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Life: Quiet as a Mouse

Posted by 15 Nov 2011

I remember helping my Dad move firewood around outside our home one fall. I was probably fifteen or sixteen. We lifted up one of the bottom-most logs and beneath it sat a small mouse. I always found animals fascinating and I marveled at it’s fur, small ears and large eyes for that first moment of discovery. “Okay,” I heard my dad say, or maybe it was “Stand back.” I had yet to take my eyes off of this little furry discovery when my Dad’s boot heel came down quickly and firmly upon it.

I looked up and I’m not sure what expression may have read across my face. My Dad resignedly said, “You have to kill them. They’ll get in the house.”

This summer, at my own house, I began noticing signs of mice. Shredded newspaper. Nibbled bulbs. Last spring I had to replace the gasket at the bottom of the garage door and the new one simply does not seal tightly to the floor. I had high hopes the snake I’d seen frequenting my garage would deal with the problem for me. Naturally. Alas, with the onset of cooler weather, I still see them but not him. So, I bought some sticky traps but figured I’d set them out after cleaning up the garage. And, in my heart, there’s still a part of me that finds a measure of wonder in these little, flea-ridden, disease carriers.

I wasn’t eager to kill them, merely to have them gone.

Today, I was finally cleaning up the garage in the hopes of fitting a car or two more in there to avoid winter’s frosts, cold rains and snows. As I cleaned, I heard an amplified sort of scratching in one corner of the garage. Carefully, I quietly stole over to the area and listened intently. The scratching seemed to be bouncing around but soon I narrowed the hunt: the box of scrap wood. I prodded it with a scrap of 1×2 and a mouse jumped out and disappeared into the mountain of detritus that is my garage. As I nudged the box to the side, another, much smaller mouse darted off in the opposite direction. Resolutely, I steeled myself and hoisted the entire box at arm’s length to the driveway, where I set it down. There upon one of the top-most scraps was a grey figure peering at me with large black eyes, undoubtedly wondering what on Earth I was doing with its home. I looked back.

And then I whacked him with a board.

I kicked the box over onto the side and the scraps littered out. Here and there I could see little bits of grey fur darting under pieces of wood looking for cover. I smashed down on the boards with all the subtlety of a caveman, jabbing here and there and futilely chased after the two that escaped the timbered mayhem. Blood, entrails and little bodies mixed in with the oak, poplar, beech and pine. I had mouse bits spattered on me. One mouse–little more than a cute fluffball–survived the initial onslaught but couldn’t walk. I had to put it out of its misery. I hated to do it, but got a rock and finished the job.

I felt resigned and shitty about it at the same time. I felt like my Dad.

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‘how to deal’

Posted by 19 Dec 2010

have a friend come over.  one who gets it, preferably one in the DMC or maybe DDC.  do something physically painful, say, like getting a tattoo.  focus on the pain the needle brings instead of the pain aching in your chest.  do something fun, something that makes you think of her, something that brings happy memories instead of the pain of her loss.  have some drinks – maybe three to enjoy, not enough to get weepy.  do something silly that makes you laugh out loud.

then at night, home alone in bed, let the tears out.  allow yourself to remember the things you will never forget.

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‘played out by the band’

Posted by 25 Sep 2010

stomach in knots, but for which reasons?  i have no idea what it is that i want, and it changes every few hours.  my integrity is questionable.  the things that i crave and pursue no longer interest me when they are too available.

frustrated with my endless ability to undermine myself.

my birthday is tomorrow and it’s making me sad.  miss my mom.  big surprise, right?  story of my life.  but it’s a day i should share with her.  it’s a day i did share with her – it’s in the definition of the day itself, no?

and everything ties together, no matter how much i wish it didn’t.

where are you?

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Virginia Tech: That I May Serve

Posted by 17 Apr 2010

The entire family is piled into the boy’s bed tonight and we’re doing our nightly ritual where we each say the worst and best thing that happened that day, and what we’re looking forward to tomorrow. It’s a nice way to wrap up the day, for the kids to express what is on their minds, and for us to prepare ourselves for the coming day.

As we lay there tonight, my mind wandered to the thirty-two fellow Hokies who were killed three years ago. Some of them would be getting ready to graduate, looking for jobs. Some would be settling into careers, and Dr. Librescu might be pondering retirement. Maybe.

And maybe, I thought, some of them would have had kids. And they might have been tucking in their own sweet little angles tonight, too.

That’s when my minds eye could see the fantastically complex branches of lives and families and generations spanning out into infinity. And here are these thirty two branches that might have been. They turn dark and disappear in smoke, cut short by the bullets of insanity.

For the young ones, the ones that weren’t already married and into their family lives, those branches will never happen. I think about their soul mates never getting to meet them, never falling in love with them and having the families they should have had. So, it isn’t just the horror of the act that day. It reverberates through time, through generations, in what might have been.

And now that my own sweet angels are sleeping, I sit in the dark thinking of Dr. Librescu. Of the reports that the 76-year-old Romanian held the classroom door shut so his students would have time to get out through the windows. I think about the students who did make it out of Norris Hall that day, that their branches didn’t evaporate that day, thanks to a man who survived the Holocaust, taught for many years at Tech, and met his end while teaching.

Ut Prosim.

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Life: Clogged with crap and overflowing with tears

Posted by 3 Feb 2010

Some days you simply don’t see coming. They’ve got your name and there’s nothing you can do about it. Today has made me feel like a paper shell.

I’m sure there’s a more artful way of saying everything I have to say, but I’m spent and simply want to get this down, tuck it away until I’m ready to look at it again, so I’ll just start at the beginning.

I drag myself from my cozy bed and shower early, as I’m on the schedule as a parent helper at my daughter’s preschool today. Halfway through, she walks in and flops down on the rug in front of the sink and as I turn off the water, she asks what the wet stuff in her underwear is.

Okay.

So she’s pooped in her pants a little and we get her on the potty where she finished her business, business which is so massive that it barely flushes and once it does, lodges in the inner workings of the toilet.

Okay.

So, water will fill up the bowl but not really flush. Merely drain out. But I can’t really worry about that now because a) the plunger has run off somewhere mysteriously and b) I still have to get everyone dressed, fed and out the door.

Eventually, I have everyone dressed and eating, lunches packed and snacks tucked in the car with backpacks. I run upstairs to grab something for the boy when I think “Hmm. That toilet has been running an awfully long time.”

I walk in to find water flowing out of the toilet, spilling across the floor and spread to the far corners, going into the closet and into the bedroom.

Fuck.

I wade in and turn off the valve. The chain on the flapper in the tank had hung and now water is flowing down into the floor and walls. I throw a dozen towels on everything for damage control but have to get out to the bus stop. Downstairs, water is streaming through the ceiling in the kitchen and spilling across the floor. My son is eating breakfast and completely oblivious to all this.

Sigh.

Okay, get everyone dressed for the Arctic tundra that is the Midwest in winter. A glance at the clock reveals that, in all likelihood, we’ve already missed the bus. I put up the garage door and start pitching kids in car seats. Fortunately, my neighbor up the street has stalled the bus driver and convinced them to wait. “But look! He’s right there!” I throw it into park and get the boy out and on the bus with a hug.

Phew!

On the way to preschool, I remark to myself “Not even 9am and I’ve already gotten in an entire day’s worth of crap.” It can’t get any worse, surely.

But I am a fool.

We park and go in. I kneel down to help my dear little daughter out of her coat when my phone rings. It’s my mom.

My Grandmom died.

I’m not ready for it and just start mutely sobbing, tears blur my eyesight, my chest shudders with little paroxysms. My sweet little daughter pats me on the back as I try to gain some bearing.

I manage to get her to her room and then head outside to the car. And I grieve. I can’t seem to manage an upright, restrained cry; this is a loud, sobbing, bent-double wail. And I think I’m better for it.

The rest of the morning is playing with preschoolers and trying to hold it together and the intermittent phone calls. I’m blessed that a friend of mine invites my little girl over for a playdate for the afternoon. I take a few minutes to flip laundry, vacuum cat puke, poke at the wet ceiling.

Then I put on drawerfuls of bike gear: long underwear, wool socks, winter pants, base layers, jersey, hat(s), shoes and shoe covers, helmet. With fresh air in the tires, I put on my rose-tinted glasses and head out the door.

For the past decade, cycling has given me a kind of therapy I can’t really explain. Perhaps physical pursuits, be they exercise, sex or sports, allow us to tap into that animal brain we all possess. To simple “be” rather than to constantly think about being. Run. Hit. Kick. Kiss. Move.

I’m on the bike and I’m moving. Moving through the bitter wind, moving past houses and fields and frozen waterfalls. Moving past beaver dams and bridges. Trying to move past a hole that opened up inside me this morning. The wind whips at me, literally whistling across the handlebar tape. I’m past the river and headed around the lake, hearing the wind and the sound of a very big bird very nearby. I look up. Above me perched on a branch is, stunningly, an American bald eagle.

And I stop moving.

At breakfast, before the phone call or the toilet or the dash for the bus, I was in the kitchen making breakfast. Rebekah asked me, “Daddy, are you gonna die?”

“Well…” I began. How much do you explain to a three-year-old? “Yes. Someday. Everybody dies sometime. It’s a part of living.”

“But not me,” she tells me, very matter-of-fact. “Girls and mommies and princesses don’t die.”

How does one argue with that?

As I stare at the bird and out across the partially frozen lake, I think about the pieces of my ancestors, all these people coming together across time that just happened to make me and for me to make my children. How we carry those pieces and how they live on in us, even if generations removed and long forgotten. How we may very well owe our existence to our great-great-grandparents doing the deed at this time rather than that, to a quart jar of homemade or a hot summer’s night that—long before air conditioning was dreamt of—simply would not abide a stitch of clothing. In that light, it seems like a miraculous fluke to even be here at all.

I fight the knifing wind to return home. I put the bike away and take off the rose-colored glasses. And I am.

Postscript:
It is hard enough to lose somebody once. But there is an even crueler cut, I’m saddened to say. About a decade ago, my Granddad had a minor stroke. So small that it was barely noticed, but it did take away his short term memory. When my Grandmom was recently in the hospital for a broken hip, he would realize she was gone and then start looking for her around the house, wondering where she was, only to be told that she was at the hospital.

While he was able to be at her bedside when she passed, he won’t remember it. He’ll have to be told–repeatedly–that the love of his life has died.

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Parenting: Reflections

Posted by 21 Sep 2009

Today I was walking along the sidewalk with Rebekah when we passed an empty store. Inside was a short step ladder right next to a very tall step ladder. The rest of the store was empty, save for some trash in the corners. In a way it was very picturesque. As I admired the artistic qualities, my eyes shifted focus and I saw our reflection in the window. Her, sweet and short, holding hands with her tall daddy. We mirrored the ladders beautifully. I thought for a moment of trying to take a picture of it, but knew that a picture would never really do it justice. So I just stood there for another moment, holding her hand.

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Life: It wasn’t all leisure suits

Posted by 27 May 2009

Lying in his bed tonight, Reed asked me to tell him about when I was a kid. I told him about spending days with my Grandfather. I used to ride on the back of his old tractor as he plowed furrows in his field. His ‘garden’ was a bit bigger than a simple garden, but not quite a farm; an acre of food ready each year. I’d ride on the tractor with him as he plowed. Then we’d set seeds in the field. I remember squatting down over the fresh dirt and poking little seeds into the soil with a finger. He told me I had just the right size fingers for that. 

The field was irrigated with a pump that drew water from the creek which ran across one corner of the land. On summer days, we’d sit on the bank of that creek and fish. Which in hindsight was more a matter of sitting and playing with worms than ever actually catching anything. I remember once the splashing as a great catfish got reeled in, but otherwise it was simply little perch and the like that got tossed back. 

I recall when the plants had grown, seeing the cabbage and the okra, the corn and the beets. I know he grew snaps, too, but can only remember them–not in the field–on the porch at the house as my Grandmother showed me how to snap the ends off just so before she canned them. It was a simple little screen porch, just off the kitchen of their house, with a door that always slammed unless you were extra careful and slowly put it back just so, but I remember it seemed that a lot of work went on within it. I remember canning up lots and lots of food in mason jars that would again be emptied back out over the course of the winter. There was, I think, a basin of water, but I’m not sure what it was for. I wish I knew the process Grandmother used to can the food. It seems like the sort of very useful knowledge that nobody seems to have anymore. Instead we just drive to some store and get food there, never really thinking about what it takes to grow food, raise it, cultivate it and preserve it. 

Thirty years later, my Grandmother still makes the effort to can up little jars of preserves for us at Christmastime. It’s the sort of gift you can look at and simply say “Thank you” or you can stop a moment, consider what it took to actually make something for someone, and the love that goes into that gesture. It’s the sort of thing that makes me wistfully pine for a time in the seventies, before the internet and cell phones, when battery-operated toys were still a rarity (Batteries are for flashlights!). I used to climb trees; my kids climb playgrounds. I used to play with ants and honeysuckle and marbles, not bubble guns or video game systems.

And my Grandmother’s phone? It had a really, really long cord.

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