Home

    I just flew into Chicago.  I had a window seat, and as I am want to do I studied the country side as we progressed north from Memphis.  After years of doing this, I can pretty much find enough land marks to identify where we are.  So it was not at all difficult to identify the Kankakee river as we flew  in our manuevering for approach into Chicago.  So?  What is special about that area?  Well............., nothing.................., and everything.  It is where I spent most of my youth, and it is where some family  resides today. 

    Watching the farm country roll by, I was a little surprised at the pull on my heart.  Why?  What about Kankakee, Bradley, and Bourbonnais would call to me after 3 decades away?  What is it about a place that makes it home?  Like I said, 3 decades.  Yet the pull was absolute.

   It is not just Illinois.  Eddyville Kentucky calls to my soul.  So does Brownsville, Tennessee (and I have not been there but once or twice in the last 30 years).  I never fly into Honolulu that I do not look for the place we lived for three years.  There is a double lot in downtown Milton Florida that I still  drive by.  The old house is gone, but some of the plants we planted are still there.  What is it that draws me? 

     Memories........... it has to be memories.  I think we invest so much of ourselves in an area that we leave a little bit of ourselves there.  And maybe we need to touch that bit of ourselves occasionally.  As I sit here contemplating, the words to a song come to mind..... it was done by Wynona... it goes:


Old tin roof, leaves in the gutter
A hole in the screen door big as your fist, and flies on the butter
Mamaw baking sugar cookies, we were watching cartoons
Heard her holler from the kitchen which one of you youngin's wants to lick the spoon?
Yellow jackets on the watermelon, honeysuckle in the air
Daddy turning on the sprinkler, us kids running through it in our underwear
Old dog napping on the front porch, his ear just a-twitching
Fell asleep on Granddaddy's lap to the sound of his pocket watch ticking

Chorus
Oh, oh, oh - Oh, oh, oh
It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago
Oh, oh, oh - Oh, oh, oh
You can dream about it every now and then
But you can't go home again

Me and my best friend Jenny set up a back yard camp
Stole one of Mama's Mason jars, poked holes in the lid and made a fire fly lamp
Me and Billy Monroe sneaking down by the river
And I'm still haunted by the taste kiss I was too scared to give him

Repeat Chorus

There's a black-top road, a faded yellow centerline
It can take you back to the place, but it can't take you back in time



Dad always warned me about trying to live in the past.................. but it is so integral to where we are today.  Maybe just an occasional visit?

Everything I do.....................

     I was recently watching Kevin Costner's take on the Robin Hood saga while wasting time waiting for my next commercial to another assignment.  Yep, back to work at last.  I had not heard the song "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams in quite awhile.  In the movie there is a scene where the noble Muslim played by Morgan Freeman helps Little John's wife through a breech birth.  The music is hinted at throughout the scene.  Eventually an infant newborn is placed into Maid Marians arms......  and I am immediately whisked away to my own moment when a newborn changed my world.  It is amazing to me how the words to what I have always thought of as a traditional love song fits into the theme of a parent and a child. 

   Almost three decades ago about this time of year my Jeni was as swollen as a watermellon, and we still had almost three months remaining in her pregnancy.  I more than once suggested we put advertising on her belly and use her as a mini Goodyear blimp (yep, even then I knew how to say the wrong thing).  Jeni let me live because the truth was that our baby (and we did not know it's sex until the moment of birth) had been created in love.  She was still intimately involved with the almighty in the manufacture of a new life.....   I guess that you can put up with alot when suffering the consequences of love. 
    
     Amazing how something so incredibly poignant can eventually fade from the foremost parts of your existance.  It seems like years since the events of Heathers birth have been something I might take a moment and reflect upon.  I guess such moments lie there dormant..... kinda like emotional land mines.  The music and the sight of a newborn launched me to a time and place that changed everything in what was up to then "My World".  Back when everything revolved around me. 

     I remember everything.  Every blessed moment.  The moment at the Navy hospital that the Corpsman told  me that Jeni's pregnancy test was positive (which I guess means I knew before she did..... nahhhh).  She had sent me there to get some test results....... she knew.  I, on the other hand was as thunder struck as if the Red Sea had just opened before me.  I have no idea how I made it out of the parking lot, much less back to our home.  How about a little "heads up"?

    I remember the eventual middle of the night trips to the hospital (the first trip was premature.  We must have logged a mini marathon walking the halls of the hospital in an attempt to somehow advance the appointed time.  No luck.  Jeni was more anxious to get that thing out of her than the unfortunate victims in the movie Alien).  On our next trip I remember the concern at being surrounded by all the medical monitors (It is never completely comfortable to be in an environment that is so totally foriegn, with clicks, whirring, and beeps coming from all directions).  I remember  holding on to Jeni's hand.  She squeezed so hard that I remember being amazed at her grip.  I remember studying Jeni's face between contractions.  It was the second time I thought I could see anothers soul.  For Jeni, the baby in her womb was already a part of her life.  For me, a totally ignorant man, Heather was not a reality till I held her.  God, everything changed in that moment.

     Up until that very moment I had always been the center of creation.  I "knew" I was the center of my parents world.  Dad had spoken in respectful reverence as to what it meant to him when he first laid eyes on me.  For the first time I understood.  I had no idea as to the extent of just how deeply my parents loved me.  Nor, I suspect of how deeply they were loved in turn.  Never again would the world be so simple.  I understood for the first time why we use terms like "Father" when trying to define something beyond words....  Yep, even my faith was suddenly undergoing change.  Love.  I was awed by it's awesome magnitude.  I have remained bowed in humble admiration ever since. 

     I remember them holding up a bloody little girl, Heathers first breath, and her first cry.  They took her over to a table and as they cleaned I counted fingers and toes.  A daughter.  I was a Dad.......
They laid her on Jeni's chest, and Jeni looked at me and I swear I thought my life was now complete.  Life could just not get any better.  Jeni relinquished Heather to the nurse, and she handed me the bundle.  I looked down, and was lost to the World while studying the face of my daughter.  I have gone to that place any number of times since.

     Heather is an adult today.  Life progresses, and we are in the process of planning her wedding.  In that entire period of time there has never been a minute that she has not been somewhere in the center of everything I have done.  The center of my world.  The impetus that started me to become aware of my soul.  The catalyst which caused me to begin to understand love.  Heavy stuff..........

     I suspect that the reason I now enjoy much the same relationship with my eldest granddaughter is because of what Heather's birth made possible.  Maybe it was that relationship that finally made it possible for me to understand how much my parents loved me......  making it possible for me to love them all the more in return.  Maybe..............


     I suspect that any and all that I have loved since her birth know that much of whatever I am capable of in the way of love comes from that experience. 

    To the grown bride to be, and to the little one I still see when I look at you, "Everything I do, I do it for you............."

Something Heroic

     Is there anything essentially heroic in being a survivor?  As surviving is little more than a basic attempt to do what is instinctive,  I would suggest there is really nothing heroic in just being a survivor.  That said, there can be something demonstrated in facing cancer that is both life defining and as heroic as Hell. 

    Last weekend was the local Breast Cancer walk for awareness.  Damnation, was there ever a lot of pink present.  How exactly did pink become the color for breast cancer awareness?  Then again, how did yellow ribbons become the symbol for soldiers away from home (excepting for Tony Orlando's song?)  The variety of messages on the tshirts was certainly demonstration of the vast reach of the issue, and the scope of its impact.  The messages ran from touching to down right funny.  I am particularly fond of the "Save the Ta Ta's...." version.  I was a supporter all the way back in college when I suggested our fraternity should offer free breast exams as a philanthropy project.  The fact that I had no idea how the disease would impact my life should be obvious. 

     So, last weekend, along with a guesstimate of 8 thousand others, my Daughter-in-law, my Granddaughter, and my wife walked through the Pensacola downtown area to garner awareness and raise money for the various breast cancer society's.  Why not, October was set aside as Breast cancer awareness month.  Hard to miss when even watching NFL games it becomes obvious that the players are all wearing pink shoes, pink armbands, and even some pink mouth guards.  Not exactly bad exposure for what is prominently thought of as a woman's issue  

     We had a "Decorate your bra..." event at the house.  My granddaughter was so excited, it meant she got her first bra.  She was not born when her Grandmother faced the darker more ominous side of the issue of the month. 

    After having cancer invade your life you are always aware.  20 years ago I do not ever remember the subject coming up...... well, there was one neighbor woman, but she survived.  Looking back it is amazing how her ordeal made such little impact on my life.  They lived right across the street, and they socialized with my parents often.  I know she lost both breasts, (and just recently I discovered eventually the cancer took her life).  There had to be radiation and chemo treatments.  I do not remember anything but the eventual swelling of her arms (back then the removal of the lymphatic nodes was much more extensive than today...).  Another example of how non aware a young man can be.

     As I said, the medallion in the picture, and the pink ribbon both say survivor.  They are Jeni's.  Normally, one gets a ribbon for some demonstration of excellence.  Placing in a relay race, or jumping higher than everyone else.......  anything demonstrating "winning".  At one time I suppose a survivor was to be seen that way.  At one time "cancer" was almost the equivalent of a death sentence.  We have come a long way, and the survival rates are much improved.  Still, sometimes............   another mother, daughter, sister, wife or grandmother is taken.  For some family there is no ribbons nor medals.  Only loss.  Unbelievable loss. 

     So, thankfully, the number of medalists is increasing.  I mean that with all my heart.  But they gave Jeni a medal for something that really failed to recognize why I think she deserves a medal.  It is not surviving the cancer that made her special (surviving just means we were genetically lucky). 

     No, what makes her heroic in my book is how she faced her cancer.  Facing ones mortality is always revealing.  In our greatest challenges lies the seed for our greatest victory.  Even if cancer had taken Jeni, she deserved a medal. 

     Not once did I see her indulge in self pity.  No, not once did she ask "Why me?".  Matter of fact, when others offered it for her I heard her respond "Why not me?".  True courage in the face of death.  She demonstrated real humor (and patiently suffered through my own attempts) while enduring endless bouts of nausea and the required medical torture.  Facing the unknown with shoulders squared, and eyes bright and engaged.  I imagine even the vaunted Light Brigade charging forward into the field of fire of enemy cannon faced it with no greater courage than Jeni.  There is a country song that says it best.....  Craig Morgan sang ".... and I thought I was tough..."  I had no idea what that meant.

     So, to the many women who wear medals saying "survivor",  I offer a heartfelt "God bless and congratulations".  Still, I suspect that to the family and loved ones who went through the experience with you, and for your sisters that somehow rolled craps when genes were divied out, the only medals we (your extended support group) think you need are the scars the disease left in our collective hearts.  God, you are awesome.  I/we salute you............................