So many times in my church, I hear talks about the blessings of regular temple attendance. I probably don't attend as often as I ought to. Particularly considering that I pass seven temples on the way to work and I work within walking distance of the Salt Lake Temple...so I can't add any insight into the blessings that come to us with regular temple attendance. But I can tell you that being worthy to attend the temple saved my job once.
When I worked in Wisconsin, the company I worked for was owned by a man and his wife who were some of the finest people I'd ever met. The owner of the company was the kind of man who would often drive by late at night, see the light on in my office as I was working to meet a deadline, turn his car around, drive to Subway, and bring me a sandwich and drink as he sat in my office and asked me whether or not they were working me too hard and what they could do to ease my burden so that I could spend more time with my family and less time at work. He was a deeply religious man who often told me how he admired my religion's emphasis on family.
After a year working there, they decided to semi-retire and handed the daily management of the company over to a man who, by all reports, hated the very ground on which I walked. I never could understand why and none of my co-workers who told me that he had confided in them about his hatred for me could tell me why. Several theories were floated...I was a Texan and he hated George W. Bush with the white hot hatred of a thousand suns so he hated me as well....I was the only one in my company who fully understood how to do the job I was hired to do and so he disliked not having more control over the process....the most popular theory was that I was a big person and he was a cigar-chomping small man who, if psychiatrists had been in his company for fifteen minutes, would be rushing to write papers proposing to rename "Napoleon Complex" to "Skrowonski-itis"
But, whatever the reason for his dislike of me, it was something I lived with. I kept my head down, did my work, and did everything I could to not give him an excuse to fire me...then one day, he got the excuse he was looking for.
We had been hired by a construction company to design a water park. The initial job came in over budget and so all departments were asked to work with the sub-contractors to cut down costs. My department was asked to cut a quarter of a million from the cost and so I went back and forth between the two HVAC companies that were bidding on the job to get suggestions on how we might do what was needed to get the job within budget.
On my own, I discovered a possible way to cut more than a quarter of a million from the job. This job had a North Woods Lodge-type feel so it featured steep sloping roofs. I found a small obscure portion of the roof that would support equipment allowing me to go with a much less expensive system and made the changes over the weekend.
The following Monday, I went to our client with my proposed changes as well as my estimate of the potential savings. When my ideas were green-lit, I said, "Great! I'll pass this along to the two HVAC companies". It was then that I was instructed by our client to do something I considered unethical. I was told to give the information to only one of the companies and leave the other in the dark. I took my concerns to the CEO who told me to do as our client had instructed.
When the new bids came in, the company that had been informed of the new changes had a clear and distinct advantage over the one left in the dark. The owner of the company who had been left out of the loop called me in bewilderment. During the course of our conversation, he said, "I don't know where they're getting their numbers from. Are you giving them the same information that you're giving me?"
My heart came to my throat as I thought of all the possible ramifications of telling the truth...none of which were immediately good for me"
After a moment's hesitation, I said, "No, I'm not."
"Can you give me the same information that you're giving them?"
Another moment's hesitation..."No I can't"
"WHY NOT!?!?!?"
"You need to take that up with our client"
I'm not sure exactly what the conversation was between the two companies but when the smoke cleared, our client had been threatened with a lawsuit and had made some settlement agreement with the company that had been left out of the loop.
I was called into my CEO's office and, when I got there, Our CEO, and our client's CEO were in the office, both glared at me as I sat down and took my seat. I was about to be fired.
I was raked over the coals for the better part of thirty minutes being told how I had caused embarrassment to our firm and our client's firm because of my inability to maintain confidentiality. I heard the door open behind me, I assumed it was the head of Human Resources coming to give me my severance papers.
It was the owner of the company who came into the room and took a seat next to me. As he sat down, the CEO of the company asked me, "What were you thinking of?"
There was a bit of a pause. I glanced over to the owner and recalled all of the discussions we had had about my religion and how he had always expressed admiration for our ideals...and then, I reached into my wallet and pulled out my temple recommend.
"Do you see this piece of paper?" I asked. "This is one of the most precious things I own. It allows me to go to a place I consider to be one of the most sacred places on earth and worship my Heavenly Father". The CEO looked a bit confused but he allowed me to continue. "Every year, I have to have this piece of paper renewed. During that process, I have to be interviewed twice; each time by a man that I recognize as being called of God to represent Him. Both of them will ask me several questions, one of which will be, 'Are you honest in your dealings with your fellow man?'. You ask me what I was thinking? I was thinking how I was going to answer that question the next time I was asked."
I stopped talking and left my temple recommend on the table. After an awkward moment of silence, the owner of the company reached out, took the recommend, handed it back to me and then turned to the men on the other side of the able and said, "Gentlemen, this meeting is over".
Eventually the owner decided to sell the company but for the time he was there, I was assured by people in the know that I was untouchable.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Portrait
29 years ago tomorrow, Kerry Huber against all better judgement, rescued me from bachelorhood. I knew Kerry exactly three weeks before I proposed to her. In a way, it was an arranged marriage. It came about in a rather unorthodox way. (but when have I ever been orthodox about anything?)
As he officially released me from my mission, my Stake President asked me if I would like a blessing. I'm not certain if it was a usual offer but he was my Stake President and his son was my best friend and, in high school I had spent more waking hours at his home than my own so I looked to him and his wife as secondary parents. In light of all that, I readily accepted.
During the blessing, he paused for what seemed an awfully long time. In retrospect, I now know exactly what was going on because it's happened to me since. During the course of a blessing, you're prompted to say something out of the ordinary and, for a while, you kind of have to chew on it. Like when Kerry lost her diamond bracelet, the very first really nice piece of jewelry I'd given her and, in retracing her steps, she realized it could be anywhere up to and including a garbage truck that had carried away tree clippings earlier that day.
She was inconsolable and asked me for a blessing during which I was prompted to promise her she would get it back (I normally don't involve Heavenly Father on the matter of lost jewelry but this was a very sentimental piece and my wife was crying)
Anyway, when I felt prompted to give my wife that blessing, I hemmed and hawed for a moment thinking over the rammifications. Here I was using my priesthood to promise returned jewelry to my wife. It didn't feel right....on a smaller scale, like Nephi wrestling with The Spirit over the demise of Laban.
So, when I was prompted to give that promise to my wife, I kind of backpedaled and said, in my heart, "You know, Heavenly Father, if that's how you feel about it, why don't you just tell her yourself and leave me out of the whole thing?"
"Tell her"
"Okay...but...this doesn't feel right, Heavenly Father. I'm using my priesthood here to promise a blessing to my wife and it seems kind of vain"
"Tell Her"
"Okay...but....you're SURE she's going to get it back? Because, if I promise this thing and she doesn't get it back....I'm gonna look awful fool.."
"Would you just tell her already?
So I promised my wife she would get her bracelet back.
"Now tell her again"
The next day, I walked out of the house, went straight to the garage, opened the door and looked in the bottom of the fertilizer spreader to see my wife's bracelet lying there. (whew)
Anyway...that kind of exchange must have been what was happening in President Bassett's mind while he was paused in my blessing because, the next words out of his mouth were, "Tom, not everyone has somebody that they are supposed to marry, but you do. I bless you that, when you see her, you will know it instantly"
Two years later, I was talking to my girlfriend, Lisa at institute when I looked across the room and saw Kerry. The next thing I thought was, "what am I going to tell Lisa?"
Kerry and I were engaged three weeks later and married four months later. Over the years, I have seen the wisdom of our Heavenly Father in placing the two of us together. When the school district we were in was refusing to give our special needs son the services he needed, I watched in awe as the lioness I married argued with no fewer than twelve school district officials and lawyers. At the end of three hours, they finally threw in the towel and gave us everything we were asking for.
While I was recuperating from my accident, when growing a beard was the only thing I could do by myself, she fed and dressed and bathed me for the better part of a year. She never complained once or made me feel like the service she rendered me was a burden.
Over the years, she has been my companion, my confidant, my willing scrabble partner and, when I've needed it, the thorn in my side and the boot to my rear.
Our courtship was brief and so we had to get to know each other better after we married. We are both dominant personalities and so we've had to work out many many compromises over the last three decades. Most of these have concerned my personal wardrobe choices. If she hates a tie that I love, the compromise we work out is that she tells me I can keep it and then one day, several months later, I will look through my closet and realize that the tie we argued over hasn't been seen in quite a while.
If I could change one thing about her, it would be her own self-deprication. Although I love to take pictures, my wife has never been a willing subject, telling me that she want's to get a better haircut or lose some weight first.
Every time she offers these excuses, I look at her and wonder what the heck she's talking about. She looks more beautiful today than the day we married and I realize that I cannot look at her without filtering everything I take in through the three decades of our life together. And so I wrote her this poem and, in honor of the anniversary of her agreeing to rescue me, I share it with our friends:
(I'm a little ham-fisted when it comes to poetry so all I can manage is iambic pentameter)
The Portrait
I have no portrait of my wife to place upon a wall
There's none within my wallet, to share with one and all
There lies a canvas in my heart that's stretched out through the years
and with a brush of memories, I paint her portrait there
I have so many memories, from each of them I choose
her colors vibrant and bold or soft and subtle hues
and every time I add a stroke, I glance again to see
the portrait in my heart has grown more beautiful to me
Across the altar of The Lord, her lovliness and grace
are captured in my memory, and form the portrait's face
The day that our first son was born, I watched her hold the child
and it is from that memory, I paint the portrait's smile
Each tender word, each warm caress, each moment that I prize
are captured in my memory and shines within her eyes
And every day of triumph, and those of pain and grief
adds character, and contrast, and beauty underneath.
There are no borders in my heart; no barriers, nor fences
to mark the place the portrait stops, and where my soul commences
The countenance shall never fade; the colors never set
upon this cherished rendering, that's not quite finished yet.
As he officially released me from my mission, my Stake President asked me if I would like a blessing. I'm not certain if it was a usual offer but he was my Stake President and his son was my best friend and, in high school I had spent more waking hours at his home than my own so I looked to him and his wife as secondary parents. In light of all that, I readily accepted.
During the blessing, he paused for what seemed an awfully long time. In retrospect, I now know exactly what was going on because it's happened to me since. During the course of a blessing, you're prompted to say something out of the ordinary and, for a while, you kind of have to chew on it. Like when Kerry lost her diamond bracelet, the very first really nice piece of jewelry I'd given her and, in retracing her steps, she realized it could be anywhere up to and including a garbage truck that had carried away tree clippings earlier that day.
She was inconsolable and asked me for a blessing during which I was prompted to promise her she would get it back (I normally don't involve Heavenly Father on the matter of lost jewelry but this was a very sentimental piece and my wife was crying)
Anyway, when I felt prompted to give my wife that blessing, I hemmed and hawed for a moment thinking over the rammifications. Here I was using my priesthood to promise returned jewelry to my wife. It didn't feel right....on a smaller scale, like Nephi wrestling with The Spirit over the demise of Laban.
So, when I was prompted to give that promise to my wife, I kind of backpedaled and said, in my heart, "You know, Heavenly Father, if that's how you feel about it, why don't you just tell her yourself and leave me out of the whole thing?"
"Tell her"
"Okay...but...this doesn't feel right, Heavenly Father. I'm using my priesthood here to promise a blessing to my wife and it seems kind of vain"
"Tell Her"
"Okay...but....you're SURE she's going to get it back? Because, if I promise this thing and she doesn't get it back....I'm gonna look awful fool.."
"Would you just tell her already?
So I promised my wife she would get her bracelet back.
"Now tell her again"
The next day, I walked out of the house, went straight to the garage, opened the door and looked in the bottom of the fertilizer spreader to see my wife's bracelet lying there. (whew)
Anyway...that kind of exchange must have been what was happening in President Bassett's mind while he was paused in my blessing because, the next words out of his mouth were, "Tom, not everyone has somebody that they are supposed to marry, but you do. I bless you that, when you see her, you will know it instantly"
Two years later, I was talking to my girlfriend, Lisa at institute when I looked across the room and saw Kerry. The next thing I thought was, "what am I going to tell Lisa?"
Kerry and I were engaged three weeks later and married four months later. Over the years, I have seen the wisdom of our Heavenly Father in placing the two of us together. When the school district we were in was refusing to give our special needs son the services he needed, I watched in awe as the lioness I married argued with no fewer than twelve school district officials and lawyers. At the end of three hours, they finally threw in the towel and gave us everything we were asking for.
While I was recuperating from my accident, when growing a beard was the only thing I could do by myself, she fed and dressed and bathed me for the better part of a year. She never complained once or made me feel like the service she rendered me was a burden.
Over the years, she has been my companion, my confidant, my willing scrabble partner and, when I've needed it, the thorn in my side and the boot to my rear.
Our courtship was brief and so we had to get to know each other better after we married. We are both dominant personalities and so we've had to work out many many compromises over the last three decades. Most of these have concerned my personal wardrobe choices. If she hates a tie that I love, the compromise we work out is that she tells me I can keep it and then one day, several months later, I will look through my closet and realize that the tie we argued over hasn't been seen in quite a while.
If I could change one thing about her, it would be her own self-deprication. Although I love to take pictures, my wife has never been a willing subject, telling me that she want's to get a better haircut or lose some weight first.
Every time she offers these excuses, I look at her and wonder what the heck she's talking about. She looks more beautiful today than the day we married and I realize that I cannot look at her without filtering everything I take in through the three decades of our life together. And so I wrote her this poem and, in honor of the anniversary of her agreeing to rescue me, I share it with our friends:
(I'm a little ham-fisted when it comes to poetry so all I can manage is iambic pentameter)
The Portrait
I have no portrait of my wife to place upon a wall
There's none within my wallet, to share with one and all
There lies a canvas in my heart that's stretched out through the years
and with a brush of memories, I paint her portrait there
I have so many memories, from each of them I choose
her colors vibrant and bold or soft and subtle hues
and every time I add a stroke, I glance again to see
the portrait in my heart has grown more beautiful to me
Across the altar of The Lord, her lovliness and grace
are captured in my memory, and form the portrait's face
The day that our first son was born, I watched her hold the child
and it is from that memory, I paint the portrait's smile
Each tender word, each warm caress, each moment that I prize
are captured in my memory and shines within her eyes
And every day of triumph, and those of pain and grief
adds character, and contrast, and beauty underneath.
There are no borders in my heart; no barriers, nor fences
to mark the place the portrait stops, and where my soul commences
The countenance shall never fade; the colors never set
upon this cherished rendering, that's not quite finished yet.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Last Spanking
We never did spank our kids a lot. In our home, there were only two offenses which were 'spanking-worthy'
1) The child in question did something that endangered himself or others
2) The child in question directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) defied parental authority
Then one day in Foley's during the Christmas holiday rush, Daniel became frustrated with his mother for something or other and he raised his fist to strike her. I blocked the blow and, using his raised hand to turn him around, administered two swift swats to his hindquarters.
Sniffling ensued.
I pulled Daniel off to the side and asked, "Do you know why I spanked you?"
....sniff...."yes"....sniff
"Why did I spank you?", I asked
"'cause you don't love me"
That was the last spanking I ever gave.
(you should thank your older brother, Sarah)
1) The child in question did something that endangered himself or others
2) The child in question directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) defied parental authority
Then one day in Foley's during the Christmas holiday rush, Daniel became frustrated with his mother for something or other and he raised his fist to strike her. I blocked the blow and, using his raised hand to turn him around, administered two swift swats to his hindquarters.
Sniffling ensued.
I pulled Daniel off to the side and asked, "Do you know why I spanked you?"
....sniff...."yes"....sniff
"Why did I spank you?", I asked
"'cause you don't love me"
That was the last spanking I ever gave.
(you should thank your older brother, Sarah)
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Duckars
When I lived in Katy Texas, I would often spend an afternoon fishing at Mary Jo Pecham Park. It was decent, as far as fishing spots go. There was rumored to be a monster catfish lurking somewhere just southwest of the pier that jutted into the eastern part of the pond. I never did see the huge fish but once, I baited one of my lines, cast out and laid it on the shore in order to bait my other line and I saw a hundred dollar rod and reel whip into the pond, following whatever fish had grabbed my bait. On another occasion, as I was watching the waterfowl swim along the pond, one of the ducks just vanished beneath the surface and never came up again. Clearly there was something large enough to drag in a rod and reel and swallow an adult duck in that water.
There was also on this pond, a female mallard with an unusually large brood of ducklings following her about. Where the most I was used to seeing was five or six babies with a mother duck, this one had fifteen. Several of my fellow anglers and I surmised that this particular hen had adopted the ducklings from other hens who had fallen prey to the monster catfish in the pond.
As you can imagine, taking care of such a large number of babies was more than a full time job for this mother hen and, in watching her go about her tasks, it was quite evident that she had developed the organizational skills and the resourcefullness of the Duggar family on television.
When it rained, the mother duck would spread her wings as wide as she could and all of the little ducklings would scramble to take shelter underneath. The problem was that the area of the combined ducklings was greater than the area of the mother ducks wingspan...no problem, they simply devised an ingenious method of taking turns. When a duckling in pack pushed his way under the wing, a duckling in front would pop out much the way a ping pong ball would pop out of a tube stuffed with ping pong balls when you shoved one into the end. The evicted duckling would never try to fight his way back under the wing. Rather, he would scramble around to the back and take his place in the queue that formed back there. All the while the mother duck looked serene and, I would even say 'majestic' as she stood rock still with the rain pelting her and her outstreached wings.
Feeding the ducklings also required a bit of ingenuity on the part of the mother duck. Most of the smaller families of duck had no problem finding enough morsels to feed 5 or 6 young ones but 15 in the same group required the mother duck to be constantly on the move. It soon became apparent that she was a novelty and she quickly decided to take advantage of her unique situation and 'took the show on the road' as it were.
It took about two hours for this mother duck to parade her brood around the lake. And all the time I was there fishing, that's all she did. She would walk around the lake with her ducklings following her and, when she came to a family enjoying a picnic or a fisherman, she would stop and gather her ducklings around her and look up at the humans expectantly.
She was never disappointed. Corners were torn from sandwiches and spare hot dog buns were broken up to feed to the huge family of ducks. They were particularly fond of worms and fishermen were especially sought out to share in the responsibility of feeding her family.
Once, she came up and stopped her family in front of me as I was fishing. I wanted to test her resolve and so I just ignored her for a while as I fished. Her patience with me lasted about fifteen seconds and soon I felt a peck at the toe of my boot.
I stamped my foot at her....
two pecks on my boot....
I gave her a worm. She looked at me as if to say, "are you kidding me?"
another peck.
I laughed out loud...is there anything more courageous than a mother taking care of her children?
I upended both cartons of bait onto the ground in front of the ducklings and started packing to leave.
It didn't look like the fishing was going to be that good anyway.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Get It While It's Hot
In my earlier married years, I used to rent a house from a dear friend of mine...a lot of you know him, Fred Knies. Actually, to call Fred a friend really doesn't do justice to him. He's in my kidney club, one of those rare individuals who, along with my siblings can call me at any time and request one of my kidneys or some bone marrow.
For those of you who don't know Fred, let me say that, he knows the value of a dollar. He did the grocery shopping because he felt his wife wasn't using enough coupons and I've personally seen him weigh all the five pound bags of potatoes so that he could get the one that weighed five and a half pounds and line up all the bottles of apple juice to get the one that was filled a fraction of an inch more than the others.
So, when we went a few years renting from him without a rent increase, it wasn't because Fred was forgetful, it was because he was mindful of our own financial straits at the time and he was exhibiting charity, a rare trait to be combined with someone so mindful of money. But then, Fred is a rare individual.
But, as it does happen, our own financial outlook changed for the better and Fred, who lived just a few doors down from us, came up to me as I was finishing up the yard work and told me that he was raising the rent by fifty dollars a month.
Now, I know I should have been grateful to him that he hadn't raised the rent in several years but all I was thinking at the time was that I was just enjoying having my head above water and now I have a rent increase to deal with.
So when Fred's little girl, Alden came skipping up a few seconds after Fred's announcement and excitedly showed me her first lost tooth, I bent down and patted her head and said, "That's WONDERFUL, Alden! Do you know that if you put that tooth under your pillow tonight, the tooth fairy will bring you fifty dollars?"
"Really?" Alden asked, her eyes wide with amazement.
"Sure enough!" I said, "That's what the tooth fairy brings to our kids!"
Then I smiled at Fred and went into the house.
Revenge isn't always a dish best served cold...sometimes you gotta serve it hot.
For those of you who don't know Fred, let me say that, he knows the value of a dollar. He did the grocery shopping because he felt his wife wasn't using enough coupons and I've personally seen him weigh all the five pound bags of potatoes so that he could get the one that weighed five and a half pounds and line up all the bottles of apple juice to get the one that was filled a fraction of an inch more than the others.
So, when we went a few years renting from him without a rent increase, it wasn't because Fred was forgetful, it was because he was mindful of our own financial straits at the time and he was exhibiting charity, a rare trait to be combined with someone so mindful of money. But then, Fred is a rare individual.
But, as it does happen, our own financial outlook changed for the better and Fred, who lived just a few doors down from us, came up to me as I was finishing up the yard work and told me that he was raising the rent by fifty dollars a month.
Now, I know I should have been grateful to him that he hadn't raised the rent in several years but all I was thinking at the time was that I was just enjoying having my head above water and now I have a rent increase to deal with.
So when Fred's little girl, Alden came skipping up a few seconds after Fred's announcement and excitedly showed me her first lost tooth, I bent down and patted her head and said, "That's WONDERFUL, Alden! Do you know that if you put that tooth under your pillow tonight, the tooth fairy will bring you fifty dollars?"
"Really?" Alden asked, her eyes wide with amazement.
"Sure enough!" I said, "That's what the tooth fairy brings to our kids!"
Then I smiled at Fred and went into the house.
Revenge isn't always a dish best served cold...sometimes you gotta serve it hot.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Laughter Through Tears
The death of a loved one, perhaps more especially a parent, occasions such an intense grief that your soul cries out for any moment of relief or respite. I am reminded of that scene in "Steel Magnolias" where Dolly Parton's character says, "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". It's my favorite emotion as well. It always serves to remind me that, no matter how bleak or how horrible I feel at the moment, that there will be a time when I will smile and laugh again.
When a moment of levity bursts the dam that holds your grief and laughter floods forth with tears...as you laugh, little moments flash across your memory...moments of joy and laughter that you had shared with the person you now mourn. It is the most wonderful, bittersweet feeling in the world.
The funeral home and cemetary at the corner of Dairy Ashford and Westheimer in Houston, Texas is where we buried both of my parents. It was also the scene of two of these moments for me.
When my mother died, we held the viewing at the funeral home associated with the cemetary. Our family huddled in a corner, our heads bowed with grief as scores of people who loved my mother shuffled past her coffin and paid their last respects, then made their way over to where we were to offer a word of condolence or relate a favorite memory.
As we accepted these offerings of love, out of the corner of my eye I saw my son Daniel in line with the the rest of the mourners. Although the halmark of a person with autism is an inability to understand or respect social conventions that most of us take for granted, Daniel waited patiently and respectfully in line with the rest of the mourners.
When my son got to the side of my mother's coffin, he quiety whispered to her, "Goodbye Grandma, I'll miss you". Then he sweetly bent forward and kissed her brow. We were all about to breath a sigh of relief thinking that Daniel had somehow managed to hold back the autism long enough to act normally when my son's condition reasserted itself.
As Daniel raised himself from that kiss, a worried look clouded his face and he turned to us and said, "Oh, she's cold!" Then, as if that wasn't awkward enough, he said, "I better check her pulse". I was just about to rise up and try to salvage the situation when Daniel sadly raised his eyes to me, his hand still on my mother's wrist, and slowly shook his head, announcing his prognosis,
"I don't think she's gonna make it"
That did it, the dam of our grief burst and laughter with tears overcame the whole family. I looked at the faces of my wife and children, my brother and sisters and their families and we all had the same expression...pure joy. Joy at the realization that we had shared this life with such a grand lady...that, above all people, we were blessed to call her mother or grandma. In that moment of mourning our loss, we were reminded of how priviledged we really were.
My father's funeral was held at the same location and, years later, I found myself standing in the same place as I had years earlier, once again looking into the coffin of a beloved parent and wondering to myself if I would ever feel happy again.
Before I was born, my father had accidentally cut off the first two fingers of his right hand at the first knuckle. Although, he was technically handicapped, one would never know it. There were more than a few times when I would look at my father holding a pencil and drafting, his work so beautiful and masterful that it eclipsed the work of other drafters with all of their digits, and realize that the most amazing feats are sometimes the ones that seem effortless.
Later on in life, when I spent a year learning to manipulate my own hands again, my father's example served as a quiet and constant inspiration to me.
The funeral directors had supposed my father's right hand to be a deformity and so, when they prepared the body, they hid it under his left hand. Well, my father's grandchildren were not having any of that! Every single one of them had teethed upon those bony nubs of what remained of his first two digits. They convened a quiet council in the corner, agreed upon a proper course of action, and elected one of them to go and correct the funeral home's blunder and place my father's right hand on top for all to see.
As I looked at my father's fingers and these thoughts crossed my mind, my eyes wandered down to a banner placed on the coffin. One of my sisters had seen to it that the final words my father always said to anyone who ever came to visit him were inscribed thereupon, "I'm glad you had a chance to see me"
Because this was a private moment, the laughter was a bit quieter but the emotion and release no less sweet.
There is another instance I wanted to relate concerning this funeral home...something that happened years before any of the first two. I was commissioned to redesign the air conditioning systems and had to go and visit the place and access the existing conditions.
The building had multi-level mansard type roofs...flat rooftops with 4 foot steep sloping sides so when I had to get from the higher roof down to a lower roof, all I had to do is sit down on the steep slope and let gravity do the rest. After checking the unit in question, getting from the lower roof up to the higher roof was a different question altogether...now gravity was working against me...gravity and quite a few extra pounds of weight. I tried to grab onto the upper roof and scramble with my feet but they would not gain purchase. I seemed to be doomed to waiting on the lower roof until the fire department came and rescued me...then a sudden inspiration hit. I won't go into any great detail but, if you've ever seen Shamu come out of the water at Sea World, you have a fair idea of how I finally made it up to the upper part of the roof.
There was only one more obstacle now to getting back down to solid ground...the roof hatch. If you've never had to climb onto the roof of a commercial building, there's alwas a long ladder attached to a roof hatch which is mounted onto a 18" curb. The reason for the curb is to keep rain water from leaking from the roof down to the utility room below. The way to install these is to put the ladder on one side of the hole with the hinge to the cover on the opposite side so that, when you try to transfer from the ladder onto the roof, you don't have to negotiate your way around a trap door facing you. The people who installed this roof hatch installed the ladder and the hinge on the same side so that when I got to the top and opened the trap door, I was, in effect, facing a wall that I had to climb around and get onto the roof...no easy but doable.
Getting back down was a whole 'nother story though...now I had to try and figure out how to step off of the roof, into a hole that dropped twenty feet, around the trap door and somehow make sure my foot landed onto the rung of the ladder....it's actually about ten times as difficult as it sounds, especially for a fat man.
I finally decided that the safe way to do this would be to sit down, straddle the roof curb and swing my dangling left foot onto the ladder rung.
The edge of a roof curb...the part the trap door rests upon, is about two inches thick...so (how do I say this delicately?)when I straddled the curb, one of the (ahem) 'boys' went on one side of the curb and one of them went on the other side.
All fine and good until I swung my leg to reach the rung and that had the effect of sqeezing one of the lads rather painfully.
For those of you who have not experienced this type of pain, let me state right here and now that the movies don't do justice to it. First off, the movies show a kick to the groin and the reciever of the injury immediately doubling over in pain....that's not how it goes down...it usually takes a few moments because, although there's an immediate pain associated with the injury, the REAL pain comes anout three seconds later when a huge all-encompasing cramp siezes everything from the groin up to the lungs....it's like having a charley horse in your midsection.
What actually happens is that the person recieving the injury realizes that something bad has happened and he says to himself, "that's gonna hurt ----------------------------- oh yeah...there it is"
So I when I realized I had done myself an injury, there was actually a second or two when I realized that, if I didn't roll onto the roof immediately, the possibility was very real that I would be plummeting twenty feet onto some very nasty electrical transformers with some very sharp corners, so I rolled onto the roof"
When the cramps hit, I doubled up in pain, groaned and moaned and cursed and generally made enough noise to convince anyone happening by that I was being dismembered by a rusty, slow-moving chain saw. When the pain began to ebb, I began to realize where I was and how loudly and profanely, I had complained....I crawled to the edge of the roof and saw my worst fears confirmed.
Just below me, a group of mourners had, apparently, been in the process of loading their loved one into a hearse when my screams and moans and complaints that I was dying wafted down to their ears from the roof above.
They had stopped what they were doing and stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonderment and what they were certain were the death throes of a dying man above them.
There was a second or two when we just stared at each other and then I meekly said, "I'm sorry"....it started with just a snicker from one of the mourners and then a giggle...then some half-suppressed snorts. Before long, every one of the mourners were laughing uproarisly
Laughter through tears...it's the best.
When a moment of levity bursts the dam that holds your grief and laughter floods forth with tears...as you laugh, little moments flash across your memory...moments of joy and laughter that you had shared with the person you now mourn. It is the most wonderful, bittersweet feeling in the world.
The funeral home and cemetary at the corner of Dairy Ashford and Westheimer in Houston, Texas is where we buried both of my parents. It was also the scene of two of these moments for me.
When my mother died, we held the viewing at the funeral home associated with the cemetary. Our family huddled in a corner, our heads bowed with grief as scores of people who loved my mother shuffled past her coffin and paid their last respects, then made their way over to where we were to offer a word of condolence or relate a favorite memory.
As we accepted these offerings of love, out of the corner of my eye I saw my son Daniel in line with the the rest of the mourners. Although the halmark of a person with autism is an inability to understand or respect social conventions that most of us take for granted, Daniel waited patiently and respectfully in line with the rest of the mourners.
When my son got to the side of my mother's coffin, he quiety whispered to her, "Goodbye Grandma, I'll miss you". Then he sweetly bent forward and kissed her brow. We were all about to breath a sigh of relief thinking that Daniel had somehow managed to hold back the autism long enough to act normally when my son's condition reasserted itself.
As Daniel raised himself from that kiss, a worried look clouded his face and he turned to us and said, "Oh, she's cold!" Then, as if that wasn't awkward enough, he said, "I better check her pulse". I was just about to rise up and try to salvage the situation when Daniel sadly raised his eyes to me, his hand still on my mother's wrist, and slowly shook his head, announcing his prognosis,
"I don't think she's gonna make it"
That did it, the dam of our grief burst and laughter with tears overcame the whole family. I looked at the faces of my wife and children, my brother and sisters and their families and we all had the same expression...pure joy. Joy at the realization that we had shared this life with such a grand lady...that, above all people, we were blessed to call her mother or grandma. In that moment of mourning our loss, we were reminded of how priviledged we really were.
My father's funeral was held at the same location and, years later, I found myself standing in the same place as I had years earlier, once again looking into the coffin of a beloved parent and wondering to myself if I would ever feel happy again.
Before I was born, my father had accidentally cut off the first two fingers of his right hand at the first knuckle. Although, he was technically handicapped, one would never know it. There were more than a few times when I would look at my father holding a pencil and drafting, his work so beautiful and masterful that it eclipsed the work of other drafters with all of their digits, and realize that the most amazing feats are sometimes the ones that seem effortless.
Later on in life, when I spent a year learning to manipulate my own hands again, my father's example served as a quiet and constant inspiration to me.
The funeral directors had supposed my father's right hand to be a deformity and so, when they prepared the body, they hid it under his left hand. Well, my father's grandchildren were not having any of that! Every single one of them had teethed upon those bony nubs of what remained of his first two digits. They convened a quiet council in the corner, agreed upon a proper course of action, and elected one of them to go and correct the funeral home's blunder and place my father's right hand on top for all to see.
As I looked at my father's fingers and these thoughts crossed my mind, my eyes wandered down to a banner placed on the coffin. One of my sisters had seen to it that the final words my father always said to anyone who ever came to visit him were inscribed thereupon, "I'm glad you had a chance to see me"
Because this was a private moment, the laughter was a bit quieter but the emotion and release no less sweet.
There is another instance I wanted to relate concerning this funeral home...something that happened years before any of the first two. I was commissioned to redesign the air conditioning systems and had to go and visit the place and access the existing conditions.
The building had multi-level mansard type roofs...flat rooftops with 4 foot steep sloping sides so when I had to get from the higher roof down to a lower roof, all I had to do is sit down on the steep slope and let gravity do the rest. After checking the unit in question, getting from the lower roof up to the higher roof was a different question altogether...now gravity was working against me...gravity and quite a few extra pounds of weight. I tried to grab onto the upper roof and scramble with my feet but they would not gain purchase. I seemed to be doomed to waiting on the lower roof until the fire department came and rescued me...then a sudden inspiration hit. I won't go into any great detail but, if you've ever seen Shamu come out of the water at Sea World, you have a fair idea of how I finally made it up to the upper part of the roof.
There was only one more obstacle now to getting back down to solid ground...the roof hatch. If you've never had to climb onto the roof of a commercial building, there's alwas a long ladder attached to a roof hatch which is mounted onto a 18" curb. The reason for the curb is to keep rain water from leaking from the roof down to the utility room below. The way to install these is to put the ladder on one side of the hole with the hinge to the cover on the opposite side so that, when you try to transfer from the ladder onto the roof, you don't have to negotiate your way around a trap door facing you. The people who installed this roof hatch installed the ladder and the hinge on the same side so that when I got to the top and opened the trap door, I was, in effect, facing a wall that I had to climb around and get onto the roof...no easy but doable.
Getting back down was a whole 'nother story though...now I had to try and figure out how to step off of the roof, into a hole that dropped twenty feet, around the trap door and somehow make sure my foot landed onto the rung of the ladder....it's actually about ten times as difficult as it sounds, especially for a fat man.
I finally decided that the safe way to do this would be to sit down, straddle the roof curb and swing my dangling left foot onto the ladder rung.
The edge of a roof curb...the part the trap door rests upon, is about two inches thick...so (how do I say this delicately?)when I straddled the curb, one of the (ahem) 'boys' went on one side of the curb and one of them went on the other side.
All fine and good until I swung my leg to reach the rung and that had the effect of sqeezing one of the lads rather painfully.
For those of you who have not experienced this type of pain, let me state right here and now that the movies don't do justice to it. First off, the movies show a kick to the groin and the reciever of the injury immediately doubling over in pain....that's not how it goes down...it usually takes a few moments because, although there's an immediate pain associated with the injury, the REAL pain comes anout three seconds later when a huge all-encompasing cramp siezes everything from the groin up to the lungs....it's like having a charley horse in your midsection.
What actually happens is that the person recieving the injury realizes that something bad has happened and he says to himself, "that's gonna hurt ----------------------------- oh yeah...there it is"
So I when I realized I had done myself an injury, there was actually a second or two when I realized that, if I didn't roll onto the roof immediately, the possibility was very real that I would be plummeting twenty feet onto some very nasty electrical transformers with some very sharp corners, so I rolled onto the roof"
When the cramps hit, I doubled up in pain, groaned and moaned and cursed and generally made enough noise to convince anyone happening by that I was being dismembered by a rusty, slow-moving chain saw. When the pain began to ebb, I began to realize where I was and how loudly and profanely, I had complained....I crawled to the edge of the roof and saw my worst fears confirmed.
Just below me, a group of mourners had, apparently, been in the process of loading their loved one into a hearse when my screams and moans and complaints that I was dying wafted down to their ears from the roof above.
They had stopped what they were doing and stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonderment and what they were certain were the death throes of a dying man above them.
There was a second or two when we just stared at each other and then I meekly said, "I'm sorry"....it started with just a snicker from one of the mourners and then a giggle...then some half-suppressed snorts. Before long, every one of the mourners were laughing uproarisly
Laughter through tears...it's the best.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Couched in Different Terms
First off, let me state that I hate almost everything about this health care bill (I think I've made that abundantly clear) But, yesterday, my wife and I were talking and I was reminded of an incident in our marriage that is somewhat applicable to the health care bill.
We had inherited a couch from my parents...I loved that couch. It was the perfect Sunday Afternoon nap couch. It's the only couch I've been able to awaken from after a Sunday snooze and not have a sore back or a stiff neck. Like a seasoned baseball glove, that couch had been perfectly broken in and formed to my body.
The only problem was that, when I wasn't in the couch, it was still perfectly broken in and formed to my body. My wife hated the couch and I loved it. The couch's fate and its place in our home was the subject of many discussions, arguments, reasonings, pleadings, cajolings, briberies, and some sotto voce threatenings for a few years in our home.
Then I came home one day and saw that my couch...my beloved couch, was sitting on the curb with piles of trash bags heaped upon it. Well, I was having none of THAT! If she could take it upon herself to unilaterally remove the couch from our home, I could certainly take it upon myself to put it back in its proper place. I pulled into the driveway, got out of my car, slammed the door and stormed over to the couch pulling bags of trash from it and reached down to grab it by the legs and haul it back into the house.
The first thing I noticed was that my wife had sawn the legs off of the couch....the second thing I noticed when I looked up was my wife standing in the doorway with a smug expression on her face (things would have probably gone a LOT smoother after that is it wasn't for that smug expression)
When Cortez reached the New World, he burned his boats. As a result, his men had no other option but to succeed. All during the ensuing argument over my wife's unilateral decision, she kept protesting that she was NOT forcing me to buy a new couch, she was merely, 'helping me make the right decision'.
Now...let me state again...I HATE the way this bill has come about. It has shown the ugly side of both parties and of The American People. I really can't think of a single newsworthy instance during this clash of ideas where anyone has acted in an adult and reasonable manner.
The very simple truth (as far as I can see) is that health care reform is very much a needed thing in this country. The other undeniable truth was that the republicans did not address this issue when they were in power.
I have outlined, I believe, very reasonable and very attainable common sense ideas that would go a long way to bringing down the cost of health care and insurance and many of my friends have done the same.
What all of these ideas have in common is the realization that health care costs didn't begin to spiral out of control until the government stepped in and started to meddle with it in the first place. Almost all of the ideas cost very litte if any tax dollars to the public and, more importantly, they allow people the freedom to make their own choices.
But the republicans didn't seriously begin to address any ideas on health care reform until the democrats had a super-majority and said, that they were going to cut the legs off the couch...THEN the republicans got on board with the idea...given the years of frustration that the democrats have had over trying to bring this to the front burner, I understand it when they said to the Johnny-Come-Lately republicans, "you know what Chuckles? Sit your butt in that back seat there and let us drive for a while" I don't condone that type of attitude...but I understand it.
What happened next was embarrassing to say the least. Democrats tried to over-reach and republicans tried to grab back the wheel...it was about as ugly a scene as I ever wanted to witness from my elected officials. Frankly, I''m disgusted with the entire lot. Vitriol, invectives, lies, innuendos, all accusing the other side of the most heinous and foul motives possible.
The polls clearly stated that most Americans thought that something ought to be done about health care. They also clearly stated that they absolutely hated this bill. They hated the pork, the bribes, the cowtowing to special interests and unions...and the majority of Americans wanted our elected officials to scrap this bill and start over again, but like adults this time.
The democrats will not remain in power for long...this abomination of a bill all but guarantees that. When the republicans come into power again...I can only hope that they repeal this thing and give us something that offers real solutions and real choices to the public. I hope that they just don't grab the old couch off of the trash heap and drag it back into the house and prop it up with some cinder blocks.
But until then, as begrudgingly as I have to say it...I'm kind of grateful to the democrats for sawing the legs off the old thing.
We had inherited a couch from my parents...I loved that couch. It was the perfect Sunday Afternoon nap couch. It's the only couch I've been able to awaken from after a Sunday snooze and not have a sore back or a stiff neck. Like a seasoned baseball glove, that couch had been perfectly broken in and formed to my body.
The only problem was that, when I wasn't in the couch, it was still perfectly broken in and formed to my body. My wife hated the couch and I loved it. The couch's fate and its place in our home was the subject of many discussions, arguments, reasonings, pleadings, cajolings, briberies, and some sotto voce threatenings for a few years in our home.
Then I came home one day and saw that my couch...my beloved couch, was sitting on the curb with piles of trash bags heaped upon it. Well, I was having none of THAT! If she could take it upon herself to unilaterally remove the couch from our home, I could certainly take it upon myself to put it back in its proper place. I pulled into the driveway, got out of my car, slammed the door and stormed over to the couch pulling bags of trash from it and reached down to grab it by the legs and haul it back into the house.
The first thing I noticed was that my wife had sawn the legs off of the couch....the second thing I noticed when I looked up was my wife standing in the doorway with a smug expression on her face (things would have probably gone a LOT smoother after that is it wasn't for that smug expression)
When Cortez reached the New World, he burned his boats. As a result, his men had no other option but to succeed. All during the ensuing argument over my wife's unilateral decision, she kept protesting that she was NOT forcing me to buy a new couch, she was merely, 'helping me make the right decision'.
Now...let me state again...I HATE the way this bill has come about. It has shown the ugly side of both parties and of The American People. I really can't think of a single newsworthy instance during this clash of ideas where anyone has acted in an adult and reasonable manner.
The very simple truth (as far as I can see) is that health care reform is very much a needed thing in this country. The other undeniable truth was that the republicans did not address this issue when they were in power.
I have outlined, I believe, very reasonable and very attainable common sense ideas that would go a long way to bringing down the cost of health care and insurance and many of my friends have done the same.
What all of these ideas have in common is the realization that health care costs didn't begin to spiral out of control until the government stepped in and started to meddle with it in the first place. Almost all of the ideas cost very litte if any tax dollars to the public and, more importantly, they allow people the freedom to make their own choices.
But the republicans didn't seriously begin to address any ideas on health care reform until the democrats had a super-majority and said, that they were going to cut the legs off the couch...THEN the republicans got on board with the idea...given the years of frustration that the democrats have had over trying to bring this to the front burner, I understand it when they said to the Johnny-Come-Lately republicans, "you know what Chuckles? Sit your butt in that back seat there and let us drive for a while" I don't condone that type of attitude...but I understand it.
What happened next was embarrassing to say the least. Democrats tried to over-reach and republicans tried to grab back the wheel...it was about as ugly a scene as I ever wanted to witness from my elected officials. Frankly, I''m disgusted with the entire lot. Vitriol, invectives, lies, innuendos, all accusing the other side of the most heinous and foul motives possible.
The polls clearly stated that most Americans thought that something ought to be done about health care. They also clearly stated that they absolutely hated this bill. They hated the pork, the bribes, the cowtowing to special interests and unions...and the majority of Americans wanted our elected officials to scrap this bill and start over again, but like adults this time.
The democrats will not remain in power for long...this abomination of a bill all but guarantees that. When the republicans come into power again...I can only hope that they repeal this thing and give us something that offers real solutions and real choices to the public. I hope that they just don't grab the old couch off of the trash heap and drag it back into the house and prop it up with some cinder blocks.
But until then, as begrudgingly as I have to say it...I'm kind of grateful to the democrats for sawing the legs off the old thing.
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