Take My Breath Away

Dang, it's early.  Like, first fishing or hunting trip of the season early.  Or Walt Disney World when you didn't pay some of the extra fees early—if you've been there, you know what I mean.

Aw, heck, let's just get local.  It's shift work early...not my norm.

Ever since my discharge from the hospital, now nearing one week past, my "activity" level if you choose to describe it as such doesn't necessarily mandate deep, long sleep at night, quite the balloon deflator for someone like me.  Especially in a convalescent situation like where I find myself, it would be just awesome to hit the sack at 10:30 and sleep till 9:00.  Instead, I force myself to try to stay up to some crazy hour, and it's 50/50 if I'll be able to stay asleep past about 3:00.

Needless to say, here I sit, Bleu the French Bulldog snoring next to me on the loveseat in our bedroom, trying to collect and organize my thoughts.

*******

Meaningful commentary often comes from unlikely places.  Actually I find the highest praise typically heaped unintentionally.  I've had a couple of those happen since I woke up.  One from J.P., a relative of Brandy's; one from my banter brother, Doug.

J.P.'s was one of those extemporaneous exclamations that bleeds so much honesty, it takes your breath away.

"In the past year and a half, I can't think of any family that has any more reason to be angry or bitter—or at least not happy—than you guys, yet every photo we see and update we hear, y'all are smiling and grinning and enjoying life."

I am not going to lie and say that at least a time or two the thought hadn't crossed my mind.  But I had never really dwelt on it until sometime earlier this week when my parents were visiting.  We reflected on the last year, or maybe 18 months.  I'm not going to sit here and bullet point every item, but here's some high points:

• Pandemic.  Six weeks to turn it around.  Yeah, right.
• Oldest son makes noble and proud decision to accept a Corps scholarship to Texas A&M.  Breaks foot (badly) last week of work and has to enter the Corps of Cadets as a gimp freshman.  (Sure, there was no abrasiveness on the part of the other fish or upperclassmen.)
• Hurricane Laura turned our fine hard top house into a convertible.  My boys literally watched as the ceiling fell on everything they held dear possession-wise.
• Hurricane Delta proved that Laura had been really bad, because as rough as Delta might've been, she didn't do any more damage, other than make us wonder what weather god we had insulted so terribly.
• Brandy gets news of medical issues for one of her close relatives.
• We lost my grandmother; we lost our Dachshund.
• Second son experiences first loss of job, fired seemingly for no cause.
• There's more all up in there, I'm sure.
• And then there is of course last week.

Maybe part of it is something like "incremental compartmentalization" or another really long confusing phrase.  It's the Jerry Jeff Walker approach...taking it as it comes.  Don't get me wrong, if the intent here is God trying to give us life lessons, I sure wish he would use a whiteboard and kind of spell it out, because I am having hell trying to glean the meaning.

Doug and I have always had and will have a banter-first relationship.  Take a jab, soften the blow, fist bump, chest bump, move along.  It's submarine respect philosophy.  I'm gonna send a compliment your way via torpedo tube #3.  You may not even realize I gave you a head nod for a day or two.

So to have Doug say something like this, well you gotta understand the gravity.  "Man, I am so glad you are still here with us.  And I'm to the point where it's hard to even chip at one another the way we do.  You must be raising the toughest kids in the world, and I am just amazed how y'all keep moving."

In fairness, I have not been able to locate the original exchange for that, so I am quoting Doug from memory.  Which at that time was quite vivid under a brilliant flush of high-powered steroids.  So, Doug, if that isn't the gist, please feel free to correct me.

Regardless, his words too effected the take-your-breath-away gut punch as had J.P., likewise in a good way.  And two nights ago, I guess both of their compliments became very evident.

*******

Brandy and I were blessed into the Holy Orthodox tradition during the Nativity season last year.  (Plenty of content there, but I'll save that for several other blog vacuums.)  We haven't made any sort of mandate for the kids, but we do all assemble every evening for prayer together, maybe a little reading on Church history, and then a bit of reflection.

Now understand, at prime time (say 9:30ish) you'd be hard-pressed to find a teenager—we essentially have four in the house currently—that's really wanting to hang out on the couch for prayer and reflection.  Protect your extremities if you decide you want to strong-arm actual vocal participation.

Our oldest son—quite the linear, left-brained, logical package—is about as stoic as they come.  You might be able to extract beer from a rock easier than getting him close to anything of deep emotion in a conversation under normal circumstances.

So you can imagine the collective depletion of oxygen in the room Wednesday night as we dismissed from our little couch session and he stopped everyone and asked if they could hang out for just a bit longer:

"I don't like to deal with the emotional stuff, and I usually don't even say what's really on my mind.  But you know, no offense to you, Daddeaux, seeing you like this and being so happy that you're still here is great, but I'm having a hard time being joyful.

"I am not saying I am not satisfied about the way things have turned out.  I am.  But during all of this, I was forced to consider and think about things I really don't want to.  Like, I had to start preparing in my mind to be the man of the house, and I realized I wasn't ready for that.  I had to ask Paw Paw to come help me get the trimmer started.  I shouldn't have to do that.

"And as much as I really hated to, I had to start talking to Mom about where I would be needed.  Would I drop out of A&M and come home to help?  How would we handle the other kids?  I don't even really know how to budget my money well, and here I am having to make decisions potentially about our future.

"I am not saying this to bring everyone down or anything.  I'm just saying, I honestly believe that there is a much bigger message in the fact that Daddeaux did pull through this than just to be happy that he's still here.  I believe there is something important I need to learn from it all, and I believe our family has a lesson somewhere in there, too.  I don't know what it is, but I know it is there.  Maybe it has to do with Daddeaux's career.  Maybe it has to do with choices of colleges for the rest of you guys.  I don't know.  But God is speaking.

"All I do know is that we've been given a longer opportunity to have our father here with us, and that's good, because I am not ready to be the spiritual leader and head of household here.  I am still a kid, and I don't want to have to consider that stuff again for a long, long time."

I had to share my oxygen tubing with the rest of them after that monologue.  I looked at him, trying so hard to keep my eyes simply damp and not start a river flowing.  I was in awe.  For one of the first times, I objectively could see that some of the stuff that I swore up and down just wasn't sticking, had, in fact, stuck.  Hard.

*******

I have been taking tremendous care to ensure I don't artificially inflate or elevate our current circumstance and situation to something that it is not.  That's easy when you talk about finances, not so much when you consider emotional baggage.

My kids had to consider contingencies last week that children should not have to worry with for some time.  Each of them, in their own way and so much to my chagrin, had to evaluate their status relative to my availability and access.

And I, as my son progressed through his thoughts, reflected back to the unintentional praise from J.P. and Doug.  Yeah, my kids are tough.  But, darn it, they keep right on smiling.

God bless you all!  I look forward to hearing from you!!!

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