Life and Death

Life Doesn’t Have To Make Sense

March 22, 2012 by Jack Steiner 8 Comments

Eighty-five pounds of 11 year-old boy comes at me full bore. He is in the moment and I couldn’t be prouder. Fearless and confident that this will be the time that he pins his old man he jumps off the couch and flies through the air, half superboy, half human missile.

I catch him mid air and use his momentum to send him into the opposite couch. He is laughing and so am I. I am amazed at how big and strong he has gotten and I wonder if he will grow like I did. If so it is just a matter of time before his size and strength make him into much more formidable opponent than now.

He doesn’t realize yet how much effort was required to catch and spin him so that he didn’t get hurt. Part of me is amazed/pleased that he still sees me as being superman and part of me is thankful that I started lifting weights more seriously again.

Whoops

Just as I am about to walk away I see him glance and then I hear the footsteps coming from behind me. I don’t have time to much more than prepare for the collision that is coming, 11 year-old boy on one side and 7.75 year-old girl on the other.

For a moment these two monsters have decided to work together to try and take me down. I hear my daughter yell, “Super Erika” but I don’t see her. That is because I am too busy trying to keep her brother from sliding off of my shoulder. I don’t want him to go face first into the ground.

It reminds me of my days as a camp counselor when the 14 and 15 year-old boys would take us on. It was always in good fun but they didn’t get the same benefits as my children. I was 19 or 20 years-old and feeling my oats. I loved having four or five of those kids try to take me down. Sometimes I would take the football and run right up the middle and they would go down like bowling pins.

Now I look back and am grateful/thankful that no one ever got hurt. We were lucky.

My daughter brought a friend home from school today and I heard them singing this song. It wasn’t the only one they sang because there were lots of others but this one grabbed me because one day she’ll learn what it means to be heart broken. One day some boy will hurt her and I’ll have to stay away from him because I am her father and I’ll want to shake him so hard his teeth rattle.

Or maybe not. Hard to say for certain exactly what I’ll do, other than do my best to help her understand that life doesn’t have to make sense and that we are all on a journey.

It is not easy to accept that things don’t make sense. Not easy to try to wrap our heads around some things. My son heard about the brutal shooting in France. He doesn’t know all of the details. He doesn’t know that mother watched a man chase her 7 year-old daughter into the school. He doesn’t know that the man grabbed the girl by her hair and then shot her in the head.

He doesn’t know that her mother saw this happen in front of her.

It makes me want to tear my hair out and scream. This poor girl is/was essentially the same age as my daughter. The girl who spent part of the afternoon singing silly songs with a friend and talking about dolls, babies and weddings is safe. I thank God for that but I don’t forget that a terrorist destroyed a world.

My son asked me about what happened. He wanted to know if it was like Martin Luther King. He thinks that the man might have been sick. I don’t want to tell him that I think he was sane. I don’t want to tell him that I think the murderers who are responsible for the incredibly disturbing bloodshed in this video were sane.

What Do I Say/What I Said

We talked about people and I reiterated that we judge people based upon their actions and nothing more. I didn’t tell him the stories that his great grandparents passed along because that wasn’t necessary, not yet, not now. But the day is coming.

I did tell him that some people hate others for stupid reasons and that we don’t have to give legitimacy to those reasons. I told him that stupid reasons don’t mean that we don’t protect ourselves and that if someone threatens us we pay attention and determine if it requires a response. I told him that I wasn’t worried about him or his sister getting hurt that way.

It is mostly true. Statistically speaking there is a better chance of getting hit by a bus or killed in an automobile accident. I worry about the man/woman/teenager who is texting while they drive or the person who had one drink too many.

There are different ways to approach all this. I do my best to try to be grateful for all that I have. I do my best to be thankful for those who have helped to keep my family and I safe. It is part of why I try to thank our soldiers for their service. We didn’t get all this solely by dumb luck. Â This isn’t a speech where I’ll tell you why I think America is the greatest country ever and all the others suck.

That is not the point. If anything it is my reminder to myself that life doesn’t have to make sense, even though I wish it would. Bad things aren’t going to to stop happening just because I wish it were so. Nor am I am going to try and convince you that I forgive the terrorist who did this.

I hope he died in pain, feeling alone and terrified. I hope that wherever he is he is reaping what he has sown.

Mostly I am just decompressing because trying to explain to your children why some people murder others is hard. Because when the conversation comes up I can’t lie and say that our family hasn’t been touched because it has.

But my choice is to take a positive approach and that is what I teach my children. The glass is half full, even if it sometimes feels otherwise.

Echoes Of The People We Miss

March 2, 2012 by Jack Steiner 22 Comments

Two weeks from now everyone will be talking about St. Patrick’s Day but not me. It is my grandfather’s birthday, except this year he won’t be around to celebrate it with us.

He would have been 98 and had my grandmother not died he would still be here now. There is no doubt in my mind that grandpa died of a broken heart. They were married for 76 years and friends for 85.

Hadn’t really thought about his birthday yet but we had a school event that dealt with genealogy and his picture was part of a slide show. Actually all of my grandparents were in it and I couldn’t help but think about how strange it is to me to not have any left.

When I wrote The People We Miss I still had two living grandparents. When I wrote about Four Generations and a Wedding I was down to just one grandfather but I carried the others along with me. They all had their places in my heart.

It feels so surreal to me to think they are all gone now.

When I stood in the tux shop last summer I watched my grandfather marvel over my son. That boy of mine didn’t like putting on tux but I gave him a look and he stopped squirming. I couldn’t have been more proud, especially when I saw the joy in grandpa’s eyes.

But I also saw the pain and when I helped him put his jacket on I knew that he would tell me about how much he missed grandma. And I knew that there was a good chance that he wouldn’t hang on for the wedding. I am not angry with him for that. I can’t imagine what it means to be with someone for that long and not have them.

Changing of the Guard

When grandpa died it marked the end of that generation. They are all gone now. All the members of that generation in my family have moved on to wherever it is we go and the rest of us moved up. My parent’s generation has become the old guard and mine is just…older.

There is silence now that reminds me of endless blue skies. I can’t complain of them having had their lives cut short because they didn’t and they weren’t. But I can say that I miss them for a million different reasons not the least of which is I have lost my cheering squad.

My grandparents were always among my biggest supporters and I always knew it. They loved listening to me talk about my life and always wanted to know what was going on with me.

I noticed their absence today for another reason. A big opportunity presented itself. It is the kind of thing that could be exceptionally significant and something that I would have told them about. My grandfathers and I would have spoken about it in a hushed tone, can’t speak too loudly for fear of losing it.

Traveling Jack May Ride Again

Can’t say much more about it than I already have but am willing to share that I am excited. Excited and nervous, because…well I don’t want to jinx myself so I’ll be quiet. No need to put the cart in front of the horse.

So let’s take a moment for me to compose some thoughts. While I do that feel free to open a tab to check out the following songs:

When The Levee Breaks– Robert Plant & Allison Krauss
Battle of Evermore – Robert Plant & Allison Krauss
Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) – Robert Plant & Allison Krauss
I won’t back down – Johnny Cash
Maybe I’m Amazed– Wings

And we’re back. Spent a few minutes cruising through the blog and stumbled onto The Mother Of All Blog Posts Told By A Father and had to smile. I am consistent in my themes and messaging here.

But it is also a reminder to me that I need to continue to bear down and fight harder for the things I want. I need to continue to tell the people I care about they are important, significant and of value. I need to keep pushing to live my dreams and not dream my life.

And now it is time for bed. As I drift off to sleep I am going to think about the people I miss and tell them about the opportunities that have presented themselves to me. Wonder if I’ll dream about them.

Do you think that we get messages from “beyond?”

Do you believe in destiny? Is life a combination of destiny and free will?

Will the 7 year-old boy who made my daughter cry be smart enough not to really piss her off or will she rip his head off? He is playing with fire and not because I wanted to deal with him myself.

Well, we’ll have to save that story for later. It is almost 1 am and your favorite grumpy dad blogger is off to the land of ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I Need More Time

February 8, 2012 by Jack Steiner 23 Comments

A number of years ago my best friend and I had one of many long talks about what happens after you die. We disagreed about whether there is “life after death” or if you just end up rotting in a box.

We never did agree who was right and I am ok with that because she knows she is wrong. Hee hee, she hates when I do that.

The reality is that neither one of us could successfully prove who was right and who was wrong and that is ok with me. What I can say for certain is that we both would like to believe that something exists afterwards. But unless she has been holding out on me neither one of us has been given the sort of incontrovertible proof that we want.

So that leaves us in a position where we have to choose between faith in what we can’t see/touch/feel with certainty.

I have had some strange experiences where I could swear that someone who had died was with me. I have had dreams in which my grandfather and D appeared. We talked about all sorts of stuff and when I woke up I could swear that they had really been there. Could swear that they had told me something important but I couldn’t quite remember what it was.

I can’t say for certain if that isn’t/wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me. Maybe I saw/heard what I wanted and maybe I didn’t. There are other stories. There are things that have happened during the day that make me wonder.

What I am confident of is knowing that as long as I carry them with me in my heart they aren’t completely gone. I know that sounds hokey, but it works for me.

But What About That Time Thing

This is something that I intend to write about in more detail later, but for now I can provide a short explanation. I have very few regrets but the few that I do have are enormous. I know that technically I can’t go back and do those things over but I want to. And if I can’t go back, well I have to figure out how to make them right in a different way.

The second component to this is that I want more time to do chase after my dreams and turn them into reality. Â Sometimes it feels like I have a palm filled with water and I am trying to hold still because every time I move I lose a few drops.

I can’t hold on tighter because instead of securing my grip it would only make the water run out from between my fingers that much faster.

How can I become an expert in all of the fields that I find interesting. Â How can I do more than be a simple tourist in all the countries that I want to visit and or see again. How can I learn to speak all of the languages I want to speak.

You’ll notice that I didn’t put question marks next to any of those questions. I didn’t because I can’t guarantee that I will have enough time to chase after such broad statements. Given the chance I would do so much but I have so little time to focus.

Focus. Sometimes I hate that word but it is what I have to do. That is not to say that I have no focus because I do. I am focused on chasing down certain dreams already but I need to tweak some of those some more. I need to make a few decisions and bear down upon them.

Small victories lead to larger ones and that is how this battle is going to be won. Maybe I’ll see ‘D’ again and I’ll remember what we discussed or maybe Mookie will visit. I don’t know.

For now I am focused on writing my story and taking care of a few other things. I expect to be successful in those endeavors and well, we shall see what happens after that.

And The Light Was Extinguished

November 3, 2011 by Jack Steiner 10 Comments

Updated on Nov 5:Â Go read this post by Kim Prince.

My heart is heavy tonight. We lost another friend today. I don’t know all the details and in the interest of privacy I won’t share much about it now. I might do so later but I might not. This falls into the boundaries of blogging question and whose story it is to tell.

But what I can tell you is that someone who made a difference in the world is gone, their light has been extinguished and the world is a bit darker than it once was.

Darkness

Two shots of Jack Daniels and I am back here at the computer typing out my thoughts and trying to make sense of some things. I sometimes think that this blog has far too many stories about death, especially about those who died too soon. I suspect that I know more people who have died young than most do but I don’t know why that is.

If I were to provide you with a laundry list I could list 5 who died while were in high school, another 6 in college and about 7 more afterwards. That is 18 people. It is an approximate number but I am going to run with it for a variety of reasons, the primary being that 18 is an important number.

It is tied into Gematria, which is sort of a mystical way to assign numerical values to letters. In Hebrew the word for life is Chai and it just so happens that it has a numerical value of 18. I didn’t consciously try to come up with the numbers I used so it was just coincidence that I came up with 18. Maybe that is the first message from the universe, I don’t know.

So maybe it is not a coincidence that earlier today I stumbled across an old post in which I cited Death Be Not Proud. I stared at it for a few minutes and thought about D and wondered if he is still watching over Mookie.

Reality Check

It is another reminder that the time to act is now. It is another reminder to make sure that the changes and promises I made to myself are fulfilled. But we can talk about that later. I want to go back to talking about Chai, about life. Because when I think about it even though there are lots of stories about death here there are lots about life.

Every time I don my dad blogger hat and write about the children there is another story about life. Every time those children and I sit I see this bright light in their eyes and I feel energy radiating from them.

Tomorrow we’ll talk again these kids o’mine and I’ll remind them about the need to live our dreams and not dream our lives. I’ll reiterate the need to pay attention to people so that we can help regardless of whether they scream Help Me.

It doesn’t take away the sadness or sense of loss but it helps a little bit and sometimes it is the little things in life that are most important.

What Kind Of Friend Are You?

November 2, 2011 by Jack Steiner 13 Comments

Kirk: Spock!
Spock: The ship… out of danger?
Kirk: Yes.
Spock: Don’t grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh…
Kirk: …the needs of the few…
Spock: …Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?
Spock: I have been and always shall be your friend.
[Holds up his hand in the Vulcan salute]
Spock: Live long and prosper.
Star Trek- Wrath Of Khan

Some of you may not appreciate those final moments in the movie clip above but they are significant to me because they speak of a different sort of friendship. They remind me that there are friends that are important to us and there are friends we love.

It resonates with me more strongly now because within the past few weeks death has taken the fathers of two people that are dear to me. Distance and circumstances prevented me from being at the one service but I won’t miss the second.

G and I met on the first day of kindergarten. It was 1974 and dressed in our finest pairs of Toughskin jeans we started our reign of terror orÂ tried to. We spent so much time hanging out together it is fair to say that all four of our parents had some sort of role in helping to raise us but now that group is one short.

We lost G’s dad last Friday courtesy of Parkinson’s old age and related infirmities. It happened a bit sooner than anyone expected but I am not sure that matters all that much because most of us never want to say goodbye to our parents.

Parents Are Role Models

I hadn’t thought about it much until recently but G is an awful lot like his father. Not really a shock or surprise to say that, just a reminder of the influence we have on our children. Just a reminder that when I try to teach my children about what kind of friend they should be they’ll watch what I do now.

This is important to me for a bunch of reasons. It is important because G is like a brother. I love that old bastard and still want to kick his ass for moving cross country. It is important because his father meant something to me too. It is important because I want my children to understand that being a good friend means there are times where you drop what you are doing and lend a hand.

It is a topic that the children and I have discussed on more than one occasion. They remember that at G’s wedding I pushed his father’s wheelchair down the aisle. My daughter wanted to know if that meant that I was a nurse and I told her that it meant that his family trusted me to take care of their dad.

Aging is a funny thing.Â G’s parents used to own a bunch of rental properties. I have a lot of memories of helping G and his dad fix them up in between tenants. It is fair to say that my own father and G’s dad taught me quite a bit of what I know about tools and how to use my hands to fix things.

So it was pretty surreal to see him in that wheelchair but I never thought twice about giving him a hand. I am sorry for G, his mom and his sister’s loss because their dad was a good guy. But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that I’ll miss him too.

Timing & Time Management

September 27, 2011 by Jack Steiner 13 Comments

Life is nothing but a series of moments in time set against the backdrop of the people who share them.My goal is put myself in a position to savor and enjoy as much of that as possible. It is part of why I stopped wearing a watch. Those are the words I shared in a comment on my friend Kaarina’s post about time. Go read it, she makes some really good points.

Me? I am stuck in a moment that I can’t quite slip out of. I am lost in thought about a friend whose nine month old son died suddenly and another who lost her mother and sister this month. I am lost in thought about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and these words stick with me

“On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.“

The children ask me about this. They ask me for my thoughts and look up at me with wide eyed innocence wondering what I will say. The dark haired beauty wraps her hands around my bicep, “abba, make a muscle for me.” I smile and flex. She tells me that I am strong, but not stronger than G-d and then immediately looks into my eyes to see what sort of reaction I provide.

I tell her to go check the other muscle and then I lift her up and listen to her giggle. ‘There are two things that I want you and your brother to remember about this time of year.”Â I pause for emphasis and then continue, “now is when you think about what kind of person you are and what kind you want to be.”

“You need to be good because it is the right thing to do and not because you are afraid of getting punished.” She nods her head and her brother finishes my thoughts for me, explains to her that we are responsible for our actions and for determining our future.

“Why did the baby die?” She must have overheard a conversation because I certainly didn’t tell her. “I don’t know. Sometimes there aren’t answers”

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I am working hard to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves because life is short and I can’t stomach the idea of missing out on them. I am working on my writing and trying to assemble the pieces of a story that I see in my head. Pieces that remind me that The Rules Of Blogging are things that I have applied to it or maybe the story is something that I have applied to blogging.

And I remind myself that this moment that I am living in now is so very short and it is my obligation to push harder to do the things that I want to do and live the life I want to live.Â That wacky Shmata Queen has been lurking around here and though she doesn’t comment she knows that I harp on certain things. She knows that when I play ball I love to rebound. Rebounding isn’t about height, speed or strength- it is about effort. It is about desire. It is about who is willing to run one step further and that is why basketball can be used as a metaphor for life.

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There is a rhyme and a reason to why I use this joint to suss out my thoughts and declutter my mind. It is not because I can be a moody bastard or for anything other than because it helps me manage my time. And the way that it does that is by providing me with a venue in which I can determine what is most important to me. It provides a platform for me to speak to myself first in words that cannot be ignored. Read through these posts and you’ll see me illustrate how the past few years have had a bunch of rough spots. I don’t sugar coat it. While there have been great moments of joy there has been misery too.

This is where I call myself to the carpet and demand that I chart a new course based on what makes me happiest. This is where I start to map it out and that my friends is how I manage my time. I know where it is I am trying to go and what it is I am trying to do. Better to try to get there and fail than not to try at all.

And to my fellow MOTs I want to wish you all a Shana Tova Umetukah. May 5772 bring you all that you hope for and desire.