, because not even the boys have ever heard me sing in church, either.

I know that I had you and dad wondering where you went wrong with me because of some of the things I did and the decisions I made, probably from the age of ten on. I know I caused you a lot grief but I was trying to find out who and what I was and where I fit, and have some fun along the way. I must tell you that I had a tough time trying to live up to your expectations especially in high school and college, and I rebelled big-time. You were a tough act to follow. Although I made some wonderful friends at Oak Harbor, I wish you had never taken me out of Langley at the end of my sophomore year. I felt that I was just beginning to grow as a person, a student and an athlete, and then I had to start over as a junior at a new and larger school. Yes, I did okay. I made some new friends there that I still have, but I did feel a bit displaced my junior year. You and Dad pushed me hard, especially after you made me take that IQ test. I know it was a test for ‘potential,’ but I felt doomed when the results came back and knew you’d want me to live up to my score. It was brutal, Mom. I hated it because I wasn’t you.

I still graduated in the upper fifth of my class with a 3.14 grade point average, and did get accepted to Washington State University. I thought I wanted to be a civil engineer because that’s what your and Dad’s vision was. I took a load of math, chemistry and physics classes, along with some general engineering classes, and began to realize it was not what I really wanted. You wanted me to follow in your father’s footsteps, but after the first year, I was only an average student because I was beginning to feel that I didn’t want to be a civil engineer. I had no passion for it. It only took the next semester to show that, and because of the heavy partying and, to put it mildly and succinctly, my unruliness, the Dean of Men finally invited me to his office, made me pay for a replacement door to my dorm room because of the burn marks, and told me I had three days to get off his campus and to never return until he was dead. I know that was not your vision, nor was it exactly mine though it served my purpose…I got out and had a lot of fun before I left.

You know I spent the next year at Everett Junior (now Community) College, trying to raise my grade point average, but I was only wasting my money and time, so I dropped out and joined the Army. Lynn’s death had a lot to do with that, too. From that point, it took two years, nine months, nine days, one hour and forty minutes worth of the U.S. Army, including duty stations at Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Ord, California, Fort Gordon, Georgia, Fort Lewis, Washington, Cu Chi, Republic of Vietnam, a plane crash in Anchorage trying to return to Vietnam, and finally the burn ward at Brook Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas before I saw home again for any length of time. It was a rocky ride and a tough trip, but I made it back. Had all my promotions been ‘linear,’ I’d have gotten out as a Command Sergeant Major. As it was, I was lucky to get out as a Specialist 4^th Class. I was told I had an anger-management problem. Anyway, the physical scars healed a lot quicker than the mental and emotional scars. It seems I still pick the occasional scab off one of them now and then, and have to let it scab-over again, trying not to pick at it until it heals and just itches occasionally.

I must tell you, though, that I enjoyed the brief time I spent at home after I was discharged from the Army because we finally got to talk about life after those hectic years, and I got to know you and Dad more as people than just “Mom and Dad.” I was grateful and quite surprised that you apologized to me for pushing so hard after you saw my IQ test score, and for not asking what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had to gently remind you that once, while I was in high school, I did tell you and Dad what I wanted to do, but I was outvoted. I wanted to buy an old sportscar and restore it so I could drive it to school. I was already working summers, and I had a plan to work after school to make even more money so I could afford to buy parts and still save for college. But both you and Dad said no. Neither of you wanted me to be a mechanic and that I should be a civil engineer instead. Dad said I’d be spending every spare moment working at some job or on the car instead of doing my homework. He was probably right, but at least he’d have known where I was on weekends. That’s when he bought that blue ’58 Volkswagen Bug and told me I could drive it and learn how to maintain it. It was like the time he taught me how to drive that old ’53 Chevy dump truck with a four-speed, non-synchromesh transmission when I was fifteen. He told me if I could drive that thing, I could drive almost anything on the planet. That was a lot of fun. As for the VW, well, I did learn how to tune it up and maintain it, and I was grateful for it, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

It took a while, Mom, but that time at home helped. I decided I could try to combine whatever engineering and math I learned with the drawing skills I learned from Professor Douglas. I decided I was going to go back to school to become an architect, so I did, and I did well this time. After four straight quarters at Shoreline Community College, I graduated with an Associate’s Degree in Arts and Sciences with a 3.8 grade point average, taking physics, calculus and art classes. I was accepted into the University of Washington School of Architecture and Urban Planning. I was on my way.

Anyway, I guess life got in the way and you sort of know the rest. I met a girl, got married, we had a son, I dropped out of school, got a job at Seafirst Bank using what education I had and became a space planner, a project coordinator, a project manager, had another son, became a Purchasing Officer and furnished bank branches and administrative offices across the state, and was drinking too much. I guess the stress of work and family life and those old mental and emotional scars were too much of a load for me to carry. Then, very suddenly, Dad died. I was numb. I know you were devastated. I wish I could have helped you more emotionally, Mom, but I didn’t know what to do except, with the help of Jim, take care of the bills, make the burial and memorial service arrangements, and let you grieve. I wish I would have known what to do. All I could do was be there. Along the way, my home life suffered, and I didn’t get to grieve for Dad.

I began to drink even more, thinking I could anesthetize myself from the stress and pain, but it didn’t work. On June 12, 1980, I took my last drink and checked into a treatment center. I was a hot mess. Twenty-eight days later, I emerged sober but still wanting to drink. Thanks to AA, I didn’t. Shortly afterward, the nine-year marriage ended. I left the bank and went to work for a commercial furnishings dealership with the idea that I could use my experience from the bank to make it as a salesperson, space-planner, and custom furniture designer. It was about this time that I married Lou. I knew her from my days at Seafirst. My “success” sure took a while…like almost eleven years, which included a six-year stint with two custom furniture manufacturers and another five years as a partner in a minority-owned commercial furnishings dealership. I did okay, but not as well as I’d wanted.

It was about a year after I became a partner in that minority-owned dealership that you died, Mom, just over ten years after Dad died. Once again, life got put on hold as Jim and I took care of the estate, the will, the bills, and your memorial service and funeral arrangements. I missed you, Mom, and didn’t get a chance to grieve for you. Your leaving us left a big hole in our lives. We left the house pretty much as you did for a few years until we decided that it was time for us to cut the ties to the island and sell the house. Neither of us had the time to take as good care of the house as we would have wanted.

About the time Jim and I sold the house, I adopted Lou’s sons, Craig and Blake. I’m glad I did. Four years or so later, I got this great job at another dealership as a GSA salesperson where Lou worked. I got to use everything I had ever done before to become successful as a GSA salesperson to the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the Coast Guard, NOAA, and the U.S. Army, doing their space planning, specifying their furniture, designing custom furniture for conference and reception areas, selling it all to them, and managing the electrical work, and the delivery and installation of their new furnishings. The last ten years I worked there, I never had to make a “cold call.” The dealership was sold in 2001, renamed and moved from Seattle to Bellevue, and Lou I worked together for fifteen years total before we retired in March of 2009.

We had one good year together as retirees before Lou was diagnosed with brain cancer. She died eight months later, on Dad’s birthday in 2010. It was her third bout of cancer since 2005. It was then I realized what you went through when Dad died. The pain and loneliness was unbelievable. I think I was able to finally grieve for Dad and for you, too, after all those years. I must say that it took a while before I grew accustomed to my ‘new normal’ of being alone. Joining a bereavement group was a big help to me. I wish I would have known enough when Dad died to try to find such a group for you, Mom. It wouldn’t have been quite as lonely to be with those who truly understood what you were going through. I believe it would have helped you emotionally. I’m so sorry for that.

About seven months after Lou died, I went on my first road trip alone. I sure cried that first day because it was the first time in over twenty-eight years that I went on vacation without Lou. I was so surprised when it got better every day after that. At the end of two weeks, I had travelled about three thousand miles to places I’d never been and took about 1,400 photos of Paradise, Lake Oroville, Lake Tahoe, Heavenly Valley, San Jose, Carmel, and Monterey, California. Two weeks later, I went to the family reunion in Lakeside, Montana near the north end of Flathead Lake. On a whim, I went to Glacier Park, drove around the eastern side of Lake Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and stopped at the Columbia River overlook just east of Vantage. Once again, I took another 1,400 photographs and travelled close to 3,000 miles again. I was a new man, Mom. Life had become exhilarating again!

Then, about nine months after Lou passed away, and almost three weeks after I returned home, I met Debbie. It felt as though we had found each other after never expecting we’d find anyone! We fell in love three days after we met, hiking and photographing at Paradise on Mount Rainier. It was idyllic and fitting for us. You’d like her, Mom. You’d love her, too. She’s so good to me and for me. I’m truly happy again. I’ve been blessed beyond measure!

For someone who didn’t want any drama in his life, I guess I created a lot of it around me just because I didn’t think about consequences with regard to others…especially you and Dad…and I’m so sorry for that. As I seem to have 20/20 hindsight, I can’t shake the feeling that I failed you and Dad numerous times when I was younger. It almost feels as though I blundered my way through the china-shop of life, breaking a lot of things as I bulled ahead…and sometimes backward. I honestly didn’t expect to live this long. I expected you and Dad would outlive me, but instead, here I am. Since I am not blessed with the gift of foresight, I have no idea what my purpose is. I simply keep living a day-at-a-time, as best as I can, and as I always have done. Yes, I do make some plans, but they’re more rough outlines until I get close enough to figure out what I’m going to do once I get there. I hope, though, that I have made you a little proud of me along the way, even if it’s nothing more than I’ve managed to survive things that killed others. Yes, I know I’m a bit too glib.

I’m sorry this is so long, but I wanted to tell you these things. You are still, and always will be, my hero. I love you, Mom, and miss you so much. Still.

Your son,

Bob

PS – Is there golf up there? Just wondering…I’d dearly love to play one more round with Dad. Please tell him ‘hi’ from me, okay?

A Milestone Birthday…for Me

A Milestone Birthday

I Wish You Enough – a poem by Bob Perks

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough “Hellos” to get you through the final “Goodbye.”

I am grateful to have lived this long because I now realize that I have always had enough, like the poem says. I celebrated my seventieth birthday on Easter Sunday. Wow. Seventy years old. I can’t believe it. Sure, so many others have celebrated their seventieth birthdays and beyond, sometimes far beyond, so maybe it’s no big deal to you, but it is to me. You see, I never expected that I’d live through my twenties. I have survived rheumatic fever and a heart murmur as a young teenager, Vietnam, a plane crash that killed forty-seven people in my early twenties, being diagnosed with PTSD seventeen years after I was discharged from the hospital and the Army at forty-one, and being diagnosed with diabetes at the age of forty-seven. That was the physical stuff.

I lost my first friend, Pam, to leukemia when I was six years old. My Grandpa Ellison passed away at the age of sixty-four when I was eleven. My father passed away at fifty-nine when I was almost thirty. Between the ages of thirty and forty, I lost my Grandma Ellison, and my Grandpa and Grandma Baltasar. My mother passed away when she was sixty-six and I had just turned forty. I have also survived the deaths of friends, girlfriends, close friends, a fiancée, uncles and aunts, fellow soldiers, high school and college classmates, and the loss of my wife of twenty-eight years when I was sixty-three. The loss of my wife in 2010 caused me to want to die. Yet, and despite having diabetes, here I am. I know, though, that I could go at any time for any reason. It says in the bible (paraphrased) that only God knows the number of our days. I believe that, but I do try to be as healthy as I can…now. The reason for that, for me, is a quality of life issue as well as being blessed with another Great Love…my Debbie. I want to be as healthy and active as I can, experiencing the joys of sharing life and love with her right up to the time I drop. I’ve always joked that I want to be sliding sideways, dirty, naked and broke, right into the grave, completely used up. I’m afraid there’s more truth to that than many believe.

Being alive for seventy years has brought a lot of scars. It also brings empathy and some knowledge. I don’t quite think the way I did when I was eighteen and almost indestructible, but I do tend to look at many things the same way. That may be a drawback, but seldom have I been accused of acting my age. Yes, it can be a drawback. I did come up with a ‘new’ definition of the word, maturity, years ago…for me. Per Bob, maturity is the realization that I am older and slower than I was at eighteen, and I can now be caught from behind. So, I don’t do what I did when I was eighteen. But what else have I learned in all these years?

In my youth, my first “ah-ha” moment occurred when I was three and realized that I could lose myself in music when I pulled a cushion off the couch to sit on the floor with my back against the right side of my mother’s spinet piano while she was playing. I’ve said before that I believe my mother could have become a concert pianist, but the first time I leaned back against the piano while she was playing a Rachmaninoff concerto, I felt the music through my head and back, all the way to my breastbone at the same time I was hearing it. I could not only hear the music, I could feel it and feel the emotion with which mom played. From that moment, every time my mother would play, I would sit on the floor and lean back against the piano and feel the music and let it take me where it would. Few people can say they got to hear and feel music written by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven, to name a few of the more famous composers. It was then I began to learn how music could affect people, especially me.

In elementary school, I learned that I was somehow ‘different,’ and that words can hurt. I made a lot of friends and was accepted, but there were always a couple of bullies who would push me around and call me names. I was the little brown boy, a half-breed, a “flip” because I was half Filipino and smaller than most. That pretty much ended in the third grade when I fought the class bully to a draw in the coat closet. We hurt each other, but he never touched me again. I became less afraid of getting hurt and learned I could make a difference by standing up to bullies for myself and for others. I never lost another fight. I also learned what I had felt, and what Martin Luther King put into words almost a decade later, that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Grandpa & me, The Fishermen

When I was eleven, my Grandpa Ellison died from a second stroke two weeks after he was sent home to recuperate after his first stroke. He was a kind and gentle man who taught me how to fish and took me with him and his best friend, Charlie. When I was six, he gave me my first fishing pole and a level-wind reel. He taught me how to use his table saw and drill press. He taught me how to use his hand planes and the rest of his tools. He taught me how to carve things from wood, make whistles from willow branches, and about his cherry and apple trees. He taught me about the outdoors. He gave me my first pocket knife. It was the knife he had carried for decades. He was my buffer from Grandma Ellison, who lacked empathy for my mother because she was Filipina and Catholic, and not good enough for her son. She didn’t have much to do with us though we lived right next to her. Her actions only reinforced how I felt about discrimination. I loved my Grandpa Ellison and his loss left an empty place in my life. I wanted so much to go to his funeral to say good-bye, but I wasn’t allowed. I had to stay home and take care of my little brother while mom, dad and grandma went to his funeral. I was angry about that, but I did as they said. Children know and feel more than adults think they do. I believe children should be given the option to attend funerals of loved ones to pay their last respects if they wish. They should be asked.

In my “tweens” and teens, I learned that being in nature calms me. To sit on a log by a small stream in the woods, seeing the rays of filtered sunlight highlight a thick carpet of moss is like a salve for my mind and soul. It was more beautiful than any cathedral and made me feel closer to God. Sitting next to a creek, swollen with snow melt, hearing and seeing the water rushing past me makes me feel as though any worries, any sadness, any anger can be washed away and dissipated. I feel renewed afterward. Standing on a beach in the middle of a storm with the rain stinging my face, tasting the salt spray from the waves crashing on the rocks, and screaming in anger and frustration into a wind so strong it whipped Puget Sound into whitecaps and ripped the sound of my voice away, was cleansing. I learned how small and insignificant I was in the grand scheme of life, and that I was not the center of the universe.

As a “tween” and teen, the music of the day…rock and roll, ‘soul’ music, and pop or ‘cross-over’ music from pop and country artists…was all over the radio. I listened to two radio stations then, KJR and KVI and found that different songs fitted the different moods, problems, and heartaches I had at the time. In the privacy of my room, I listened to those songs and sang them. I found that the music was a salve for my soul and I wanted to learn to play them. I had made enough money doing odd jobs that, by the time I turned sixteen, I bought myself my first guitar and a book of chord diagrams. It was a Sears Silvertone F-Hole acoustic guitar with an arched top, in black and white. It cost me fifty dollars, which was big money for me then. One of my friends who was a couple of years older and played guitar, taught me how to barre chord and that most of the songs on the radio were either three or four chord progressions. I picked that up fast. I would sit in my room, listen to the radio, and became good enough to play along with most of the songs I heard. Music does soothe the savage beast.

I also learned that, even through stretches of becoming a social and party animal, I needed alone time to recharge and re-center myself. I lived by Henry Van Dyke’s quote, “It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it,” much to my parents’ chagrin. And yes, I knew that quote as an early teenager. I would party until I dropped or was grounded. But when it was time to recharge, I would disappear from the social and party scene, sometimes for weeks. When I was grounded, I never made a scene or fought them. Most of the time, it was a relief to me that the only place I could go was to work and then home. It got me off the party merry-go-round and I relished the peace and quiet of being able to spend time alone to center myself. I learned that I was an introverted extrovert.

All the above was the base for what I am and how I feel today. I was brought up by a father and mother who believed that people should work for what they want…jobs, promotions, raises, anything and everything…because they will appreciate it and value it more than if it was simply given to them. They taught me that there is no substitute for experience, and that failure is a thing that can be overcome and is part of experience. It is not a final sentence unless one chooses it to be. They taught me that I could accomplish almost anything I wanted if I mapped a route to it and worked at it. I was taught that I should not be dependent on anyone for my well-being because they will then own me. They taught me that nothing worth anything is free, there is always a cost to someone. They taught me that I am responsible for my actions, and that all my actions or lack of action, is a personal choice, and that I should own that choice and take responsibility for it. I am only a victim of my own choice. They taught me that what happened in the past is done; what counts is what I do now for the future. Because of these values that were instilled in me, I have observed and learned that people who are given too many things without having to work for them, or simply demand them, expect that others will take care of them and give them what they want, and then they become angry and indignant when they don’t get it. This is evident in our society today.

I have learned that marriage, or any relationship worth having and keeping, is not a 50/50 proposition. It is 100/100…an all or nothing commitment by both parties. It will never work if one person always gives more than the other. I have learned that money will not buy happiness, though it can rent it for a short while. I have learned that money is not the root of all evil, it is simply a tool. How a person obtains that money and how it is used determines who or what is evil. I have learned that amassing a mountain of possessions will make one look successful, but does not guarantee success in life. I have learned that rushing through work, vacations, children, the journey through life without lifting one’s head to appreciate the scenery just to reach a destination, perhaps retirement, is not what life is about. The entire journey is the destination and what it’s all about! Stop to enjoy the sights, smell the roses, hug, love, and be with your children in the moment, be with whoever you’re with and wherever you are in the moment, watch the birds, wonder at clouds, let the beauty of a sunset bring you to tears, be honest but be kind about things, do the right things for the right reasons, do no harm, and love as though your heart has never been broken.

And when you have lost a loved one or a dear friend to death, grieve. It is natural and no one needs permission to grieve. Grieve as you will, as long and as hard as you need to because there is no right way or wrong way, nor is there a specific amount of time in which to grieve. Grief is an individual thing and must be dealt with or it will eat at you from the inside. Try to remember that the amount of grief you have is directly proportional to how much you have loved. Seek out others, such as a bereavement group, who are going through what you are because they will understand and accept you the way you are. There is strength in numbers, and a bereavement group is a safe place for your grief and your feelings. You will help each other, you will cry together, you will talk with each other, you will bare your feelings with each other, you will crawl together, you will eventually stand together, and you will become stronger together until you are able to face life again as your own person. Though it may hurt, give grief time, and don’t be hard on yourself. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto 27 in 1849, per Wikipedia:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Lastly, and I don’t care who knows or what they think, I believe in God and that Jesus the Christ is His son and died on the cross for my sins, and for the sins of mankind. I’ve believed for a long time, though for many years I thought He had deserted me. He had not. It was I who turned away from Him, and through Him found my way back. He was always with me. My belief helped me through my grief when I lost my wife to cancer in 2010. Though I was angry at God for my loss, I never lost faith in Him. I talked to Him, screamed at Him, and prayed to Him several times a day for weeks…and months…and when I was ready to listen, I was given answers in the most unexpected ways. Only once was my prayer answered as I asked, and that was when I prayed that He would take my wife home to Him so she wouldn’t suffer anymore. The next morning, after I had cleaned her up and put her favorite nightie on her and kissed her, with just a sigh she left me to go home with God. It broke my heart and it took a long time to heal, but with His help, I did. Though my other prayers were never answered as I asked, I always received more than what I needed when He knew I was ready. This I believe.

These are some of the important things I have learned in seventy years on this earth. I am blessed to celebrate one more birthday!

Good Days, Bad Days

We all have Good Days and Bad Days, and each sometimes lasts for days…or weeks. My entire life…perhaps like yours…has been a series of peaks and valleys…good days, bad days, and the “tweener” days on the way up to good or down to bad days. My parents were down-to-earth people and very caring and loving. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been told, gently, that the only thing that I’m guaranteed on this planet is that they will love me no matter what. They may not necessarily like me or whatever it is or will be that I do, but they will always love me. They also reinforced the adage that it doesn’t make a bit of difference if I have a good day or bad day, it’s how I choose to deal with it that determines what kind of person I turn out to be. They also told me that I was not guaranteed to be a success at anything or that I was owed anything. It was up to me to make good or bad of whatever opportunity confronted me.

I remember the first time I began to realize that I was not the center of the universe. I was not quite four years old and observed that mom’s tummy was getting bigger. It was then that she and dad told me I was going to have a baby brother or sister. There was going to be a baby in the family. I wasn’t exactly excited for them…or for me. Suddenly, I knew I wasn’t going to be the center of mom’s attention. I began to feel somewhat displaced. I think my parents knew that, so they included me in the “we’re going to have a baby” thing. They began to build me up by telling me that I was going to be the Big Brother, and that they needed me to help them raise my brother or sister, and that it was an important responsibility. They also told me that they would not love me any less, that life didn’t work that way. They told me that life was full of love and they would always love me, and they would love the new baby just as much as they loved me. The days were getting better.

Through the second grade, school was pretty good; recesses weren’t so good. I was small for my age and got picked on regularly. Class-time was good…a peak. Recesses were the valleys. Summers before and after the second grade were so good. I looked forward to them. Then began the third grade. I began to get shoved around a lot more, and a couple of bullies emerged. I toughed it out until I went home one day with the pocket ripped off my shirt. Mom asked me what happened so I told her. She repaired my shirt and quietly ordered a set of half-sized boxing gloves from Sears. A couple of weeks later, they showed up. She was the one who taught me how to box. She had learned from her brothers as she was growing up in the Philippines.

I believe it was just after Christmas, I got a chance to use what I had learned from her. The class bully decided to pick on me as I was putting on my jacket to go out for recess. So I pulled him into the coat closet, put my head on his chest, and as he was pounding on my back, I worked his stomach over pretty good. We finally fought to a draw…we hurt each other…but he never touched me again. That was a good day.

Things got a little better throughout the rest of grade school, junior high, and into high school, except for a couple of skirmishes with another bully, but that finally evened out, too. It was when I was sixteen, though, that I was reminded…in the Grand Scheme of Things…my problems were NOT crushing or insurmountable.

As a prelude to this, I must say that I believed in God and Jesus. I did have some problems with Catholic summer school around the age of twelve as I was being taught the Baltimore Catechism and was an altar boy. I had questions as to ‘why’ certain things were done and when they were mandated, such as, why did I have to confess my sins to the priest and receive penance to do? Why couldn’t I talk directly to God or Jesus and confess my sins directly to them? Was there a large “golden book” of penance? Was there a points system for various sins and was the penance, i.e. how many “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers” or “Acts of Contrition, based on the points system? I just wanted to know. If I was going to be a good Catholic, I wanted to know why I needed to do these things, but that was just me and my curiosity. The sisters had no patience with me and either didn’t know the history or didn’t want to take the time to explain it to me. I have always suspected that they didn’t know the history and didn’t want to show their ignorance. They probably had learned it all by rote, and expected the same of all of us in the catechism class. So, I got whacked on the knuckles with a ruler a lot. It got bad enough that I didn’t want to be an altar boy anymore. For me, those were bad days.

Anyway, when I turned sixteen, my mom told me that she knew I was having a struggle with church and…as an unheard-of gift to me…I didn’t have to go anymore if I didn’t want to. She asked me if I believed in God and Jesus, and I told her yes. I had for a long time. She breathed a sigh of relief and told me she hoped I would find the answers I was looking for, and she hoped that someday I would return to a church I could relate to. In the meantime, I should keep on praying. That meant the world to me. That was a particularly good day.

A couple of weeks later, I got my driver’s license and was soon able to take the car and begin going to dances and dating without double-dating with another couple. It wasn’t long after that I got dumped by my girlfriend. I should have been used to it. I got dumped regularly because I was ‘too nice,’ but this time it was because I was ‘too bad.’ I guess it was something I said. From that point, I couldn’t buy a date with anyone from school for the rest of the year. I know because I tried. Those were bad days for a teenager.

One spring Saturday, a few weeks before school was out, the weather got pretty nasty. The wind began to blow in gusts around forty miles per hour, the sky darkened, it began to rain, and I could see whitecaps on Puget Sound from the living room picture windows. It was a day suited to how I felt. I got dressed, put on my jacket and headed for ladder to the beach a couple of neighbors to the south. I wondered if I was making the right decision as I was descending the almost seventy feet of ladder and the wind and rain were buffeting me about, but I hung on and kept descending. When I reached the beach, the four-foot waves were crashing on the beach just below the high tide mark where all the big logs were. I waited for the spray to abate before I made my way behind the logs to stand on a rock behind them, right at the base of the bank.

The wind was blowing in my face and I could feel the sting of the large rain drops on my forehead and cheeks. I could taste the salt spray from the crashing waves. It was all I could do to maintain my balance on the rock whenever the wind would gust. The sound of the wind, the rain, and the crashing waves was almost deafening and I remember standing there, looking up at the dark sky. I’m not sure if the frustration I was feeling boiled up, but I remember screaming as loud and as hard as I could exactly when a wind gust hit me and the waves crashed, rolling along the beach and sending their spray up and over me. The wind seemed to rip the sound from me and the crashing waves must have buried whatever sound escaped me because I couldn’t hear myself screaming, not even in my own head.

I stopped and took a breath. I was so surprised. I stood and let the wind, rain and salt spray hit me again and again. As I looked around, I can remember looking up at the dark sky, I can remember watching the waves crashing on the beach and against the logs and wondering at the power behind them, and I can remember feeling the sting of the raindrops on my forehead and cheeks and mingling with the tears forced by the wind, blurring my vision until I blinked them away. I can remember tasting the salt spray. In my life to that moment, I had never felt so insignificant. I stood on that rock for another few minutes, taking in the storm as it battered the beach, the logs, and me. I felt so small in the world, yet it was as if God was speaking to me…and giving me perspective. My problems didn’t seem so large anymore. Soaked to the bone, I climbed the ladder and went home feeling relieved and very calm. Life would go on for me.

My mom and dad were great teachers, great leaders, and incredible parents. They had taught me a lot about life and how to live it, through the good days and bad days. I needed to remember those things. They taught me that I should do the very best I could with the divine gifts that were given to me, and they taught me not to think too highly of myself because somewhere there was almost always going to be someone luckier, smarter, faster, stronger, and better than me at any given task I was performing, whether it was in the classroom, in music, in sports competitions, on the job, or in life in general. They taught me that people have different talents, and while some may excel at only one thing, others can have slightly lesser talents across a broader spectrum and be just as valuable because of those gifts. The ‘trick’ was to find that area where one could excel, or at least, where one could be successful. Only once in my life have I ever been ‘the best’ at anything, and that was when I won my fourth-grade spelling bee.
My mom and dad also taught me that good days and bad days are part of life…everyone’s lives…and how we react to those days defines who we are as people. The bad days need to be experienced so we know how good the good days can be. They taught me not to feel sorry for myself when I was having a bad day…or a string of them…because, once again, there was always someone who was having a worse day than I was. I lost my Grandpa Ellison when I was eleven. I was sad and angry that I didn’t get to say good-bye to him at his funeral, but my father had lost his father. I lost my first fiancée in an auto accident in late 1967, but her parents had lost their only daughter only two years after they lost their only son, just twenty-one, to a stroke. My brother and I lost our father in 1977, but my mother had lost her husband, her one Great Love.

My life had many peaks and valleys, and occasions where I couldn’t tell one from the other. One occasion I remember was immediately following the plane crash in Anchorage that kept me from returning to Vietnam. Heavily sedated, burned, beat up, bandaged, unrecognizable, and lying in my bed in a room with two others, I watched and listened to a young man I knew, Private Charles Echols from Houston, Texas, die in his bed across the room, surrounded by doctors and nurses trying to keep him alive. He was nineteen. I was twenty-three. At that time, the line between a bad day and a good day blurred for me. I had thought then that Charles was having the better day, though later I would wonder why I lived and he didn’t.

Finally, when I was air-evac’d to the burn ward at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, I saw others who were in worse shape than I was. Yes, I was having a stretch of bad, painful days, but many others there were so much worse off than I. Until then, I had only known what it meant, but when I arrived at BAMC it was there in front of my eyes and it was no longer just a saying. That stuck with me and drove the lesson home.

Through the good days and bad days of the years following my discharge from the hospital and the army…including a marriage, the birth of two sons, a divorce, job changes, meeting and marrying Lou, adopting her sons to be mine, too, and the loss of my mother…nothing could have prepared me for the loss of my wife of twenty-eight years. A string of bad days followed, stretching into weeks and then months. Thankfully, I joined a bereavement group to be among others who had suffered similar losses, and to learn to cope with the pain of loss and the loneliness. It was there I met a lady who had lost her husband of almost fifty years, her brother-in-law, and one other family member in the span of two months. It was difficult for all of us, but we formed bonds and drew strength from one another. Now, just over six years later, four of our original twelve continue to meet for brunch every Tuesday. The oldest lady, Ellie, doesn’t come anymore because she is preparing her home for her daughter who is recovering from a stroke. She’ll be moving in with Ellie after she’s discharged from the rehab facility. The oldest man, R.J., passed away last December. Don has remarried and brings his wife to our Friendship Brunches now. The other two ladies, Sandra and Darlene, still attend as I do. We have survived and thrived. I am so happy to have found love again, too, and my days now are good. In varying degrees, I think all our days now are much better than they were six years ago.

Good days and bad days…sometimes I think it’s all matter of perspective. I don’t know if anyone has seen the movie or remembers The Thirteenth Warrior starring Antonio Banderas. It turned out to be a rather bloody movie that premiered in 1999 but, believe it or not, the first time I saw it was on HBO shortly after Lou died in 2010.  I spent a lot time alone then watching movies as a distraction to my grief. A particular scene comes to mind when I think of ‘perspective.’ After the Vikings found the ‘bear clan’s’ (eaters-of-the-dead) mother-figure and Buliwyf, the Viking warriors’ leader killed her and was dealt a soon-to-be-fatal scratch by her poisonous claw, the Vikings fought their way down underground caves through a good portion of the ‘bear clan’ tribe. A wounded and exhausted Helfdane, played by Clive Russell, decides to stay behind in the cave tunnels and cover their escape. He knows he won’t make it out alive, but he remarks to the sorrowful Ahmad, played by Antonio Banderas, who was trying to help him, “Today was a good day. Run along now…go!” He even smiled and winked as he turned to face the approaching enemy, knowing he was going to die in battle and go to Valhalla. As I said, sometimes it’s a matter of perspective.

I am so grateful and thank God for these good days, yet I thank Him, too, for the bad days because they are the measure of what good days are. During our Ash Wednesday service last week, the following prayer was offered, and it seemed most fitting for this writing:

Let me rejoice and be glad. For I am aware, O God, that you have given me life in a world I cannot always manage. I cannot control events and circumstances, nor can I escape involvement in human hurt and pain. I cannot ward off illness and suffering either from my own life or from the lives of those I love. But I can rejoice that each day brings the marks of your Presence. I can be glad that nowhere is outside the circle of your care. So keep me living, O Lord, not lopsidedly but wholly. Keep me alive to your Presence in our world everywhere. In your name and Spirit, help me to reach out hands of help and hope to others.

 This is the day you have made, this day and tomorrow and tomorrow.

 Amen.

What’s Your Grief?

People grieve over the loss of almost everything, whether it was good or bad. How’s that for a blanket statement? But think about it for just a moment. I did…and I have. There are different levels of grief, from a twinge of grief to the gut-wrenching, soul-searing grief over the loss of a spouse. Yes, I grieved the deaths of pets, friends, comrades-in-arms, family members, and my wife of twenty-eight years. Those losses ran the full range of grief, with the loss of my wife being the absolute worst. However, there are other things that don’t usually come to mind as something for which to grieve.

One can grieve the loss of a pet that was stolen or ran away, the loss of a friendship gone bad or a good friend moving away, the loss of a family member who wants nothing more to do with the family or is shunned, and the loss of a spouse to divorce. One can also grieve the loss of a broken favorite toy, a piece of jewelry, a family heirloom that was passed down through the generations, the loss of a job, the loss of a home to a storm or fire or from the loss of a job, the loss of one’s innocence, the loss of a childhood, the loss of one’s freedom, and the list goes on.

In each case, it appears that grief and grieving are the end result of the loss of some personal acquisition to which one has become attached. Acquisition + Attachment + (Loss) = Grief. Simple, no? No! Nothing is ever that simple when human emotions are involved. Generally, it’s Acquisition + Attachment + (Loss) = (1) Anger, then (2) Grief.

For instance, causes for divorce are numerous but the aftermath leaves either one or both parties angry at first. It’s the blame game…he did or she did whatever. Then, perhaps, with some self-evaluation or soul-searching it is discovered that both parties are, at least, partially to blame with one party usually more to blame than the other. When either reach that stage of realization, it is also possible that some kind of grief ensues because of failure, broken dreams, and blaming one’s self for the failure. Sometimes, that grief arises from knowing it was a bad choice in the first place.

But how about something else? Is it possible to grieve the loss of an addiction? In retrospect, I believe it is possible. So…what’s to grieve about losing an addiction? First of all, one really doesn’t ‘lose’ an addiction. One ‘recovers’ from an addiction. One also spends a lifetime recovering from an addiction because I don’t believe one is ever cured from it. But grieving over being a recovering addict? Really? I believe so. An addict…even a recovering one…will almost always remember the first feeling of euphoria from letting go of inhibitions and from the ‘feel-good’ endorphin rush caused by the drug of choice. Perhaps one can quit after that first time, but generally, the addict will want a repeat performance of that feel-good endorphin rush so he or she will do it again…and again and again. Soon it will take more of whatever one’s sinful pleasure is to reach that feel-good place, and then it’s too late. You see, the body and brain have become addicted to that feel-good endorphin and the drug of choice that produces it. The body and brain can’t help it. It has much to do with genetics.

How and why does one start down this path? For a number of reasons possibly beginning with peer pressure as a teen. If you ‘belong’ to a social group, then you’re not cool if you don’t partake. One may risk becoming an outcast of that group if he or she chooses not to participate in drinking or drugging. Some people are actually smart enough or scared enough to walk away from that group regardless of what the group thinks of them. Others are afraid of being shunned or ostracized, so they do it to be part of the group. Others begin because there may be emotional pain that begs to be eased, and for a while, drugs or alcohol will dull that pain. When one finds that it takes more and more of the drug of choice (and yes, alcohol is a drug) to dull that pain, it’s too late. Physiologically, one has become addicted.

How then does one find the road to recovery? In most cases, it is because of an intervention by family members. Sometimes, it works the first time. I think that in many of those cases, it won’t. You see, the addict has to realize that he or she really is an addict and has to want to be treated. Many addicts need to hit their low point, bottom out, a life-or-death realization, and want to do something about it. That low point may be the possibility of losing their family, their job, a loved one who will end the relationship, their home, their car, waking up in jail without remembering what got them there, an auto accident that has injured or killed someone, or are faced with sickness and death from drug overdoses or from drug damage to internal organs. Unfortunately for some, that low point ends up being death. On the brighter side, there are many addicts who are forced into treatment because of court order, divorce, loss of child custody or whatever, and once they are being treated realize that it really is for the better.  Sometimes it sticks and they want to recover and stay sober and clean.

So what’s to grieve about when one is recovering? How about this? If one is an alcoholic, maybe the taste of a particular drink was enjoyed more than any other. Perhaps it’s the enjoyment of an ice-cold beer on a hot summer day, or the social interactions sitting around a table at a tavern with a group of friends over a couple of pitchers of beer, relaxing with a friend or alone with a glass of wine after a long day at the office, or a good stiff drink at a bar with a friend or acquaintance to commiserate a horrible day at work. Perhaps it’s knowing that, if one is recovering, that these things, these occurrences will never be able to happen again IF one wants to remain sober. Perhaps it is the loss of the camaraderie at a certain bar or tavern, or the loss of that group of ‘friends’ at a former favorite watering hole, or the loss of that way of life.

I believe that to recover successfully as an addict or alcoholic requires a lifestyle change. I don’t believe that changing one thing…like just not drinking or using…will work if one continues to hang out in the same places with the same people. You see, I believe that those same people will see the recovering person as a threat to their lifestyle and will do anything…and possibly everything…to sabotage that recovery. I believe it is healthy for a recovering person to acknowledge that he or she misses certain things about drinking or using, and yes, even acknowledge feelings of grief for not being able to do what one did before. To me, that is the ‘elephant in the room.’ If no one acknowledges that, if one ignores that, it may become unreal, it may be that it didn’t happen, so it will happen again. Like the loss of someone near and dear to death, it should be acknowledged and talked about in order to help one in recovery heal from the emotional (and physical) withdrawal from the addiction. I believe that once it’s talked out, the person in recovery will be more able to look forward to the good things awaiting, like better health, better relationships, a clearer mind, and new adventures with new and real friends, not just drinking or drugging buddies. I do strongly recommend AA or NA meetings to be with others of the same mind, suffering the same physical and emotional withdrawals. Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) may have started in 1935, but its principles and teachings are still valid and still work today. And like a bereavement group to help those grieving over the loss of a spouse or a loved one, being with others going through the same thing and facing that grief and getting help through AA or NA is the shortest way through the darkness to recovery.

Are you wondering how I think I know this when I’m not an alcoholism or drug counselor? It’s because I’m a recovering alcoholic, too. I’m drawing on my own experiences. I took my last drink on June 12, 1980. The next day, I checked into one of the Milam Recovery Centers for twenty-eight days…four full weeks…and emerged sober. My addiction was treated as a medical condition and not a character flaw. Upon entry, I was hospitalized and was knocked out for three or four days and fed vitamins intravenously…mostly a liquid form of Vitamin B Complex, a concoction of liquid nourishment and a saline solution to keep me hydrated…so I wouldn’t hurt myself from the DTs, or delirium tremens. I had been drinking from a fifth to a fifth-and-a-half of Scotch a day for a long time, mostly to kill the memories and pain from Vietnam. I was also drinking “at” other things.

Over the course of several years, I had felt deprived because I wanted to finish college and get my degree in Architecture and was denied that dream. I had met my wife when I was going to college on the GI bill. Though I told her what my dream was, we married. I had told her I wanted to wait to have children until after I had graduated and had my degree so I could get the job I wanted. Unfortunately, her biological clock went off a lot sooner than mine and she became pregnant. There are always two sides to a story. This is my side only.

After our first son was born, I continued to attend school and then got a job working part-time for a local bank in the Bank Properties Division. She had become a stay-at-home mother, and when I got home from school in the morning and work in the afternoon, I tried to do my school assignments. As it turned out, she wanted me to get up and take care of the baby at night so she could get some sleep because it tired her out being mommy all day. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little son, and I love him so much now. But I almost had a nervous breakdown because I couldn’t handle school, work, and getting up twice in the middle of the night to change or feed him to let her sleep, and then do it all over again the next day. I was exhausted physically and mentally. After several months of that, I had to drop out of school and start working full-time. Fortunately, my job went well and I was selected to be a charter member of a new department, the Space Planning Department. I was able to put my drafting (drawing) skills to work planning new office spaces for other banking departments that were growing. I was making enough money to buy us a home in the suburbs. I became a Project Coordinator, then a Project Manager. My responsibilities increased and I was doing well, though I ‘grieved’ the loss of my dream to become an architect. I really began to drink.

Four years later, I was selected to be a charter member of another new department, the Furnishings Section of Corporate Purchasing and we had our second child. My job was to purchase furniture for branches and administrative office spaces in the state of Washington, as well as to help develop furniture standards for the different ‘classes’ of branch banks in the state identified by city populations and the assets (deposits) they had. I became a Purchasing Officer. I began to drink even more, and that was the beginning of my liquid lunches. However, I was seldom drunk from all that. As I drank more, I became a functioning alcoholic. I flat-lined emotionally. I was apparently ‘depressed,’ but now I needed to drink just to function.

My wife at the time used to mark my bottles to see how much I drank, and I’d put away half a fifth at home. However, I’d drink my lunch at work with others under the guise of “business.” It was acceptable back in the 70’s. Most of the time, my liquid lunches consisted of six to ten drinks and then I’d return to work…most of the time. After work, I’d go home and have a few shots to ‘unwind.’ It was she who told me I should consider treatment because her railing at me to stop drinking so much failed. After giving it some thought, I decided I wanted to get off that merry-go-round and get away. I agreed to enter a treatment facility. By that time, I was having blackouts where I’d wake up on the freeway driving seventy miles per hour and not know where I was until I saw the next exit sign. It scared me. I am so thankful I didn’t hurt anyone when I was driving.

Twenty-eight days after I checked in, I was released back into the world sober. Unfortunately, my wife and I didn’t understand that I would not be the ‘same old person’ as I was before I began drinking so heavily. My mind became clearer much before my body’s cravings for alcohol subsided. I became obsessed with not drinking ever again. I would dream about drinking again just so I could taste good Scotch once more. I began to attend AA meetings to the tune of two per evening and as many as three on weekend days. I was determined I would not drink again. I became selfish with my time because I was working on me. She had no clue how strong the pull of alcohol was on me and I needed to combat it.

Over the years, it seemed she had become more possessive of me and wanted me to be around just to be around. Her friends had become my friends, and my friends were only at work. I had cut ties with all my old drinking buddies, and I missed that camaraderie. I began to feel stuck. I began to crave just a bit of freedom, to be left alone once in a while. I needed it to recharge myself but wasn’t allowed the time to do it. I would seek out AA meetings to grant me that time. As time passed, I realized that the AA meetings I attended were very repetitive. People there seemed as though they were on a “dry drunk,” talking about the same things over and over and over again just to keep from drinking. God bless them for not drinking, but I needed more than that. I needed to grow. I didn’t need to hear that drivel over and over again. They were showing me what I didn’t want to be. I began to feel ‘stuck’ there, too. I attended my last meeting on my Second Birthday, when I got my coin for being two years sober. I thanked them all for their camaraderie and thanked them for helping keep me sober. I told them, too, that I now needed more than I could get at the meetings and also for showing me what I didn’t want to turn into. When I finished talking, the room was silent. I wished them all a lifetime of sobriety, then I left…never to return.

It was shortly thereafter that my marriage fell apart. For years, I couldn’t be in the garage changing the oil and tuning up my car without being checked on every fifteen minutes. She didn’t need anything, she just wanted to know how long it would be before I was finished even though I told her it would take me a couple of hours when I first went to the garage. That was just at home. I would also get calls at work every fifteen to thirty minutes to see how and what I was doing. I was continually being interrupted in the middle of working on from twenty to forty small projects and two to three large projects concurrently. I couldn’t get anything done because my train of thought was being constantly derailed. I had asked her to please not call so often so I could get things done, that I would call her when I finished what I was doing, but she didn’t listen…or couldn’t keep herself from calling. Much of this was going on before I entered treatment. It continued in earnest when I returned home afterward. It was hell for me. I felt smothered, like I couldn’t breathe, so in a moment of indiscretion, I reached out to someone else. She suspected that I did and asked me about it. I told her the truth and I told her why. I wanted to talk about it, but she didn’t. She was very hurt, and I couldn’t blame her for that. I would have been, too. I was sorry I hurt her so badly. She asked me to leave, so I did. When she asked me to leave and didn’t want to talk about it, I decided I wasn’t going back. It was over. We separated and divorced shortly thereafter. I know that hurt my boys, too.

Did I mourn my divorce? Yes, I did. It had failed. I had failed. We had failed. I knew she blamed it all on me, perhaps rightly so. But on the other hand, it was freeing for me. I’m sure now, after over thirty-six years, we are both better off for it. So you see, there are many things for which people grieve. Most of us can’t help it because we have emotions. What we grieve and how we grieve isn’t necessarily right or wrong, it simply is. But whatever it is that we do grieve, I believe we must acknowledge it, face it, and take ownership of it in order to get through it and heal from it. I have managed to do that.

I have also not had a drink since June 12, 1980, and I no longer have the desire or the cravings I once had. So, if any of you hear or read about me dying from acute alcohol poisoning or alcoholism, I will have been kidnapped by several large men and physically forced to drink until I’ve died because there is no way I would ever do that on my own now. I have invested too much time on my sobriety, and I’m worth it. I don’t much care if anyone else agrees with me. After all, it’s my life and God is now in it with me. I have been blessed beyond measure.